I talk about food, you read it.
Archive for June, 2011
Grilled eggplant
0J came home the other day with some beautiful bright purple eggplants. I was very surprised because it’s sometimes hard for me to find vegetables that he actually likes and eggplant I assumed would be on his dislike list. He didn’t actually remember the last time he had eggplant so I wanted to make sure to prepare the eggplant the best way I could.
Since we were already using the BBQ I decided to grill the eggplant with a honey garlic sauce, and drizzle them with a balsamic reduction on herbs. Sounds yummy right!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tbsp honey
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- Squeeze of lemon
- Salt and pepper
Cut the eggplant in ¼ inch slices. Set aside.
Whisk all ingredients together and pour over eggplant, let sit for 15 minutes. The spongy eggplant will suck up some of the dressing. Grill on the BBQ for 2-3 min per side until tender. Arrange on plate, drizzle balsamic reduction over eggplant and top with fresh cut oregano.
J ate and enjoyed the eggplant! I loved it! The sweetness of the marinade was subtle as was the garlic so doesn’t hesitate to add more if you wish when you whisk ingredients together. The balsamic doesn’t need to be reduced; you can also just drizzle right out of the bottle as well. I can’t wait to make these again!
Tomatillo Salsa
0I got the best text message from J today. He said that he had a tomatillo plant for me! Call me naive but I didn’t really think that tomatillos could be grown in BC. Since they’re known for being used in Mexican cuisine I assumed that need extreme heat to grow well. Apparently I am wrong. They require the same conditions as regular tomatoes. Since its still Junuary (June, but it feels like January) and rainy I am a little worried but they will definitely be fun to grow.
Coincidentally I had purchased some tomatillos on the weekend. I made a light roasted salsa to top grilled steak. It was fabulous and just thinking about it is making me very excited to get this new plant into the ground! This Salsa would be great on any kinds of meat as its light in flavour, slightly sweet, and has a bit of kick. I also put some on my eggs the next morning. YUM
Ingredients
- 5 tomatillos, husked
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- ½ small red onion
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 -2 tsp chipotle sauce or 1 tsp powder.
- 2 tsp honey
- Salt and pepper
Pre-heat oven to 350. Rub tomatillos with olive oil, place on baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 20 min, or until soft. Place all ingredients into the blender and puree until smooth. You can also use a food processor once the tomatillos have cooled. Taste and adjust.
If you want this even spicier, then chop up a jalapeno, de-seed and add that to the blender as well. I ended up adding a bit more Smokey green hot sauce I bought in Mexico. I found that I really liked the Smokey flavour against the sweet flavours in the sauce.
I bought my chipotle sauce in Mexico as well, but you can purchase cans of chipotles at the grocery store. I buy them and freeze them individually so I always have some on hand.
Margaritas
011 months ago
While driving around doing errands on the weekend J randomly had a craving for a Margarita. This caught me off guard because it’s usually me who gets the weird cravings but the second that word “Margarita” came out of his mouth I was on board. Keep in mind that it wasn’t sunny what so ever this weekend and we had nothing special or fun to look forward to. We were just running errands and on the way home to start a seating chart for the wedding. What is better than drinking margaritas while trying to figure out how to arrange family and friends on the biggest day of your life?
Now the best margaritas are obviously homemade, or from Mexico but I had completely forgot about triple sec so we picked up a bottle of Motts Pre-made Margarita Mix instead. I was a little hesitant about this but my mind was already made up that we were having these summer drinks.
The mix was very easy to use. The directions on the label were for an “on the rocks” version but we were both craving a blended version so we did our best to guess at the measurements. We probably could have used a bit more mix but as you can see we definitely succeeded on blending the beverages. I also rimmed our glasses with some crushed Himalayan sea salt which tasted perfect! I would definitely buy this mix again in a pinch as it wasn’t too sour or strong and very easy to use.
Baked Onion Rings
0I have a confession. I love onion rings.
I don’t eat them very often because those sweet little rings of heaven aren’t very good for you but occasionally I walk over to A&W to treat myself. I don’t have to sneak in a fast food snack anymore because I found a bunch of recipes to make them at home. The best part is that a deep fry is NOT required. That’s right, I didn’t make a mistake, they’re baked in the oven.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups Corn Flakes
- ½ cup plain bread crumbs (I used panko)
- 1 egg
- ½ buttermilk
- ¼ cup flour
- 1/8 tsp cayenne powder (omit if you HATE spicy foods)
- Salt and pepper
- 1 medium yellow or sweet onion (cut into rings)
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
In a food processor pulse corn flakes until fine crumbs and transfer to a medium bowl. Mix plain bread crumbs, salt and pepper.
In another medium bowl mix together egg, milk, flour, cayenne.
Dip onion rings into egg/flour mixture, let drip. Dredge into cornflake mixture, place on plate.
Pour oil onto a baking sheet and heat in the oven for 2 minutes, remove from oven and make sure the oil is covering entire service. Arrange rings onto the sheet and bake for 15 minutes turning once.
These onion rings turned out so well. I was really impressed that a delicious onion ring didn’t require a deep fryer! Some other recipes used chips instead of corn flakes which sort of defeats the purpose of baking them but I am sure that would takes great as well.
I didn’t have buttermilk so I used regular milk and they still turned out great!! I am 100% going to make these again!
Vancouver Riots
211 months ago
in Locations
I want to switch gears for a moment and talk about something that isn’t food related. I feel really strongly on bringing this up and possibly making a small difference by using my blog.
As we all know the Canucks gave it their all and tried their best to win the Stanley Cup but the Bruins out played them and took the cup back to Boston with them. I congratulate them, and I really wish everyone who watched the game downtown could have also had the sportsmen ship to be happy at how far our team got and remain proud of our boys in blue and green.
Unfortunately, we had a hostile group of people who thought they would take their frustration out on the streets of Vancouver. This was a disgusting display of mob mentality and is truly a total embarrassment. Horrific scenes of our once beautiful city are now being displayed on media around the world giving a black eye to Vancouver’s reputation.
It was a mere 15 months ago since Vancouver held the winter Olympics, where we all gathered on the streets and celebrated peacefully. The city will be putting an end to that as we have proven we’re not able to handle such privileges and once again we will be labelled the “no fun” city.
So please help me in bringing some justice by using social media as our weapon to identify those who decided looting, stabbing, burning and flipping cars was the answer to last night’s loss. Please post your photos, if you were downtown, or look through them to identify people who you might recognize. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vancouver-Riot-Pics-Post-Your-Photos/121837081234162
I also thank everyone who gathered downtown this morning for a post riot clean up, to prove that we do have heart, morals and that the display of destruction wasn’t a true representation of Vancouver.
I still believe, GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!!!
Lasagna
0Is it weird that I feel guilty when I am not able to make J a good home cooked meal? He raves about the fact that I cook for him so much that it’s put me into this place where I feel the urge to make everything from scratch. I love to cook, and I love the fact that I get the chance to experiment in my beautiful kitchen. I love that J eats everything with a smile and cleans up my mess. I get to pretend to be a chef and J benefits from the outcome with a full stomach full of home cooked food. He never complains about ordering food or cheating with store bought items but I know deep down he would prefer my food.
This past week has been a bit of a whirlwind of Canucks Games, stagette shenanigans, and being sick so there has been a lot of eating food not made by yours truly. Due to eating a lot of junk I felt that I had to make J a delicious meal from scratch. We also have a roommate as well who eats like a teenager so I decided to make something that can be filling, and also be used for multiple meals. Lasagna was the first thing that came to mind, and we haven’t had it in a while.
Lasagna is one of those meals that I don’t need a recipe for and always turns out to be amazing! It’s easy, can be frozen if you have lots of leftovers, and tastes even better when you eat it for lunch the next day. My only cheat is the noodles I buy. I don’t make noodles, I don’t buy fresh noodles, or noodles you have to soak before using. I use easy oven ready noodles as this saves a lot of time and taste great. If you hate the noodles process, then buy these, you will thank me!
The sauce that I make is super easy and doesn’t have a lot of complicated ingredients. If you want to add chopped up vegetables or grated carrots or whatever else your heart desires, go for it. Sometimes I add a bunch of mushrooms or I go nuts with chunky onions, and peppers. This time was simplicity.
Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 Yellow Onion, Diced
- 2-3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 can tomato sauce
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- ½ tomato paste (optional) I didn’t use, because I didn’t have any
- 2-3 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp dried basil
- 1 tbsp white sugar
- ½ tsp fennel seeds (optional)
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1-2 bay leaves
- 1 pound ground beef
- ½ pound Italian sausage
- Salt and Pepper
Heat large pot (big enough to hold everything) with a swig of olive oil on med high heat. Add garlic and Onion, stir until soft, about 10 min. Add in ground beef and sausage, and cook until no longer pink. Drain off grease. Add cans of tomato sauce, diced tomato, and tomato paste. Add oregano, basil, sugar, fennel, pepper flakes, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Simmer for at least 30 min. The longer the better. Taste and adjust seasoning. At this point if the sauce looks thick then add 1/3 cup of water and continue to simmer. The sauce should be on the runnier side since the noodles will have to suck up a lot of the sauce. Now, go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 350.
Once your sauce is made the rest is easy peasy. Now, I don’t know how a lot of you feel about ricotta cheese, but I am hit or miss on it. I substitute my ricotta with cottage cheese and find that it produces a great flavour. Ricotta is more traditional and heartier so go ahead with that; I am a cottage cheese girl myself. This time I tried something different and blended my spinach with my cottage cheese. Normally I just pile it all but since I had the food processor out I gave it a whirl, literally. I then used my food processor to grate all my mozzarella to make an easy assembly line.
You’ll have to grease your pan first; I just spread around some olive oil. I have seen parchment used too. DO whatever is best for you.
Then you’ll have to pour in a good amount of sauce in the bottom of your pan. This will make sure the first layer of your noodles get cooked evenly. Like I said, these noodles will suck up the sauce so we don’t want to be skimpy.
Then you put your noodles down and start the laying process!
Cover with tinfoil and cook for 45-50 min. I like to leave my lasagne covered for only half the cooking time because I like my cheese to brown slightly on the top. It holds everything together and looks very appetizing.
When the lasagne is done, let it sit for at least 10 min. The noodles will continue to soak up sauce and it won’t be as scolding to eat but still very warm. While you’re waiting make a salad or garlic bread!
This was a success and I can’t imagine ever really screwing this up. It can be altered as well in so many ways that lasagne nights will always give you something great!
Summer Fresh Salads from Safeway
011 months ago
After work on Monday I wanted to rush home, get some food on the table and watch the Canucks game. This meant I would be making something that wasn’t fussy, easy to make, and wouldn’t require a lot of prep. I ended barbequing turkey burgers but I really didn’t have the time to make a side. I could have thrown together a warm potato salad or a tossed salad but like I said, I wanted to be sitting on my bum watching the game so I took the easy way out and bought a couple salads from Safeway.
I don’t normally purchase these types of sides but in those moments when time and attention matters then you may have to turn to these deli made salads. I have in the past bought from Price-mart which were a total waste of money but Safeway’s summer salads seemed fresher, and with a lot more flavour.
First I grabbed the Greek pasta salad. It was skinny penne pasta with an olive oil vinaigrette, green peppers, tomato, onion and feta. There was a decent amount of feta and the flavours were okay. It probably could have used a little less oil, and maybe some more seasoning but not bad.
The other salad I purchased was the Potato Caesar Salad with Bacon. This one had a hint of bacon flavour and I couldn’t see any actual pieces so I assume they were very tiny. The Caesar flavour was also subtle but the salad itself was nice and creamy.
I think both of these salads were better than most of the grocers deli out there but of course still will never beat home made. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy these again in a rush. The main disappointment was that they’re a little on the small side, which is why I ended up buying 2 and 2 was just enough for 3 adults.
Ocean Village Chinese Food
011 months ago
This past week I have been a boat load of nerves. I have been anxiously waiting for my stagette and wasn’t sure if I should be excited or terrified. I have been to many stagettes in the past so I know how much of a gong show they can end up being. I also sometimes think I can still party like I am 20, so this could have been a recipe for disaster. The entire day was a surprise so I didn’t know what to expect either but heard “it’s a doozy” and my outfit was hilarious. It turns out that I didn’t need to be scared or nervous at all because from start to finish I had a blast. I did still however party like I was 20.
Needless to say I wasn’t in any sort of mood to cook at all. J nursed me back to health with some Gatorade and McDonalds but even still I couldn’t really think about cooking food. I might have been able to handle a grilled cheese sandwich but instead we decided to order Chinese takeout. J and I haven’t ordered Chinese in Maple Ridge yet so I turned to Urbanspoon for some assistance. I sort of wanted to try Chinese Palace but they don’t have a website or menu online so instead we tried Ocean Village instead, located at 20830 Lougheed Hwy.
I have to say that I was a little nervous about this, since I picked one of the only places without a review on urbanspoon. It was their menu, specifically the dinner for 2, that I liked the best. Most dinner for 2 will include sweet and sour pork, chop suey and chow mein but this place also includes 6 small deep friend prawns, and pork fried rice as well for 21.95.
The sweet and sour pork wasn’t quite as crisp as some other places I have had but overall it has a nice flavour and there wasn’t too much coating which was nice.
The beef chop suey also had a good flavour and had lots of crisp vegetables and beef. They didn’t use cabbage as filler either which impressed me.
The chicken chow mein had a lot of small bite sized pieces of chicken in it. The texture of the noodles was also perfect, not soggy!
The pork fried rice had good texture as well with a slight smoky flavour to it. Seasoned well.
The prawns were as expected. Thick battered prawns. Since the bar was set low here I couldn’t really complain. You could still taste the prawn so that was good.
Overall for your typical North American basic Chinese food this was pretty good.
Baked button mushrooms
6I am feeling a tad lazy. It’s funny that just this week I was gushing over the sun, fresh food and dressed up Coronas and now it’s cold and dreary. The feeling of being in a food comma and curling under blanket is much anticipated for this evening. There is one small problem….did I mention I was feeling lazy. Is it possible that dinner will just fall out of the sky and onto a plate in front of me? I don’t think that it’s too much to ask, but apparently food just doesn’t appear unless you pick up the phone and order it, and even then it definitely won’t be falling from the sky, unless you have a really mean pizza boy.
I didn’t order pizza, but I did manage to make a meal that is easy as pie, except its not pie and even easier then pie. I made baked button mushrooms to accompany regular spaghetti with meat sauce and since J and I both LOVE mushrooms we were almost wrestling over the last few little buttons of drippy buttery goodness. The poor spaghetti became an afterthought and the mushrooms were the star of the evening, in my opinion. Next time I would like to make these with a thick juicy steak as they would compliment the entire meal much more.
Ingredients
- 1 pound crimini mushrooms or white, halved lengthwise if large
- 1/4 cup White wine
- 3 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
Preheat oven to 450°F Toss mushrooms with Olive Oil, garlic, wine, lemon and dried parsley. Throw butter pieces on top and bake, stirring occasionally.
Bake mushrooms until tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in fresh parsley. Serve immediately, with baguette to soak up the delicious sauce.
Grilled Lemon Chicken
0I know I have been talking about our sun a lot lately but I am not finished – I need to express myself a little but more. In BC people often get to experience this new found awe and inspiration when we’re able to go outside without an umbrella and a parka. It’s amazing how the world is awakened with a little bit warmth. Patios fill with friends and family enjoying the company of others, eating good food and socializing until the minutes turn to hours and we realize that we have to work in the morning. We will smile to everyone as we pass them on our evening walks, and might even stop to pet your dog. It’s hard to believe that just a little over a week ago we were all lazily laying around on the couch watching TV and now we have moved our laziness to a lawn chair and called a friend over. I am beginning to this we’re just like furry friends who are too depressed to go outside, and hibernate.
My BBQ has also come out of hibernation and will officially be a main cooking method for me for the next few months. Don’t fret for my lovely gas stove will still get used as well, but the days of all day cooking comfort foods like stews and braising will be put on hold while I go outside and cook like a modern caveman. No meat will be left unturned, but first things first, fresh lemon Dijon chicken skewers.
Ingredients
(Feeds 2-3)
- 2-3 chicken breasts
- Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon (you might need more juice depending on how tart you like it)
- 3 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1-2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp herbs de Provence (this is savory, fennel, basil, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, chervil, tarragon, marjoram, lavender and mint….if you don’t have this feel free to use the herbs of your choice, I would lean towards thyme and rosemary if you’re unsure)
- ½ tsp cayenne (it shouldn’t make this spicy, just add another layer of flavor)
- Salt and pepper
Mix all ingredients together, except chicken, in a bowl and whisk to incorporate, taste and adjust. The flavours should overpower each other but the lemon and mustard should be the in the spotlight with a good balance of the other flavours.
Chop up chicken into bite sized pieces and pour sauce over top.
Soak skewers in water so they don’t burn for at least ½ hour, while your chicken is marinating. Grill on med to med-high until fully cooked.
I served this with my rosemary flatbread, baked on my pizza stone, veggie skewers and a lovely fresh mixed green salad. The chicken turned out perfectly. I liked the tang of the lemon and mustard which wasn’t too overpowering in my opinion. You could still taste that you were eating chicken but with a fresh summer seasoning. I would definitely make this again!
