Seared Halibut with Couscous

Holy jeez, it's been way too long since I've posted.  I literally made this dish a couple weekends ago, and in the craziness that is wedding season and raising a soon to be one year old, I never got around to posting.  So here it is.  A nice seared fish along with a side dish so nice, they named it twice.  To those who get the reference, good on you.

Seared Halibut with Israeli Couscous and Pancetta

- 6 oz filet Halibut

-1/2 cup cubed Pancetta

- Chopped Parsley

-1/3 cup Israeli Couscous

-Vegetable Broth

-1/2 cup Summer Peas

-Salt

-Pepper

There were basically three stages to this dish.  First the seared halibut, which was quite simple just that, a piece of seasoned (with salt/pepper) halibut seared in a butter/evoo mixture on high heat and finished in the oven.  Second was the puree of summer peas, which again, you may have guessed it, was simple just over half of the peas I cooked up pureed in the blender to give the dish a little something extra.  The third, and certainly most interest piece of the dish was the couscous mixture.  Started by cooking the couscous in vegetable broth the same way I'd typically cook rice.  Not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I assumed, since I've never made couscous before.  As it was cooking, I cooked up the pancetta in a pan til it was just getting crispy, added in the remaining sweet peas along with some chopped parsley and a bit of pepper.  I then added the finished couscous directly into the pancetta and gave it a good stir.  Basically just as easy as the other two steps.  Putting all three together and you're left with a half way decent meal.  The one thing I did take away from this meal is this.... I need to learn how to plate food more elegantly than just dumping onto the plate.

Father's Day Pancakes (aka Mancakes)

Anyone who knows me will know the following two things about me.  First, I celebrated my first ever father's day as a proud father this year.  And second, I absolutely love pancakes.  So what better way to celebrate the former than by preparing the latter.  I found an excellent recipe for pancakes a couple months back that I've been looking forward to trying, and this father's day was finally the day.  

Bacon/Chive Pancakes

- 8 oz Bacon

- 1/2 cup sliced Green Onions

- 5/4 cups Flour

- 3/4 cups Cornmeal

- 1 tbsp Baking Powder (Not soda....a terrible mistake I've made before)

- 3/4 tsp Salt

- Pepper to taste (whatever that means)

- Cayenne to taste (see above)

- 2 Eggs

- 4/3 cups Milk

- 2 tbsp melted Butter

- 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese

Not my usual pancake recipe, I usually prepare the one handed down from my mother, but special celebrations call for special recipes.  I started with the slicing and cooking of the bacon, which I always find the toughest thing to do.  Not because cooking up bacon is particularly hard, but not eating the cooked bacon before using it in the recipe is always a struggle for me.  Alas, one bacon is cooked, I added the onions directly into the pan after removing from heat to allow the onions to just barely cook.  Drained out the fat and set aside for later.  The pancake mix was very straight forward, mixing together all the dry ingredients in the bowl, and then adding in the wet ones and whisking together until blended.  An interesting side note, apparently sugar is considered a wet ingredient.... I had no idea.   After mixing together, I added in the bacon/onion mixture along with about a half cup of grated cheese.  Another round of mixing and then let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes in order to let all the dry ingredients become saturated (not sure if that's the right term).  Cooking the pancakes was again fairly straight forward, plopping down small circular pancakes (about 1/3 cup of mixture per pancake) on a greased frying pan, flipping over once the edges around the pancake start to thicken and bubbles start appearing on the top. 

The plating was a bit tricky, as I wasn't sure whether to add the maple syrup for the shot or not.  As you can tell, I eventually decided on having the maple syrup with (along many practice photos were indeed taken).   The syrup was even a little bit special, as I added a bit of cayenne into the maple syrup and warmed prior to serving.  Gives the syrup a bit of a kick but nothing too spicy.  Overall a fantastic dish, one that will definitely make the rounds again.

Seafood Risotto

As I mentioned during the first risotto post, you could come to expect more risotto in the future.  Without fail, only two weeks after, I was at it again with yet another fancy rice dish.  This time a seafood risotto, incorporating both lobster and shrimp into an asparagus risotto.

Shrimp and Lobster Asparagus Risotto

• Butter
• Olive Oil
• 1 tap Garlic
• Tiger Shrimp
• Salt
• 1 cup Arborio Rice
• 4 cups Vegetable Broth
• Asparagus
• Light cream cheese
• Parmesan Cheese, grated
• Paprika
• Lobster

I won't go into the details of how to cook the risotto as I've very recently gone through that process, so really this is going to end up being a very quick blog post.   Yep, that's pretty much all I'm gonna write about this dish.

Seared Scallops followed by Cherry and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken

For a special celebratory meal, last night I did two dishes.  An appetizer of seared sea scallops on a corn and bacon puree which was then followed up with a cherry and goat cheese stuffed chicken breast.  If I'm not mistaken, I've already done a seared scallop dish on the blog before, so I won't need to go into too much detail about the process of cooking those up.  The stuffed chicken was a fun idea, however mostly made due to the fact that I purchased entirely way too much goat cheese for last weeks dish...  Worked out well though.  For sides, I tried to keep the plates colorful by having creamed spinach as well as a mashed butternut squash.

Seared Scallop with Corn and Bacon Puree

• Large Sea Scallops
• Olive Oil
• 1 cup frozen Corn
• 1 small Jalapeno Pepper
• 1 strip of thick cut bacon
• Parsley for show

As mentioned above, I won't go over the process of cooking up the scallops, rather I'll focus on the puree, which actually won't take too much time at all.  First cut up the bacon into small pieces and fry on medium heat until the fat has melted down.  Then add the jalapeno pepper, which would be diced up prior to throwing in the pan.  I only use the flesh of the jalapeno, as I'm a heat wuss, but I'm sure if you were to add in the seeds it would give this a nice kick.   While this is going on, you sure be cooking up your corn in some boiling water.  Drain out the water, and add the bacon/pepper mixure with juices (aka fat drippings) with the corn into a food processor.  In this case a blender since we don't yet have a food processor (if my wife is reading... this would be a great fathers day gift... ;D).  Blend and add a bit of hot water until the desired consistency is reach.  I'm not too sure what a good consistency is, so I probably made it a bit too chunky, but I'm cool with that.   I dolloped the puree out onto a plate, and placed the seared scallops across adding a sprig of parsley (and a little straggler parsley as seen in the photo) and served.  Big fan of the puree to add a little extra to both the plating and the taste of the dishes.

Cherry and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast

• Chicken Breasts
• Goat Cheese
• Cherries
• Parsley
• Paprika

One of my favorite dishes to make is stuffed chicken breast.  You can literally make it like a million ways, switching out what you stuff it with, how you wrap it. it's just such a versatile dish.  For tonight's (aka last nights) rendition, I used some Maraschino cherries and goat cheese as the filling of choice.  Getting the chicken ready for stuffing for me is always the hardest part.  I tend to cut the breast too thin as I roll it out.  Basically you want to just cut the breast in half and pound it flat, but I always try to go fancy and do a half cut roll out method, which doesn't really make sense and/or work.  So my advice, is to turn the breast sideways, and cut length wise until about a quarter inch and then unfold and pound flat with a meat pounder (probably not the official term).  In the breast, I sprinkled some dry chopped parsley. chopped dried cherry pieces, and plenty of goat cheese.  When doing a stuffed chicken you can never have enough cheese. I then lighted dusted with some paprika and rolled the chickens and tied using some simple twine.  To cook, I seared the chicken in a frying pan to give it a nice color and then popped the pan in the oven until the chicken was cooked through.  I always give the chicken a sear in a frying pan first.  If you just cook straight in the oven, it comes out looking super white and looks like it's straight up under cooked.


Mashed Butternut Squash

• Butternut Squash
• Butter
• Maple Syrup
• Ground cinnamon

A very simple and quick side dish to make.  I cut the squash length wise and placed face down on a piece of parchment paper on a cooking sheet.  I popped the tray into the oven and baked at 375 until the squash was tender, usually about 45 minutes or so.  Once finished, I scooped out the cooked squash into a bowl and added some butter and maple syrup (I don't have the measurements because I didn't really measure.... just went with my gut.... poor choice if you're wanting to recreate something later).  Usually a potato masher, I mashed the squash into a nice consistency and it was ready to serve.  As you may note above, the ingredients list cinnamon as well.  I was planning to use some cinnamon to sprinkle on top to give a nice look and a little extra flavor, but I forgot about it.  Awkward.

Also included in the dish was a nice creamed spinach as well as a cauliflower puree.  I won't go into the details of these, as the post is already getting quite long, and I'm sure these will pop up on future blog posts.

Risotto Primavera

After years of thinking it was way to hard to make myself, I finally decided to try my hand at making risotto.  There are so many different ways to do it, but I finally landed on a vegetarian recipe so that my beautiful wife could also partake in this meal.  Chose a Risotto Primavera, which essentially boiled down (ha ha....foreshadowing) risotto with a bunch of veggies and cheese mixed into it.  Lots of consideration (I'll say too much) went into figuring out what type of rice I was supposed to use in order to make the risotta.  A quick google search will tell you any type of italian short grain rice will work, but I wanted the best.  I scoured the net for blog posts, discussion boards and recipe sites and finally landed on my rice type.  And then all that work went to waste went I went to the store and settled on Arborio because that's all they had......womp womp.   In hindsight, the rice type probably doesn't make that big of a difference (Sorry to any actual chefs who read this and whole wholeheartedly disagree).  End result was a gooey cheesy rice filled with fresh veggies, a dish that could easily serve as a main.  I'm definitely on board to start making more and more risottos.  I wouldn't be shocked it they become a standard side to some upcoming meals.

Risotto Primavera

• Butter
• Olive Oil
• 3 whole Carrots, peeled and diced
• 1/2 Yellow Onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup Cauliflower Pieces
• 1/2 cup Broccoli Pieces
• Salt
• 3/2 cups Arborio Rice
• 3/2 cups dry White Wine
• 5 cups Vegetable Broth
• 1/2 cup Frozen Peas
• 4 Green Onions, chopped
• 4 oz Goat Cheese
• 1/2 Parmesan Cheese, grated
• Sprig of Parsley, for show

This recipe starts with the slight cooking of all the vegetables.  The point is to start the veggies cooking, without fully cooking so that when they get added back in they don't just turn to straight mush in the risotto as it finishes.  Started with the cooking onions and carrots in some butter and a bit of oil, and then slowly added the cauliflower and broccoli pieces (And salt for seasoning) once they were about 1/2 way cooked.  Only cooked the full mixture of a couple minutes, just to get the cooking process started, keeping in mind that once they get hot and taken off the heat, they'll continue to cook and then some more once back in the rice.  I underestimated the cooking time of the veggies, so they turned out somewhat crunch, but I always think a little crunchy is better than a little soggy so I was happy.

Using the same pan, vegetables removed and put on a plate, I got some more butter (sensing a theme with risotto...more butter more butter) and oil going in a pan and threw in the rice.  Getting the rice mixed in and cooking until there was just little dots of white in the middle of the rice.  Then comes the wine, 1/2 cup into the rice, just to loosen things up a little.  After a bit of simmering, I started putting in the vegetable broth one cup at a time and let the mixture boil down (foreshadowing complete).  Kept reducing the broth, adding more, reducing again, until the 5 cups of broth were gone.  I should note here that during my research, I discovered for risotto you should add hot broth, what for I didn't figure out, but I made sure my broth was warming in a sauce pan before adding in.  After adding another 2 half cups of wine and letting reduce down, I added in my green onions, frozen peas and cheese and let it all set in, letting the rice really take shape.  I then added back in the cooked veggies, mixed it all together and let it sit for a couple minutes while I sat debating whether pouring a glass of wine late at night would be a good or bad thing.  Proactive Mark prevailed with a leading argument of work in the morning.

All in all, the dish was really simple to make, the hardest part being simply the waiting game, as getting the 5 cups of broth to absorb into the rice took a solid 45-50 minutes.  Should probably stop making such large portions when I do these blogs I guess.

Beef Rouladen with Shredded Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes

After a short (read: way too long) hiatus, I've finally returned to making some fancy weekend foods and sharing the results with the world.  To my loyal fan(s) out there, apologies for the delay.  This week I kicked off the blogging by preparing a neat German dish of Beef Rouladen.  Having never had or even seen this dish before, one might find themselves asking; why?  Well, short and simple, it popped up on a reddit feed a couple weeks ago, and looked cool while also looking super simple to make.  And I do like simple things that end up looking like they require a lot of work.  All in all, it was a fairly straight forward dish, and I think turned out looking fairly tasty.

Beef Rouladen
-2 slices of beef -Dijon Mustand-Bacon-Paprika-Sliced Onion-Sliced Dill Pickle-1 tbsp Vegetable Oil-2 tbsp Butter-1/4 Cup Flour-3 Cups Chicken Broth-Salt and Pepper

As I mentioned earlier, the beauty of this meal is in how easy it was to prepare.  For the meat, I simply laid the slices of beef out and seasoned with enough salt and pepper.  How much is enough you ask?  I have no idea.  I always seem to put enough that I know I put salt and pepper, without it looking like it's more seasoning than meat.  I then spread on the Dijon Mustard across the beef, and then layered on 2 strips of bacon along the meat making sure that the bacon ends just about a half inch before either side of the meat so that when I rolled the beef it didn't awkwardly stick out.  Next, I spread the sliced onions and dill pickle across the meat, making sure to leave only one slice of dill pickle at the beginning, middle and end.  Didn't want to overload with dill pickle, as I've heard dill can really over power a dish.  I then wrapped and tied the meat into a roll, and proceeded to sear the meat in a hot pot with vegetable oil, just to brown the outside.  Once browned, I then removed the meat and replaced with butter and flour in order to get a nice roux going.  I added in the broth and cranked up the heat to get a good simmer going  and let the gravy reduce just a bit.  I then popped the meat back into the gravy to let it cook for about 50-60 minutes.  

Roasted Potatoes

-2 cups diced potatoes

-Cinnamon

-Brown Sugar

-Avocado Oil

My favorite way to have potatoes.... smothered in sugar. haha.  Really easy recipe here, I simply turned the over up to 450F, tossed the potatoes into a roasting pan with some oil, sugar and cinnamon, and let the oven do it's thing for about an hour or so, or until the potatoes are cooked.  I did mix them around every 10-15 in order to make sure all the potatoes got coated in the sugar/spice mixture, but other than that, these potatoes are virtually hands off cooking.  And super tasty.

For the plating of the dish, I went "all out".  In the sense that I bought a fancy bowl to present it in.  That's right, no more simple plates for this blog.  I laid down a layer of the sauteed green cabbage (Yes, I know I didn't describe the cooking of the cabbage above.... nor will I.  Apparently this recipe stays a secret), and then placed to of the meat pieces front facing and smothered with the gravy it was cooked in.  I didn't know what to do with the potatoes, and I basically just dumped a bunch of them behind the meat.  Probably should have thought it out a little more, but I think the dish turned out looking half way decent. 

Poached Eggs with Potato Pancakes

It took some time, but I finally got around to cooking a breakfast for my blog.  I was feeling pretty lazy last night, and while at the store picking up some supplies for the evenings food creation, I decided I didn't really feel like making a big dinner.  Instead, I switched my shopping to some breakfast foods.  Originally I was going to make an omelet or crepes, but then came across some smoked salmon on sale, thus decided to make some poached eggs with smoked salmon.  As the side, I decided I finally wanted to try making some potato pancakes.  Turned out pretty good if you ask me. 

Poached Eggs

-2 large eggs
-Sliced smoked salmon
-English muffin
-Butter
-Dill
-Creole seasoning
-Vinegar

I've poached eggs a few times, and I've come across a few tricks which make the eggs turn out a little nicer.  Start off by bringing some water to a gentle boil with a little bit of vinegar in it.  I like to crack the egg into a small bowl prior to dropping into the water, just in case the yolk breaks.... it's easier to swap out the eggs from the bowl than if it's already in the water.  Also, I find it easier to dump into the water from the bowl as well.  Before adding the egg into the water, I take a plastic spoon and stir around the water to make a bit of a cyclone effect.  Then in one quick motion dump the entire egg right into the middle of the water.  The spinning water helps to keep the egg together so it doesn't separate too much in the water.  I left the egg in the water until it becomes slightly firm and then remove.  If done right, the outside will be firm however the yolk will be nice and runny.

Tricky thing about the english muffin is that I don't have a toaster.... makes things a little awkward.  Instead I buttered the muffin and then toasted it using a frying pan on high heat.  Turned out pretty decently actually.

Plating it up, I simply layer the salmon onto the english muffin, placed some poached eggs on top, sprinkled a little creole seasoning for flavouring and color, and then garnished with a bit of dill.


Potato Pancakes

-1 large russet potato
-1/4 of a white onion
-1 egg
-2 tbs of flour
-Salt and pepper

Now here's something I've never tried before and is apparently super easy.  Started off by peeling a large potato and then grating it into a bowl of cold water.  Then similarly grated a quarter of a white onion and mixed together into the bowl.  Then after letting it soak for about 20 minutes, I thoroughly drained all the water and squeezed out the mixture until it was as dry as I could get it.  Apparently excess water will ruin these, so definitely took my time to get it as dry as possible.  Some paper towel was involved.

While the potato was soaking, I make the batter by simply mixing together the egg, flour and salt/pepper.  In a clean bowl and mixed together the batter and potato/onion trying to coat every piece I cook.

I heated a large skillet to high with about 1/4 inch of oil, maybe a little less.  I then put in clumps of the battered potato and flattened out in the pan.  The mixture will fry up nicely and start to brown on the bottom, at which point I flipped them over and reduced down the heat.  I read that you need to reduce the heat in order to make sure the potato cooks all the way through before the outside get burnt.   All in all I think they cooked for about 8 minutes or so, and were well worth it.   Very tasty.  Although they soaked up a lot of that oil, so probably not an everyday type of meal haha.

Seared Scallops

I finally ventured out to a fresh seafood market around North Hollywood today.  I originally was on the hunt for a nice piece of swordfish to make a grilled swordfish steak for dinner this week, but once I got there I found the bay scallops were on a good sale at the market, so my plans were quickly changed.  I got home and quickly took to the interwebs to find a great new recipe to try out.  I found one that caught my eye for it's simplicity and rave reviews.  Simple seared scallops with a orange and jalapeno dressing.  Now, if you know me when, you'll know I can't eat spicy food at all.  The nice thing about this recipe is that it only uses the green of the jalapeno, no seeds or interior flesh.  This leaves the sauce having a very mild kick to it.  Tasty!

Orange-Jalapeno Dressing
-Small jalapeno
-Sweet orange
-1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
-1 tbsp olive oil

The first part of the recipe was probably the more crucial..... the cutting of the pepper.  Gotta make sure to not leave any of the white interior flesh or any of the seeds behind... thats what the heat is.  It was really simple to do. Made about 6 slices int the pepper to get all the green parts, and the sliced and diced it until all that remained was tiny little pepper cubes.  In a bowl I mixed in the diced pepper with the seasoned rice vinegar.  Next up, cutting the orange.  The recipe called for only the interior part of the fruit, cut into sections.  I started by skinning the orange down to the flesh of the orange taking off all the white of the fruit.  Next, using the the knife slitted the orange sections in between the tough parts of the fruit.  Helpful hint: do this over the bowl your using to capture all the juices the leak out of the orange.  Once I de-sectioned the orange, I gave it a good squeeze to get all the juice I could out of it.  The citrus of the orange I guess helps offset the heat from the pepper and combined with the vinegar leaves a really nice dressing.  Added in the olive oil to beef up the consistency of the sauce, and viola...finished.

I've already gone over how I like to sear my scallops, as demonstrated when I made the creole chicken. If you haven't already checked it out, you can do it now.... well in a minute or so once you finish with this recipe.

Rice
-1/2 cup white rice
-Chicken stock

In case you've never made rice before.... I'll throw down a pretty solid recipe for some tasty rice.  I mix in equal parts water and rice into a sauce pan.  Crank up the heat until it's boiling and once boiling, mix in a packet of chicken stock, stir it around until fully disolved and then remove from heat.  Keeping the rice covered, it will continue to cook until the water is all evaporated.  The rice will be nice and fluffy and ready to go.  Note, you should probably not always follow the whole equal parts rule, it'll probably depend on the brand of rice you buy, just fyi.


I wasn't too sure how to plate this meal.... I was tempted to keep the rice separate, but finally decided on bed of rice, smothered in the dressing, then layer the scallops on top and then another layer of the dressing.  Turned out to look pretty good in my opinion.

The meal itself was really tasty. Not crazy spicy despite the jalapeno.  There was a good bite to it, but no lingering heat.  Loved it.  Probably not enough for a full meal though.  I think when I make this again, I'll likely buy smaller sized scallops, cut the portion size down and serve it as an appetizer to a real meal haha.  Still, looks and tastes good.  Definitely a keeper.

Creamy Salmon and Leek Pasta

I found this recipe online during a rather slow evening at work (yes, I said evening.... lame work hours for the win).  Creamy Salmon and Leek Pasta for two....... but eaten by one.  The thing I liked about this recipe is that there were very few ingredients and minimal cooking time.  Two of my favorite things when cooking.  Also, salmon is tasty..... can't forget about that.

The Sauce

-Butter

-Large leek, diced

-Salt

-1/4 cup white wine

-Lemon juice

-1 cup cream

-Creole seasoning

-Basil

-Salmon

I started out by melting the butter over medium heat until fully liquid and bubbling.  I sauteed the diced leek for about five minutes or so, just until they started to brown around the edges.  Adding in the wine and lemon juice in order to deglaze the pan and get fullness of the butter flavour into the sauce.  I let the wine continue to bubble until fully evaporate before adding in the cream along with a pinch of salt and creole seasoning for some flavour.  I should note that the original recipe I found called for tarragon and dijon mustard, but I didn't have either or those nor do I really like them, so I decided to switch it up a little bit.

Now having the heat set on low, I waited until the cream just starts bubbling a little bit before adding in the salmon directly to the sauce.  I was a little wary about not pre-cooking the salmon before putting in it the sauce, but true to the recipe, the heat from the sauce was more than enough to fully cook it.  The salmon was finished cooking when it starts to become more firm and flakes apart when you move it.  To finish off the sauce I added in some basil to give the sauce a little more flavour and color.

I won't really go into the too much detail with the pasta I used, basically as the sauce was cooking I got some water boiling and tried to time the pasta to be finished around the same time as the sauce.  It was tough to gauge as I had no clue how long the salmon would take.

Tofu Wrap with Sweet Potato Fries

This weekend marks a very special edition of the blog.  This week I had a special sous chef assist me with the meal.  My wonderful girlfriend Pamela flew down to So Cal to visit me this weekend, so we decided to make a nice meal together.  There is one catch to making meals with Pamela however, she's a vegetarian.  Over the last two years I've come to rather enjoy some nice vegetarian meals, and today we made one of my favorites, a tofu wrap inspired by her favorite veg restaurant in Toronto.

Marinated Tofu Strips

-1 package extra firm tofu
-1/2 cup tamari
-2 tbs water
-1 tbs peanut oil
-1 cup nutritional yeast
-1/2 wheat germ
-2 tbs coriander
-4 tbs garlic powder

The marinade for the tofu was pretty simple.  Just mixed the wet ingredients (tamari, water and oil) in a sauce bowl.  Add in the tofu, which was drained and cut into thin strips, and let it marinade for about an hour or so.  While the tofu was marinating, we prepared the coating mixture with the remaining dry ingredients.  After the hour of marinating, the tofu was simply fully coating in the dry mixture and thrown into the over of a covered baking sheet.  We didn't really know how long we shoul cook the tofu for, and it turns out the answer is a really long time.  Seriously, we had checked it like 6 times before finally deciding the strips were cooked enough.


Wrap Fillings

-Whole grain tortilla wraps
-1/2 cup grated carrots
-1 Diced tomato
-Handful of baby spinach
-Sliced red onion
-Alfalfa sprouts
-Crumbled gorgonzola cheese
-Tofu strips (see above)

Pretty basic instructions here.  Just prepared the fillings while the tofu was cooking in the oven and then fill it into the shells.

Sweet Potato Fries

-1 large sweet potato
-Cinnamon
-Salt/Pepper

In addition to the tofu wrap, this particular restaurant was where I first tried sweet potato fries.  As such, I thought it would be fitting to also whip up a homemade batch of this delicious side.  We started off by peeling the sweet potato and cutting into long thin strips.  In a frying pan, I heated up some vegetable oil (way too much oil, but meh) and tossed in the fresh cut fries.  Cooking on medium heat, I made sure to cook the fries until they were nice and tender.  I then drained out the oil, dried off the oil from the fries on a paper towel, and then put back in the frying pan to try to brown up the fries.  At this point I seasoned the fries a bit with salt and pepper, and also at Pamela's suggestion, some cinnamon.  Wow, does cinnamon ever make these fries pop. So delicious.  Any time you work with sweet potato, I'd now recommend adding in some cinnamon, definitely worth.


Unfortunately I tried to make this meal super healthy and picked up some whole grain shells.... mistake.  The wraps were kinda stiff and broke a bit when folding.  You'll notice in the photo the edges of the wrap didn't hold up well.  Also, I shouldn't have used the big plates for the presentation, as most the plate was left unfilled... lessons learned.  But overall, a great vegetarian dish, a good saturday evening, and even better company.

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.

Miso-Maple Glazed Salmon

First dish for the blog.  Decided to go with a fairly easy dish to get it started off on the right foot.  I found a good glazed salmon recipe online, and it turned out pretty good.

Glaze Recipe

1 part yellow miso paste

1 part seasoned rice vinegar

1 part maple syrup

Small amount of finely chopped chives

The glaze was super easy, simply pour the ingredients into a bowl and mix together.  Couldn't mess this up if you tried.

On an oven ready pan, I laid down some tinfoil, lightly oiled the tinfoil and laid the salmon flat.  I went with the skin left on the salmon, as I've always heard that the skin locks in the best of the salmon flavors, plus the skin will stick to the tinfoil instead of the salmon itself, making removal from the pan extremely easy.  

Turning the burner to high heat, I started to sear the bottom of the salmon, just enough so that the oil was sizzling and the bottom part of the salmon started to turn light pink.  I then removed from heat and laid on the glaze on the top and side of the salmon.  I put too much glaze on, and it leaks onto the tinfoil (something I think was inevitable), which caused a slight issue later.

Once the glaze was applied, I through the fish into the oven, set to high broil.  I left it in for about 8 minutes to cook, just until the glaze started to brown and ensuring it was cooked by testing the firmness of the salmon by squeezing the sides.  Now remember that extra glaze, it started to burn a little bit, which wouldn't be a problem, except when I opened the oven the smoke got out and set off the fire alarm.  Super annoying, luckily it didn't last long and didn't set off the building alarms.

Before I forget, while the fish was cooking, I also prepared the side of asparagus.  Extremely simple to make when you have a steamer.... a little tougher when you don't.  I ended up using chop sticked, laid along a curved frying pan to make a makeshift elevated platform in the pan.  I then laid the asparagus stacked on the chopsticks, put some water in the pan and put it, covered, on heat to boil the water thus steaming the asparagus.  Crafty haha.

Once everything was finished, a simple plating of the food, some butter, a nice garnish of a lemon crown and we were good to go.  And this is how the final result looked.

Miso and Maple-Glazed Salmon

From a tase point of view, this dish in my opinion was fantastic.  The saltiness of the miso paste matched with the sweetness of the maple syrup was all tied together quite nicely.  The salmon ended up being perfectly cooked, just a little crispy along the edges which worked out nicely.  Definitely a great start to the food blog.

What It's All About

Just a quick overview of what this blog is all about.  Since I moved to Los Angeles, I've decided I needed a new hobby to keep me busy and distracted.  I've always enjoyed cooking and my desire to try to maintain a newer healthy food lifestyle.  As such, I figured a food blog would be a great fit.

At least once a week, I'll post a new recipe and pictures of the results.... good or bad.  I'm no expert chef so try not to judge too hard if things don't look pretty.