Magno Thai Mahi Mahi

Whats this.... second post in as many days?  Your eyes don't deceive you.  I made too much rice for my last meal so I decided rather than a simple meal, I would make another recipe that would go well with the butter garlic rice.  Cue the mango thai mahi mahi.

Mahi Mahi Fish

-1 piece of Mahi Mahi
-1 Tps butter
-Lime juice
-Salt/Pepper

I decided not to try out the new gas oven broiler this weekend, so instead just a simple pan sear.  First off I seasoned the fish with some salt and pepper along with a squirt of lime juice.  I cranked the frying pan up to high, which takes late no time with the gas (love the gas stove), melting the butter on the pan. As the butter was sizzling, I drop the fish (skin side up) on the pan and let the fish cook until it was about 2/3 of the way cooked before flipping onto the skin side to finish.  Just like with scallops, you don't wanna move the fish once it's cooking on the pan or you won't get that nice browning.  As the fish was cooking, I prepared the mango salsa (see below).

Mango Thai Salsa

-1/4 cup finely chopped mango
-1 tsp thai sweet and sour sauce
-1 small minced clove garlic
-1 tbs rice vinegar
-Lime juice
-1 tps chopped fresh cilantro

First off, I peeled the mango with a standard peeler.  Instead of switching to a knife once peeled, I simply kept peeling the flesh off the fruit using the peeler.  This worked out really well, yielding nice thin strips of mango.  I then used my new chefs knife to dice up the strips into fine little pieces.  Adding in the thai sauce, garlic, vinegar and lime juice, I then mixed the salsa together with a spoon.  I then through in some freshly chopped cilantro for some color and some extra flavor.  I debated heating the salsa up in a sauce pan, but ultimately decided to leave the mixture at room temperature.  I don't think it makes much of a difference, as the heat from the fish will get the sauce up the temperature quickly enough.

I heated up the left over butter garlic rice from my last meal in the microwave (I know, Super lazy right?  but waste not want not right?)  The meal looked a little plan after plating it, so I turned the leftover lime into a little half lime crown... I think it adds a little more pizzaz to the plate.

Creole Chicken

Finally a dish inspired from my old time working at the Keg.  Seems like ages ago, and to be fair it was pretty much ages ago.  Crazy how much things have changed.  Used to make this dish for customers on a daily basis, and now I'm making it for fun on a Friday night.  Feels good.  For those of you paying attention, you'll notice the plate/table change in the photos.... unfortunately my time at the luxury condo rental has since expired, and I am now in my own place.  It's not fully furnished with all the bells and whistles, but it's still pretty nice.  Actually, the cookware I picked up is pretty outstanding..... gotta love crazy sales at Bed Bath & Beyond.  Anyways, onto the food.

Garlic Butter Rice


1/2 Cup of white rice
1/3 cup of butter
1 Chicken bouillon cube
1 Cup of water
2 Minced (ie finely chopped as I don't have a garlic press) garlic cloves

After melting the butter in a pot, and stirring in the bouillon cube and rice, making sure that the bouillon is completely disolved, I had the water, cover the pot and bring it to a boil.  Once boiling, turn the heat down to basically the lowest and let the rice slow cook.  After about 90% of the water as been absorbed into the rice, add in the garlic and mix in thoroughly and recover and allow the rice to cook until the rest of the water is fully absorbed.


Pan Seared Chicken

1 Chicken Breast

Straight forward on the main protein for the dish.  Heat up a medium sized frying pan to a decent temperature (5 on my dial, which only goes to 6) and spray some pam to prevent sticking.  On a side note, I do have non-stick pans, but I still put the pam on as I just don't trust non-stick surfaces apparently.  I cooked the chicken on the one side until about 2/3 of the way done to ensure a decent golden brown sear.  Simple flip and finished cooking the chicken on the other side.  Like I said, straight forward.

Seafood Topper


4 Scallops (20/30 count)
6 Shrimp (41/50 count)
Diced Tomatos
1/2 Tbs Butter
1 Tsp Creole Seasoning

First off, for those who are confused by the whole count business in the ingredients listing, I'll throw out a quick explanation.  Normally seafood is listing by the number of items that would take to make up 1 pound.  So in this case, for the size of scallops I'm using, it would take somewhere between 20 and 30 of them to make up a pound.  Simple right?

Now onto the cooking of the seafood.  If you've ever seen Hell's Kitchen, you'll know it's really easy to screw up scallops.  So first off you need to oil up the pan and let it get nice and hot.  Pretty much as high as it'll go in order to get a nice sear on the scallop.  If you don't have the pan hot enough, the scallops will be Today I used peanut oil, for no particular reason other than I had it handy.  Also, don't forget to season the scallops a little before cooking, mostly with just a dash of salt.  Be sure after you place the scallops into the pan, don't move them.  They won't get that nice brown golden sear if you move them.  After you start to get a nice sear on the first side of the scallop I like to turn the temperature down a bit and flip of the scallops to finish.  It takes a little while to learn when a scallop is finished.  In my experience a finished scallops will have two signs.  First it will start to firm, just like most seafood.  Secondly, you'll see the edges start to separate a little.  I'm now realizing that this is pretty tough to describe, and I should have taken pictures.... lesson learned for me.

The shrimp I had tonight were actually precooked.... sad I know.  So basically all I did was add them into the pan when the scallops were just about finished in order to heat them up.  At the same time, I drained out any excess oil, and added the butter and creole seasoning.  After the butter gets nice and melted, I like to add in the diced tomatoes and make sure everything gets mixed in together.  Delicious. This finished topping simply gets placed on top of the cooked chicken, and a fabulous meal is ready to go.

Fish Tacos

Anyone who had talked with me about the move out here at great lengths would have found out that one of the things I was excited about was getting to try fish tacos.  It was actually one of the first things I ate when we arrived.  It was the first time I had ever had them, and I knew I was hooked.  I've been delaying trying to make them.... for no particular reason, but I figure this would be my last weekend in this apartment before I move out this week, so nows an ideal time to make fish as I won't need to worry about the place smelling like it for weeks.

Right off the bat, the presentation doesn't look appealing..... but the taste was pretty great.  I could eat like 40 of these bad boys.

Since it's a bunch of small little things that go into these I won't really break out the ingredients and instructions by item like I usually do.  (Ha usually... I've only made like 4 meals thus far).

Three pieces of "fresh" Tilapia fish ( I quote the fresh as I bought it at Ralph's and they claim fresh, but who really knows)
Salt and pepper
Iceberg lettuce
Tomatos
Small onion
Green and orange peppers
Lime juice
Cilantro
Avocados
Water cress
Mozzarella cheese
Small tortila shells

First off cooking the fish.  I oiled up a pan with some peanut oil and made sure it was nice and hot before throwing in the fish which had been seasoned with the salt and pepper.  I cooked the fish about 80% on the first side before flipping, in hopes of getting a nice brown for the presentation.... but it stuck a bit to the pan and brown didn't really flip well, so the fish mostly just looks white.  Not a big deal.

The salsa I kinda messed up a bit.  I diced up the ingredients (tomatos, onions, peppers) but probably went a little too fine with the tomatos and onions, so when I mixed it all together including the cilantro and lime juice, it kinda went all mushy and runny...  luckily the pepper cubes were kinda bigger to give it some thickness.  Still good though.  I was thinking of having whole avocados for the tacos, but changed my mind when I cut them up... as I did a bit of a hack job.  Instead I mushed them together with some of the lime juice to make a nice avocado paste.

Shredding the lettuce and the cheese wasn't too difficult as you have probably already guessed.  I know typically for fish tacos you're supposed to use cabbage... but I don't like cabbage.  So iceberg lettuce ftw.

Assembling the tacos together was a breeze, simply layered on some lettuce, fish, salsa, avocado paste, cheese a some chopped watercress for show.  I did season with a little salt and pepper.  And voila, my first attempt at some fish tacos.

On a side note, the fish tacos I've had already in LA, they actually battered and fried the fish, which was totally amazing.  I didn't do that this time as I was attempting to make this a slightly healthier meal, but for my next attempt, I would totally batter and fry it.

Mac and Cheese with Green Beans

Today I decided to make a homestyle favorite, some macaroni and cheese.  This was and still is a dish that I find to be best made by my mother.  Every time I have homemade mac and cheese it reminds me of home, and since I've been feeling a little homesick lately, I decided this would be the perfect meal to make.  Now I have no intention of simply replicating my moms recipe, so I took my own (read: a recipe I found online slightly altered) approach to it.

Mac and Cheese


1 1/2 cup of elbow macaroni
3/4 cup of grated Gruyere cheese
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
Pinch of thyme, pepper, salt, nutmeg
2 cups of milk
1/2 cup of italian breadcrumbs (were supposed to be Panko breadcrumbs, but I don't know where I put them... sketchy.  I think I moved these to the new apartment.)

I heated the butter until it was nice and bubbling, then stirred in the flour to make a nice roux.  Added in the seasoning now, as the website I stole the recipe from suggested that I do this.  Something about some spices being oil soluble and thus releasing better flavour if added before I added the milk.  Sounds legit to me.  Next up, mixing in the milk, slowly at first... then I got lazy and just poured the rest in.... haha my kind of cooking.  I left this heat over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

I then removed the sauce from heat and added in the cheese.  At this point, the sauce is hot enough to melt the cheese on its own, so no need for the heat.  I mentioned above it was 3/4 cups of cheese.... this was probably a lie.  I tend to overdo it on the cheese.  I did try to leave about 1/4 cup of cheese left over for the crust.  While on this was going on, I have the macaroni cooking.  I shouldn't really need to detail out the instructions for this.... just boiling water with a little salt.

In a pan, I put in the cooked noodles, and mixed in the cheese sauce.  For the size of pan, I actually didn't need all of the sauce.  Despite my desire to just drown the noodles in the delicious cheese sauce, probably a good choice not to from both a health and presentation point of view.  For the crust, I sprinkled the rest of the cheese, followed by the breadcrumbs over top.  I then tossed in the oven at about 400F for maybe 20 minutes to brown the top.

Green Beans


Handful of green beans
1 1/2 tbs of peanut oil
1 tbs of sesame oil
2 tbs sesame seeds
Pinch of salt/pepper

As healthy side for the mac and cheese, in addition to adding some colour, I chose to make sesame seed crusted green beans.  A simple recipe from a veggie cookbook.  Neat story, it actually calls for asparagus, which would actually be like 4 times better, but unfortunately the asparagus at the grocery looked truly awful, so I switched it up to green beans.

The instructions as I alluded to are very simple.  Simply coat the beans in the oil in a bowl, mix in the sesame seeds and salt/pepper and mix until the beans are coated.  Then cook the beans at 400F for like 8-10 minutes.

Tomato Rose


You may noticed the simple tomato rose I made in order to spice up the plate a little bit and make the dish a little more colourful.  I added this in after the fact, as the plate just seemed sad with only the pasta and beans.  This are pretty simple enough to make, simply peel a tomato as you would an apple, but be sure to not break the skin (ie. peel in only one piece).  After it's peeled, simply roll the skin to make it look like a rose.  Easy to do, and make almost any meal look kind profesh. (trust me, it's a word).

Fried Chicken, Corn on the Cob, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

This weeks meal was inspired by the fourth of July holiday.  I couldn't really think of what meal would really capture a true American meal.  At first I thought about making apple pie, but realized since I have  essentially no baking equipment yet, that wouldn't be the most feasible.  I took to google to find what meal people consider to be American, and was pretty disappointed to find most people consider hamburgers to be a true american classic.  (Awkward how I made a hamburger to capture my Canadian meal).

I finally decided on (as you might have guessed from the title) fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob (switched the order to keep you guessing....boom).  I've never attempted fried chicken before, mostly for fear of burning my house down by cooking with oil, but since this is a temporary living arrange I figured why not.

Fried Chicken


2 boneless/skinless chicken thighs (sure you could use one.... but then it would be less food)
1 cup of almond milk
1 tbs salt
1 tbs ground black pepper
1 tbs italian seasoning
Whole lot of flour
Vegetable oil

I soaked the chicken in the mixture of the milk and seasonings for about two to three hours to let the spices soak in.  I read online that putting the seasoning into the liquid mixture as opposed to the flour mixture allows the spices to be cooked in under the breading which makes the chicken a little more flavourful.  After allowing the chicken to soak, I removed from the liquid, thoroughly coated them in flour and put into the boiling oil (note not like bubbling boiling, but hot enough that any flour I put into the pan would fry).   I cooked the chicken for about 14 minutes or so, flipping it once.  Turned out to be a nice golden brown, which from what Popeye's has taught me is the right color for fried chicken.

Chicken Gravy


I made chicken gravy in the same fashion I made it for the poutine from earlier in the week, using chicken stock instead of beef stock.  I could copy and paste the recipe, but in an effort to cut down the size of the post (read: I'm lazy) I won't.

Mashed Potatoes


2 Russet potatoes
2 tbs butter (actually, I can't believe it's not butter)
2/3 cup of almond milk
Diced chives
Salt/Pepper to taste.

After peeling the potatoes and cutting lengthwise, I through in some lightly bubbling water for about 20-25 minutes under they're tender.  Drained out the water, back into the pot and gave a quick mash.  After a first over, I added in the milk, butter and chives and continued to mash until reaching the desired consistency.

Corn on the Cob


1 cob of corn

I feel like this should be self explanatory, but either way....  I husked the corn, boiled it until it was soft, and then took it out.  Straightforward.

Combining all the above mentioned items onto the plate, drizzling on some gravy and some butter on top of the corn and this is what we're left with.

I regret not having a biscuit or something to complete the meal, but I think it turned out pretty good.  Almond milk was probably not the best choice for the mashed potatoes, but it was all I had in the fridge, so lesson learned; always make a full shopping list before going to the store.  Other that that it turned out pretty well, was easier than I thought to make, and I didn't burn down the apartment or even set off a smoke alarm. Kudos to me.

Canadian Bacon Cheeseburger with Poutine

I will normally only be cooking a meal and posting once a week, but today being Canada Day I made an exception (probably will be doing something for the fourth of July, but don't quote me on that).  Today I decided to make a Canadian style dish.  I couldn't think of anything better than poutine to better represent the great homeland, however poutine on it's own isn't much of a meal, so I decided to also make a Canadian inspired burger.

Burger
Extra lean ground beef
Canadian bacon
Maple Syrup
Italian bread crumbs
Canadian cheddar
Lettuce
Tomato
Sesame seed bun

Very simple burger with I feel incorporates some nice Canadian ingredients, mainly (read: only) maple syrup and Canadian bacon and cheese.  I mixed together the lean ground beef, maple syrup and the bread crumbs in a bowl until the meat held together nicely.  I'm not entirely too sure of the portions sizes, just kept adding enough until the meat held its form long enough.  I formed the meat into a nice patty shape and cooked in on the stove top until thoroughly done.  I would definitely prefer to cook on a barbeque but unfortunately there's only one of the rooftop patio and it was being used so I made do.

Once the burger was about 90% done, I placed the cheese on the burger while still cooking to get the cheese nice and melted.  After cooking the burger, I cooked up two slices of bacon using the same pan until they were warm and showed some slight browning.  Putting the burger together was a breeze, as I simply stacked the burger, bacon, lettuce and tomato on the bun, and voila.... a delicious burger was created.

One a side note, I made sure to slice the tomato as thin as I could.  During a recent restaurant trip, I have a sandwich with giant slices of tomato which made the sandwich nearly impossible to each without deconstructing the sandwich.  I made the mental note to try to keep all ingredients in sandwiches/burger/etc. nice and thin in order to make eating it easy and carefree.


Poutine
Shoelace french fries
Thinly grated mozzarella cheese

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1 cup of beef stock
Pinch of salt
Ground black pepper

I opted to not make fresh fries cause a) no deep frier b) pretty lazy.  Instead I used some frozen shoe string french fries I had picked up from the local grocery store.  For the cheese, usually I would recommend and use curd cheese as that's the way it's supposed to be, but unfortunately I couldn't find any at the store, so I decided to go with some thin mozzarella.  This choice actually turned  out really good, and I'm glad I didn't go with the curd, since I used such small french fries, I think the curd would have been too large to make it look good.  And as we all know, the appearance of the food sometimes makes an impact on the tase (doesn't really make sense, but I know it to be true).

For the gravy, I heated the butter on medium and mixed in the flour to make a nice dark roux (I think that's what it's called).  I then slowly stirred in the beef stock and then cranked up the heat to get the mixture boiling.  Once it started bubbling, I reduced the heat and allowed the gravy to reduce down to a nice thick consistency.  I added in a bit of salt and pepper to get the taste right.  And that's just how easy gravy is to make.

A quick plating job later, and the following was made....

Can't really go wrong with a burger and poutine.  This was the first time I've made poutine and it turned out pretty good actually.  It was a good way to celebrate Canada from down in the states.....wasn't quite the same without some fireworks and good company, but having some home country food made the night alright.