Guinness Beef Stew

I got together with my friend Nate to cook dinner the other night. He suggested something 'wintery' due to the cold weather and stew popped in my head. My dad makes a very good stew which I'd made before but I wanted to make something different. My housemate, Heather, told me about a stew her family makes that used Guinness, so I asked her for the recipe. It had very few ingredients and was very easy to make.

Below is the recipe and directions with my input.

Ingredients: 
1 kg rump steak (I just used normal stewing beef)
2 tablespoons drippings (I used some bacon fat that I had lying around)
2 large brown onions (I just noticed the recipe calls for two, I only used one!)
2 cloves of garlic (I through in a little extra, because why not?)
1/4 plain flour
1 cup beef stock (definitely did not seem like enough liquid, I ended up using 2 cups)
1 cup Guinness (I used a whole 'tall can')
2 large carrots, sliced
2 bay leaves,
1 sprig fresh thyme (I through in a couple)
ground pepper

Additions this time:
Salt
Potatoes

Additions next time:
Green beans

Directions: 
1. If not already, cut beef into 1 inch cubes or bite size pieces. Set aside. Heat 1 tablespoon of drippings in a pot (which you will use to cook your stew in) and cook onions until pale golden. Add garlic. Cook for another minute. Remove from pan, set aside.
2. In the same pan, heat the remaining drippings and add meat. Cook quickly until the meat is brown on all sides. Reduce the heat and stir in the flour until the meat is coated.
3. Pour in beef stock and stir - should turn into a thick smooth sauce. Add the Guinness and stir. Let the mixture simmer and then add in the onions, carrots and herbs (I also add some bite sized potato pieces at this point).
4. Simmer gently for 1 and 1/2 hours uncovered, stirring occasionally. Sauce will reduce and thicken.

The stew was good, but I think it was missing a green vegetable. Hence my suggestion for green beans! I'm also really glad I added the potatoes. The meat was perfectly tender and the vegetables were cooked at an hour and we were bored of waiting so we ate it!

Great mix up from traditional stew. The Guinness provides an interesting taste!

Gingerbread Cake with Homemade Candy Cane Icing

IT'S CHRISTMAS ON COUPER TODAY!


The table is set, turkey is in the oven, decorations up, and dessert made! We found a recipe for a gingerbread cake in the Food and Wine magazine the other day and after successfully making gingerbread cookies, we thought we'd give it a shot! We lost the magazine so I used this recipe. We used this icing but cut the recipe in half and then crushed up candy canes and mixed it in. Pretty excited to eat it!

Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage and Pine Nuts

I don't remember where I found this recipe, but when I found it I really wanted to make it. My housemate Heather is your resident butternut squash expert. She quite often makes butternut squash soup. I've never made butternut squash anything myself so I asked her to join me! When we were shopping she taught me the secret to picking squash. All the good stuff is in the stem, so you want one with a big stem. The butt end is where all the seeds and 'guts' are.
We chopped off the skin of the squash rather than peel it. Either would work, but my peeler is crap. She was my little chopping machine and did all the chopping until she started crying after the onions. I'm thankful that she cut the onions cause they always make me cry.

The mix of squash/onions/garlic/sage are in the oven right now. Smells SO good! I'm pretty excited to eat this. The recipe suggests putting oil in a pan and mixing the sage in. I used butter instead because that sounded more delicious. It also splits the recipe in two at the end, but I had a pan that was big enough to do it all out!

This was really good. Really really good. And so simple. And really good.

Homemade Gnocchi

Lindsey asked me if I had any dinner plans, to which I said no, and then she said "Can we make homemade gnocchi?! I've always wanted to make gnocchi!" To be honest, I've never had that urge myself... but we set out to do so anyway! I don't think I'd ever tried gnocchi either, so it was a first!

Essentially it just tastes like pasta, but more filling. It reminds of tortellini in the way that you think you can eat a lot, like normal pasta, but then it fills you right up! The recipe we used called for only 2 potatoes. We thought that was just silly and no way could it make the right amount. We were severely wrong. We decided to double the recipe and now we have gnocchi for days.

The recipe we used is really simple. However, per suggestion of another one I looked at you, add the egg first to the potatoes, mix it and then slowly add the flour, instead of all at once!

We topped it was a tomato sauce I whipped up!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I finished my paper so I decided to bake cookies upon Heather's request. We made oatmeal raisin the other day, so we went with that again. When I suggested we should bake something else I got an evil glare. I used this recipe and it worked out very well. I thought they might be a little moist when I'd mixed everything together, but they baked perfectly at 12 minutes.

Brunch Quesadilla

I'm calling this a brunch quesadilla because it could be eaten for breakfast or lunch. I was calling it my breakfast, then I realized I was eating it around lunch time and I'd technically already had a yogurt before my 10am class.

I fried up some mushroom and red pepper in butter. Added garlic and then a handful of spinach. Sautéed it until the spinach had wilted. Meanwhile I beat an egg with a little milk, salt, pepper and thyme in a bowl.

In the same pan where the vegetables were heating up I put two sliced of serrano ham and let them heat up/crisp up a little. I put goat cheese on a tomato-basil tortilla, covering the majority of the surface. I then put the serrano ham on the top and bottom (so when it was folded there would be some on the bottom and top). After the vegetables were ready I poured the egg over top to make a scrambled egg. When the egg was cooked I put it on one side of the tortilla and folded it over. I put it back in the pan for a few minutes a side to toast it up.

Chicken Wrapped in Serrano Ham in a Pesto Cream Sauce

There is no short way to say this recipe name. My brothers girlfriend pinned this recipe for chicken wrapped in serrano ham in a pesto cream sauce and asparagus a few months back. I never got around to making it, but Lindsey asked me to make her dinner tonight so I was going through my bookmarked recipes and thought I'd give it a shot. Very easy to make and very delicious. The only word of caution is make sure your chicken breast is thin (either slice it in half or pound it) so it can cook through or just give it some extra time when frying it.

The website is in polish but Google chrome automatically translated it for me. Just in case that doesn't happen for some of you here are the steps:

Step one: mix flour, pepper and salt (just a little bit as the ham is salty) and coat chicken breast. Wrap with serrano ham, set aside.
Step two: Cut asparagus into bite size pieces and boil until tender. Strain and place in cool water, set aside.
Step three: Add 2 tbs of olive oil to a pan on medium heat. I found myself draining the extra olive oil (as the pesto would be oily) when it was all cooked. Place in wrapped chicken. Cook for 6 minutes and then flip to cook the other side for 5 minutes. When I did it, it was more for 7 minutes and then 6 minutes, and I still had to cook it for a little bit longer after the process was done because it was a little pink inside. 
Step four: Add 80ml (1/3 of a cup) of 30% cream to pan. I used 35% cream (aka whipping cream) and this seemed like very little to me, I added about 1 cup of  it. Then add 4 table spoons of pesto. My table spoon wouldn't fit into the jar of pesto so I used a smaller spoon and just did it to taste. 
Step five: Add asparagus. After boiling remove from heat and let thicken.

The recipe calls for eating it with potatoes or bread, which I find a little weird. I actually just ate it on its own. I was considering doing it with some pasta, which I'm sure would be good, but honestly it was enough just by itself!

Christmas Baking with Lindsey!

Wooooo Christmas spirit! Why catch up on work when I can bake cookies! Lindsey and I set out to make an army of gingerbread men. The house smells so delicious right now. Recipe I linked to was followed exactly. They're delicious and super adorable.

We also made homemade icing - Sift 4 cups icing sugar, 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar and mix with 3 egg whites.

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

My sister sent me this recipe from Pioneer Woman a few weeks back. She had made it and said it was absolutely delicious and told me to make it myself. Pioneer Woman is hilarious. Her food blog is not only saliva inducing, but makes you laugh.

I finally had a lull in my work so I cooked it up. Pretty good! I don't think mine was cheesy enough or had enough of a kick, but definitely good.... just ask my housemate who scarfed it down rather quickly! Although that could also have been because she hadn't had a lot to eat today.  Okay, so I just had a second helping. Definitely needed more cheese.  I also wish it was a slight more artichoke-y... but I'm not sure how I could have encompassed the flavour anymore. I should have topped it with more cheese too.

Pioneer Woman's original intentions we to bake it, but she skipped that step because she wanted to eat it. I think it would have benefitted from being baked. Maybe next time! Also, this would have been really good with some chicken in it.

Spicy Peach-Glazed Pork Chop

DING DING DING! We have a winner. New favourite pork chop recipe. I don't cook pork chop that often, but when I do I feel like it's always the same... and that just gets too boring for me. So I googled 'pork chop recipes' today because I thought I should try out something new. I found this delicious spicy peach-glazed pork chop recipe. When I saw the title I thought to myself "hey! I bought a peach at the grocery store yesterday! I can make this!". Then I opened it up to discover it required 'peach preserves' (or jam as some of the reviews stated), which I didn't have. Just a little ol' lonely fresh peach. I decided I'd get creative!

I chopped up the peach into thin slices. In a pan, on medium heat, I put a slice of butter and when the butter had melted I put the peach slices in. Then I slowly sprinkled some white sugar on top (I don't know how much... I was kind of just eye balling it). I let that mix around for a bit and then added a bit more sugar when I thought it needed it. I then added a splash of white wine to the pan. The wine, sugar and peaches formed a glaze and softened up the peaches. I removed it from the heat and set it aside while I prepared the pork chops. When it had cooled down I put it in the magic bullet because I wanted to make it more 'jam-like', instead of big pieces. However, I still left some chunks.

I didn't have any ground ginger, so I used fresh ginger. Instead of chile paste, I used Sriracha. And per some of the reviews, I added a clove of garlic to the recipe. I chopped it up and put it in the peach mixture with the Worcestershire sauce and Sriracha.

I happened to make two of these tonight (because my original pork chop was too thick so I cut it in half) and it is taking everything in my power not to go eat it right. The sweetness of the peaches mixing with the spiciness of the ginger, Sriracha/Worcestershire sauce was just SO good.  Will be making this again, for sure!

Sweet potato, Sausage, Broccoli and Feta

I've got a new obsession with sweet potatoes. I used to think that I didn't like them, but I'm not sure why.

My sister makes a variation of this 'stir-fry' sometimes, which is where I got my inspiration for it.

First, fry some sausage. I removed the casing and made little balls out of the sausage. Put aside. Then peel and cut up your sweet potato into bite size pieces. Fry the sweet potato in the same pan with some vegetable oil on medium to high heat and allow it to caramelize (not olive oil, because you want a higher heat point for caramelizing). When the sweet potato is almost done, turn down the heat to medium-low and toss in some chopped mushrooms and garlic. Let that mix around for a few minutes. Then add broccoli and let that cook. After everything is cooked, add the sausage back in.  After everything is well mixed, add some thyme, salt and pepper and red pepper flakes for more flavour. Also add a splash of white wine and let that steam up into the food. Turn off the heat and add some crumbled feta. Mix around. Serve and top with more feta!

Quick and delicious :)

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I'm sick and I don't like it. I brought up some turkey stock from thanksgiving so I could make myself some soup, but I forgot left over turkey so I made a chicken noodle soup in turkey broth. Absolutely delicious and just what the doctor ordered!

I started by baking a chicken breast at 425 for 25 minutes. I topped the chicken breast with some dry thyme, dry parsley and salt and pepper.

Chopped up carrots, mushrooms, onions, broccoli and some garlic. One by one I added them into a sauce pan with some butter and a little oil. Started with the carrots, as they take longest to cook, then the broccoli, mushroom and onions and finally the garlic. After those were cooked I removed them from the pot and put them aside. I didn't cook them too too much because I wanted them to have a little crunch while they were still in the soup. I added the stock to the pot to warm up. In the mean time, I boiled some water and cooked some noodles. I used rigatoni, which as my sister and I had discussed might be a little excessive due to their size, but still delicious none the less. Any time of pasta noodle would have worked! When I made a different version of this the other night at home, we used orzo. When the chicken was done I used two forks to 'shred' the chicken so it would be in bite size 'messy' pieces.

When the pasta was done I added it to the pot of stock, then the chicken, followed by the vegetables. I let all the flavours mix, as well as added some more thyme, salt and pepper. After it is warmed up enough, voila! Soup! I topped the soup with a little bit of shaved parmesan. Yum!

Orzo with Caramelized Fall Vegetables & Ginger

My sister e-mailed me this recipe the other day and I was instantly intrigued.  I'm super stressed with school, so probably shouldn't be taking the time to make stuff like this but I use cooking to de-stress.
Adjustments: I used cremini mushrooms instead of shiitake mushrooms. As well I topped it with some goat's cheese per my sisters suggestion. It gave it a nice tangy creaminess.
I think I should have made a little more of the 'sauce', but with the regular measurements it was still tasty.
My sister made this for herself last night and she warned me about how long I let things caramelize due to potential burning... so I avoided burning the sweet potatoes (like she had done!). Thanks JP.

 I really liked the flavour combinations this dish provided, but my sister, although she enjoyed it, sent some suggestions that she's going to incorporate next time: sweet potatoes, onions, mushrooms, garlic - good. No ginger though. I'd add some fresh thyme in there and I'd deglaze it with white wine instead of the balsamic and soy mixture they use. The kale was nice (I think kale is delicious), but you could just as easily throw in a few cups of spinach or arugula and have it work. The orzo was really tasty (it's like rice but it's pasta!)...but I was thinking about how you could use actual rice for this...or a grain like quinoa or barley and have it work too.

Next up... when I have time: Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage & Pinenuts

Pork Chop and other things...

Whoops, I've been M.I.A recently. I've made a few dishes that I've thought of posting on here, but some of them didn't work out how I planned and I got discouraged and other times I just forgot to post them all together.

Near the end of the summer I wanted to make Corn and Black Bean Taquitos  so I set out to do so (with the addition of chicken), however instead of simply buying corn tortillas from the store I thought I'd try to make my own... this is where things went down hill. Someone, not naming any name *cough* dad *cough*, told me that corn meal was the same thing as masa harina so I followed a simple recipe requiring masa harina and water. Let me tell you, corn meal and masa harina are not the same thing. I tried to save the overly watery gritty concoction by adding flour and oil, but there was no saving them. I thought maybe they could pass as tostados (flat tacos), but they tasted pretty gross. The corn and black bean topping was good though...

My sister and I were exchanging recipes last night and this morning... her dinner and my breakfast. I don't have a picture of my breakfast, but oh it was good. A piece of light rye toast topped with bacon, sautéed garlic spinach, fried egg and cheese. Very simple, but oh so delicious. Her dinner was pork chop marinated in white wine, lemon, tarragon and dijon. Pan seared and topped with sautéed peppers, mushrooms, spinach and feta with a white white garlic pan sauce. I reproduced that myself for dinner and sided it with some quinoa, it was good!

I'll be back with more stuff later !

BBQ Chicken Quinoa Salad

My favourite quinoa salad, by far! Found the recipe on pinterest and I instantly wanted to make it. I was home alone today and found out I had all the ingredients so thought why not! Its really flavourful and delicious. I didn't have any BBQ chicken laying around so I lit up the BBQ and cooked that up while the quinoa was cooking. I didn't have white cheddar, so I used normal cheddar. I only used half and avocado because I'm still working on my self to love avocado... I'm getting there!

I mixed in a little cheddar and BBQ sauce instead of just topping with it.

Very quick and easy to make!

Tarragon Infused Cream Sauce Pasta

It sort of seems like pasta is the only thing I make... it's not I swear. I do however make it quite often. It's just so good! If someone told me I could never eat pasta again I'd probably shrivel up and die. Tonight for dinner I made up the recipe, as my sister and I quite often do for pasta dishes.

The ingredients are: spicy sausage (which was bbq'd and then put in), mushrooms, onions, red peppers, garlic, white wine, chicken stock, cream, tarragon (fresh and dried), thyme (dried), nutmeg, hot pepper flakes, s & p and spinach. One of the pictures show asparagus because I had cut it up with the intention of putting it in, but completely forgot.

The key with cream sauces is patience... thankfully my sister was here for that. Quite often when I'm at school I make myself pasta and then get to excited and eat it before the sauce has had time to thicken up... tonights sauce had a perfect consistency!

Pasta Al Forno with 5 Cheese

Got an e-mail from my sister today about dinner... "Is it too hot for baked pasta? Probably, but I don't care". And after reading the recipe she sent me, I agreed with her.

So we don't really like following recipes that much, we only use them as directions to delicioustown (why isn't delicioustown a word? It should be).

We used all the cheese they recommended ($30 later...), we used crushed tomato Passata instead of chopped tomatoes, threw in some lemon zest per someone else's suggestion, added spinach to add some green (and to pretend we're healthy), squirt of dijon, nutmeg, cayenne, s and p and then topped with sliced tomatoes, dollops of goat cheese and Panko bread crumbs. Oh, and we put garlic in... duh. It suggested to top with butter, we went with an olive oil drizzle.

It is SO delicious... We want to take it to the next level next time and put some sort of meat in... perhaps sausage!

Chicken Piccata

Conversation with my sister and I:
"What do you want for dinner?" - me
"I dunno... I have to leave soon to go to a friends so..." - sister
"Ugh... what am I going to have for dinner then?!" - me
"Wanna just bang out some chicken piccata right now?" - sister
"Ya, cool.. sounds good." - me

Casual night at the Parkes house hold. Chicken piccata is delicious and very easy to make! All we did differently was added some white wine and garlic to the sauce... because obviously, why not? We also made up all the measurements... added a little extra lemon here, some more wine there etc.

We served it with plain spaghetti noodle and spinach.

Moroccan Chicken and Quinoa

I had no idea what moroccan chicken tasted like when I went to make it, but thought I'd give it a whirl because I had the ingredients! I adjusted the recipe for my desired portion size and stupidly put in an entire teaspoon of cayenne when it called for 1/4 of a tsp... so it was a little hot... and by a little I mean pretty spicy. It was still delish and I still ate it... go me!

Frittata

I don't remember when this breakfast was from, last weekend maybe, but my sister and I made a frittata for breakfast. It had mushrooms, onions, artichokes, peppers, garlic spinach, tomato, left over potato with some fresh parmesan cheese and of course egg. It was very good, but we both agreed it needed something else (which is surprising because of everything that was in it). Our vote was for a little hollandaise sauce, but we were too lazy to make it. 

New York City

I've been an awful blogger. I've had this saved as an unfinished draft for quite some time.

I went to New York for a week with my friend Hailey. I'm so glad Hailey appreciates food like I do. New York has some great food! Our original plan was to go to as many of the 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' places and 'best thing I ever ate places' as we could, but it turned out to be hard to find a place in a convenient location to what we were doing.  The first night we to dinner near her parents apartment - the food was really good. We got an array of dishes and shared them among us. We got brick chicken, large meat ball, lamb slidders, fish tacos, gucamole, and a watermelon salad.

On one of our outings Hailey and I went to Lombardi's pizzeria - the first pizzeria in America. We ordered a large because we wanted left overs, we could have had left overs with a small! It was huge. We got sweet italian sausage and garlic spinach. 

We made a stop at Molly's cupcakes, which was the winner of cup cake wars at one point. The cupcakes were so good. They were SO moist. I got a cookie dough one and Hailey got a rocky road cup cake. We were so excited by all the flavour option we didn't realize until we were eating our cupcakes that we could have made a custom built one!

We went to Dylan's Candy Bar and shared a mint chocolate milkshake and a cheese cake sundae... it had an entire piece of cheese cake put on top. I was in heaven.

I almost forgot about this one until I found the photo. Hailey's mom was watching the food network one day while we were out and saw a show about sandwiches. The show had some famous chef come and he made croque monsieurs. This chef's restaurant was located conveniently close to Hailey's house so we went. I'd never had one before, but what is not to love? French bread, french ham, gruyere cheese and béchamel sauce? That's my kind of sandwich. We both loved it and Hailey who had spent an entire summer living in Paris said it was on par with the good croque monsieurs she had had there!

Porkchops in a Mushroom Cream Sauce

    I love it when the person I cook dinner for just starts washing the dishes. At home I grew up with the motto "She/He who cooks doesn't clean", so when I'm cooking dinner for myself I'm always waiting for someone to do my dishes, but I'm stuck doing them!
    Tonight I was talking out loud about how to cook my pork chop and my housemate pulled out a can of mushroom soup from her cupboard that had a recipe for pork chops. It was very simple and rather boring, but she said I could use it so I invited her to join me for dinner! Instead of following the instructions which were "Brown pork chop, set aside. Sauté onions, mushrooms and garlic in same pan. Add cream of mushroom soup and milk. Add pork chop back", I worked off them. I put salt, pepper and lemon juice on the pork chops and then browned them and set them aside. Added mushrooms and onion, sautéed for a bit, added garlic and a splash of sherry, then broccoli and fresh tarragon. Stirred that for a bit and then added the cream of mushroom soup and some water. Then I added some dry thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and lemon to taste. As Campbell's says it was "MM, MM, Good!"

Stuffed Chicken and French Onion Soup

Well I may be screwing myself over for my exam on Friday, but cooking is WAY more fun than studying. French onion soup: I'll admit, the french onion soup is store bought. They come in little individualized sized portions and you bake them. It was at 425 for 40 minutes. The soup was alright, obviously not restaurant good because it was frozen... but edible!
Stuffed chicken: Butterfly the chicken. Fry some mushrooms and spinach in some butter until soft. Put the roasted garlic in the chicken, then the mushrooms and spinach, then slices of gruyere cheese. Close the chicken and pin it so it doesn't pop open in the oven. If you want to bread it, as I did, mix some Panko bread crumbs, fresh thyme and s&p and put it on top. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. The chicken was mmmmmm mmmm good.

Spicy Sausage and Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

My housemate facebook'd me today and told me she was going to try and make these. They looked delicious so I told her I wanted to join. I've never previously had much luck with stuffed peppers because they haven't been flavourful enough, but these were great!

We didn't have zucchini, so for the vegetables we used asparagus and mushrooms. Also added waaaay more parmesan than necessary. It was delicious.

Sage Cream Sauce

This was delectable... so so good. I was going to be a good girl and not eat this pasta, but then my housemates encouraged me to eat it with pasta anyway. "We'll tell you when you start to get fat from eating too much pasta" were their words. I guess I can go with that.
For the parmesan incrusted chicken: cover chicken breast with salt, pepper and thyme on both sides. Mix parmesan shavings and bread crumbs and put them on the top and along the sides. I wasn't sure when I first decided to incrust the chicken if you could have the bread crumbs on the chicken whole time in the oven without them burning, so I checked this recipe and it suggested "dipping the chicken in melted butter first" for the bread crumbs to stick, so I just melted some butter and put it on top before the bread crumbs. I'm not sure it would have made a difference if I just put the bread crumbs on without the butter, perhaps the butter keeps the chicken moist, I'm not sure. I baked the chicken breast for 30 minutes at 425.
For the sage cream sauce:
I checked out a few recipes for this, but basically mixed some together and added extra ingredients. You need: butter, mushrooms, onions, garlic, sage, nutmeg, white wine, cream and parmesan. I cooked the mushrooms and onions in the butter. I then added one (big) clove of chopped garlic, one dried sage leaf crushed up and a pinch of nutmeg. I let that mix and cook for a bit then I added some wine. I let that simmer for a bit and then I added some cream. Then I put in some freshly grated parmesan.
I cooked some spaghetti, put it on a plate and then took the mushrooms/onions plus some of the actual sauce and mixed it around with the pasta. Then I layered some cooked asparagus on top of the pasta, put the chicken on top and then poured the rest of the sauce over top.

I'll definitely be making this one again. So good.

Quinoa Burgers

These quinoa burgers were absolutely delicious!! Mmmm, I can't stop eating them! I cut the recipe in half and it still made about 12 burgers. I also used ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese because I'm not the biggest fan of cottage cheese and I wasn't sure how powerful it would be in the burger. I had a zucchini lying around so used that instead of carrot. For all the spices, I guessed the measurements to taste.

I roasted a red pepper and ate that with these tasty little things and topped them with tzatziki.


I'll definitely be making these again!

Risotto Balls

I found a recipe for risotto balls in a cook book I had lying around in Kingston and my mouth began to water. Risotto = good. Deep fried food = good. What is not to like? A lot of the recipe's like the one I found say to use left over risotto, but that's kind of a rare occasion for my sister and I. I forcefully made my sister make risotto during the day while I was on my way home from a weekend away and then we put it in the fridge to cool for about an hour. The risotto was super cheesy as we put a LOT of gruyere and parmesan cheese in it. The middle of the risotto balls also had a small piece of mozzarella in it. What? My sister and I love cheese too much. While some recipe's I had found suggested an egg, flour and bread crumb routine for crusting the risotto that seemed like way to much work to me and the orignal recipe I found suggested just rolling the balls of risotto around in bread crumbs - I went with that. The risotto balls were really good, but all in all a lot of work to do all in one day. If I did happen to have some risotto left over one day I would probably make them again, but for now I'll just stick with normal risotto!

Goat's Cheese Burger on a Everything Bagel

YUMMY! Look at that goat's cheese just drip out of the burger! So good.

Burger instructions: mix ground beef, ketchup, egg, breadcrumbs, onions, garlic, thyme, s & p. The measurements all depend on how much ground beef you're using.

Separate the mixture into the amount of patties you want to have. Split each patty in two and insert goat's cheese in the middle and put it back together, reshaping if necessary. Place on hot grill and cook for the desired amount of time. I think mine took about 5-8 minutes. I wasn't really paying attention.

I put my burger on an everything bagel because I needed to use it up and didn't have any burger buns. I topped it with fried mushrooms and red peppers, spinach and arugula and a garlic mayo. The garlic mayo was just a little bit of mayo, garlic and thyme.

Balsamic-Maple Glazed Pork Chop

I had made these pork chops before with my sister, but because of me we messed up. We wanted to marinate the pork chops (Not needed, fyi. These pork chops are FULL of flavour) so I just put all the ingredients in a bowl, which is not what you're supposed to do. If you do this the maple syrup will burn while frying. We ended up saving it, but tonight I made it properly! Yay me!

I tossed some 1/4 of a small onion and 1/2 a clove of garlic into the glaze, just because. I don't think it particularly added anything, but it certainly didn't take anything away!

I sided it with a little quinoa salad. After I cooked 1/4 of a cup of quinoa in water I cooled it down and tossed it with some cucumber, arugula and goat's cheese. I didn't put any dressing onto it because I wanted to mix it a little with the glaze. The glaze was very sweet and when it mixed with the bitterness of the arugula and goat's cheese and the freshness of the cucumber I think it tasted really good. I was unsure on how it would turn out at first when I mixed them together, but I'm happy I did.

Careful: when making the glaze it did smoke/steam a little so open a window and watch out for the fire detector! Also maybe don't have your computer near where you are cooking (as I did to follow the recipe) because it spits a little.

Spicy Italian Sausage, Goat's Cheese and Arugula/Spinach Pasta

I have a problem. Pasta is my absolute favourite thing. I need to eat less of it, but it's SO good and you can do SO many things with it.

Dinner turned out really good tonight. I really had no clue what I was doing/putting into the pasta until it was already in the pan! I knew I wanted to use some of the arugula/spinach mixture I had in the fridge, and I've recently become a big fan of fresh greens on top of pasta. I also knew I wanted to use goat's cheese, but that's as far as I'd come. I checked the freezer for the meat situation and the only thing worth putting in a pasta I had was some sausage.

I cut up and fried the sausage, tossed in some mushrooms, red peppers and garlic. A little dried red pepper flakes, thyme and basil was added. There were little bits of sausage stuck to the bottom of the pan so I tossed in some Sherry (sweet wine) to get the little yummy bits. I put in 1/4 of a small package of goats cheese and mixed it up. I also added a little bit of cream to make some more sauce. When the pasta was done I added it directly to the sauce pot and mixed it around. In my dinner bowl, I put a little more goat's cheese and a handful of spinach/arugula mix. Yummy!

The mild spice of the sausage mixed with the sweetness of the sherry and paired with the bitterness of the goat's cheese and arugula/spinach was delectable!

Birthday Cupcake and White Cheddar + Arugula Pesto Pasta

Rainbow Nerd Cupcakes for Emma's birthday! SO good.

  

White Cheddar + Arugula Pesto Mac and Cheese - This was absolutely delicious. I added way more cheese than asked for because it wasn't cheesy enough. I also used fresh parmesan instead of asiago. I tossed in some cayenne to the cheese sauce. 

Gingersnap Cookies and Another Stuffed Chicken

   Today was awful. Okay, that might be a tad dramatic. Today's cooking adventures (along with some other things) didn't go as planned. I made my favourite cookies today, which are ginger snaps (or ginger-molasses cookies). My Nana used to make these for me and I'd go nuts for them. I found her recipe on my computer at home the other day and thought I'd try them out. Our oven here in Kingston is a little wonky so they burnt like 5-7 minutes into cooking when they're supposed to be in there for 10-12. I left them in because I still wanted to eat them and I wanted the rest of the cookie to cook even though the bottom was burnt. Although some of them burned, some were okay-ish on the bottom. I'm still eating them... and even with a small hint of burntness they still taste pretty good.

The second thing I made today was another stuffed chicken. This one was stuffed with asparagus and old white cheddar. When I was at the grocery store earlier today I saw that Prime makes pre-made stuffed chickens with asparagus and old white cheddar so I thought to myself "I don't need to buy pre-made, I can do that myself!". The first problem that I encountered was I didn't have a malett to flatten my chicken breast with, so that process was rather difficult. I used a ping poing paddle and kind of just smacked the chicken breast. I got bored eventually and my hand started hurting so I went "meh, flat enough", which turned out to be false... it was rather hard to fold over. I sprinkled some "Garlic and Wine" seasoning, which I got from The Melting Pot, a restaurant I went to in Mexico City, on the inside. Then I put a layer of cheese and 5 pieces of asparagus (they were pretty thin). I folded it over, which as I said was kind of hard, and put a layer of dijon mustard and bread crumbs on top. I poped it in the oven at 400 degrees. When I went to check on it at one point I noticed that it was slowly starting to open. I didn't have any tooth picks so I had to run downstairs and borrow a skewer stick from my housemates and break it up into the appropriate size to hold the chicken closed. This was about at 12 minutes and I noticed that the inside of the chicken wasn't cooked at this point so after the original 20 minutes had past I added about 3-4 more minutes. The chicken was good, but not as good as the one that I made the other night. I had some left over rice from last nights dinner so I just ate it with that.

Pasta with Zucchini, Red Pepper, Mushrooms

We were tempted to make the chicken below again for dinner tonight, but then decided we should probably switch it up. 

The pasta ingredients were: onions, garlic, fresh thyme, fresh basil, mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini, wine, chicken stock, cream and goat's cheese. Jessica had hers as a vegetarian version, but I had some left over chicken schnitzel from lunch the other day so heated that up and tossed it in.

Simple, quick and easy!

Chicken Stuffed With Serrano Ham and Gruyere Cheese

The picture is from when my sister made it because I ate mine right away instead of taking a photo... also mine didn't look as pretty. Damn it was good though.

Step one: Butterfly chicken breast (or pound it thin if the chicken breast is mangled or already too thin to butterfly).
Step two: Spread pesto (homemade or store bought) on inside.
Step three: layer a slice of ham and cheese on the inside. Fold chicken closed.
Step four: Mix bread crumbs with your favourite herbs and spices, salt and pepper and add olive oil to make it moist.
Step five: Spread dijon mustard on the top of the chicken breast and add a layer of bread crumbs on top.
Step six: bake in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes.

I ate it with rice and broccoli which was perfect. Jessica ate it with steamed asparagus with salt and pepper and butter.

Inspired by Chicken Stuffed with Pesto, Ham and Fontina Cheese

Caprese Pasta with Balsamic Chicken

I wish I could say "tonight Unicorn and I made Caprese Pasta with Balsamic Chicken"... but that would be a lie. I sat here while she cooked giving my input when needed... "yes more garlic".

This was pretty good... but it was missing something. Like cream... or goat's cheese... basically something fatty. Healthy food isn't nearly as good.

Pasta ingredients: fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes (both red and orange), garlic, balsamic vinegar, basil. Mix all the ingredients together with hot pasta.  Chicken ingredients: chicken, balsamic vinegar, garlic, chicken stock, oregano. Brown the chicken and then pour the marinade over and let it reduce.

Orzo Pasta with Sausage, Vegetables, and Goat's Cheese

I walked past the farmer's market on the way to class today and seeing as I had no vegetables for dinner thought I'd get some! I had very few other things at home for dinner so I was trying to think of what I could make. I remembered I still had a pretty big bag of orzo pasta as well as a thing of goat's cheese that I had to use up before heading home for reading week, so orzo pasta it was!
I defrosted a sausage and fried it up. Tossed in some onions, red and yellow bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, and garlic. Meanwhile I cooked 1/2 a cup of orzo is some chicken broth. I reserved a 1/2 of cup of the water after the orzo was cooked to add to the pasta to make it a little creamier. I only used about 1/4 of it.
I put the cooked orzo into a bowl and added everything I fried up. Then I added some fresh diced tomato. Then I put in about 1/2 of a small thing of goat's 

cheese and the reserved water and mixed it all up. Sprinkled 

some s & p and some basil on top. Presto! 

Penne (and Fusili) a la Vodka

Things are tough right now. There is 4 days until reading week so I don't really want to go grocery shopping. Thankfully, penne a la vodka requires very few ingredients and is aboslutely delicious. I didn't follow a recipe because I had made this before and double checked with my sister about the ingredients and I was correct. I looked for one online to link too, but none of them were satisfying enough to share. 

Basically all you need is: bacon, onion, garlic, cayenne pepper, vodka, tomato sauce, and heavy cream (I used whipping cream)... and in that order. For two servings I used 5 strips of bacon, cut up into bite size pieces and then fried. Not to a crisp, you want them to be soft. Remove from pan, get rid of bacon grease. Add half a white onion and 2 garlic cloves - allow onions to soften. Add the bacon back. Add 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper (I think if i had used anymore my mouth would have burnt off!) and allow flavours to mix, then add 1/4 cup of vodka, half a container of plain tomato sauce (could also used diced, tomatoes for some chunks), and then as much cream as you'd like to meet your creaminess desires! Bam! Sauce is done. Cook and add whatever pasta you'd like!

Chicken Stir-Fry

Made chicken stir fry the other night and forgot to post. Grilled up a cut up chicken breast that had a little s & p, garlic, red pepper flakes and olive oil on it. Added 1/2 a white onion and mushrooms, fried it a little. Then I added the broccoli and snow peas. For the sauce I mixed water, cornstarch, soy sauce, sesame oil and hot pepper flakes. I should have made more sauce, and maybe added a little more soy sauce. Ate it with some white rice. Pretty good.  

Baked Chicken, Goat's Cheese Scalloped Potatoes, and Cooked Carrots

I'm on fire! I marinated the chicken breast in olive oil, garlic, thyme and cayenne pepper. 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. Very simple and perfectly flavourful. The goat's cheese scalloped potatoes were amazing. I followed that recipe, but I didn't have herbes de provence so just used thyme and basil. I also added a dash of cayenne. I only used 2 potatoes so I had to guess for the adjustments. I used 1/2 cup of both cream and chicken broth, and 1/4 of a cup of wine. I put the chicken in when I took off the foil for the potatoes and when the chicken was done at 30 minutes the potatoes looked pretty much finished. I gave them an extra few minutes under the broiler for more colour. The scalloped potatoes were SO good. For the carrot I simply steamed them and then mixed them with a little butter, salt and pepper.

Cheesy Risotto

    Oh yes. This was good. So good. I have made and eaten a lot of risotto in my day... but I'm gonna say this has to be one of the top three, if not the number one.
    I'm pretty sure my parents used to make it all the time when I was younger and I'd sort of turn up my nose at it. I'm not sure what on earth I was thinking! It has to be one of my favourite foods now. Risotto is traditionally Italian, and thats the way I like it, but you can still add so many different flavours and ingredients! I always put onions, mushrooms and garlic in it to start. I switch up other ingredients like bell peppers (of any colour), asparagus, zucchini, or whatever else you're feeling! You can also change up the type of spice you use (thyme, basil and rosemary being my go to's) or the type of cheese you use (goat's cheese, feta, parmesan being my faves). Sometimes I like to add either chicken or sausage to it too.
    Here's what I did for tonights risotto: Fry up chopped onions and mushrooms in butter and a little bit of olive oil. After they've started to brown add in chopped orange peppers and garlic. Let those fry for a bit. Put 1/2 cup of risotto in the pan and stir with the vegetables for about 1 minute. Pour in white wine... enough to just cover the contents of the pan (I never measure the wine). Stir and let the risotto absorb the wine a little. When there is less liquid in the pan add chicken stock, again enough to cover what is in the pan. Stir it occasionally and let the risotto absorb it. You repeat this process with chicken stock until the risotto is the right... tenderness? I'm not sure thats the word I want to use... but lets just stick with that. For 1/2 cup of risotto, you use about 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock. At some point during that process, toss in a spice. I used thyme and fresh basil. The kicker for tonights dinner was the addition of gruyere cheese and parmesan (1/2 cup combined). I had the littlest bit of gruyere cheese leftover so I thought I should use it and then I thought why the heck not, let me just add some parm too! It made the risotto so cheesy/creamy and gave it the most delicious taste!

Homemade Burgers and Garlicy-Spicy Fries

Omnomnom. Tonight's dinner was so good. For the french fries I roughly followed this recipe. I used one potato and cut it into long thing strips. Tossed the potato pieces with olive oil, fresh garlic, garlic plus (club house seasoning), salt and pepper, and cayenne pepper. The fries were garlicy and spicy which was good, but I might have gone a little over board on the cayenne. My mouth burned a little at times. I put them in the microwave, like the recipe suggests, for 3 minutes and then cooked them for 30 minutes in the oven. I flipped them at 20 minutes (because I got distracted and forgot to flip them earlier). They ended up being the perfect golden brown though, so I was happy!

I didn't really measure for the burgers. I used about half of a large tray (it was on sale) of ground beef, 2 eggs, half a small onion, 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, a few squirts of Worcestershire sauce and a few squirts of ketchup. In total it made 5 burgers. I cooked it on a portable grill, but probably will do pan fry next time or borrow the neighbours bbq. I topped my burger with caramelized onions and mushrooms, tomato, lettuce, goat's cheese and a spinach/arugula-garlic mayo. The burger was on a toasted a ciabatta bun. My housemate topped her burger with caramelized mushrooms, onions and jalapeño pepper, tomato, lettuce, hotsauce and honey mustard. She quite enjoyed hers as well!