Grilled Herby Potatoes

Since it's been so long since I posted anything here is another recipe! This one is dedicated to a miss Chelsey Dixon, the most avid follower of this blog that I know of.

I'm going to start listing the ingredients with the best measurements I can come up with at the start of the recipe. Feel free to make substitutions/change amounts. I do it all the time.

2 regular sized potatoes
1 onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
3 springs oregano
3 springs thyme
Rosemary leaves equal to thyme/oregano
Butter, salt, and pepper to taste

There really isn't a whole lot to these potatoes. Slice the potatoes and onion, I usually make round or oval medallions for the potatoes and half moons for the onion. Spread these guys out on some tinfoil. Sprinkle with garlic, oregano, thyme, and rosemary. Lemon thyme also works well and you can add chives for extra greenness.

Add butter, salt, and pepper to taste then fold them up into a little packet and toss on the grill. Potatoes take forever on the grill, especially if you like them crispy. I'd leave them on for at least 30 minutes, flipping halfway.

It's like a crispy potatoey dream.

I have a neat little device for cutting up herbs...

To the untrained eye this may look like an ordinary pair of scissors. HOWEVER, turn them slightly...

Woah! It's like 5 pairs of scissors! In one pair of scissors! I used to have to go Edward Scissorhands on my herbs before I got these guys.

I actually prefer using a knife and a cutting board for large amounts of herbs though. If you aren't as skilled with a knife, or are afraid you'll cut your fingers off, these are a great way to chop herbs. They cut chives into equal pieces every time, a great garnish for any dish with onions (about 83.7%) or mashed potatoes. What couldn't use a few chives though really?

So that is how you make delicious Grilled Herby Potatoes. How here is a picture of some oil I spilled that looks like a duck.

Stuffed Peppers, Mediterranean Style

I told my friend that I would make a dish with Turkey in it for her. I’d like to dedicate this gem to Rizky Sulistyowati, hopefully you can get all the ingredients in Indonesia; otherwise you will just have to come back to Canada so I can make it for you.

I recently discovered a tasty little seed called quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). Quinoa is a most nutritious little seed. I particularly like it because it is packed with protein so it is a good meat substitute for all you crazy vegetarians/vegans out there. I like to add equal parts of quinoa to my rice. 

Since a lot of stuffed peppers use rice as a basis for the stuffing I figured this would be a great place to start.

It takes about 15 minutes to cook the quinoa, the same as most rice save brown/wild rice.  Overcooking the quinoa makes it really soft. I like it slightly undercooked so that it pops as you bite it. Do not be alarmed if you find what looks like little worms in your cooked quinoa. As you cook the seed pods they open up and the sprouts come out. It kind of reminds me of Popplers.

Not so much visually, but the thought of eating something that is about to hatch? Yes.

I’m sure you’ve had enough talk of quinoa though, so let’s get into the rest of the recipe!

3/4 cup Organic Red Quinoa

3/4 cup Rice (use whatever you want, I usually get the 8kg el cheapo bag)

3 Bell Peppers

1 onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 handful of ground turkey

1/2 cob of corn, minus the cob

1/2 tomato, diced

1-2 tbsp chopped oregano

250g feta

1-2 handfuls of spinach

As usual, you are going to want to start off by slicing some onions and let them sweat it out in a wok with a little olive oil on low heat. Add 2 cloves of crushed garlic and salt and pepper to taste. I should really make a post called step 1 and outline this process. Studies have shown that onions, garlic, salt and pepper are the basis to 83.7% of all recipes, but don’t quote me on that. Once this is looking tasty, probably about 7 minutes, move the onions to the edge of the wok and add the ground turkey. Once brown, add the following vegetables:

I don’t think corn would normally be found in a dish like this, but I had a few cobs in the fridge that I needed to eat.

While the vegetables cook clean out 3 peppers. I used a red, green and yellow pepper for contrasting colours. I found the red pepper tasted the best though. Pop these guys into the oven preheated to 350°F for about 7-10 minutes. By the time you need to stuff the peppers they should be ready to go.

Once the vegetables were warm, they don’t really require much cooking, I threw in a handful of spinach and the feta. I like the spinach to wilt just a bit so it doesn’t take up as much space in the pepper.

Grab the peppers, making sure they aren’t still hot, and stuff them as full as possible. At this point you can bake them in the oven or place them on the grill. I used my grill because my oven doesn’t work. I should probably dedicate a post to setting up a charcoal grill as I will be using it a lot this summer and probably well into the winter. Everything is pretty much cooked by now so you really don’t need to bake/grill the peppers for long. I left mine on the grill for about 15 minutes which was just right. In the oven these would probably take 15 minutes or so on 350 deg F.

These are delicious but fresh Tzatziki sauce makes them even better. The sauce is so easy I didn’t even bother to take pictures. You need:

5 tablespoons plain yogurt – the thicker the better

1 tbsp shredded cucumber

1 crushed garlic clove

1 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tbsp chopped chives

Mix everything together in a bowl and BAM delicious Tzatziki sauce!

So that's how you make delicious Stuffed Peppers AND Tzatziki. Now hear is a picture I made of a giant pepper destroying a city.

Hickory Smoked Mac & Cheese

So I've decided to start a blog, a food blog to be specific (probably pretty obvious from the title of the blog). I've been reading a lot of food blogs lately and decided I needed to get in the action. So without further adieu, I bring you Hickory Smoked Mac & Cheese, the first of many tasty creations.

I've been thinking a lot about Mac & Cheese lately. Far too much for any healthy human being. Finally, while in the grocery store yesterday I broke down and bought the necessary ingredients:

Onions

Butter

Mild Italian Sausage

Salt

Pepper

Garlic

Basil

Oregano

Chipotle Hot Sauce

Milk

Balderson Heritage Cheddar, Aged 3 Years

Tre Stelle DELUXE Mozzerella

Lumaconi Noodles

Panko Breadcrumbs

Hickory Wood Chips

You may notice that I did not include any measurements. I don't usually measure anything while cooking unless I'm baking. Also, you may notice there aren't actually and macaroni noodles in this mac & cheese. I opted for lumaconi which is basically a giant shell. I wanted to add some left over sausage bits so I thought they might like to nestle up in the lumaconi beds. I bet now you would probably like to see some pictures of this delicious casserole and maybe learn how to make make it. So lets do that now...

Dice an onion and toss it in a sauce pan with a nice hunk of butter, about 1cm thick.

When it looks and smells delicious add your sausage - I used 4 sausages from a weekend BBQ, garlic - 3 big cloves, basil and oregano - I would have preferred fresh but I haven't had time to get my herb garden from Halifax to Truro yet, salt and pepper to taste - less salt as there is lots in the sausages. Save some sausage bits for later.

Throw in a splash (or eight) of Chipotle Hot Sauce - I used some stuff my Mom got me in Mexico but Super Store has some stuff that is pretty good. The shark sticker is a message to my room mates warning them to not use this hot sauce under any circumstances.

Next you are going to want to add some milk - about 2-3 cups depending on how many noodles you are cooking. Oh, I should mention, you should be boiling the noodles by now. After the milk is nice and warm add the shredded cheeses. I used about 200 grams of each. Depends on how cheesey you want it. The Balderson is pretty strong, but the Mozzarella calms it down a bit. Save some cheese and sausage bits for later.

Let this simmer for a bit while the noodles finish cooking. It should look like this:

Then drain the noodles. I like to wash them a bit too to get the starch off. Add the sauce and try not to eat it all. It's pretty good now but the smoke flavor really kicks it up a notch.

Remember those extra sausage bits and cheese scraps? Mix those in a bowl with hardy pile of bread crumbs or cracker crumbs or some combination. As long as it is crunchy. I used panko bread crumbs since that's what I had in the cupboard.

Ever so gently scoop the noodles and cheese into some kind of fire proof vessel. I used Dollarama foil pans for easy clean up. Fire and cheese do not make for an easy clean up job. Cover the casserole with the cheese, sausage, crumb mix and fire it onto the grill.

Hmm... The grill... I should probably talk about that since it is pretty important... To get a nice smoke flavor you are going to want to use a charcoal BBQ and some hickory wood chips. I like to throw the dry chips right on the hot coals and let them ignite.

Looks good, throw the casserole on and close the lid. This picture is pretty bad. I tried to doctor it up with some photo magic but it was useless. I hope to bet a better camera than my cell phone soon. Maybe for my birthday... *hint hint*

Now put the lid on leaving only the bottom vents open. This smothers the fire and fills the grill with smoke.

After 15 minutes or so I opened the lid a bit to let some oxygen in. This allows the coals to burn better. I was really surprised how toasty the top became. I thought I would have to broil it a bit but it turned out great.

The above photo really doesn't do this dish justice. The topping was really smokey and the innards were gooey with cheesy goodness. I ate a whole casserole for dinner. I'll definitely have to make this again.

I hope you enjoyed this first creation. I can't be sure when I the next idea will come out, but it will be soon as these guys aren't going to last long. So that's how you make delicious Mac & Cheese. Now here is a picture I drew of a cheese with a mustache.