Food Photodump

So I was getting hungry after eating early at 6 pm, and finished my leftover ingredients in the fridge. This salad is tossed with balsamic and rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper. However...I am getting hungry now and may succumb to Nutella with crackers...

Early today I had the remaining half of this salmon steak I cooked yesterday. Seasoned with only salt in the pan and soy sauce afterwards. 

The following pictures are a collection of the past month's food adventures, though biased towards all the nice photos. I'll post unsuccessful meals another time :P

- Chinese dessert, rice flour filled with sweet chestnut paste

- smoked salmon, a favourite

- a turkey roast with garlic and green onions stuffed inside, baked in the toaster oven :P

- and the inside

- a Korean dumpling from this great restaurant in Mississauga

- with the rest of the meal: pork bone soup, beef ribs, and the soup noodle with the dumplings

- bacon-rimmed caesar from Barque Smokehouse in Toronto

- Sunday family meal with ribs, roast chicken, sausage, roasted garlic potatoes and fennel

- AMAZING (look, taste, and textured) shortbread cookies from Moulin de Provence bakery in Ottawa's Byward Market

- rosemary and garlic lamb chops with baked yam and garlic green beans

- and the nice medium inside

- fruit prepped for chocolate fondue

- I had way too much chocolate that week...

Barque Smokehouse

So we went to Barque Smokehouse tonight (barque.ca) for some good 'ol BBQ. Sunday is family night there, so there's a set dinner for $25/person. Today's was:

• celery root and bacon soup
• sloppy joe brisket sliders
• pulled pork on tortilla chips
• mixed green salad
• roasted fennel
• roasted potatoes with bacon
• herbed smoked chicken, ribs, and sausage
• caramelized banana and frozen yogourt

So basically, a lot of food. We started it off with a caesar (with a bacon rim...mm...)

The appetizers and salad were eaten too quickly before I could get photos

But the main course was pretty impressive

Finished with a nice dessert :)

A quick breakfast to start off the day

So I'm running short on time and whipped up some quick Canadian bacon, tomato salad with green onions and olive bread.

I had the bacon already defrosted from 2 nights before thinking I would have consumed yesterday, so I threw it in an unheated pan with some oil and turned the heat to medium-high (you don't always need the pan to be hot beforehand).

For the salad I quickly diced a tomato (I cross hatch it 3/4 of the way down and slice from there), a green onion, and topped it off with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

The olive bread I quickly baked in the toaster oven (the toast setting is not working :( ) and voila! A quick breakfast where I can dip my bread in leftover vinegar, Italian-style.

Sunday Night Steaks

Today I decided to have some steak (chili would have taken too long). I kept changing my mind throughout the day by putting the steaks from the freezer to the fridge and back to the freezer. So when I decided to actually do it, they were semi-frozen. So, I defrosted them by placing them in room-temperature water for about 20 min.

To season it, I used some sherry wine, soy sauce, steak seasoning and some oil. I let it sit for 5 minutes as the frying pans heated up.

I decided to cook the steaks on medium heat so that the outside wouldn't be all burned while the inside would be raw. 

As for veggies, I stir-fried some asparagus with salt and ginger, adding water after to fully cook them.

Here's the steak after flipping...

And being held on its side to cook the fatty part..

And voila! Plated with the asparagus and a piece of olive bread at the back :)

It was more red than it looks like here, but I don't mind because it wasn't chewy. Perfectly seasoned, cooked in less than 10 minutes. Best part is the 2nd steak saved for tomorrow's meals :)

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!