First off I'm not a huge chicken fan, so the fact that I'm posting a chicken recipe of sorts is a miracle in itself. Yesterday I went to a great restaurant in Winnipeg that has a awesome menu of diverse selections and the decor was all about my other favorite past time, music.
I decided to have the special of the day. This is a simple sandwich that anyone can make that is easy and absolutely delicious. The sandwich from what I could tell, was a lightly breaded chicken breast on a ciabatta bun topped with honey dill sauce, lettuce and tomatoes. What really set this sandwich apart from a regular chicken breast on a bun was the slices of brie cheese and a thin slice of crisped prosciutto. I'm not sure how they got the prosciutto crispy, but I'm guessing it was just by a quick flash fry in a deep fryer or maybe a quick heating in a hot oven on a sheet of some sort.
This was a sandwich with many dimensions of flavour. I think if I were to make this sandwich in my own way, I'd likely change the brie with Buffalo Mozzarella, to compliment the lettuce, add a couple basil leaves and lastly, I'd make a spicy mayo to put on. For this application, I think a chipotle chili mayo would be best. I'll try this out and re-post on how it turns out. Until then, if anyone else happens to give this a try before I do, please post the result!
Cheers!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Give your zucchini some flavor...
Tonight, we decided to look to our garden for some inspiration. We knew that spaghetti w/tomato sauce and Italian sausage was on the menu, but we wanted to incorporate some good veggies from the garden since it's getting close to veggie harvest time in Manitoba, even if it's late this year from all the rain and lack of sun.
We seemed to have a plethora of zucchini, but not much else that was ready. There was one pathetic tomato that was dying to be picked out of the depressing looking tomato plant where it hung, so we grabbed it up. We picked all the zucchini that was getting big and on the way back to the house, I snagged some basil.
While cooking the Italian sausage on the barbecue, an idea lit up. Since I've personally never seen this done, I'm gonna name this "Frenchy's Grilled Zucchini". Yes it's a lame ass name, but I'll leave it up to readers to determine the real name. And I write:
Ingredients:
1 large zucchini (3" or more circumference)
ball mozzarella cheese
shredded parmesan cheese
olive oil
kosher or coarse salt
cracked pepper
firm tomato
fresh basil leaves
Directions:
Slice the zucchini approximately 3/4 - 1 inch thick in rounds. Set the larger rounds on a plate, then brush will olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Place on a hot BBQ grill (cast iron pan would also work). Pay close attention to how the zucchini is cooking on the grill. you don't want them to get soggy. A good way to check is use tongs to flip them cause you can gauge the firmness of the zucchini by squeezing the zucchini. You want them to feel moderately soft.
If you have a low heat BBQ like me, you can take some time while the zucchini is grilling to prep the remainder of the ingredients. Slice your tomato in half, then slice thin slices (these would be quartered slices) and set aside. Trim the stems off the basil leaves and then also set aside. Slice the ball mozzarella into 1/8" slices that will fit on the zucchini (see where i'm going? :) ). Shred some Parmesan cheese unless you have some pre-shredded and save yourself some work.
Head the to grill and flip the zucchini (if you haven't already). Place a slice of mozza on each zucchini round and then sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top of each mozza slice. Allow to stay on the grill to melt the cheese. At this point it would be good to switch off the heat under the zucchini and change to the opposite side burner and use indirect heat.
Once the cheese is melted, remove the zucchini using a grill spatula and place on a plate. To finish off this zucchini, place a slice or two of tomato on the zucchini then put 2 leaves of basil on the tomato. Finally, crack some more pepper on top and then finish with a sprinkle of coarse or kosher salt. This has a ton of flavour and is a great way to use garden fresh zucchini.
Cheers!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Suc's Jalapeno Cornbread
So a friend of mine was gracious enough to have me over for some wonderful eats the other day. He put together some awesome slow cooked, dry rubbed brisket, slow cooked chicken breasts, coleslaw and this wicked cornbread. Everything was full of flavour and was just awesome, but this cornbread blew me away.
I haven't had good cornbread since I was in San Antonio, some 6 years ago. This cornbread was right on par. Nice sweet flavour, then a bite of chopped jalapenos hits you smack in the face. The other element that was a pleasant surprise was a slight salty taste when you first bite in. The recipe below will clearly illustrate the flavours and how they all compliment each other. This cornbread goes awesome with your typical grilled food, but more so with smoked meats and slaw.
Ingredients:
1/4 pound butter
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of pickled chopped jalapenos (or fresh)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F. Ideally, a deep cast iron skillet would be best for this corn bread, so if you have one, grease it lightly with canola oil. If you don't have a cast iron skillet, use a ceramic type square pan and grease it with canola oil. IMPORTANT: Lightly salt the pan all around, this will give the slightly salty taste when you first bite into the cornbread.
Melt butter in large skillet or in a microwave safe bowl. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Stir in the chopped Jalapenos so they are well blended into the batter. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Personally, the finger poke in the middle of the bread test works best since it shows the bounce of the bread.
Let cool and then cut and serve with all sorts of smoked meat and other tasty fixin's. Side note, a nice cold beer goes great with this as well!
Bon Appetit!
I haven't had good cornbread since I was in San Antonio, some 6 years ago. This cornbread was right on par. Nice sweet flavour, then a bite of chopped jalapenos hits you smack in the face. The other element that was a pleasant surprise was a slight salty taste when you first bite in. The recipe below will clearly illustrate the flavours and how they all compliment each other. This cornbread goes awesome with your typical grilled food, but more so with smoked meats and slaw.
Ingredients:
1/4 pound butter
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of pickled chopped jalapenos (or fresh)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F. Ideally, a deep cast iron skillet would be best for this corn bread, so if you have one, grease it lightly with canola oil. If you don't have a cast iron skillet, use a ceramic type square pan and grease it with canola oil. IMPORTANT: Lightly salt the pan all around, this will give the slightly salty taste when you first bite into the cornbread.
Melt butter in large skillet or in a microwave safe bowl. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Stir in the chopped Jalapenos so they are well blended into the batter. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Personally, the finger poke in the middle of the bread test works best since it shows the bounce of the bread.
Let cool and then cut and serve with all sorts of smoked meat and other tasty fixin's. Side note, a nice cold beer goes great with this as well!
Bon Appetit!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Breakfast for supper
I don't know about you, but I think that breakfast for supper is dy-no-mite. I actually am not a breakfast eater, not in the way of not liking eggs, bacon, sausage, crepes etc, but rather just not ready to eat at 6:00am before work. My personal favorite breakfast at supper is crepes.
Being French Canadian, crepes were introduced to me at an early age. Dad, Mom and my Memere all made crepes for us and it didn't matter what time of day it was. Crepes are a very easy thing to make, they just take practice to perfect. The simplest way to make crepes is as follows:
Yield: approx. 5 in a 9" pan
Ingredients:
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- flour
Directions:
Beat the egg down in a large steel bowl with a whisk and add milk. Add flour while stirring the batter. Repeadtly lift your whisk and check the batter consistency.
The consistency you want is for the batter to free flow off the whisk at a medium speed. I realize that makes no sense, so here's a gauge. Slow would be molasses off a whisk, fast would be like orange juice. Once the batter is that consistency, you're ready to cook some crepes.
Heat up a pan (preferrably cast iron) with a thin layer of oil (canola is my fav, but any low flavoured oil will do) on med-high heat until the pan is hot enough, but not so the oil starts to smoke. Canola oil is less viscous than peanut or vegtable oil, so if it's smoking, you're element is on way too high.
Use a ladle to scoop the batter on the pan. I'm gonna guess that in a 9 inch pan, about 1/2 cup of batter is probably lots for a nice thin crepe. If you have a crepe tool (t-shaped wooden tool) immediately spread the batter evenly around the pan, if you don't, work the batter around the pan in a circular motion using the pan handle.
Once you see little holes appear in the center of the crepe, it's flip time. Flip the crepe and it should only take about 20 seconds or so to get the other side browned, but check it anyway. Serve immediately or place the crepe on a pizza pan covered in foil to keep the crepes warm until serving.
Serving suggestions for crepes:
Your favorite syrop or jam, strawberry and banana reduction with butter or butter and brown sugar.
This is only one good breakfast for supper. Tonight we had egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches on english muffins with a side of pan fries and blueberries. Filling enough for supper, but light enough to not make you tired for the ensuing night of chasing the rug rats.
Bon Appetit!
Being French Canadian, crepes were introduced to me at an early age. Dad, Mom and my Memere all made crepes for us and it didn't matter what time of day it was. Crepes are a very easy thing to make, they just take practice to perfect. The simplest way to make crepes is as follows:
Yield: approx. 5 in a 9" pan
Ingredients:
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- flour
Directions:
Beat the egg down in a large steel bowl with a whisk and add milk. Add flour while stirring the batter. Repeadtly lift your whisk and check the batter consistency.
The consistency you want is for the batter to free flow off the whisk at a medium speed. I realize that makes no sense, so here's a gauge. Slow would be molasses off a whisk, fast would be like orange juice. Once the batter is that consistency, you're ready to cook some crepes.
Heat up a pan (preferrably cast iron) with a thin layer of oil (canola is my fav, but any low flavoured oil will do) on med-high heat until the pan is hot enough, but not so the oil starts to smoke. Canola oil is less viscous than peanut or vegtable oil, so if it's smoking, you're element is on way too high.
Use a ladle to scoop the batter on the pan. I'm gonna guess that in a 9 inch pan, about 1/2 cup of batter is probably lots for a nice thin crepe. If you have a crepe tool (t-shaped wooden tool) immediately spread the batter evenly around the pan, if you don't, work the batter around the pan in a circular motion using the pan handle.
Once you see little holes appear in the center of the crepe, it's flip time. Flip the crepe and it should only take about 20 seconds or so to get the other side browned, but check it anyway. Serve immediately or place the crepe on a pizza pan covered in foil to keep the crepes warm until serving.
Serving suggestions for crepes:
Your favorite syrop or jam, strawberry and banana reduction with butter or butter and brown sugar.
This is only one good breakfast for supper. Tonight we had egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches on english muffins with a side of pan fries and blueberries. Filling enough for supper, but light enough to not make you tired for the ensuing night of chasing the rug rats.
Bon Appetit!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Thin Crust Pizza
One of my favorite things to make for my family and friends, bar none is pizza. I was always wanting to make pizza crust from scratch so I started to dig around the internet for a recipe for a good thin crust. After a little bit of research I found a crust that seemed to have lots of good reviews and so I tried that one out. After making it various times, I found that it had a nice crispy texture, but the taste wasn't where I wanted it to be.
From that point on, i'd always make variations of this recipe adding ingredients, changing the amounts of ingredients etc. Finally, I made some pizzas for my friends after they had their baby and they were a hit. I actually had a small amount of dough left from that batch so I instantly made a Margherita Pizza (Tomatoes, Basil and Mozzerella) and it was simply awesome. Both my wife and I were very impressed.
Enough of the story talk, here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
Approx. 3 Cups of Flour
1 tsp of Baking Powder
1/4 tsp of Baking Soda
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of water
1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
Heat the milk in a pyrex cup for about 1 min in the microwave or if you're a microwave hating hippie, heat it in a pot over med heat for a couple mins. This will make the dough easier to work once it's ready to knead and roll out. Sift together 1 cup of flour with all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Once the milk is ready, pour it into the dry mixture stirring with a wooden spoon and slowly keep adding the additional flour until the dough is a slightly tacky consistency.
Now is a good time to preheat the oven at 450F. (Any higher will likely burn your parchment paper)
Grab the ball of dough and cut it in half. Set one dough ball aside. Put flour on your counter top and press the dough ball down. Roll the dough out to about 1/8" thick in the most round shape as possible. Put the rolled out crust on a pizza pan lined with parchment paper. Do the same with the other dough ball that was set aside.
Sauce up the crust with a good flavoured pizza sauce. My dad hates certain pizza sauces as they are bland and I agree, a good pizza sauce can make or break a pizza. Add toppings of choice. Bake the pizza in the oven until the bottom of the crust gets a nice golden color.
Variations: If you like a crispier crust, try lowering the water to 1/4cup and add 1/4 cup of Olive oil, butter/margarine or lard. Each adds it's own unique spin to the crust in terms of taste and texture.
Hope this recipe makes you a nice Zza that everyone will dig.
Word.
From that point on, i'd always make variations of this recipe adding ingredients, changing the amounts of ingredients etc. Finally, I made some pizzas for my friends after they had their baby and they were a hit. I actually had a small amount of dough left from that batch so I instantly made a Margherita Pizza (Tomatoes, Basil and Mozzerella) and it was simply awesome. Both my wife and I were very impressed.
Enough of the story talk, here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
Approx. 3 Cups of Flour
1 tsp of Baking Powder
1/4 tsp of Baking Soda
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of water
1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
Heat the milk in a pyrex cup for about 1 min in the microwave or if you're a microwave hating hippie, heat it in a pot over med heat for a couple mins. This will make the dough easier to work once it's ready to knead and roll out. Sift together 1 cup of flour with all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Once the milk is ready, pour it into the dry mixture stirring with a wooden spoon and slowly keep adding the additional flour until the dough is a slightly tacky consistency.
Now is a good time to preheat the oven at 450F. (Any higher will likely burn your parchment paper)
Grab the ball of dough and cut it in half. Set one dough ball aside. Put flour on your counter top and press the dough ball down. Roll the dough out to about 1/8" thick in the most round shape as possible. Put the rolled out crust on a pizza pan lined with parchment paper. Do the same with the other dough ball that was set aside.
Sauce up the crust with a good flavoured pizza sauce. My dad hates certain pizza sauces as they are bland and I agree, a good pizza sauce can make or break a pizza. Add toppings of choice. Bake the pizza in the oven until the bottom of the crust gets a nice golden color.
Variations: If you like a crispier crust, try lowering the water to 1/4cup and add 1/4 cup of Olive oil, butter/margarine or lard. Each adds it's own unique spin to the crust in terms of taste and texture.
Hope this recipe makes you a nice Zza that everyone will dig.
Word.
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