Beef and Enoki Mushroom Rolls

Beef and Enoki Mushroom Rolls
From: Rasa Malaysia

Substitutions and Comments: It was really tough to find the exact seasonings and saucves this recipe suggests. Mirin seasoning is like a rice wine - some being alocholic and some non. Bonito is a fish, simialar to mackarel or white tuna. After scouring Ocean's for what seemed like 45 mins...we still couldn't find the mirin seasoning, so we replaced it with some flavoured rice vinegar. As for the bonito soup base, we just used a fish soup base from Oceans...it wasn't the Mizkan brand. We found gluten-free ponzu sauce, not Mizkan brand. I think the website the recipe is from is sponsored by them or something. Anyways the rolls still came out very good, although we would love to try them with actual mirin sauce.

Recipe
http://rasamalaysia.com/japanese-beef-rolls-with-ponzu/2/

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Classic Meatloaf and Coleslaw with Turkey Bacon

Today there are two recipes! Both of them are from the Podleski Cookbooks. First up we have:

All You Need is Loaf
From: Eat, Shrink and Be Merry by Janet and Greta Podleski

Comments and Substitutions: Not much to say here. We used gluten-free bread crumbs and for the BBQ sauce we used Bulls-Eye which is also gluten-free but not John's favourite. We made this before Stubbs had appeared in the supermarket. I think we overcooked this slightly, even though we stuck to the recipe time...so maybe cook closer to the 50 minute mark than the 1 hour mark if you are going to try this. We also didn't have a broiler pan with a rack, so we used a regular oven pan, which likely made a difference. It was still decent though, just a bit dry.

Recipe:
1 1/2 lbs (680 g) extra-lean ground beed or ground sirloin
1/2 cup dry unseasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup your favourite BBQ sauce, divided in half
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/3 cup minced onions
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
1 egg
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp dried basil, thyme or oregano
1/2 tsp each salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a broiler paan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. Combine beef, bread crumbs, 1/4 cup BBQ sauce, parsley, onions, Parmesan cheese, egg, garlic, basic, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Mix well using your hands. Shape mixture into an oblong loaf, about 8x5 inches in size and place directly on rack of broiler pan. Spread remaining BBQ sauce over meat loaf.

Uncooked Meatloaf in Pan

3. Bake for 50 mins to an hour, or until meat load is nicely browned and meat is cooked through. Let stand 5 mins before slicing.



Broccoli Mountain High

From: Crazy Plates by Janet and Greta Podleski

Comments and Substitutions: We looked EVERYWHERE for broccoli slaw, but no luck :( So we just used regular old cabbage slaw for this. It still came out great though, so no harm done. This was our first time trying turkey bacon, and it was delish. Still not a pure substitute for real bacon in our opinion, but really yummy!!

Recipe:

1/3 cup low-fat mayonnaise

2 tbsp white vinegar

1 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp celery seed

6 cups broccoli slaw mix

1 large red apple, unpeeled, cored and diced

1 cup grated carrots

4 slices turkey bacon, cooked and chopped into small pieces

1. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar and celery seed. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Sauce for coleslaw

2.In a alrge bowl, toss together slaw mix, apple, carrots and cooked bacon. Add dressing and mix well. Refigerate for 1 hour before serving.

Finished Meatloaf and Coleslaw

Stay Hungry :D

Slow Smoked BBQ Ribs

Slow Smoked Beef Ribs
Grilled to Perfection by Robery Rainford, Chris Knight & Tyler Smith

We weren't sure what recipe to do today, but then Andria's friend Mike came along on Facebook and asked for help on a recipe for ribs...so that solved our problem. Ribs are something everyone has a different way of doing. Some say to boil them, some say to brown them, others swear doing either ruins the ribs completely. Some love them fall off the bone, others will say that is a sign of the mean being overcooked. We've tried a bunch of methods and we've ended up on this recipe as a good basic way of doing really nice ribs on the BBQ. This was our first shot at using woodships and smoking ribs and it was SO WORTH IT. HUGE DIFFERENCE!

Comments and Substitutions
The main change we made was using pork ribs instead of beef. They came out great, so it doesn't really matter. Just make sure you get standard ribs, not spareribs or baby back.We used smoke pellets instead of woodchips cause Canadian Tire was out of hickory woodchips. The pellets are pretty much the exact same thing though - pellets are stronger so we didn't have to use as much. Canadian Tire has a really decent selection of woodchips/pellets. They had at least 6 or 7 different flavours of them: mesquite, applewood, maple etc.  Beacuse our BBQ is super fancy (thanks bridal party!) we have an awesome infrared grill, which means there are no flames in our BBQ. So for our BBQ using packets for the pellets was not necessary. We tried a bunch without a packet and a bunch with and there was no real difference other than choosing to use packets did make the pellets last longer. If you have an ordinary BBQ , you MUST use packets of aluminum unless you have a BBQ smoker.

 We used Stubb's hot and spicy BBQ sauce. We probably wouldn't use it again though, cause we decided that as much as we like spicy food, ribs aren't really meant to be spicy. We will probably stick with Stubb's as it is a gluten-free BBQ sauce that is decent but maybe the use the original BBQ or the hickory bourbon. Other changes included using gluten-free Worcestershire sauce and eliminating the hot sauce since the BBQ sauce was already spicy. And just cause we are gluttons we made a side of KD Mac and Cheese to go along with our meat. For John we used gluten-free pasta and some of the KD cheese powder.


Recipe:

2 racks of beef ribs
9 cups hickory woodchips

Rub:
1 tsp cajun spice
1 tsp thyme
1 tbsp dry mustard
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp black pepper
Sauce:
1 bottle whatever commercial BBQ sauce you like the best
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp chili powder
Splash of hot sauce (optional)
1. Combine rub ingredients in a bowl. Rub mixture evenly over ribs. Place ribs in a large, sealable plastic bag and place in fridge for at least 5 hours or overnight.

Ribs with rub in a Ziploc bag

2. Make sauce by mixing sauce ingredients and store in fridge.

3. If you are using the woodchips, soak them for an hour. (Some BBQ diehards say not to do this cause it's pointless, we didn't do it and it worked fine).

4.Remove excess water when woodchips are done soaking. Mix with 1 cup dry woodchips. Create little aluminum foil pouches for woodchips and puncture holes with a fork. Fill with woodchip mixture.

Aluminum packet for woodchips

5. Remove one grate and insert one woodchip pouch.

6. Ribs should be cooked over indirect heat which means only one side of the BBQ will be on. Turn on one burner and heat BBQ up to 400F/200C with the other side of the grill off. Wait until woodchips start smoking and then lower heat to 250F.

7. Once youve lowered the heat put the meat on the side of the BBQ with the burner that is off. This will allow them to be cooked indirectly.

8. Leave them to smoke and cook for 2 1/2 hours. Change the woodchip bag every half hour to 45 mins.

9. During the last 20 minutes of cooking baste them with the BBQ sauce. Don't put it on before as it will burn the natural sugars in the sauce.

10. Serve with remaining sauce and enjoy!

Andria's ribs

John's Ribs

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Caramelized Onions and Blue Cheese Burgers

Caramelized Onions and Blue Cheese Burgers

From: Burgers by Sally Sampson

Comments and Substitutions: These were pretty tasty burgers. The caramelized onions take a while but they are well worth it. We used sweet onions, but I am sure Spanish onions would also be great. John's burger used gluten-free bread for the bun. The blue cheese inside the burger patty makes a huge difference. It was awesome. We have a hard time finding ground chuck, so we used just regular ground beef. We usually buy 1 1/2 lbs and make 4 burgers with it.

Recipe:

Caramelized Onions:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 large red, Spanish or sweet onions, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced or thinly sliced

1 tbsp fresh rosemary

1.2 tsp kosher salt, or more to taste

Burgers:

1 1/2 to 1 3/4 lbs ground chuck (ground beef)

3 oz blue cheese, crumbled, plus extra for topping

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 to 1 tsp freshly ground pepper

1. Make the caramelized onions. Place a large skillet over low heat and when it is hot, add the oil. Add the remaining ingredients and cook, stirring only occasionally, until onions are deeply browned and slightly gooey, about 40 mins. If onions dry out, add water 1 tbsp at a time. 

2. Divide beef into four equal portions - do the same with the blue cheese. Using your thumb make a shallow indent in each portion of the beef and fill it with blue cheese. Shape the burger and carefully seal the opening. Form each patty about 3/4 to 1 inch thick, tossing it back and forth between your hands. To ensure more even cooking, make a 1/2 inch indentation in the centre of the burger. Handle the patties as little as possible.

3.Prepare a grill to medium-high. Clean grate and brush with oil.

4. Sprinkle both sides of the burgers with the salt and pepper. Place the burgers on the grate and grill until well seared on both sides, about 5 mins for medium-rare and 6 mins for medium. Top with more blue cheese and let melt. Toast buns if desired. Transfer burgers to buns and serve immediately.

John's Burger with gluten-free bread

Andria's burger with a tequila sunrise

Stay Hungry :D

Vietnamese Pho

There are few things in the world as cheap, healthy and tasty as Pho. If you have never had it, then you need to try is ASAP. It is also naturally gluten-free. Vietnamese cuisine is very heavily rice based - rice paper, rice noodles etc. - so John naturally loves it.  Although my good friend and partner in crime Julia Tran has promised to one day show me the secret methods of making more authentic pho (in exchange for the secret methods of making authentic tomato sauce) John and I found this decent recipe online to try out. It's not the best pho , but it was we've ever had but it was decent enough for two non-Asians making their first attempt.

Vietnamese Pho
Recipe: LETT101 on Allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/beef-pho/detail.aspx


Comments and Subtitutions: We went to Oceans, which is a specifically Asian centered supermarket in order to buy our ingredients. The advantages of going to an Asian supermarket is that they have the ingredients readily available since a large portion of their clientelle use the common ingredients in the recipe for various ethnic dishes. For example, we found sirloin already sliced into paper thin slices, and they always have fresh daikon radishes.

Recipe:

Ingredients

• 5 pounds beef knuckle, with meat
• 2 pounds beef oxtail
• 1 white (daikon) radish, sliced
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 ounces whole star anise pods
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 slice fresh ginger root
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 1/2 pounds dried flat rice noodles
• 1/2 pound frozen beef sirloin

TOPPINGS:

• sriracha hot pepper sauce
• hoisin sauce
• thinly sliced onion
• chopped fresh cilantro
• bean sprouts (mung beans)
• sweet Thai basil
• thinly sliced green onion
• limes, quartered

Directions

1. Place the beef knuckle in a very large (9 quart or more) pot. Season with salt, and fill pot with 2 gallons of water. Bring to a boil, and cook for about 2 hours.
2. Skim fat from the surface of the soup, and add the oxtail, radish and onions. Tie the anise pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, peppercorns and ginger in a cheesecloth or place in a spice bag; add to the soup. Stir in sugar, salt and fish sauce. Simmer over medium-low heat for at least 4 more hours (the longer, the better). At the end of cooking, taste, and add salt as needed. Strain broth, and return to the pot to keep at a simmer. Discard spices and bones. Reserve meat from the beef knuckle for other uses if desired.
3. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Soak the rice noodles in water for about 20 minutes, then cook in boiling water until soft, but not mushy, about 5 minutes. Slice the frozen beef paper thin. The meat must be thin enough to cook instantly.
4. Place some noodles into each bowl, and top with a few raw beef slices. Ladle boiling broth over the beef and noodles in the bowl. Serve with hoisin sauce and sriracha sauce on the side. Set onion, cilantro, bean sprouts, basil, green onions, and lime out at the table for individuals to add toppings to their liking.

Pho!

Pho - Up close and personal.

Stay Hungry :D

Waldorf Salad with Rotini Pasta

Where's Waldorf
Eat, Shrink and Be Merry by Greta and Janey Podleski

Comments and Substiutions: This was a nice light and great tasting Waldorf salad with a bit of a twist. Instead of lettuce the salad is served on pasta. Obviously, we used gluten-free pasta.  Other than that we kept the recipe pretty much intact. Make sure you use very fresh and crisp apples for this recipe. We stuck with the Red Delicious apples, but we would love to retry this using different apples, maybe some Royal Gala's or Granny Smith's.

Recipe:

Dressing:
3/4 cup low-fat, vanilla yogurt
2 tsp honey mustard
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper

Salad:
4 cups cooked rotini pasta
3 cups chopped, unpeeled Red Delicious apples
1 cup diced celery
1/3 cup toasted, chopped walnuts
1/4 cup minced red onions
2 tbsp fresh. chopped parsley

1. Combine yogurt, honey mustard, lemon zest, salt, and black pepper in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Dressing

2. Toss remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add dressing and mix well. Chill for 1 hours before serving.

Salad without dressing.

Salad with dressing..YUM!

See really simple!!

Stay hungry :D

Ham and Split Pea Soup with Lentils

Back by popular request Dinner Dates! It's been a busy year but with school winding down for Andria this blog will probably be slowly revived during the summer months.

Shanks for the Memories
Eat, Shrink and Be Merry by Janet and Great Podleski


Outta 10: 7.5/10

Comments and Substitutions: Instead of using a boned ham shank we used a boneless ham. It was just easier to cut and less messy. We cubed the ham after removing it from the soup. Still tasted great!

Recipe:

2 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup each chopped celery and chopped carrots
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced fresh thyme, or 1 tsp dried
1.2 tsp dried oregano
7 cups chicken broth
1 whole meaty smoked ham shank or ham hock (About 2 lbs)
1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
1 cup dry green split peas, rinsed
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt to taste


1. Heat olive oil in a large non-stick soup pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Cook and stir until the vegetables begin to soften, about 6 mins. Add thyme and oregano and cook 1 more minute.

Simmering soup!

2. Add remaining ingredients except parsley, vinegar and salt. Bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for an hour.

Cubing the ham.

3. Remove ham from soup. Puree hald the soup in a blender or food processor and return to put with remaining soup. Cover to keep hot. Cut meat from ham shank and return meat to pot. Discard bone. Stir in parsley and vinegar. Taste soup and add more pepper and salt if desired.

Finished soup. Yum!

Stay Hungry :D

Pasta in Cream with Butternut Squash and Sausage

Pasta in Cream with Butternut Squash and Sausage
By: Cristina Bancheri

Outta 10: This is a recipe that Andria's mom randomly came up with a few years ago trying to figure out what to do with some leftover butternut squash. It is SO FREAKING GOOD. Since then, we request this all the time and vary the kinds of sausage we throw in it. This is for sure our first 10/10.

Comments and Substitutions: We always change the kind of pasta, the kind of sausage and the type of cream. It's like a mix-and match. This time we used light cream, chorizo sausage and fetuccine (gluten-free).

Recipe:

Butternut squash
4 Sausages (any sausage that you enjoy - Mild italian, spicy italian, chorizo etc.)
2 cups Cream (light or heavy - you can also change amount)
Pasta (your choice of what kind)

1. Peel and chop up a butternut squash into cubes.

2. Remove sausage from casing and brown in a large sauce pan.

3. Once sausage is browned, add squash and cover, cooking for about 15 mins until squash is tender.

4. In the meantime, boil a pot of water and cook pasta according to directions.

Rice pasta

Finished!

5. Once squash is cook add cream and heat through.

6. Mix pasta with sauce and enjoy!

Stay Hungry!!

Shrimp with Chunky Fresh Tomato Salsa

Shrimp with Chunky Fresh Tomato Salsa
Cookbook: Mexican Everyday

Outta 10: This salsa was very fresh, and we will probably use this recipe again for salsa. The shrimp didn't add much except for substance. In retrospect it probably for have been better to serve this as a side, rather than the main dish itself...but we needed something to use up all our tomatoes fromt he garden...so yeah. In the end we give this a 7/10.

Substitutions and Comments: We used green chili paste instead of fresh chilies. We used a mix of yellow tomatoes and red roma's since we were trying to use a bunch of ripe garden tomatoes. We used way more than 2 because the tomatoes weren't that big, but also because we doubled the recipe for the salsa. We opted for the lime juice. We used a hand mixer rather than a food processor. We also seeded all of the tomatoes except for the ones we put in the food processor. We didn't use all the salsa for the shrimp, we left some cold to have as a side dish.


Recipe:

1 garlic clove, peeled
Fresh hot green chiles to taste, stemmed and halved
2 medium-large (about 1 pound total) ripe round tomatoes
1/3 cup (loosely packed) roughly chopped cilantro
1 large green onion, chopped
1 tbsp fresh lime juice (or light flavoured vinegar)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1.  Drop the garlic and chile pieces one at a time into a running food processor, letting each get finely chopped before adding the next. Turn off the food processor and remove lid.

Our garden tomatoes.

2.  Cut 1 tomato into quarters and add it to the food processor, along witht he cilantro. Pulse 4 to 6 times, until you have a coarse puree. Scrape the mixture into a bowl.

3. Cut the other tomato into 1/4 inch pieces and add to the bowl along with the green onion. Taste and season with lime juice and salt. Salsa is best served fresh.

4. Heat a skillet or wok with olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add in the shrimp and stir fry until half cooked, about 2 minutes.  Douse with the salsa. Stir-fry for another could of minutes, until shrimp are cooked. Sprinkle with extra lime juice and cilantro.

Shrimp and salsa in the skillet

C'est fini!

Stay Hungry :D

Thanksgiving Extravaganza

OK...so we made a TON of food for Thanksgiving. We're gonna put the recipes and comments up only for the stuff we made, not for everything we ate. There are a few pictures of the other food though. It's gonna be short and sweet
OK, so here we go.

Carrots with Maple Dill
All recipes.com
Outta 10: As weird as this recipe sounds...it was quite tasty. We are gonna give it 8/10.

Substitutions and Comments:  Nothing really. We used dill paste isntead of fresh dill cause it lasts longer. Again, strange sounding recipe...but really really tasty. We listened to the suggestions to drain the remaining water before putting in the sauce.

Recipe
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/maple-dill-carrots/Detail.aspx

Carrots with dill

Butternut Squash with Onions and Pecans
Allrecipes.com

Outta 10: Good, but we added some stuff to it to make it good. It was a bit bland without the add-ons. With the additions it gets a 7/10.

Substitutions and Comments:  We added about 2 tbsp of honey to this to give it some flavour. Also we added a healthy amount of crasins. Maybe 1/4-1/3 cup. We toasted the pecans just a tad too much, but they were still ok.

Recipe
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Butternut-Squash-with-Onions-and-Pecans-2/Detail.aspx

Squash with onions and pecans

Cranberry Sauce
Allrecipes.com

Outta 10: Very good. It actually tasted very similar to what you get canned. It didn'thave any extra YUM to make it stand out. We will probably make it again next year, cause its nice to have fresh sauce. It was just slightly runnier than the canned stuff. We give it a 8/10.


Substitutions and Comments:  Like I stated above, it was a slight but runnier, so if you like thicker cranberry sauce either cut down on the OJ or cook it a bit longer. It tasted practically the same as canned Ocean spray sauce otherwize, so we were impressed. We were a bit dissapointed it didn't noticably taste better than canned cranberry sauce, but canned cranberry sauce is kickass, so maybe we are being too picky. It's hard to improve on awesome.

Recipe
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cranberry-Sauce/Detail.aspx

Cranberry sauce

Sweet Potatoes with Orange Pecan Butter
Grilled to Perfection

Outta 10: Really unique and interesting recipe. The potatoes came out really nice and tender, and the pecan butter had a nice complimentary flavour. 8/10
Substitutions and Comments:  Nothing much to say.

Recipe
6 small sweet potatoes
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Orange Pecan Butter
1/2 cup unsalted softened butter
2 tsp liquid honey
Juice and zest of 2 oranges
1/4 cup chopped roasted pecans
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp dried
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat BBQ to 220.
2. Scrub sweet potatoes and prick with a fork. Rub with oil and season with salt and pepper, wrap in aluminum foil.
3. Put potatoes on grill and cook for 2 hours or until tender.
4. Meanwhile, prepare Orange pecan butter. Combine all ingredients into a small saucepan and cook over low heat for one minute.
5. Remove foil from potatoes, slice lengthways and drizzle butter over potatoes.

Orange Pecan Butter

Sweet Potato with butter.

Yellow Wax and Green Beans in Shallot and Mustard Vinaigrette
The Bride and Grooms Menu Cookbook

Outta 10: Andria really didn't dig these, cause she didn't think they were Thanksgivingsy enough. They were ok. The sauce didn't really stick to the beans very well, and we had to put extra salt. 6.5/10
Substitutions and Comments:  These beans were not bad. They just weren't good either. They just were. If you like beans in vinaigrette, then chances are you will like these. But there is nothing that makes this recipe stand out from a normal bean salad with oil and vinegar and garlic. We couldn't find any yellow beans so we did all green. Also all the food processor instructions seemed kinda stupid and pointless, so we just whisked by hand.

Recipe
1 pound yellow wax beans, trimmed
1 pound green beans, trimmed
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp whole-grain mustard
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper

1. Bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil over high head. Add beans and lower heat to medium. cook beans, uncovered, until they are crisp to bit, 4 minutes. Drain beans and shock them with cold water, redrain. Reserve at room temperature.
2. Put lemon juice, vinegar, mustard in food processor and process. With food processor motor running, add oil slowly through feed tube until dressing thickens. Stire in shallot and season with salt and pepper.
   Note: Beans are served best a room temperature and can be made the day before.

Beans with Shallot Vinaigrette

WHEW. Thats all. Too end here are some other pics of other dishes we had.

Mr. Turkey

Cauliflower casserole

Stay Hungry :D

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Saucy Pulled Pork
The Slow Cooker Collection

Outta 10: Let us preface this with the following. We tried another pulled pork recipe a while ago and it was AWESOME, so this had a lot to live up to. This smelled really good while we were preparing this and while it was in the slow cooker. We're not gonna lie, at first we weren't super into this, but it kind grew on us while we were eating. I still don't think its as good as that original recipe we had a while back, but it holds its own. So we have decided to give this a 7/10.

Substitutions and Comments: We don't know if the cut that this recipe suggested was the best one. We think if we were to make this again, we would use a loin roast instead of a shoulder blade roast. We found that this roast was a bit too tough to pull apart. Although by the time we ate it, it was nice and soft. Also a 3 1/2 lb pork roast was WAY too much, so we got a 2.5lb one. This was still way too much, but they didn't come any smaller. We browned the meat and prepared the sauce the night before and then just put it all in the slow cooker in the morning. We also let it simmer for 15 minutes at the end instead of just 4. We used our own homemade sauce which since it is naturally thicker also replaced the tomato paste. We used gluten-free Worcestershire sauce. Also, shame on us, we totally forgot to add the green onions at the end.

Recipe:

3 1/2lb boneless pork shoulder blade roast
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground coriander
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 can (14 oz) tomato sauce
2 tbsp each packed brown sugar and cider vinegar
2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 green onions, sliced.

1. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper. In dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat; brown pork all over. Transfer to slow cooker.

Browned Pork

2. Drain all but 1 tbsp fat from Dutch oven; reduce heat to medium. Fry onions, garlic, chili powder, coriander and bay leaves, stirring often, until onions are softened, about 5 minutes.

3.Add tomato paste; cook, stirring, until darkened, 2 minutes. Add tomato sauce, sugar, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce; bring to boil, scraping up brown bits. Scrape into slow cooker. Cover; cook on low until tender, 8 to 10 hours.

Sauce and pork in slow cooker before cooking

4. Transfer pork to cutting board; cover and keep warm for about 10 minutes. With 2 forks, shred or "pull" pork.

Shredded pork - no sauce

5. Meanwhile, skim fat from liquid. If liquid measures more than 3 cups, bring ot boil in shallow saucepan over high heat; boil until reduced to 3 cups, 15 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Add pork.

Reducing Sauce

6. Reduce heat and simmer until hot, 4 minutes. Sprinkle with green onions.

Finished Sammich

Stay hungry :D

Zuppa Toscana

Zuppa Toscana
Source: Allrecipes.com

Outta 10: This is probably the tastiest soup we have ever made. It is one of the few recipes that we repeat on a semi-regular basis. Our friend Geri Rockwood introduced us to this recipe about a year ago. It is not that hard to make and sooooo good. If you don't believe us check out its perfect 5 star rating after 529 reviews on allrecipes. We give this a 9.5/10.

Substiutions and Comments: We don't really make any substitutions to this recipe. We use spicy Italian sausage instead of mild, and we just cut open the casing and take out the meat. We buy bagged baby spinach so that we dont have to cut and trim it. Regular spinach can also be quite gritty, bagged spinach is relatively clean, it just needs a quick rinse. We used to make this in a big pot since we didn't have a dutch oven, but we recently bought one at Ikea so now we use it for this recipe. It tastes the same either way so don't worry if you don't have a dutch oven.

Recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Super-Delicious-Zuppa-Toscana/Detail.aspx

Pork out of its casing and browned

Onions and bacon

Finished soup. SO FREAKING TASTY.

Stay Hungry :D

Homemade Mac and Cheese

Homemade Mac and Cheese
Gluten Free Everyday by Robert Landolphi

Outta 10: (Note: On the suggestion of Andria's friend Catherine Del Duca, who is tired of seeing yay after yay, we have decided to change this part of the blog to a scale out of 10) This Mac and Cheese dish is pretty good, and for gluten-free it is pretty amasing. However, its still just plain old mac and cheese in the end no matter how good. Also, on the healthiness scale this is a big faux-pas! Sooo much cream......So we are gonna give this recipe a 7.5/10.

Subsitutions and Comments: This is a really delish recipe and its entirely Gluten-free. However, if you aren't into the gluten-freeness you can made this normal styles with regular pasta and regular breadcrumbs. The only subsitution we made was putting chili powder instead of cayenne pepper, cause we didn't have any. We used shell pasta, and for the bread crumbs we buy Molly B's gluten free olive oil bread and then just cut up the whole loaf and toast it and crumble it up. For this recipe we like smaller chunks of bread though rather than really fine crumbs. We used old yellow cheddar and opted for the green onions.

Recipe:

1 pound brown rice elbow or shell pasta
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup gluten-free dried bread crumbs
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
3 cups shredded sharp yellow or white cheddar cheese
1/4 cup sliced green onions (optional)



1. Preheat over to 375 and butter a 9 by 13 inch baking dish. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta until al dente according to package instructions. Drain and return to pot.

2. Stir together parmesan, bread crumbs and oil in a bowl.

Topping mix

3. In a medium saucepan whisk cream, mustard, salt and cayenne pepper.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Decrease heat and whisk in cheddar cheese until smooth.

Cheese sauce

4Pour sauce over the pasta, stir in the green onions, and pour into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle evenly with the topping and bake until the edges are bubble and the top is golden brown, 20-25 mins.

Ready to bake in the oven

Yum!

Chipotle and Scallion Hamburgers with Yam Fries (and a Side of Hot Roasted Peppers)

This was kind of a crappy day in terms of weather to do this recipe...but we had everything ready so we went through with it.

Chipotle and Scallion Hamburgers with Yam Fries (and a Side of Hot Roasted Peppers)
Burgers by Sally Sampson


Yay or Nay: Yay! These burgers were fairly tasty, and had a nice flavour to them. The peppers came out great, John enjoyed them paired together. The yam fries came out a bit soggy this time, getting them crispy in the oven can be challenging sometimes.

Substitutions or Comments: No real substitutions this time around. We didn't put the lime on at the end for garnish...thats about it. We topped the burgers with variations of the following: Sundried-tomato paste, hot pickles, hot and sweet roasted peppers, adobo sauce and tomato. The cook book we used only has burger recipes, so it's really neat. There are some pretty fancy burgers in there. What we like about it is that all the recipes use just meat, no fillers or added stuff other than specific flavour adds. For the peppers we used the same technique we used for the other peppers, and the yam fries is our own homemade recipe.

Chipotle peppers can be found canned in the supermarket in something called adobo sauce. Chipotles are very smoky and can very spicy for some people. You can also get dried chiptole flakes.

Chipotles in adobo

Hamburger Recipe

1 1/2-1 3/4 lbs ground beef
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tbsp minced scallions, both white and green parts
1 tbsp minced canned chipotle chili in adobo sauce
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh black pepper
1 lime quartered

1. Mix beef, garlic, scallions and chipotle in a large bowl and, using your hands, mix until ingredients are evenly incorporated. Place mixture on work surface and divide into 4 balls of equal size. Form each patty into about 3/4 - 1 inch thick, tossing back and forth between your hands. Do not work patties more than necessary.  TIP: To ensure more even cooking, make a 1/2 inch indentation with your thumb in the center of the burger.

Beef patties with chipotle and scallions

2. Prepare grill by heating to medium-high. Brush grill with oil.

3. Spinkle both sides of patties with salt and pepper. Place burgers on grill and sear both sides well 5 minutes for medium-rare and 6 minutes for medium. Heat up buns if desired. Transfer to platter and serve immediately with lime quarters.

Johns Burger topped with yellow tomato, extra adobo sauce, and hot banana peppers

Andria's Burger with sundried tomato paste, sweet banana peppers and a spicy pickle

Roasted Hot and Sweet Banana Pepper Recipe

Your choice of a mix of hot and sweet banana pepper

We basically bought 6 sweet white banana peppers and 6 hot red banana peppers and then followed our earlier recipe for roasting red peppers which can be found here.

Hot red and sweet white banana peppers

Yam Fries Recipe

4 sweet potatoes
paprika
cumin
garlic powder
oregano
salt
pepper
Vegetable oil

1. Wash or peel the potatoes; we peeled them this time, because the skins were kind of grungy.

2. Cut the potatoes into fries; thinner will cook better, but sometimes you've just got to have the wedge. We understand!

3. Toss the fries with some oil and your choice of spices -- this time we used cumin, paprika, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. You don't need much of each.

4. Spread the coated fries evenly onto a baking tray and cook them for about 45 minutes-1 hour at 375F. Here's a pro TIP: try to make it so you only have one layer of fries, without much contact between fries. Otherwise they absorb too much moisture and get soggy. That was our downfall this time -- a crowded baking tray!

Fries on the try - these fries were TOO CROWDED. Learn from our fail.

5. Eat those fries! May we suggest a delicious dip of whole grain mustard and mayonnaise?