Food – Page 7

Aug 05 2011

How to make homemade pesto, my way

Don’t have a food processor, well that is alright by me, because I didn’t need one. After finding a recipe online for an Italian Grilled Cheese, which consisted of making your own pesto, I was determined to do just that. Over the week I slowly gathered the ingredients the blog post told me to get.

This is what I got:

3/4 Cup Basil Leaves
1/4 Cup Oregano Leaves
2-3 tablespoons Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Walnuts
1 clove of Garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Finally I decided I am going to make this pesto and it is going to be good, then I hit the speed bump. Recipe calls for putting all this stuff in the food processor and blending it. That was it, only problem being, I didn’t have a food processor and I didn’t want to go by one. Come to think of it though, there are other things i could use one for, but I digress. I wasn’t going to give up though, I Googled around to see if anyone had written about making pesto without a processor, sure enough I found someone who had. It isn’t overly complicated to figure out how to do, but I wanted to confirm.

What I had to do was chop everything, finely. As finely as I possible could and as I did that mix it as much as I could in a bowl. I rotated through ingredients to make sure the pesto was being mixed properly, or it gave me the reinsurance it was. While mixing in the ingredients I was also adding in parts of the olive oil to moisten up the mix. Finally once all the ingredients were in the small bowl I once again beat the living crap out of it to make sure it was mixed and also crushed up enough.

At this point I proceeded to taste test it. It actually turned out pretty good. I did find though that it was rather garlicy, as well as salty. I would cut back on both of those next time.

I wasn’t done yet though. I smeared the pesto on a slice of bread with thick sliced of mozzarella cheese and baby tomatoes and threw it all in a frying pan to grill. By the way, if you also happen to have a Jamie Oliver fry pan like I do, be warned when you heat them up, they retain heat very well. I nearly burnt one side of my sandwich.

Of course then the only other thing to do is enjoy it… or clean up the mess you made.

Jul 25 2011

It is Meat for $10! PriceSmart Deal

A friend of mine informed me that PriceSmart was having $10 deals on different type of meats, but I didn’t think I wanted to get any at the time, until I went there myself. I also just want to give him credit becuase it was him who told me about them.

Anyways, I did go to the store last night and ended up getting steaks, ground beef and chicken.

Four steaks, packages in two.

2kg of ground beef for, you guessed it, $10.

5 pieces of Chicken (marinated or not)

Of course I just froze most of it, but not before packing stuff into individual packaging. Go out and get some for yourself.

Jul 10 2011

Spinach and Cream Cheese Omelette

Somehow I must have forgotten that I had already blogged about this spinach omelette I had made, but nonetheless I have done it again. This time though I taken more care in doing. I really wanted to try to perfect this and I believe I’ve done that.

What I used:

3 Eggs
1/2 Cup of Milk
Handful of Baby Spinach
Spoonful of Cream Cheese
Grated Cheddar Cheese
3 Ham Rounds
2 Pieces of Toast

It is not a difficult meal, but it is one that can be really enjoyable. The first thing I did was prep all my food. I cracked the three eggs into a medium-sized mixing bowl, added in the milk with the eggs, chopped up the baby spinach into fine pieces and grated the cheese.

Now take a medium-sized frying pan and either spray it with Pam or add some oil or butter of some sort. Turn on that element of your stove to a medium heat and let it heat up. While that is heating up, in the bowl with the eggs and milk put in your spinach and spoonful of cream cheese and mix it all together. The cream cheese may be hard to mix together so it might be a good idea to nuke it in the microwave beforehand.

Spinach Egg Omlette

Now that the pan has heated up properly in your ingredients are mixed together, pour everything in the bowl into the pan, slowly. Try to avoid any splatter. Now let the ingredients slowly cook. I also sometimes cover that pan to keep the heat in. Put your three ham rounds into another pan and turn it onto a medium-high heat. My ham rounds were previously cooked so what I was doing was just browning the edges

Once your egg mix is firmly cooked on the bottom and you are able to lift one side sprinkle the cheddar cheese over the entire thing. Once you’ve done that flip one side on top of the other. Cover the pan again and let that firm up. Make sure you aren’t overcooking the eggs though, you still want to be slightly liquidy and not dried out.

Spinach Egg Omlette

At this point your ham rounds should be browned on both sides and you can put them on a plate. Your omelette, which I would suggest you flip over and let it simmer for a second on the other side, should also be very close to being done. Once done you can throw it on the plate as well. One thing I did not mention that I did earlier was put two pieces of toast in. You can use whatever kind of toast you like, but I like my white bread.

Spinach Egg Omlette

And there you have the final product. It is a good well-balanced meal, although I probably didn’t need three eggs or three ham rounds. I could’ve cut back on those. What’s your favorite way of making eggs?

Jul 07 2011

Perogies Bacon and Banana Peppers

Time for another easy mean by KyleWith. Yes two blog posts in a row are about lame food you to can cook if you have any common sense.

First, buy frozen perogies from grocery store. They don’t have to be fancy, but you could find something higher quality. Throw those perogies in a big pot or pan with water and turn the stove on.

The idea with boiling the water is to thaw and cook the perogies. While those are boiling away it is time to pull out what you want the “topping” to be. For me it was Bacon, Red Onion and Banana Peppers. Cut all this up and throw it in a pan.

No need for oil in this pan because as the bacon cooks with the veg the grease from the bacon with prevent it from burning. Keep this on low to med on the stove. Now back to the perogies.

Once the water in the pan with the perogies it is a good indicator that they are most likely cooked. Now you’ll want to drain all the water out of this pan. I personally put the perogies in another pan and add a little oil. Again this way that wont burn or stick to the pan as they fry.

As your perogies are frying, check on you bacon and veg. The onions should be soft and bacon no longer raw. Pretty straight forward. This meal should be hard to screw up.

When you feel – yeah I’m giving you the responsibility to figure this out on your own – your food is ready pull it off the stove. Put it all on a plate and add some sour cream if that is how you roll.

Yeah, it was good. My only regret was putting so many Banana Pepper in to this meal. Its taste seemed to take over and heated up the whole meal. How do you have your perogies?

Jul 03 2011

Easy Meal of Steak and Mushrooms

Well I’m finally back in my own apartment and I figured it was time that I slowly get back into my culinary adventure of cooking. I guess culinary and cooking are the same things so I can’t really use that sentence. Nonetheless though this evening was an easy meal, something that I’ve done before many times and something that I do enjoy. Steak, mushrooms and Caesar salad.

I’ve actually only really been into mushrooms the last two years, before that I didn’t touch them. Now I skin them and sauté them in a frying pan. Most recently I started using Worchester sauce while I am sautéing them. I’ve yet to make a really good sautéed mushroom, but I do enjoy what I do make. I started off the low heat and let them just go with the bid of vegetable oil or olive oil in the pan, then all had a bit of salt. When the mushrooms start to water I drained them generally, and then add salt and a little bit of Worchester sauce. Apparently I like to add salt.

The next thing I started the prep was my Caesar salad. Now obviously with this being only for one person I just made it in a small bowl. There’s nothing fancy about this salad, other than the fact that I use spinach. It was Devon at Patch Java who turned me to this great idea. I have really come to love spinach in almost everything. In dips, in eggs, and in salads.

Finally we get to the good stuff, the thick of the story. While I was home in Yellowknife I picked up this indoor “barbecue” grill. Essentially it is just an element underneath a grill that sits on my countertop. I admit I was a little unsure as to how well it would work, but it seems to have turned out all right. The downside to this device is you cannot control the temperature and therefore have to keep a very close eye on your steak.

My cut for this meal was a boneless ribeye from the local grocery store, PriceSmart. I let this marinate for about 24 hours. Now like any amateur cook I didn’t even record what the marinate was I used. It was a combination of some ingredients that I had in my house. Soy sauce, vinegar, vegetable oil, Montréal steak spice, and I believe some steak sauce, but I’m not exactly sure what that is. I will have to remember to note what I put in it next time.

One thing I will say about the grill and having it in the house on the counter, is that it is very easy to check on the meat. As I now marinate and tenderize most of the steaks I cook, I have come to enjoy them quite red. It is nice to have it right there so I can check and know when it is perfectly done.

So that’s what I would say this meal was, pretty much perfectly done. It may not be the healthiest of meals, and it may not be the most adventurous, but it was home-cooked and there was some veggies. Albeit not the greatest but there was.

I really want to push myself to get more adventurous with my cooking, and try new things. I recently got a slow cooker and want to try to use it as much as possible and try things that I don’t normally eat. Now granted I’m talking mostly about the meets I don’t normally eat, things like chicken, corned beef and possibly even pork, but still new and different things. Let me know any suggestions you might have for me.