German Rouladen & Potato Croquettes with an Orange-Strawberry Slushie for Dessert!

I had a mind-blowingly good rouladen at a restaurant a couple weeks ago, so when I saw rouladen-cut beef in the store I couldn't resist the challenge of making some myself. I used kosher pickles, spicy mustard, turkey bacon (had no "real" bacon in the house) and this recipe. It turned out quite nicely and the spicy mustard gave it a nice kick.

As a last minute decision for a side, I made German potato croquettes using this recipe (sort of). Nice and crispy on the inside, but soft and hot on the inside. Not pictured: the ton of sauerkraut also devoured with this meal. Because I forgot until after the camera was put away.

My friend gave me an ice-shaver for my birthday, so for dessert we made a slushie with orange juice and cut up fresh strawberries. SO GOOD. Like, so good. These are going to be a huge hit in the summer, I can already tell.

T gave me an ice-cream maker for my birthday too, I have a feeling my next entry will involve another type of cold/delicious treats!

-B

Potato Leek Soup with Turkey Sausage

Not really any fun story to go along with this one. Grabbed some leeks on a whim last week at the farmer's market and I figured it was time to use them or probably lose them. Looked around on my regular recipe sites and eventually decided on a sausage leek soup recipe off of Livestrong that was an adaptation from a sausage leek soup recipe on Epicurious which I then adapted myself.

First, I used just regular turkey sausage and cooked it in the pot before starting the veggies. Took the sausage out and set aside and then continued as normal. I cut the butter way down, because damn. I halved it and didn't use any butter at the beginning with the carrots and celery, just a tiny splash of vegetable oil instead. Also at the end I garnished with watercress.

Turned out that Boyfriend loves leek soup. How and why he hid this from me for the past (almost) 6 years I don't know.

Anyway, pictures:

Guava Pork Chops & Shredded Cabbage and Carrots

Similar to the inspiration for many of my dishes, boyfriend came along shopping at the farmer's market last week, spotted some guavas, and insisted we buy some. Never having seen a fresh guava before, never mind cooked with one, I was kind of stumped. I browsed some recipe sites, but was disappointed. Recipes either called for a guava marmalade/jam instead of fresh, or was a dessert. One thing I did notice, however, was that a lot of the marmalade/jam went with pork. Knowing I had pork chops in the freezer, I Googled for recipes and found this recipe, courtesy of Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (they specified Florida honey, Florida pork chops, and Florida guavas):


1 lb. boneless pork chops
1 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup Cabernet Sauvignon or any red wine
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup water
2 guavas, peeled, seeded, sliced thin 
 
Step One
Season pork chops with thyme, salt and pepper. Melt butter in skillet and brown pork chops over medium high heat on both sides.

Step Two
Add Cabernet Sauvignon, honey, water and sliced guavas. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. 

I totally missed the "seeded" part for the guavas. I'm kind of glad, because I think it had a lot more flavour that way. Otherwise it would have just been little rings that would have turned mushy and probably disappeared. Either way, the seeds are impossible to bite, so while it makes for a pretty picture, it makes it hard to eat. I'd recommend cooking with seeds but not serving with seeds.


For a side, I was looking for something with cabbage since I had a head of it waiting to be used in the fridge with no plans. I first was thinking coleslaw, but I then consulted my vegetarian cookbook and decided on this instead:

2 tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds (I used dry mustard)
1 small to medium sized head of green cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, shredded
honey
salt and pepper


Heat oil in a heavy saucepan with a lid. When it is hot, add the mustard seeds. 
When seeds begin to pop, pile in the shredded cabbage and carrots. Drizzle over honey and stir well. Turn down the heat, put on lid, and cook for 3 minutes or until just tender.
Season with salt and pepper and serve.

It was a learning experience for me with guavas, both in just cooking with them and also that they go very nicely with pork. The cabbage and carrots were warm but still nice and crisp and fresh with a hint of sweetness from the honey that paired well with the pork chops.


-B

Stuffed Peppers a la Phoenix & Colourful Black Bean Salad

So I'm way overdue on another post on this thing. The slacking off all started a couple of weeks ago now when boyfriend and I went to visit my parents at their place down in Arizona. We thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine, and the relaxation, and the plentiful food and drink. While we were there, we did a few touristy things, as it was boyfriend's first time down there. At one such place, I purchased a cookbook: "Best of the Best from Arizona, selected recipes from Arizona's favorite cookbooks".

We flew into the Bellingham airport on a dreary, rainy, depressing, cloudy, awful day, and immediately wished the plane would turn around and take us right back. Home sweet home. After a few days of being back, I started to flip through the cookbook and came across the two fantastic dishes pictured below.

Colourful Black Bean Salad:  (I made this ahead of time and put in the fridge while I made the stuffed peppers)
2 cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of corn kernels, drained
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1/4 red onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh basil, chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
roma tomatoes

Combine black beans, corn, red pepper, green onion, red onion, garlic, and basil in a bowl and mix well. In a smaller bowl, combine the salt and pepper, sugar, wine vinegar, and olive oil. Whisk until well mixed. Pour over the black bean salad mixture and mix together to coat everything in dressing. Cut the roma tomato top off and about 3/4 of the way up lengthwise. Scoop out seeds to create a little salad bowl, place on plate, and spoon in the salad.


Stuffed Peppers a la Phoenix: (I made a few changes from the recipe, but basically the same)
3/4 pound of ground chicken
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
1 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
4 poblano peppers
1 tbsp fresh parslet, chopped, for garnish

Turn oven on to a high broil, place the 4 poblanos on a baking sheet and into the oven. Once one side has started to blacken, flip over to cook the other side. Once both sides are cooked and blackened/peeling, switch the oven to bake at 350F. Let the poblanos cool off, and start to cook the chicken with the green pepper, cilantro, garlic, and salt and pepper. When the poblanos are cooled off enough to touch, cut off the top and stem area, and peel off the outer layer of skin. Also take a knife and scrape off the sides and take out all the seeds.Once the chicken is no longer pink, stir in half of the cheese. Spoon the filling into the peppers, and place them onto the baking sheet. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top of the peppers and bake until the cheese is melted. Garnish with parsley and serve.

I'm off to look through the pictures from our trip and daydream about sunlight.

Cheers,
-B

P.F. Chang's Bistro Home Style Edition


I am more than a little bit of a cookbook collector... maybe more along the lines of a compulsive addict really. I cannot go into a Costco without racing to the book section to see what new finds they have for me.

Well last summer we travelled to Alberta to attend the husband's cousins wedding in Lethbridge, and going the typical way an event with the cousins go, I found myself and cousin-in-law heading out to pick up snacks and beverages and low and behold what did they have a Costco!!! And may I mention a liquor barn Costco but that is another story. Well I politely pushed the cousin-in-law out of my way and raced to find my goodies. But what did I find?? That I had all the cookbooks already!! Well except for baking ones, and I suck at baking and don't like treats so don't have much use for them. Honestly I was a little confused, how could I go to Costco and not get a cookbook! It was unheard of for me. Then I noticed a lady to the left slowly put down a beautiful ( and not recognizable so I knew I did not own it already ) soft cover cookbook! "More of America's Most Wanted Recipes". Let me say I do not own the first edition of this book, but my best friend "A" does. She has spoke over the many years about the book, so I figured that justified me buying the new version. I quickly snapped it up from above mentioned women, whom I pretty sure only set it down for a second with full intentions of picking it back up again, but cookbook shopping is serious business and she should have been more on her game like I was. Success!!

Anyway I read the cookbook cover to cover on the drive back home with husband and found many recipes to try. I noticed that they had a lot of Chinese restaurants and seeing as one of my daughters (Marissa) requests "Asian inspired food" (her words) on a very regular basis, I figured the cookbook was a keeper. Being from Canada and the book being American I didn't know all the restaurants in the book, like P.F. Chang's Bistro. I figured it was just like Panda Express (also in the book) and Wok Box. Boy was I wrong. As I mentioned before Husband and I went to Portland Oregon for a weekend trip over Christmas. As we were wandering the streets trying to find the brew pub, husband was drooling to get to, we walked past a dimly lit classy looking restaurant! It was P.F. Chang's Bistro. We had no idea it wasn't a fast food restaurant. We headed to the brew pub, but my mind stayed on my cookbook. Couldn't wait to get home and choose which recipes "B" and I were going to try.

Well it took close to a month for us to make our own "P.F.Chang's Bistro Home Style Edition", but we did it and boy it was good!

Our menu consisted of Spicy Stir-fried Eggplant, Mongolian Beef and Garlic noodles. Unfortunatley Marissa did not get to try the eggplant or beef, but did try the noodles which she approved of, along with a promise from me to make the rest of the meal for her in the very near future!

Spicy Stir-fried Eggplant. B was in charge of this one and boy was it good!



Mongolian Beef. My job and turned out excellent as well if I do say so myself!



Garlic Noodles. We doubled the recipe so we had leftovers for lunch and even had extra for the Kids dinner the next day.

CHAI ICE CREAM

For my birthday last year, my in laws (Brian, Kim and Trey) gave me the ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid 600 Professional Stand Mixer, along with an awesome recipe book. "Iced 180 very cool concoctions" by Jane Lawson. I am not a dessert person at all, but I do like ice cream and I love my stand mixer, so this gift was absolutely perfect!

We decided to try this one to complement our Indian Gordon Ramsay night, and let me tell you it did not disappoint!

Again couldn't find recipes on line, so let me know if you are interested and I will email the recipe out.


First added all the ingredients to the creams.



Let simmer for a while, but made sure not to boil! Must keep watchful eye.

Strain all the solids through the cheese cloth and let cool. I made it the night before to make sure all chilled well.

Add chilled mixture to frozen ice cream attachment and let it do its thing. We did this step as soon as we plated dinner.

20 minutes later and voila! Homemade Chai Ice Cream!!
We popped this into the freezer while dinner settled and it firmed up a bit more.

It was so flavourful and creamy! What an easy way to wow your guests for an after dinner treat!

MONKFISH MOILEE & NAAN

Tonight was all about Gordon Ramsay! Mr. Ramsay himself is responsible for B and I getting together weekly to try new recipes and watch reality TV, one of our favourites being Hell's Kitchen! We haven't missed an episode yet. In the past we have made many of his other recipes as I already had 2 of his cookbooks. One purchased for myself "Family Fare" and the other being "Healthy Appetite" which my son Jeff bought me for Christmas last year. Both have excellent recipes in them if your looking for a new book. Well this past Christmas I was in Portland Oregon and went to Powell's City of books. http://www.powells.com/ Amazing place if you ever get to Portland. I found Gordon Ramsay's new book "100 of my favourite Indian Recipes Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape". I wanted it so bad, but being right before Christmas I felt I shouldn't buy myself something so I did the logical thing and bought if as part of B's Christmas gift! Hey, if I couldn't own it the next best thing was B having it, or so I thought. I was wrong!! The next best thing was receiving it as a gift from my daughter Brooke for Christmas!!! Now B and I both have it! Thanks Brooke!

So the following is the result of our of our new book. It was absolutely delicious. Neither Becky nor I had cooked with monk fish before so it really was a blind try for us. B took to cutting (dissecting) the monk fish tails while I got started on the naan. We had made naan before, but not this recipe. Turned out really good and definitely a do again! Hope you enjoy the photos as much as B, Husband, Brooke and I enjoyed eating it!

On a side note, our first entry "Chicken Biryani and Cauliflower Tandoori" are from this cookbook as well. Those were amazing too, so as far as I am concerned 4 recipes tried, 4 recipes loved, Cookbook success! Couldn't find the recipes on line to post, so if you would like the recipes just let me know and I can email them to you.

PS we made Chai Ice Cream for dessert. Check back later for that entry!