Shrimp and Mushroom Caesar Salad

This recipe is a classic for me. I absolutely love Caesar salad, especially with a steak. It's a treat for me, because I don't really think this salad has much nutritional value. 90% of the salad is lettuce, which is just filler, and the other 10% is fun stuff like bacon, dressing and parmesan cheese. I like to bulk my Caesar up a bit to keep it interesting, and I stumbled across this combination a few years back and haven't modified the recipe since. It's delicious! 

I made the salad to go with steak topped with sautéed mushrooms (for me) and onions (for both us) and a yam/potato dish I sort of invented on the spot. I sliced up a yam and a potato quite thin using my handheld mandolin (thanks Aunt Carolyn!) and tossed them with olive oil, rosemary, chili powder and salt and pepper and cooked them in foil on the barbeque. That recipe needs some work, so I will feature it another time, once I've tweaked it a bit.

Shrimp and Mushroom Caesar Salad

Ingredients

1 head of romaine lettuce, washed and ripped up

1/2 cup shrimp, rinsed and patted dry

1/3 cup red onion, diced small

1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced and chopped

1 tbsp dried dill

croutons
Caesar dressing

parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Toss everything together. Croutons, dressing, parmesan and salt and pepper are all to taste. Personally, I like lots of croutons and parmesan and black pepper, but not a lot of salt. 

2. Eat!

I know - super complicated, right? 

Oven-Roasted Rosemary Chicken with Sausage and Potatoes

Today we have a special guest on the blog - Paul made dinner last night and insisted he get a go at writing it up :)

Paul's take-over blog:

Food so good your mouth will leave you for me.

Oven-Roasted Rosemary Chicken with Sausage and Potatoes
What you’ll need:
2ish pounds of skinless and boneless chicken thighs
1 pound Sausage - about 4 links
(I picked up some mango curry ones at the market on Millstream) Also size matters with sausage. The bigger the better - am I right ladies?
1 pinch of salt (If you’re not sure what a pinch is order take out)
2 large russet potatoes or 2 yams cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4ish cup of olive oil
2 ½ table spoons of fresh rosemary, chopped
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar


When I first saw this recipe I thought it was going to be tasteless boring pile of chicken and potatoes (or yams). I can now say the chicken and sausage made love in my mouth and had a baby. That baby was deliciousness.

This is a really easy to make dish. A monkey could do it. This monkey did.

1. Pre heat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Cut the potatoes and place them in a fry pan with about 2 to 3 tablespoons of the oil (olive) and salt. Place on the stove on medium heat (I had it at 6). Begin to fry them/adding colour.

3. Now put the chicken and sausage in a bowl with some more of the olive oil (2 tablespoons). The meat needs to be browned on both sides so I used the bbq. Adds great flavour and keeps the dishes/ mess down. Don’t overcook the meat just brown it. Once it has been browned cut the sausage into 1 inch size pieces. Potatoes and or yams should take longer than the meat . They should fry in the pan for about 15ish minutes.

4. Now get a baking dish, depending on the size you might need 2. Place a small amount of oil in the bottom and spread out with fingers. Place potatoes and or yams in first then chicken and Sausage. Sprinkle about half the rosemary over top and a drop more oil.

5. Bake for 15 minutes. Then put in the red wine vinegar, stir the potatoes and flip the chicken. Sprinkle the remaining rosemary on top and bake for another 15 minutes.

That’s it. Make it try it

Yam and Ricotta Cheese Mash

Paul recently joined the rest of the CrosssFit masses and hopped on a modified paleo-diet train. At first, I thought he did this just to frustrate my cooking notions, but I've grown to accept his choices.

What is the paleo-diet you ask? Well, let me tell you! Basically, he doesn't eat ANYTHING that cavemen didn't eat. If it didn't grow during the paleolithic age (I assume that's where the name comes from) then he doesn't eat it. Oh, but he will eat things that come from a cow, so dairy is in. Yams are also on the acceptable list. Give it a google, learn all about it.

Since I prefer to eat a starch with every meal, I have been trying to dream up interesting ways to cook yams to accompany whatever meat and vegetable we're going to chow down on.

One Christmas in the not-too-distant past, I made a yam and ricotta gnocchi which tasted pretty good. I decided to try and modify this recipe. The gnocchi recipe called for flour, which is obviously unacceptable and just so happens to be responsible for getting the gnocchi molecules to stick together. Glutenous fibres and all. Yadda yadda, food science.

So - where was I. My goal was some sort of yam/cheese patty, but without the ability to use flour I needed some other sort of sticky substance to get the patties to actually FORM and stick together. I chose egg. I roasted a large yam, mashed it up with ricotta cheese, egg and spices and attempted to fry it. It wasn't good - esthetically, I mean. It just looked and tasted like a floppy pancake. That's when I decided on a fluffy yam and ricotta mash.  Turned out pretty good, Paul was pretty happy with it and so was I. I'm sure it'll turn up on our plates again.

This mash accompanied our BBQ'd lamb chops, guiness-brasied onions and some broccoli.

Yam and Ricotta Cheese Mash

Ingredients
1 large yam
1 egg
1/3 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tbsp italian seasoning
1 tsp chipotle powder
salt and pepper to taste
*Experiment with seasonings. Ricotta and Yam are quite bland and will pick up any flavour beautifully. Try a cajun seasoning or a Jamaican jerk.. or anything you think of!

Directions
1. Turn on oven to 400 F. Slice up yam and toss with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast for an hour or until tender. Pull out of oven, let cool.

2. Mash yam with ricotta cheese, egg and seasonings.

3. Fry in pan for 10-15 minutes on medium heat, turning and stirring when necessary. You want the egg to cook. The mash should be a bit fluffy, and not soggy.

*Dear Zita, I didn't measure anything, but I estimated these measurements just for you :)

Spicy Strawberry Baked Goat Brie

I really like hosting dinner parties. Our little townhouse is a bit small, so large parties require a bit of living space reorganization. I really hit the jackpot last Christmas when I discovered that my four-seat dining table is the exact same height as the island in my kitchen. I push them together - and VOILA! Suddenly, I have seating for seven people! I am only limited by the number of seats available in the house.

Last Sunday we had Paul's parents, my Dad and Cathy, and my brother John over for a feast. We started the night out with a pre-made vegetable platter (unused from a recent housewarming) and I served roasted chicken and root vegetables for a main.

Dessert was a delicious twist on a baked brie. I filled two rounds of goat brie with a mixture of strawberry jam and hotsauce, wrapped them up in a few sheets of phyllo pasty and baked it up until it was nice and flaky on the outside and warm and melty on the inside. I served the brie with rosemary and olive oil triscuits and a fruit platter.

Spicy Strawberry Baked Goat Brie

Ingredients
1 wheel goat brie
3 sheets of pre-made phyllo pastry, defrosted
1/4 cup strawberry jam
1 tsp your favourite hot sauce (I used sambal olek)

*hot sauce is optional. Brie baked with any kind of jam will be just as tasty!

Directions
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 F

2. Slice wheel of brie in half horizontally

3. Mix your strawberry jam and hot sauce together and spoon onto one half of the goat brief.

4. Top with other half of goat brie.

5. Prepare your phyllo sheets as per directions on the box. I sprayed mine with olive oil cooking spray, but you could also brush on melted butter. You may need to cut/tear the sheets down to size depending on the size of your wheel of cheese.

6. Place cheese/jam concoction into middle of phyllo sheets and wrap up. Spray outside of package liberally with olive oil spray, or brush liberally with melted butter.

7. Place on baking sheet and place in oven. Bake for 20 min or until cheese is starting to run out of pastry.

(raw dinner. Sorry, no after photos!)

(delicious, melty, sweet and spicy dessert!)

Roast Beef - Dry Roasting Method

I've been making roasts for a LONG time. Dad used to make a traditional roast beef dinner EVERY sunday night when I was growing up. Beef, veg, potatoes, gravy. Delicious every time. A true benchmark of achievement in my family is being able to make gravy just as thick and rich as Dad's. I'm proud to say that, after practicing on my own for almost 10 years, I am able to produce gravy of the same calibre.

I usually roast in a roasting pan at a low temperature, but I've read a lot about the dry roasting method and wanted to give it a try. I also wanted to try my friend Hilary's method of roasting which I incorrectly thought was 20 min at 500 F and then leave the roast sitting in the oven for a couple hours without opening the door. Last Monday I finally got my chance.

I had to go get Paul from the airport that afternoon, so I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of time. I am not comfortable leaving my oven on when I'm not home. I rubbed my roast down with olive oil and seasonings, stuck it directly on the oven rack, put a drip tray underneath it and temped the oven to 500 F. My oven either temps too high or is extremely angry - I watched as black billowing smoked filled the oven as it heated up! I'm surprised the smoke detector didn't go off, even though I had the fan goes full blast in the kitchen AND in the bathroom and the front door wide open. Once the oven hit the desired temperature, I let the roast... well, roast...for 20 minutes and then turned the oven off and headed out the door to get Paul.

A couple hours later, after picking up Paul, I pulled the roast out of the oven. It looked nice and crisp on the outside and it was juicy and cooked to about medium on the inside. The roast was great, no complaints, but I don't think I'll be using this method again for a few reasons:

1. I can't make gravy with the drippings because the super high heat reduced them to sludge.

2. I would never roast potatoes in there at the same time because they'd probaby smell funny from all the smoke.

3. I'm scared my tempermental oven would set my house on fire if I did it again.

4. It takes just as long as slow roasting at a low temperature and tasted just as good.

So there you have it. Nuts to dry roasting - slow roasting is King!

Cheddar, Green Onion & Fresh Herb Biscuits

Happy Birthday, Mary!

Mary had a potluck birthday brunch last Sunday so I whipped up some biscuits to share with everyone. I got the inspiration from a blog I very much admire, Thibeault's Table. The blog belongs to a very nice lady and mother of a friend of mine and it's pretty much the most delicious-looking blog I've ever read.

I followed this recipe with a few slight modifications.

Cheddar, Green Onion & Fresh Herb Biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup milk (I used whole milk)
1/3 cup chopped fresh italian flat-leaf parsley
2 tbsp chopped green onion
1/3 cup freshly grated cheddar


Directions
Mix dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Cut in butter until evenly distriubuted and the mixture resembles coarse meal. Mis in the parsley, green onion and cheese. Stir in the milk but don't stir anymore than you have to. Turn dough out on to floury surface and knead 2-3 times. Do NOT over-handle the dough. Press out 1/2" thick and cut as many biscuits as you want. I've made six and twelve out of this amount of dough and I am pretty sure I prefer six. The biscuits are a much nicer size that way.

Bake at 450 for 12-15 min for bigger scones and around 10 minutes for smaller ones.

This batch, I made about 12-15 biscuits out of the dough. All the butter boiled right out the dough and my biscuits were practically swimming in a butter bath. It's possible I used too much butter, or my biscuits were just too small. They turned out fine - nice and crispy on the outside. This is probably also due to the oil in the cheese melting out during the baking process. In any event, the biscuits were very buttery and tastefully greasy and I think everyone enjoyed them.

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Burger with Pesto & Goat Feta

This is for my friend Alison, who requested a vegetarian dish.

Paul is out of town for the weekend which means I can have mushrooms for dinner! I dreamed this up while walking the dog in the pouring down rain. I decided on vegetarian tonight because I've been eating left over ribs all day and thought some vegetables would probably do me some good. I'm also tired from writing my term paper all day, so I wanted something quick and easy. Everything just kind of fell into place.

I marinated the mushroom for about a half hour in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, italian seasoning and some salt and pepper. My BBQ wasn't starting and Paul wasn't here to fix it for me... but luckily, my neighbour and bus buddy Ken was around to start it up for me. Thank goodness! I doubt this would have turned out as well with a fried mushroom.

I whipped up a fresh basil pesto to use as a condiment and mad a big greek salad for a side dish. I was pretty disappointed with the bun I got from the Market on Millstream... I sliced it open and I guess there was a big air bubble in the dough, because the bun was pretty much hollow and practically stale.  In the end, it all worked out okay and I am delightfuly full.

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Burger with Pesto & Goat Feta

Mushroom Marinade
1 part balsamic vinegar
2 parts olive oil
italian seasoning
salt and pepper

You can make as litte or as much of this as you want, and season to taste. A good measurement would be 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp vinegar and 1/2 tsp of italian and just a sprinkling of salt and pepper. This recipe also doubles as a great salad dressing.

Place mushroom and marinade in small ziplock bag and remove all the air. Slosh around so the mushroom is nice and coated and let it sit for at least 15 minutes and longer if you can.

Heat your BBQ to medium-hot and grill mushroom until nice and tender and grilled-looking. Maybe 5 minutes on each side.

Fresh Basil Pesto
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup fresh italian parsley (flat leaf)
1/2 cup fresh basil (I use the living basil)
1 tsp salt
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 to 1 tbsp mayo or miracle whip

Pulse the garlic in an immersion blender. Add the parsely, basil, salt and lemon and pulse until blended. Mix in pine nuts and blend quickly. Pour in the olive oil and blend until thoroughly pureed. Let sit for at least 15 minutes to blend.

To make condiment, mix pesto with miracle whip or mayonnaise until at desired consistency. Maybe use 1/2 to 1 tbsp depending on how much of your pesto you're making condiment with.

Greek Salad 
1/2 cucumber
1/2 green pepper
1 tomato
1/2 red onion
black olives
goat feta
salad dressing (use mushroom marinade recipe

Chop vegetables and toss together. Add as much olive and feta as you like. Toss with salad dressing and let sit for 10 minutes to get nicely marinaded.

Now to put it all together...

Slice off the stem of your mushroom so it lays flat. Slice up the stem. Spread your pesto condiment on both sides of your bun. Sprinkle some goat feta on the bottom. Place whatever toppings you like on the top (I used spinach and tomato). Place your mushroom patty and slice stem on the feta, close up your burger and dive in.

Delicious! I also cracked open a bottle of wine that I recently inherited... but that's more for motivation to finish my paper tonight. It also went really well with my dinner.