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.

New Post!

An easy salmon noodle brunch today ready in 5 minutes.

Okay so the prep work is to take the salmon from the freezer and put it in the fridge the day before. Otherwise, this literally took 5 minutes.

I put a burner on high and threw the salmon on, then turned it down to medium. I let it sear on both sides and pressed it to see if it was done (according to mother, you just know from the firmness...a rule that takes a lot of trial and error to learn...). At the same time, I threw frozen peas, corn, and noodles into a pot of water and turned it up to high. 

5 minutes later (after seasoning the salmon with Greek seasoning while it was searing), everything was done! I drained the water, plated, and topped it off with a squeeze of lemon.

In hindsight, I should have boiled the noodles in chicken broth so I could use it as a soup base...but next time!

Sushi Time!

So my mom left me many sushi supplies so I could make sushi, but I always wondered when I would have time to do it. But, putting some time aside resulted in a pretty good meal (with plenty of leftovers!). I already had seaweed, soy sauce, the rolling mat (a makisu), and rice vinegar, so I went out and bought fake crab, cucumbers, avocados, and sushi-grade salmon and tuna (from Loblaws).

Making the rice wasn't too hard, I followed the instructions from a website (which I can't find at the moment :( ). Basically you rinse the rice well, cook it with enough water, let it cool, and then add the su (which is the rice vinegar-sugar-salt mix). In fact, this site looks pretty legit (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/01/perfect-sushi-rice/). I didn't really measure out the su...I just eyeballed it and tasted it, then added the other ingredients if they were lacking.

Anyways here's the photo collection of the experiment...it got better as more were made :P

O yea I also used brown rice, which I thought wouldn't work or taste good but it actually turned out okay! Extra fibre for the win :P

So this was messy...they weren't pressed hard enough in the makisu, and thus fell apart when cutting.

Much better sushi when you press hard while rolling!

A return?

Hello again!

I felt inspired today to write. and I think it's because of the way my omelette is shaped...so thank you omelette. I was trying to flip it over and it kind of just folded itself in a nice way :P Anyways I used onions, garlic, chicken powder and sesame seed oil (it makes it smell and taste delicious). Served with a pita/hummus and topped with fresh green onions!

Last month I decided to do a rack of lamb in the oven. It was already marinated in garlic and rosemary, so I popped it in the oven for 30 minutes with an electronic thermometer so I could get a nice medium (although it turned out medium-well). It was still really tender and delicious so that's okay! You do have to watch out for the resting time once you take it out of the oven because it does add another 10 degrees to the internal temperature...

Anyways I stir fried some asparagus as well and added mint sauce (store-bought). Mint's pretty essential with lamb. Just saying.

Hi again!

So I took a little hiatus from posting...okay a long hiatus. It was from a combination of school, people...life.....important thing is that we're back today :)

Today I defrosted some chicken and was wondering how to marinade it when I remembered the jar of dijon mustard I had not touched since I bought it...several months ago. So, I decided to make a honey-dijon mustard chicken in the oven. Just add salt and pepper. After 25 minutes at 375 F, voila!

I microwaved 2 halved yams face down in butter and a little water for 4 minutes and steamed some broccoli for about  5 minutes (my first time steaming something! :D).

Enjoy!

And everything really is better with butter...mmm..this yam is delicious.

Surprise: A post!

It's been another month-long hiatus from posting, and I think it was mainly due to watching Dexter as I ate food instead of posting. My apologies. I do have all the pictures in my camera but just haven't written anything :(

Let's start with today: an unhealthy stop by McDonald's for a Mcmini sandwich: basically a small piece of bread with ground-chicken-bits-in-the-form-of-a-chicken-finger put in the middle. One of them actually had gross bits of soft bone and fat inside (yummy!)

The night before was a big formal and we decided to have a potluck before going! Instead of making chili like I always do, I found Michael Smith's recipe for portobello pizzas. You take a portobello mushroom, pizza sauce, cilantro, mozzarella, and broil it at 400 until the cheese browns. Mmmm. Friends made asian sesame salad, steak and chicken stir fry, and a failed rice side turned into a fried appetizer with a tangy sauce. Legit! It's too bad I forgot to take picture of some delicious and fabulous-looking white and milk chocolate covered strawberries.

I also made guacamole due to high demand. Sorry I didn't take a picture before we dove in. Basically just avocado, onion, cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, lemon juice, salt, pepper.

I also made potato wedges, with the recipe from Chuck Hughes (http://www.foodnetwork.ca/Recipes/Appetizer/Potatoes/recipe.html?dishid=9977). I have lots of leftovers so it will be my carb intake for the next little while :P

 Going back farther in time is a typical breakfast of mine: omelette with a variety of veggies and some garlic bread. I might eat them separately or combine into an open-faced sandwich :)

Salmon one night with Greek seasoning, on top of a bed of stir-fried spinach, red/yellow bell peppers and really good fusilli pasta. If you decide to spend money on good pasta, it's totally worth it (you'll know when you can't find English on the box :P)

Dinner one night, I decided to use tuna and combined it into a salsa. I cut up a toasted pita and it turned out looking pretty good aesthetically.

Finally, snack one day: a basic cheesybread. I've got pasta sauce with Monterey Jack cheese I believe, and topped with some seasoning (chili flakes, oregano, salt, pepper)