How to eat like a bachelor

So, for the most part I don't have the energy to make full meals, so this post should give you an insight on how I eat when I am too embarrassed to post it.

As you know I went grocery shopping so I had food supplies, however they do begin to dwindle as the fruits and veggies start to go. This is when I figure I should do something lest they get inedible.

Meal 1: Croissantwich

Well, for this wonder, I picked up some discounted croissants (1 day from expiry). I had some left-over cappicollo from the deli the previous week. It looked kind of like bacon or prosciutto, so I fried it. I microwaved the croissant for 20 seconds to soften it up. I mayo'd one half, and margerined the other, Cut up a couple slices of tomato too. I also had some decent havarti which was a bonus. To top it off I added a heaping mound of sauerkraut. I then proceeded to eat it.

Meal 2: Cornmealed Pork Ramen

Due the fact Sara and I made a colossal amount to pork the other day, i had some leftovers. Since the cornmeal was a little gritty (I think we forgot mention that) I figured where else to put it but Japanese style soup. I always have a couple of packets of ramen on hand (for best results buy the ones with the least English on the package). So I boiled an egg, and refried up the porkchop. Once they were nearing completion, I cooked up the noodles according to the directions on the package. I am not sure what flavor they were, the only English was the directions, and a sentence on the front saying "now with sesame oil". I poured myself a bowl and added the egg and the cut up pork chop. Also for my veggies I had some slightly flowering broccoli (not pictured) followed by fresh blueberries for dessert.

Meal 3: Rice, Avocado and Meatballs???

So for this one, after seeing all of the wonderful avocado reviews on the blog, I saw them in the produce section so I picked one up, however due to the fact I was at Metro the promo was 3 for $5. I am only one man, I don't know how much avocado Metro thinks I can eat but 3 is a lot. So I made up some minute rice, microwaved a handful of pre-made meatballs, and chopped up half an avocado and added some BBQ sauce. That is about it. It worked quite well. And what did I do with the other half of the avocado you ask?

DESSERT 1: Berry Sauce?

So also on sale was berries, 2 for 1, so I picked up a pint of blueberries and whatever a size container is typical for strawberries. But alas, again I am only one man, and the strawberries started to get fuzzy, and the blueberries shriveled. So into the saucepan they go (with a cinnamon stick of course). As this was simmering away while I prepared my avocado, I remembered Sara's post, and thought "hey, why not?" I simmered them together, but the avocado never fully disintegrating leaving green chunks in my berry sauce. If was motivated I would have whipped out the immersion blender. Oh well. Onto Ice Cream it goes.














Alright ladies and gentlemen, tune in next week for more food adventures!!!!

-Brent

Corn meal

Hello World,

Today, Sara came to visit for dinner. As for back-story when i moved to Toronto i made a grocery list after watching food network, and the only thing on the list: cornmeal. So while grocery shopping yesterday and bought cornmeal (1 year 5 months and some days after i intended to). So i decided to make a variation on schnitzel. I pounded the meat as Sara prepared to bread the pork with the cornmeal. SEE RECIPE:

Cornmealed pork schnitzels:

6 pork chops
corn meal
flour
paprika
Salt pepper
Egg
Water
Milk

Set up bowls as shown in picture spread.
(Note from Sara: The flour Bowl isn't in the picture. It should go meat, then flour, then egg mixture, then cornmeal... also, tip from Brent: keep one hand "wet" with egg and the other "dry" with cornmeal so you don't get stuck with two wet hands)

After we "breaded" or "mealed" the pork, we had alot of left over egg mix. So we threw in the avacado and breaded that.

Also I happened to have bought an eddoe whilst shopping. So we fried that up post-haste and it tasted kind of like potato. (Note from Sara: The fried eddoe looked/ tasted like hickory sticks. yummy)

We also cornmealed some [Eddoe] and fried it.  Then we googled how to properly cook it and apparently you boil it, mash it then fry it. So we boiled it (after it was breaded and fried). We mashed it up and ate it with sweet chili sauce.

[Boiled, Drained, and Mashed]

Oh yeah and then the left over cornmeal and egg we made an cornmeal omelete (also eaten with thai schili suace). [see photo to left]





One more thing, We also cornmealed a tomato.

Peace be with you.

B&S



 Plate of corn meal-ed stuff:

My Plate of dinner [Sara]

Eddoe Corn meal Mash

corn meal omlette

Edoe Corn Meal Mash (delicious with sweet chilli sauce)

Carefree Conundrum

Hello,

Once again I woke up with a sore throat. Un like last week is just sore all over but no stabbing, oh and I sound like an idiot. In honour of said sore throat I consumed a cold liquid breakfast this morning.

Sorbet or smoothie, that is the question.

I couldn't decide between the two so why not have the best of both worlds?

In the mix:

-Banana

-Frozen strawberries

-Frozen blue berries

-1/8th of a frozen avocado

For the sorbet the above mixens were pulverized in the blender to make a sweet, no sugar added treat.

Half of the sorbet was left in the blender and orange juice was added and blended to form the smoothie. The avocado makes it super smooth and wonderful, you can't even taste it.

I am not a huge avocado fan, which also means I am not a really big guacamole person. I would really like to try to like guacamole though so if anyone has any awesome recipe recommendations I would love to hear them.

I want to start putting beans into my smoothies, sometimes... is that going too far?

What would you pick given the choice, smoothie or sorbet?

-Kirsten

Bean-a-licious

Today I am completely exhausted. I have no idea why, and I brewed the very last batch of Cuba coffee (from our trip this time last year) today. I want to go back to Cuba, who is with me?!

So I taught this morning, the lab is extracting trimyristin from nutmeg. It is a pretty decent lab, it just involves refluxing for 20 mintues and then recrystallizing the product. One of my kids asked me if they could get high off of their product--

this reminded me of Andre. I looked it up: we were not extracting the good stuff. The best part is that it smelled like nutmeg, which made me want to drink rum and egg nog. Also I looked up recipes for egg nog this christmas...it was bad! I don't want to make it, I just want to be in ignorant bliss when it comes to what I am drinking in this particular case.

Okay so this post has nothing to do with egg nog, or cuba, or teaching, or coffee... it is about Beans! Bean cookies to be exact.

We made these cookies this weekend, the recipe is from Carolyn, one of the Calgary peps. It is a super nice pick-me-up mid day, and pretty much

guilt free (if you sub the flour with more oats). Very healthy! And, if you get the right oats, they could be gluten free, great for those poor kids who can't have gluten.

White Kidney Bean Cookies

Ingredients:

-2 cups of oatmeal

-1 cup of all purpose flour

-1 can of white kidney beans

-1 egg

-1 Tbsp butter

-1 tsp vanilla

-1 cup brown sugar

-1 tsp baking soda

-1 Tbsp ground flax

-1/2 Tbsp hemp protein powder (optional)

-1/2 cup white chocolate chips

-1/2 cup walnuts (or any other nuts)

-1/2 cup Crasins

Directions:

-Process oats in food processor until it become a flour consistency. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl (oats, flour, sugar, baking soda)

-Put beans into food processor & process until liquid, now add ground flax, vanilla and process

-Mix the wet and dry ingredients and stir in the chocolate chip, crushed walnuts and crasins

-Place on cooking sheet in desired size and shape (these do not melt down when cooked)

-Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

Et Voyla!

Cheers,

Kirsten

Burning with Love

HELLO!

Today is Chili Cook off day!!! There was a great turn out, 13 chilis were entered! My favourite chili was medium heat and had chocolate in it! There were hot dogs sold there so I made an awesome chili dog. There were three super hot entries, one of them made two people run out of the room, I was not brave enough to give them a try.

I was one of two people to enter a vegetarian chili. I meant to turn on the slow cooker over night but turns out the blender was plugged in, so it was a bit runnier than I would have liked but still tasty.

Vegetarian Chili

Ingredients:

-1 can red kidney beans

- 1/2 can white kidney beans (the other half was used for something else...)

- 3/4 cup dried chick peas

- 3/4 cup dried black beans

-1 onion

-6 cloves of garlic

-1 jalepeno peppers (with seeds)

-2 cerano peppers (with seeds)

-2 carrots

-2 celery stalks

-1 can of tomatoes

-1 can of tomato paste

-2 cups of soup stock

-4 tbsp chili powder

-1 tsp cumin

-1/2 tsp cayenne

-2 tbsp brown sugar

-1 tbsp cocoa powder

-1 tsp dry mustard

-1 tsp vinegar

Directions:

-cover dried beans in water and boil for ~ 1 hour or until beans are soft (you may need to top up the water depending on how much you added)

-saute diced onion until translucent, add garlic and diced peppers and saute for another 5 minutes. You can go further, but they get a lot hotter.

-combine everything in a pot, add the soup stock last. I added this because the chili was super super thick and I wanted to have it crock potting all night and I didn't want the chili to dry out, it's your call.

-heat up all of said ingredients in said pot and ENJOY!

And here is a very attractive picture of the almost empty chili pot... I really need to work on this picture taking thing.

Later this week... white kidney bean cookies!!!!

Happy Valentines Day,

-Kirsten

Also just for fun....

Beef and Broccoli

I made some delicious stir fried beef and broccoli. It was really easy and super tasty! Here is the recipe:

1)  Cut thin strips of beef.

 2) Mix in equal parts water and corn starch (about 2 tbsn of each), and a bit of garlic powder. Put the beef in the mixture, and make sure the surface is covered.

      

       

      

      3) On high heat (with a little bit of oil), sear the beef strips (don’t overcook, you want them to stay tender).

4) Remove the beef from the pan, and add bite sixed chunks of broccoli. Cook until they are the desired crunchiness (I like mine barely cooked, and really crunchy)

      

      

      5)   In a separate bowl, mix some soya sauce, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar (or rice vinegar, but I didn’t have any), ginger, and garlic. Add a bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.

     6)   Put the beef back in the pan with the broccoli and add the sauce.  Let it cook together for a few minutes to thicken the sauce. Eat it with rice.

8)   I had some beans too…cause my mom made them actually… and cause I love veggies.

Sore Throat Saviour

Hello,

Sorry I have been MIA for a while I went to Calgary last weekend for a house warming party. There was loads of wonderful food and I ate until I couldn't move. Right went I was seteling into an awesome food coma the Kinect was brought out for some dance competitions. BLEH, it was fun though I think the Kinect has some major awesome factors since there are no controllers involved!

Thursday morning I woke up with a killer sore throat, it felt like someone had stabed my right tonsil and then poured 95% EtOH down there to desiccate the shit out of it. I wanted some nice broth-y soup to save the day.

This recipe is stolen for Devin's mom. It was reverse engineered from a soup they had in Mexico. I like to call it spicy limey deliciousness, it helps clear the sinuses like woah.

Ingredients:

-2 Tbs of olive oil

-1 onion

-1 jalepeno pepper

-3 red hot chili peppers

-1 lime

-2 tomatoes

-6 cups of vegetable and or chicken stock

Directions:

Mince and sauté onion in olive oil until translucent. Add minced jelapeno pepper (with or without seeds depending on how hot you would like it). This time I blended the lime and tomatoes because I didn't want a chunky soup but normally you would add the chopped tomatoes and the lime juice & zest. Nowadd the soup broth and minced chili peppers let simmer for 10-20 minutes to incorporate the flavours.

Note #1: Chicken can be added for a meaty-er soup

Note #2: last time we made this is was much lime-y-er andI think this was due to the fact that the tomatoes were blended this time...

Note #3: do not add the lime rind as it will make the soup very bitter

Note #5: If you don't like spice leave out the hot chili peppers

Prep the ingredients

Sauté the onions and add jalepeno

Add the broth and all of the other fixens. Simmmerrrr and eat!

This weekend there will be Chili!! There is a Departmental chili cook off on Monday and I think I am the only vegetarian chili entered. AND hopefully some white kidney bean cookies will make an appearance too. BEANS!!!

-K

Superbowl Goodnesssss

So, as we all know, Sunday was the Superbowl. Many people enjoy it for the sport, but I personally just love the food that comes along with it.  I made 2 delectable dishes: beef in mushroom red wine sauce sliders, and a stadium full of guacamole.

The Guac stadium was so much fun to make. I used pepperettes and toothpicks to make the field goal posts and mini players. The players helmets were black (for the steelers) and green (for the pakcers) olives. I made guac by blending avacados, lemon juice, lime juice, sour cream, salt, pepper, and garlic. Then I got lazy and used the Tostidos brand salsa and cheese dip. I used long bread rolls cut up to make the “stands” and secured them in place with more tooth picks. I think the best way to understand what I am saying is just to enjoy the photo below.

ABOVE: Stadium before it was transported from R Hill to Ingersoll                                                              RIGHT: Stadium after it was transported (and eaten a little)

For the sliders,  (left), I diced, then sautéed, brown button mushrooms and red onion. I added a little red wine, and cooked till it got thick. I mixed the mushrooms and onions with ground beef, and rolled them into little patties. I fried the patties, and poured the rest of the red wine sauce over top, and let it bake on really low heat for a while (mostly to keep it warm). Then I threw the patties between a bun with a slice of havarti (and I kept a few cheese free for all the lactards out there...). They were actually pretty delicious.

Some honourable mentions from the party were Tori's food. She made one for each team. Beer and Cheese soup for Green Bay, and sandwiches with meat, french fried, and cole slaw for Pittsburgh. (I had a picture with the Cole Slaw on the sandwiches, but I can't find it)

Also points go to Erin for the tastiest Steelers Cupcakes I have ever had:

Ryan's ribs were delicious. I was too full to have any of his chili this year, but if it was anything like last years, I definitely missed out! All in all, it was a great superbowl (even though the Steelers lost, and I lost the toonie bet!)

Birthday Cookies!

Hey friends!

I have cooked and taken photo’s, but haven’t had a chance to actually write the blog…so here is my major weekly update:

Friday night, a friend of mine came over to celebrate her birthday, and I thought “What better way to celebrate a birthday than with a birthday cookie!”..So I made some cookies.

Here is the pretty typical recipe:

Mix some butter and some brown and white sugar together. 

Add and egg and some vanilla.

 Add some flour (with corn starch, salt, baking soda)

Mix until it’s the right consistency.

Add three colors of chocolate chips (white, milk, dark)

Bake for 7 minutes at 350.

I made a flower!

If you don’t want so many cookies, cause you are like me and you know you will eat too many of them at once, then you can freeze the extra dough.

* Hint- if you want them crispy, replace corn starch and baking soda with baking powder. If you want them soft, use the corn starch.

** Hint- for added flare, put a bit of wasabi (Thank Travis) or chili powder in the mix. The flavor goes really well with the chocolate.

Do you guys have any secret cookie tips/hints????