The Starvin' Student

Bruschetta using mint

2012-06-13T04:48:00.001-04:00

A quick lunch was the goal, and luckily we had just gone grocery shopping yesterday. General consensus was for bruschetta to be made for a while, so we finally got to it today! Here's how:

chop garlic, mix with olive oil and salt
spread on defrosted or fresh bread
bake until you can smell the garlic (or eyeball it like I usually do...)
for topping: chop tomatoes, onions, and mint
season with salt
plate
eat

Super simple, it may look like a lot of steps but it really isn't when you cook :)

And what to do with all the mint we bought? Tea!

Food in Oman!

2012-06-07T16:25:00.004-04:00

So I've arrived in Oman and working for AIESEC here for a year, here's some of the food I've been eating :P

The first two meals was McDonald's unfortunately...I was at a conference the first two days and didn't have much choice... I actually had McDonald's three times in the first 5 meals -.-

Cooking at home has been fun, pizza was our first accomplishment. Chicken bacon ranch minus the bacon because it's not available here...

Eggs benedict challenge! It was a team building event where some of us where blindfolded or had arms tied to each other but we made it :P With guidance.

Similar ingredients to the pizza, but in the form of nachos. Toasted pitas topped with green onions, cheddar, mozza, red onions, tomatoes, a little fennel.

Made some noodles at home, threw in pulled chicken, what I thought was dill (but turned out to be fennel), onions, and marinated it with oyster sauce.

Chips Oman! They put it in hot dogs sometimes. Seasoned, a little spicy :)

Shawarma! With chicken. And a 2 minute walk from our villa hehehe...

Cocktail drink (basically different blended fruit) at a Lebanese restaurant called Automatic

Falafel, cheese samosas, and complimentary veggie platter (arugula, pickled stuff, olives, carrots)

Shish tauok (chicken) with garlic and lemon. French fries were a surprise.

African breakfast item: I think there's banana involved...

Burger today, I think it's chicken?

Coca-cola in arabic (and it's value...29 cents Canadian!)

Cultural dinner tonight: I made lettuce wraps (that usually come after Peking duck at restaurants), but I didn't really know the recipe so I improv-ed with chicken, celery, mushrooms, onions, ginger, and soy sauce. It worked :P

African dinner items: chapati and I'll have to get back to you on the one with beans. Sorry =/

Russian New Year's salad with deli, pickles, eggs, etc.

Peach cobbler after taking it out of the oven.

Peach cobbler with ice cream.

Stay tuned, lots more to come!

Sushi Time!

2012-05-30T23:02:00.001-04:00

So my last dinner in Canada before my year abroad was sushi buffet! We went to a place called Yang's sushi in Mississauga (http://goo.gl/maps/4rbr). I'll let the photos speak for themselves :P

Enoki beef mushroom roll

Grilled eel on a pita (with what looks like bonito, aka shaved dried fish, on top)

Grilled salmon

Salmon belly

Mango salad

An overview :)

Salmon teriyaki roll, with crab, cheese, and avocado

Sashimi

Chicken wings and popcorn chicken

Finished off with green tea ice cream!

Food Photodump

2012-04-06T23:28:00.001-04:00

So I was getting hungry after eating early at 6 pm, and finished my leftover ingredients in the fridge. This salad is tossed with balsamic and rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper. However...I am getting hungry now and may succumb to Nutella with crackers...

Early today I had the remaining half of this salmon steak I cooked yesterday. Seasoned with only salt in the pan and soy sauce afterwards.

The following pictures are a collection of the past month's food adventures, though biased towards all the nice photos. I'll post unsuccessful meals another time :P

- Chinese dessert, rice flour filled with sweet chestnut paste

- smoked salmon, a favourite

- a turkey roast with garlic and green onions stuffed inside, baked in the toaster oven :P

- and the inside

- a Korean dumpling from this great restaurant in Mississauga

- with the rest of the meal: pork bone soup, beef ribs, and the soup noodle with the dumplings

- bacon-rimmed caesar from Barque Smokehouse in Toronto

- Sunday family meal with ribs, roast chicken, sausage, roasted garlic potatoes and fennel

- AMAZING (look, taste, and textured) shortbread cookies from Moulin de Provence bakery in Ottawa's Byward Market

- rosemary and garlic lamb chops with baked yam and garlic green beans

- and the nice medium inside

- fruit prepped for chocolate fondue

- I had way too much chocolate that week...

Barque Smokehouse

2012-03-19T01:06:00.000-04:00

So we went to Barque Smokehouse tonight (barque.ca) for some good 'ol BBQ. Sunday is family night there, so there's a set dinner for $25/person. Today's was:

celery root and bacon soup
sloppy joe brisket sliders
pulled pork on tortilla chips
mixed green salad
roasted fennel
roasted potatoes with bacon
herbed smoked chicken, ribs, and sausage
caramelized banana and frozen yogourt

So basically, a lot of food. We started it off with a caesar (with a bacon rim...mm...)

The appetizers and salad were eaten too quickly before I could get photos

But the main course was pretty impressive

Finished with a nice dessert :)

A quick breakfast to start off the day

2012-03-07T08:41:00.001-05:00

So I'm running short on time and whipped up some quick Canadian bacon, tomato salad with green onions and olive bread.

I had the bacon already defrosted from 2 nights before thinking I would have consumed yesterday, so I threw it in an unheated pan with some oil and turned the heat to medium-high (you don't always need the pan to be hot beforehand).

For the salad I quickly diced a tomato (I cross hatch it 3/4 of the way down and slice from there), a green onion, and topped it off with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

The olive bread I quickly baked in the toaster oven (the toast setting is not working :( ) and voila! A quick breakfast where I can dip my bread in leftover vinegar, Italian-style.

Sunday Night Steaks

2012-02-12T20:24:00.001-05:00

Today I decided to have some steak (chili would have taken too long). I kept changing my mind throughout the day by putting the steaks from the freezer to the fridge and back to the freezer. So when I decided to actually do it, they were semi-frozen. So, I defrosted them by placing them in room-temperature water for about 20 min.

To season it, I used some sherry wine, soy sauce, steak seasoning and some oil. I let it sit for 5 minutes as the frying pans heated up.

I decided to cook the steaks on medium heat so that the outside wouldn't be all burned while the inside would be raw.

As for veggies, I stir-fried some asparagus with salt and ginger, adding water after to fully cook them.

Here's the steak after flipping...

And being held on its side to cook the fatty part..

And voila! Plated with the asparagus and a piece of olive bread at the back :)

It was more red than it looks like here, but I don't mind because it wasn't chewy. Perfectly seasoned, cooked in less than 10 minutes. Best part is the 2nd steak saved for tomorrow's meals :)

Simple Guacamole

2012-02-04T21:41:00.001-05:00

Ingredients:

avocado
onion
cilantro
lime
salt and pepper

Why:

The avocado is the base of your guac, the onion adds bite, the cilantro flavour, and lime for kick. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serving Size: 1
How:

Halve 2 avocados and empty into a bowl.
Chop 1/4 of an onion. Add.
Chop a handful of cilantro. Add.
Squeeze lime wedge to taste.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Mash.
Eat.

Serving companions:

Any crackers, chips, toast, sandwich, nachos, lasagna layer, experiment!

Adjustments:

Can add corn for sweetness, tomatoes for texture, Sriracha hot sauce for a roundhouse kick.

One of those meals...

2012-02-02T10:49:00.000-05:00

So for a once-a-year event, I decided to cook up a few favourites of my guest.
Menu:
- Fried wild mushroom and goat cheese risotto balls
- Chicken bacon ranch pizza
- Chocolate strawberries

So I started off making all the bacon à la EpicMealTime but using the toaster oven instead. I ended up doing 3 or 4 trays of these and saving the pool of bacon fat each time in a cup (I had a feeling it would come in handy later...)

Now the trick to cooking bacon is not to eat all of it before the meal starts. I found this to be quite difficult... So I basically, cook twice as much bacon as you need because you will eat half.

I cheated a little with the risotto and bought a wild mushroom flavour package. I just had to boil it and let it reduce, and cool it down...hence the spread out risotto on a plate. I thought it would be smart to use the bacon fat to flavour the risotto so I did :)

As that was cooling, I chopped all the other ingredients and made the pizzas! It's a pita bread as the base, ranch, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, green onions, chicken, bacon, and dill. Pretty easy.

Now for the risotto balls, I broke up goat cheese and put it inside the risotto. First, a coating of flour, an egg wash, and finished with panko bread crumbs. Ta da!

Now all that bacon fat was still sitting there...so I decided to fry the risotto balls IN BACON FAT. Now there wasn't quite enough so I added a little cooking oil (I use grapeseed). And boom we're done.

For dessert I melted down chocolate in a bowl over a steaming pot of water, and just rolled strawberries around in chocolate (and licked the chocolate bowl after).

Set the ambience and a successful meal was pulled off.

New Post!

2012-02-02T10:17:00.002-05:00

An easy salmon noodle brunch today ready in 5 minutes.

Okay so the prep work is to take the salmon from the freezer and put it in the fridge the day before. Otherwise, this literally took 5 minutes.

I put a burner on high and threw the salmon on, then turned it down to medium. I let it sear on both sides and pressed it to see if it was done (according to mother, you just know from the firmness...a rule that takes a lot of trial and error to learn...). At the same time, I threw frozen peas, corn, and noodles into a pot of water and turned it up to high.

5 minutes later (after seasoning the salmon with Greek seasoning while it was searing), everything was done! I drained the water, plated, and topped it off with a squeeze of lemon.

In hindsight, I should have boiled the noodles in chicken broth so I could use it as a soup base...but next time!

Sushi Time!

2011-11-03T09:34:00.000-04:00

So my mom left me many sushi supplies so I could make sushi, but I always wondered when I would have time to do it. But, putting some time aside resulted in a pretty good meal (with plenty of leftovers!). I already had seaweed, soy sauce, the rolling mat (a makisu), and rice vinegar, so I went out and bought fake crab, cucumbers, avocados, and sushi-grade salmon and tuna (from Loblaws).

Making the rice wasn't too hard, I followed the instructions from a website (which I can't find at the moment :( ). Basically you rinse the rice well, cook it with enough water, let it cool, and then add the su (which is the rice vinegar-sugar-salt mix). In fact, this site looks pretty legit (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/01/perfect-sushi-rice/). I didn't really measure out the su...I just eyeballed it and tasted it, then added the other ingredients if they were lacking.

Anyways here's the photo collection of the experiment...it got better as more were made :P

O yea I also used brown rice, which I thought wouldn't work or taste good but it actually turned out okay! Extra fibre for the win :P

So this was messy...they weren't pressed hard enough in the makisu, and thus fell apart when cutting.

Much better sushi when you press hard while rolling!

A return?

2011-11-03T09:10:00.000-04:00

Hello again!

I felt inspired today to write. and I think it's because of the way my omelette is shaped...so thank you omelette. I was trying to flip it over and it kind of just folded itself in a nice way :P Anyways I used onions, garlic, chicken powder and sesame seed oil (it makes it smell and taste delicious). Served with a pita/hummus and topped with fresh green onions!

Last month I decided to do a rack of lamb in the oven. It was already marinated in garlic and rosemary, so I popped it in the oven for 30 minutes with an electronic thermometer so I could get a nice medium (although it turned out medium-well). It was still really tender and delicious so that's okay! You do have to watch out for the resting time once you take it out of the oven because it does add another 10 degrees to the internal temperature...

Anyways I stir fried some asparagus as well and added mint sauce (store-bought). Mint's pretty essential with lamb. Just saying.

Hi again!

2011-06-21T19:25:00.000-04:00

So I took a little hiatus from posting...okay a long hiatus. It was from a combination of school, people...life.....important thing is that we're back today :)

Today I defrosted some chicken and was wondering how to marinade it when I remembered the jar of dijon mustard I had not touched since I bought it...several months ago. So, I decided to make a honey-dijon mustard chicken in the oven. Just add salt and pepper. After 25 minutes at 375 F, voila!

I microwaved 2 halved yams face down in butter and a little water for 4 minutes and steamed some broccoli for about 5 minutes (my first time steaming something! :D).

Enjoy!

And everything really is better with butter...mmm..this yam is delicious.

Surprise: A post!

2011-01-30T22:34:00.000-05:00

It's been another month-long hiatus from posting, and I think it was mainly due to watching Dexter as I ate food instead of posting. My apologies. I do have all the pictures in my camera but just haven't written anything :(

Let's start with today: an unhealthy stop by McDonald's for a Mcmini sandwich: basically a small piece of bread with ground-chicken-bits-in-the-form-of-a-chicken-finger put in the middle. One of them actually had gross bits of soft bone and fat inside (yummy!)

The night before was a big formal and we decided to have a potluck before going! Instead of making chili like I always do, I found Michael Smith's recipe for portobello pizzas. You take a portobello mushroom, pizza sauce, cilantro, mozzarella, and broil it at 400 until the cheese browns. Mmmm. Friends made asian sesame salad, steak and chicken stir fry, and a failed rice side turned into a fried appetizer with a tangy sauce. Legit! It's too bad I forgot to take picture of some delicious and fabulous-looking white and milk chocolate covered strawberries.

I also made guacamole due to high demand. Sorry I didn't take a picture before we dove in. Basically just avocado, onion, cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, lemon juice, salt, pepper.

I also made potato wedges, with the recipe from Chuck Hughes (http://www.foodnetwork.ca/Recipes/Appetizer/Potatoes/recipe.html?dishid=9977). I have lots of leftovers so it will be my carb intake for the next little while :P

Going back farther in time is a typical breakfast of mine: omelette with a variety of veggies and some garlic bread. I might eat them separately or combine into an open-faced sandwich :)

Salmon one night with Greek seasoning, on top of a bed of stir-fried spinach, red/yellow bell peppers and really good fusilli pasta. If you decide to spend money on good pasta, it's totally worth it (you'll know when you can't find English on the box :P)

Dinner one night, I decided to use tuna and combined it into a salsa. I cut up a toasted pita and it turned out looking pretty good aesthetically.

Finally, snack one day: a basic cheesybread. I've got pasta sauce with Monterey Jack cheese I believe, and topped with some seasoning (chili flakes, oregano, salt, pepper)

The past little while...Holiday selection

2011-01-12T03:26:00.000-05:00

So I haven't been up here since November 30th, 2010 due to exams, holidays, and being back in school. I apologize if you visited and was disappointed from the lack of posting, but I hope you went back and found some older posts that you found fun! To make this break into posting a little easier, I'll keep it short and festive.

Over the break, I had an amazing family gathering for Christmas. Here's a few photos:

The turkey!! Salt-brined, rubbed with rosemary, thyme, garlic, and roasted (credit to my brother for all cooking over the break. I took it easy hehe).

Some of the food for dinner. There was soo much.

Mom's vegetable curry stew.

Desserts! Eating these felt like a sin. A delicious, delicious sin.

Chocolate dipped toffee from my brother as well.

Assorted baked awesomeness.

Inside one of those desserts was mousse.

For Christmas Eve, my brother cooked up a seafood storm of paella and mussels. Can you believe these were back-to-back nights?

Mussels, oysters, scallops, surrounded by bell peppers amongst other veggies, with rice soaking up all the goodness on the bottom....my mouth waters as I type this.

Mussels, using spicy Italian sausage for flavour (at the bottom, hard to see), with a nice Riesling white wine broth.

Of Steaks and Candy Apples

2010-11-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

Trying to fix my sleep schedule is not easy. Especially when you nap from 4-6pm. When I woke up, I knew I wouldn't have enough time to cook the steaks I defrosted overnight and get to class by 7pm, so I grabbed a candy apple that a friend got for me earlier today (thanks dude!). I'll just present the following photos in succession.

And done.

Nothing like waking up and enjoying a candy apple :P

After starving throughout class (granola bars are a poor excuse of sustenance...especially in place of dinner), I decided to marinate two steaks with oyster sauce and some cooking wine. For veggies, I chopped up a red, orange, and yellow bell pepper, an onion, garlic, and sautéed them together, finally adding chicken broth to reduce. To keep with the steak flavor profile, I added some oyster sauce to the veggies as well. I pan-seared the steaks, toasted some bread, puréed some of the bell pepper reduction as a fun sauce, and dug in :)

A nice medium steak in the middle.

Best part is, the 2nd steak and the remaining veggies are packed for lunch tomorrow.

How I Did It:

Veggies:

1. On medium-high heat, sauté onions, add salt. Once browned, throw in bell peppers, garlic, stir occasionally for 5 min.

2. Add about 1/3 can of chicken broth and some oyster sauce

3. Let it reduce.

4. I actually threw this mixture into the steak pan after taking the steaks out so the veggies would pick up some caramelized steak flavor.

Steak:

1. Marinade steaks and bring them to room temperature (just leave them out, ~10 min).

2. On high heat, sear steaks for 4 min, I leave the lid on so they cook inside

3. Flip and cook for 4 min

4. Take them out of the pan and let them rest for a little.

Macaroni and Meatballs

2010-11-27T19:11:00.001-05:00

Just finished a DELICIOUS dinner. I had 1 lb of ground turkey leftover in my freezer so I decided to make my 2nd batch of turkey meatballs. I chopped up 1/3 of a white onion, garlic, a small jalapeno, and mixed it with the turkey. Added salt, pepper, paprika, chili flakes, soya sauce, and the secret ingredient: one egg. The egg helps the lean turkey become juicy on the inside since there's not much fat to start off with.

Formed them into 1 inch diameter meatballs and powdered them off with potato starch for a nicer crust when you fry them. Turned my stove on high and pan fried the meatballs, flipping them onto uncooked sides every so often. Added Classico spinach and cheese sauce along with some canned diced tomato and simmered the whole thing for another 5-10 minutes until no longer pink inside.

Voila.

It was DELICIOUS. 1 pound of turkey made 15 meatballs, of which I've only devoured 5, so lots of yummy leftovers :)

Here's the recipe:

Meatballs:

1 pound of turkey

1/3 white onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 small jalapeno

1 egg

salt

pepper

paprika

chili flakes

potato starch

Sauce:

Classico spinach and cheese tomato sauce

1 cup of canned diced tomatoes (including juice)

Directions:

1. Combine meatball ingredients together, season to taste (though don't eat any of the raw turkey, duh)

2. Pan fry meatballs on high, adjust to med-high if needed

3. Turn meatballs once each side is browned

- the pan frying should take 6-8 minutes

4. Once all sides are browned, add sauce (to prevent burning) and turn heat down to medium

5. Cover with a lid and cook until done (another 6-8 min...I just cut them open to check for non-pinkiness)

Enjoy.

Cooking Chinese, Ordering Sushi

2010-11-11T15:31:00.000-05:00

This post is about the actual Chinese food I make at home. I've got an assortment of food I'd eat more often, food I'd make much less often, and food to order when you're just craving.

First off is a simple stir-fried bok choy, sliced beef and vermicelli in the bottom there (though you can't really see it). Super simple, serves my veggie/protein needs, and relatively tasty (just add soy sauce).

On this day, I went full out making Chinese food you'd find in a restaurant. Little did I know how much salt and oil and that requires! This is why I don't make restaurant-style Chinese food on a daily basis, it is TOTALLY different from what Chinese people actually eat at home. However, on this day I pan-fried some chicken thighs marinated in oyster sauce, stir-fried asparagus and olives, and used the leftover oil from frying the chicken to crisp up some noodles. It was SO salty, and VERY oily, and I actually didn't feel very good after (or during the meal for that matter...I had to drink tons of water). It will be quite a long time before I fry noodles again.

On another night, my roommate and I decided to order sushi! It's always pricey and this one came out to around $35 dollars if I remember correctly....but it gave me the excuse to pull out these Japanese dishes that I rarely use. It also came with shrimp sushi (that was put in a separate container...due to my allergies).

Mmmm....

PS...I LOVE the Korean sushi roll (that's the one in the front with the fake crab, egg, cucumber, radish, and beef).

Sometimes I get frozen dumplings (though not often anymore), and decide to be lazy one night so I them out of the freezer. You simply boil them until they float (and I also cut it open because I'm still a novice at telling when it's cooked through). I had some Chinese vegetables that I stir-fried to complete the dish. I believe this is Chinese broccoli (Gai Lan). What's important is that it's green.

Potluck Chili

2010-11-08T23:16:00.001-05:00

I was invited to a potluck, so I wanted to do something legitimate compared to my past potlucks where I made fried rice (sounds better than it was) or edamame beans. Since I now possess a slow cooker (thanks mom), my roommate and I decided to make chili! Since he's Muslim, we went out to buy 2 pounds of ground halal beef. We followed a recipe (http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/slow-cooked-chili/Detail.aspx) but replaced a can of kidney beans for chickpeas, added a 4-inch long jalapeno pepper, cilantro, basil leaves, garlic cloves, oregano, and the other can of kidney beans was replaced with a mixed-bean can.

After setting it on low and leaving it for 10 hours (yes, 10 hours), it looked like this:

It was pretty spicy for my taste, but my roommate didn't find it spicy at all (then again, he's Indian). We brought shredded mozzarella cheese to the potluck to top off the chili too. Since there was pizza at the potluck, my chili also turned out to be a great dipping sauce for the crust too :P

There were some leftovers so we brought it back home. It made for a great snack/fast meal. Here it is topped with mozzarella and that herb I just love so much.

I think next time I'll try other types of meat (steak, ground turkey), and maybe cook the meat with onions before throwing it into the slow cooker (which would have some raw onions as well). So many possibilities!

Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey Menu

2010-11-08T22:54:00.000-05:00

So I FINALLY got back to posting food, after a hectic midterm season (which still runs this week but I can't study right now). I promised to post some meals I made with leftover turkey from Thanksgiving so here they are! It's been so long since I've made these so I'll try to recollect as best I can, although the pictures do speak for themselves :)

First up looks like a salad I made with spinach, cilantro, onions, cherry tomatoes and turkey! I also had cranberry sauce leftover that was packed for me so that turned out to be my dressing for the salad. I thought it was a pretty neat idea (since the only other salad dressing I had was ranch...which wouldn't have paired with these ingredients as well).

Here we have a turkey omelette wrap (which are much healthier than sandwiches since sandwiches are pretty much 2/3rds carbs). I think I've got cilantro, maybe spinach in the egg, tomatoes, onions, and white cheddar in that wrap. I always overstuff my wraps because I underestimate how small the pita is when it wraps up haha...I don't particularly enjoy chewing on 50% wrap when I reach the end anyways (if you fold the bottom in).

For one dinner, I heated up some ratatouille (store-bought) and put turkey with leftover gravy on top. I was at a potluck where I made meat chili but had some vegetarian friends there too, so I bought them ratatouille. Interestingly, they didn't really eat it so I brought it back home. It was delicious actually, so it was their loss haha.

Finally I had another "Deconstructed Sandwich", which was open-faced and so I mixed and matched layering of tomato/cucumber/white cheddar. You can't really see the olive bread underneath but I toasted three small slices to hold everything.

Next post: Potluck chili!

It's good to be writing again :)

Quick Update

2010-11-02T03:54:00.000-04:00

I've been super busy with midterm season recently, so I am deeply sorry for not posting anything recently! I have TONS of pictures including my turkey leftover album, potluck chili, and more! I'll be writing midterms until Thursday, then heading to New York City (where I'll be taking lots of pictures) and writing more midterms the week I return (pending our school's strike status...) Hopefully I'll be able to sneak in a few short posts but stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Eating Festivities

2010-10-12T22:10:00.000-04:00

Back from a great thanksgiving weekend, I basically let my healthy go out the window for the weekend...but it's still lingering around today (I finished a half bag of chips while watching TV...) Anyways, my family had the classic turkey dinner, prepared pretty much by my brother. He likes to cook off of www.foodnetwork.ca and surprisingly does a pretty good job :P Saturday night was turkey night, so he let the turkey sit in a brine bath overnight, seasoned the outside, and roasted it for 4 hours I believe.

It came out a little burnt...but the meat was delicious (and the skin's got all the fat anyways :P)

After "carving" the turkey with an electric knife (we didn't really need the formalities of traditional carving), we amassed a huge plate of turkey meat :)

As a side, my brother prepared a roasted root vegetable dish, and the recipe can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Side/Vegetables/recipe.html?dishID=8640 so, thank you chef Michael Smith. We didn't have any maple syrup so it was substituted with brown sugar. It was still really good.

And here's one of four identical servings I ate that night (minus the corn for every plate). As you can see, we're super Asian when it comes to our plates for holiday meals.

After dinner, we were sentenced to chop up and freeze A LOT of root vegetables (sweet potatoes, yams, beets) since both my home and my apartment were running low. I wish I took a picture of just how much we chopped, but I didn't. I'm pretty sure it was a good 30-45min of peeling and chopping....yay! (However, the convenience and meals I make with those ingredients later will be the "real yay")

I swear it's not blood....it's just beet juice....

The next day, we decided to make chicken wings and poutine. The chicken wings came in a box from Maple Lodge Farms already marinated with BBQ and honey garlic (separately). Honestly, they took FOREVER to crisp up, and I didn't feel like waiting at the time to wait for the honey garlic wings to crisp so we just pulled them out as such:

For our poutine, we sort of followed this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Cheese/recipe.html?dishid=11311 by letting the Yukon gold potatoes soak in water overnight, but we didn't deep fry them so it didn't really matter much. We just baked them in the oven. I wanted to have wedge-style poutine but it doesn't really work because it's just to big to fit in your mouth alongside cheese curds. Next time we're planning on super skinny fries (that we'll pan fry....we do have a deep fryer but it's so unhealthy....) and the use of sweet potatoes. Maybe another type of cheese? (I've done blue cheese before). Can you tell I really like poutine :P

Later that night, as a mahjong snack food, my brother and I made some salsa :D This time, we cut the tomatoes a lot smaller, and used a jalapeno pepper to spice it up. Also added were onions, cilantro, lime zest, lime juice, salt, and pepper. Tortilla chips were provided by Costco, the brand of which I can't recall. It looks like there's a Mayan drawing of a bird on the bag...which is also a tan coloured bag....anyways...

Hope you also had a wonderful thanksgiving and coming soon will be a post on what I'll be doing with all the leftover turkey :D

What happens when you run out of fresh food?

2010-10-05T13:03:00.000-04:00

So the last time I went to the grocery store was September 29th, so I've been filling up on Subway, campus food, generally unhealthiness, and frozen/canned food at home. It's been crazy with exams (I just wrote one yesterday, one this morning, and one more tonight!) and I'm sure everyone has those stints with other things that make food less of a priority. So, what did I do?

I bought some canned diced tomatoes flavoured with garlic and olive oil and so I made myself a bruschetta with defrosted olive bread. I wish I still had cilantro to top that one off..

For one of my dinners, I had a steak dinner, and every ingredient was from the freezer. I still didn't manage to cook the steak fully through without adding water at the end so it wouldn't burn...gotta turn the temperature down next time and cook it for longer (my new stove is super-powerful). I marinated this steak with some steak spice and finally with BBQ sauce at the end (thank you Ribfest :D)

For the veggies I just boiled them in some chicken broth for flavour.

A nice pink on the inside :) mmm.....

And finally to today, this was my meal post-workout. The smoothie's got frozen mangoes, frozen raspberries, orange juice, and vanilla protein powder. My soup was also from the freezer, boiled in half water, half chicken broth. I modified this one so that I'd throw in the scallops, corn, and peas last. Before I threw in all the veggies together but had to wait for the beets and sweet potato to soften, and so the peas and corn would overcook.

I'm looking forward to grocery shopping tomorrow and then back home for Thanksgiving for some delicious home food! Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

Look Ma, I turned Breakfast into Lunch!

2010-10-01T09:56:00.001-04:00

Today was another great day where I woke up naturally 3 minutes before my alarm would have gone off haha. So I got out of bed and went to my fridge, which is quite empty right now. I realized I still had a little bit of egg whites left in a carton (equivalent to 1 egg really), so I decided to have an omelette. Since I like my omelette (and most meals) with lots of veggies, I stir fried some broccoli with garlic and sliced an avocado to eat fresh (I didn't cook the avocado). I took out the broccoli, added some oil the the pan and cooked the egg. The best part is that the egg picked up all the flavour from the broccoli, garlic, and chicken broth brown bits at the bottom of the pan :D

Since I ate half the avocado waiting for things to cook (that's only the other half you see in the picture), I was feeling kinda full after eating the egg and some broccoli. My appetite for breakfast has never been huge. So, I decided to use the leftovers as my sides for lunch. I cleaned the same pan and cooked up a salmon fillet (after microwave defrosting).

The salmon's got a hole in the middle because I cut it in half to check if it was done (and as always, it wasn't). I added two slices of olive bread and now I'm set for my noon time lunch with a friend :D

Thanks for reading!

Chili, The Weekend Pizza Pocket, and a Deconstructed Sandwich

2010-09-26T14:48:00.002-04:00

I've always wanted to make chili for the longest time, but never had the guts to do it I suppose. It's just one of things that seems like a daunting task until you actually do it. So I did it :) Instead of ground beef, I bought a flank tip steak and chopped it up into bite size pieces (my family doesn't like to buy ground meat...I guess we're paranoid about contamination) and browned it with onions in a hot pan for about 5 minutes. Then, I added red/green/yellow bell peppers, V8 juice, and mixed beans. Threw in some garlic cloves, bay leaves, and chili powder and let it simmer for 45 minutes.

It turned out okay, but my roommate said it was really good so I'll trust him on that :P I just felt there was something missing, so next time I think I'm going to make it from scratch (without the V8 juice). However, it was super easy and quick to make, and has been added to my repertoire :D

This weekend, I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches just like I had back in the days of camping haha. I packed Monterey Jack cheese, pasta sauce, and cilantro in between two pieces of olive bread, and minced garlic to spread on the outside of the olive bread. I pan fried them on med-low heat, sprinkling oregano, salt, and pepper on top. The meal kinda doesn't match well with the whole 'eat healthy' thing I've been doing, but it was just one of those days where you give in haha. For three sandwiches.

For dinner I worked on my pan-fried fish (in this case, salmon) topped with a salsa made of onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. I planned to have the salmon sitting on top of the salsa, sitting nicely on top of the rice (like I would imagine it in a restaurant), but that didn't really work out... Not bad though, just needed some salt.

Finally, I threw together a spinach/cilantro omelette, olive bread, and chopped vegetables today for a Deconstructed Sandwich. Now, it's not just my fancy name for this dish, because as I ate it, I would sometimes take a bite of each ingredient or I would build a mini open-faced sandwich playing with the order of the layers of food (wow that was a long sentence). In other words, I played with my food because I'm still very a much a kid at the dinner table.

(For my omelette I use two eggs and I add egg white for extra protein and volume of food)