Good Grub: 3/1/09

30.3.09

Chocolate Chicken

I tried it again. Chocolate chicken try 2
• Dark Chocolate
• Garlic
• Lemon rind
• Lemon juice
• Pepper/salt
• Cayenne pepper
• Touch of olive oil
• Touch of cocoa powder and sugar
Wrapped in tinfoil
• Oven at 400 for 20. Than BBQ.

Baked Potato: Try 2

Baked potato with
• Sliced salami
• Sauce made with
o Olive oil
o Mustard
o Maple syrup
• Parmasan cheese
Wrapped up and put in oven at 400

Seen here with Chocolate Chicken.
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/chocolate-chicken_30.html

Argentinian Lemon Dressing

Simple salad dressing from a great Argentinian
• Lemon juice
• Garlic
• Olive oil
Salt/pepper

Cinnamon Apple W/ Maple Caramel

This recipe is so simple. and easy to cook. Basically

Grate an apple per person
add some cinnamon

Put all this into a sauce pan at medium with lid on. cook it up. Stirring occasionally.

Maple Caramel Sauce: mix following in saucepan

Butter and Sugar, till bubbling and mixed together
add maple extract and a bit of milk

Stir while it bubbles than add it onto the top of grated apples.

Roasted Potato

Roasted a potato
Cut a hole in the top, and added a mixture of
• olive oil
• maple syrup
• garlic
• Dijon mustard
• Parmesan sprinkled on top
Put back into oven till brown on top

CHicken: ginger/garlic soy??

This chicken pretty simple, but it was BBQd.
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Soy sauce
• Cayenne powder
• Sesame seeds

So simple, gonna be tasty.

29.3.09

Chocolate Chicken

This one is really strange. But decided that it was worth trying out. Basically I put some
• Cocoa powder and sugar from donut glaze
• Salt/pepper
• Ginger
• Dark chocolate (chopped up)
• Touch of garlic
• Sesame oil
With the chicken, than wrapped it in tin foil and put in oven too cook. Once kind of cooked and juices kept together i put it on the BBQ for a second it was so great.

Salad: take 12821

Mixed green with sliced beef on top. The dressing on the salad was made separately, with
• Olive oil
• Vinegar
• Salt/pepper
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Touch of Soy sauce
• Touch of maple syrup
This was all mixed together than tossed with salad and sliced beef on top.

Beets: try 3

So had some cooked beets, so i sliced them up and added the following as a dressing. Another tasty recipe if you like beets.

Toasted sesame oil
Seasoned rice vinegar
Ginger sliced
Sea salt/pepper
Touch of garlic

Added some sliced lettuce and ate it all up.

Post Food Festival Munchies

Saturday night, after a long day of school work, soccer and working on my cook book, Adam and i ventured out to the food and drink festival. When we arrived, the festival was so full, with a massive line up. We ended up meeting the people behind us, as they were describing kangaroo, which is a delicious meat. They were far too kind, and gave us some tickets as we forgot the get money out of the ATM. We walked around the crowded room, trying samples from here and there from the local hamiltonians and places from the surrounding suburbs. Carefully using our tickets we managed to try everything we wanted to, and were very impressed by the ethnic food, and spices, though some of the americanized food was pretty decent. To finish off the relaxing and delicous night i grabbed a pear and some blue cheese.

sliced pear
blue cheese
balsamic glaze

though i dont have balsamic glaze with me right now, definitely makes this snack much more tasty and gives it that extra shazam.

Post Hot Flashes Brunch

Friday night, was well quite amazing to say the least. Started off with critical mass, which i will honestly say I am not a fan of. Critical mass is a group of bike activists who bike together once a month, maybe a week, and many just enjoy pissing off cars. Now i feel this is rediculous, especially as a cyclist who bikes to school everyday, and just bikes everywhere. I don't want to piss off cars, but i do want to make my presence known. So i tried it out, than headed to the best polish food i have ever had. We had too much, so i brought some home and went out dancing. So, in the morning i reheated everything in a pan, with some hot sauce and it was a great start to the day.
Their were

cabbage rolls (i took off the cabbage skin and just ate the insides)
veggies
garlic amazing potatoes

As i said, i added some hot sauce and munched away.

27.3.09

Fried Chicken. Part 2

So I made a mistake with the chicken. I guess the insides were not fully defrosted so once i ate all the delicious skin

i ripped the rest off the bone
covered with some bread crumbs
put back into oil for frying

I than put that with my bread i had made before and made a fried chicken sandwich. Tasted great, though not as great as the skin was, and sort of sad that it did not work out at first, but that is cooking.

Breakfast for Physics

So this was two recipes that i used and well ate them seperatly but they were so tasty. The recipes for the following were

Cucumber, Onion, Beet salad
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/stats-snack.html
I also added some sliced carrots to this

Ground chicken with sweet chili sauce
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/sticky-chili-chicken.html
I fried this up, pretty simple but still great.

Fried Chicken

My own fried chicken recipe… who knows.
So firstly I mixed:
• Flour
• Bread crumbs
• Coriander
• Salt/pepper
• Jerk sauce
Lets see how this works. Could be totally fun. haha

24.3.09

Vanilla Saffron Poached Pears

Seriously amazingly great. I made them with some saffron cause i really miss the stuff, but if you leave it out its still amazing and easy to do.

Peel pears
Put water, vanilla, sugar, saffron in a pot
add pears to boiling mix
set to simmer for 30ish minutes (depends on how ripe pears were)

One of my favorite desserts that i make.

Beet Cucumber Salad

Found this recipe online and personalized it with the ingredients I have. Decided this would be great for a mid stats snack, and definitely tasty as anything.

Firstly I put a beet, wrapped in tinfoil, into the oven at 400F. Once cooked, sliced up and put onto a plate with:

A sliced up cucumber and a finely sliced small sweet onion.

For dressing I used
• Honey
• Vinegar
• Dijon mustard
• Olive oil

Which was drizzled on top. Enjoy

Post Tutorial Brunch

Okay, so this tutorial really needs to be explained because it is kind of a brutal story. Firstly, i wake up at 9:20 in the morning to get to the tutorial and when I do, our group has done the wrong chapter, our recorder does not show and just was an overall strange hour. Fortunately it ended early and I came home and made this fabulous brunch.

Mixed green salad with a simple olive oil, balsamic dressing

My homemade bread, that I just made last night. with a little bit of pesto

Finally breakfast favorite at home, Sliced salami heated up in a saucepan.

Add a cup of joe and your great.
All together its a great thing.

White Bread w/ something extra

Bread recipe is a simple bread recipe. Start with
• 2 (8 g) packages of rapid rise yeast, sprinkled in
• ½ cup of war, water
Let sit for 5 min, till a creamy foam

Combine:
• 2 tb, olive oil
• 7 cups of flour
• 3/2 tsp salt
• ½ tsp of white sugar (maple syrup)

Add yeast mixture and than add 7/4 cups of water

Knead for 7-10 min, till it has formed together. Than let sit and put in bowl with some olive oil and a damp rag on top. Let it sit till it doubles, around an hour.

This is where I split the loaves up and added some spices, and flavors. The first loaf I mixed in
• Sliced olives
• Thyme leaves
• Sun dried tomatoes
• Olive oil

The second loaf I just mixed in:
• Maple syrup and I made a maple caramel sauce on top.

SO DELICIOUS

Maple Chips

Similar to the chips from the chicken and chips recipe, I basically

sliced up some potato,
drenched in cold water
dried it, and put in pan
added some maple syrup and oil mixed together
some salt

than i through into oven at around 400 till brown. This has an interesting taste, could be a great side for something, though im not entirely sure yet.

Chicken and Chips

Chicken is the same recipe as before:
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/sticky-chili-chicken.html

With some fresh watercrest, lemon and salt. Finally for starch:

I also made some chips with it. These were made with normal potatoes

• sliced with a mandeline
• than put in cold water
• dried with towel
• put on a baking sheet with some

olive oil
Cajun spice
Pepper
Cayenne pepper

• Sprinkled salt on everything
Than put into oven at 415 for 20ish min. Until turned brown.

These were hard to get off the pan. but was still delicious.

Tasty Edamame

Edamame with a sweet ginger sauce
Steaming the edamame separately I made this sauce in a saucepan
• Honey/sugar/maple syrup (for some sweetness)
• Ginger
• Soy Sauce
• Cayenne pepper
Add the steamed edamame to the saucepan and cook it up. This should give a little glaze over edamame, which coarse sea salt can be sprinkled upon. This really tastes great, gives a sweet part to an originally solely salty recipe.

Pom and Citrus Sauce

Given the opportunity to cook at my brothers wedding ceremony was definitely a great experience, and well I was given a plethora of strange yet great ingredients. I was asked to make these Portobello mushroom balls, bought from Costco, taste great. So what did I do? I raided the fridge and found a large amount of pomegranate seeds.

Aha I said. Ill have some fun, and make a pomegranate sauce. This is what I added.
• Orange Juice
• Lime Juice
• Lemon Juice
• Pomegranate seeds
• Cayenne powder
• A touch of cinnamon
• Salt/pepper
• Touch of sugar/maple syrup/honey

This worked out great, and I marinated the mushrooms balls in this sauce. This is not really a great recipe for winter, but now that it is spring it should be looked into. This would probably also taste great with other mushrooms, meat or even tofu if your feeling adventurous.

23.3.09

Birthday Rack of Lamb

One of my favorite flavors, Cumin and lamb came to my mind, starting at a Szechwan restaurant in Vancouver. I found this rack of lamb for super cheap at the ‘metro’ at 2 am in the morning and put it into freezer till my birthday. With housemates who dislike the smell of lamb it was hard to see if they were any good, BUT I do think the recipe creates tasty lamb.

Rub Recipe:
• Cumin
• Lime Juice
• Lime zest
• Cayenne powder
• Salt/pepper
• Olive oil
• Garlic

This was all mixed together, than caked onto the lamb, than put into the oven to cook, 400F for 30ish min? This was also great with lamb chops, or roasted lamb. It does give a strong smell but man was it tasty.

The other thing I did was by a lamb roast at beginning of year, and sliced it up so I would have lamb steaks. These steaks were cooked, than sautéed with the rub recipe.

Lime pudding. greatness from both worlds

Recipe is from my flavor book, which was kinda like my bible for a bit. Really easy to make and well, can be made in a few different ways. It can be put into small bowls, or larger dishes similar to a cake.

Mix the following in an till smooth
• 2 tsp of lime rind
• ½ cup of lime juice
• 3/2 cup of sugar
• 2 tb of butter
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup cream
• egg yolks
• ¼ cup of self rising flour

beat 3 egg whites till soft peaks more, than fold into the lime mixture

put in dishes, but make sure dish is half submerged in water. Bake for around 30 min, which is until the tops are puffed and golden

22.3.09

Sticky Chili Chicken

I used a chicken breast. WITH skin and bone.

the sauce was made with

red chilis
grated ginger
water
soy suace
white wine vinegar
sugar
chopped coriander

You add all these together in a saucepan and than put the chicken breast in the pan. It will boil for a while, and will become sticky at the end, almost like a glaze.

Fried Artichokes. TRY 1

So this was my first try, because well these are amazing when properly made.

Firstly i had to figure out what part to eat. Usually this is just the heart, but i was curious about the other parts. So i trimmed the artichoke, Cutting Around from the base of the heart. So some of the leaves fell off, but there were still some to try. I than sliced these into quarters, length wise.

Than i mixed some eggs, and milk. and got a plate of bread crumbs (with a touch of cajun spice)
I Dipped the artichokes into the egg/milk stuff and than onto the plate of bread crumbs.
I used a 1/2 olive 1/2 canola mix, to give some extra taste and heated on med-high.
Fried till crispy and brown.

I figured out the tails were not so tasty, the middle (heart) was best and top leaves werent too bad but texture not great.

Blue Cheese Onion Puff Pastry

These are absolutely delicious and eat them fresh.

topping consists of:

sliced onion
lemon rind
olive oil

fry, for around 20 min. stirring every once in a while, should be soft and golden

Line up the puff pastry (i bought ready made stuff)

and crumble blue cheese upon and than the topping above
some thyme and olives are suggested spices to top

Bake for 25-30 min. at 400 F

I ate it with some fennel and broccoli that were put in a sauce pan with

lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper

CHicken a la kens!

First Time i got to use kens new kitchen I made this. Used basic ingredients and it was most surely a scrumptious meal. We had this with steamed veggies and rice.

Chicken (thigh or breast)

1 tb of ginger
some sauce sauce (around 1/2 c)
honey/ but i used sugar...better with honey
1/2 lime, just a little
garlic
mushrooms
some almonds and peanuts

add some Worcestershire sauce would prob have added a little greatness to the dish but man it was still good.

Time for Bread. Italian Style. Focaccia

Foccacia is so tasty. It is not a very simple task, but man this was so great.
Mix the following in bowl in this order

2 tb of yeast
3/4 cup of warm water
1 tb of honey
3/4 cup of flour

Place a damp cloth on dough and let it sit over night (or at least 2 hours)

2 cup warm water
3/4 cup of olive oil
6 tb of honey
3 1/2 cup of flour
3 cup of whole wheat flour

Mix with the dough from night before and knead for 10 min

Cover again, and let rise for 30 min

Divide into 1/4s and put into on seperate baking sheets. spread out.

Sprinkle with

olive oil
coarse sea salt
pepper
garlic

Chocolate sauce for a more sweet taste. I did a lime, chili chocolate sauce in middle of my focaccia

Peppered Steak Over salad w/ SP Latkas

A great light but tasty dinner

Sweet potato latkas (prep this first)

grate a sweet potato per person
add an egg (to make it hold)
pinch of parm cheese
salt/pepper

Heat oil in a pan

place a clump of above mix, approx 1/4 of cup
should form latka, if they fall apart, than just mix it up...it will still taste great

The Steak

Rub pepper and olive oil on steak (1 tsp- 1 tb of pepper, depeding on You)
Grill, than let it cool slightly and slice

Place the latkas at bottom, than a bed of mixed greens, than finally add some peppered steak sliced on top.

Caesar Salad...classic

Shown here with some meat, this is by far the most classic best salad on the market. I could eat caesar salad every day of the week if possible. So here is the recipe of what goes into a great caesar. Though your own personal touch must be in play, deciding what your palette likes more. So once again play around.

egg yolk
lemon juice
worchesteshire sauce
parmesan cheese
olive oil
anchovie paste (or not...)
touch of maple syrup (why not...it tastes so great)

beat these all together, adding a little more of this or that. and drizzle and mix with some Romaine lettuce.

In the picture i have some ground up chicken on top. Always a great option.

Eggs and Sausage, BUT...

So this was a great breakfast one morning, a not so plain version of sausage and eggs.

Firstly the eggs. Now these are what i call jerk eggs, and simply you need to

Beat eggs
add some jerk sauce, salt and pepper

Mix it together and scramble them up. So great.

Now the Sausage a la umberto's kitchen: Firstly you will need some cooked sausage, once cooked slice it up and put in pan with

balsamic vinegar
maple syrup
chipotle chili powder

Cook till it reduces to a more glaze like state on the sausage. The alternative is adding some of the balsamic glaze.
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/balsamic-glaze-start-of-sauces.html

Soy Steak w/ veggies

The steak has same marinade as
http://dansgoodgrub.blogspot.com/2009/03/soy-ginger-steak.html

but i also decided to add some veggies, So i cut up some broccoli and put in the steak marinade and then through those on the BBQ with the steak. This was so much tastier than the other day. I guess patience is a virtue, or buy two steaks and save one for the next day.

Roasted Beets W/ Orange

The first step in this process is the roasting of the beets. The easiest way to do it is by putting beets in oven at 375 wrapped in tin foil for 40 min to an hour.

Once you have the cooked beets mix

orange Juice
vinegar (i used rice vinegar)
chives
oil (hazelnut preferred, i only used a touch of truffle and olive)
salt/pepper
cayenne powder

Than slice beets and drizzle sauce over all of this.

Alterations are easily done, try cooking the sauce. Adding lime/lemon juice. and such

Tasty tacos for twelve at twelve

Now, this simple alliteration should show how excited i was in the creation of this meal. Taco's at dinner did not seem possible, yet without such an alteration in time, apples and maple syrup may never have made the ground beef. The ground beef was fried up with

lime juice
pepper
maple syrup
diced apples

Now there was a desperate need of some flavor, so the maple syrup was added, though it could be easily replaced with some Cajun spice of cayenne powder. The addition of onion may also be good, but apples could potentially have the same effect.

So try away guys. and add the great trimmings tacos need

diced tomatoes
guacamole
CHEESE
salsa
sliced lettuce

Easy Carrots

Carrots usually have the same taste no matter how you cook them, especially in a saucepan. But adding a few spices can give it the kick of flavour that make you just go out and by a bag of carrots.
Usually Ill add a mixture of the following, going for a more asian feel try

soy sauce
honey
maple syrup
lemon/lime juice
salt/pepper
cayenne pepper
sesame oil
garlic
ginger

I just realized this is so similar to steak marinades. but hell its all about things that go together eh.

SPW

So, I called these perogies when i made them, because they were dough filled with pototo and such, But in fact I can't call them pergoies. So im calling the my SPWs.

Buy a packet of wonton wrappers, they are good for dumplings as well.
Than the stuffing was consisted of

mashed sweet potato, (refer to other recipe)
Goats cheese
some balsamic glaze

The wonton wrapper was then folded upon itself to create these rectangular bites of delight. I ate them with salsa, and they were great to freeze.

HINT FOR FREEZING...Put on a tray than put in freezer till frozen...Than put into a plastic freezer bag, that way they wont stick together.

18.3.09

Soy ginger steak

After extending my bike ride to find some good steak I decided to marinate it with the following.

1 big clove of Garlic
pretty decent amount of Ginger
1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1 onion
Some chili powder
sesame oil

I cooked mine on the BBQ, and man was it satisfying.

Lemon Fennel Salad

This recipe I have to give credit where it is due, one of my favourite places to eat in Vancouver. I ate this the first time at her house, and though I cant chop as finely it was almost equally delicious, but none the less exactly what I was feeling for.
This fennel salad, has the cruch of crisp veggies, the tang of lemon juice yet the sweet subtle flavour of the basic olive oil. If you couldn’t tell from this description well I
• Sliced fennel in half, than slice finely and add
• Lemon juice
• Olive oil (a touch of truffle oil gives it a little something extra)
• Salt/pepper
Ohh yes, it is really that easy, and soo soo tasty. Enjoy

Have pasta, want a new simple sauce?

Viv had just made some pasta and i was starving after my ride. I really didnt want to do anything, cause im exhausted BUT i was starving. SO i put a touch of

lemon juice
olive oil
truffle oil
parmesan cheese

Seriously one of the greatest pasta dishes i have ever had, and ddamn it was soo soo easy. Ate it before the photo was taken.

2 oclock brownies still taste good in morning

Added to my effort to make delectable lemon caramel apples, I decided to venture into an unfamiliar territory. The making of brownies from scratch. Now I must admit, one of my little secrets that is that my favourite brownies are usually those that come in a box. Its kinda strange but, the chemicals they put in them, I don’t know what it is but fuck they are just great.

Well these aren’t those, but they do taste pretty damn good. I borrowed a recipe, but changed it up to fit what I wanted and the ingredients. Well to start I beat
• 250 g of butter
• ½ vanilla bean (or 1 tsp of vanilla extract)
• 1 ½ cup of brown sugar
This I beat till it was nice and smooth, if you have an electric mixer, beat till light and fluffy. I proceeded to add
• 4 eggs, one at a time
Once thos were added I put folded in
• 1 1/3 cup of self raising flour
• ¾ cup of cocoa powder
• handful of chopped peanuts
• half handful of white chocolate (that was colored green)
Put it in oven at 350 for about 25 ish minutes, or until the fork doesn’t come out full of gunk.

17.3.09

What about them apples?

Tonight was saint patty’s day. A decent one give my awkward situation. A Stats exam at 8:30 pm. Now stats is a weird, thing like usually im good at math but I cant seem to understand what the hell is going on. Its really really strange, but for some reason I still get decent marks. See the first test I did shit on, and I thought I knew it. The second two I left with a totally lack of understanding of what had just happened in the past hour and a half. Though for some reason I landed on my feet.

Deciding to do something interesting on a Tuesday night is a hard thing, so I Cook. Now, even though it’s a festive night, all the bars are totally jam packed, and well everyone else is home asleep after drinking which starts far too early. Unable to partake in these rituals, I have decided to cook some amazing desserts to dine at the early hour of 2:15.

The one thing I have been craving for quite some time is my apples with lemon caramel. An existist simple and thoughtless task, well at least the apples are. Simply
• Cut them in halves, so you have a top and a bottom (not too sides)
• Put them on a tray, face up
• Put a dab of butter and a dab of sugar
• Put in oven at 340ish for 15-20 min
The caramel is a little more difficult, but the hardest part is the timing. It takes about 2-3 minutes to make it, even though it seems like a daughting task, the timing trully is crutial. Put the following on low-medium
• 2 Tb of butter
• 2 Tb of sugar, (I used brown)
Once this is melted and kinda bubbling than add some lemon juice, prob 2 Tb. This will make it sizzle a bit more. Stir it through with a spoon, than spoon onto the cooked apples.

Have some left over mashed potato?

So this is one reason i make too much mashed potato, because you get to cook up up the next day for breakfast. I always make this at home, keeps me away from microwave and, it is soo much better, that i used to fend others off but than just started making it for everyone. Basically you put

mashed potato
olive oil
cheddar cheese
salami
salt/pepper

all in a saucepan, and put on medium till its nice and hot. You can also crisp the bottom by not mixing it too much, but be wary because it could burn.

I ate this as a study brunch with some toast and hummus.

16.3.09

Mashed turnip and potatoes

• Dice turnip and potatoes

Cook in pot of water till a fork can go through easily

• Add milk
• Garlic
• Butter
• Salt/pepper
• Cajun spice
Once cooked, put in baking pan, and put in oven at 350 owith a bit of butter and Parmesan cheese on top

Lemon garlic mushrooms

With the steak i added some shrooms.

Olive oil
garlic
salt/pepper
Lemon Juice

Put in saucepan with lid on, so tasty.

Mustard marinade steak

A simple marinade than thrown on the BBQ Marinade consisted of:
• Garlic
• Mustard
• Lemon juice
• Lemon grass (why the hell not)
• Salt/pepper

Sesame Tofu

For those who wanna eat some tofu, this is a simple tofu recipe that doesnt take much time, tastes great and is liked by even those who dont usually eat tofu.
You will need some