Caramel Popcorn: My fav

My favorite munchies snack, which i really screwed up the first time i made it. So my housemates believed i couldn't make popcorn from actually kernels. Its pretty simple.

Firstly you need to make the popcorn.
In a pot at med height

• put a bit of canola oil (1 tb is enough)
  
• sprinkle the kernels on top (watch out to not put too much)
• place lid on top and give a few good shakes
  

Keep on burner continually shaking once the corn has started popping. Making sure it doesnt burn at the bottom. Once it is popped add

• olive oil
• salt/pepper
• Caramel?
  

Now how to make caramel. Put

• butter and sugar in saucepan. Turn on med than high, till it bubles. (STIR and Watch)

once its bubbling and all saturated

• add touch of milk and vanilla extract and stir them all together. till they become a single caramel.

Rainbow Cake: the ultimate Spectacle

This was a multipart Cake. SO i started off by making the batter which consisted of.

• 1 c sugar
• 1/2 c butter (melted)

i beat that all together and i added

• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 of a vanilla bean

Beat that all together than sift in

• 3/2 c all-purpose flour
• 7/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup of milk

Than beat the egg whites in another bowl and fold into the above batter.

Now this is where it gets fun, but hectic. Divide the batter into 5-10 bowls, depending on how many colors you want to make. we made 6, purple/blue/green/yellow/orange /Red
with food coloring

• 

Than we layered them one color at a tip into pans. We did them in opposite ways, which made a cool effect. We than

• baked in oven at 350 F for 25ish min

Hopefully they look something like this



Finally i made the icing. I mixed

• 1/2 c of butter (melted)
• 1/4 c of milk
• 3/2 c of icing sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean

Beat that together than put into fridge. (Add more icing sugar if you want it thicker.)

Once cakes are cool, coat with Icing and than

• sprinkle m&ms on top
• design candy
• make even more delicious?
  

So yea, basically the final product is something like htis.

Blue Potato Balls

These look very strange, but they are really really tasty with a hint of something different.
Firstly i

• cooked up some chopped blue potatoes in boiling water
• drained water
• mashed potatoes
  
• added olive oil
• my black bean sauce
• sliced up green onion
• chiptole spice
• mustard
• grated cheddar cheese
  

Once that was all mixed together i than spooned it into that shape (the way they do on iron chef) and put it into oven at 400 to give a quick harder shell.

Duck is not easy, but Tasty

Duck a la penn.
Now i gotta be honest, this was my first attempt and i totally over cooked it, but i can at least tell you guys my recipe for it, cause it was still tasty.

Once the duck was defrosted, i put it into ziplock bag with

• soy sauce
• ginger
• garlic
• honey
• water
• chili pepper

and left it in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Take it out and start to steam duck for 45 min in a steamer. The fat should drip off, and the duck should be quite lean after this step.

Proceed to put a cast iron pan in oven at 430. Once heated, put duck in for 10 min.

Take duck off pan and use the residual oil to cook up some chopped up char.

I'm not exactly sure where i over cooked it, but will try...and try again.

Pigs in a blanket. More like tastyness wrapped in goodness.

Proper pigs in a blanket. Now we all know about the puff pastry surrounding a small hot dog as a tastry treat, but as i had left over dough I decided to play with the recipe and indulge myself.

The bread was from the previous night.:
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/04/pesach-is-over-bread-time.html

I than cooked a tasty sausage on the BBQ. Giving it a crispy outside, and cooked inside.
Once taken off the BBQ, I put the sausage in some rolled out dough. I proceeded to roll it all up with

• some mustard
• BBQ sauce.

I put this all into oven at 350 for 10ish min. or til brown on outside

I had with a side salad of greens.

Pesach is over: Bread Time

So this was my celebratory bread that i ate AFTER pesach ended.

Basically it was made with a normal bread recipe.

firstly, in a small bowl add

• packet of active dry yeast
• 1 c of warm water

Combine

• 3/2 c of flour
• 1 tb sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tb oil or butter

Combine with yeast and stir well, than proceed to add

• 5/4 c of flour

Now i let this all sit in the fridge for a few hours. I proceeded to take it and make it into a pizza shape, where i added a chocolate sauce made of:

• butter
• chocolate
• touch of milk
• cinnamon

and made kind of a pain of chocolate. I also sprinkled cinnamon sugar on the top to give it a shiny look and more cinnamon flavour.

I put it all into oven at 350 for 20ish min.

BBQ Marinated Beef Over Crispy Chow Mein

So this was a full meal, though each step was pretty simple.
Firslty i marinated the meat, with

• BBQ sauce
• soy sauce
• ginger

for a few hours. Than i proceeded to cook the chow mein.

• Firstly put chowmein in boiling salty water to cook
• take out, drain, rinse and drain again
• finally put it in a pan with some oil and fry up
• add some green onions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce (to taste)

While this is frying, add the marinated meat onto a BBQ, quick sear on both sides

I also made a drink/sauce that consisted of

• lemon grass
• ginger
• chili pepper (only a touch)

it all tasted kind of like tea, but in a tastier and fresher fashion, was good as broth or just to drink alone.

Chili Chicken W. Rice

Chicken is so simple to make, especially for just one person. I had some cooked rice already so in a saucepan i put chicken surrounded by

• finely chopped ginger
• soy sauce
• sugar
• touch of garlic
• chipotle chili powder
  
• salt/pepper
• coriander
• bit of water

Put it on high, and let it all steam/cook off so it glazes the chicken nicely.
Now take chicken out till coated nicely and put rice in, to suck up the last bits of juice from chicken.

Enjoy

Classic Chicken Caesar

This is an easy simple Caesar recipe where the amounts vary from person to person. I have also added some chicken which was left from the previous night and fried it up with a touch of olive oil.

Caesar Dressing:

• Olive oil (for base)
• Lemon juice (as acid)
  
• egg yolk (to hold together/texture)
• Garlic (flavour)
• Worcestershire sauce (flavour)
• dijon mustard (flavour/acid)
• anchovies (flavour)
• cayenne pepper (spice)

Beat these all together than add P

• Parmesan Cheese till it is nice and thick

Now toss this with a sliced up Romain lettuce which has been washed and drained and ENJOY!

Place chicken on top, on side or where ever.

Big Salad W. beets/cucumber

Salads are hugely important for me, and this was once again a BIG salad creation from stuff in the fridge.

The best way to start is with a base of mixed greens from which you can just add and add or have it plain. I decided to also add some

• sliced up cucumber
• roasted beets
• arugula
• and some carrots

For the sauce i played around yet again and made one up of

• olive oil
• lemon juice
• garlic
• salt/pepper
• mustard
• touch of honey (for sweetness)
  

• 
  

Fried Up steak

So we had eaten an amazing dinner the night before and had some left over steak which was cold and kind of bland.
SO i put it into a saucepan with

• a touch of soy sauce
• a cayenne pepper
• garlic
• maple syrup
  

And fried it up till it was all coated and slightly glazed. Than we all chowed down.

Pretzle Mania

So this recipe took some time, but was so delicious and you can have some fun with it at the end.

Firstly, in a small bowl add

• packet of active dry yeast
• 1 c of warm water

Combine

• 3/2 c of flour
• 1 tb sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tb oil or butter

Combine with yeast and stir well, than proceed to add

• 5/4 c of flour

Knead all this for 3 min, and into a ball. Put in bowl cover with damp towel and let sit for an hour, or till its doubled in size.

Now you have your dough, and devide them up as you will. I devided mine into 10 or 12 peieces, and proceeded to roll them out long and thin, than to have fun. I also added

• maple syrup
• parmesan cheese
• olive oil
• salt/pepper
• chocolate/ sugar mixture
  

to all of it, and had some fun and it was pretty great.

It onto a tray and in oven at 450 F for 8-10 min.

Dampers' Banana Bread

So this is the first recipe that is not really mine per say. This is Dampers' (housemate in hamilton) Banana Bread and cause we made it look so good, well I had to take a photo and post it. So here it the recipe.
Combine in a biggish sized bowl

• 7/4 c Flour
• 5/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2/3 cup sugar

In another smaller bowl,

• beat 2 eggs
• add 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 c of canola oil (or butter)

Mix with flour mixture. And proceed to add

• a cup or more of mashed banana
• tb of milk

Fold this all together and proceed to add whatever else you enjoy, such as

• Chocolate
• Nuts
• smarties, gosh anything that is sweet haha

Bake in oven at 350 F for 60ish min. or according to Dampers when a wooden tooth pick inserted comes out clean

Enjoy!

Flourless Chocolate blueberry cake

So my goal was too make recipes for passover that were actually tasty and not the bland stuff we are always used to. Now this is not due to bad cooking, but due to the fact you must make a ton of food for far too many people, and than you cant cook it fresh. So this was a recipe i did a bit earlier during the day. It was quite tasty.

Blueberry Sauce:
So firstly i boiled down a pot full of frozen blueberries, with some water, maple syrup and a touch of cinnamon. This was than put into blender and sieved out so that it was a nice and smooth consistency.

Melt following in a double boiler: (bowl ontop of pot with boiling water)

• 4 ounces chocolate
  
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter

add each, one at a time

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder

Now put this into an 8 inch baking pan and drizzle and mix some of the blueberry sauce throughout the the chocolate cake mixture.

Now put into oven at 375 for 25ish min.

Strawberries w. 'Stereotypically Mexican' Chili Chocolate

Seeing as most of the strawberries we get nowadays come from California, even the scrumptious organic ones i feel that having it with some Mexican flavor truly gives the essence of Californian strawberries. (I have recently found out that Mexican Chocolate is made with cinnamon Not chili, Thanks Dave, So really, this is stereotypical Mexican chocolate, cause common, chili powder and chocolate sounds quite Mexican to my Australian self) I must also add that I love some spice, and as my dad would say a little too much but these were so delectable that well i felt i needed to share this common recipe.

'Stereotypically Mexican' Chili Chocolate sauce:

• Usually use the bowl ontop of pot with steaming water but as i was melting with some butter and was lazy i used a saucepan

In a saucepan at LOW add

• chopped up chocolate
• touch of butter
• chilli powder
• lime rind

as this begins to melt start stirring with a spatula.

Now dip the strawberries into the melted chocolate and put onto a tinfoil sheet. Proceed to put into fridge to let the chocolate set.

The RumBall Feat. Ken

So tonight we have a bottle of captain morgans. It's Kate's birthday and a few drinks are needed at said moment. In the middle of exams I have few times to sit back and relax so I will take this one and do some blogging.

So I have decided to feature other chefs, friends and well people who come up with interesting ideas.

This drink coined the rumball by none other than Ken. is delicious scrumptious and not deadly. It consists of

• heated up chocolate milk with extra chocolate melted
  
• Steam or froth till desired frothyness

In a cup add

• about an ounce of spiced or well any rum will do
  
• add a touch of maple syrup to rum
• than pour in the frothy hot chocolate

to this you can add

• some espresso
• whipped cream
• cinnamon stick
  
• ice cream
• or well anything that involves, cream sugar or chocolate.

My favourite soup up to this point in time.

After making the duck broth i decided to make one of my favorite soup. Sweetcorn soup.

So the soup was simply made of

• my freshly made duck broth (see below)
• Cooked sausage (mexican style), sliced
  
• cooked rice
• can of creamed corn
• salt/pepper

http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/04/duck-broth.html

This soup was seriously amazing and i highly suggest it.

• 
  

Duck Broth

So i decided to buy a duck a few weeks ago. I went to this Chinese grocery store and bought a full duck. I came home, and cut it into quarters at home. Only to realize that well the body has barely Any meat. But i still decided to freeze it, and golly gee was i glad.

Today had a stressful start, but has been going better and I got the mock up cookbook So i was quite excited. Therefore i decided to start cooking up my duck.

I put the entire duck body (without wing) into a pot with boiling water. I than took off all the foam and put down to a simmer.

I than added

• chicken stolk bouillion
• 1 large carrot sliced
• 1 onion sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic
  
• lemon pepper
• soy sauce
• brown sugar
• salt

I cooked for an hour and a half on low, slightly covered.

Super Simple...Pasta

Simple Pasta made just before bed time.

Cook pasta till all dente (a little hard)

• Drain, than add the following
• olive oil
• garlic
  
• Touch of chili powder
• Chopped handful of arugula
• lemon juice
  
• salt/pepper
  

Late night dinner: Seared steak, beets and salad.

I was so hungry and had marinated this steak in

• Garlic
• soy sauce
• honey
• ginger

over night, and and needed other veggies so i also added beets and mixed salad.

Beets were done with:
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/04/beets-try-4.html

Post Thunderheist Potatoes

These potatoes are basically what i always do.

Dice them up: Add spices such as

• olive oil
  
• chipotle powder
• garlic
• salt
• lemon pepper

Once cooked, (420 F for 40ish min) grate some cheddar cheese on top

Tasty Tuna

I was starving and decided to break open a can of tuna. I soon realized that i didnt know how to prepare it so i threw it in a big bowl and added some.

• olive oil
• diced carrots
  
• cajun spice
• chipotle spice
  
• salt/pepper
  

Cook the sausage with some water, cover with lid.

Put

• Sliced Cabbage and sliced apple in saucepan.
• Cook up with Balsamic Vinegar and maple syrup
• chipotle powder

Put in shallow bowl.

Slice cooked sausage and put back in pan, cooking it up.

Place sausage ontop of Cabbage and Apple

not just a big Salad. A HUGE Salad

This was not just a big salad. It was a HUGE salad. It consisted of:

• mixed greens
• cooked beets
• chopped carrots
• diced cheddar

The Dressing was a little more complicated used

• Damper's Jerk dressing
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• lemon juice
• salt/pepper

Sesame Curry Fried Tofu

One of my favourite recipes, the Sesame Tofu but with some curry powder in their too.
• Medium firm tofu diced up and dried
• Roll around with sesame seeds, flour touch of yellow curry powder

Fry this all up in some oil to give a nice crispy exterior.

Chocolate Chicken: try 3

I know it does not looks totally amazingly appetizing, but I tried Chocolate Chicken for the third time. and it tasted Great simple ingredients:
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Cajun spice
• Dark Chocolate (cut up)
Put all in tin foil, put in oven at 350 for 20 minutes.

Beets: try 4

Cooked beets in oven in tinfoil with olive oil, salt/pepper. Sliced them up and than made a dressing out of
• Lemon juice
• Mustard
• Maple syrup
• Salt/pepper

Homemade Bread Sandwich

Ive been waiting to eat the rest of my bread or a while, so I finally decided to make a sandwich with it. I toasted the bread than added
• turkey
• cheddar cheese
• mixed greens
• mustard
• bbq sauce
• touch of mayo

bread recipe:
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/white-bread-w-something-extra.html

Pasta for Lunch: Rocket Pasta Altered

this recipe is based off of my arugula, lemon pasta
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/rocket-pasta.html

I cooked following in olive oil

• mushrooms
• garlic
• added a bit of sliced salami

mixed this with cooked pasta, with some arugula and lemon juice, salt/pepper

Simple yet exquisite

Curried Squid

Decided to try some curried squid cause its a home favourite. I still need to work on the recipe, tonight i tried

• Yellow Curry powder
• Garlic
• Lemon grass
• Salt/pepper
• Cayenne pepper
• Ginger
• Coriander
• Olive oil
• Onion

Put all into a bag, than cooked in saucepan

Diced Roasted Potatos w/ cajun spice

So simple to make

• dice potatoes, put in bowl
• add garlic and olive oil...mix
• put on pan, sprinkle salt/pepper on top
• sprinkle cajun spice

Put in oven at 420 for 35 minutes.
Top off with some cheddar cheese. MMM

Maple Chorizo Sausage

Chorizo sausage with maple and apple. but i forgot the apple.

• Chorizo sausage sliced up in fry pan add
o Maple extract
o Balsamic vinegar
o Touch of brown sugar
o Salt/pepper

Bake Potato Brunch

Not a huge brunch maker, but I was super hungry so I made eggs with:

• garlic
• sliced salami/sliced turkey
• salt/pepper

I also had one of my baked potatoes:
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/baked-potato-try-2.html

and a side salad of mixed greens with balsamic/olive oil dressing