Seventeen years ago, my husband and I made the best decision of our lives. We decided to move to Keswick and have been thankful every day since. Sometimes when I describe my neighbours to others that I know, the most common reaction is “must be nice”. A lot of my stories involve food, like this tasty dish here:
My neighbourhood
When we first moved into the neighbourhood, we had children of similar ages with the people that lived near us and therefore we started socializing. Now as the children have grown up (our youngest was just 3 weeks old when we moved in), we get together less often but still enjoy any occasion where we can hang out. We have gone on vacation with our neighbours, bridal showers, weddings, baby showers, birthday parties, been there to give hugs when parents have passed away, supported each others fundraising (for ourselves or our children), numerous backyard BBQs and on a few occasions (when I was stuck at work in the city) a neighbour has picked one of my sick kids up at school.
Back to food
Several of our neighbours really love to cook, and I mean REALLY. Hermann brings an Austrian flavour to his recipes, Bryan is a pescitarian and loves to experiment (as much as I do) with all different types of cooking, Mike and Wayne are the BBQ kings and across the street Bruce shares the peppers from his garden. Now, I didn’t name the wives of these gentlemen, not because the don’t cook (well most of them do) but because it is such a novelty for me to have these talented men share with me the tips & tricks that they have learnt.
Oh, a shout out to Hermann for introducing me to his Austrian Sausage soup. OMG, this is a HUGE favourite and made it into our family cookbook.
Foil Wrapped Cooking
Now about that picture up top, this was introduced to me by Bryan and his wife Jeannette last weekend. I sat at their kitchen island (although in terms of islands, this one is a small country, it’s that large) watching them prepare these bundles of goodness for 9 of us! I was fascinated with the ease and simplicity of this dish. With no kids home this summer, Josh works full time for the Canadian Forces based in Quebec and Sebastien is staffing at HMCS Ontario this summer, we are only cooking for two. I figured, this would be a great dish to have once a week (or twice). Yes, I made it twice this week. What can I say, it’s sooooo good.
- 1 Red Onion, chopped into large pieces
- 18 Asparagus speers, snap off un-ripe portion, then cut the remaining into 1" pieces
- 3 bunches Baby Bok Choi, separated and cleaned
- 1 Turnip, peeled and diced
- 1 Sweet potatoe, peeled and diced
- 12 Large Mushrooms, thickly scliced
- 4 Fish, 6oz portions of whitefish (you could use shrimp too)
- 4 tbsp Butter, portioned out
- 1 Lemon, sliced into eight
- 1 cup white wine, I used Jacob's Creek Pinot Grigio, portioned into 4
- Salt & pepper to taste
- Lay out 4 large sheets of heavy-duty foil, top with 4 similar sized parchment paper.
- Mound 2 cups of vegetables in the center of each, season with salt and pepper.
- Put the fish or seafood on top of the vegetables; top with 1 tbsp of butter and two slices of lemon.
- Add a splash of white wine or water, the original called for 1/4 cup, but I use about 1 tbsp because the mushrooms create a lot of liquid.
- Wrap tightly with the parchment, then bring the foil together to form a seal and bunch on top.
- Preheat a grill to medium high. Place packets on the grill and close the lid. Grill the foil packets until the fish is just cooked through, 35 minutes. (I had a lot of vegetables in ours)
- Let the packets sit 5 minutes, then carefully open and enjoy
- Next time I would add some snow or snap peas, or broccoli
But wait, not quite done yet, Bryan called this week to tell me about an a website that had “50 Things to Grill in Foil“, from the Food Network. I can’t wait to try the Garlic Shrimp and the Shishito Peppers. We have the BEST neighbours.
Karenlee
“Plan for tomorrow, because tomorrow you won’t have time
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