cooking – Page 2

Dec 26 2011

Christmas Morning Breakfast Tradition

It is no secret I like to cook. I could do it all day if I had a good idea of what I was doing. So I have my own Christmas tradition, and that is to cook Christmas morning breakfast for the family. It has gone on now for about 4 years and I don’t plan on stopping unless I’m not here. Each year and I get fancier and fancier and try to improve.

Last year I had come up with the brilliant idea of Eggnog French Toast and it was good. So this year I wanted to hit it out of the park – which I didn’t – and found a recipe on AllRecipes.com.

Eggnog French Toast

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/eggnog-french-toast-2/

I’ll spare you the details of how to make it and just let you know, using the proper bread is essential. I didn’t, instead used fresh normal sliced toast and that failed. They came out to soggy and didn’t cook well. The trick is to use french bread that is stale or semi-stale, so it still holds it form when it the egg is cooking. Nevertheless though they still tasted great.

Creamy Cheese Scrambled Eggs

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-cheesy-scrambled-eggs-with-basil/

Scrambled Eggs are easy to make, a little milk in with the eggs, salt, pepper and done. They are hard to screw up unless you cook them too long. I wanted something different though, something unique. So again I hit up AllRecipes.com and found these. I had never made them with Sour Cream before, but I thought it as it still was a dairy product, the eggs would be fine, and they was. They turned out fine and tasted good, although the texture was different from regular scrambled eggs. These seemed to crumble more and I believe that is due to the Sour Cream. Good though.

The Meat

Of course no meal with KyleWith would be complete without meat. This is nothing special though. In a fry pan I just cooked up 1lb 1/2 of bacon and some breakfast sausages.

That is my Christmas morning tradition, after the family gathers to exchange gifts of course. What Christmas Day traditions do you have?

Nov 27 2011

Google caters to the Foodies

Google has won me over once again, as they now offer Recipe Search. There are tons of good resources for recipes online and many which I use. AllRecipes.com, the Epicurious iPad App, and so on. All of these places are good at what they do, so why does this Google search draw me in?

It draws me in because it is in a place I always am. I’m always searching for something, so why not food as well. When you watch the video you will see that there are many options you can put in place to narrow down your search. For example here is a link to a search I did for potatoes with parmesan cheese with only 30 minutes prep time and under 300 calories.

Even though my collection of Company’s Coming recipe books is growing I still foresee myself using this Google Search when I want to try and cook something different. What about you?

Oct 04 2011

Got myself a Rice Cooker

My history with rice is hit and miss. Not cooking it, but rather eating it. For one whole summer when I was 13, I ate rice with every meal. I was up at a camp in the middle of the Arctic Tundra, rice was cheap. After that though I went off it, I couldn’t eat much of it anymore.

Finally I started to come around to it again 2 years ago and now I own my own Rice Cooker. Sure you don’t need one, but I though it would be easier to use.

My goal is take make some nice white sticky rice.

Rice Cooker

Sep 06 2011

Wrapping Chicken with Sage and Prosciutto

I can officially say that I’m starting to feel like Julia Child or Betty Crocker. Want a good present for me, it’s actually simple these days. Although my mother would disagree on that, one thing that I can always use is more cookbooks and more utensils (food tools). Ironically being a geek and cooking are not that far apart. Look at folks like Kevin Rose, the creator of Digg, he loves to cook and his girlfriend writes a great food blog.

Today I want to share with you an amazing dish–vegetarians be warned, this is a lot of meat–that I found in my Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite cookbook. And yes I have about 10 recipes bookmarked in this book so far. The dish I tried is stuffed chicken breast wrapped in sage and prosciutto.

What you need:

2 Chicken Breasts
4 Sage leaves
4 large tbsp of Ricotta
Sea Salt and Black Pepper
6 Prosciutto slices
2 tbsp of Olive Oil
Pinch of Thyme

So the 1st thing you’ll want to do is make sure your chicken breast is thawed. Then you’ll want to cut open the chicken breast like a book or like a butterfly. Then you want to chop up 2 of the sage leaves and mix that together with the ricotta, sea salt, pepper and thyme. Once you mix it all together in a bowl, divided it into 2 and spread it inside of chicken breasts.

You’ll then want to add the ricotta mixed to the chicken and fold them over again so it is inside. Then layout 3 slices for each chicken of the prosciutto to be wrapped around the chicken breasts. Make sure to add the remaining sage leaves into the wrap. Are you still with me?

It is probably a good idea to make sure that the prosciutto is tightly wrapped around the chicken. Make sure it is a good bundle so that it doesn’t come apart well your pan frying.

Oh you guessed it! Yes, pan frying is the next thing you have to do to these things. Although the recipe I have says you should put them in the fridge for 2 hours to firm them up. I did not do this and it turned out perfectly fine. You’ll want to heat up at pan or skillet to medium-high heat and then add the olive oil before adding the chicken wrap. At the same time you’re doing this turn on your oven to 350° and put a roasting pan inside.

When you placed the chicken wraps inside the pan fry them for 2 min. on each side just enough to firm up the prosciutto and cook the outside of the chicken. Once you’ve done that it is now time to add it to the oven. Place the chicken wraps in the center of the oven and continue to cook for 12 to 15 min. or until there’s no longer a threat for salmonella. Yes I went there.

Apparently while in the oven these chickens get tired. When you remove them from the oven, let them rest. Cover them in tinfoil for 10 min. and then serve. I didn’t have anything with mine, but mashed potatoes or some greens would go well with this meal.

For next time. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this meal and it was a lot of fun to cook, I probably won’t do it with the Sage again. While sitting here writing this I was thinking how great a bit of pesto or basil would go with the ricotta. I think I’m going to try that next time.

Please try it and let me know how it works out. If you think I did something wrong, I’d love to hear your feedback. No seriously.

Aug 11 2011

Geek out on Kitchen Tools

A Plumber has a Pipe Wrench, an Electrician has Wire Clippers, a Mechanic has a Wrench, an IT Guy has a Keyboard and a Cook has a Spatula.

Well I’m not claiming I’m the Ultimate Chef, but I sure do like to pretend I am. I’m most likely not even a very good cook, but again, I sure enjoy it. It is a learning thing, like anything else. It is something different than working on a computer all day and it helps me clear my head, while keeping my mind busy (although I do end up on the computer writing about it).

So I suppose the word is getting out that cooking is one of my favourite pass times, because look at the goodies I got for my Birthday. I got a new mixing bowl, measuring cups and device, cutting board, whisk, spatula and folding measuring bowl. I want to thank Lori and Ericka for these gifts (You too can send me stuff).

You will see these tools – I’m calling them tools because I’m a man ho ho ho – in future posts as my cooking adventure continues. One of these days I may even let myself cook for other people, heck I may even host a dinner party, I’m just that domesticated.

Cooking Tools

Now for a blast from the past. This is the first cooking video I ever made (I only ever made two).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmFkm76b6Zk