Frisée Salad with Lardons and coddled Eggs

Saturday was Bastille Day, so there was nothing else to do but throw on tablecloth from Provence and cook a french meal.  Helen from work and her husband were keen to have a traditional french meal with several courses including hors doeuvres, salad, soup, main, dessert and cheese.  So I tried to oblige, though due to the heat I nixed the soup. The first dish that we made was my favourite French salad, a warm salad with a poached egg on top.

We ended up being 13 for dinner, so poaching that many eggs all to be ready at the same time, seemed to be too hard, so we (Helen I think) came up with the idea of coddling in muffin tins instead.

This fed 13 but I will give ingredients for 4 as that seems like a more normal quantity. Traditionally this would have been done with just frisee lettuce which can stand up to the warm dressing, but we did add some other greens to stretch it out and that was fine too.


6 ounces salt pork or thick-cut bacon slices
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Butter to line the muffin tins
4 large eggs

1 head of Frisee lettuce

Cut the salt pork into small strips (lardons) and fry slowly until they have given off most of their fat and are crispy.

Just starting to cook the lardons

I am afraid I did not get a picture of the cooked lardons, but they were crispy and brown and swimming in the fat that they had given off.

Aroma Restaurant Port Moody

Aroma restaurant is my new favourite restaurant in Port Moody, and second only to Vj's as my favourite Indian restaurant.  It has taken over the space at 50 Spring Street in Old Port Moody that up to this point has been the home to one unsuccsesful restaurant after another.  Aroma has found the secret, serve really good food, friendly personal service and reasonable prices.  My Father and I went there a couple of weeks ago for dinner and I realised that though I have been there many times I have not posted about it, so I thought it was about time.

To start with we ordered shrimp pakora $11.95

These were lovely fresh plump shrimp marinated battered and deep fried they were very tasty, crisp and not greasy at all.

Garlic scapes

Garlic scapes are something that I have only been aware of for the last couple of years, previously I had them in a hummus that Connie made, where they were used very much like garlic.  They are in fact the tops of young garlic and are only available at this time of year.  when I arrived up at Pender Harbour for the long weekend, Nancy had already bought some and we were looking forward to experimenting with them.

On doing a little research I found that you could saute them like green beans, and so we decided to do this along with a little local spring green cabbage that Nancy had also bought.

1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic thinly sliced
Bunch of garlic scapes, topped and chopped in to shorter lengths.
Bunch of beet tops, or spring greens or even spinach.

Heat the olive oil up in a large frying pan, add the garlic and just as it is starting to go golden throw in the scapes.

Egg baked in Tomato

I saw this idea on Katrina's Blog Daily unadventures in cooking and thought is was brilliant. I love eggs and there is not much better than roasted or fried tomatoes so the combination.  So on the long weekend we decided to make this for breakfast to replace or regular boiled egg.

This did make a brilliant breakfast dish, but actually I think it would make a good light dinner or lunch as well.

For 2
2 tomatoes
1 tablespoon grated cheese (we used Romano)
2 green onions chopped
salt and pepper
2 eggs

Hollow out the tomatoes and sprinkle with salt and pepper, tomatoes really love salt and pepper, then place half the cheese in the bottom of each tomato.

Place the hollowed out tomatoes in to your baking dish and break an egg in to each one.

Sorry a bit blurry, but I can only blame the photographer

Sechelt botanical gardens

The Cottagers wife happened to be up on the Sunshine Coast on the long week end as well and suggested that we meet at the Sechelt Botanical Gardens for a guided tour.  Neither Nancy or I had heard of such a place But thought a guided tour would be great way to spend an afternoon.

When we arrived there was one other person waiting for the tour and so the 5 of us set out around the gardens.  The gardens are only a couple of years old, and still very much a work in progress, but interesting to walk around.  The land used to be a tree nursery and there were several trees left on the property some of them in rows as they were during the time of the nursery.  The trees have now grown up and in a couple of places created rather lovely avenues that they hope to utilize in the future.

 They have visions of wedding parties walking down the avenue to the Pavilion which is rented out for events and certainly would be a wonderful place for a wedding overlooking the gardens.

Inside the Pavilion

Green and white salad for dinner on the deck

The first day of the July long weekend dawned with torrential rain and low clouds and I am ashamed to admit that we had breakfast at about 11:00 and did not get dressed until after noon.  We finally set out to the teeming metropolis of Maderia Park to hunt and gather for dinner and rent a movie for later.  At the liquor store they assured us that by 6:00 we would be able to enjoy a glass of wine outside on the deck.  Though at the time that seemed impossible her prediction came true.

At 6:00 we were indeed sitting out on the deck enjoying a glass of wine before dinner.  We had picked up some lovely baby back ribs from The Oaktree market and cooked them in a dry rub and finished them off on the barbecue.

Nancy made a delicious light salad with some spectacular local oak leaf lettuce also picked up at the Oakstreet market.

This made a salad for two.

Lemon Canada Cup cakes

When Nancy and I went go buy cup cake papers to use for the graduation cup cakes I spied Canada Day Cup Cake papers which came with little Canada flags.  Having made Jubilee Cup cakes in England, I thought it only fair that I should make Canada Cup Cakes for Canada's Birthday.

I like lemon cupcakes as the lemon flavour helps to counter the sweetness of cup cakes, and I really do not have a sweet tooth.  I made these to share with my department at work and so I made 18 exactly the right amount to give one to everybody and exactly what this recipe made.


1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup milk