I roasted spuds and thought i was pro

Oh my gosh it's been a month since my last post here!!!! It's not that I haven't been cooking (although I haven't cooked a huge amount), it's that I haven't been blogging about it. BAD me, BAAAAAD! In the four weeks since I last wrote here, I've learned a few new things and bought a couple new books. Which I've barely cracked, I might add.

Anyways...here's an easy one I learned: herbed up roasted potatoes. I was watching Bobby Flay make a greek dinner and he made greek potatoes. I took some of what he said and...of course...changed it a bit. So my spuds weren't so greek in the end. It only took a few minutes to prepare this in my new food processor, so it's a keeper that I'll do again. Hrmm...maybe I'll make this tonight for tomorrow's lunch.... Anyways, I went to Save on and bought some fresh Rosemary, some fresh thyme and some baby dill. I had a bag of little baby potatoes in the house. By the way, I believe we were eating pork chops as the main that night? Anyways... I stripped about 7 or 8 sprigs of the rosemary into the food processor. I added a bunch of the thyme and the baby dill, and about 4 cloves of garlic. Er...4 pieces. I put in a half a cup of extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of pepper and a fairly healthy bit of coarse sea salt and turned on the spinner for about 15 seconds. Voila. Done.

I put the mixture into a large bowl, tossed in the spuds and mixed it up really well. I put the potatoes into a pyrex casserole thingy and popped them into the oven at 450 for about 20 minutes. That's it. They were done. I loved them, but Ruth thought they were a bit too herb-y. I think that if I had used bigger potatoes and cut them, it might have been more to her liking. And maybe I'm guilty of putting a bit too much of the mixture on...there was certainly a fair bit in the bowl.

One thing I might try next time is to sprinkle a bit more oil on the potatoes or in the bottom of the pan I'm cooking them in, just to give it a bit of crispyness on the outside. I don't know, maybe that would be too greasy? I'll have to experiment. In Bobby Flay's recipe he also had a healthy dose of lemon juice in the mixture; I'll try that one day too, but not til I'm cooking lamb.

Steak with Roquefort Sauce

4 Tbsp olive oil
half an onion, chopped

• salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 ounces Roquefort cheese, crumbled
• Italian flat leaf parsley, for garnish

2 1 lb or so steaks

Preparation time, 20 minutes
Cooking time, 20 minutes or so maybe a bit less

I love cheese. Most cheeses, anyways. Maybe not cottage cheese. And, as determined earlier I also love beef. So, when Ruth and I went to Feenie's for dinner a couple weeks back, I ordered the marinated sirloin with Roquefort Cheese and a bordelaise sauce. As the kids say these days, OMG it was teh yum! But that's a whole other post (which I'll make soon) about our experience at Feenies. Anyways, so I went to my favorite specialty cheese shop at Park Royal and looked around a bit, and settled on a nice Montagnolo Roquefort.

I wrestled a bit with how to use the cheese, and ended up doing nothing for a while. In comes Ruth to the rescue! My girlfriend is the awesomest. Anyways, I had purchased a couple of Buffalo striploins from 3P meats in North Vancouver. I don't know if I'll purchase there again tho; it was expensive, not the friendliest, and frankly just wasn't the best meat. I've had buffalo before, and I generally quite like it. If you didn't know, buffalo is like beef only better with less fat and less preservatives. If you can imagine the best organic beef you've had and then take some of the fat away, that's buffalo. Anyways, the pieces we got weren't perfect, and at 20 bux a kilo I expect it to be awesome, near perfect with no chewy bits or fatty pieces. Especially as in Alberta buffalo is basically as cheap as or cheaper than beef. I'm sure I'll give that place another chance at some point, but I gotta say my first experience there hasn't made me a fan. The Blue Goose beef place or Sebastian's...now that's a different story. For a different blog post.

Anyways, I digress. So I had these two strips and the roquefort and a talented girlfriend. So she made a roquefort sauce. I totally loved it! She started with some olive oil in a large saucepan. She chopped up about a half an onion and sweated that for a bit. The key to sweating onions properly is to not over heat the oil, although that can be difficult on a cheap electric stove like is in my apartment. Anyways, she cooks the onions for a bit and sears the steaks on both sides (five minutes a side or so). After removing the steaks and putting them somewhere to keep them warm, she then adds some brandy, a few tablespoons I think, to loosen any browned bits on the bottom of the pan, as well as to add flavour. Once that reduces a bit she adds 1 cup of heavy cream (whipping cream, it turns out, is heavy cream. Who knew?), and brings it to a boil. During this, it should be stirred until it starts to thicken. A bit of fresh pepper and a bit of parsley, add the cheese, and fold that in until it melts, and voila! a nice sauce to go on the steaks you have warmed over on the side.

We had the steaks with some mashed potatoes and a bit of vegetable, and I found the sauce was perfect. Just a bit of the blue cheese tang, and a subtle brandy flavour, and it all really brought out the flavour of the steaks. All in all it took about 40 minutes to cook, and I personally think this one's a keeper. I know I will try it again sometime. This is one of my new faves for sure!

Fun with Rice

Back in my 20's when I was going to be a rock star and lived the bohemian life for a few years, I learned 2 things: 1) Rice is easy for me to cook, and 2) Rice is uber cheap for lots of it. So I ate alot of rice. It was a staple of my diet and probably the only thing I've spent alot of time cooking. I've never had a problem with rice, and I know some people do. For me the key was always "don't peek". Most people I know who have troubles figuring out rice only have problems cuz they peek into the pot while it's steaming away. Don't do it. Of course nowadays with rice cookers so cheap, there's no reason to not be able to steam up some rice.

The thing about rice for me was that even tho I ate it so much, I always prepared it basically one way: a little butter (or marg), a little salt. I don't know why I never branched out on my rice preparations, but alas...I didn't. I no longer ever cook white rice, usually it's only short grain brown as it's apparently much healthier and lower in carbs or something. Often, when I cook rice now I'll use chicken broth instead of water. I've thought that some time I'll use juice maybe too...orange rice might be tasty. It certainly changes the whole flavour when you cook it in something other than water.

The other day I cooked a large pot of rice in water, and had it for lunch two days in a row. I decided to prepare it different than usual and got some pretty yummy results. On day one, I put in a little butter and a little salt as per usual, but then I added two crushed garlic cloves and a bit of thyme. Man it was yummy! But...when I heated it up I stunk up the whole kitchen at the office with garlic...sorry co-workers! I guess putting the garlic on cold and then mic-ing it is probably not the best idea. It sure was tasty tho...I'm gonna experiment a bit more with the garlic rice.

Yesterday I did things a bit different. First off, instead of butter I put on some extra virgin olive oil. I then put in a healthy amount of dill, a pinch of oregano and some lemon pepper. For a bit of heat i put in just a nudge of chili powder. I chopped up some green onion and put it in as well. Mmmm...it was tasty. For a guy who hates dill pickles, I sure love dill on my food. That was one of the tastiest rices I ever remember having. I had a bit of asparagus as well, so that got steamed up and dropped in, but to be honest I kinda wish I had just eaten the rice, and maybe had a salad or something on the side. I'll definitely do this rice again.

There are so many different herbs and spices available that rice should have near endless possibilities of flavour. Who knew? Well, anyone who thinks of food as more than just sustenance I guess. But anyways...I will continue to experiment with it and try new things and see what works and what doesn't.