Impressive Chicken Caesar Salad

Everyone loves a Chicken Caesar Salad, but they're so much better when you make them from scratch!



Ingredients

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Garlic infused olive oil or Garlic butter
Pancetta or Prosciutto
Old bread (any kind)
Anchovy Paste
Garlic
2 Eggs
Lemon Juice
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Grated Parmesan
Romaine Lettuce

Method

1. Pan roast, poach, or grill chicken breasts, cut or slice as desired. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Cut bread slices into cubes for croutons (I use kitchen scissors) and brush with garlic infused olive oil or garlic butter and arrange on baking sheet. Place cooling racks on second baking sheet, and lay pancetta or prosciutto across. Bake together until each is nice and crispy.
3. Using a food processor combine anchovy paste, garlic, eggs, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and parmesan until emulsified.
4. Tear romaine lettuce, loosely crumble pancetta. Combine with croutons in a large salad bowl. When ready to serve toss with dressing, using small amounts to begin with! once plated top with warm chicken.

YUM!

PERFECT Home Cut Fries

So everyone craves fries, we can admit that. and if you have already cut them, they're great when entertaining, since they require very little babysitting. Don't they look delicious?!

Ingredients

Russet (or any) Potatoes
Olive Oil
Paprika
GARLIC (or garlic powder)
Salt & Pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 425. Cut potatoes lengthwise into 1-2cm slices, then again into large french fry style matchsticks.
2. Let potatoes rest in cold water for half an hour (this keeps them crunchy!). Make sure you dry them off REALLY WELL (I think you'd be safe to bag and freeze them at this point if you wanted)
3. Drain potatoes and toss with remaining ingredients. Arrange in a single layer on baking sheet, and cook for 15 minutes, turn and cook another 15 minutes, or until nice and crispy.


*Serve with mayo mixed with the spiciest hot sauce you have; we use a Caribbean pepper sauce!

Snow, Chicken and Squash

Pan Roasted Chicken Breasts with Butternut Cubes.





Ingredients

Olive oil & butter
2 skin on chicken breasts
Salt & pepper, thyme
1 butternut squash
maple syrup
chicken broth

Method

1.Slice squash width wise and then into cubes
2.Toss with olive oil and bake at 400 until squash passes the fork test with an F (firm)
3.Meanwhile, season chicken breasts with s & p, melt 1 tsp each butter and oil in an oven proof pan over medium high heat
4.Cook chicken skin side down about 5 minutes, until golden brown. Flip chicken, and place in pre-heated oven until internal temp reaches 170.
5.When chicken is getting close, combine a 1:1 ratio of maple syrup and butter in a small sauce pan, boil and reduce to create a glaze; and salt to taste
6.toss squash with thyme, salt and pepper and saute on high heat until browning occurs
7.Drizzle maple syrup glaze everywhere, and enjoy



*the butternut cubes came from here
*OOOH one last thing - Do you read Questionable Content? you should. trust me and start at the beginning. You'll love me forever.

Classic Mac & Cheese (no veg allowed)

Have you heard of Ree? Drummond? THE Pioneer Woman? Well, she has perfect mac and cheese with the tempered egg; something I never thought of. Anyways, I adore Ree Drummond, and certainly agree that you must pick your battles with healthy substitutions; mac and cheese will never be healthy! And I'm ok with that! Alright, if I DO bake my mac (which I usually do), I'll crumble kale chips over it instead of bread crumbs. However, I've decided to make this a completely veg free post, so forget everything green and ogle the ooey gooey cheesiness.

Here's my take on her mac, with a mix of fresh Canadian mozzarella and friulano (by Saputo)

The Canadian Enchilada.

It sounds dirty, and it's also virtually non-existent. Up here, we simply don't have access to the fiery peppers Rick Bayless instructs us to roast for any given Mexican dish. Having my very own Mexican [dream boat], from time to time he simply insists on having his spicy tortilla-y cuisine. I, unfortunately have negative 590879 Mexican dishes under my belt (with the exception of pulled Mexican chicken, which I promise I'll post sometime).

ANYWAYS, I've already accepted defeat in the enchilada sauce round, and will go with the best store bought I can find. Verde or Rojo? That is the question.

From here, it's mostly individual prep and assembly. Pulled chicken mixed with some of my home made from scratch *ahem* enchilada sauce, spinach and black beans. Roll ' em up and place them in a glass casserole dish, the bottom of which has a layer of your home made from scratch enchilada sauce. top with more sauce and cheese. Since I've long ago abandoned any sense of 'authentico mexicano' (say this with a Texan accent), I've decided that if I use a red sauce i'll texmex the frijoles outta this and use cheddar. If I can find a verde (preferable) I"ll use farmer's cheese - it's clearly impossible for me to get my hands on queso fresco.

Rosemary Scones & Tea

Having my Mexican's grandmother over for tea was worrying me quite a bit! I had some nice tea from Harrod's in London, so with that taken care of it was on to scones. Here's the recipe I used. I subbed in farmer's cheese for the cheddar, but would stick to an aged orange cheddar next time. Go light on the sugar, and heavy on the herbs and pepper!

Here's a shot of what I had for our tea

Secret Lazy Spanish Rice

We all have our dishes and snacks that are far from ... glamorous. This is one of mine and I just love it. Mostly, this is my effortless, no time for anything lunch. Believe it or not, I fed this to my wonderful MEXICAN boyfriend one night and he didn't know the difference. Am I a bad person?

Deep breath... ok here goes. Just take cooked (or more commonly leftover) rice, add some Herdez Salsa, and stir it around. Done. Over. If you're really up to it you could even grate some cheese over it.

I am a bad person. sorry, Internet.

Peach Muffins

So the Taber Corn and BC Peaches trucks were making their last weekend trip, and I may or may not have purchased $15 worth of peaches... Out of necessity and unconditional love for the elegant lady BC peaches, I bring you Peach Muffins, from this lovely southern bell. These are delicious, and remind me of Quaker Oats Peach n Cinnamon Oatmeal porridge from my days as a kidling. I used all brown sugar, and didn't bother with the cinnamon sugar topping.

Butternut Risotto: tips, tricks, and bad pics

Risotto is so much simpler than people think. You hear a lot about how 'labour intensive' it is, but for me, slowly stirring a dish that will always come out is beyond relaxing. I think I might just open up a spa with a risotto treatment. My first risotto was this one, and it turned out so perfectly that I've kept the theory behind it as the recipe-less basis for every risotto I've made since.

Tonight looks like it'll be a particularly charming fall evening, and instead of raking up the leaves, I'll pay homage to their colours with a butternut squash risotto. Recipe hidden below these comically amateur photos








about 40 minutes later and almost ready...



Ingredients
1 Butternut Squash, seeded and halved
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
1 white Onion, finely chopped (or substitute shallots)
2-9876234 cloves of GARLIC, minced
1 tbs Butter
splash of white wine
1 cup arborio rice
1-2 cartons Chicken or Veggie Stock, warmed

Method
1. Preheat oven to 450. Place squash cut side up on a baking pan, and season with olive oil, salt & pepper. Bake 30-50 minutes, until done. Once cooled, mash or puree about 1 cup of the squash. the rest can be saved for soup, cubes, etc.
2. Bring a buttered pan to medium heat, and cook onions until nearly translucent, add garlic and cook one minute more. Add a splash of white wine.
3. Toss in the rice, and stir to coat for a minute or so. add one cup of chicken broth.
4. Now stir, and stir and stir. Stir slowly, and drag the rice around with a wooden spoon. You're trying to massage the starch out of the rice to give it that beautiful rich texture. after one cup of broth has been absorbed, add another, and another. After about 3 cups, taste to gauge how much further you have to go.
5. You may add the squash to the stock itself, either all of it, or to one or 2 cups of it, or add it after your risotto has reached it's mushy perfection.
6. Now plate and dress your risotto with grated parmesan, kale chips, or fresh herbs of your choosing.

And you've achieved heavenly risotto perfection. You can sub out the squash for virtually any veggie, just puree and add to the stock or at the end (I've even made a 'cream of tomato' risotto in a pinch by adding a CAN (shame, I know) of Campbell's Cream of Tomato Soup at the end- and what's worse is that it was absolutely delicious). Now try not to eat all of this in one beautifully shameful sitting. The leftovers make for a very special lunch. One day, when I'm happy and secure with my body weight, I'll make a cheese risotto. It might kill me though, and that's the only reason I've yet to try it. Enjoy!

*the most important trick I learned from what's cooking mexico is not to shy away from food colouring; in the case of the strawberry risotto it makes the difference between brown muck and beautiful beet-bright risotto

Bern's healthy-ish Mashed Potatoes

After drooling over The Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes (and everything else), I had to try my own with less fat (aka no cream cheese)


Ingredients
5 Russet Potatoes, halved or quartered
3/4 stick of Butter
1/4 cup skim milk
1 to 1 1/2 cups greek yogurt
1/4 to 3/4 cup Appenzeller Cheese
Salt & Pepper
Chives or Green Onion, for garnish

Method
1. Preheat oven to 350, and boil potatoes in salted water until they can be easily pierced with a fork.
2. Drain potatoes and return to pot on low heat. Hand mash potatoes to allow moisture escape.
3. Add salt, pepper, butter, milk, yogurt and cheese, mash to combine and remove from heat.
4. Transfer mixture to greased casserole dish and dot with grated hard butter. Bake uncovered for 20-30 minutes.
5. Garnish and serve


*depending on your mood/pantry, increase or decrease cheese, butter and milk. I'm convinced you could successfully substitute the yogurt for all the other dairy in this recipe if you really wanted to.

*on that note, try to get Appenzeller Cheese! It's a rich hard Swiss alpine cheese.

Pan Roasted Lemon Chicken

Hello Internet.

I don't have much experience with this blogging thing, but as a Tastespotting addict, and a big fan of several food blogs, I feel that I might as well come out of hiding. I'll start trying to photograph my food soon, but for now this is more of an online recipe book for me. Thanks for dropping by, but I totally understand if you're already gone :).

I wanted a pan roasted chicken breast, and the simplest, tastiest, bare bones sauce to go with it. REALLY quite happy with this, and the mister ate his, mine, and has requested another breast (hehe) for lunch tomorrow. Of course I can't take credit for this, as it's really just a combination of this and this


Ingredients
2 Chicken Breasts
Salt & Pepper
1 Lemon, zested and halved
Olive Oil
1/4-1/2 Stick Butter
8-10 Crimini Mushrooms, halved or quartered
GARLIC, 2-597862348762 cloves, peeled and smashed
1/4 cup Chicken Stock
Thyme, to taste


Method
1. Preheat oven to 400. Trim and season chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and lemon zest.
2. Combine olive oil and butter in oven proof pan or skillet over med-high heat.
3. Sear both sides of breast, add garlic, mushrooms and chicken stock to skillet and place in the oven for 20 to 40 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.
4. Once chicken is fully cooked, plate on top of couscous, rice or other grain.
5. Add lemon juice to the skillet and mix. Spoon pan sauce over dish and serve.

*I used a bed of couscous and peas, but rice and broccoli would work just as well, etc etc