I’m putting these up before I forget to.

First up!

Spinach Ricotta Stuffed Chicken

I’ve done something similar with cream cheese rather than the ricotta, and truth be told,  I prefer that take on this, but….dang, this one was just tasty.  I skipped the sides outlined in the recipe as I was making potatoes, but this one is pretty simple.  As always when handling chicken, be careful about cross contamination and making sure you are properly washing your hands and utensils.  The spinach and garlic mixture in the frying pan smells absolutely amazing.  I overstuffed things and had to use some toothpicks to keep everything together while doing the quick pan-fry and transition to the oven.  It wasn’t pretty but it worked, and tasted great.

On the side…

Pumpkin Mashed Potatoes

Memorize this recipe.  Write it down, break it out around pumpkin spice-ageddon in the Fall and wow everybody.  This…tastes…amazing.  I followed it pretty much verbatim with the exception of using sour cream (which I had on hand) in place of the heavy cream.  I’ve done that before in a few recipes.  Sour cream is quite versatile and it worked really well in this one.  These essentially taste a bit like the filling of a pumpkin pie, in mashed potato form.  I’m not a big pumpkin pie fan, but these brought with them just enough flavour to give you a hint, while retaining that smooth and creamy mashed potato flavour that goes with any meal.

Bon appetite!

So the other day my Mother-In-Law turned 60.  Um…I mean, 40.  Yeah, let’s go with that.

We took her our for a nice family dinner and along with the desert menu, I noticed a flavour combo on the cocktail menu I hadn’t seen before.  Grapefruit and cinnamon.  My interest was….piqued to say the least.

Now, when searching that flavour combo online, imagine my surprise when I discovered that it’s a pairing that is far from unique…in fact, it’s a pairing that is quite common if not renowned in Texas with their…

Ruby Red Sweet Rolls

Essentially…it’s a cinnamon bun.  A cinnamon bun with no raisins and a boatload of grapefruit zest and juice to kick things up.

The linked recipe is pretty bang on and easy to follow.  I only had one grapefruit handy so while I was able to get enough zest off of that one, I wasn’t able to get enough juice for the full recipe.  What I did get was sufficient for the dough (which really smells, tastes and handles like a citrus infused easter paska).  For the glaze, I wound up cheating a bit, and used some pink grapefruit soda.  It worked alright.

The only thing I questioned when baking this, and still do afterwards, is putting the glaze on the buns immediately after removing from the over.  The glaze simply melted, fell right through the bake, and the buns didn’t so much wind up ‘glazed’ with a nice frosting, so much as ‘swimming in a lake of citrus infused sugar and butter’.  Lots and lots of butter.

Meh.  Cut ’em out of the pan, flip ’em upside down and there was a tart buttery sauce on the (now) top.

I think however, I’ll wait for the buns to cool before glazing next time and see what things look like going that route.  Oh yes, I said “next time”.  These were tasty.  If anything I might also cut down a touch on the zest and juice.  Or perhaps swap grapefruit for an orange or lime or something.  I am ‘okay’ with Grapefruit, but it has never been my favourite.  Although these rolls are a great way to get your Vitamin C!  And butter.  Lots and lots of butter.

Enjoy this Taste of Texas!

Full time employment and kids being off school for the summer really bites into the free time to blog I tells ya!

Okay, I’ve done an iteration on this one twice now.  It tastes fresh, it’s light and has plenty of veggies and flavour.

Noodle bowl!  On a plate!

Thai Chicken Noodle Bowl

There’s not a lot about that recipe I completely followed.  I nixed the fish sauce (ewww) in favour of a splash of rice vinegar, I didn’t have chile garlic sauce, and I used rice noodles instead of whole wheat pasta.  Sprouts aren’t fan favourites around here so those didn’t make it in, neither did fresh basil or cucumber.

I did however shred up some carrots, chop in some bok choy, some sweet peppers, and LOTS of green onion.  A splash of lime juice went in the sauce, along with a couple scoops of peanut butter and about a half can of coconut milk.  Probably too much Peanut Butter made it in looking back on it, one heaping spoonful would have sufficed.  I sprinkled some red chili flakes on top for some heat.  It worked pretty well overall.

Oh, I also used diced pork instead of chicken.  It’s what I had kickin’ around at the time.  And on the side?  A couple chicken spring rolls from the freezer section at Costco.  Everybody likes ’em, and I don’t think I’d have the patience to roll my own.

Overall what I learned from this recipe is that recipes…are sometimes flexible.  It never hurts to scour the internet for some ideas on flavours and experiment in the kitchen.  Go try something different, or tweak a favourite dish with your own spin.  The more I cook, the more I’ve begun to learn which flavours blend and start taking some chances.  I just need to remember what I did sometimes!  Of course that is, in part, what this blog is designed for.  Til next time!

I did not know this fried delicacy existed until about a day ago.  I saw a post on a radio station fanpage talking about foods that are unique to cities or regions in Canada.  One post mentioned the “Persians of Thunder Bay” and I had to look them up.  And after seeing them…I knew I had to try one.  Now, Thunder Bay is a loooooong drive away from Saskatoon to get a ‘donut’.  Even one as renowned as these appear to be.

Now, I don’t have a commercial bakery and all the fancy tools, but I did manage to find a recipe online and…they turned out pretty alright.

Persians

I honestly love the concept of foods that are geographically unique.  I really wish I enjoyed traveling more, but it’s not my ‘jam’.  And so, maybe finding a recipe and recreating that unique flavour in my kitchen is the way to go?

The recipe itself was pretty fun to make.  Nothing overly finicky.  In reality these are just cinnamon buns (I’ve made those before) that you deep fry instead of bake.  The recipe seemed about the same for making the dough.  This one was a little sticky to start with, but as I added more flour, it really turned pretty thick and not as ‘elastic and smooth’ as the recipe claimed it would be.  I wound up adding a little more milk to try and soften things up before the first rise.  After that, things went pretty well as instructed until the deep fry.  I’ve actually never cooked with oil before this attempt.  Well, I’ve put a dab of it in the skillet to cook some meat or a stirfry, but this was my first time doing the full immersion fry.  My handy kitchen thermometer came in quite useful again as I  got the oil to 350.  It went a bit higher, I dropped the burner temp a bit and then began the frying process.  The recipe calls for about 4 minutes overall cook time for the pastry.  I pulled mine out at about half of that and they were already starting to look a bit ‘over-done’.  A little bit of dancing and I really think a decent time was around 45 seconds per side.  My oil might have been too hot, I might be at a different elevation, maybe things needed to be even more moist for the rise and proof…who knows?

The thing that really sets a Persian apart – aside from deepfry on the cinnamon bun – is the fruit flavoured icing on top.  I went with raspberry as it is my favourite fruit in baking and I happened to have some frozen ones in the main floor freezer.  That worked out just fine.  I didn’t quite go up to 4 cups of icing sugar.  I topped out around 3 1/4 as the bowl I choose for the topping was getting pretty full, the icing was feeling pretty thick, and c’mon.  4 CUPS of icing sugar?  I can feel Wilford Brimley shaking his head at me from here.

I know a guy from Thunder Bay way.  I’m going to have to run him over a couple tomorrow to see how they measure up to the ‘taste of home’ for him.  At the very least, I’ll know if I was able to pull off a semi-accurate reproduction of the original and be able to mark off another regional delicacy.

I forgot to take a picture on the plate, so the leftovers will have to suffice.

I was feeling like a sort of chicken Alfredo dish tonight. Then I realized that the jar of alfredo sauce, if I used it would leave my Costco tortellini sauce-less. Can’t have that! When all else fails, improvise!

In a big saucepan, melt a good scoop of butter in some olive oil over medium heat. Add a cut up onion and some garlic. You want to soften up the onion til it’s starting to look clear. Add some diced up chicken that you’ve grinded some salt and pepper onto.

Add some thyme, parsley and basil. Basically the herb-y section of your spice rack. Cook til the chicken is done.

While you’re cooking the chicken, you’ll want to be boiling water and cooking some linguine or fettuccine. Drain it and set aside.

Once the chicken is cooked through, scoop out the chicken and onion. Pour some lemon juice (I used bottled stuff, you could also squeeze a lemon or two in). The goal is to make a bit of sauce with the butter and herb drizzle that’s left from the chicken.

Once the sauce has simmered a bit, dump your strained noodles into the pan and stir around until they’re coated with the sauce. Add some more of the herbs, a bit of red pepper flakes and some grated Parmesan.

Plate the pasta, spoon over some of the chicken/onion mix, and slap a salad together on the side for your veg. Done!

Tasted light and fresh. Going on the list!

Okay, it has been far too long.  Picking up a temp contract and sticking to some tried and true favourites that I was aware of the prep/cook times will keep fresh new previously un-posted flavours from finding their way onto the site.  That’s not to say that there haven’t been a few new discoveries, but even those have iterated a bit from my first attempt – or been forgotten in the mists of time because they just weren’t very memorable.  (or edible).

So, to break the silence, let’s get to my ‘substituted just enough ingredients that I’m gonna just go ahead and call this one “my” take on General Tso’s chicken.

General Tso’s Chicken

A couple changes I made with this one.

1) I used bone-in chicken thighs.  Hey, there was a GREAT deal on these at Safeway the other day.

2) I didn’t have a jar of hoisin sauce handy.  So I made my own.  More on that to follow.

3) With no rice wine vinegar, a quick google search told me that apple cider vinegar would make a decent substitution.

4) I halved the amount of crushed red pepper flakes.

5) I very thinly sliced a white onion to place the chicken on in the slow cooker.  Call me strange, but I usually just like to have my protein raised up off ‘the floor’ so to speak.  No real reason that I can think of, other than perhaps keeping some space underneath for the fluids to circulate?  Seriously, you don’t need to do that.  I do.

That was my changed to this one.  After a quick dredge in cornstarch and then a quick pan fry to sear the chicken, into the crockpot it went, covered with the sauce, and then cook on low for about…5 hours I went with.  The meat was more than done when I checked with the meat thermometer.  Still quite moist due to the amount of sauce (I doubled the sauce recipe due to the amount of hoisin I made, and the fact that I had 6 pieces of chicken in the slow cooker while the original recipe I linked had asked for 4 breasts cubed).

As for the hoisin…  it really seemed like cheating to me to make a sauce that just included a bottle of sauce from the store.  My goal is to try and knock things down to the most raw/basic ingredients as possible.  In that vein….

Homemade Hoisin Sauce

Now you’ll notice that even THIS sauce calls for a pre-made sauce in its creation.  I cheated and went with a jar of black bean sauce from the store.  Call me a slacker, but I really didn’t feel like fermenting my own black beans!

My substitutions are as follows:

1. Apple cider vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar (I’ve since bought some of that, but didn’t have any handy)
2. I did use store-bought 5 spice powder.  I had it handy, so why not?
3. Prunes.  C’mon, I’m not 60 yet.  Who keeps any of those handy?  A quick google search tells me that raisins or dried apricots make a decent substitute.  I didn’t have any of those.  I then stumbled on a page that said you can use apple-sauce.  A quick potato peeler and a couple quick knife cuts later, and I had an apple being nicely pulverized in the Magic Bullet.  With using apple cider vinegar, it seemed to make the most sense to just roll with the whole ‘apple’ theme .
4. I didn’t have sriarcha, but tossed in 2 quick dashes of tabasco.  Shrug.

The Hoisin recipe above gave me appox 1 cup of sauce.  It smelled very asian and very amazing.  With the General Tso’s sauce requiring 1/2 cup…I just doubled that recipe so there was more sauce.  I LOVE extra sauce to spoon over my rice, and as I mentioned before, I had 2 extra cuts of chicken in the slow cooker, so a bit more sauce wouldn’t hurt.

Some sliced green onions, sesame seeds (if for no other reason than being able to say “Open Sesame!” when cracking the package…) and you’re good to go.  Spoon sauce over rice, add a veg, and you’re golden.

Overall this took about an hour to prep because I spent far too much time looking for substitutions.  I could bring that down to about 20 minutes with the right ingredients readily on hand and a bit more multi-tasking.  It was a Saturday.  I had some time.

Enjoy!

-g

Gah!

It has definitely been far too long since I sat down to type out a post on here.  My apologies.  It appears that after sitting down at a computer and typing all day, the farthest thing from my mind is doing the same when I get home.  That said, I have continued to do some recipe hunting and it most definitely continues to be Dad’s Turn To Cook around these parts.

Here’s one I have actually pulled out twice now.  And it is pretty well foolproof.  I will say one thing you will want to keep in mind if you’re making this one is that it works SO much better if you’ve remembered to thaw the roast prior to starting, if for no other reason than your cook time will be reduced, and you’ll have a much easier time searing the meat prior to starting things in the slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Pork Loin Roast

The recipe I just linked?  Follow that.  It’s amazing.  Fair warning, you will use a lot of dishes with this.  It is entirely worth it.  Now, a couple things that I ‘tweaked’.  I sliced up an onion to rest the roast on in the slow cooker.  I also sliced up a few apples to put in the bottom of  the slow cooker (use ones that don’t get too mushy).  That has an added benefit of adding a bit of sweetness to the honey -butter sauce in the recipe with the apple juices mingling in there, and you also get some flavour PACKED onion and apple that you can put on your pork slices when you’re plating things up.  Another added bonus is the extra fluids equal extra sauce and you will WANT to have as much of this sauce as you can get in your life.  I drenched the pork, I slathered it on top of the mashed potatoes I made as a side dish…and I still could have gone back for more.  Don’t skimp on the spices, and don’t worry about the cayenne making things too tangy.  My wife is very sensitive to ‘heat’ and she didn’t raise a red flag with the amount as directed.  It adds just a bit of kick, but the butter and honey really smooths things out.

Enjoy!

-g

I’m alive!  I’ve still been cooking, just sticking to some old familiar recipes that don’t take too long to get on the table to fend off the ravenous horde.  Not to worry, I’ve got some really interesting and fun ones.  But first!  It’s time for football playoffs and that means Football Food!

Around our house, Football Food is simply the name for one dish.  Bacon wrapped water chestnuts.  It sounds weird.  It’s delicious.  What better way to pack away roughly half a package of bacon and somehow not feel guilty?

It’s also amazingly easy to pull off.  Check out this ingredient list.

1.  Bacon.
2. Water chestnuts (whole)

That’s it.

Slice a pack of bacon down the middle.  Take a now shorter length of bacon, wrap it around a water chestnut, skewer with a toothpick and stick it on a baking sheet.  Once you run out of bacon (or water chestnuts) throw the pan in the oven with it set to broil until the bacon starts to look nice and crispy.  When they’re ready, put them on a plate covered in paper towel to soak up some of the fat, and you’re done.  Enjoy.  Try not to eat them all.  Unless your team is losing.  Or your team is winning and you’re celebrating.  It’s bacon.  There is no wrong way to do this people.

Go Stamps!

-g