Epicure Lemon Dilly Dip

Ok, now I know that I have mentioned an Epicure dip mix before, but I just want to take time to mention the Lemon Dilly Dip Mix because it is also amazing. Having so many cherry tomatoes left over from my last recipe, plus a bunch of fresh veggies in the fridge, prompted me to find my as-of-yet-unopened jar of Epicure dip mix.

Originally I had bought the Lemon Dilly, 3 Onion and Cheese Chives & Bacon dip mixes so that I could make a batch of the "Extraordinary Cheese Dip" I had had at a party. That cheese dip was SO GOOD that I knew I had to have it again - and that's what led me to Epicure.

Anyways, I am not promoting Epicure products for any other reason than the ones that I've tried, I love. If I don't have success with something or don't like it, I'll say so. I have only tried a few things from the Epicure company so far, and I don't expect to like everything, but these dips are not included - they are amazing!

So, today I made the Lemon Dilly dip mix to accompany some fresh veggies. I mixed equal parts sour cream & mayonnaise, added the dip mix, and chilled it in the fridge. It was excellent. I won't hesitate to make this for a party, or just for myself! :) 10/10 on both counts!

Balsamic Strawberries & Blackberries with Ricotta Cream

My friend Mark sent me a link with comments that echoed my thoughts: YUM. I knew that berries & cream wouldn't be T's ideal dessert, but it was very close to mine, and since I had already decided to get him some sort of rich chocolate cake for his birthday, I figured I could afford to spend a little time making a "pre-dessert, dessert."

Basically you mix up ricotta cheese with honey and vanilla, blend it until it's smooth and refrigerate for a couple of hours. Then you make the sweet balsamic drizzle by cooking the vinegar and sugar in a saucepan and then letting it cool. Mix the berries with some basil, the drizzle, spoon over top of the ricotta cream, and voila! Berries and cream.

Did we like it? Well, we both agreed that it was interesting. T said that it would be ideal at a wine-and-cheese type party. I think that it simply wasn't sweet enough - we thought that the berries & drizzle on vanilla ice cream would be heavenly. Perhaps if there was more honey mixed with the ricotta it would be better. Over I would give it a 6/10 for taste; I ate all of it, but wouldn't make it - at least the same way - again. For ease of preparation I would give it a 9/10; it was easy. Next time though, I'm breaking out the ice cream!

Ohya, and here's a photo of the chocolate-brownie cheesecake that I bought for T's birthday. He's a chocolate lover and I knew that he would appreciate a professional cake for his birthday. It was delicious and rich, and went over quite well - although it's quite expensive for its size. Perhaps my next endeavour will be a foray into the land of chocolate! I may never come back!

Sweet Cherry Tomato and Sausage Bake

It was T's birthday, and I asked him to pick a recipe that he'd like me to make for his birthday dinner. Of course, he picked something from Jamie Oliver - his favourite, and my nemesis. Okay, it may be a bit strong to say nemesis. I do like Jamie's FOOD after all. I just have a hard time following his recipes. But really, I should give it another shot. I don't have too much to base my opinion on.

As I read over the ingredient list and recipe, I think to myself that T has chosen (perhaps deliberately) something that actually seems easy and dare I say, quick, to prepare. There are not many ingredients to it and the procedure seems rather straightforward, if not exactly the itemized list of steps that I prefer to work with. All I need is cherry tomatoes, herbs, sausages and some seasonings. Off I go to the store.

Jamie asks for 4 and 1/4 pounds of cherry tomatoes. The kind of cherry tomatoes I am looking for (the ones with varied colours and sizes) come in clamshell containers of about 8 oz. each. I punch 4.5 (just to be sure) into the Conversion App in my iPhone and it says that I need 72 ounces - that's NINE containers of cherry tomatoes. Seems like a lot to me, but I don't like to question amounts in recipes that I have never tried... especially from gurus like Jamie Oliver.

The directions said, "Get yourself an appropriately sized roasting pan, large enough to take all the tomatoes in one snug-fitting layer." As I started washing the tomatoes I realized that I did not have a pan to fit all of them. In fact, I only ended up using HALF the amount of tomatoes that Jamie said to use. Sheesh! Good thing we like tomatoes in our house.

Anyways, I didn't have a pan that would take them all, so I ended up choosing to use a 9x13 clear-glass casserole dish. Turns out that was a mistake. After you cook the tomatoes, herbs & sausages, you are supposed to reduce the sauce down a little bit. Jamie says to "lift the sausages out and place the pan on the stove," which I did. However, T informed me - in a rather panicked tone of voice - that you are not supposed to place glass on direct heat and could I please get it off the stove right now!!

Oops. Well, no harm done. See what I mean about not having that intuition in the kitchen?

Anyways. The dish was really yummy - we both loved it. We had, as a treat, white Italian bread to mop up the sauce. It was delicious! We score 10/10 for taste (T says it's the best thing I have ever made), and I would give it... 9/10 for ease of preparation. Definitely going to have this one again - soon!

Creamy Pasta Salad

I know that it's practically a staple at every BBQ and picnic, but I have never made creamy pasta salad. And upon deliberating what to bring to a friend's BBQ, I was informed that it was really simple and fast to make. You can just imagine how my eyes lit up at those two words: simple, and fast.

A friend of mine is a consultant/representative for the Epicure Selections company, which deals in gourmet spices, mixes, cookware, and more. She introduced me to a few things, and while I haven't fully delved into everything that Epicure has to offer, I am quite pleased with the few things I have tried.

One of those things was the creamy pasta salad. All it took was the making of the noodles, adding whatever accompaniments that you choose (I chose bell peppers, cheese, grape tomatoes, broccoli and parsley), and then adding the creamy sauce - that's where Epicure came in.

The Cheese, Chives & Bacon Dip Mix is mixed with sour cream and mayonnaise (low-fat versions if you wish), and after sitting in the fridge for a few hours, makes the most delicious & creamy dip or sauce. I was doing quite a bit of taste-testing before adding it to the salad.

The trick is to make sure that your pasta is very cold before you add your sauce. I think that my pasta was slightly warm and it may have encouraged absorption of the sauce into the noodles (or maybe it just does that anyways, who knows...). Epicure products are generally low in salt, so it could have used a little seasoning to really bring out the flavours, but other than that, it tasted good. I would give it a 7.5/10 for taste and a 10/10 for ease of preparation! I am definitely going to make it again.

Roasted Salmon with Lemon Relish

As I was sitting in the parking lot of the grocery store, pouring over this week's chosen cookbook, Great Food Fast: Everyday Food from the Kitchens of Martha Stewart Living, I wanted a recipe that was quick and didn't require a lot of groceries - mainly because I had plans after dinner and I only had one reusable grocery bag with me in the car.

Roasted Salmon with Lemon Relish seemed like it would fit the bill; besides, earlier a few of my friends had dog-eared it as a recipe to try. As any normal-cooking-person will know, roasting salmon in the oven is pretty easy. Even I had done it once before with some success.

Here's what I learned at the grocery store:
- Pine nuts are expensive. I better not make any recipes with prosciutto and pine nuts in it, or I'll probably go broke.
- I don't really understand the difference between Coho and Sockeye salmon. Research on this coming soon (i.e. ask Mom).
- Based on the debacle in the back of the fish department, it's not that easy to take the skin off a fillet.
- Why is parsley sold in huge bunches like that? And who would ever use that much??! I have no idea what to do with the rest of it.

I liked this recipe because it had 5 steps and said it would take 25 minutes. Great! Step one required me to toast the pine nuts for 5-7 minutes to a "lightly golden" colour. I set the timer to 6 minutes and walked away.

Mistake.

They burned. Not all of them, but many. And the ones that didn't burn were pretty darn brown. Not much "golden" in the pan after that. D'oh! Ah well, I got rid of the blackened ones, taste-tested the brown ones (they were fine), and soldiered on.

The biggest time-taker in this recipe is making the lemon zest. Especially when you have to stop part-way through to put a band-aid on the knuckle you just skinned with the vegetable peeler. Ouch! After all the lemon peel was off, it was painstaking to slice it into thin little slivers. But really, that was the hardest part. The rest was easy.

The lemon relish had raisins in it too, which I thought was strange at first but after eating it I was actually wanted more of them. I think a little more sweetness in the relish would compliment the salt & pepper in the recipe quite nicely.

Overall, I thought this was pretty good although I don't know that I would make it again. For taste I would give it 6/10 (more raisins would help, and/or less salt) and for ease of preparation I would give it 9/10.

I feel like eating something sweet after this meal. Fresh blueberries are calling!

To BBQ or To BBQ

I have never BBQed in my life.

It's summer, and with the season comes great summer food. As I crack open the cookbooks I notice so many recipes for BBQ chicken or burgers, or grilled veggies or shish-kebabs. In the past I have pretty much passed by these with a few cursory glances, but now - things are different. I have more than just a George Foreman Grill at my disposal.

We bought a BBQ! It's called the Napoleon Prestige. T was sold on the fact that it is made in Canada and has a 10-year warranty. He went for quality, that's for sure. I was hoping to get a BBQ with the handy feature that tells you when your propane gas is low, but I am okay with sacrificing that for something that T is comfortable cooking with. After all, he's the guy, and he'll be doing the cooking on the BBQ. Right?


Not necessarily. I know that my summer goal was to try out new recipes every week and post my efforts & experiences, but if we are going to invest our hard-earned money in a fairly substantial cooking tool, I better learn how to use it! I am determined. I'm not going to break-out the BBQ recipes just yet - I'll take a few lessons from T first. But by the end of summer, let my BBQ prowess prevail! Or, at least, just not start a fire and ruin the food. :) It's all about the food.

Cheers & happy BBQing!

Balsamic-baked Onions and Potatoes with Roast Pork

So, this was the week to go out of my comfort zone. I picked up Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life cookbook, and flipped through the "Summer" section. I marked all the pages of recipes that I would be willing to try, and let T pick one that he wanted. He picked Balsamic-baked onions and potatoes with roast pork.

Okay, I can do this. I have never made a roast before, and never cooked from this cookbook before (despite having it since December), but I am not daunted. I love balsamic-anything, so I am prepared to make some YUM!

One thing about the cookbook is that the instructions are given in prose - there are 6 well-developed paragraphs on the page. I kinda prefer an itemized list, but it should be fine, right? There are several things that I need clarification on, and so I call my Mom: "What colour are 'waxy' potatoes?" "What does 'chuff them up a bit' mean?" "Do I put the pan in the oven with a lid or without - it doesn't say?!"

I love Jamie Oliver - he does an amazing TED talk about food that is inspirational. But I love my Mom more. And if I could cook half as good as her, I'd be happy. But for now, I just have to be content with phoning her half a dozen times every time I cook something new (and truth be told, I think she kinda likes it). She's way better than the internet.

This recipe wasn't all that difficult. Mostly. The roast, which was intimidating for me, was the easiest part. Take the roast, roll it in some herbs and spices, brown it in the pan, stick it in the oven with some chopped onion and celery. That's it.

The hard part of this recipe is that Jamie has you cooking potatoes and onions at the same time, and there are quite a few steps for those. Chop, chop, chop, grind, smash, blend. Boil the potatoes for a bit, then add spices and onions, add balsamic and put into oven. When the roast is done, you take the drippings and broth and onions and celery and mash them all up, add some white wine, reduce, and you've got a sauce for your pork.

I had timers going all over the place, for the potatoes, then the pork, then the onion-potato-balsamic mix, then the reduction. The potatoes didn't cook through the first time (I should have had more of a rolling boil I guess, or cooked them longer than the 8 minutes Jamie suggests), so I had to have a second shot at them in the oven with a lid. The pork juices weren't convincing enough, and so I threw that back into the oven, too.

The whole thing took 3 hours, and I was exhausted at the end! This is why I usually cook out of books like "Great Food Fast"; I mean, what if I had screwed this up irreparably? I would have lost 3 hours of my life and about $50. Sheesh.

Anyways, it turned out. T loved it and was complimenting it all night and even did all the dishes for me. I thought it was pretty good, but almost more trouble than it was worth. I would give it an 8/10 for taste and a 6/10 for ease of preparation. I would probably make the roast again, but I doubt I would try doing a million other things at the same time. :)

Asparagus Rolls

Recipe from Save-On-Foods Healthy Recipes cookbook.

Needing to bring an appetizer to a party prompted me to again delve into the "appy" section of my cookbook. I have been getting away with avoiding meat for the most part (unless you count the shrimp or the ground turkey), but one of these days I will make myself get out of my comfort zone. :) But not just yet.

The very first recipe in the Save-On-Foods Healthy Recipes cookbook is for Asparagus Rolls. At first glance, it appears to be very easy, which I like. Take a piece of prosciutto, spread it with goat cheese and pepper, and roll it around an asparagus spear. Ta da! Well, it was a little more involved than that.

First let me say that prosciutto is expensive! I got 18 thin slices for $22. Also, working with prosciutto is a little painstaking for a few reasons:
(1) the slices are very thin
(2) prosciutto is very greasy
(3) you need to remove the fat that is clinging around the edges

Other than that, it went pretty well. It wasn't terribly fast, but it was pretty easy. I would give it a 8/10 for preparation.


As for taste, I needed to rely on others to help me out with the score. I am not a huge fan of prosciutto myself, but I knew it would be a popular choice at the party. I asked a few people what they would score it, and they said 8 or 9 out of 10. Knowing that I made it though, perhaps they scored it a bit high. :) I was given the suggestion to try a little balsamic drizzle on top, or to add a little more spice.

A few hours later, all of it was gone - so I will take that as a sign of success!

Easy Lettuce Wraps and Bruschetta

Recipes from Save-On-Foods Healthy Recipes cookbook.


Lettuce wraps & bruschetta - yum! Perfect picnic food... well, almost. The lettuce wraps taste better when warm so if there's a way to transport them to the picnic or party and keep the heat, then great. Keep in mind that you want to add the steam fried noodles pretty much right before you eat them so that they stay crunchy. For ease of preparation I would give them a 10/10 - it was dead easy. The hardest part was taking apart the iceberg lettuce so that the leaves were intact and bowl-shaped. The hoisin sauce is really what makes this dish, and you don't need much because its flavour packs a punch. I would say for taste, it's a 9/10. I will definitely make this again!


As for the bruschetta, I wanted to make this because I had just rediscovered my love for it at my cousin's wedding. It was very yummy! This recipe was great, and it combined sun dried tomatoes and basil with fresh tomatoes, green onion and garlic. It then instructed to leave the tomato mixture at room temperature for up to 2 hours - probably to let all those flavours come out with gusto. And they did!

First, a spread of goat cheese/ricotta/basil on your crostini, and then the tomato mixture on top. It was delicious! Lots of chopping but it was really easy to make - 9/10. Make sure to drain the fresh tomatoes of the extra juice and seeds. The flavours were awesome and for taste I give it a 10/10 although I may be biased! :) The recipe yields 60 pieces and so I cut it in half - and there is still lots left over. Picnic, anyone?

Curried Apple and Shrimp Wraps

Recipe from Save-On-Foods Healthy Recipes.

This "dinner" was a perfect recipe to start with my summer goal because it didn't really require much cooking. Although it didn't take me much out of my comfort zone, it was something new and it was a nice summer-patio-type dish.

The hardest part of this recipe is peeling and chopping the mango, and cleaning the blender afterwards. :) I would give it 9/10 for ease of preparation.

The combination of the mango-curry sauce with the apples and shrimp was especially delicious. I would give it 10/10 for taste! Yum. I would recommend having just one amply-filled tortilla, with a side salad. I ate 2 tortillas and was immediately regretful. Plus, with each tortilla being 311 calories, there's no need to double-up.

The cookbook tip says to fill the wraps and store them in the fridge for up to 2 hours in order to make them more stable. This is probably a great idea too, since it can get a little messy.

There's enough to make about 6 tortillas - so some for lunch tomorrow! Yay.