Tag Archives: Tomato

Outdoor Fun

ODF – EP 5 BBQ SWEET POTATOES AND MINI-SLIDERS

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BBQ SWEET POTATOES AND MINI-SLIDERS (SHOT ON LOCATION, BRIAN’S BALCONY, OVERLOOKING LAKE ONTARIO)

httpvh://youtu.be/dBEJF_ry6ME

Hello, Culinary Playmates:

It is I, Helenka, your fearless advocate of gustatory creativity (aka I eat weird but really tasty food and think you should, too). Normally (as if anything Brian and I do is normal) we would have released this outdoor episode during the cold winter months. But, as we had a mild winter this year, we didn’t need the psychological boost. However (and that’s a really BIG HOWEVER), we are now in May … so why am I still wearing my winter coat? [Weather update: it warmed up by the afternoon so I’ve been able to upgrade to my spring coat.] Uh … hello? Universe, dear? [It’s always best to be polite with the old thing.] It’s May in the Northern Hemisphere: a time when we should be heading into summer. Not only that, but we who live in North America will be celebrating two long weekends (Victoria Day in Canada and Memorial Day in the U.S.A. at the end of the month). It would be really nice if we could get rid of some of the layers. Perhaps we can remind the universe by unveiling this episode a few weeks in advance. ::crosses fingers; toes, too::

What could be an easier time to combine some unusual flavours than during a barbecue? Indeed! As barbecues are designed to be a casual form of dining, you can take chances with your marinades, herbs and spices. Food choices, too. After all, considering how many times I’ve moaned about my special barbecued yams, it was high time for Brian to recreate the taste sensation. What was most special was mixing sweet (maple syrup) with savoury (garlic and mustard). There are so many cuisines where this is considered to be routine. [I sometimes indulge in buying frozen Sweet’n’Spicy Thai chicken wings.]

What are some other ways you could follow the same principle? I know many people are trying to cut down on beef consumption, so what about barbecuing turkey or chicken burgers, slathering on mango-chipotle sauce on one side and honey mustard on the other? I’d give that combo two thumbs up (and I can see Brian sticking his thumbs into the picture, too). It’s also important to remember that, if you’re using commercial sauces, a salad dressing can be a marinade and a marinade can be a salad dressing. Don’t get boxed in by labels.

If you’d like to move away from burgers and do a fancier meat, what about marinating pork tenderloin in apple cider, olive oil and crushed cloves before barbecuing and serving with barbecued apple and onion chunks. Or a beef tenderloin in pomegranate juice and olive oil and serving it with a glaze of reduced pomegranate juice, balsamico and a few artfully scattered fresh pomegranate seeds. You may as well toss a few of the seeds onto a colourful side salad, too. Or lovely thick salmon steaks onto which you’ll place a slice of chilled rolled cilantro butter. [You can tell my imagination is working overtime just about every waking moment of the day.]

As for sides, you can see what fabulous success we had with sweet potatoes (and yams, previously). You can do the same thing with other root veggies as long as you slice them thinly enough, so that the outside will be crispy and the inside creamy and tender. I still can’t believe how amazing the baby eggplant slices were that we had on a previous episode. So don’t let the otherwise long cooking times for whole veggies derail you from enjoying them outdoors. Slice them thinly enough and they’ll be done very quickly.

The other thing you can do is enjoy the bounty of summer fruits on your grill or barbecue. We’ve already done peaches, bananas and pineapple (if memory serves) indoors and there’s no earthly reason not to savour the best of summer with a touch of heat, altering texture, consistency and taste. That’s what I call practical chemistry!

Well, I hope we’ve given you enough of an inspiration to zoom out of your comfort zone when it comes to barbecues (as if we didn’t do that often enough with indoor cooking, too). Just remember: it’s all supposed to be … (can you guess what the magic word is?) FUN!!!

Enjoy!

B&H =:)

Friends Food Fun

Ep 18 – Grilled Chicken Salad

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httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaQiVR_YL-k

When the video starts to play click on the triangle to make a video quality change depending on your Internet speed (360P, 480P, 720P HD or now 1080P HD — our default is 720P HD).

We found a salad that I think will become a real favourite (because I know I’ll be making it a lot) – so much so that we were bowled over by it. In fact, during a recent saladoff at work (kinda like a bakeoff but with salads instead), I made this for my competition dish. It did get a lot of compliments but, alas, I didn’t win. 🙁 [Sympathetic editor’s pat on the shoulder: “Well, you know you’re a winner every Thursday in my books, no matter what.”]

Here are some pics from that competition. The winning salad (the one with strawberries and candied walnuts) was really yummy. See if you can spot it.
I’m trying something new as the pics are posted via twitpic so I embeded the website event into this one (yes it is complicated I just hope everyone can see it). If not try this link twitpic.com/e/9mb

[iframe http://twitpic.com/e/9mb 640 700]

Lately, we have been finding multiple uses for rotisserie chicken using the current cookbook and this was yet another one of them. We will have more episodes featuring this yummy bird in the coming weeks. [Helenka claps her hands in glee.] Putting a great meal together using foods prepared fresh daily from the supermarket or your favourite warehouse club can be a real treat. Yes, I admit I’d love to make my own rotisserie chicken, but why not let them do all the work for you and then enjoy the benefits.

Goat cheese makes another guest appearance here and I’m thinking there is more to this cheese than meets the eye, especially when it comes to adding flavour. It’s now a favourite of mine and I like to have it around in my refrigerator … just in case. [Helenka approves wholeheartedly of this crucial contingency plan!]

Another ingredient that I don’t get to use all that often is dried cranberries. I didn’t really know where in the store to find them but, using some creative sleuthing skills (umm, walking up and down each aisle until I found them – lol, not really), I did manage to locate the proper ones (otherwise, gummy bears with added fruit juice would have had to suffice and I really doubt my sidekick would eat that, even if I made it a secret ingredient). [Sidekick sighs in relief that I didn’t have to be subjected to the horror. Besides, gummy bears are meant to be enjoyed all on their own. Oh, great. Now I have a craving for gummies.]

Cooking for myself before was already a real joy but, nowadays, I’m loving it even more as I am discovering there is a whole world of flavours out there that I never tried myself. It’s really got me thinking of how far I could take this adventure and, seeing as we gots to eat [Helenka asks, mock-incredulously, “We does?”], it can only get better from here.

Have yourselves a great week and enjoy!

B&H =:)

FFF 109

Please note: We try and review the recipes in the cookbook; however, in an effort to respect copyright, we are not able to reproduce the actual printed recipes here. If you do have the book, please follow along with us!

Review: Grilled Chicken Salad

Notes from the Chef’s Sidekick (Helenka)

What do you get when you combine amazingly tender store-bought rotisserie chicken, sliced avocado, crumbled herbed goat cheese, chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, an exquisite mix of salad greens, as well as our added enhancements, namely halved sweet cocktail tomatoes (from Sapori) and sliced red onion? All moistened with a home-made honey-mustard vinaigrette? Uh-oh. I’m going to be using a particular word again. You guessed it: utter perfection. Seriously, I could not believe how incredible this salad was. Every bite Brian and I took of it gave us a different combination of ingredients on the fork. The most impressive thing about it was how well the goat cheese brought cohesion to the salad. In fact, its presence reduced the tartness of the mustard and red wine vinegar in the dressing. We also agreed that rotisserie chicken was the only way to go, because of the superior flavour (we surmised it could have been from a saline/brine bath prior to roasting). I can’t believe I nearly let this blog post be revealed without any nostalgia. But I just remembered because of what Brian wrote about wanting to make it himself. Hey, Brian, I used to make my own rotisserie chicken. At my old place on Prince Arthur, the stove/oven had an overhead rotisserie unit. And I used it a lot in the really, really old days (even before I met Brian). Of course, the taste was out-of-this-world with super-crispy skin and tender flesh. The only drawback was one of time because it took 30 minutes per pound. So … a three-pound chicken (which is not exactly huge) meant 90 minutes of going swirly-twirly (and that’s only my thumbs, lol). By the time the chicken was done cooking, I was usually too tired to eat. Also, washing out the drip pan was so not fun. But, still, I remember!

Variations

We found it rather confusing that The Book’s recipe did not contain sliced red onion, even though there were thin rings in the accompanying picture. [Yes, yes, I’m nitpicking about the stylists! You think that’s bad, you should see what grief we gave our fave department store one Christmas when they made major use of BLUE lights but, oh no, they didn’t have any to sell. Stylists, could you please be more consistent???] Also, Brian added the halved tomatoes to the salad as we especially enjoy the festive appearance of all that red amid the mixed greens. The other change that Brian made was to use an herbed goat cheese rather than a plain one. As the cheese had been removed from the fridge immediately prior to taping, it refused to crumble, so Brian chopped it up. While we were busy with another episode, the salad ended up waiting and mellowing (or, as Brian would call it, “festering”). The delay caused the inevitable softening of the cheese so that it combined extremely well with the very ripe avocado. [And, yes, the evil editor acknowledges and thanks Brian for showing her how to scoop an avocado half out of its shell.] The original recipe already contains several key components to crafting a successful salad: a protein, an avocado (which I think should always be in every salad, but I’m biased – as if you couldn’t tell), a cheese, chopped nuts, dried fruits, salad greens and a dressing. With some judicious planning and unrestrained imagination, there are many other ingredients that could be substituted. I can already see cold tofu cubes (for an alternative vegan source), avocado (again), Asiago cheese, slivered almonds, dried cherries, salad greens as well as julienned red cabbage and an Asian salad dressing of one’s own making. Just think of how many different types of salads you could invent! Because, as always, good food should be fun. Hmmmm. Where have I heard that before? Our verdict – when we weren’t moaning and comparing what combination was on our forks – was that this was a winner and should be made as often as possible! Also, it had been a dreadful day outside (with sudden cold downpours); but, inside, we felt as if summer was just around the corner. It’s pretty amazing when food can make such a huge improvement in mood. And I’m thrilled that it does have that power.

Cooking time (duration): 60

Number of servings (yield): 4

Meal type: supper

Culinary tradition: USA (General)

My rating:5 stars

Microformatting by hRecipe.

Friends Food Fun

Ep 9 – Ultimate BLT or BOAT!

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httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Ql5VYYgrU

Review: Ultimate BLT or As I Like To Call It BOAT!

<Non Approved Evil Editor addition> – I managed to get this one by her do you think she will notice?

I did not know what to expect when we perused the book looking for something interesting to do for this episode, however when we saw the Ultimate BLT we thought it would be perfect as it matched all the right qualities:
1/ Simple Ingredients
2/ Something we would definitely enjoy (otherwise why bother)
3/ Doable in the amount of time allotted (that one is for eating – we’re hungry ya know, and of course for the obligatory editing – less on the memory card the less I have to chop lol).

BOAT (renamed from the original recipe) what a silly name for something so classic and ummm hmmm good! Typically BLT’s are butter, mayo crispy bacon, lettuce, tomato, and don’t forget the toast (whole wheat please – well done too 🙂 ). A list when put together might just be one of the ultimate comfort foods (well at least for me it would be).

So in saying that this recipe had a couple of things I had never tried in a BLT one being a sunny side up egg, and arugula instead of lettuce. In my fridge I just happened to have double thick bacon thinking this would be a perfect substitution for the regular bacon – yeah we deviated from the original (surprise, surprise) so the calorie count might be a bit off in comparison, but instead of the full slices of bacon suggested we used half the amount which I think balances it out.

Arugula I also have on hand (cause I make salad’s for lunch) and I LOVE the peppery bite it gives – I’m fond of saying your food should bite you back otherwise its boring. Next of course unless you hate chicken or any of its by products most folks have eggs in their fridge (mine are free range extra large typically or organic extra large – interestingly enough there actually is a difference and that would be in the yolk it is usually a darker colour, and I feel better flavour (good for another comfort food of boiled eggs on toast or my weekend breakfasts of poached eggs).

Tomatoes who woulda thunk that there are so many varieties to choose from and I enjoy trying them all so for this recipe we used campari tomatoes sliced into little rounds (Im currently working on a batch of heirloom ones that are simply delish – hopefully I have enough for Thursday’s filming).

Another foodie passion I have is looking for the best bread I can find (short of making it myself) this recipe called for 7 grain bread or sourdough and I found Stonemill Bakehouse to make some very good choices in bread (Im eating the sprouted grains one now which is 130 calories for 2 slices – which is not bad and tastes really really good).

Butter or its substitute is perfectly fine if you are not watching your diet or you can leave it out without any loss of quality (the bacon will make up for that).

Combine all this loveliness and one gets BOAT – Bacon, Oeuf, Arugula, Tomato our take on the Cook This Not That Ultimate BLT!

Enjoy!
B&H =:)

PS. Don’t be afraid to try out your own combination we would love hearing any suggestions you have in creating your own version of the Ultimate BLT.

Please note: We try and review the recipes in the cookbook; however, in an effort to respect copyright, we are not able to reproduce the actual printed recipes here. If you do have the book, please follow along with us!

BOAT & Salad

Notes from the Chef’s Sidekick (Helenka)

Dinner was supposed to be the Ultimate BLT from Page 150 of The Book. Well, Brian made a BOAT (Bacon, Oeuf, Arugula, Tomato) instead, using his executive chef’s privilege. Double thick bacon. Campari tomatoes. Toasted Multi-Grain bread. Topped with an over-easy egg (speshul sekrit ingredient in French) and another slice of toast. Mm-mm-mmmmmmm-mm. And that’s my restrained compliment. I didn’t know I could open my mouth that wide! He served the remaining arugula and tomatoes with a Russian salad dressing. Yes, definitely delightful.

Variations

I thought this would be an amazing dish to eat for breakfast or brunch because there’s bacon and egg and toast and, look, pretty green and red stuff. Oh, and a smidgeon of mayo. I dissuaded Brian from adding mustard since we were pretending to have brekkie instead of dinner. The salt chosen for this dish was from New Zealand.