Food to Daydream About

I was watching TV last night and I found myself thinking about food. Very yummy food. I was trying to decide if I was actually hungry, bored, or thirsty. It was 10 pm so I wasn't convinced I need to eat something just before bed. The final decision was when I thought of nachos and seriously considered making them. I knew I needed to get to bed before I had a tummy full of cheese and tortilla chips.

There was a moment last night when I realized I had everything you could want for nachos in my fridge. It was what really convinced me I need to get to bed before I ended up with a full tummy and regrets. It wasn't a very hard decision to make nachos for lunch today.

Obviously, you need some tortilla chips. If you shop at Costco you can get a life time supply.

Now I add some chopped onion. When I microwave this, the onion will soften and become milder just a bit but still have that nice flavour.

Now the cheese, add as much or as little as you like. I find I like just an even layer so that there is a bit of cheese on most chips and no pools of runny cheese.

Now to get creative. Add some heat, if it doesn't hurt it doesn't count... just kidding. But what are nachos without jalapenos?

If I was making these for someone else I would leave them whole so they could see them, for myself I wanted more pieces so I get a bit with most bites.

Toss those on and into the microwave for 30 seconds.

Chop up some fresh tomato and return to the microwave for another 30 seconds or until all the cheese is bubbly. I wanted the tomatoes to be warm but not cooked.

Serve with salsa and sour cream for dipping and you'll be in heaven!

We have been known to have this for supper. I would add ground beef seasoned with a taco spice packet. Green onions and olives are also delightful. Just think of your favourite restaurant nachos and go from there!

Stuffed Peppers and Homemade Burgers

It is definitely getting to be BBQ weather. Well it would be if we could stay above zero for long enough. I put together some burgers but couldn't be bothered to start up the BBQ so I grilled them inside on my breakky grill. It was great because I could get some char on the burgers but it was definitely missing the smokey element from the BBQ. To be honest, I didn't miss it this time.

On a more personal note, have you even done something that scared the hell out of you? You know that stressful feeling you get? You know that feeling when the situation is finally over and the stress is released? Yes? Well that is me today. Celebrate! I might even get my butt out the door tomorrow and run again. Well, at least if it isn't freezing I will.

I know that stuffed pepper recipes usually call for some ground meet but I knew I was going to make burgers so I went for a vegetarian stuffing and that means mushrooms!

I roughly chopped about a dozen medium sized mushrooms.

To make the peppers stand up, trim off a bit of the bottom, set aside. Lob the tops off the peppers and clean out the seeds and membranes. Finely, chop up the top and bottom bits with an onion. Sweat them down in a pan with some oil and season well with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cook about 1/2 cup of rice with one cup of water.

I only wanted to make three peppers so I halved the recipe I was following. Don't worry if your peppers get some holes when you trim them up. Set the peppers into an oven safe dish that is just big enough for them. I used a bread pan.

Once the peppers and onions have softened, add the mushrooms.

Cook down until the moisture is cooked out of the mushrooms.

Once the rice is cooked, toss with the veggies.

Stuff the peppers. Cover and into the oven for 20 minutes at 375F.

Time to start the burgers. Toss one packet of onion soup mix into a big bowl.

Grab your ground beef and an egg.

I weigh and press my burgers to be sure they are all the same size and thickness. Normally, I would put these onto the BBQ but it was cold out and I wanted to use my breakfast grill. It was messy and smokey but the burgers turned out great. Not sure if I won or not. Haha 

To finish off the burgers I slathered some BBQ sauce on and added a couple slices of cheddar cheese. I covered the burgers to let the cheese melt. I served them on my homemade buns.  I put a few slices of cheese on the peppers and broiled them on high for a few minutes until the cheese was bubbly. Enjoy!

Homemade Tomato Soup ~ Jamie Oliver Recipe

Recently, I had a great experience with home made croutons and canned tomato soup. I figured that home made soup would have to be better than the canned version which is loaded with salt, sugar, and whatever else they put in that stuff. So, off to my cookbooks I went and this is what I found. I was surprised to see it called for a lot of veggies. This could only be delicious.

Peel one medium carrot, finely chop two stalks of celery, several garlic cloves, and one onion. Start softening them together with some oil in a nice large pot. Avoid adding salt at this point. Add lots of pepper if that is your thing.

I used my mini food processor for this.

The recipe called for two cups of chicken stock. I used these packets plus two cups of water.

Once your veggies are soft and flavourful, start adding in the liquids. One can of tomato sauce. Organic because why not.

One can of whole tomatoes and juice.

Several ripe tomatoes, quartered. 

It looks like a chunky soup right now. Let is cook the tomatoes and heat everything through.Test for seasoning at this point. Canned tomatoes, tomato sauces and the chicken stock will all have salt. Be sure not to add salt until after these are all added. Plus, I like croutons and cheese on my soup which also add salt so go easy.

Using a blender or a hand blender, completely blend the soup until it is creamy and smooth.

Top with garlic croutons and shredded Parmesan cheese.

This soup is much healthier for you than the canned version. You can completely control the salt, fat, and spices to suit you. Also, you can feed a crowd with this recipe. Don't be scared to make soup from scratch, it is totally worth it!

Homemade Corn Tortillas

Over the past few years I have seriously developed my love of Mexican food. This is a food I have always loved but never tried to make it at home aside from the boxed meals, you know the ones I mean. Chris got me started on making Mexican food from scratch. One important thing I have learned from making more authentic Mexican foods at home is that you can specialize them to your own tastes. Sure, this probably makes them less authentic but 100 times even more delicious. Of course, you might as well make your own tortillas too, why not? Everything is better homemade right?

You will need a special type of flour called Masa Harina. It is ground corn. More specifically it is a corn that has been soaked in lime, dried, then ground. You can find it in the ethnic section of your grocery store.

This dough is super simple, it is just water added to the Masa Harina until a dough forms. It will dry out easily so you need to keep the dough covered while you form your tortillas.

You will need to roll these out by hand unless you happen to have a tortilla press. Be sure to use plastic wrap to cover your press or you will have a mess. One piece each for the top and bottom.

Roll a bit of the dough into a ball and place it more toward the hinge instead of the center. You'll see how the press pushes the dough outward. If you put it right in the center it will smoosh off the end of the press and make a mess.

Now press and there you go, one flat disk of dough.

Now to cook. On pretty high heat, cook until browned slightly on both sides.

There is a nice little stack.

Now for the real reason I made tortillas, quesadillas. I used left over tangy slow cooker pork and cheese. Put that between two homemade tortillas and heat until the inside is hot and gooey.

Be sure to flip.

Top with salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, and avocado. Sour cream would be great as well. These are so tasty and really so easy.

Tangy Slow Cooker Pork

I must say up front that this was not my favourite recipe. It had all the components of recipes I like. It was easy, it built up flavour, and it had familiar ingredients. In the end, it was missing something for me. I would make this again but I would change it up and add more spices. I pulled this recipe out of a random cookbook on my shelf as part of my desire to cook from the books I already. I would say this was a 6/10 for me. My family liked it, however, so maybe it was just me.

Start with a seasoned flour coating for your pork roast. This was just salt, pepper, and paprika.

Heat up a bit of oil in a pan. This is to build the crust.

There is the star. This is a very lean cut of pork, as you can see, and but it takes flavour really well. It is pretty much a blank slate to be built upon.

Cover your roast completely in the seasoned flour.

And start browning. The heat should be high enough that you get a nice golden colour but don't let it burn. Make sure to get some colour all over.

Prepare your veggies. They just get a fine dice and set aside for now.

Keep turning your roast.

Nearly there!

Now for the sauce. Move the roast to the slow cooker and add the veggies to the hot pan. Soften the veggies and add a can of tomato sauce. Slow cook for 5 hours.

After 5 hours, the sauce comes out thick like a gravy.

The meat is very tender.

I served this with mashed potatoes. My secret weapon for mashed potatoes now is to use buttermilk. Do it, you will LOVE the extra zip and creaminess.

I think in the future I would add sugar to the sauce as I found the tomato flavour to be a bit on the bitter side. It was good but not exactly what I was expecting.