Tagged: dinner
vegetarian roti
It was Chris’s dinner making day and he was determined to come up with something that was healthier then his other culinary specialties (which include ribs, steak, pasta dishes, short ribs, mac’n cheese etc… which always include incredible homemade sauces and marinades ). Everything he makes is awesome!….always. Even though (thanks to the blog) I have become much better cooking, it’s still so frustrating when people NEVER seem to mess things up! He consistently makes great food (My BFF is the same!) UGH! .
I was excited to see what he was going to come up with. He found some authentic Guyanese roti (shells? skins?…whatever they’re called). We filled them with a super yummy chickpea/sweet potato curry filling. Needless to say I was not disappointed we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore! The following day we brought the left-overs to lunch ,which I shared with a co-worker, she agreed they were excellent!.
INGREDIENTS:
1 tsp coconut oil
1 small onion, peeled and sliced
1 cup organic vegetable broth
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp each coriander, cinnamon and turmeric
1/2 tsp hot sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chickpeas, canned or frozen
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 to 3 large roti
Preparation
1. In non-stick skillet over medium, heat oil. Add onion; cook for 5 minutes. Stir in broth, potato, garlic, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and turmeric.
2. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes or until potato is fork-tender. Season with hot sauce and salt.
3. Stir in chickpeas (rinse if canned; thaw if frozen) and milk. Bring to a boil. Cook, low heat, stirring, until chickpeas are heated through.
4. Divide mixture between 2 roti. Fold up the bottom to make a straight edge. Roll to make a wrap. Wrap snugly in plastic wrap.
Thanks for dinner babe! XOXO
lobster
New Years Eve, Chris and I had a busy day. I woke up early to get started on a birthday cake for my dad. We spent the day with my parents celebrating, eating cake, fish and chips, candy, chocolate and so much more. Our game plan was to make it back early enough to grab some lobster, beer and a bottle of champagne to celebrate New Years just the two of us. We weren’t entirely sure we could do it. Surprisingly, there was lobster left at the market. NO LINE!! at the beer store and lucky for us, a couple sweet friends had given us a bottle of champagne earlier in the week as a Christmas gift (which we had still stashed away in the fridge). The only thing we were missing was some lobster cracking tools. We made a couple quick stops and no luck. However this was our private New Years party and if we had to use our hands and a hammer…well, that was ok too.
Our night was amazing. We didn’t get the big lobster pot boiling until maybe 10??. We looked up boiling times on google. Neither of us had ever made lobster ourselves, and it could not have been better! As we drank, we took lots of pictures, laughed and prepared an awesome late night lobster feast. We drank our chilled champagne at midnight and discussed endlessly how we were too old to recognise any of the young performers at Times Square. This was my very first New Years not going out…and although I was bummed I didn’t get to see everyone I loved that night. I did get to spend it with my favorite loved one and it was awesome. By tummy and cheeks still hurt the next day from laughing. We were cozy and warm and honestly, I have never felt happier.
JUST US….
ramen
This is by no means a traditional Ramen recipe. But, we’ve been craving it since marathoning through ‘Mind of a Chef’ with David Chang a few weeks ago. Chris came home the other day with a selection of Ramen options so we couldn’t wait to get started. We made an amazing pork broth with perfectly cooked noodles and filled the bowl with chopped green onion, soft boiled egg, nori and pork belly.
INGREDENTS:
- pork belly
- vegetable stock
- 1 large carrot (rough chopped in large pieces)
- 1 large onion (rough chopped in large pieces)
- soy sauce
- hoisin sauce
- fish sauce
- salt/pepper to taste
- ramen noodles
- egg (soft boiled)
- green onion (diced)
- nori
DIRECTIONS:
- Sear pork belly on all sides and then add to soup pot.
- Add vegetables and vegetable stock to pot. Simmer until it’s reduced by a quarter. *
- Strain vegetables and pork belly out of broth and return broth to stove to keep warm until fixings are ready.
- Cut off fat from pork belly, shred meat and set aside (now is a great time to start boiling eggs for perfect soft boiled egg look HERE )
- Season broth with fish sauce (a little goes a long way), hoisin sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper to your liking.
- cook ramen noodles as directed on package
- In soup bowl arrange noodles on the bottom, top with shredded pork belly, small piece of nori, green onion. Then fill bowl up with soup broth. gently add soft boiled egg (remove shell and cut in half).
*Sometimes, depending on just how fatty your pork belly is, you may find that pork fat has risen to top of the simmering broth. Lightly skim top of the soup to remove. This will help create a more clear broth.
oxtail stew
Chris’s mom Donna is an excellent cook (‘excellent’ is definitely an understatement…I’m just far too full to even think of a better word lol). Every time I’ve been invited for dinner I return home full asking Chris a thousand and one questions “When she said a ‘little’ how much do you think that measurement is? like a tsp?”, “What did she put in that?”, “how long do you think she cooked that for”. A few weeks ago I wasn’t able to make it to her house for dinner and Chris brought home some left overs (he usually scores a bunch of awesome left-overs and we always grin with excitement as we store them in the fridge). Anyways, a few weeks ago he came home with oxtail stew. It was AMAZING we stood in the kitchen chattering about our day and the feast I missed, barely realizing we had stood there and picked the whole plate down to some bare bones! Since then every time we see oxtail we both nod in agreement that we will try to recreate her stew “Next time we see her we’ll ask about that oxtail stew”. Well, last week I was invited over and as I jumped in the car that morning, I reminded Chris “We need that recipe!”.
***
Yesterday Chris and I woke up early and headed to St. Lawrence Market grabbed some oxtail and excitedly talked about when we’d start making it and how long we’d need to cook it in the slow cooker. The instructions seemed easy enough, so we were pretty confident I wouldn’t have another sad blog post about how I messed up.
As soon as we woke up Sunday, with coffee’s in hand we started on our Sunday dinner stew. We rubbing our eyes and sleepily bickered about what I may have forgot in my notes and tried to recall the entire conversation word for word… how much of this or that to add. I think we got really, really close! The stew was super good!
INGREDIENTS:
- Oxtail
- 2 carrots (chopped)
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 1 can tomato soup (condensed Campbells soup)
- 1 cup beef stock (same amount as soup)
- 1-2 tbls Worcestershire sauce
- 1-2 tbls red wine
DIRECTIONS:
- Rinse and pat dry the oxtail
- Sear all sides in very hot pan add to slow cooker.
- In slow cooker add the rest of ingredients put the lid on and let cook for 6-8hrs.
*We stirred it around a couple times and added a little soy sauce (we used soy sauce instead of salt, but you could just add salt and we also added couple tablespoons of ketchup)
We served it with some fresh sour dough bread we got from the bakery close by this afternoon. Dinner was AMAZING!
Thank you Donna for sharing your stew recipe! It was amazing…still not as awesome as yours, but we’ll get there :)
tandoori cauliflower
Where do I begin…. I came home in great spirits. Our puppy was so sweet and happy to see me when I walked in. It was freezing outside but, the sun was bright and pouring in through the windows.
I quickly got the rest of my work finished so I could start on my dinner post. I’ve been working like crazy lately. We had some awful virus on our work computer which wiped out a million files (maybe more like 100-150). I’ve spent days already trying to copy info from our hard copies….ugh, long stupid story. I have also started a second job. I have been doing some work on my company’s social media sites and trying to keep up, with the little time I have to do it. Oh, and I’m registering for my next class at school tonight…I feel the dark cloud of overwhelming stress coming.
I had started marinating the cauliflower for dinner last night. Just before bed….probably around 10-10:30??. I pulled it out of the fridge this evening around 5:45. It looked awesome! Kinda like a brain! Chris made it home just in time to see the brain get put into the oven (he was impressed, and grossed out). While it roasted we prepared the rest of dinner. We cooked some quinoa and our favorite naan bread (It’s the BEST! “Shana – Chili & Coriander” you can find it in the freezer section in some grocery stores. When we see it we stock pile it! It’s pretty spicy but all the other ones are amazing too.). I made some yogurt/mint sauce and we were set………….Set for the MOST BOOOOOORING flavorless dinner EVER!!!! Thank god for the naan bread without it… think, I would rather have starved. Oh, did I mention the sunset (nice and early) so my pictures of dinner kinda suck.
I must have done this wrong. I swear I followed all the directions and it BARELY had any flavor. The dinner looked amazing! But, tasted like plain ol’cauliflower on some plain ol’boring quinoa. *sigh
Ok. So here is the recipe….
INGREDIENTS:
1 large head cauliflower, washed
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp. minced ginger
3 tbsp. tandoori spice
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. sea salt
½ cup yogurt
DIRECTIONS:
Mix smashed garlic, ginger and the tandoori spice, lemon and salt. Then the yogurt.
Place the whole of cauliflower (remove leaves and in a large bowl and spread the marinade all over, making sure to coat the bottom as well. Place in the fridge to marinate for 6 – 12 hours.
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Place cauliflower on a lined baking sheet and roast until tender (approx 45 min….longer depending on the size of the cauliflower).
Garnish with lots of lemon juice and a generous drizzle of high-quality olive oil, sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Alright…now, off to register for school and bum around in my pajamas. DAY OFFICIALLY OVER.
stuffed acorn
Chris and I both had a long day (Chris was in long meetings and I had a stupid work computer full of nasty viruses) . I knew he was going to be home a little later then me and I thought I would try to make something a little more special for him (then defrosted soup, which is usually what we grab after a long day). I had just seen a great recipe in a magazine and couldn’t wait to try it. Missing a few things and substituting quite a bit. It took a really long time…much longer then I thought. However, I did get it all together just in time! With the table set and our last candle lit, Chris walked in with a huge grin”Dinner smells amazing!”.
I grinned, very proud of all my effort.
I am so happy it turned out as amazing as it did! We may not have had a great day…But, we had an awesome evening!
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 Acorn Squash (cut lengthwise, seeds removed)
- 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
- 1 small onion (chopped)
- 1 apple
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3/4 shredded Gruyere cheese (or as much as you like)
- 1/4 cup of chopped raw walnuts
- 1/4 cup of organic dried cranberries
- 1 tsp chopped fresh sage
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 425 (220c). Rub squash flesh with 1tbsp of coconut oil and place flesh side down on a paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 30min (or until flesh is easily pierced with a fork)
Meanwhile, get your quinoa cooking (I used our rice cooker…I find its easier for me, I hate having the stove full of pots and pans. I get easily distracted and over whelmed…and by “full” I mean more then 1)
Heat some coconut oil in a pan and slowly caramelize the chopped onion (this takes forever!!)
In a large bowl add cooked quinoa and caramelized onion. Using the same pan (no need to mess up more dishes) add chopped apple and garlic stir frequently, until the garlic is cooked (not browned!). Add apple and garlic to bowl mix together and add chopped nuts and cranberries. I then added 1/2 the cheese to filling mixture.
Brush the flesh of the cooked squash with maple syrup then stuff the filling into cooked squash. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and place under broiler until cheese has melted and slightly browned.
Serve, enjoy!
Chris ended up sneaking out not long after dinner and returned with surprise MILKSHAKES! YAY!! XO
PS Sorry for the photo’s..wasn’t really planning a post tonight.
lentil tacos
I had first tried the chickpea tacos from “Thug Kitchen” at my besties house (also creator of the beautiful blog ibbyandpop.com). She blogged the recipe here and they were delicious. A couple weeks later we also tried making them and they were awesome and really so super easy.
While Chris was down the street at the park painting I decided to make something for the blog…And I was craving those tacos.
I didn’t have the ingredients to make them so I used sweet potato (which I roasted with the soy sauce and spices) and lentils which I mixed in afterwards. They turned out great!
INGREDIENTS:
- 1-2 cup(s) of cooked lentils
- 1 large sweet potato
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 lime
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
- salt & pepper
DIRECTIONS:
Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Chop up the onion, sweet potato and crush garlic cloves. Place a in a large bowl. Pour in the oil and soy sauce, stir, add all the spices.
Lay it all out on a large rimmed baking sheet and bake until the potato is cooked through and is starting to brown.
Remove from pan and add to cooked lentils mix up and squeeze the juice of half a lime.
We are lucky to have a little Mexican grocery store a few blocks away so we had fresh corn tortillas (still warm) and topped our tacos with a little cheese, salsa and some bright green avocado.
These were amazing!! I’m so happy we have some left over…Although, I don’t think any of it will still be in the fridge by tomorrow.
broccoli soup
It was chilly this weekend. It rained most of Saturday so we lounged around watching old horror movies. We did run out for a quick lunch in Kensington market. Chris has been wanting to stop into Seven Lives (a little taco spot in the market specializing in SoCal style tacos) for weeks. It was everything we wanted it to be. We ducked in soaked from the rain quickly grabbed a couple Baja Fish Taco’s and Strawberry Agua Fresca (Chris grabbed the mexican Cola). Then ran home trying to dodge the rain. Once home we curled back up exactly where we had left from.
Finally Sunday the sun was out and we took Wyatt over to Chris’s moms. She has a wonderful house in the neighborhood we grew up in. She has a big backyard with big old trees and an awesome big lawn, perfect for an excited little puppy. We let our sweet little pup run around until he was totally tuckered out. Chris’s mom also found us a great old book printed 1964. I love it! The pictures are so great.
Now that autumn is in full swing it was time to start making our favorite quick dinner….soup. We make a ton on Sundays and stock it up in the freezer so, when we get home tired and cold from work we can quickly heat it up. This time we made a Broccoli Soup…it turned out rather boring so we added almost 1/2 a can of green curry paste we had bought from T&T Supermarket a while ago. If you LOVE broccoli you’ll love this bright green soup without the spicy kick.
INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 cup diced sweet onion
1 head of fresh broccoli, rough cups
1 handful of stemmed green spinach
Fresh water, as needed
Sea salt and ground pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons each: parsley, some fresh basil from my garden
1 cup light coconut milk, or more, to taste
1/2 can of green curry paste
beer battered fish
We just came home from a chilly weekend at the cottage. We had such a great time! We spent hours wandering around the island, fishing and eating. Chris caught so many fish and one really big one! My dad showed us how to “clean” the fish, so we could cook it for my blog….There is NOTHING clean about this whole thing. I also don’t think I will ever be able to do it myself…and to be honest, I don’t see Chris gutting anything anytime soon. I took a million photo’s of the process (no one thought I should post them because they were too gross…so I just ended up posting a couple that weren’t that bad). Every time we go to the cottage we all eat and drink way too much and this time, my mom, Chris and I just may have set a record for food consumption. We decided to beer batter and fry Chris’s fish for dinner on Saturday night. Here is a really easy recipe (but, you can also get packages of the flour mixture that taste the same, some people even use the “add water” pancake mix and instead of water add beer).
INGREDIENTS:
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup corn starch
- 1 scant tsp. of baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 300ml beer
- fresh fish fillets
- oil for frying
DIRECTIONS:
- Pour cold beer in bowl.
- Add the flour and corn starch with the salt and baking powder in another bowl and add to beer in increments, mix with a whisk
- Scrape the sides of the bowl and stir.
- Keep adding flour mixture and whisking until you have the consistency of slightly thinned pancake batter.
- Place in the fridge for an hour.
- Heat 1/2 inch of oil in pan
- Dip fish in batter to evenly coat both sides, gently place in hot oil
- Cook 2 minutes a side
- Drain excess oil on paper towel or rack
potato salad
After the long weekend we really wanted something easy, delicious and home cooked. We spent 2 out of the 3 nights drinking, hung out with friends, Chris and I took a long tipsy late night stroll Friday, my best friend and I spent an evening checking out this little (super cute) bar in the neighborhood (all in between reading and studying for school). I had hoped to make some homemade ice cream this weekend to post, but didn’t get a chance (not to worry it’s coming!). Texting back and forth after leaving work, Chris and I decided to make a huge colorful vegetable filled salad and BBQ steak for dinner. Chris would grab the steak and I would collect the vegetables at the little market by our house. I had seen recipes similar to this potato salad on the weekend and really wanted to try it. So while grabbing our salad stuff I picked up what we needed to give the potato salad a try also.
By the time we both met back at home it had started to rain and our BBQ was acting strange so we ended up not being able to BBQ the steaks (to Chris’s extreme disappointment). Our dinner was amazing nonetheless, the table full of fresh wonderful food. We ate and complained about the long first day back after our 3 day weekend then, made our way to the couch to curl under blankets and watch whatever scarey movies we could find. A perfect way to finish a very long, very grey rainy day.
- little tiny potatoes (cut in half)
- fresh parsley
- olive oil
- apple cider vinegar
- garlic
- organic raw pumpkin seeds
- salt & pepper
- Boil your potatoes in lightly salted water until tender.
- In a food processor add a handful of fresh parsley,clove of garlic, handful pumpkin seeds, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper.
- Toss the cooked (but still hot) potatoes into this dressing
- Chill and serve.
*note: the ratio of olive oil to apple cider vinegar is 3:1
WEEKEND PHOTO’S
NEIGHBORHOOD BAR:
Will Do the Dishes 
