TACO NIGHT!

We had tacos on Friday. I haven't made tacos with ground beef in years. I don't know why but Taco Night feels so retro to me....

We had our tacos with home-made guacamole, lettuce, cheese, and store-bought salsa. We love the salsa by Mad Mexican. Their guac is amazing as well but I had all the ingredients for it at home so I made my own. The beef was really easy to make, and full of flavour. Here's the recette:

Beef Tacos

1 lb lean grass-fed ground beef
2 tsp olive or coconut oil
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tb ground chili
pinch ground chipotle chili
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 T cocoa powder
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
1/2 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup water
2 tsp. vinegar, either red wine or apple cider

8 taco shells  (we like the organic Alba Lisa brand)
shredded cheese
guacamole
salsa (we used Mad Mexican fresh salsa)
cilantro
shredded lettuce
sour cream, crema,  onions etc.

Heat oil on medium heat and add onions. Cook until translucent, then add garlic and spices, with a couple pinches of salt. Stir until spices are fragrant, about 1 minute. Add beef and gently break it up with a spoon. Try not to constantly stir it, you want it to properly brown (this is where you'll get a lot of nice flavour).  Once the meat is cooked stir in the water, vinegar and tomato paste. Gently simmer on low until the liquid has evaporated. Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve immediately!

The beef was great-- so many different flavours. We forgot to put the guacamole on first, so my only advice is to remember to put it on the bottom or you'll have to put it beside the meat and it will look ugly. Enjoy!

I went public

Just a quick post to say I made the blog public because so many people were having a hard time logging in and so I thought, why am I hidinggggg??

Chris Makes Dinner

In the 4+ years that we’ve been together, Chris has made me dinner about 3 times. It’s not that he refuses to cook, but since I enjoy cooking so much, he doesn’t usually find himself in the kitchen unless he's hovering over a pot of noodles and cheese (from a box). He isn’t a bad cook either— Chris has a few specialties: eggs cooked perfectly over easy….aaaannndd….I just asked him what his other specialties are and he said he doesn’t have any. 

I’ve mentioned before that I love to grocery shop. I try to leave Chris out of it because he doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do and frankly, bringing him along can ruin the experience for me. I like to stop, read the labels, compare brands, and this drives him crazy. Chris likes to get in and get out. HOWEVER, sometimes when I’m trying to teach him a lesson in responsibility (ha!) I make him come with me. Take this weekend for example. On Friday night we went out for pizza (delicious) and had a pretty low-key night. On Saturday my friend Emily took me out for dinner, and Chris went out with his friends. Emily and I were back at the apartment by 11:30, sweatpants on, drinking wine, hanging my new artwork, and dancing to Beyonce’s song, Drunk In Love (“we woke up in the kitchen saying how the hell did this S*** happen, oh baby…druuuunk in looovee!!!” seriously such a good song I love Beyonce). Meanwhile, on the other side of town Chris is doing ‘guy things’ such as beer pong, telling bad jokes, and sports stuff. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda I go to sleep, his night goes on and eventually it’s Sunday morning and he is not feeling so hot. I had planned on getting groceries anyway and wanted him to come along so we could have some QT (quality time). Chris was not into this idea in the slightest. I can’t say that I didn’t see this coming but to be honest the guy works so hard all week, and I don’t blame him for wanting to let loose. And I would be lying if there haven’t been times that I’ve texted him and said “OMGGG I’m having the BEST NIGHT EVER” and he rolls his eyes because he knows I’m going to regret it the next day. I think that’s one of the funnier parts of our relationship because we know each other well enough to predict how things are going to turn out for the other person before they realize it.

ANYWAY, Sunday was one of those days and he had to opt out of grocery shopping. Being the kind person that he is, he felt really bad for leaving me with our one chore of the weekend, so he promised to make me dinner on Monday night. I hesitated to say yes because I didn’t know how it would turn out and considering his first suggestion for dinner was a BBQ chicken grilled cheese that he saw on food gawker, I don’t think I should be blamed for not immediately jumping at the opportunity. After I talked him down from that ledge, we settled on a creamy pasta dish with mushrooms, and a caesar salad with home-made dressing. For the record it’s not that I wouldn’t want the grilled cheese but since this is time #4 that he’s making me dinner I need to take advantage and get something a little more luxurious out of it. 

As I head out the door I tell him to text me the ingredients so I can pick them up at the store. 10 minutes go by and I receive this text: 

Chris: For the pasta: shell pasta, button mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion, garlic, parsley, basil, flour. 

Me: I don’t know the amounts we need.

Chris: one pepper one onion. Pack of mushrooms. Pack of pasta.

Me: haha..the pack sizes vary. I’ll figure it out.

Chris: Haha sorry. I suck. For the salad: one head of romaine, red wine vinegar, Worcester sauce, parmesan. 

Hmm….just let that marinate for a bit. My favourite part of this exchange is that he acknowledges that he is giving me a terrible list of groceries but he doesn’t try to text me the actual amounts for the salad either. I had to laugh. Also, if you’ve ever made caesar salad before you’ll notice one glaring omission…ANCHOVIES!! He says he left them off the list because he doesn’t like them (except I know he does because he likes caesar salad), but anchovies are essential to a good caesar dressing, are they not?? Don’t be scared of the harmless little anchovy. They are so delicious and add such great flavour to dishes such as: caesar salad, puttanesca, and pizza. So without further ado, here is the dinner I was treated to! I have attached the recipes on the bottom with links. 

PS. we ended up going out to get Anchovies on Monday but since it was a holiday we really had to hunt them down. Chris and I drove up the street and I ran into stores to ask if they had them. When I finally found a jar, I ran out of the store with such excitement that I tripped on a loose brick and went flying across the sidewalk. It was one of those times when you know you're going to fall and there's nothing you can do about it so you just do your best to tuck and roll. When I got to the car Chris asked me if I fell because he said that one minute I was on one side of the sidewalk and the next I was all the way on the other side. Yikes. 


Chris cooking, with sardines in foreground:

Caesar Salad:

My contribution was some garlic bread:

The finished product all plated up:

The pasta was great but we made a few changes: we used rice pasta and doubled the amount of noodles. The recipe doesn't actually make that much and the directions kind of suck but the finished product was pretty good.

You can find the pasta recipe here
You can find the caesar salad recipe here
You can find the garlic bread recipe here

ENJOY!

Roasted Chicken With Jerusalem artichoke & Lemon

You need to make this chicken ASAP. I wanted to make it on Saturday but then I realized that it needed to marinate overnight so I didn't get a chance to cook it until Sunday. Truth be told I often shy away from any recipe that requires marinating because I always imagine it to be too time consuming. It's weird because in my head I still feel that way, and then I logically work through my reasoning: all I'm doing is putting some herbs, oil, and acid in a bowl with some meat and throwing it in the fridge overnight. Then I realize that it doesn't really take up that much time. But then I see a recipe that requires me to marinate it and without fail I will flip the page to the next one. I guess I like quick results and/or I'm impatient.....

As you have learned from my last post, I really like pictures of food. I always pick what I'm going to make based on the image beside the recipe. I hate cookbooks that don't have pictures in them. I need to be able to visualize the finished product! I so appreciate magazines such as Cook's Illustrated from a technical standpoint, but I can't handle all the pencil sketches...all the illustrations, if you will. Anyway, all of this to say that when I decided I was going to make this recipe it was purely for the picture that displayed beautiful lemon slices, golden roasted chicken, and tender Jerusalem Artichokes. Yes I could tell they were tender from the image. Soooo...I had already started making this recipe when I saw the step that said "marinate overnight", and I had to keep going and simply put that sucker away for a little nap. The lesson here is that I am going to get into marinating more because this was delicious and it was so nice to be able to just pop everything into the roasting pan because all the prep had been done the night before. OK and as a side note before I keep going: I love grocery shopping so much and I won't get into the specifics right now because I could write a novel about the subject. Anyway every Saturday or Sunday I get really excited to head out to the grocery store and get my shop on. In the summer it's great because I stop at all my favourite places in the neighbourhood. On Saturday I decided to do a one stop shop and head to Loblaws and it sucked. So overpriced and for how big it is, no selection. I did not have a fun time and maybe this is sad but grocery shopping is the weekend activity that I look forward to the most. I seriously find it therapeutic. Unless the person I'm with is rushing me and then it makes me anxious. Where am I going with this I came on here to post about the chicken recipe.

OK OK so the chicken. It's so good. Here is a picture of it in the dish before it went into the oven:

1 tsp saffron = a lot of class

So nice right? Look at all the little saffron threads. When I use saffron I feel like the recipe is very classy because so few recipes call for it, and when they do it's in such small amounts. This recipe called for 1tsp saffron threads. That is a lot!!! I didn't even know if I had that much to spare. Saffron is not cheap... 

This is the finished product:

THE CHICKEN WAS READY FOR ITS CLOSE-UP

See the juices in the lower left corner?? I could drink those juices and I did drink them right out of the pan. Don't be afraid to serve yourself lots of pan juices. I know you're saying "but it's the fatttttttt". It is, but fat = flavour, and fat really isn't all that bad. Seriously. Aside from being delicious, the fat will keep you full long after dinner so that you don't find yourself in front of the fridge at 8PM. Plus, it's not fat that gives you heart disease, it's refined carbs. I won't get into the science of this but I am asking you to trust me on this one because I'm a nutritionist. Eat the fat! 

This recipe is from one of my favourite cookbooks, Jerusalem. If you like food that is bursting with flavour then you will love this cookbook. I am on a huge Middle Eastern/Jewish food kick right now and this cookbook along with Plenty and Jewish Cooking by Marlena Spieler are my current go-to's for authentic and delicious recipes. 

Roasted chicken with Jerusalem artichokes* & Lemon

From Jerusalem by Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi 

1 lb Jerusalem artichokes peeled and cut lengthwise into 6 wedges 

3 T freshly squeezed lemon juice

8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, or 4 whole chicken legs, or 1 medium chicken quartered

12 banana or large shallots, halved lengthwise

12 large garlic cloves, sliced

1 medium lemon, halved lengthwise and then very thinly sliced

1 tsp saffron threads

3.5 T olive oil

1/2 cup cold water

1.5 T pink peppercorns, lightly crushed

1/4 cups fresh thyme leaved

1 cup tarragon leaves, chopped

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Put the Jerusalem artichokes in a medium saucepan, cover with plenty of water, and add half of the lemon juice. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 10-20 minutes, until tender but not soft. Drain and leave to cool.

Place the artichokes and all remaining ingredients, excluding the remaining lemon juice and half of the tarragon, in a large mixing bowl and use your hands to mix everything together well. Cover and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 475. Arrange the chicken pieces in the centre of a roasting pan, skin side up. Spread the remaining ingredients around the chicken. Roast for 30 minutes. Cover the pan with foil and roast for 15 more minutes. Remove from the oven and add reserved tarragon and lemon juice. Stir well, taste, and add more salt if needed. I am a big salt person and I didn't need to add any more because the dish was already so flavourful. Also, I wanted my chicken to be a little more brown and crispy looking so I put it under the broiler for a few minutes at the end just to bring a little more colour to it. 

I served the chicken with a salad of thinly sliced cabbage, dill, lemon, garlic, thinly sliced apples, and raisins. We wanted something fresh and light to go with the chicken but ideally you would serve it with the popular Middle Eastern dish called Mejadra.  If I had guests over and I really wanted to impress them then I would have made this dish as well. It's so hearty and filling, and plays well against the lemon and garlic on the chicken.

That is all for today-- go forth and make this chicken!!! 

* not really artichokes but actually sunflower tubers that taste like artichokes. not really an official Jerusalem vegetable (but they love to eat it there) but rather a name that was distorted from the original Italian pronunciation, girasole articiocco. 

FOODGAWKER

ok ok ok. I thought I was late on this trend but I've asked a few people about this and none of them have even heard of FOODGAWKER!! It's actually "foodgawker" all in lower case. As you read this imagine I am yelling the name at you because it is so amazing. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I get a perverse pleasure from watching other people eat things that I cannot eat (usually due to food intolerances but those are almost gone now) and ask them to describe what it tastes like. This past spring when I was having a bad stomach flare and I was on a really restrictive diet to heal my gut, my diet got very boring...very healing but very boring. I would see something delicious, ask Chris to buy it for himself and have him eat it in front of me and then literally breath in my face so I could sort of taste it. Don't judge me. Or him. Actually it's almost weirder for him than for me. Anyway, it was an act of desperation. One of our favourite games to play (that is PG enough to write about..har har har... sorry Mom and Anne I'm totally joking) is where we ask each other "if you could eat ANYTHING right now, what would it be?" And then I usually say "ANYTHING, as in no health repercussions, no weight gain or stomach aches the next day?" Do not skip this part. This part is important because it really helps you to dig deep and find something so good that no moral reasoning can steer you away from admitting you want to eat it. We usually do a main dish and a dessert. Often my dessert is Creme Brûlée, a delicious custard dessert of which Chris is not a fan. (his loss). My mains vary but they are often a burger or pizza. Sometimes we throw a side dish in there or we say we are eating at a specific place and can only choose from that menu. Another game we like to play when we go out to eat is one where we pick a page or a section of the menu, count to three, and then yell out what we would pick from that section. Chris would say that I've actually just described how I order my food when the waiter comes over to our table but really this is a game we've played since just about our first date and we still play it over 4 years later. It never gets old. The 10 year-old girl inside me gets excited in a "we are meant to be" kind of way every time we pick the same thing. I've gotten pretty good at it and often I know what he is going to pick, even if it's not the same as what I would pick. That is true love! Anywayyyy... back to FOODGAWKER:

FOODGAWKER is this amazing website where people upload pictures of something they've made and you just scroll through a never-ending page of pictures upon pictures and if you like something you click the little heart on the side of the picture and it saves it to a list for you to look at later when you want some ideas about what kind of delicious meal you want to make. I feel like this website was made for me. It's easy to use and it is just constant stimulation which means I don't get distracted and move on to something else. All you do is make a profile which is really just signing up with your email and making a password, and you're all set! When I'm trying to be really healthy I go on the site and just stare at all the pictures. To me it's not punishment to look at a bunch of cupcakes when I'm trying to eat well because as an Art History major I see the beauty in the photograph as well.  That's not really true but how can I make it normal that I am obsessed with staring at pictures of food.

That is really all I have to say today. Go to FOODGAWKER and get excited about all the delicious things you can make and consume in your kitchen. I'm sorry if you were expecting a recipe today, but as Chris reminded me this morning, I "haven't made anything to post lately", which makes him sound mean and unsupportive but that couldn't be less true. However, he is right in that I have been cooking lots but nothing worth posting and yesterday I roasted a chicken and I'm pretty sure it was raw and I poisoned us both so I don't think I'm ready to do a post on roasting the perfect chicken just yet. If you're looking for help with roasting a chicken Ina Garten does a really nice roasted chicken, or if butter all over your meat isn't your thing then check out Jamie Oliver's recipe. Yes it's true that these recipes are the first to show up when you Google "Perfect Roast Chicken" but I also KNOW they are both good because I made them. Give me some credit, I'm not that lazy.

Have a delightful weekend everyone!

Hello

Hmmm..where do I start? Mostly, I just want to share delicious food with anyone who likes to eat delicious food. I really feel like that is my mission in life.

This is my second attempt at a food blog. Not that the first one wasn't a raging success but my priorities and diet were a liiiiiittle bit different than they are now. After recently finding myself un-employed, nay... SELF-employed and with some extra time on my hands to experiment in the kitchen, I thought a food blog could be a positive outlet for me. And you will benefit too.

A brief explanation of the rationale behind this blog: I read a lot of different blogs. Some are fitness blogs, some are paleo, or vegetarian, or just healthy living. And every. single. one. of them is written by someone who has "overcome" an eating disorder or a serious illness. These blogs are full of tips for living the "perfect healthy life": enjoying treats that are still healthy, indulging (but not too much!), and living life by a set of rules. Blahhhh. Now I love me some rules as much as the next guy (seriously I thrive on rules) and I understand that there are times when rules are necessary. Sometimes I can't eat wheat because I get very bloated and I need to take a little hiatus from indulging too much. So I eat really well until my stomach settles down again, and that's ok. Part of being healthy is knowing when to indulge and then listening to your body and taking a step back and being a little healthier. There are times when a restrictive diet is necessary. For the betterment of my own health I have done it before, and my stomach issues have gone from a constant daily problem to a random annoyance.  

HOWEVER, there is a lot of pressure in my industry to be an example of perfect health. Always eating what is "right" and never showing weakness. So maybe this blog will be career suicide because I fully plan on sharing pictures of the amazing pizza I'm going to eat on Valentine's Day, and there is also a steak from a French Bistro in my near future. Henceforth, therefore, and thusly, for now, this blog will remain private so as to not throw away my chances of becoming a credible nutritionist. But I AM SORRY. Anyone who says that "food is just fuel bro" is missing out. I eat a lot of delicious things and I love to share it with the people I love. And that people, is you! 

Disclaimer: Despite saying I have no rules I do have a few rules. Well mostly just one. I have no problem with eating something that might not be the healthiest if it was made with love and care, and it's good quality. I am a bit of a food snob in that way. You won't catch me indulging in a McDonald's burger, but you might find me around the corner from my apartment stuffing my face with "The Seoul Man" Burger from our new favourite burger joint called The Rude Boy. Check it out! I draw the line when the food I'm eating is made in a lab and isn't even real food. I need real ingredients people!!!! 

I still plan on offering tips here. For example, no matter how excited you are to find these at Winners..

DO NOT eat the entire bag in one sitting. Unless you like to punish yourself in which case go ahead. I still don't know how missing my chance to stand on the podium in grade 12 as an OFSAA champ because I was trapped in a bathroom stall wasn't lesson enough. I had to do it all over again last week. Fast-walking (because you can't run on a pool deck!) to the washroom in the worlds tightest one-piece competition suit is my only memory of that day. 

The next photo is something so amazing I can't even describe it. (the food itself not the photo. the photo is crap but I didn't promise great photos now did I). I was so excited to tell my mom about it until she rained on my parade and told me she is "over lamb". If you are still under lamb, please make this. I don't feel right posting recipes from cookbooks but someone already did it first so go to this link to make the most amazing eggplant stuffed with lamb. It is to die for. Alternatively you can buy the cookbook that the recipe is from called Jerusalem. It will not disappoint.

Well I feel that is all for today. I have said enough. Please stay tuned for posts about whatever food enters my pie hole. I have lots of delicious eating opportunities coming up and I can't wait to share!