Recipe 25- Fresh Chilli and a "Thank You Giveaway"

Recipe 25- Fresh Chilli 

I just want to start off by saying this recipe has to be the most colourful in the book and the most colourful I have ever cooked! 

This meatless fresh chilli is just totally amazing and 'fresh' really comes through and earns its title here. 

I started off by chopping the various components to this chilli. 

I chopped garlic, onions, peppers and a jalapeño pepper. 

So while chopping I ran into 2 'firsts'. Number one, my garlic had a green interior? I have never seen this before. The garlic was fresh, and looked alright.. so I went with it. Number 2- my orange pepper was expecting.. no seriously... it was pregnant with green peppers LOL 

Guess they were hanging out too long in the bag together... ;)

One other thing I wanted to add to my funny times in the kitchen..So I am sure you have all heard to be cautious while working with jalepeno peppers. I took the seeds out and chopped the pepper. I thought I had fully washed my hands.. but apparently NOT!  While cooking this dish I noticed a slight stinging around my face, eyes and ear! Be careful with those things! OUCH! 

I moved everything over to my stove area and got a large pot heated up and added some oil and tossed in my onions, garlic and cumin seeds. 

Something new I learned today was that cumin seeds are what give that typical Mexican flavour. I am not very well versed with which spices and herbs go into certain foods, but I am learning slowly. 

I was very impressed that 1tsp of these seeds was enough to season the entire dish! 

After my onions and garlic had slightly wilted it was time to add the rainbow of colour to the pot.

In went the bell peppers and jalapeño pepper. These get a few minutes in the pot until they slightly soften. It was about 5 minutes or so. 

Next went in the corn, red kidney beans and tomato juice. The aroma at this point was just fantastic. I stirred everything together and then added the juice and zest of one lime. 

This is my new favourite thing since starting this journey, I never knew how much aroma and flavour is given to the dish by using this simple technique. 

How beautiful are the colours here? 

At this point everything is let to simmer. This gave me a few minutes to tidy up the kitchen and get ready to serve the meal.  I chopped some cilantro to have it ready to garnish the chilli when it was time to serve. 

And there we have it. A beautiful bowl of fresh chilli. This really stands above and beyond the chilli recipes I have had in the past. I have always found chilli to be a heavy dish that heats you up from the inside, which is perfect for those cooler months. This recipe puts a nice twist on that heavy style though, its light and fresh and perfect for the warmer months approaching. 

I would be fine having this even cold as a refreshing summer dish. 

One thing I noted while eating this was that you can literally taste ALL of the flavours that are incorporated into this dish. The peppers, the corn, the beans.. they all have their place in the bowl. 

I really encourage you to try this one out, I don't think you will be disappointed! 

As always my compliments to the Chef and cheers to you, my friends! 

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Recipe 24- Whole Wheat Biscuits

Recipe 24- Whole Wheat Biscuits 

What is better then the classic biscuit? This recipe is! 

I was really looking forward to this recipe since I saw Chef Michael make these on one of his TV episodes. I was intrigued by the shape, since the typical biscuit is round. 

Not to mention anything baked with the incredible Cows Creamery butter, it just to die for! 

To start off with this recipe, you need a brick of butter rock solid frozen. Last time I did this I tossed the butter in my fridge freezer, but this time.. I dug into my chest freezer surplus.. and let me tell you, it was ROCK hard! 

I gathered the required ingredients. Whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, salt, milk, and baking powder.

 After all the dry ingredients were well incorporated, it was time to do the labor intensive part.

I really like Chef Michaels tip about grating your frozen butter into the dry ingredients. This totally skips having to use a pastry cutter and also insures that the butter is even through the dry mix. 

But let me tell you, your in for a work out with this one. 

Butter was flying everywhere as I grated it. My cat Henry quite enjoyed cleaning up the butter bits that were flying around my kitchen. I am not even exaggerating.. it was on my shirt, floor, counter top, arms you name it! But I am glad to report that 90% did hit the bowl... maybe haha! 

After my hands had a nice coating of butter, which by the way is an excellent moisturizer.. ;).. I tossed the flour and butter gently together. 

Chef Michael says to do this part quickly, you want to keep that butter frozen! 

I once again got messy with this step.. Butter + flour+ hands and rings on fingers= Diamonds that could turn into bread! 

I totally forgot to remove my wedding rings and well...ya, they got a tad nasty! 

Moving on... 

Next goes in the milk and everything is mixed with the end of a wooden spoon until it comes together. Then its time to plop the dough out on to a floured surface and kneaded. I also made sure to fold the dough on its self, this gives it nice layers. Once again you want to be quick with this step, you want that butter to stay intact and not begin melting from the warmth of your hands. 

I patted my dough into a round and then used my heavy duty marble rolling pin to get everything nice and flat. While rolling the dough I noticed I was quick enough to keep the butter from melting. I could actually see the butter in the dough.. if you look close enough you will see it in the picture above. I then used my pizza cutter to cut the dough into wedges. 

The wedges were placed onto a parchment lined baking sheet and then topped with some coarse finishing salt and pepper. 

So I kind of forgot the pepper part until they were in the oven for 2 mins.. so I managed to literally grind the pepper onto the biscuits while in the oven.. I should sign up for cirque du soliel .. this was quite a feat hah! But it did make it on! 

After 15 mins the biscuits are nice and fluffy and golden brown. I want to show a comparison of how much these biscuits rose! Its amazing! 

As soon as those biscuits were cool enough, I had my butter ready and was going in for the kill.

These biscuits truly do have an excellent texture. I really love the whole wheat flour, it makes them have so much flavour opposed to white flour only. 

I quite enjoyed these biscuits and they made a lovely addition to our meal that night, I served these with recipe 25- Fresh Chilli! 

I think these would be great with any soup or stew actually, and Chef Michael also gives a recipe for some vanilla honey butter that you can make to go with these. 

As always my compliments to the chef and cheers to you, my friends! 

Link to recipe: 

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/whole-wheat-biscuits/13222/

                                                         

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Recipe 23- Pan Fried Crispy Crusty Whitefish

Recipe 23- Pan Fried Crispy Crusty Whitefish 

Happy Saturday to everyone! I hope you are having a relaxing weekend. 

I thankfully was on the mend this week from my ear infection and was really craving some fish. 

I had lost my appetite for over a week and this was pretty much all I could think of. This recipe is quick and easy to prepare. I vowed the other night after eating this, I would never buy another breaded fish filet from the store again. This recipe knocks any of the store versions out of the park. 

Earlier in the journey, I had read through the entire cookbook and looked at every single ingredient. Some of these ingredients are not easily found in my area. When I saw that Chef Michael had preferred the "Old Bay" seasoning for this recipe, I knew I had to track it down. I figured this would be quite the task as I have never seen it in any of my local stores. 

My dear friend Emilie told me to check Sobeys as they carry a lot of the Maritime products. 

Sure enough, there it was on the shelf. It was pretty hidden, but it was like a prize when I got it into my cart! 

I am still on the hunt for another product for the bread recipe in this cookbook. It has been an extremely hard thing to find, so I am wondering how I will manage that recipe when the time comes. 

There are substitutions in the book, but wanting it be authentic.. I would love to find these. 

I am hunting the "Red fife" and " St.John Valley Cereal" Both of the products are manufactured by the Speerville Flour Mill in New Brunswick. 

Have any of you used or know where to find these? Let me know:) 

Anyways.... Lets get back to the recipe! 

I gathered my ingredients. Whole wheat flour, "Old Bay" seasoning, eggs, salt and pepper. 

First I mixed together the flour mixture and then whisked up the eggs in a separate bowl. 

My fish of choice was "haddock". My fresh filets were ready for breading. 

Believe it or not, I have never breaded my own fish filets. I really like the idea of using whole wheat flour for that extra texture. I started off by getting the first filet into the flour mixture and getting it evenly coated. Next was a dip into the whisked eggs and then back into the flour mixture. At the end of coating all the filets, your fingers look like a breaded delicacy haha. 

Chef Michael Smith gives other seasoning options in the book if you would like to use something other then "Old Bay". One that I will be trying next time is the dill .. yumm! 

I heated up my large skillet and when hot, added in some oil. Next I used my hands down favourite butter, "Cows creamery butter". If  ANY recipe calls for butter, this is whats going in. 

The filets sizzled so nicely as they hit the pan, and upon first flip, they looked fantastic! 

Within 3 minutes per side, these filets were ready to eaten. 

Such a quick cook time, and the fish not at all overcooked. It was light and flakey. 

I served up the filets with some brown rice, a wedge of lemon and sprig of dill. 

And how can I forget, my all time favourite tartar sauce from Manitoulin Island. 

My family has cottage in Tobermory and this is a MUST buy every time the jar gets low. 

Speaking of which, another jar is in order after this meal! 

When we dug into our dinner, I could not get over how nicely the fish was coated in this nice and light batter. It added to the fish and was not at all over powering. I quite enjoyed it and so did my friends and family. My kids were absolutely silent while devouring their fish. I have learned over the last few months, that the recipes should always be increased as one serving isn't enough in this house. 

 I really hope you give this one a try! 

And for the record, this was one of the first times I could of ditched the tartar sauce and eaten my fish without. But it was a nice compliment on the side. 

As always my compliments to the Chef and cheers to you, my friends.

Thank you to everyone for sticking by me through my journey so far. My blog has breached the 8000 visitor mark and everyday it just astonishes me! 

You can also find me here: 

https://twitter.com/Leslie1669

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Recipe 22- Tomato Basil Carbonara

Recipe 22- Tomato Basil Carbonara 

Good morning! I hope you are enjoying your easter weekend with friends and family and hopefully.. Delicious food! 

I have very much welcomed the warmer weather we have received the last few days as I have been healing from a horrible ear infection.  For the last 10 days I haven't been far from my bed, so I was really looking forward to getting back into my kitchen and cooking up a delicious dish. 

When my husband came home the other day from work he was happy to see me back in the kitchen and the Michael Smith book open. Every week my husband, friends and family all look forward to these dishes and it felt like forever since I had cooked one. 

This recipe was such a nice introduction back into the swing of things, not to mention it was quick! 

I swear I read over the instructions for this recipe about 5-6 times because when I saw you are mixing raw egg into hot pasta and expecting it to cook and make a cream sauce.. I thought "no, that can't be right".

So here we go on my experience making this delicious pasta dish. 

First I gathered my ingredients, no too many this time which was great..I had everything I needed on hand.

I first chopped my ENORMOUS cloves of garlic, the recipe called for 4.. however I thought 2 of these suckers should be sufficient. I picked these up the other weekend at the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival. They are grown locally by a company called "Big Ass Garlic" .. they are not kidding haha.

Chopping into that garlic made me really miss cooking, it smelled great! I also halved my cherry tomatoes.

Next was this mysterious "cream sauce". 

I say that just because I had no idea how this would come together in the end. I have never seen a sauce made this way, but hey, this all about learning and getting out of your comfort zone in the kitchen.                          I whisked together eggs, fresh grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. So far so good.

Next was getting my chopped garlic into a small saucepan with a little olive oil. When this garlic was heated up, man was it ever potent. I was glad I went with just the 2 cloves. After a few minutes I turned the heat off. While I was working on all the prep, I had filled my large pot with water and lots of salt for the pasta. By this time, the pasta was ready to go in. 

After the pasta was cooked, here is where I started questioning myself. "So I put this egg mixture into my drained hot pasta, and magically it will turn into sauce?" Ok! 

Chef Michael says to reserve some of your starchy pasta water to make everything come together smoothly. I literally measured it out this time, because I was too nervous to eyeball it in the pot. I didn't want a pasta soup ;) 

In it goes. Chef Michael says to work quickly with this step, so I frantically mustered up some energy and stirred everything in. And within a few seconds.. magic happened! SAUCE! Holy it worked! 

I quickly grabbed my cherry tomatoes and tossed them in. Everything was mixed together with some trusty tongs and I had a whole pot of yummy goodness. 

Before I even called my husband and kids for dinner, I may of sampled. 2 or 3 or 5 noodles. So creamy and delicious! 

Now you may be asking yourself.. where is the Basil? 

I realized that I had not chopped my basil yet and went to grab it from the fridge, only to find some very poor looking basil. It was unfortunately not edible at this point. With the meal already being ready for serving, I didn't have time to go and grab some. This is the FIRST TIME EVER I have left out an ingredient in these recipes. But let me tell you.. it was still AWESOME! 

This meal was put together in about 15 mins. Perfect for the week day when you may just be getting home from work or school. 

My husband and kids were very excited to have a Chef Michael dinner after a long 10 days of 'boring' food haha. 

And to set the record straight, my husband had 3 plates of this dish! It was a huge hit to say the least. 

I will be making this dish again, as its a nice alternative to the usual spaghetti dinner that usually shows up weekly in most homes. 

I actually said that this dish reminds me of a something you find in a restaurant, its that good! 

As always my compliments to the Chef and cheers, to you my friends! 

Keep an eye out for Recipe 23- Pan fried crispy crusty Whitefish 

You can also find me here: 

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Recipe 21- Brown Butter Tarts

Recipe 21- Brown Butter Tarts 

Good Afternoon everyone! Today my morning started bright and early as I headed off to my yearly tradition, The Elmira Maple Syrup Festival. I have been saving this tart recipe for the perfect time as it contains pure maple syrup.. and what better way to celebrate the festival then making some warm gooey tarts with fresh syrup! 

Even since I was a child, I really looked forward to the Elmira syrup festival, almost as much as Christmas...seriously!  I have been attending for over 15 years and this year it celebrated its 50th Birthday! As always the crowds are large and local businesses have set up booths selling their products and crafts.  Most years, the weather was dreary, cold and windy. A short tractor ride into town makes you glad that you have bundled up for the day. 

Me& "Flap Jack - Log Sawing Competition- Local Crafts 

With my Tim Hortons Coffee in hand I started off by stoping by the "Big Ass Garlic" booth. They produce locally grown garlic and always have a wonderful variety of their products available on site. And let me tell you, their garlic is HUGE! In the picture below, I have set a regular garlic beside the 2 I picked up this morning. I can't wait to use these in upcoming recipes.

So your probably wondering... so did you buy any maple syrup? Well I actually didn't buy any AT the festival. My husbands job is delivering fuel to local businesses and farms. He received a bottle of fresh maple syrup as a thank you and that's what I used for todays Brown butter tart recipe. 

Our syrup came from Snyder Heritage farms which is very local to us. The are located in Breslau Ontario and have been farming for over 100 years. They syrup is one of the best I have had hands down! 

Well I guess I will wrap it up here of my travel today, I am really glad that I could share a little bit of my travels today with you! Let me know if you have ever visited the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival :) 

                                                                    Lets get started! 

Last night I made sure to stick one cup worth of butter into my freezer. Chef Michael Smith directs you to use frozen butter when making your tart shells. This recipe like many starts off by mixing dry ingredients. I mixed together flour, salt, sugar and freshly ground nutmeg. As an experiment, I wanted to know how much of the whole nutmeg you would need to make one teaspoon. It takes slightly less then half- I learn something new every time I cook these recipes :) 

Next up is the frozen butter. You are actually instructed to grate the frozen butter using a box grater. This way the cold butter will evenly mix into your dry ingredients. Its essential to keep the butter cold, this will produce fluffy shells. 

It was quite interesting to see frozen grated butter and it mixed nicely into the dry mixture. I really like this technique, opposed to the pastry cutter.. who ACTUALLY owns one of those lol ? 

Next step was adding ice cold water. I added some ice cubes to a large glass measuring cup of water and just poured what I needed for the recipe, and this also ensures a nice cool drink for the next part of this recipe. 

Now you will be using a wooden spoon handle as well... a spoon. You carefully mix in your water and then its time to get your hands messy. 

It took some time to get everything into one uniform ball. I actually said to my husband, "I am sure Chef Michael doesn't struggle with mixing this dough, his hands are HUGE" :) 

After a big sip of ice water, I got my dough rolled out smooth and then used a mason jar lid to cut my rounds for the tart shells. The rounds are placed into a greased muffin tin. After batch one, I realized the mason jar lid was a tad small and I used a large tumbler glass. The higher shell made sure the filling didn't spill out during baking.

Next was the part I was the most nervous about. 

                    BROWNING BUTTER!?!

So I literally put butter into a pan and hope that I don't burn it as it gets darker.... YIKES! 

So I am pretty sure that I slightly burnt my butter. It did have some granules of dark brown/ black in the butter mixture. But it tasted pretty darn good. 

I added in my pure maple syrup and woah was I in for a surprise. It bubbled up like those science projects that involve baking soda and vinegar.

Next step was to add in the other wet ingredients. Eggs, brown sugar and vanilla are whisked together and then added to a slightly cooled brown butter mixture. I then added in some flour and whisked everything smooth. I poured my mixture from the pot into a large measuring cup. This made it much easier to fill my tart shells.  I am not going to lie, I tasted that gooey mixture like 100 times. It was delicious! Who cares their is raw egg in there... GO FOR IT! 

Into the oven went the first dozen tarts. After about 5 minutes I realized my tart shells were on the small side. The tart 'goo' was oozing over the shells and starting to get dark. These tarts have a quick bake time of 12 minutes, so I just kept my eye on them and made sure to correct my shell size for pan 2. 

This recipe yielded 24 tarts. And you will want ALL 24 tarts.. TRUST ME! 

They have the greatest flavour and just the right amount of sweetness. The shells are melt in your mouth good and I really enjoyed the nutmeg inside the shell, it really compliments the browned butter and maple syrup flavour. I could hardly resist waiting for these to cool to take my first bite! 

I wish the picture below was a scratch and sniff! 

I hope you enjoyed reading about my small trip today and my experience making these delicious tarts. 

As always my compliments to the chef and cheers to you, my friends! 

Link to the Recipe: 

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/brown-butter-tarts-with-maple-and-nutmeg/12909/

Link to Snyder Heritage Farms: 

http://snyderheritagefarms.com/products/maple-syrup/

You can also find me here: 

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Recipe 20- The Ultimate of ALL Brownies- Peanut Butter Brownies

Recipe 20- The Ultimate of ALL Brownies- Peanut Butter Brownies

So Recipe 20 is the one of the BEST brownie recipes I have ever made. Back in the day when I first started making things in the kitchen, I was about 8. I pulled out my moms recipe books and made a brownie recipe. Let me just say, I could of used the brownies as a patio stone in our backyard garden. They were so hard and their only saving grace was the thick coating of icing I put on them LOL! 

Needless to say after that one recipe, I never made a brownie recipe again from scratch. 

I kind of laughed to myself when I saw this recipe in Chef Michaels book, I instantly had flash backs of that day.  But here I am today, with  a better concept of cooking and baking and I felt redeemed when I took a bite out of these! 

To start off I gathered my ingredients. I didn't go with any fancy ingredients like specialty cocoa powder or chocolate, just the normal things you find at the grocery store. 

I first mixed the dry ingredients into a bowl. Flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.

Next was something new I haven't see for making brownies, I used a pot of hot water and a glass bowl on top to melt my chocolate and butter. This process takes a while, but the results are a very smooth chocolate batter and ps... it smells amazing! 

After the chocolate and butter has been melted together, you add in the brown sugar, vanilla and eggs. 

One tip I would add here, make sure you let the chocolate slightly cool down a bit before dropping the eggs in. No one likes scrambled egg brownies! 

When the brown sugar goes into the chocolate mixture, it instantly smells like fresh warm gooey chocolate chip cookies. After everything is whisked together in the bowl, you add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Here is one other tip, I took my time to gently fold in the wet and dry ingredients. I think this helped the brownies not become a patio stone... haha. 

Next I poured half of the batter into my lined baking pan. You will need a quite large pan for these brownies, but that really isn't a downfall here, you want LOTS OF BROWNIES! 

In a separate bowl you mix the peanut butter mixture that you will be adding to the brownies. I whisked together butter, peanut butter icing sugar, vanilla and freshly ground nutmeg. 

At first I struggled with the whisk mixing, you will have something that looks like a peanut butter microphone lol, I switched to using a spatula and that worked much better. You end up with a very creamy and soft mixture. 

Next you take spoonfuls of the peanut butter mixture and drop them into the half full tray of brownie mix. Then I used a spoon handle, as directed by Chef Michael in the recipe to make the marble effect. After you have got everything spread around evenly, you add the other half of the mixture to the top.

You then repeat the above steps. Your brownie tray will look like an amazing chocolate peanut butter tie dye! 

Now the brownies go into a 350' oven and baked for 30 minutes. This is when the torture part comes in, for the next half hour you will smell warm gooey chocolate smells drifting from your oven. 

When they came out of the oven I could barely control myself to not just jump in and take a huge bite.

Wait the agonizing 20 minutes or so for them to cool enough that they can be cut and hold their shape.

Nothing and I mean nothing will go better with these then a tall glass of milk. (ok maybe ice cream)

Warm out of the oven these brownies are heavenly. The texture is like a classic moist brownie, thick and delicious.  I shared this tray with friends that evening and my dear friend Brian ate so many of these, he had a self induced 'brownie coma'. 

We enjoyed them so much that a second tray was made less then 24 hours later and distributed to family. These are way too good to not share the brownie love as Chef Michael would say.

Mr.Smith sure knows how to make a mean brownie recipe, let me tell you that! 

Let me know if you make these and how you enjoy them! 

As always, my compliments to the Chef and cheers to you my friends! 

Link to the recipe: 

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/peanut-butter-brownies/13301/

You can also find me here: 

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