My Man is Going to Love This!

We've had a few amazing dinners these past few days or so.  Turkey Black Bean Quesadillas with Fresh Salsa and 50's Diner Style Salisbury Steak with Mash and Deviled Carrots.  But tonight's dinner, I feel, is worth blogging about.  It's creamy.  It's decadent. Tonight's recipe is going to make my man happy.

This dish hasn't been made since Ken and I were newlyweds.  And I wasn't the one who made it.  (I probably didn't have the cooking skills!) You've got to know, Ken is going to love this!  He is working late and is going to be happy/thrilled to come home to a cold beer and one of his favorite foods.  (Did I mention the dishes are done too?)

Crab Manicotti

Serves four.  I suggest a side salad to lighten things up.

Prep: 1 hour

Bake: 30 min.

Ingredients:

Filling:

• 2 cans of crab, drained (I've had one sitting in the cupboard, needing to be used - my inspiration!)
• 1 cup of ricotta
• 1/2 cup asiago cheese, grated (This is what I had on hand, you could use parm or even swiss.)
• Parsley, generous handful, chopped
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 green onions, diced, greens only
• Dash of red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp basil
• 2 Tbsp grated parmigiana  
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.

Bechamel Sauce:

• 3 Tbsp butter
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 2 cups milk
• Salt and Pepper, to taste
• Dash of nutmeg

Melt butter then add flour to make your roux.  Cook for approximately 3 minutes or until the flour is cooked and it has a nutty aroma - do not brown.  Meanwhile, warm your milk and cream, then add to roux, whisking constantly.  When your milk thickens, around ten minutes at medium heat, add your salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Do not boil.

Crab Manicotti before going into the oven.

Putting it all together:

Cook your manicotti according to package directions, between 8 - 10 minutes, leaving them al dente.  Cool before handling.  This can be done while you are cooking your bechamel sauce.

This is not diet food!

Using a spoon or your fingers, stuff the filling into the pasta.  (Tip: if your filling isn't sticking together a bit, add a bit of bechamel.)

Place filled manicotti into buttered baking dish.

Cover with bechamel sauce and a bit more cheese.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Come On Get in the Boat - Fish, Fish!**

On the menu last night?  Fish tacos.  It's a little piece of the Baja on your plate.  It's summertime.  It's sunshine. Need I say more?  If you've never tried fish tacos before, well you are in for a scrumptious, satisfying and healthful meal.

It's a pretty basic recipe and has a lot of room for your own personal tastes.  With the exception, I'd say, of needing to like fish and cabbage.  Here's what you will need.

Fish Tacos

The basics:

• White fish, such as tilapia, mahi mahi, or basa
• Corn tortillas (I've seen flour tortillas, but the taste of corn really adds flavour)
• Green cabbage or coleslaw mix

The enhancements:

• Seasoning the fish with cajun spice or a mix of chili powder, garlic powder, oregano and seasoning salt.
• Breading the fish with Panko* - optional.  
• Make homemade salsa. 
• Dressing for the cabbage which I found on the Food Network website: 

• 1/4 c. plain yogurt
• 1/4 c. mayo
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• 1/4 tsp. each cumin, oregano, dill
• 1/2  jalapeno, minced, seeds removed  
• 1/2 tsp. capers, minced
• Pinch of cayenne, optional  

The Method:

• Fry or bake your fish. Obviously the more healthy option is baked!
• Dress your shredded cabbage.
• Concoct your salsa.
• Dry fry your tortillas to heat. 
• Assemble at table.

The Tips:

• If you decided to bread your fish:  Dip fish in seasoned corn starch, then beaten egg and finally, Panko.  Yes, your fingers will also be breaded by the end! just don't cook them : p  Fry your fish on med/high heat in a small amount of cooking oil. Approximately three minutes a side, depending upon how think your fillets are.
• Easy salsa: a fine dice of tomato, onion or green onion, cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice and a pinch of chili powder, cumin and salt.
• When heating my tortillas, I find that med/high heat in a stainless steal pan works great.  If it sticks leave it a few more seconds.  
• Hold warm tortillas in aluminum foil wrapped in a tea towel.  This way they stay hot throughout your meal.

Did I miss anything??

* Panko is Japanese breadcrumbs.  Find them in the bakery section at most grocery stores.

** If you are a Homestar Runner fan, you will appreciate my title! 

Blast From the Past

Are you tired of making the same starches for dinner?  Day after day, rice, pasta, potato, rice, pasta, potato, repeat...  Me too.  If you're like me, you've probably experimented with yams and quinoa, seeing as they are fairly popular right now and most likely, a part of the Super Foods group.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, just ignore that last bit!)
But this week I went old-fashioned.  Not oats, but close.  Barley.  I've actually had it sitting in my pantry, waiting patiently for me to utilize it.  Apparently, you can use it as a side dish.  However, I decided to introduce it to my family (read - the kid) as a part of a one dish dinner.
If you are like me, you've only had it in it's most popular form, canned beef barley soup.  Well, I didn't strike out too far from that tried-and-true favorite, other than the fact that my beef barley soup didn't come from a can.  I made it myself.  It was easy, didn't take too much time to prepare and turned out better than any canned concoction I have ever eaten.

"Old Fashioned" Beef Barley Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. stewing beef, cut into small chunks - more if you want a meatier soup
•  2TBSP cooking oil
• 1 TBSP butter
• 2 leeks, chopped and washed 
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed and diced
• 4 - 6 cups beef broth
• 1/2 cup pearl barley, rinsed and cooked to "al dente"
• a couple of twigs of thyme or 2 tsp. dry
• 2 tsp. Italian Seasoning ( A pre-made mix of marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, sage, oregano, basil)
• A dollop Worcestershire sauce 
• A small splash Kitchen Bouquet

Method:

In a small sauce pan, place barley with quite a bit of water and bring to the boil.  Simmer, as you would pasta, for around 25 minutes or until al dente.  Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, put your dutch oven/soup pot on medium/high heat for a couple of minutes to bring it up to temperature.  When hot,  add oil, then butter.  When the butter is melted, add your cubes of beef.  Only add enough beef to make one layer.  If you have more, then do it in batches. When the beef is browned, season with salt and pepper.  Set the browned beef aside.  

To the already hot pot, add the celery, leeks and carrots, using their moisture to scrape up the brown bits left from the beef.  Season with a bit of salt and pepper.  Cook until softened.  Add garlic, cook two more minutes.

Add thyme and Italian seasoning, letting the heat wake up the herbs for a minute. Add the beef, the broth,  the Worcestershire and the Kitchen Bouquet. Simmer for approximately 1/2 hour; check that the beef is tender and the seasoning tastes right and, if the beef is close, add the barley.  Simmer for another 20 minutes.

Serve with big slabs of sour dough bread and butter!

Beautiful or Bust

Going into the oven...

There's an experiment in my oven.  In all appearances they are regular muffins.  Oh, how I hope they turn out to be regular muffins!

I believe this is my first experiment with going outside of a recipe for baking.  Because ,yes, I know that baking is a Science and cooking is an Art.  And I have always adhered to this basic rule.  Not today.  Today, I took what I liked from this recipe and added a little that I like from that other recipe.

In my oven are Experimental Banana Oat Applesauce Muffins.  Six have blueberries pushed into them and a lovely (hopefully!) streusel topping.  Six have a multitude of tiny chocolate chips shoved into the center - I'm hoping for a molten chocolate center, designed to please my chocolate-loving daughter.

Oh! There's the buzzer on my stove going off...

On the cooling rack...

*  *  *  *

They still look wonderful.  Though I was hoping that the chocolate chips would melt into a formidable pool of lava hot chocolate goodness, the chips still look individual.  Oh well.  I guess taste will tell how my successful  my experiment was.

*  *  *  *

This is awful, I have to try two of them.....  I hate to tell you this but they are... *tasting* ...yummy!  Definitely a more dense muffin, because of the whole wheat flour and oatmeal, and not very sweet.  I personally don't like my muffins to be very sweet.  I'm thinking of a reasonably healthy breakfast or snack here.

The blueberry streusel and the chocolate chip varieties have surprisingly different tastes, considering they are both made from the same batter. In the blueberry I taste more cinnamon, like a coffee cake, but in the chocolate chip, more banana-ness.  Who knew?

Join me in an experiment?

Experimental Banana Oat Applesauce Muffins:

Oven: 350  Baking Time: 20 - 25 min. Yield: One dozen


1 egg
3 mashed bananas
1/3 cup brown sugar (I use demerara always)
1 individual portion of applesauce (just over 1/3 c)
3 TBSP sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oats
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method:

Mix thoroughly first six ingredients in one bowl.  Combine remaining ingredients in another bowl.  Pour one bowl's stuff into the other.  Mix gently with a spoon until just combined.  Don't over mix as it activates the gluten too much.

For blueberry streusel:

Five or six berries poked into each muffin
1/3 cup of oats
TBSP of butter
TBSP of brown sugar
Combined and reserved for top.  Divide evenly between muffin tops. Double if for 12.

For chocolate chip:

Poke as many of those little babies as you would like to eat in your finished product. Or a dollop of Nutella prodded into the center would be amazing as well!

My Favourite Smoothie

Not much of a post, but knowing that I haven't posted in a week is making me want to cheat :p

My Current Favourite Smoothie is:

1. One frozen banana (keep chunks in a container in my freezer)
2. A handful of frozen blueberries
3. A handful of frozen raspberries
4. A couple of TBSP of plain yogurt
5. Silk Dark Chocolate Almond Milk (I would by plain but my daughter loves this and I have an apartment sized fridge!)
6.  A TBSP of almond butter (Currently using and loving this brand. Apparently, I am not the only one!!)

I add all of these ingredients into my Magic Bullet and pulse until ice cream-like consistency and taste.  How bad can this really be? (Sorry, no picture as I have devoured it already.)

Time May Change Me

The time change caught me completely off guard yesterday.  It's surprising how much we judge the time of day by the light, the angle of the sun.  As some of you may have seen my status of Facebook yesterday, I realized that (suddenly!) it was five minutes to six and I hadn't even thought about dinner yet.

Granted my day went south from about 2 o'clock on, when I decided to head home instead of the gym, because I didn't have enough time to fit in my workout before my 3:10 dental appointment.  As I was driving home, I heard a weird noise coming from my front tire. So I pulled into the Husky station to check it out.  Nothing.  Okay, so I continued home, still hearing the strange noise.  When I got out of my car, I thought that I'd best check again.  Oh yeah, there was definitely something amiss. I could hear the air leaking out of my front tire this time.  Sure enough, there was a large screw stuck into it.

I jumped back into the car, phoning Ken, trying to think of the closest shop that could fix my problem.  Canadian Tire - not my preferred vendor, but close enough to drive there before all of my air was gone.  Yes, it was visibly leaking.  Got to Canadian Tire and they told me it would be an hour and a half.  At least my dental appointment was with in walking distance.  I left my car with them and walked.  Boy, was it chilly yesterday afternoon, especially since I wasn't dressed for the out-of-doors.

I survived.  Finished my dental appointment and walked back for my car, settled the bill and was on my way home and onto Facebookland.  Unfortunately, I hadn't even considered what to make for dinner.  Silly mistake.  I usually start thinking about it around breakfast time. :)

Sear your pork first, then finish in the oven.

I knew that I had pork tenderloin in my refrigerator, because I had picked it up the day before.  However, I had not planned on what to do with it or any sides and now it was dinnertime.  My first thought was wraps, as I saw some tortillas on the kitchen counter.  Okay, pork and "what?" inside wraps.  Rice? I prefer brown, but that's going to take way too long.  I looked in my pantry.  Quinoa. (Pronounced, "keen-wah") It's healthy and quick. It only takes 20 mins to cook.  "Okay, so pork and quinoa in tortillas," I say out loud to my daughter, "and what else?" She says that she thinks that would be weird in a wrap, so I nix the tortilla.

I check the vegetable crisper.  I've got bell peppers, some green beans that should have been used last week - tossed those, carrots, green onion, cucumber and a bit of parsley.  Asian flavours... this is going to work!  I diced yellow and red peppers, cucumber, green onion, garlic, ginger and shred the carrots.  Made a dressing from soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, plum sauce (I'm out of sweet chili sauce still and this is leftover from Christmas I think - can't be that good for you then, hey?) sesame seeds, lime juice, a couple of drops of fish sauce, oyster sauce, a dollop of almond butter and bit of olive oil.  Wallah! Asian Quinoa Salad with Seared Pork Tenderloin.

Seared Pork Tenderloin and Asian Quinoa Salad.

Ken and I quite enjoyed it - the kid, not so much. Though she ate it without complaint and only let me know, when pressed, that she thought it tasted weird.  ha ha

Moral of this story?  Pork tenderloin and quinoa are both quick and easy when you are in a hurry for dinner and haven't thought it out ahead of time.  And... always keep a few good vegetable (peppers, carrots, celery, onions, etc) on hand, because they are very flexible and can be pitched into almost any recipe to make a healthy dinner.

Connie Gets Her Groove Back...?

So, finally inspiration rears its beautiful head in the spice isle.  Oh how I have missed you, Inspiration to Cook. It was not a spice that stimulated cooking creativity, no, I spotted Kitchen Bouquet.  If you've never used it before allow me to introduce you.  It's essentially liquid caramel.  Not sweet though.  It's like the bottom of the pan after you've fried a steak or perfectly caramelized onions.  Oh yes, it is liquid flavour.  And the reason I discovered it was because I went hunting online for a stew recipe.

Where is the logical place to find an amazing beef stew recipe?  The Guinness website. True story.  They actually share their pub's stew recipe.  Funny thing is, when I found it, it was a huge, restaurant size batch.  Not great for a family of three.  So the first time, I had oooodles of gravy left over.  I've since rectified that problem by scaling back and using my common sense.

Interestingly, today when I went to refresh my memory on some of the recipe's finer points, I found that the Guinness website has replaced my recipe with a new one, along-side a how-to video featuring a bloke with a thick Irish accent.  Now, I cannot say which recipe is better - I'm sure they're both delicious - but I stuck with the one that I've made before...

Furthermore, I admit that I use whichever dark beer I happen to have one hand.  This week that is Vancouver Island Brewery's Hermann's Dark Lager.  Without further ado, The Recipe....

My favourite Irish boys would be wantin' a helpin' of this.

MGuinness Beef Stew

1 lb. cubed beef
1 med. onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 leek, diced
2 good sized carrots, diced
2 tbsp. gravy browning (aka Kitchen Bouquet)
Pinch Mixed herbs (In Canada, I do believe that this is Italian Seasoning, 1 - 2 tsp.)
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp . Flour (or enough to make a nice roux)
3 Cups Beef stock
Seasoning (Salt and Pepper)
½ x Pint GUINNESS® beer (I use one bottle, 341mL)

Method
Sweat all vegetables in the butter for 5-6 mins.
Add diced beef and cook for 5-6 mins. (I know what you are thinking - "What about browning the beef first?"  Honestly, it doesn't seem to matter, though you may go ahead and do this step first)
Add herbs and then flour. Cook a little to get those herbs going and the flour cooking.
Add warm beef stock slowly over heat while stirring, scrapping up the bottom brown bits. Cook for another 5-6 mins. (In the video, the chef added beer before the stock, so I tried that today.  Only half a bottle though, I'll save the rest to finish.)
Add gravy browning
Slow cook for 1 & 1/2 hours. (I also tried putting a piece of parchment paper on the stew while it simmers - like the Irish chef from the vid.)
Finish with ½ pint of GUINNESS® beer and stir.
Season and serve with champ potato (mash potatoes with green onion) and roast carrot and parsnip. 

This serves about 3 or 4, depending on how generous you are with the stew itself.  I recommend multiplying if you have a larger family or want leftovers. 

I just went to taste test my stew, which has been simmering for the past hour, while I wrote this and Oh Yum! It's perfect for a rainy, dreary, blustery day like today.  It is hearty, meaty and full of delicious beef flavour.  I'm sure the menfolk will be particularly fond of this one.