Category Archives: In the Kitchen

Our new cooker… charcoal!

In the Kitchen, ,

A true carnivore and grill man can never be satisfied with just a propane bbq.  How could it ever have the true bbq taste?

Today Jeff bought a $40 charcoal briquette Canadian Tire special.

She’s a beaut, isn’t she?

new charcoal BBQ

And we got the necessary accessories:new charcoal BBQ

Anyone remember how to do this?  new charcoal BBQ

Add a little fluid.new charcoal BBQ

Stand back and throw a match. And another…. and another….new charcoal BBQ

Woo hoo! We have fire!

And then nothing.

“This fluid isn’t as flammable as it used to be.”

Add more….new charcoal BBQ

YES! Fire ball! new charcoal BBQ

Hmmm. These aren’t completely graying over like the bag said.  Maybe they are no good. Maybe we were supposed to put them in a real pyramid, not just a quick pile.  Maybe we just wait.new charcoal BBQ

Tequila lime chicken is the carnivore dish of the day.  We had the chicken marinating over night in tequila, lime juice, orange juice, cilantro, and spices.new charcoal BBQ

Maybe if we close the lid it’ll get hotter….new charcoal BBQ

Mmmmmm the smell of the charcoal is so good. Takes me back to the hibachi days of my youth.  The smell of campgrounds and backyards.

I really want to peel off this sticker.  I suppose I’ll burn up.  What if I was just really fast.  Grab and rip like a bandaid.  ”Don’t you touch it,” Jeff said.new charcoal BBQ

OK enough waiting, time to GRILL!new charcoal BBQ

I wandered away for awhile.  Put a toque on. Winter boots. Whined about seeing my breath and cold hands.

Came back to find a fire had been relit :-) new charcoal BBQ

Finally, chicken is ready!!new charcoal BBQ

So delicious. Jeff made a killer potato salad too. I don’t like potatoes, but cover them with gunk and chunks and I’m in.

Jamie Oliver’s roasted potatoes are AMAZING!

In the Kitchen, , , ,

Jeff is a fan of the Food Network and I usually am not, however I now get into the cooking competitions.  So many of the words I don’t know and it is such an ego driven line of work to be a top chef, although the same could be said of any profession.

Usually I watch them make something complicated and wonder why on earth is anyone going to all this effort? I will eat it just as quickly whether it took you 5 minutes to prepare or 5 hours.

I like the shows that are easy, with simple recipes. Michael Smith is like that, so I like his shows.  And now I like Jamie Oliver (never watched him before).  In December we watched a couple of Jamie Oliver’s Christmas specials. He uses measurements like “2 good lugs of olive oil”.  I like it.  I was most intrigued by his roast potatoes.  I didn’t get a chance to make them when we had guests, but today Jeff put a crock pot full of chicken thighs on to cook during football and I seized the chance.

I made this recipe: Perfect roast potatoes and used some tips from this recipe Roast potatoes, parsnips & carrots to add carrots to the potatoes.

The chicken was cooking in spaghetti sauce, and Jeff took out a bunch of liquid, fat, and sauce earlier in the afternoon. I used that liquid chicken fat and butter for the potatoes and carrots, and added lots of garlic and rosemary we had dried from our garden. And I seasoned it with ground black pepper and sea salt.

It was amazing.  AMAZING. The crispy potatoes were so worth the effort (probably a couple of hours).  I loved the sea salt that was roasted into the crispness.  And I’ve never tasted such flavour in a carrot.  Boiling carrots is just simply not the way to do carrots.  This recipe somehow made the carrots oranger and incredibly delicious.

 

Sweet potatoes for Julie?

In the Kitchen,

Dear sister Julie,

We saw those sweet potatoes you mentioned you would like for Christmas.

But they just seemed so pretty right where they were, and every sweet potato we might buy would certainly be one sweet potato less in the cart of someone who actually likes sweet potatoes.

So instead I just took a pretty picture of sweet potatoes for you.

Merry Christmas.Sweet potatoes for Julie

Homemade granola experiment

In the Kitchen, , , ,

I never though of making my own granola. I wince everytime I buy a box because it is so expensive, but then I saw a fellow blogger mention making her own granola, easily, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

We bought the bulk ingredients weeks ago and today I finally took the plunge.

I read many recipes, and then decided to settle on the recipe I found on our local honey producer’s website, and I made a few tweaks.

I didn’t use the coconut, or sesame seeds, and I added crushed pecan and walnut bits.

I used my homemade apple sauce I canned a couple years ago.

Here it is out of the oven:

And closer up:

As soon as it cools and dries, I’ll add raisins and dried cranberries.

Update!

I mixed in golden raisins and dried cranberries. I froze 3 ziplock bags, but kept some out for breakfast. AND FOR RIGHT NOW!

Best granola I ever had!! Glad I didn’t put coconut in it. Dried cranberries are really good in it.

Easy breakfast!

I might have just made the best lasagna the world has ever tasted…

In the Kitchen, ,

Okay what ever you do, don’t tell my Mom because she makes the best lasagna.

However, I may have just topped it.

To try something new, I made a crockpot lasagna.   I originally wanted to make a spinach veggie one, but I only had the ingredients for the normal beef one, so I gave it a whirl.

I used this recipe as a base:

http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-lasagna-21706/

WOW. It is so moist. And cheesey. And delicious. And way easier than oven lasagna!

It only took 3 hours on the highest of the low settings, if that makes sense!

I should have added mushrooms though – I missed those.

OH and don’t forget – I learned by reading the comments first – add 1.5 cups of water when you turn the crockpot on so it doesn’t burn. Don’t worry, the noodles soak it up. Just pour it around the edges.

I used whole wheat lasagna noodles.  You use normal lasagna noodles, not the easy no-bake kind, and they cook while they are in the crockpot! So no more boiling noodles and then tossing them with eggs so they don’t all stick together, and then they stick anyway, and then you wish you weren’t making lasagna. This is easy cheesy!

5 stars!

He better be kidding!

In the Kitchen, ,

Jeff is at the grocery store and just sent me a note saying “Guess what is for supper!?!” and this photo is attached. (click on photo for larger version)

Fresh eels

Yes, those are fresh eels in the foreground.

I offered to sleep at work.

He said he’s wearing them like a necklace.

I said, I’m so blogging this.

He said he is really thinking about trying them.

I said, Wait until I am not home because I will FREAK OUT.

To which he responded, So green salad with that?

And I answered, Whatever you want, but I’m not touching them, smelling them, or looking at them.

The End (Or else)

So sore, a good sore I think, turkey is here, gum drop squares are in the oven

In the Kitchen, , , ,

OK, Quick updates on this Tuesday night (I could have sworn it was Wednesday already),

  • I’m making gum drop squares for our Christmas luncheon at work tomorrow. My mom’s gum drop squares were always one of my most favourite parts of Christmas. I’d take gum drop squares over anything on a sweet tray. My FAV! Unfortunately there are no little sized gum drops in the stores here for baking so I have to buy the big tubs of the big jujubes at Walmart and then cut each gumdrop into at least 8 little pieces. This is not easy. This is not fun. This takes a really long time. Finding out the pan I used was too big and I had to start all over again, remaking the recipe I had already doubled just to fill the pan wasn’t fun either. (I’m pretty sure I did the same thing last year. Maybe I should be smart enough to write it on the recipe card this time.)
  • Gumdrop squares are in the oven right now.
  • I’m incredibly sore. This is week #3 of my standing desk experiment. My feet are doing better, but my neck and shoulders and collar bones are so stiff and sore. I know that sitting in a chair for 10 years straight has given me horrific posture. Standing fixes this posture. But my body is very sore as it realigns itself. Sitting isn’t a relief, it actually hurts more.
  • I find I’m doing stretches, squats, and dance moves most of the day while I work.
  • At end of the day I feel alive. I worked some wickedly difficult physical labour jobs back in the 90′s (tree planting, brush saw operator, hole digger for Hydro, tree chipper, etc. etc.) and the best part of those jobs is I would feel like I did something by the end of the day. I felt alive. I felt sore, and tired, and dirty, and I loved it. I have no sense of satisfaction with a desk job. But just the difference of standing all day makes me feel like I did something because my body is so tired at the end of the day. Amazing how a simple change can affect the rest of my life.
  • Using all these muscles now, especially in my mid-section, has made a noticeable difference. I am rediscovering my lost figure. OK it is way deep in there, but my muscles are coming back to life and I feel like I did a set of my old curl-ups (remember back in ’92 when I used to do 800 crunches a night? I can’t do 8 now. haha!) But I’m loosing some pudge and I’ve done nothing different but stand instead of sit at my desk.
  • We went across the lake to pick up our Christmas turkey tonight. Our neighbours across the lake, who we recently met, raised eastern wild turkeys in their turkey yard this year. We got a freshly plucked 11 pounder. They said they heard the turkey is best to sit in the fridge for 24 hours to sit before it is frozen (like how you hang a deer? Dunno?) so Mr. Turkey is chilling in our Frigidaire.
  • Oh the turkey raisers also said that wild turkeys tend to be drier meat, so they cook it with strips of bacon below and above the turkey. Yum! Sounds like half the ingredients to a good club sandwich
  • Our Christmas gifts went in the mail to our families back in Ontario too. The shipping cost almost as much as the presents. Where on earth is all this money going that Canada Post collects for shipping?
  • Our tree is up. Earliest I’ve ever had a Christmas tree up. But so far we haven’t fully decorated it yet. The lights are on it and the string of tinsel garland, and the angel, and now Jeff thinks he likes it perfectly fine as it is. It’ll get decorated soon though. As soon as I find the box of decorations. They aren’t in the big rubbermaid container with all of our other Christmas decorations.
  • Gumdrop squares are done now. I covered the hot tray of squares with a cooling rack so I hope the cats don’t get hungry or that will be a real disaster. Time to unplug all the Christmas lights and head to bed. By the way, we got to see our Christmas lights tonight from across the lake in our neighbour’s house. They can see our LED’s across the lake! What a sense of pride. It brings out the Griswold in me I think :-) If only we had a bucket truck for roof and dormer lights!

New Bread Recipe – 100% Whole Wheat

In the Kitchen, ,

I just tried a new recipe for 100% whole wheat bread.

This one is a real winner! It’s almost as light as store-bought bread, but it is 100% whole wheat (the whole wheat bread in the store often isn’t).

Usually the whole grain breads I’ve made are thick and brick-like, but this one is a winner!

(Mind you, it only came out of the oven 15 minutes ago, but we’ve each already had a slice and it won our approval!).

Here is the link to the recipe I used:

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=12628.0

For the raw sugar, I used Turbinado sugar.

Here they are:

Bread

Bread

Bread

One was smaller than the other so I guess I should do a better job choppin’ the dough ball in half next time.

Speaking of choppin’, Jeff cut down a bunch more alders over to the left of the following picture, and took down 3 big spruce out front. This spring the trees on the steep slope were cutting out our view completely, but Jeff’s been working away at it, and the view is getting better and better! The trick is to keep just enough to keep some privacy when all the boats are out on the lake in the summer, but enough so we can see the sparkle of the lake.

Our View

Zesty Mexican Soup – SO GOOD!

In the Kitchen, , , , ,

I am not much of a soup lover, unless it was made by my Grandma Verkley.

And I’ve never successfully made made a soup from scratch that was edible.

But today… I SUCCEEDED!

I made “Zesty Mexican Soup” using this recipe:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=recipe&dbid=30

It is full of vegetables and other good things, including:

  • collard greens
  • black beans
  • cilantro
  • corn
  • green chilies
  • diced tomatoes
  • green pepper
  • garlic
  • onion
  • pumpkin seeds

First time I’ve ever had collard greens I think! First time I bought any for sure.

Jeff liked it too, except he hates cilantro and found it a little too strong, so I’d use less cilantro for him next time. He also said he’d make it spicier, but he likes to torture his taste buds with heat.

It isn’t cooked very long – really it is just heated up – so everything tastes DELICIOUS.

It was good and spicy too.

I rate this recipe a 5/5 for taste and it was super easy too (especially when your handsome husband helps with the choppin’!)

We’re thinking about making a big batch to freeze or can!

Toaster shopping!

In the Kitchen, ,

I can’t say that Jeff is the best person to go toaster shopping with.

He gets a little impatient, and then gets serious and picks out a model he likes, then sighs heavily while his wife checks out the reviews on her iPhone, and then encourages me to get whatever I want.

However, he did go to *THREE* stores with me, probably the only 3 stores in town that stock toasters.

And he did hold himself together when I took photos in all the toaster isles.

So overall, it was a lot of fun, but probably more so for me than for Jeff.

So guess which one we came home with?

Well….

It is sort of a trick question.

Because….

We came home with *TWO* toasters! :D

First we went to Walmart.

Walmart's toaster isle

Walmart didn’t have a lot of selection, and not all of the display models had boxes to match. But we did get to actually TOUCH the toasters, and play, and look at colours, smudge-ability, and debate if we wanted 2 slices or 4.

All the toasters seem to come with a bagel setting, a defrost setting, and a warm-it-up setting.

After my brother and I debated all day about the bagel setting, I read the boxes, and it seems that bagel setting toasts the cut side of a bagel and warm up the other side.

After about 15 minutes we decided to bail and head for Canadian Tire. Surely they’d have more selection and we’d find “The Toaster”.

So here is Canadian Tire’s toaster isle:

Canadian Tire's toaster isle

They did not have demo models to play with, and there wasn’t that much to really choose from. Jeff didn’t like the stainless steel and black one, because our appliances are all white, but the white toaster looked really gawdy, so the black and stainless steel won out!

Plus it was $15 off! We went for a 4 slice, Black and Decker model.

Then we remembered we had to get groceries, and that is when Jeff remembered the Atlantic Superstore has appliances.

Doh! I bet *THEY* will have “The Toaster” of our dreams.

Atlantic Superstore's toaster isle

And they did.

It’s a chrome toaster, made by President’s Choice. And it is a 4-slicer, OR a 2-long slicer!

I first saw a toaster with long slits last year at my friend Jen’s house in Thunder Bay. What a genius idea! Now when you use long bread, or homemade bread, you don’t have to flip it over to toast the other end! And the price isn’t bad either!

So that means the Black and Decker beauty will not even leave it’s box… or the car… and I’ll return it on Monday. Sorry toaster… so close….

So without further adieu, here is our new toaster!

Our new toaster

Our new toaster

By the way…

Cauliflower is still not affordable:

Cauliflower - $3.99