Well hello there. My name is… work-is-taking-over-my-life and I miss you and this little blog space. As if I haven’t written a blog post in a couple of weeks. Who am I? Between celebrating birthdays, work, and getting ready for Alabama I’ve been royally swamped. Hold up, Alabama? Yeah, might’ve forgotten to mention that. The boyfriend and I are driving to Alabama for his cousins wedding in June. I’ve determined that you all need to date someone who has a relative down south because this is the perfect excuse to eat my face full of fried chicken. Between ogling her pretty dress and pretending I have a southern accent, I intend to spend the majority of my time there talking to Jimmy. Jimmy, who I believe is 70 years old, has been cooking up the relatives southern fare for numerous years. As most of you know I work as a Cooking School Coordinator at Atlantic Superstore. Though fun, full of food, and challenging, it is exhausting! Amidst all of that, I did have the cool-cool beans opportunity to learn how to make sushi last week from the very talented Chef Jingfei Gao.

I really haven’t gotten myself into sushi until 2 years ago. It’s not like I’m a pro and great at reading the menu. How do I know this? The six year old in my class started listing off rolls with words I never knew existed. So it was certainly educational for me. The whole thing was just friggin’ cool. I learned so much that I’m pretty sure I’m going to coordinate another class with some different rolls.

A couple of the ladies from our cooking classes whiping up a roll. Note how organized Jingfei is!

The class was set up in a hands on approach with pairs coming up one at a time to make their own roll. With the help the Jingfei everyone had amazing looking rolls and all of their questions answered! In my own little head I sense that the key to making good sushi is the rice. No wonder I wasn’t allowed to prep it before Jingfei came. There is such a meticulous process in making it; adding rice vinegar at the proper time, cooling the rice down at a certain point, etc. If it isn’t sticky, you might as well call Hamachi and make a reservation because you ain’t eating any sushi at your house.

Tip: Rub some avocado onto your gloves so the rice doesn’t stick. Here we are covering our nori with rice.

On the menu was:

California Roll- rice, nori, imitation crab, avocado, cucumber

Vegetarian California Roll- rice, nori, grated carrot, avocado, cucumber

Inari- rice, inari

Miso Soup

One of the customers California Roll. Pretty good lookin’ eh?

The majority of the supplies were purchased at Superstore, leaving a few things to be picked up at your local Asian grocery. These items were inari (fried tofu), imitation crab, nori (seaweed), spicy sauce, and pickled ginger. Everything from wasabi and soy sauce (Kimlan) were grabbed from the sushi department at Superstore. So making your own sushi is definitely doable! The trickier part is getting your paws on the right fish products. You have to be careful purchasing fish from your local grocery store and eating that raw (hello intestinal troubles). Jingfei said it’s best to find a recommendation from an Asian grocery.

When it comes to sushi I’m all about going out for the experience, not necessarily making my own. I do however highly encourage you learn how to make your own so you can appreciate the love that goes into it! It’s the neatest thing ever.

Fun fact: Where did the California roll get its name from? Jingfei told us that a chef in California decided to put the rice on the outside instead of the inside and it became wildly popular. Since then, they even call it the California roll in Japan.

A HUGE thanks to Jingfei and Bento Sushi.

Get your roll on (and not the muffin top). I’ll let you all know when my next class is.

Let’s be serious, hump day really doesn’t bring anything special to the table. Aside from being humpy, you still have 2 more work days to get you to sleeping-in-and-hanging-in-the-undies-all-day mode. Not to worry, I am thoroughly enjoying myself a nice TALL glass of red wine. Not used to the adjective ‘tall’ to describe wine? That’s because you probably aren’t drinking it out of a mason jar here this evening. While enjoying my tall glass I realized that I’ve been slacking on the blog front. It doesn’t mean I love ya’ll any less or that I’m not eating. It just means that life has been cray-cray. I’ve had the opportunity to spend copious amounts of hours with Tuck and my unwired jaw boyfriend. This past weekend I spent Mother’s Day in Saint John with the Elkins. It was lovely as per usual. Steak, caesars, and bacon were on repeat. Ever have one of Papa Elkin’s caesars? Nine times out of ten they pack a punch and come with a ‘drink while seated tag’.  More importantly have you ever had his steak? I’d have to call it juicy as sin and cooked to perfection. Literally, this would be the only circumstance I’d eat my bodyweight in rare meat.

Now that I have a slightly less than ‘tall’ glass of wine I sense I should get back to the point. My fears have come true, not only do I ramble in real life but also on the keyboard. A week back I made a scrumptious take on chicken parm. I thought perhaps it might give your hump day a special little kick in the ass.

It seems lately that Jud loves anything encrusted. So when I saw Chef Jeff making this at work I immediately took mental notes. I suppose you could call this my rendition of his recipe by taking what I can remember and what I thought would taste good. Aside from the fact that it was crispy and juicy it looked pretty fly too.

This is what you’re going to need:

Chicken Breasts (4 is a good solid number)

Panko bread crumbs

Flour

Egg

S &P

Shallots, diced

Garlic, diced

Cherry tomatoes, halved

Fresh mozzarella

Take chicken breast and wrap with suran wrap or parchment paper and whack with the side of your meat mallet. I don’t have a meat mallet (gasp) and used my rolling pin. You can use whatever you can whack with! You basically want to whack the chicken out evenly until it is about ¼ inch thick. This will make it nice and crispy. You’re then going to want to set up an egg wash station. This includes 1 bowl of fork beaten egg, 1 bowl of flour, 1 bowl of panko. You’ll need roughly 2 eggs and 2 cups each of the dry ingredients. Dip chicken in egg, then flour, then egg, then panko. Put some olive oil in a pan and turn to high. Sear chicken on both sides until they are golden and season with S&P. Transfer to the oven and bake for 350 degrees for 15ish minutes. In the same frying pan, add diced shallots, garlic, and tomatoes. Once finished, pull chicken from the oven and top with slices of fresh mozzarella and the tomato mixture. Pop it back into the oven until the chicken is done and cheese has melted. Use a meat thermometer or cut into that chicken to see if it’s done. I served mine over rice but a nice swiss chard salad would suffice as well!

Ahhhh Sunday. I love and hate you at the same time. WHY do you do this to me? So nice and so relaxing but so dreadful that you have to lead to Monday. What better than to fix the weekend-end woes? Homemade chocolate pudding. Obviously. I’m not sure what you were thinking but back up the tractor and go grab yourself some high quality cocoa.

After a unexpected lengthy evening of sipping (ahem, chugging) fizzy pops at the Alehouse, this day has pretty much been spent sleeping and eating in combination with minimal movement. I thought I might roast a chicken or something but that got busted when we thought it was a great idea to also grace the Pogue with our presence (we had a 19 year old kind of night).

I blame Jud. In hindsight, I love the fact that Jud will eat anything I throw at him. If there is anything I’ve realized over the last 6 jaw-wired-shut months, it’s that I miss cooking. He loves chocolate pudding so why not make a massive batch of it and rub it all over our faces.

My Mom gave me this idea actually. My Gram used to make this all the time for us kids and since we couldn’t find her recipe we surfed the net and found one comparable. Not knowing whether it was going to turn out or not at least we’d have some form of chocolate soup? We adapted this recipe from The Joy of Baking and it turned out ammmmmmazing. Today is actually the second time I’ve made it in a week. Why is that you ask? Jud shovels it in faster than I can scald milk.

You can find the recipe here at Joy of Baking. We both prefer the pudding warm as opposed to cold. It’s so creamy, so chocolatey, and so dangerous. So next weekend, lets all chug beer, dance to Stacey’s Mom, and eat pudding? Sound like a date?

Well first off, mahjah props to Ben Boudreau for recommending I tantalize my taste buds with this dirty little number. Then a second props to How Sweet It Is for showing arugula the love.

Realistically, I could eat pesto on anything. Oh wait, I don’t need anything to eat pesto (just a spoon). Now, the cool thing about making your own pesto is a) how cheap it is and b) how quick it is. Greater than both of those combined, is how knee slapping-ly delicious this is.

The fact that this pesto in particular boasts 4 whole cups of arugula is fantastic. Why? Arugula is super high in phytochemicals aka anti-cancer effects. Vitamin A and C are also large and in charge.

Ingredients (Adapted from How Sweet It Is)

4 cups of arugula

1/2 cup asiago

3 garlic cloves

fresh cracked pepper

1/4 cup of olive oil.

In a food processor, combine garlic, arugula and cheese. Pulse until combined. Stream in olive oil a tablespoon at a time until the pesto becomes smooth.

I chose to deviate and add a whole whack of cracked pepper to amp up the already natural peppery taste from the arugula. It was magnificent! Now what to eat it on?

I made a Chicken Pear and Almond Salad.

I find pear is super delicious with pesto. So just grilled my chicken, cooked my pasta separately, and added in julienned tomato and pear. I tossed everything in the pesto to coat and finished with some toasted sliced almonds. It was amaze-balls.

Next step: Sammies

Unfortunately my wired shut boyfriend was still wired shut for Easter. Poor guy. If there is anyone on this planet who loves a good meal that fills the table, it’s Jud. That being said I felt super terrible I was dragging him home to my parent’s house for Easter Dinner. I needed to do something that would distract him from the massive smoked ham on the table. Thus, I secured my thinking cap and whipped up a little somethin’ special.

The majority of his diet thus far has been pureed soups and smoothies. So realistically, he doesn’t get to enjoy the separate flavours that us fortunate chewers get to indulge in. BE THANKFUL FOR YOUR JAW- the motto of the year. Go out and grab yourself the biggest jaw breaker ever and relish the fact you can do it.

Ok back to puree city. After sipping on a few drinks with the men downstairs (at least he gets to wallow in Guinness?), he came up to the dining room table to see this….

Hot damn, we got variety! I spent the larger part of the day with Mama Ramey in the kitchen cooking up several storms. 5 to be exact. I know they passed the delicious test because I found Nanny and Aunt V tasting a good chunk of them. So what exactly was on the menu?

Creamy Corn

Smoked Ham and Bacon

Creamy Mashed Potato

Carrot and Dill

Mushroom and Thyme

Maple Sweet Potato

When all is said and done, that’s a whole lot of liquid. I certainly didn’t think he would be able to finish them all– he did.

I’m not going to write out the recipes for each of these, primarily because I don’t even remember what I did. What I learned over the past couple of wired shut weeks is that you pretty much need to jam as many flavours into one pot. The secret is doing everything from start to finish in one pot. That way you get all the little flavour bits from each step. For example, if you’re sautéing onions and garlic, use the same pot to the very end. The base of each of these was very similar, lots of onions, garlic, celery, chicken broth, and butter. A few simple ingredients that pack a lovely flavour punch. The more you caramelize each ingredient, the more flavour your are going to get in a cup of soup!

Email me if you’d like one of these recipes in particular. I can talk you through it.

Kale is a hog when it comes to nutritional value. It likes to rack up the nutrition points. Its high in vitamin K, A, C, and a whole party of minerals. So what exactly are we dealing with here? We got a little bit of antioxidants, rounded out with some great anti-inflammatory effects, and a bit of anti-cancer power to boot.

But…. how do you eat it? I’m not sure if you’ve ever cooked or played with Kale before. It’s a cruciferous vegetable that can be used in almost anything!! Shakes, casseroles, salads, etc. My fav way to eat it? Kale CHIPS!!

Why not take something delicious and convert it into crunchy little chip form. You can buy Kale chips or you can sprinkle a little Martha on yourselves and do it yourself. It is super easy.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale
6 garlic cloves, minced
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
(additional spices)

To do a nice and simple batch of kale chips I start by washing the kale and laying it flat to dry on paper towel. Start ripping up the kale in bite sized pieces that you are happy with. I usually grab some parchment paper and line a 9 x 13 pan. You’re going to have to do the kale in batches. Food doesn’t like to be crowded, it gets too cranky and sweaty (just like the Alehouse). So in order to properly crisp that kale make sure you don’t overcrowd. The good thing about batches though is that you can do different flavors! After the kale is on the pan, I add the garlic, salt, and pepper. Toss and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. You should keep an eye on the kale. Some ovens are different and may take not as
long. You’ll know its done when you put it in your mouth and there is a crunch sound.

So other popular seasonings that I like are smoked paprika, curry, cayenne, and dill.

PS: Don’t burn the kale, it’s not the same effect as a burnt marshmellow :)

I seem to have developed a wee bit of an olive problem. Initially, I found olives were one of those acquired tastes that take awhile to get used to. I started being able to get the black olives down, then we migrated to manzanilla olives, and now we’re a big girl and eat just about any olive in town. Like, I’m talking sitting down with a bowl of olives. No shortage of omega 3′s here folks.

And I mean as far as potatoes are concerned, they really couldn’t have a better friend than Rosemary. My goodness that Rosemary, what a lady, bringing all of her scents and flavours to the party. This dish contains just a few ingredients but a whole whack of my favourite things. It really is one of my favourite roast potatoes. Plus the smell that wafts through your house? Yeah it brings all the boys to the yard.

Ingredients:

1 bag baby red potatoes

1/2 cup kalamata olives

4 garlic cloves, minced

fresh rosemary

half a lemon

olive oil

s&p

Wash and cut your baby potatoes in half. Spread them over a 9 x 13 baking sheet (I used my Pampered Chef stoneware pan, I swear they make the best potatoes!). Mince garlic directly over pan, squeeze the juice of the lemon, drizzle with olive oil, and season with s&p. Grab 5-7 rosemary springs (you really can never have too much) and add to the sheet. Bake at 400 degrees until crispy and tender (about 20-30 minutes).

In the meantime, smash your olives with the bottom of a glass. This is such an easier way to get the pits out and well, its fun. I usually add these to the pan during the last 10-15 minutes of roasting. I do this simply because I don’t want them to dry out.

Enjoy!