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.

Who you calling Chicken??

2 tbsp olive oil
half cup chopped onion
1 apple, sliced into small bits
3/4 cup apple cider
4 ounces brie, no rind
Chicken breasts, boneless skin on
salt and pepper
1 tsp thyme
Bacon strips
toothpicks
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour

So this actually goes back to my second time cooking. This was the one that made me think "hrmm...maybe I can actually cook here!" It was a pretty ambitious project for a guy who had cooked one steak and a whole bunch of ichiban's previously. It was back in May, and Ruth and I were having a date. I scoured the web for romantic recipes, and I knew that I couldn't go beef again. I know that Ruth quite likes chicken, even if it's not my personal favorite (i'm a prairie boy...it's all about the beef for me!).

I came across an interesting sounding recipe at About.com's southern food section here. Chicken, yes, apples, yum, brie cheese, ooooo super yum! So I decided to play with that a bit. I basically made the apple and brie concoction as the recipe said and then altered a bit after that. I toodled off to the store and picked up all the ingredients. I had to ask the butcher at the local save on to remove the bone from the chicken breasts and leave the skin on, and he happily did so. I quite like Save On foods as a grocery store; their selection is great and the pricing is great and they're all quite helpful, specially to a newbie like me.

Anyways I got home, and I started by heating the oil in a non stick pan. I actually used a sauce pan, even tho the recipe called for a skillet. I dumped in the onion and cooked it til it was tender, about 7 or 8 minutes. I then added the apples, about a third of the cider, some salt, some pepper and thyme, and it took about 5 minutes till that was tender (well the apples; the other stuff didn't need to get tender). I let that cool a bit and then dumped in the chopped up brie. I stirred that all together til it was a nice sexy paste and then pulled the chicken out of the fridge.

I put the oven at 400 degrees to preheat it while I prepared the chicken. First I popped the skin up with my fingers, and ran my fingers back until the skinn was all loose but still attached on the one side. I took a butter knife and applied the apple/brie concoction under the skin, and then used my fingers to make it all even and sexy looking. By this point I was drooling, let me tell you. I LOVE brie cheese. Anyways. After I had the chicken stuffed, I placed down 6 strips of bacon (3 for each breast). I spread a bit more of the cheese and apple stuff on them, then placed the chicken on and rolled it up. I used toothpicks to attach the bacon, then threw both breasts into a baking dish. I added a bit more salt and pepper, then tossed the dish into the oven for about 50 minutes. I don't have a thermometer, and since it was chicken I erred on the side of caution for cooking time; you basically want it to be 180 degrees inside the meat when it's done. The recipe had said 35-45 minutes, and since I had the bacon wrapped, I added a bit more.

I pulled the pan out of the oven (and oh my gosh did it smell good!) and proceeded skim the fat into another sauce pan. I added the rest of the cider, a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper and the remainder of the thyme, and cooked until it reduced by half. My first reduction!!! I spooned the sauce over the chicken, and served with some roasted potatoes and a "California" pre packaged salad I had picked up at Save On. It was an utter success! Ruth still talks about that chicken and I will definitely experiment with that one again. It's not very often that I eat chicken and go "oh my gosh that was good chicken" but I did with this one. The Brie and the apple have such nice flavours and they accent the chicken's natural flavour very nicely. The bacon added a bit of flavour that mixed in well, plus made it all nice and juicy. I'm sure this one wasn't the most fat conscious meal ever, but man was it good!

Swimming with the sharks...well, ok the salmon, but they have teeth too, darnit!

2 Salmon fillets
one lime for each fillet
fresh cilantro
dill
Two cloves of fresh garlic
one tbsp olive oil for each fillet
a pinch of sage
half a cup of salt


Prep time: 15 minutes plus 1.5 hours plus 24 hours
Cooking time: 12 minutes

Fish is so good for you. I don't eat near enough fish, but when I do I usually love it. Most fish anyways...salmon not so much. As I travel this journey into foodism I find myself watching the food network (food tv up here in Canada) substantially more than I used to. A couple of weeks ago I was flipping through the channels and landed on food tv while license to grill was on. The guy was going to smoke some large salmon steaks so I watched, as salmon's not anything I've spent much time cooking.

See, I'm not a fan of salmon usually; I like the flavour but I always find it drier textured than I like, so I don't eat much. While watching license to grill, Rob Rainford got me excited about salmon; he loves grilling and food and is very compelling to watch because he has so much enthusiasm. Anyways, the hook he got me with was that he brined the salmon first. Brine is, as it sounds, salt water, and the thing that caught my attention is this little tip he threw in there: to determine whether there's enough salt in your brine, drop an egg in. If it floats, it's briney enough. Fantastic! Who knew??? Anyways, after that he gave the salmon a bit of cilantro and some lime and then smoked it.

So I altered it a bit, since I don't have a barbeque I can smoke things with, and frankly, I like to experiment a bit. First off, I went to the local grocer and bought myself two atlantic salmon fillets and some cilantro. I bought the atlantic prepackaged ones because they were slightly cheaper than coho and if I didn't like this I didn't want to waste too much money. I got home and filled a deep saucepan about half full of water, then proceeded to dump salt in. I mixed it up with a wooden spoon and then tossed a raw egg in. Success! It floated. So I put the salmon in the water (after putting the egg back in the fridge of course), popped the lid on and threw it in the fridge. Rob said on the show for an hour and a half, but I left mine in for more like two hours, as I got sucked into a wicked game of civilizations IV.

I pulled the salmon out of the fridge and blotted the water off with some paper towel, as per Rob's instructions. Then I strayed. I started by dumping some dill on each fillet. At first I tried to just spread it on, but as the brining made the fish swell up a certain amount and get quite porous, I decided to make it a dill rub instead. So I rubbed in the dill all over the fish. After doing this I sliced up my limes, and put four slices on each fillet (basically one lime for each). I squeezed the juice out of the ends onto them as well. Normally I don't like cilantro very much, and I was a bit nervous about putting it on. But, as I figured I'm trying new things, I figured what the hell, and put a healthy amount on each fillet. A note for all you cilantro haters: It works on salmon, it really really does! I then took some dried sage and sprinkled it onto each fillet. I put both dressed fillets on a single plate (and by the way, they looked awesomely yummy at this point; wish I had taken a photo!) and covered them in the fridge over night.

The next night I got home from work and decided to grill these puppies up. I pulled them out of the fridge and removed the lime slices and the cilantro. Of course where the lime was it was slightly cooked already. I took my garlic press and crushed a clove onto each fillet, spreading it around a bit with my fingers. I heated up my electric grill and then threw the fillets on. I drizzled the top with a bit of olive oil, cooked for 5 minutes and flipped them. I drizzled more olive oil on the new tops and cooked for another 5, and finally flipped them over one more time for 2 minutes. I dunno if this was right or not, but it worked.

I've made this meal twice now, once just for myself and once for me and Ruth. When I had it myself I served it with a small green salad, and with Ruth we had a potato salad with it. I found the salmon to be moist and tasty, and when I got some cilantro or garlic it just exploded with yumminess. The one drawback is that the flavour tends to end up in pockets, and I'd like to get it more even. Any thoughts on that?

I will cook this again and continue to experiment with it. Perhaps next time I'll foil it up and cook it in the oven instead of on the grill?

Welcome; my entry into the kitchen.

Welcome to my new food blog. As my profile states, I have only just started cooking. Here I am, a guy about to turn 40 and for the first time in my life I actually cook meals. And it turns out I'm not too bad at it! Whoda thunk it?

Since I quit smoking about 4 and a half months ago, I've developed a new love of food and my palate actually works too! My girlfriend is a true "foodie" who not only loves to taste food and really savours it, she can cook like a demon too. She also likes to see me make the effort to cook for her. In February of this year, I cooked for someone for probably the first time in my adult life, for her birthday. I mean, I had cooked for people before, but that consisted of something mostly prepared, and just cooking it.

It's wierd that I've never been a fan of the kitchen...I grew up in the country and my mother is a monster good cook; one of those farm ladies who grows most of her own food and then cooks it wonderfully. Out of four of us kids, my older sister and my youngest brother picked up that cooking joy. Me and my other little brother, not so much. So, when my girlfriend put a little bit of pressure on me to think outside my box, it was with trepidation that I actually did it.

My first one was real basic.With a little help from one of her foody friends, I created a red wine marinade for steaks. I basically took a cup of red wine (I used a Santa Rita Cabernet from Chile, which we also drank with the meal), a little bit of barbeque sauce (about a quarter cup), chopped up a clove of garlic and added various spices (a bit of pepper, a bit of salt, a bit of thyme). I put all of that into a ziplock bag and dropped the steak in as well, putting the whole thing in the fridge overnight. Obviously I made two of those packages.

I prepared some asparagus by breaking off the tips, and put them in the fridge as well, over night. Thirty nine years old, and can you believe I didn't know that you prepare asparagus by grabbing each end and curving til the tip breaks off? I had no idea that it would actually break where it was supposed to break! It's almost embarassing.

Anyways I had borrowed an indoor grill and set that up. I put the steaks on for about 10 minutes a side, sprinkling each one with a little bit of lemon juice. When I flipped the steaks after the first ten minutes I put the asparagus on and in the microwave created a little lemon butter. I made this by taking some butter (duhhh) and sprinkling a bit of lemon juice into it. I don't know how much, I just squeezed half a lemon til it was out of juice into the butter. Threw the bowl into the microwave for about a minutes, stir it up, and boom...tadaaa!!! a beautiful lemon butter drizzle for the asparagus.

I put the steaks and the asparagus on the plate and drizzled the lemon butter over the asparagus (quite liberally I might add) and served the dinner with some garlic bread. I'm trying to remember if I had potatoes, and I don't think I did. Anyways...success! She said she enjoyed it and even blogged about it! It was surprisingly easy and fast and had a minimum of cleanup. It didn't require any special tools other than the grill, and it was a tasty meal. I must say that personally, I don't know that I'd do a red wine marinade again as for me I tasted a bit more wine than beef, but for some that's a good thing. It wasn't the best beef we'd ever had.

Anyways, there you go...cooking story number 1, the very first. Feel free to comment!