Speaking of the little miss, she will be eleven months old(!) on Friday, and clearly LOVES food. For the past few weeks, I've been making an effort to feed her whatever we are eating for dinner. Otherwise, I've been feeding her very simple dishes, such as cheese omelettes, eggy bread (basically French toast, but no sugar) or pasta shells with homemade tomato sauce and grated cheese. I've also been trying a few recipes from Karen Le Billon's Getting to Yum book. Miss Nugget's likes have been slowly expanding, and she is definitely a fan of flavorful food. We had Indian takeout recently, and she was perfectly fine with butter chicken and mater paneer (the latter of which was a clear winner for her). She's also had ground beef with taco seasoning, chili con carne, and Tex-Mex cobbler, all dishes which might be considered too spicy for a baby. Not our baby! She also loves anything with chicken; she LOVED the chicken vegetable cobbler as well as my version of Dhital's chicken. There have been very things that she has outright rejected, which makes things SO much easier. I'm definitely enjoying her non-pickiness while it lasts!
The first weekend in May, we ventured out to EAT! Vancouver as a family. For some reason, it was REALLY early this year (normally it occurs close to or around my birthday). It worked out quite well with Miss Nugget, because we left right after she had her breakfast and she napped for most of the morning while we explored the floor. There were a few favorites that did not attend this year (Boylan Soda being a big one for me), but there were many newcomers. The very first purchase that I made was from Dolly's Delicious Treats. I'm a sucker for jelly, and these ladies were offering samples of different jellies: red pepper vodka jelly (sweet and spicy with a little extra zing from the vodka), garlic whiskey jelly (tasted like sweet and sour sauce, but with a little more of a spicy kick) and sangria jelly (easily my favorite of the three). They also had a hot pepper jelly, but I wasn't brave enough to try it. One newcomer that we both enjoyed was Sue's Jerky. We bought a couple packs of their sweet sesame pork, which had a lovely sweet and nutty flavor. I was on the hunt for a vendor that sold dip mixes and was thrilled to find Your Inspiration at Home (which I think was there last year, but weren't selling their products, just offering samples). We've been having veggie sticks more frequently as a side at dinner, and as much as I love to make my dips, it is nice to have mixes around for those times I don't want to make it from scratch. I also picked up some macarons from Kitchening & Co. One of the macarons that I purchased was a black sesame rose water flavor, and it actually was pretty good. I've had rose flavored food in the past, and it was not a good experience, so I was pleasantly surprised by this macaron.
Once lunch hit (and Miss Nugget was awake), we headed to the Bites area. My first bite came from Bao Down, new to EAT! Vancouver this year. They were featuring mini versions of their steamed baos. I had the VeVo, which has tamari braised shitake mushrooms, garlic pea shoots, sprouts, organic red kale, avocado, organic carrot & beet strings, ginger-peanut sauce and toasted sesame seeds. The steamed bun was so light and fluffy and all the ingredients worked so well together. I loved that each bite tasted just a little different from the last, and the peanut sauce really tied it all together.
Once I finished my bite, hubby went to Dunn's to get a pickle. He VERY much wanted to see what Miss Nugget would do with it. Well, she recognized immediately that it was food and tried to bite into it right away! Hubby then cut off a small piece for her to eat. She sucked on it for a few seconds, and then her face got all scrunched up. :) She ended up not liking it, but it was funny seeing her reaction. I then went and picked up a roast beef sandwich from Dunn's, and gave a few pieces of beef to the little miss. She LOVED the beef, and couldn't gobble it down fast enough.
We then wandered over to the other side of the Bites area and picked up pies from Aussie Pie Guy. We've tried them before from the food truck, and love the big flavors that they have in their pies. Hubby got the traditional pie (beef with onions and gravy), and I got the trifecta (beef with bacon and aged cheddar in gravy). We gave small bites to the little miss, which she happily munched away.
We then visited the Sips area separately (one of us had to stay with Miss Nugget while the other sampled alcohol). I found a really nice red that I was hoping to purchase before we left (they had a small area set up where you could purchase any of the alcohol that was available for sampling in the Sips area), but it was unfortunately unavailable. We also tried a few varieties of mead, and we were going to pick up a bottle, but they were a little too expensive.
We then headed back to the Food Network stage to see Susur Lee's presentation. We didn't stay for the entirety of his show, but watched long enough to see what he was making (sui mai, one of my favorite dim sum items) and just watch him in action. Maybe it's because I always have Food Network on at home, but Miss Nugget was quite excited to watch Susur. We visited a few more stalls after that, and then headed home.
I've continued to experiment with Rachel Ray's Croque Monsieur pie recipe, and this time, I made a Bacon Spinach Tomato pie. I started with the bread, then strips of cooked bacon, spinach leaves and sliced tomato and topped it all with the bechamel sauce (which I added about a quarter cup of Miracle Whip to). I topped it off with the bread, spinach leaves, the rest of the bechamel, shredded cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon. It turned out quite well, but I think the next time I make it, I will cook the spinach first. I found that the spinach got a little lost with everything else that was in the pie (though it was easier to taste it as leftovers). I now have three ways (including the original recipe) that I can make this pie! Win in my book, especially because I know this will become a staple recipe in this house. Enjoy the remainder of the week and happy cooking all!