S'mores Cookies

S'mores Cookies

A great twist to a classic cookie, by combining it with the flavours of a classic camping treat.

ingredients:

2.5 cups flour

11 tbsp butter

1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs

1 cup mini marshmallows
1/2 cup chocolate chunks
crushed graham crackers

1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 salt

directions:

1. In a bowl mix your dry ingredients together: flour, salt, baking soda, and set aside. In another bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter with brown sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, and vanilla and mix until combined.

2. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and combine on low speed.

3. Once everything is mixed together, roll dough into balls. About the size of little meatballs.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. And place balls of the cookies dough out on a tray. About 1-2 inches apart depending on how big your balls are.

5. Cook for 5 minutes, and remove from oven. Then press marshmallows and chocolate chunks into the top of the cookies. Then bake for another 5-7 minutes.

Tacos Al Pastor with Homemade Small Tortillas

Tacos Al Pastor with Homemade Small Tortillas

So I was watching the Sandwich King show one day, and Jeff Mauro made some tacos al pastor, which I believe is one or the most popular tacos in Mexico. Pork and pineapple, how could you go wrong? I also made the corn tortillas at home which were fairly easy. I wanted to have tiny ones, and you just can't buy those in the store from what I've seen. I also didn't have a tortilla press, so I was pressing balls of dough with a plate.

ingredients:

pork - any cheap cut of pork will do, as you'll be cutting it up into smaller pieces
pineapple (or pineapple juice)
red onion
chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (or cayenne)

cumin
garlic
salt
lime
cilantro

masa flour
water
salt

directions:

1. If you are going to make your own tortillas, you'll want to make them ahead of time. The number of ingredients really isn't a lot, and they aren't too complicated to make. Though maybe hard to master, and make them perfect. If you have a tortilla press, great! If not, like me, just press them with a plate.

2. On the back of your masa flour (corn flour) there are probably directions. Basically combine masa flour with water and salt. Then form them into little balls. Press them with a plate wrapped in saran wrap so that they won't stick. While you are working, you might want to cover the tortillas or dough with a wet paper towel to keep them from drying out.

3. In a frying pan, or cast iron pan, cook the tortillas. About 1-2 minutes each side. They will bubble and turn brown a little bit. That's when you know they are done.

4. To make the pork. Cut your pork into small pieces. If you can, marinate the pork overnight for optimal flavour. While your pork is marinating, you can dice up some red onions, and chop some cilantro to top on your tacos.

5. Grilled or fry some sliced pineapple, or use pine apple juice. Put it in a food processor with some chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (or use cayenne pepper if you don't have any), garlic, cumin, salt and blend. Mix the sauce with the pork, and put in a freezer bag to marinate. Set some pineapple aside if possible, and cube it to top on your tacos.

6. Pull out freezer bag, and in a cast iron pan or frying pan. Cook the pork in some oil. Turn and flip it around to make sure all sides get cooked.

7. When the pork is cooked. Spoon over your tortillas, and add some cubed grilled pineapple, diced red onions, and chopped cilantro. Put some limes on the side that you can squeeze on before eating.

Crab Cakes and Arugula, Pear and Bacon Salad

Crab Cakes and Arugula, Pear and Bacon Salad

I always thought you needed expensive fancy fresh crab meat to make crab cakes. But you can really make them with the canned crab you can find in the store. Maybe they would be better if they were all fresh and fancy, but you are gonna break it all up anyways. So I don't think it's a big deal.

ingredients:

1 can of crab meat, or lump crab however you can find it
1 egg
1/2 red pepper

1 tbsp flour

salt
ground pepper

1/4 onion (optional)

arugula
bacon
pear
olive oil
white wine vinegar
salt
pepper

directions:

1. Take your crab meat out of the can, and place it in a mix bowl. Break it up with a fork so it isn't in chunks, but nice and flaky. Then add one egg (white and yolk) into the bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix contents of the bowl together.

2. On a cutting board, finely dice red pepper and some onion (though the onion would be optional). Then add these to your bowl of crab. Instead of using bread crumbs to help bind our crab cakes, say like a burger, add a tbsp spoon or soon of flour. Add enough so that the mixture isn't soggy and wet.

3. Form crab mixture into balls that will be flattened into patty size. About the size of a kiwi, or maybe a little bigger. In a frying pan, heat some oil or butter on medium heat, and place your crab balls in pan. After places a ball into a pan, flatten it down a little with a spatula.

4. Cook crab cakes on both sides until you get a brown crust on both sides. To should help to ensure that the crab cake is cooked through.

5. For a side salad, mix some arugula with cut up pear, fried bacon, and an oil and vinegar dressing. You could even add some shavings of parmigiano-reggiano. Either way, arugula is a good accompaniment to the crab cakes.

Chili Cheese Dog

Chili Cheese Dog

This is the perfect game day food! Forget the nachos, chili dogs are where it is at. What's great about them is you can make the chili ahead of time and just warm it up later. You can obviously use whatever hot dog you want, but I find the all beef juicy jumbos have the most snap to them. I just love the texture and the flavour!

ingredients

schnieders all beef juicy jumbo hot dogs
hot dog buns
cheddar cheese
red onion
ground beef
onion
garlic
tomato paste
cayenne
cumin
pepper
salt

directions

1. Make chili ahead of time by frying onions in a big pot. Add ground beef to onions and season with cayenne, cumin, pepper and salt. Sear meat so it is brown and the fat has cooked out into the pot. Add tomato paste and/or canned tomatoes and simmer for 1-2 hours.

2. Dice some red onions. Shred some cheddar cheese. Warm up your chili.

3. Grill up some hot dogs and put them on your favourite hot dog bun. Then later chili, cheese and onions on top in that order.

Kale Walnut Pesto with Watermelon, Feta, Mint Salad

Kale Walnut Pesto with Watermelon, Feta, Mint Salad

ingredients

bowtie pasta (or your pasta of choice)
bunch of kale
1/3 cup walnuts
1 lemon (juice and zest)
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup parmigiano-reggiano
salt to taste
pepper to taste

watermelon
mint
feta

directions

1. Cook or steam chopped kale slightly for 30-60 seconds just so its tender

2. Combined kale, garlic, walnuts, parmigiano-reggiano cheese, lemon zest in a food processor

3. Blend ingredients while adding olive oil, or just add the full amount and blend

4. Store in jar, or freeze in ice cube trays to make pesto cubes for later use

Tuscan Bread Salad

Tuscan Bread Salad

Bread? As a salad? Yes Yes and Yes! Who doesn't love croutons? Why not just skip over the whole green leafy part for a change and make the croutons the star of the show.

ingredients

baguette or crusty french or italian bread
grape or cherry tomatoes (or any kind of fresh tomato)
cucumbers
red onion
green onion
salt
pepper
garlic powder

dressing: olive oil, white wine vinegar or balasmic, salt, pepper, dijon mustard

directions

1. Slice bread into good size cubes, which will be the big juicy croutons of the salad.

2. Chop cucumber, tomato, red onion into bite size pieces to be mixed with bread.

3. Heat some oil in a pan, and once its hot, toast your bread cubes in it. Toss around the cubes to make sure they don't get burnt and that each side gets slightly brown.

4. While the croutons are still warm. Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
5. Mix bread with diced up vegetables.

6. Add in your salad dressing made from oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, dijon mustard. Or whatever salad dressing you want but preferably oil and vinegar.

Blueberry and Lemon Bread Pudding

Blueberry and Lemon Bread Pudding

I was gifted some ramekins for my birthday, so then I was able to make some individual sized bread puddings like how I always dreamed. I had some old hot dog buns from a camping trip I used, which surprisingly worked great, but you can use any bread product. The lemon zest complimented with the blueberries is what really makes it special.

ingredients:

old bread or hot dog buns
1 pint blueberries
2 eggs
2 cup almond milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp lemon zest

directions:

1. Cut bread or left over buns into chunks. About 1-2 inches wide. And then set aside.

2. Add 2 eggs, 2 cups of almond milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons lemon zest, 1 cup sugar, and mix.

3. Fold in your blueberries, and your bread pieces until the bread is completely wet and is soaking up the mixture. Let the bread soak for 30 minutes.

4. Fill mixture into greased ramekins, and put in the oven at 350 F derees for 30 minutes, or until it feels firm in the centre.

Kung Pao Chicken Pizza

Kung Pao Chicken Pizza

This pizza is at least a little out of the ordinary from the typical fare you can get at pizza places. This photo I took won a Food Network Cooking Club Challenge for a month based on this pizza that was on an episode of You Gotta Eat Here.

ingredients:

dough
chicken
red pepper
pineapple
mozzarella cheese
red onion
green onion
tomato sauce

directions:

pizza dough:

1. Fill a mixing bowl with 1-1 and 1/4 cups of warm water in a bowl.

2. Add 1 tbsp of active dry yeast. Add 1 tbsp of brown sugar, or white sugar if you feel the yeast is old. It will help activate the yeast and give it something to "eat". Let stand for about 10 minutes until white frothy bubbles are on top. Add in 1 tbsp of oil (though probably optional) and 1/2-1 tsp of salt.

3. Mix in 3 cups of flour. You can add more flour if its too sticky. Kneed dough on a flat surface covered with flour. Add more flour to the surface as needed. Maybe kneed for at least 10-15 minutes. Until the dough no longer sticks together on your hand.

4. Form the dough into a ball and coat with olive oil. Put in a covered container in a warm place. Warm is key. I sometimes run the oven for a little while, and then turn the oven off and put it in a pot. Let it sit for at least one hour. Two hours works too. The Longer the better. The dough should double in size.

5. Punch the dough, and cut in half. This pizza recipe will make two pizzas.

6. Oil a pizza pan with butter or margarine. And dust it with cornmeal. The cornmeal will adhere to the grease. And then spread out the dough on the pan.

7. Layer pizza sauce (or you could take tomato paste, add some water, salt, herbs if you want). Top with mozzarella cheese. Then add diced red pepper, red onion, pineapple, and the kung pao chicken (recipe bellow)

8. Cook pizza in the oven at 400 F for 20-30 minutes. Whenever the pizza starts to get that golden brown colour.

kung pao chicken:

Take any cut of deboned chicken and marinate in something spicy (cayenne, or sriracha sauce), soy sauce, garlic, white wine or rice vinegar. About 1 tbsp each. After marinating cook chicken in a frying pan. You can add cornstarch to the sauce to think it a little and help it adhere to the chicken.

Lobster Flatbread

Lobster Flatbread

ingredients

1 lobster tail
handful of basil
1/2 red pepper
a pile of shredded mozzarella cheese
parmigiano-reggiano cheese
olive oil
salt
pepper
flatbreads (store bought) or you could make your own dough

directions

1. If your lobster tail isn't cooked, cook it, and then chop it into bit size pieces that would be appropriate on a pizza.

2. Dice some red pepper and basil to also put on the pizza.

3. Take your store bought flatbreads (which are quite the convenience) and drizzle them with olive oil, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.

2. Top flatbread with shredded mozzarella cheese. Then your chopped lobster, red pepper, and basil. Sprinkle with parmigiano-reggiano cheese if you have it.

5. Put in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Chickpea Sweet Potato Cauliflower Kale Curry on Cauliflower Rice

Chickpea Sweet Potato Cauliflower Kale Curry on Cauliflower Rice

This coconut curry was delicious! It was the first time I added sweet potato to a curry and I think it turned out very well. By getting some of the sweetness from the onion and sweet potato, I found I had to add less sugar to the curry itself (as I like mine a little sweet pared with the coconut). The cauliflower rice was an idea I got from Jamie Oliver.

ingredients

1 can chickpeas
1 can coconut milk
1 onion
1 sweet potato
1/4-1/3 cauliflower
A handful of kale
1 tbsp of curry powder of paste
1 tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 turmeric (mostly for colour)
1/2 coriander
1/2 brown sugar
1-2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp salt

directions

1. Start by prepping all your ingredients by chopping the sweet potato into chunks, dicing the onion, slicing the kale into thing strips, and opening your cans of chickpeas and coconut.

2. Begin cooking by frying your onions in some kind of flavourless oil until they are translucent. You can then add in your spices and garlic. Cook them for a 1-2 minutes to reinvigorate them.

3. Toss in your sweet potato, chickpeas and cauliflower as they will take longer to cook than the kale. Then add in your coconut milk (including most of the liquid if you want it a little soupy, if not try to use most of just the creamy parts) and any spices you haven't already added.

4. At this point things will need to cook for a while. Maybe 10-15 minutes. But this is the most important part because you need to taste the sauce of your curry. You want to find a nice balance. It needs enough salt, sweetness, and heat to really work.

5. After the sauce is tasting good and it has cooked down a bit and your vegetables are cooked through. Add in your kale. This should cook through in a few minutes.

6. Serve with rice or quinoa. Or you can blend some cauliflower in a food process until its the shape of rice. Steam it. And perhaps lightly salt it with a fine salt.