A few things this weekend

I'm a little behind in my blog writing but lets start with Saturday morning. It's a rare occasion that we have a fancy breakfast. If it's during the week, it would only be for someones birthday. Sometimes on the weekends though I'll wake up in a cooking mood. Yesterday was one of those rare mornings!

No fancy recipes here. Scrambled eggs full of veggies - zucchini, orange pepper, mushroom & onion. I made some crispy dill potatoes too. After much trial and error I've found *what I think* is the best method for making crispy hash-brown-like potatoes. After boiling them until they're tender, I put the potatoes in the oven with some olive oil and dill and cook them for another 15 minutes or so at 400. The secret is to use the convect setting on the oven though! It leaves the inside soft while crisping up the outside.

I "toasted" some gluten-free bread in the oven as well. It's just easier if both Jason and I are eating the same bread and using the same knife so I treated him to some amazing Udi white bread. 

My mom purchased this bread for me first and it's honestly better than any gluten-filled bread I've ever had. I'm hooked on the plain white bread which is usually not what I go for - but damn. It tastes like it was just baked. I've also tried the blueberry muffins which were awesome.

We also had chai tea!

JASON'S REVIEW: That was the best start to the day I've had in a long time. The potatoes tasted like sweet tuber heaven.
MY REVIEW: I agree with Jason.. except for the tuber part?

Now moving right along to Saturday evening. I had wanted to make skewers but the skewer sticks are temporarily missing. Instead, we used our little grill bowl to make veggies on the BBQ.
A little olive oil with salt and pepper is all I added to these vegetables.
JASON'S REVIEW: They were tasty. 
MY REVIEW: The fresh pineapple was my favorite. The salt & pepper do not ruin the flavor.

Last, but not least, this evening we had a fantastic meal. I found some gluten free butter chicken sauce that comes in a jar. It's a lite sauce as well and for some reason can't find it on the Sharwood website - but you can find it at Safeway.

I can no longer find the recipe that inspired this salad so don't give me FULL credit for it! Here's what's in it:

mixed greens
2 sliced pears
crumbled gorgonzola cheese
dried cranberries
walnut pieces

Dressing
rice vinegar
olive oil
lemon juice
salt
pepper

Again, no measurements. I hope nobody just skims over my vague recipes and refuses to try them because I never write measurements. Tell me if you do! Please? I'll try harder.

MY REVIEW: I am on such a moldy cheese kick! This was great. Rice vinegar worked very will on this salad too.

JASON'S REVIEW: He's doing laundry so I don't want to bother him anymore. He liked it! He probably thought it was tasty!

First BBQ of the Season

Today consisted of weed pulling, garden planning and plant purchasing. We now have absolutely everything we need to complete our garden this year.

Our lovely vegetables, herbs and flowers are waiting patiently by the back door until the sun decides to grace us with it's presence. 

Despite the awful weather,  it only seemed fitting to finish off the day with a BBQ.

I've been seeing a lot of recipes for BBQ sauce lately - none of which seemed too challenging. Seeing as how we currently don't have BBQ sauce, today was a good day to try it homemade style! I found this recipe after a quick search on the internet:

Homemade BBQ Sauce
Grab yourself a sauce pan and put it on the stove over medium-low heat. You may also put your sauce pan right on your grill over medium-low flame. (I did this on the stove)

Add 1/2 cup of ketchup
Add 2 TB brown sugar
Add 1 TB red or white vinegar (I used white)
Add 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Add 1 TB lemon juice, or 1/2 tsp lemon zest (lemon juice for me)
Add 2 TB/pats of butter (margerine)
Stir all ingredients until melted and blended together to bbq sauce perfection!

So now the sauce was done and I was onto my side dish of potatoes. We had some organic sweet potatoes (which turned out to have a white flesh if you're confused by the picture) as well as just plain russet potatoes. Again, a little search on the internet brought me to this recipe which I followed loosley:

Roasted Potato Medley
Ingredients
1 russet potato, cubed (1 big one)
1 red potato, cubed (none of these on hand)
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed (3 little ones)
2 tablespoons olive oil (I only used 1tbsp... 2 seemed like a lot)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme (I used rosemary... fresh!)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup low fat, low sodium chicken broth (veggie broth for me)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a mixing bowl, combine the russet potato, red potato, sweet potato, olive oil, vinegar, thyme, garlic and chicken broth. Toss well to coat.
Place into casserole dish and roast uncovered for 40 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

As the potatoes cooked away in the oven, Jason went to town BBQ'ing his 2 Bison Burgers and my salmon along with 2 cobs of corn. I prepared his buns with some mayo, spinach, red onion and feta. 

REVIEW: I have no reviews from Jason as he's washing his bike but he loved the burger combo. It was very different from the usual ketchup, mustard and relish.

We both really enjoyed the BBQ sauce and it took about 10 minutes from start to finish to whip up a batch. Definitely worth it and will try some other versions in the future.

The potatoes were ok. They were in the oven for about an hour then had to go in the microwave for another 5 minutes! Next time I'll stick with the usual potato wedges with olive oil and herbs.

Happy Birthday to ME!

I turned 25 yesterday! Everyone has been taking me out and cooking for me (spoiling me) so I have no new recipes for you. Instead, I would like to show you what my mom and dad presented me with for  the big two-five. Here is the newest addition to my kitchen....

Isn't it beautiful?? I now want to make cakes and cookies and icing and everything else that has given me a sore arm in the past 3 years! This evening a friend took me out for birthday pizza but I just couldn't wait any longer.. I had to make something. 

The Kitchenaid was put to work on it's first task of whipping mashed potatoes with cream cheese, sour cream and chives for Jason's post-race dinner. It did an amazing job (he said they were unnaturally smooth).

In other birthday/cooking related news, I got my first apron from my grandparents! Hard to believe I've never had or used one considering how messy I am in the kitchen.

Jason took me out to the "Melting Pot" for fondue last night and we had an absolutely fantastic meal. I could give you the details of all 4 courses and all of the tasty things we tried but instead I will just say, you should go! After 3 hours and 3 different fondues (cheese, broth & chocolate), we were stuffed. They do a great job of explaining all of the flavors and cooking times so it's perfect for a first-time-fonduer. they even equipped us with a "search and rescue" spoon!

 The icing on the cake of a great birthday was my first pair of diamond earrings from Jason.

Grilled Chicken Breast & Foil Pack Potatoes on the BBQ

 

The chicken chest was marinated in a little bit of olive oil, 1/2tsp thyme, 1/2tsp rosemary, 1/2tsp oregano, 2 crushed garlic cloves and fresh ground pepper. It sat covered in the fridge for about an hour before going on the grill.

 

Joining it on the grill were Jason's (now) famous scalloped potatoes, fresh from the garden. He cut them up really thin, and flattened them out on a piece of aluminum foil that had been lightly sprayed with olive oil.

On top of that, he put a dot of butter, some freshly ground black pepper and his secret weapon....

 

It's a seasoning salt that is made in the North West Territories. I'm not sure where you can get it here but if you do ever see it, you should probably buy it because it's tasty. 

 

There's a reason I'm not mentioning the asparagus recipe.... it was gross. Continue cooking asparagus as you always did because it will probably taste 10x better than this. After we had consumed some asparagus, we noticed the lemon juice used in the recipe had expired in 2006. Perhaps that played a role in the disgusting flavor? Who's to say...

 

JASON'S REVIEW: He is busy doing the laundry so I don't want to interupt. He finished everything on his plate, INCLUDING the asparagus! He liked it.

 

MY REVIEW: The chicken was good and the potatoes smelled like McDonalds. This was really  filling and will continue to be really filling in my lunch tomorrow.