Shish Taouk Chicken Pita

Since I made the German dish last week, I've had TONS of garlic sauce left. (I made a double batch.) I was wondering what I was going to do with what's left. I didn't want to throw it away because that would be such a waste. So I thought "hmm, what usually goes well with garlic sauce? SHISH TAOUK CHICKEN! DUH!". So that's what I did. It's pretty simple to make really. All you gotta do is marinade chicken in some garlic-y yogurt and lemon juice marinade with different spices for a couple of hours, impale that meat with skewers with some vegetables and roast that shish up in the oven and BAM! your taouk is done! You can serve that with a side of white rice or roasted potatoes, which are also easy to make. So here's how it's done.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Yogurt (I used 1/2 cup yogourt and 1/2 cup of sour cream since I had both)
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp oregano or thyme
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground clove
• 1/8 tsp cardamon
• salt and pepper
• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2 green bell peppers
• 1 large onion
• salt and pepper

I made roasted potatoes so here are the ingredients.

• 3 large potatoes (That's what I had handy, but use small round red potatoes instead, they're much better!)
• olive oil
• rosemary
• thyme
• salt and pepper

And other ingredients to make the pita sandwich and sides

• hummus
• pickles (better yet, the purple pickled turnips!)
• lettuce and tomatoes if you have any on hand
• stuffed vine leafs

Instructions

First things first, mince your garlic very finely.

Next, mix the yogourt (in my case, add to the garlic sauce from last week), olive oil, lemon juice, tomato paste, garlic and spices all together in a big bowl to make the marinade.

Once thoroughly mixed, cut the chicken into large cubes of about 3cm or 1in. and dump them in the marinade. Stick that in the fridge for a few hours, say about 3-4 hours max.

Meanwhile, set the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, wash your potatoes and cut them into cubes.

In an aluminum dish, drizzle some olive oil over the potatoes and sprinkle with salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary. Mix it all up until all the potatoes are covered in oil and herbs.

Stick that in the oven until the potatoes are roasted golden brown and crispy.

Actually, mine could've cooked a bit longer I think.

Now, while those potatoes were roasting nicely in the oven, you should've cut the peppers and the onion into large chunks like so. And break down the onion so you can add the layers to the skewers.

When the potatoes are done, transfer them to a container or a plate so we can re-use the aluminum dish. After the chicken marinated for a while, take it out of the fridge and start making your skewers.

Stick that in the oven until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and moist and delicious.

Tada!

Finally, open up a large pita, slather it with hummus, add a couple of slices of pickles and add the contents of a skewer in there. (Remember to remove the wooden skewer, stupid!)

Serve that up with the roasted potatoes and some stuffed vine leafs and you're all set! That's how you make a chicken shish taouk pita!

Die Deutsch Abendessen

My sister is currently in Barcelona, Spain, as a foreign student. She is spending one semester over there to improve her Spanish. For the holidays, her boyfriend went to visit her over there and they spent two amazing weeks together. For Christmas, they went to Berlin in Germany, the home country of the original Tannenbaum or Christmas tree, to spend a few days and visit. While they were there they had a chance to taste a couple of the local traditional street foods. One that is a true Berliner Symbol is the currywurst. It's what street dogs are to New York, or clam cakes are to New England. It's basically a wurst sausage with ketchup mixed with curry powder and some additional curry powder sprinkled on top. It's a big thing there. Also, during Christmas time, they have Weihnachtsmarkt or Christmas markets. These are little fairs with kiosks selling all kinds of items, souvenirs and foods. As a holiday tradition, they will sell gluhwein, a spiced up hot red wine and also champignons mit knoblauchsauce which is fancy German talk for mushrooms with garlic sauce. Apparently, they went crazy over the mushrooms and they had them every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I became really curious and I wanted to know what it tastes like. So when my brother in law came back I did some research to try and find the recipe and do it myself and have him be the judge of whether it was true to the original or not. Finally, my sister sent me the recipe over the internet from a German website. I invited my brother in law for dinner and made those mushrooms and their special sauce, with some bierwurst, kartoffelpüree (mash potatoes), some sauerkraut on the side and of course a couple of Köstritzer Schwarzbier.

I will share with you the recipe for the mushrooms an the sauce and show you how I prepared Die Deutsch Abendessen. Bear in mind, this recipe came from Europe, so all the measures are in stupid grams.

Ingredients:

Sauce:

• 3 cloves of garlic
• 150 g of crème fraîche or sour cream (about a cup)
• 150 g of plain yogurt (about a cup)
• 1 tsp thyme

Mushrooms

• 1 kg of small button mushrooms (about 4 small packs)
• 1 large onion (preferably sweet onions)
• 1 heaping tsp thyme
• 1 heaping tsp paprika
• 1 heaping tsp curry powder
• salt and pepper to taste (preferably white pepper)
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 30 g butter (that's about 3 tbs of butter)
• 1 heaping tbs of dried parsley

For the rest

• 2 or 3 potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes.
• 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pack of smoked & precooked German wurst sausage
• sauerkraut

Instructions:

Before you start, set the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. We will pop the sausages in the oven a little later when it reaches the right temperature.

For the sauce, it's fairly simple. Finely chop up the garlic. In a bowl, pour the crème fraîche and the yogurt, add the chopped garlic and thyme and mix thoroughly. (I made double the recipe here.)

Carefully wash the mushrooms with a bit of cold water to remove any dirt. Wash the potatoes with a brush under cold water, peel them and cut them into cubes. And then chop the onion into large chunky pieces.

At this point the oven should be at the right temperature. So cover a baking sheet with aluminum paper, add the wurst and pop it in the oven while we cook the mushrooms.

In a pot, either boil or steam the potatoes. It'll take a while to cook, so just do it now while we prepare the mushrooms.

In a very large deep skillet, bring the heat at medium. Add the oil and butter and melt. Add the onions and cook them until they become transparent. Then add all the mushrooms to the pan and quickly add the spices, herbs, salt and pepper. Make sure you sprinkle them all over and mix the mushrooms for the spices to spread and mix to all the mushrooms. Then let them cook over medium to medium-high heat and mix with a spoon from time to time to avoid anything from burning. Over time the mushrooms will shrink as they will lose water. Also, water may accumulate at the bottom of the pan. Don't drain it! That's where all the flavour is. Just wait until it thickens. When the mushrooms have shrunk and there's a thick sauce at the bottom of the pan, remove from the heat.

At this point, check if the potatoes are cooked. Stick them with a fork and they should easily fall apart effortlessly. If that's the case, remove from heat and drain the water. Pour the potatoes in a large bowl, add 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine, salt and pepper to taste and mash them up. You can add a little bit of fine herbs in there as well as a little extra.

Take out the sausage from the oven and start serving! Serve a sausage, with some mashed potatoes, a few scoops of sauerkraut, a good serving of mushrooms and add the garlic sauce on the mushrooms. And there you have it. The German dinner, Die Deutsch Abendessen.

My brother in law helped me out tonight by chopping the vegetables while I was cleaning a whole kilo of mushrooms. He was also my guide to tell me whether I should add more spices to the mushrooms since he's the only one between the two of us who ever tasted the real thing over in Germany. Though it wasn't exactly the same, he was very impressed with the result and we had a very delicious meal.

Sua coche le gros!

The gut warming chili con carne

Winter is upon us. And here, in the Great White North, living in our igloos and going to work riding the public metropolitan dog sled to the nearest maple syrup factory in a cool -30C degrees (-22F)  temperature, sometimes you just need a little something to warm your innards. Something that's hot AND spicy. And there's nothing quite like a good hearty chili as a square meal to fill you up with warmth and melt away those snotsicles. So, this week for my lunches I made a big-ass chili con carne. And boy is it a big batch! A word of advice: if you want, you can cut this recipe in half, otherwise you will end up having to freeze half of it for later.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs of extra lean ground beef
• 2x 430ml containers of PC Original Salsa. (This one is good because is liquid)
• ~1300ml of diced tomatoes (1 large and 1 medium can)
• 540ml can of pinto beans, drained
• 540ml can of red kidney beans, drained
• 2 small or 1 large onion (regular or spanish onion)
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 large or 2 regular cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp salt (or more, to taste)
• 3 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup of chili powder

Instructions:

To make a chili, it's the easiest thing ever. First, brown the ground beef with the garlic and onions by themselves. So chop up that garlic finely and those onions as well. We're going to cook those in oil first, then add the beef.

While you're at it, might as well chop the green pepper too!

In a large skillet, add about 1-2 tbsp of olive or grapeseed oil, set the heat to medium and when the skillet is nice and hot, dump the chopped garlic and onions in there and cook them until tender and transparent.

Once your onions are cooked, add the ground beef and cook until the meat is all brown, while mixing it with the garlic and onions.

Once the meat is cooked, transfer everything into a large pot.(and I mean very fucking large, hell a giant steel pot would be perfect) And set it on the heat where the pan was, still at medium heat, and add the green peppers.

Open up the jars of salsa and the cans of diced tomatoes and add to the mix, juice and all. Mix well.

Next, add the beans! Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot!

Finally add all the spices, sugar and chili powder and mix well. At this point, I'm gonna let you in on my secret ingredient. Add a heaping teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa and I guarantee your chili will taste amazing!

When everything has been added, make sure you mix well and lower the heat to a simmer. Let cook for about 1 hour 30 min, stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick at the bottom or anything like that.

After that, serve in a bowl, top with the Mexicana shredded cheese and a few pieces of baguette bread with some butter and you're done! Now you can warm up to the heat and the spices and feel it in your gut and be ready to fight the great Canadian winter!

Vin & fromages

I haven't cooked in three weeks. Shame on me! I've been making myself lame-o sandwiches for lunch the past two weeks and I'm seriously sick of it. Even though I work downtown now and have access to a million amazing restaurant, I just don't have the budget to eat out every single day. Plus, it's not like restaurants are really careful about what ingredients they use, as long as it's tasty. So it's not necessarily as healthy as a home cooked meal where you carefully use, say, margarine instead of butter, or fat-free Greek yogourt instead of sour cream, etc. Anyway, I've just been very busy the past few weeks due to a bunch of events happening like office parties and get togethers with friends. I miss cooking myself a nice meal. It's a stress reliever for me and I also feel so much more at home and comfortable when my whole apartment smells all nice.

But tonight, I treated myself to something VERY special. My flat neighbour is French - European. Him and his girlfriend went to France to visit some of his family and travel around his country and do some sightseeing. He stayed there for two weeks and brought back some goodies when he flew back to Canada. This weekend, he knocked on my door and handed me a plate with a sample of fine stinky French cheeses that he brought back. I was so surprised and happy! I freakin' LOVE cheese. He told me to get myself some nice wine and savour them. Tonight, that is exactly what I did.

After work, I walked to a big SAQ downtown. It's located on De Maisonneuve just a block east from The Bay. I asked the clerk there for something to accompany some fine strong cheeses. At first I wanted to have port wine with it. A coworker, who's a big wine connoisseur, recommended Otima and the clerk recommended the exact same thing. But, she said that instead of port wine, I should go with a white wine that compliments strong cheeses instead. She recommended a wine from the Domaine de Bellivière called Les Rosiers. It's a Jasnière of Apellation d'Origine Contrôlée from the Loires Valley in France. It was fairly priced so I decided to give it a shot, even though I don't usually like white wine. Who knows, it might be useful if I have any guests over this weekend.

When I got home I stuffed the bottle in my fridge next to the cheese. The cheese had been there for two days and it was stinking it up something fierce. I took the cheese out and let it rest on the counter for an hour as per recommended by my neighbour. When the wine was chilled and the cheese had rested long enough, I poured myself a glass and sat down to taste those cheeses. I was not disappointed.

This is just a small sampler. There is some strong cheddar in there, Camembert and brie I think and Roquefort (blue cheese). Some I forgot what they were called. The cheese had flavour. I mean the taste was there. It was unique and beautiful and just pure cheesy bliss. I don't know how to describe it, but the flavour was just so present, it made every other cheese I ever had taste bland. It's quite the experience. But, the most intense, by far, was the Roquefort. It was so creamy and the taste was so intense. Even way too intense for me and I love blue cheese. Every bite I took, I had to take a sip of wine. Oh and I forgot about the wine. It was one of the best white wine I had and it really went well with the cheese. The taste was very soft and fruity and not too acid. I liked it a lot and accompanied the cheese superbly! If ever you are doing a dégustation de Vin & Fromage (wine and cheese tasting) I would highly recommend this wine as per my experience!

Slow cooked pot roast

It's getting cold outside. Winter is at our doorstep and it's times like these that a sandwich or a wrap or some other light cold dishes just don't do it anymore. So when you come home and you're chilled to the bones, is there anything better than a warm meal chock full of large chunks of soft tender vegetables and beef that melts in your mouth, all with in a warm delicious flavorful broth to heat up your insides? The best part about this is that it's so god damn easy to make and your home will smell so - homey. It's the best and laziest way to make a ton of delicious heartwarming food and the smell that it leaves is like my old home used to smell when my mom made this for dinner. It's just so comforting - like a warm blanket. So, I decided to make myself some this week for my lunches to warm myself up.

One thing you're going to need is a slow cooker. I bought one at a shop that sells crap like all those "as seen on TV" products and refurbished accessories. I bought this refurbished slow cooker at a very good price and it has been one of my best purchases yet. You just plug it in, set it to 4,6,8 or 10 hours and let it do all the work. But! You still have to know what to put in it to automagically create a delicious meal. So, here's my recipe. (Actually it's my mom's. That's why it's so good.)

Here's what you need to make my amazing pot roast.

Ingredients:

• About 4 good sized yellow potatoes.
• 1 small turnip. (Not the huge one as large as your head!)
• Garlic. Enough to insert all over the pot roast on every side.
• 4 large carrots.
• A couple of stalks of celery. (optional)
• A couple of hand fulls of green beans.
• A couple of bay leaves.
• 1 can of Campbell's condensed French onion soup.
• 1 cup of water.
• 1 large beef pot roast
• 1 tsp dijon mustard.
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce. (Thanks Google spell-checker)
• 1 tbsp Kitchen Bouquet.
• 1 tbsp margarine.
• 2 tbs Club House Montreal Steak Spice
• 2 tbs Dried parsley

Instructions:

Ok, so let's start with the easy stuff. First wash your potatoes under running water with a potato brush. Do the same for your carrots.

Just Spudzie hangin' out with his tater friends.

Guess which one is Spudzie!

Way to go Spudzie! Good job!

Rinse your green beans under running water and make sure you knock off any dirt and put them on a paper towel and pat them dry.

Peel the turnip. I happen to have 3 because they were super tiny and one wasn't going to be enough.

Next step is to cut all the vegetables in big chunks. Make sure you cut off the ends on the green beans, then cut the beans into 1 inch pieces. Then throw all of this together in a large bowl and mix them up with your hands.

Now prepare the rub for the pot roast. In a bowl, mix together the dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Kitchen Bouquet, margarine, steak spices and parsley.

Then cut up some garlic cloves into big pieces to insert into the pot roast. In my case, I used 3 cloves.

Take out your roast and stab it to make some holes to insert the garlic into it on all sides. This will add extra flavour to the beef and also the garlic becomes all soft and juicy when it's all cooked.

Take the sauce mix and rub it all over the roast and cover it on all sides. Then dump it in the slow cooker and add a couple of bay leaves on there.

Transfer all the vegetables into the slow cooker and cover the beef. Make sure it all fits nice and snug in there. Then open up the can of French onion soup and pour it all over the top. Then fill up the can with water and pour it over the food in the slow cooker.

That's it! You're now ready to let it cook. Just set it to cook for 8 hours. So if you want it for dinner, set it before you go to work. You'll have a nice smelling home and a warm meal waiting for you when you get home. But, if you're like me and you don't like to leave stuff to cook while you're out of the house, just start it before going to bed.

When I woke up the next morning I had this wonderful dish waiting for me to pack and bring to work for lunch! The potatoes, the carrots, the beans and the turnip were nice and soft and the meat was tender and just fell apart as I was transferring it to a container. Everything was just so juicy and smelled so good, it made me super hungry. I couldn't wait for lunch!

This recipe will easily feed a family of four and there will still be leftovers! It's best served with some hot bread and butter. You may want to add a bit of salt too.

I hope you will enjoy this recipe as much as I am!

Bacon Pancakes

Ok. You know how on kids' TV show, when the characters are about to do something stupid, someone always says "Ok kids! Don't try this at home!"? Well, I'm a 31 year old responsible grownup and I realize this message is addressed to kids. Therefore SHADDUP YOU CARTOON BUTT BOOGERS! I'M AN ADULT! I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT! YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS O' ME!!!

That's the best part of growing up, in my honest opinion.

Last week, a friend and fellow redditor (that's someone who reads and participates in the discussions on the reddit forum web site) posted a link on his facebook page that he found on the reddit website. That link lead me to a Youtube video of Jake the dog, from famed cartoon Adventure Time, signing a song about bacon pancakes.

WARNING! What has been seen cannot be unseen.

The idea, like every single episode of this amazing show, sounded so mathematically epic that I just had to try that shit out for myself. So, as usual, I decided to do something like I saw on TV, in a cartoon no less.

I made bacon pancakes.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Betty Crocker Bisquick pancake mix.
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg (or 2 in my case, because I had an extra one)
• 6-8 strips of meaty and delicious strips of thick sliced smoked bacon.

Steps:

I put some aluminum foil to cover a cookie plate and placed the bacon on there and stuck that in the over at 350 degrees Farenheit. When it's halfway done, I flipped it over. Easy as that.

Then I made the pancake batter like it says on the box. Just mix the pancake mix with the milk and egg and beat it. 

When the bacon is cooked and ready, set it aside in a plate and roll it up in paper towels to absorb the excess fat. Heat up a pan at medium low and when it's hot, start pouring some pancake batter and place the bacon on top and flip when the underside is cooked.

When you're all done, put on a plate, pour maple syrup on top, call your doctor to book an appointment to check your blood cholesterol level, and start eating!

Doesn't it look glorious?!?!

In my case, I had some extra batter and one lonely egg left so I made a plain pancake for the top and fried the egg for a complete breakfast and slathered it with maple syrup like a true Canadian.

I ate epicness for breakfast.

About halfway through, I was done I couldn't eat anymore. That was just too much greatness for my body's capacity. Being an adult is the shit. You get to do awesome stuff like this and there's no one to tell you that you can't do it.

Glorious!

Until next time, enjoy this remix of the bacon pancakes song featuring Alicia Keys!