Lazy Nights

Sometimes I have those lazy nights where I just don't feel like running out to the grocery store. And ordering for delivery can be expensive for only one person. Which leaves the only option of using what is in my cabinets and fridge to put together a meal. Luckily, I have a semi large collection of pantry staples.

In the past week I had two of these nights. And I think I did pretty good at putting together some meals using what I had available.

Night # 1- Chicken and fried rice

I took a chicken breast and cut it into chunks. I dipped them into an egg (that had been stirred), and dropped them into a disposable freezer bag that had about 1/3 cup of cornstarch in it. I shook the bag until the chicken was coated.

I heated about a tbsp of vegetable oil in a deep skillet and browned the chicken pieces until nearly cooked. (About 2 minutes)

I removed the chicken and added another tbsp or so of oil. Then I added just over half a cup of cooked, cold rice. It's important that the rice is cold, or it won't fry. After the rice had been in there for about a minute I added a half cup of thawed peas, and a carrot that I cut into large matchsticks. After another minute I added 3 tbsp of sauce, recipe to follow.

I took the rice out of the skillet, and added the chicken back. I poured over the rest of my sauce and stirred the chicken to coat. I kept the mix in there for about 2-3 minutes so that the sauce would thicken.

I made the sauce by combining 3 tbsp each of mirin, soy sauce, honey, Chinese cooking wine, as well as 2 tbsp of rice vinegar.

Overall a really good meal that didn't cost a lot, and I have been craving it since I made it that night.

Night # 2 - Pasta Carbonara

The next night, I realized I had all the ingredients for Nigella's spaghetti carbonara, except spaghetti noodles. I substituted the spaghetti noodles for small shells. The first time I ever made this (using spaghetti), I was blown away by how good this was. This time it was good, but not amazing. I blame the shells.

Shellfish Shellfish Shellfish

As previously mentioned, I am on holidays. I felt it was time to take a break from work, even if it meant having a "staycation" as opposed to going somewhere hot and tropical. For the first day of my holidays, I roped C into coming over and helping me make something with seafood.

She brought over some cookbooks, and we went through those and my cookbooks and planned a menu for eight. Even though there was only two of us eating. Never meal plan whilst hungry.

Rather than making a dish like paella or cioppino, which includes several types of fish and/or shellfish, we decided to make four appetizers and a soup. Each featuring a different shellfish. We are ambitious.

We went to a seafood store and picked up clams, mussels, crab, and lobster. Then we went to this magical place. The Sobey's Urban Fresh on Jasper Ave. I want to move in there. I don't mean nearby, I mean I want to move into the Sobeys. The produce was in way better condition than the produce at my normal Sobeys, and I even found smoked paprika, which is something I have heard of, but thought it was similar to the unicorn.

Not everyone may understand my newest obsession, but I love the grocery store, and I found one that is on a whole new level of awesome. I compare it to using Covergirl makeup, and then one day purchasing M.A.C. I have been going to just a run of the mill Sobeys this whole time, when in my city there existed a beautiful Sobeys.

The first dish on our list was Clams Oreganata. The recipe came from the Williams Sonoma Seafood book. I will include the recipe at the bottom of this post. Both C and I really loved these. The red wine vinegar in the recipe really gave them a needed freshness, as the bread and herbs and garlic could have been really heavy. They were easy to put together and only took a moment in the oven. The recipe recommended eating these with a slice of bread to soak up the oil, and I would say it was a fabulous idea.

Our next dish on the menu was Sauteed Scallops with Lemon Beurre Blanc. So easy to make, with a really delicious result. We didn't read the instructions properly and skipped a step in the beurre blanc, so our sauce looks a lot different from the picture in the link. However, these tasted amazing. In fact, as I write this I wish I had some scallops in the freezer so I could make them right now. If you want to make something really impressive, with a small amount of effort, make these. They were so delicious.

Next up, Moules a la Mariniere. Or mussels steamed in white wine. The recipe can be found here. I have made this before, and every time I am so impressed with this recipe.

Unfortunately, at this point we were stuffed to the gills. We had long given up on making the crab won tons that were on our menu. (They will be made at a later date) Usually the two of us can put away a half loaf (or so) of bread with these mussels, but we were having difficulty with just a couple slices.

This also meant that the lobster stew that we had been cooking away was not going to be enjoyed. We were using a Julia Child recipe, and Julia recommended letting the stew sit for a day or two before serving it, so it wasn't a total waste. The basic ingredients were lobster meat, butter and cream. I left the stew until the next day, and I had the genius idea to use it as a pasta sauce. I was disappointed. C commented while making the stew that it seems pointless to use cooked lobster meat, as you run the risk of overcooking it during the preparation of the stew. Guess what? C made a great point. The lobster was completely overcooked. And I didn't heat it for very long. If I was to make this again I would use raw lobster meat. The stew involved sauteing the lobster meat in butter, adding some wine, and then adding some cream. I tossed this over pasta and topped with some black pepper and cheese.

The taste was good, although very fishy. And the lobster meat was tough. So very disappointing. Next time we go out and buy lobsters we are cooking them and serving them whole with melted butter. You can't go wrong with that. (Also, sorry the picture is kind of fuzzy)

Recipe for Clams Oreganata

Ingredients:

1 slice country-style bread

24 littleneck or Manila clams (rinsed, shucked, juices and 24 deep half shells reserved)

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced

pinch of red pepper flakes

1 tbsp minced fresh oregano

1 tbsp minced fresh majoram, or flat leaf parsley

1) To make dried bread crumbs, put the bread in a low (200 F) oven for 1 hour to dry out without browning. (Or as we did, you can put it in a toaster until it has toasted) When the bread is dried, break it into chunks and process in a food processor or blender into fine crumbs. Measure out 1/4 cup crumbs.

2) Preheat broiler. Strain clam juices through a double thickness of dampened cheesecloth. (Or like we did, skip the straining since all the clam juice went into the towel we were shucking over)

3) In 4 shallow, flameproof, individual baking dishes place 6 of the reserved half shells and put a clam in each one. In a small bowl combine the strained clam juices, olive oil, vinegar, garlic and red pepper flakes. Whisk to blend. Spoon an equal amount, about 3 tablespoons, of the mixture over the clams in each dish. (Or, you could line a pan with some foil and place the clam shells on that, leaving some of the drizzle aside)

4) In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs, oregano, and majoram and stir to blend. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and stir again to coat the crumbs. Sprinkle each clam with a large pinch of the bread crumb mixture. Place the dishes under the broiler about 3 inches from the heat source and broil until the crumbs are toasted and the clams are opaque, about 1-2 min. Serve at once. (If you used the pan idea, once the clams are out of the oven, place them on the serving dish and drizzle the plate with the leftover vinegar mixture)

Serving tip: Serve with thick slices of coarse country bread for dipping into the flavored oil.

Le Gourmet

I am so ashamed of myself. I haven't done much of anything this weekend, other than letting the couch mold to my rear end. One would think that since I have had so much spare time that I would have been going crazy in the kitchen. Sadly, the most work I have put into making food this weekend was picking up the phone and calling for pizza delivery.
(I answered the door in my pajama pants, no makeup on my face, and I hadn't brushed my hair. I think he had a hard time believing that this hot piece of awesomeness was single)

I do not work at all this week, so I plan on using my holidays to my advantage and make some complicated, time consuming recipes. And perhaps running a comb through my hair.

Gouda & Proscuitto Pizza

In all the time that I have been writing this blog, I can't believe I have never talked about my favorite website, Food Gawker. Food Gawker is a website that has tons of photos that various food bloggers send in. If you click on the picture it will bring you to their blog post that (hopefully) has the recipe.

I love this website, when I am feeling uninspired, and not sure what to make for dinner, I am guaranteed to find something I want to try on there. On Monday I had made a pot roast, and was planning on making a stroganoff type dish with the leftovers. However, yesterday I didn't feel like eating beef (no, hell has not frozen over), and while cruising Food Gawker I found this, flat bread pizza with prosciutto and Gouda.

Off topic, I figured since Food Gawker was such a good idea, that maybe someone who is really smart started a Firefighter Gawker. No such luck.

Pizza time. I used a Gouda that was at Sobeys. Terrible idea, the cheese was the worst Gouda I have ever had, and I have had a lot of Gouda in my lifetime. Ain't Dutch, ain't much. The next time I make this pizza I will be sure to visit Ben the Dutch Butcher, to pick up the cheese.

Instead of making dough, I used a frozen pizza crust that I had bought at an Italian store in Edmonton. I topped it with grated Gouda (or not so good-a), some thinly sliced prosciutto, and thinly sliced red onions that I had cooked down in olive oil.

The recipe called for topping the pizza with some salad greens. If you know me at all, you know that I think that is ridiculous. Greens are for salads, not pizza.

Some of you might be wondering what the brown drizzle is, it's called heaven. Or balsamic glaze. To make it, I boiled balsamic vinegar on the stove until it became thick and syrupy. So good.

I really liked this pizza, bad Gouda and all. The prosciutto becomes crispy in the oven, the onions aren't overpowering, and how do you not love something covered in balsamic vinegar?

Not Really Nigella's

First of all, I have to talk about something unrelated to food. I have been obsessed with the Olympics, since they started I haven't been able to turn my TV off Olympic coverage. I am also newly obsessed with Alexandre Bilodeau.

He is the first Canadian athlete to win a gold medal on Canadian soil. How awesome is that?

Now the food. Last week I was making recipes from Nigella Express, which has now given me some inspiration to get more use out of my cookbooks. This might sound weird, given that cookbooks are inanimate objects, but sometimes I think that ones that don't get used much start to feel neglected. To fix this, every so often I will be picking a cookbook and for a week only making recipes from that book.
I don't feel I did the Nigella Express much justice, so I will be revisiting it in the future. I only made a few recipes and I can't really claim that the following meal was Nigella's. She has a recipe in the Express book for Italian Sausages in Tomato Sauce with Polenta. To me, polenta sounds like wet cornmeal pudding, and is completely unappetizing. I know that I should try it, since it's not right to judge something without trying it, but I can't bring myself to do it. I like my polenta in the cornmeal muffin form. So I took out the polenta and swapped it with pasta. Nigella also calls for a mix of jarred tomato sauce, and jarred chili sauce. She insists on it being extremely high quality, and the only chili sauce Sobeys had was made by Heinz. Doesn't exactly scream high quality goodness. So I just bought a jar of tomato sauce. I also added some Parmesan cheese at the end because I was having a really hard time taking a picture of this dish that didn't look like it should be rated NC-17.

Rebekah's Really Easy Pasta Dish
1) Heat some oil in a deep skillet and brown a package of Italian sausages, until they are brown on all sides.
2) Add 3 or so tbsp of Marsala wine to the skillet and cook for about a minute or two
3) Add a jar of good quality tomato/spaghetti sauce. (No, I am not a fan of using jarred sauces. Making your own tomato sauce is pretty easy, but we were going for really simple here)
4) Simmer until the sausage are cooked. This took about 15 minutes or so for me, so in the meantime cook some pasta according to the package directions.
5) Place the pasta and a plate and top with the sauce and sausages. Top those with some grated Parmesan cheese (not from a shaker), and fresh ground pepper.

I would say that it was tasty, even with using a jarred sauce. It's a good meal to make when you have very little time to put something together.

Chicken Pot Pie, But Better

Growing up, there was a lot of food I couldn't stand, chicken pot pie being one of them. Some members of my family thought a great meal was heating up some frozen chicken (or beef) pot pies found ready-made in the frozen aisle of the grocery store. Bleh.

I have major chicken issues. I will not eat chicken in canned soups, or frozen meals. You cannot convince me that it's actually chicken and not some rubber byproduct. Combine that with a sludgey cream, and some carrots that are square (did I mention I also cannot eat the frozen vegetable medley? You know, the one with green beans, peas, corn and square carrots? Gives me the heebie jeebies) and you have a meal that gives me nightmares.

Homemade chicken pot pie is slightly better. I will actually eat it, possibly enjoy it, but I would much rather have something else, like a steak in butter sauce. However, I did made something similar to chicken pot pie the other night, only it's a 1000 times better.

Since this is "Redeem Nigella Lawson from the Crappy Review the Hacks Anna and Kristina Gave Her Week", this recipe is from Nigella Express. Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon Pie. Even the name sounds better the Chicken Pot Pie. Cut up chicken breast, chopped mushrooms, cooked bacon, and thyme make the filling. The sauce is made with a bit of flour, chicken stock, and 2 tbsp of wine.

Let me tell you, I would much rather have bacon than square carrots any day. The crust is actually a puff pastry topping. If you click Nigella's link it will show you what the puff pastry should look like. Mine was somewhat pretty, I guess, but it had sunk into the bowl and didn't puff a lot. I am excited to show off my pretty french onion soup bowls that I bought before LeGnome (r.i.p.) shut down.

A peek at the filling:

If I had to tally a score I would say Nigella got a point for this dish, and also for the salmon so the score as of this moment is:

Nigella 2

A&K -2 (they lose a point every time Nigella gains one)

Burnt Salmon

On Sunday I was flipping through channels and I ended up watching Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag. The premise of the show is Anna and Kristina pick a cookbook, make four or five recipes from it, and then a guest chef comes and tries the recipes. They do this as a sort of review of the book. The cookbook they were using for the episode I watched was Nigella Express.

I thought for sure Nigella was going to receive a rave review. After all, I have this book and I love it. And I love Nigella. However Anna & Kristina actually said they were "disappointed with Nigella". I am so angry. These two hacks, who have a TV show on the W network of all places, think that they are good enough to be "disappointed" in Nigella? As in Domestic Goddess Nigella? And I don't know who their guest judge was, but he kept saying Nigella's name with disdain, instead of the intense admiration she deserves. I had never even heard of this guy, and how many people could tell you who Nigella is?

So I am going to do a re-test. And this week I will be featuring recipes from Nigella Express, and I will be reviewing it myself, since Anna and Kristina have no idea what they are talking about.

Last night I made Mirin Glazed Salmon. Mirin is a sweetened Japanese rice wine, I picked up a bottle of it at the supermarket, not the liquor store (even though it has alcohol in it). Nigella uses skinless salmon, but next time I would make mine with the skin, as it fell apart really easily. She also didn't specify what temperature to heat the pan on. I knew I shouldn't have set it as high as I did, because there is brown sugar in the marinade and sugar burns, but I didn't listen to my intuition. So the first two fillets that I cooked, burned. Not a lot though since I planned to undercook them a bit because I would be heating them up for lunch, and I didn't want to overcook them during the reheat. The next two fillets I cooked on a lower temperature, and also included the step with the marinade.

I served it with jasmine rice, and topped the whole thing with green onions. I also served it alongside a salad that I made by tossing some broccoli slaw with chopped green onions, Renee's Asian Sesame Vinaigrette, and top that with crushed ramen noodles.

The salad (which is not a Nigella recipe):

I hate broccoli, but I do enjoy broccoli slaw which is made from the stems.

The salmon & rice (Nigella's recipe for the salmon):

I didn't show a whole shot of the salmon, because they fell apart really easily, and it looked messy. Overall the taste was really really great, and it was so simple to make. The hardest part was chopping the green onions. I would recommend heating the pan over medium, and using salmon with the skin on.

Tomato Soup

I had a setback this weekend in regards to my "down sizing". I had a bunch of friends in town, and we went out to a couple restaurants over the weekend. Although last night I did summon enough willpower to do a pilates workout at home, and I did drink more water than I usually do on weekends.

Edmonton has been sort of grey and dreary lately. Yesterday after everyone had left, I felt like making something along the lines of comfort food. My mom used to make tomato soup with pasta when I was younger. She used a can of condensed tomato soup, added a can of milk instead of the water the instructions called for, and at the end added cooked elbow macaroni.

Yesterday, using an Everyday Food recipe, I made my own version of tomato soup with pasta. The Classic Tomato Soup, is almost as easy to make as a canned soup. It requires chopping up an onion, and opening a can of tomato pasta, and a can of tomatoes. I used an immersion blender to puree the whole amount of soup (I do not like chunks of tomatoes), and I added some cooked, whole wheat rotini when the soup was finished. The next time I make it I will use a smaller pasta like elbow macaroni, or small shells.

Overall I like the taste of the soup. I feel better eating a soup that the ingredients are butter, olive oil, onion, tomato paste, tomatoes, and thyme, rather than one that says condensed on the can. (Although I still sometimes make that as well)

Chicken Chili

Since I have decided to lose a size I have managed to work out once. Not at the gym, I worked out to Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I like working out at home for a few reasons. The first one is no one else is there to hear me breathing like an asthmatic in a hookah lounge. The second is I don't have to drive anywhere, so working out takes up less of my time. And the third is I can shout obscenities at the trainer, which would be frowned upon at the gym.

The DVD is great, I hurt so much the next day which is how I judge how effective a workout is. I was going to plow through the pain and work out again, but I went to C's house for dinner and when I got home I wanted to make my lunch for the next day.

Chicken Chili (my recipe)

1) Brown up a package of ground chicken in a large pot or pan

2) add a chopped onion, and heat until onion is soft, about 2 min

3) add some paprika, a little less than a Tbsp

4) add some chili powder (however much you like, I used a little over a Tbsp)

5) add a can of black beans, kidney beans, and brown beans. Rinse the beans first though.

6) add a 14 oz can of tomatoes with chili seasoning, and a 28 oz can of plum tomatoes. Use a spoon to break up the plum tomatoes

7) If you would like, add some hot sauce as well.

This recipe is reasonably healthy, and incredibly easy. I really like the use of ground chicken in chili, it's lighter than beef and it also absorbs the flavor of the chili. You could use any kind of beans, I like black for the color, and kidney because they are my favorite. I was going to throw in some frozen corn as well, but I forgot about it when I was making it (unusual I know). Considering the amount of chili powder and hot sauce I threw in, it wasn't actually all that spicy.

I had planned on working out after making the chili, but I went to bed instead as it was pretty late. Yesterday I was going to do pilates in an effort to stretch out my aching muscles, but due to some crippling cramps I spent the evening on the couch with a heating pad trying to calm down my ovaries.

While I have been failing at exercising, I have been doing great on water intake. I hate drinking water, but knowing that it's great for me I have been making a real effort to drink a lot more of it. Even though my start off is slow, I am still feeling positive.

Little Bow Ties

My New Year's resolution to go to the gym more has been haunting me. I have yet to go to a gym this year. I didn't even realize my gym had apparently been bought out by another company. I go through a cycle that starts with me feeling a bit unhappy with myself, so I work out and eat better, then I look better, so then I start cheating just a little. Then I cheat a lot. Then I become completely self-indulgent until I get to a point that putting jeans on in the morning is like trying to stuff sausage casings.

I am not trying to say that being skinnier is better, or sexier. I believe in something called "happy weight". Happy weight refers to whatever size or weight you feel your best at. It can be any size. Currently I am larger than my happy weight and my goal is to get back down to it. The reason why I am talking about it on my blog is to be held accountable. I don't want to get to a month from now, and not be able to say I am closer to my goal.

What I am trying to accomplish overall is being able to love myself a bit more. A blog that I read quite often is Gala Darling, and she is declaring February as the month for radical self love. This may sound hokey to some of you, but personally I think it's a great idea. So many times we fall into a trap of impressing other people, when really we need to learn to truly love ourselves.

Her blog said that if you were going to follow her radical self love, to post one of her images on your blog. Throughout the next month you may see me referencing her "Radical Self Love" articles, but I will not forget about my main topic, food.

I'll start off with the salad I made yesterday, as an appetizer of course. I took mixed salad greens and topped them with chopped carrot, celery, green onion, cucumber and red bell pepper (capsicum). The point is to load the salad with as much vegetables as possible. I topped it with a shallot vinaigrette, from Everyday Food.

The ingredients of the dressing are minced shallots, olive oil, Dijon mustard, honey and red wine vinegar. They balance each other perfectly, the dressing is light, refreshing and full of flavor.

I made a chicken recipe from Rachael Ray. It's supposed to be Chicken with Wild Mushroom and Balsamic Cream Sauce. My finished product wasn't a sauce, but it was delicious nonetheless.

You start off by chopping up a ton of mushrooms (different varieties).

I meant a ton.

The mushrooms are cooked down in butter, then shallots, garlic and thyme are added. Followed with some flour, chicken stock, balsamic vinegar and cream. (There are only 3 tbsp of cream in the sauce, which isn't much at all)

The recipe calls for the cooked chicken breast to be placed on a bed of orzo and topped with the sauce. I had bought a bag of mini bow ties a while ago, so I used those in place of the orzo. (Orzo is a small pasta in the shape of large rice).

Rachael's recipe called for eyeballing a tbsp of balsamic vinegar, and I eyeballed two of them. When it comes to balsamic I always use a little bit more since I love it. I also eyeballed the chicken stock, and I must not have added nearly enough. If you make this, and you use the full amount of stock, you will end up with a beautiful sauce rather than the thick topping I had.

While not a sauce, the result was very good. Had anyone been watching me eat dinner, I think I would have scared them with the amount of voracity I showed while wolfing this down.

The "not sauce" sauce.

Look at how cute those bow ties are!