Island food

OK, so as I am sure most of our readers know, I recently (on Thursday night) moved to an island in the Caribbean called Saba. It is a beautiful little island, but in terms of food the choices are pretty limited. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and bought the following:
Potato bread (the other breaks were stale and/or moldy)
Lettuce
Tomato
Pear Juice
Pasta
Rice
Frozen Veggies
Chicken
Ham
Gouda Cheese

That's about it.. apparently Wednesdays are the best days for groceries, so maybe I will have some better luck.... but the bright side of this is I think the limited options may make some amazing post opportunities.

Today for lunch, I will be having a ham and gouda sandwich. It should be pretty tasty!

Last week, I ate at a restaurant in Philipsburg (St. Maarten) called Chesterfields. It was so amazing... I had Mahi Mahi stuffed with a crab filling. On the side it came with half and half rice and french fries, a few roasted carrots, and zucchini with parmesan cheese on top. It was the best thing I have eaten in quite a while!

Anyways, stay tuned for some more exciting meals...

-Sara

Ethnic food?... Part 2: How not to make pad thai

This is what happens when I branch out....but I learned one valuable lesson: the type of noodles matter wayyy more than you would think!

So..I have made pad thai before...and it has always been pretty tasty. One day, Brent and I decided we should make it for dinner (before the mother mother concert)... and I totally screwed up!

So, we will start with the easy part:
Cube some chicken and/or tofu (1 cup)
Prepare some shrimp (deshell, etc...however much you want)

mix cornstarch in soy sauce and marinade the chicken/tofu/shrimp if you want... it makes it better, but I am usually too lazy for this step

The sauce:

1 tbsp tamarind paste and about 1/2 that of water (you can substitute for a rice vinegar/ orange juice combo)
1-2 tablespoons of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of chili sauce (or more if you like it spicy)
2 table spoons of brown sugar
a bunch of cilantro or coriander (same thing?..i'm not sure)
garlic
1/4 cup chicken soup stock if you feel you need more, add more
a little bit of sesame oil
garlic (a few cloves)
and i usually add some lime juice

So, you basically put all those in a sauce pan and cook them a little.

In a separate pan, with a little bit of veggie oil, cook the meat/tofu. The cook the veggies (usually onions, bean sprouts, an that's it, but I always add more stuff)

Then you cook the noodles. Use rice noodles...but buy the ones that look like linguini....not the ones I bought.

Then you mix it all together with the sauce, add some peanuts and a lime wedge..and voila!

BUT, when we made it, we used rice noodles that you soak instead of cooking..and they got all mushed together and tasted like starch, and literally were more like dumplings than noodles :(

Jupiter’s Royal Acorn

Hello!

I realize we haven't been updating very often, and I completely failed my goal of posting all of the recipes I wanted to get done before the month was over... I am going to make a more realistic goal of posting once a week, hopefully with something new and exciting each time.

Today I will introduce you to something I made back in February... I think...

Candied Walnuts

Ingredients:

- 1 cup walnuts

- 1 Tbsp sugar

- 2 Tbsp sugar syrup

- Achar masala

Directions:

- Toss nuts in sugar and spice.

- Bake at 325 until sugar starts to bubble ~ 15 min. Be careful not to burn the sugar, no one likes burnt sugar.

- Let cool & enjoy

Warning... they may be addictive.

Until next time (which will hopefully be sooner rather than later).....

Veggie Deluxe Pizza

Hello Everyone,

So if you have been reading regularly you might remember I have given up meat for lent. I guess it has been two weeks now, the time has just flown by. The one, single occasion where I even considered wanting meat was the day after St Patrick's day. I wanted deep fried chinese food SO bad!

After my roommates original protest they have been fairly supportive. There have been some tasty stir-fries and this epic pizza!

Veggie Deluxe Pizza

Directions:

On Fleishmanns pizza yeast there is a pizza crust recipe; I follow that but used whole wheat flour. It is super easy and delicious.

Roll out the dough and give it a thin coat of olive oil, then cover in your sauce. We used Newmanns Own marinara sauce on one and a mix of that and BBQ sauce on the second one (I preferred the mix).

Now top with your favourite veggies:

- onion

- spinach

- broccoli

- asparagus

- tomato

- carrot

Top with some sharp cheddar cheese

Bake at 350 C for about 15-20 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is crispy.

Before baking......

Fresh out of the oven... it didn't last long

What are your favourite pizza toppings?

Ethnic food?... Part 1: My tribute to Brent (and other hungarians)

Hello world,

I have failed at blogging. The excuse: I had laser eye surgery a few weeks ago and was instructed to not look at screens for too long. Plus I work at a computer all day at work, so I couldn't really go one when I got home.

Soo...I decided to do a little tribute for my next few posts. It's going to about what happens when an Itallian tries to make food of different ethnicities.

Part 1 is going to be about Goulash and Spätzle!!

It was my mom's idea to make some Hungarian food. She was inspired by a Hungarian family friend, who is an amazing cook and always makes us wonderful things. My mom was at his house, and started looking through cookbooks, and the next night she decided to try one.

The "Goulash" (which I later realized was actually chicken paprikash) was cooked in our new pressure cooker.

"Goulash Mix"

Ingredients:

boneless, skinless chicken breasts 

12 oz. sour cream 
chicken broth 
1 onion, chopped
Hungarian paprika (which is way better than regular paprika)

"Goulash Mix" (which is more paprika, caraway seeds, marjoram, and onion power i think)garlic  

salt

black pepper

Directions:

Basically, put everything except for the sour cream in the pressure cooker and let it cook for a while, till the onions have "melted" and the chicken is cooked. Then, as it is cooling a little, add the sour cream and mix it in.

We just bought a package of Spätzle (didn't want to get too overzealous for our first time) and we made a side of brussels sprouts (which are actually my favorite vegetable)

"Chicken Paprikash"

You are going to LOVE my nuts!

Hello,

I have quite a few blog worthy recipes in the queue currently, and I am going to try and get them all out by the end of this month... so get excited!!

Cashew Almond Butter:

The ingredient list is pretty straight forward... cashews and almonds! Word on the street is that almonds aren't oily enough to make but butter out of without adding oil or roasting them first, so I decided to mix them with their oilier friend the cashew.

Ingredients:

- 1 part cashews

- 1 part almonds

The container you are going to use to store the butter = 1 part

This made one full jar of nut butter!

It is pretty straight forward... add nuts to blender or food processor and GO!

(I have no idea why this is underlined and or how to fix it)

The finished product! Oh so tasty... you should keep your eye out for many more butter recipes coming to an SBK post near you!

Today I won my first roll up the rim at Tim Hortons... After I had a huge rage out because the one here on campus is incompetent.

A few of us in my lab are working on a theory that you win more often with XL drinks compared to medium and large drinks. What are your roll up the rim stats? Does it fit with my size theory? I am one for three and I am calling it quits there in hopes to get the best win ratio in the lab.

St Patricks day 2011... Edmonton edition

Hello Everyone,

Today is one of the greatest days of the year St Patricks day. Now here in Alberta it is way less cool than the good old days at Western so I decided to compensate with some breakfast treats.

First up is the mint chocolate smoothie

Mint Chocolate Smoothie

Ingredients:

- 1 cup of spinach

- 1 banana

- water (or milk)

- mint extract

- Chocolate chips

- ice cubes

Directions:

- add, spinach, and banana and liquid until about half of the high of the contents into blender... blend until smooth

- add a few drops of mint extract and fill up with ice... blend until smooth

- add chocolate chips and enjoy.

Yes, one of the main ingredients is spinach... it is wonderful.. trust me.

Also there were no fresh banana's so I used one from the freezer. I "defrosted" it in the microwave and ended up squeezing it out of the peel much like Andre does in his method two of how to eat a banana.

I think peppermint extract is my new fave. Do not fret, if you don't have any the spinach banana combo is delicious on its own... sounds a bit crazy... but it is good. Sometimes I add chia or flax for a bit more of a nutritional kick.

Beer? Spinach? Why not both?

(On a side note this awesome shirt was gifted to me by Sara. It is epic!)

Next up, green pancakes, and you may or may not have guessed that there is no food colouring involved. I used Bisquick mix and (extremely) loosely followed the pancake directions... replacing the water it called for with 1 cup of pureed spinach and 1 cup of Guinness.

Who doesn't like beer in their pancakes?

A work in progress.. for some reason I like small pancakes better than big ones... maybe its because I can eat more of them that way.

Devin showing off his master flipping skills.

A modification on Irish Car Bombs...we didn't have any whiskey so we used Irish cream. I dub it the Irish Pipe Bomb!

Happy St Patricks Day Everyone!

Cheers,

-Kirsten