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!

Eggs Benedict Round Two

Breakfast of champions... or just of two awesome people! Jess and I whipped up eggs benny for breakfast this morning. A mild rye bread topped with garlic spinach, bacon, a poached egg and lemony hollandaise sauce! Good morning world.

Brie, Mushroom and Arugula Pasta

Dragon and Unicorn here mixing up a little saturday dinner in Toronto! Tonight we tried out the Brie, Mushroom and Arugula Pasta from the Smith and Ratliff blog. We were pretty excited about it because it sounded so delicious. Brie... good. Mushrooms... good. Arugula... good. What's not to like? It was good, however, not quite what we expected. It was super creamy, which we liked, but we thought the brie wasn't strong enough. We were thinking that another cheese with a stronger flavour would be good to add to this. Perhaps Gruyere or we don't know... just another cheese. We also think that the arugula was too strong for this, so we suggest spinach. Maybe more mushrooms, cause why not? We also added garlic because, again, why not? UPDATE: after an intense 5 minutes of contemplation, we have decided that it needed a meat. Sausage. Bam. Do it. Dragon and Unicorn, OUT!

Quinoa Salad

I was a little upset with this. I was super pumped because the ingredients sounded delicious. I made this quinoa salad which the blog calls "The Best Little Quinoa Salad Ever". It was good, but not the best ever. I don't have a picture of it because when I mixed it up it looked like I threw up in a bowl... but don't worry that is not what it tasted like. The grocery store also didn't have pomegranates or pomegranate seeds, so I used raspberries. I also toasted my pine nuts and I added garlic croutons for extra crunch, which was definitely a good call.  2 tps is definitely not enough dressing either... I put at least 5 tps in the salad. I'd probably make some different dressing if I were to make this again.

Gruyere Cheese Pasta

 

1 chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces (marinated in olive oil, s & p, thyme, cayenne pepper and some garlic)
1/2 a tomato, cut into wedges
1/2 a white/spanish onion, chopped
3 mushrooms, sliced (I used white, Crimini would work)  
1 large clove of garlic
White wine, Chicken Stock and Cream (I use whipped)
1-2 fresh basil leaves, chopped
5 slices of gruyere cheese (or you can grate it which I thought of afterwards)
A handful of spinach and arugula
Fresh parmesan


     Oh my goodness. This was delicious. I will quote my housemate who after taking a bite said "You should probably drop out of school and just cook". While sitting in class today, clearly paying attention, I was thinking about what I might make for dinner. Ingredients were floating through my head and in my mind I had just created the most delicious sounding pasta that I had to try and make. I texted my sister, my go-to when I have cooking questions, with a list of ingredients I wanted to use and she gave me her approval for the meal. So happy it turned out well!
     First fry up the chicken in a pan with some olive oil, allowing it to brown. Remove and set aside. Toss in the tomatoes for about 30 seconds per side. I have no idea if this accomplished anything, I just felt like doing it. Put the tomatoes with the chicken. Next in the same pan put in the onions and mushrooms with a little butter and more oil (if needed). Allow the mushrooms to get a little brown. Toss in the garlic and mix around for about 1 minute. You wait to add the garlic so that it doesn't burn while the onions and mushrooms are cooking. Pour in white wine. I did enough to cover the onions and mushrooms in the pan. Allow that to simmer for a bit. Add the chicken stock. I used probably half a cup, even though I had a cup to use. Let that simmer. Toss in cream, only a little! You don't want it to be the focus of the sauce. After you let that simmer for a bit toss in the fresh basil and add the chicken and tomatoes back in. Stir and add in the gruyere cheese. Once the cheese has melted, toss in whatever pasta you are using and let it mix around with the sauce. Put the pasta onto a plate or in a bowl and add a handful of arugula and spinach (you can do one or the other, but I had both!). Mix it up so all the arugula/spinach is not on the top. I didn't put the arugula/spinach directly in the pasta sauce because I didn't want it to welt in the heat of the sauce. I wanted it to still be rather "fresh". Shave some fresh parmesan on top and voilà! Gruyere Cheese Pasta!