Bruschetta using mint

A quick lunch was the goal, and luckily we had just gone grocery shopping yesterday. General consensus was for bruschetta to be made for a while, so we finally got to it today! Here's how:

1. chop garlic, mix with olive oil and salt
2. spread on defrosted or fresh bread
3. bake until you can smell the garlic (or eyeball it like I usually do...)
4. for topping: chop tomatoes, onions, and mint
5. season with salt
6. plate
7. eat

Super simple, it may look like a lot of steps but it really isn't when you cook :) 

And what to do with all the mint we bought? Tea!

Simple Guacamole

• Ingredients:
• avocado
• onion 
• cilantro
• lime
• salt and pepper
• Why:
• The avocado is the base of your guac, the onion adds bite, the cilantro flavour, and lime for kick. Salt and pepper to taste. 
• Serving Size: 1
• How:
• Halve 2 avocados and empty into a bowl.
• Chop 1/4 of an onion. Add.
• Chop a handful of cilantro. Add.
• Squeeze lime wedge to taste.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Mash.
• Eat.
• Serving companions:
• Any crackers, chips, toast, sandwich, nachos, lasagna layer, experiment!
• Adjustments:
• Can add corn for sweetness, tomatoes for texture, Sriracha hot sauce for a roundhouse kick.

One of those meals...

So for a once-a-year event, I decided to cook up a few favourites of my guest.
Menu:
- Fried wild mushroom and goat cheese risotto balls
- Chicken bacon ranch pizza
- Chocolate strawberries

So I started off making all the bacon à la EpicMealTime but using the toaster oven instead. I ended up doing 3 or 4 trays of these and saving the pool of bacon fat each time in a cup (I had a feeling it would come in handy later...)

Now the trick to cooking bacon is not to eat all of it before the meal starts. I found this to be quite difficult... So I basically, cook twice as much bacon as you need because you will eat half.

I cheated a little with the risotto and bought a wild mushroom flavour package. I just had to boil it and let it reduce, and cool it down...hence the spread out risotto on a plate. I thought it would be smart to use the bacon fat to flavour the risotto so I did :)

As that was cooling, I chopped all the other ingredients and made the pizzas! It's a pita bread as the base, ranch, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, green onions, chicken, bacon, and dill. Pretty easy.

Now for the risotto balls, I broke up goat cheese and put it inside the risotto. First, a coating of flour, an egg wash, and finished with panko bread crumbs. Ta da!

Now all that bacon fat was still sitting there...so I decided to fry the risotto balls IN BACON FAT. Now there wasn't quite enough so I added a little cooking oil (I use grapeseed). And boom we're done.

For dessert I melted down chocolate in a bowl over a steaming pot of water, and just rolled strawberries around in chocolate (and licked the chocolate bowl after).

Set the ambience and a successful meal was pulled off.