Grilled Plums & Nectarines

How about THIS for a summery side dish? Grilled plums and nectarines. Good good good. Slightly charred and smoky sweet, they made a great accompaniment to the chicken and red chard we ate them with.

Prep took 2 minutes, grilling took maybe 8, so this is definitely a quick and easy treat for a hot summer night.

Grilled Plums & Nectarines

Ingredients
2 plums, quartered
2 nectarines, quarterd
2 tbsp canola oil
fresh ground black pepper

Directions
1. Toss cut fruit with oil and pepper a few minutes before grilling

2. Carefully arrange fruit on a VERY CLEAN grill and cook 2-3 minutes on each side, until a bit mushy looking

 

AND... Paul and I had a house guest this evening. Meet Rocky! She lives with my neighbours, and runs our 'hood with claws of iron. Sometimes she wanders into our house instead of her own house, but that's because she's the King of our street...and no one you'd ever want to mess with!

   

Steak Sandwich

I don't know how you make your sandwich, but I make mine on garlic cheese bread and with balsamic mushrooms and onions. You really can't go wrong. 

First, I bake garlic bread for about 12 minutes. Then pull it out, break open the bag and make sure the butter is spread around well. Top the bread with parmesan cheese, freshly ground black pepper, and oregano. Broil on low for a few minutes, until the cheese melts and the top of the bread is slightly browned.

Meanwhile, grill your steak to whatever grade you like. I prefer medium-rare. Take the steak off the BBQ and wrap in foil while you prepare the rest of the well.

Around the same time I start the bread, I'm sauteing some white onion and mushrooms. Once they are nice and tender and slightly caramelized, toss in about a teaspoon or two of balsamic vinegar and cook until reduced.

Slice up your steak, arrange it on the garlic bread (I use about a quarter per person) and top with your balsamic onions and mushrooms.

 

Marinated Bacon-wrapped Scallops

These were really good. Nothing tastes better than something wrapped in bacon.

Marinated Bacon-wrapped Scallops

Ingredients
8 fresh scallops
8 pieces of bacon
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dijon mustard
8 tooth picks

Directions
1. Mix maple syrup, soy and dijon. Marinate scallops for an hour in the fridge.

2. Heat oven to 350 F. Lay strips of bacon flat on baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes. The bacon should still be pliable. 


3. Wrap scallops in bacon and secure with a toothpick. Bake at 375 F for 15 minutes. 


4. Allow to cool, and then dive in!

Spaghetti Squash with Italian Sausage and Vegetable Sauce

I miss pasta. I really do. Unfortunately, Paul won't eat it so there isn't much point in making it for dinner. Sure, I can have it out at a restaurant if I want to, but there are usually so many other delicious things on a menu that pasta isn't ever what I choose. 

I got the idea somewhere to make spaghetti sauce.. which, get this, turns out like spaghetti when you cook it. So I got Paul to roast the squash while I was on my way home from work and then whipped up some home made pasta sauce when I got home. Turned out really well! The squash is a lot crunchier than pasta and I don't feel like a fat sack after eating a pile of it, so all in all, I'd say its a success.

Spaghetti Squash with Italian Sausage and Vegetable Sauce

Ingredients
1 spaghetti squash, roasted and shredded with a fork
4 Italian sausages, grilled 
1 zucchini, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
12 green beans, snapped in half
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato puree
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 pinch red pepper flakes


Directions
1. Heat large pot to medium-hot. Sautee onion and garlic in extra virgin olive oil

2. Throw in vegetables, sautee until tender crisp. Maybe 6 minutes.


3. Add diced tomatoes, tomato puree and seasonings


4. Simmer for 45 minutes on LOW HEAT. If your heat is high, your veggies will get soggy

5. Serve on top of spaghetti squash and eat like pasta

Steak Salad

Dear Readers,

So sorry I've forsaken you again. I just haven't been cooking anything lately. Thankfully, Paul is there to pick up where I left off, so I haven't been starving.

The other day we had steak salad. It went a little something like this: spinach, cherry tomato, bacon, red onion, green beans, blue cheese, steak and sauteed mushrooms. It was absolutely delicious.

 

I haven't forgotten you.

Dear Readers,

I promise I haven't forgotten you. I honestly haven't cooked anything all week. Hopefully this will change on the weekend.

Love,
Kim

Tomato Peach Chutney

Today is an experimental sort of day. I took ground pork out of the freezer this morning intending to make Curry Pork Burgers. I have made these before and follow the recipe in that link pretty much to the letter. I don't usually make the spicy ketchup, though it's not bad. Usually I make a 'tandoori bbq-sauce' to baste the burgers with on the grill. I'm using quotes around that term because it's basically just tandoori paste and ketchup. 

Anyways, I thought it would be fun to top the burgers with a chutney. I found a recipe for tomato peach chutney, which I THOUGHT I followed, but I just discovered I used cumin instead of curry powder. I think I'll refer to this as a fusion-style chutney, where the mysteriously fragrant sauces of India meet a good old fashioned Mexican salsa. It's actually not that bad. It sort of tastes like chutney, but not exactly. I'm going to post the recipe as I made it, but feel free to substitute curry powder for cumin if you're into a more standard chutney. 


If you made large quantities of this, you could can it. I only made a small amount because I fear canning, as I fear diseases such as botulism.

This chutney would taste good on chicken or pork, or even on top of cream cheese on a cracker. 

Tomato Peach Chutney

Ingredients
2 fresh peaches, peeled and chopped 
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup golden raisins
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground ginger


Directions
1. Mix everything in a pot

2. Bring to a boil, simmer until thickened (about 30 min


3. Allow to cool before serving

 

Berry Brown Sugar Gratin

Smitten Kitchen posted a rather interesting looking dessert. Since Paul's diet precludes a lot of the more standard desserts out there, I thought I'd give this one a try. Smitten Kitchen spoke pretty highly of it, and I can't say I blame her. This was delicious.

It reminds me of a dessert my Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Dwayne and cousin Jennifer made me try. They dip fresh strawberries in sour cream and then in brown sugar. I was pretty skeptical the first time I tried it, but the sour cream really balances out the brown sugar, resulting in a decadent mouthful that is just the right amount of sweet.

Ken and Silje, our neighbours, invited us over to watch UFC tonight so I quickly whipped up four desserts so we could experiment on them at the same time. I think everyone enjoyed the dessert. I will definitely be making it again. You could really use just about any kind of berry, and like Smitten Kitchen suggest, I might try creme fraiche next time instead of the sour cream.

For this recipe, I've used parts instead of specific measurements because its really going to depend on the size of your dish. I used four individual rammekins, so I used about a 1/4 cup for each part. 

Berry Brown Sugar Gratin 

Ingredients
1 part blueberries and sliced strawberries
1 part sour cream
1 part brown sugar

Directions
1. Gently fold the berries and sour cream together.

2. Place in oven-proof baking dish and sprinkle with brown sugar.

3. Broil on low until sugar just begins to caramelize. Eat immediately.

...and just for good measure, here is what we had for dinner. Roast beef, roasted yams, kale and beet greens.

Fresh Tomato & White Bean Salsa

I really like fresh salsa. It's delightfully tasty, sharp and bright on the tongue. Normal salsa is okay, but it can be so bland and packaged-tasting. I think canned salsa is the 'instant coffee' of the salsa world, whereas a good fresh salsa is the 'espresso'.

This one I kind of just made up on my own. I was looking for black beans to make black bean and mango salsa, but I found white beans instead. This is what I came up with.

Fresh Tomato & White Bean Salsa

Ingredients
1 cup white kidney beans, rinsed
1 big tomato, diced
2 green onions, diced
1/3 red pepper, diced
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
1/5 habanero pepper, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lime, juiced
salt & pepper

I'm not even going to type out the directions. Mix everything in a bowl and let it sit for an hour. I used it to top a chicken fajita, along with some cheese. Since I'm feeling kind of mopey today, I washed the meal down with a blended watermelon-raspberry-grapefruit vodka drink. I made my own tortilla (no sense in having a package since I'm the only one eats them, and rarely) with corn flour, water, salt and lime juice. Turned out a bit dry, but it still tasted good. This time I tried flavouring it with a bit of chili powder. I think it would have turned out better if I had a tortilla press.

Anyways, the salsa was really good. Give it a try!

Cheddar, Avocado & Tomato on Toast

This combination is probably one of our favourite things to eat. The creamy avocado blends so well with the bright taste of tomato and the sharp flavour of the cheese. Delightful, every time.

I ate my breakfast with a hardboiled egg or two. This meal makes for a nice, light morning snack. 

Cheddar, Avocado & Tomato on Toast

Ingredients
1/2 avocado
2 slices of tomato
2 slices of cheddar cheese
1 piece of toast


Directions
1. Toast bread

2. Spread avocado on the toasted bread, top with slices of tomato and cheddar


3. Eat!

 

 

 

Tropical Salad with Pork

Last week I had lunch at Veneto with my friend Eric. I had their "Tropical Salad" which was absolutely delicious. Mixed greens with pineapple, red peppers, cashews and some sort of light dressing. It was topped with grilled Jamaican jerk chicken. I demolished the salad and definitely recommend it. 

I took some pork out of the freezer last night and asked Paul to grill it with some jerk seasoning (we use the epicure brand) so I could try to recreate it. It was pretty good! I made a honey-mustard-lime dressing to go with it. 


Tropical Salad with Pork

Ingredients
1 pork steak, grilled and seasoned with jerk seasoning
1/2 red pepper, sliced
3/4 mango, cubed
2 cups lettuce, ripped into bite size pieces
1/4 cup cashews
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1/2 lime, juiced
1/8 tsp lime zest


Directions
1. Toss lettuce, red pepper, mango and cashews

2. In a separate bowl, mix honey, dijon and lime juice and zest. Stir until well combined.


3. Toss salad, grilled pork and dressing. Serve and enjoy!

Roasted Beets and Sauteed Balsamic Beet Greens

Beets beets beets. I really can't get enough beets right now. Bunches of BC beets bought for a buck. Like that alliteration? No seriously, two bunches of BC beet for $2 at the grocery store the other day. I bought the bunches because I wanted to eat the greens, too! Paul and I have been eating a lot of dark green leafy vegetables lately. It started when we discovered Swiss chard, which was delivered in Paul's organic veggie box a few months ago. Sauteed with some olive oil and doused with a little balsamic near the end of the cooking process and BAM you have something REALLY good to eat. 

We had our beets and beet greens with a roasted lamb shank, roasted potatoes (for me) and roasted yams (for him). I made some gravy with the drippings, and of course we had mint sauce. Delicious, delicious meal.

Roasted Beets with Sauteed Balsamic Beet Greens

Ingredients
1 bunch of BC beets, greens included
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar


Directions
1. Chop beet greens off at the base of the vegetable. Rinse, pat dry and slice up the leaves and stems into bite size pieces. 

2. Heat 1 tbsp of EVOO in a pan. Throw in leaves and stems and sautee until nice and tender, 10-15 minutes


3. About a minute before the leaves and stems are cooked, drizzle on balsamic vinegar and toss to coat. 


4. Serve immediately. 

Sailing Trip - Dinner of the Week

Sailing trip! My Dad, brother, Paul and I took off Friday after work to head to D'Arcy Island, historical home of a leper colony off the coast of Victoria, BC. D'Arcy Island is somewhere between Cadboro Bay and Sidney Spit. A lovely island, a lovely weekend, delicious food and I only broke one of my toes hiking. It's a delightful shade of purple and blue now. I'm hoping its only a bad sprain, because I would really like to finish playing out my softball season. Cross your fingers for me :)

My family has a tradition of the "Dinner of the Week" - when I was a kid, the award went to the child that produced the best dinner during the work week. My brothers and I would compete for the $1 that came with the honour, although I don't seem to recall ever seeing the prize handed out. In retrospect, I think this competition was a way for my Mom and Dad to get out of having to ever cook dinner. It definitely worked. I'm going to have to remember this trick for when I'm a parent. Anyways, for this sailing trip we all took turns preparing meals. My brother made dinner Friday night, Paul and I made breakfast Saturday morning, and my Dad made lunch on Saturday. We tried to decide who won the "Dinner of the Week" award of weekend, but couldn't decide. I think Paul and I were serious contenders, but I'll let my readers decide. Post your nominee for the winner in the comments. 

Friday Night - John
BBQ Salmon, Salad, Roasted Yams

 Saturday Breakfast - Kim & Paul

Bacon, Scrambled Eggs, Blueberried & Yogurt, Coffee & Baileys

Saturday Lunch - Dad

Sandwiches, chips, olives, dolmades, leftover Salmon

I don't have a picture for Dad's lunch because I was too busy icing my freshly broken toe to operate my camera. The lunch was good, but Dad forgot his ham and was highly dependent on John's snack food to provide his lunch. In the end, it was probably a good thing because we still have way too much food even without Dad's sandwich ingredients, but still - it might call for disqualification. Keep in mind, though, my Dad supplied the salmon for John's BBQ dinner... perhaps that makes it fair? I'll let you decide! 

Dad, if you're reading this, I am a fair and equitable competitor and fully welcome a do-over on a future sailing trip.

Various plates and random deliciousness....

Again, I'm guilt of neglecting you! My sincerest apologies. Life seems to go faster and faster as time goes on. I heard an interesting theory on this... I can't remember what it's called, but it could accurately be described as the Theory of Relative Aging. The older you are, the shorter time feels because its relative to your age. For example, when I was 20, 10 years felt like a long time because its half of my life. At 30, it won't feel as long because its only a third of my life. Same time period, different relative feel. Anyway, enough with the philososcience and on to the food.


I'm not going to post recipes, just some food porn, mostly because I can't really remember what I did. It's been too long since I made these dishes! If you see something you like, send me a message/leave a comment and I'll try to rationalize the recipe out for you. I am going to make better effort to update more regularly from now on.

Blueberry Salad and Hamburger topped with Goat Feta and Pesto

 This salad had spinach, cucumber, tomato, green onion and blueberries in it. I think I made a balsamic dressing for it. I love blueberries in salad! Definitely give it a try, it makes for a delicious, light summery salad. The hamburger was topped with some goat feta and a homemade pesto. Since Paul and I don't eat bread, we try to add some excitement and zest to plain old hamburger. You can't eat steak everyday.

Grilled Sweet Red Pepper stuffed with Chicken, Spinach, Camembert & Boursin Cheese

Paul made this for dinner last week. What a delicious meal to come home to! He sauteed up some spinach and mixed with grilled chicken breast, camembert and herb and garlic boursin cheese. We stuffed it into big red sweet peppers, wrapped the ends in tin foil to hold it all in and grilled them lightly on the BBQ. The peppers were tender and smoky, and the filling was cheesy and delicious. Really melted in my mouth! I can't wait to try this recipe again and experiment with different fillings.




Steak with Chimichurri and Boursin, Sauteed Kale and Beets with Roasted Yams

Steak is delicious. There are a lot of things you can put on steak, none of which compares to a good chimichurri sauce. Chimichurri is an Argentian sauce (I think) composed of cilantro, parsley, garlic, cumin, red pepper flakes and extra virgin olive oil. You blend it all up and let it sit for an hour or so... It's fresh and bright tasting, and adds a whole new level of savoury to your steak. The boursin melts a bit from the heat coming out of your steak, and mixes in with the chimichurri and... bang. It's a party in your mouth and everyone is invited.


Sauteed kale and roasted beets is a new veggie favourite around my house. I never knew a dark green leafy vegetable and a run of the mill red beet could taste so good. I absolutely hated beets growing up, but I only ever tried them pickled. Roasting them makes them into a whole new vegetable. 

Pie Iron

A wonderful lady that I work with, Jo-Anne, was kind enough to lend me her Pie Irons for my camping trip. Basically, a pie iron is a cast iron sandwich press that you stick in the camp fire. 

I had LOTS of great ideas about stuff I wanted to cook in there, but they didn't work out very well. I tried a sausage and green pepper dish...

 

It worked out pretty well, but when I tried one with yams...

 

It didn't work out as well. I decided to move into desserts. Jen, another great lady I work with, suggested I melt marshmallows and a chocolate bar between two waffles in the pie iron. I took her advice and it's pretty much the best decision I ever made.

I used M&Ms and toffee chocolate covered peanuts with my marshmallows. I do not regret this decision. 

 

 

Camping Food!

I got a tip that blogging using Mozilla Firefox might fix that weird spacing problem that I've been having. Let's see if this works!


I just got back from a camping trip! Well, I got back about a week ago but I've been a terrible blogger and I haven't updated anything. Sorry guys! Paul and I had a wonderful trip. It was great. We spent about 10 days exploring the coast of Oregon. I have never seen a more beautiful beach! 

Kalaloch, Washington State

 Wreck of the Peter Iredale - Fort Stevens National Park

Astoria, Oregon

The camping trip was great. We ate a lot of really good, simple food. I love cooking, but I also love relaxing so I didn't really try to knock anything out of the plate on this trip. I took some photos of our food and will give you guys some descriptions, but I definitely didn't keep a record of any recipes. What I WILL give you is a list of the spices I took with me. I have a GIGANTIC spice collection. There aren't many spices I don't have. So, when it comes to picking out what to take I have a lot to choose from, but I still only take a few. 

Here it is, my list of ESSENTIAL spices for camping trips:

-salt and pepper

-extra virgin olive oil

-balsamic vinegar

-Italian seasoning

-garlic powder

-onion powder

I also brought taco spice and jerk seasoning, just in case, but I didn't really use any of it. I'm telling you, this combination of spices can season just about anything you want to make while camping. 

Hamburgers? Use the onion, garlic, Italian and salt and pepper to season your patties

Grilled veggies? Garlic, Italian, salt, pepper and EVOO

Salad dressing? EVOO, Balsamic, Italian, salt and pepper OR buy a lemon and subsitute lemon juice in for the balsamic

Greek chicken? EVOO, lemon juice, garlic powder and Italian seasoning

Use Italian seasoning wherever you would normally use basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme or parsley

Now, without further ado - the food porn.

Spinach Salad - spinach, cucumber, green pepper and strawberry

 Steak Fajita with Guacamole

 Crawfish - Jack's Crawfish

Portland, Oregon

Grilled Vegetables and Cheeseburger

Camping Fondue! 

This was great. We cut up some steak and marinated it in some BBQ sauce and marinated veggies in EVOO, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Then we skewered it onto our hot dog roasting sticks and cooked it over the fire. So much fun and so so so tasty!

...and our last meal...

 Steak, Bacon AND eggs...because we're like that.

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Happy Birthday Nathan!


Nathan and Gia had a bunch of friends over to celebrate and the food was SO GOOD it's getting an honourable mention on here.


Nathan cooked a huge amount of THE BEST pulled pork I have ever eaten. So delicious! After dinner, we played a big game of of poker -won by yours truly. Nathan spoiled us again with the left over pulled pork and made a monstrous amount of pulled pork nachos. I was in heaven and very, very full by the time I got home.

Raspberry-Chipotle Chicken

During my daily internet wanderings, I came across a recipe for raspberry-chipotle turkey wings. I didn't really want wings, but I was into chicken on salad for lunch. I modified the recipe a bit and here is what I came up with! It's pretty dang good :)


Raspberry-Chipotle Chicken


Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
1 cup defrosted frozen raspberries
2 chipotle chilis in adobe sauce
1/4 cup diced onion
juice of 1 lime
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint


Directions
1. Blend onion, raspberry, chipotle, garlic and onion together


2. Heat over stove until slightly thickened. Remove from heat, stir in mint


3. Reserve 2 tbsp for basting


4. After sauce cools, marinate chicken in the rest of the sauce, for maybe an hour or two


5. BBQ chicken as you like, basting with reserve sauce


6. Serve however you want

Spinach Salad with Heirloom Cherry Tomato, Red Onion, Sunflower Seeds and a Citrus Vinaigrette

Dinner time! We are trying to eat through all the leftover bits in our fridge before we go camping next week. I also have a basil plant I am trying to 'eat up' before we go, so I decided that whatever we had for dinner should have pesto on it. I decided on a hamburger topped with pesto and the white cheese blend from the pizza I made before. 


The salad was slightly inspired by a recipe, and also slightly inspired by whatever I could find in the bottom of my fridge. Hence, I give you...


Spinach Salad with Heirloom Cherry Tomato, Red Onion, Sunflower Seeds and Citrus Vinaigrette


Salad Ingredients
Obviously, you just mix as much as you want together.


Spinach
Heirloom cherry tomatoes, cut in half
Red onion, slice thin
Sunflower seeds


Citrus Vinaigrette Ingredients
This is an estimate, so adjust to taste


1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp OJ
1 tsp Dijon mustard
I think I squeezed some lime juice in because I didn't have any lemon
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/8 tsp garlic powder
pinch cayenne


Directions
1. Mix salad


2. Mix vinaigrette


3. Mix together



4. Eat!

Pizza Dough

Who doesn't like pizza? Trust me, it tastes even better on a home made crust. This recipe is easy to make, but due to rising time it's probably better to make the night before, or make in the afternoon before dinner if you've got the time. It's nice and light and has a really good flavour.

I topped my pizza with the leftover chipotle cheese sauce (instead of tomato sauce) from my last post, chicken, mushrooms, green pepper, red onion and some of that kraft pre-shredded pizza cheese. It's a blend of three white cheeses, but I can't be bothered to go and find out. I used one of those whole BBQ cooked chickens from the grocery store for the chicken, worked out well. Less mess, and less cook time.

Makes enough for 2 or 3 full-sized pizzas, depending on how thick you make your crust.

Pizza Dough

Ingredients

3 3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tbsp yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 cup warm water

Directions

1. Proof your yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water. My yeast package said to add a tsp of sugar, but I don't know if that's standard. Let stand for about 3-5 minutes, or until foamy. I think it can take up to 10 minutes?

2. Mix flour and salt together.

3. Pour in yeast mixture, the rest of the water, the honey and the olive oil and mix into a dough.

4. Dump out onto a floured surface and knead until nice and elastic. You might have to add more flour if it feels sticky.

5. Break into 2 or 3 chunks and roll into a nice ball. Put on a baking sheet and allow to rise for 1.5 hours or until doubled in size. You can either freeze/refrigerate or make into pizza at this point.

6. When the time comes, roll out your dough into a circle. Top with toppings of your choice and bake at 400F for 20 minutes or until edges are nice and toasty brown and your cheese is bubbling and browning a bit in the centre.