Not Your Grandmother's Bean Salad

Truth be told, I'm heading to a Toronto Raptors game tonight. So I thought, what's a nice delicious appetizer that's quick to make, and that'll hold me over until I'm ready for greasy stadium food. The answer was apparently Green Bean Salad with a mustard dressing.

Let's start basketball. I mean cooking. My mind is clearly elsewhere. 

Toast up some sliced almonds in a pan. They'll lend a nice flavour to the dish.

Take some beans, cut the heads and the tails off of them. This is a solo-salad, so I just used a handful. Get rid of any little ugly stupid beans that don't meet your standards. 

Boil some water and throw in your beans. Boil the beans for about a minute and thirty seconds to two minutes. Just long enough so they aren't raw anymore, but they still have a nice crunch to them. Then run them under some cold water to refresh them.

Then put the beans in a bowl and throw in the almonds. Then in a tiny bowl I mix up some of the garlic after I mash it, Add in some Dijon mustard and honey. It looks a whole lot like a baby's food. Might as well mix it with a baby's spoon! 

Then boom, dish it up and eat it up. Oh no it's terrible! Just kidding, it's great.

Good news! I'm going to double down this week! Come back tomorrow for another post!

I'm Apes For Crepes

Valentine’s Day tomorrow. So in the spirit, I thought I’d make a sweet dessert, perfect for after your romantic (or lonely) dinner.

I love crepes, and I've never actually made them before. So let’s do it. The dish this week is Crepes Suzette.

Start with the crepes themselves. Mix up all the ingredients in a bowl like flour, butter, eggs and milk. That's your batter. 

Pour that into the pan. First time around the pan was too hot and burnt the batter, so I had failed before I even began. 1-0 Crepes. Second time around went better though, and I spread the batter out to be a thin layer over the whole pan. Flip it when it starts to brown, and when the other side is done, you have a crepe. Or as your more uncultured friends may call it, 'a thin pancake?'

I set the crepes aside. I throw some sugar into the pan to start caramelizing it. Add in some Grand Marnier, courtesy of Mom's limited liquor collection. The standard procedure for adding alcohol in a recipe is: one for the recipe, then one for me.

Naturally I added a bit too much alcohol, but it just needed a little more sugar to even that out.

Cut up some oranges, then pour the syrup over the oranges.

Finally, roll up the crepes and pour the oranges over top. Done! Take that Crepes Suzette.

Also, thanks to all those who applied for the clean up/eating the food after job. I'll consider all applicants. Maybe we could set up a guest blog one time. Keep 'em coming. Cheers.

I'll Stir, You Fry

First post, so I thought I'd stick with something relatively simple. A traditional chicken and vegetable stir-fry, with ricotta stuffed zucchini rolls for an app.

Right off the bat the zucchini rolls give me some real trouble, which was not a warm welcome to my blogging career. Too thick, too thin. I basically wasted a whole zucchini trying to get it right. But by zucchini number two, I got enough sufficient strips to make a few rolls. I lay the strips in some oil and balsamic vinegar, spoon some ricotta cheese into them and roll them up. Done.

Now the recipe for the stir-fry calls for oyster sauce. Not being a big fan of seafood, oyster sauce doesn't really sound like it'd be up my alley. Like, what's in this stuff? Is there actually oysters in it? Hmm, "oyster extract" they say.. But hey, Gordon Ramsay uses it, and I don' think that he would lead me astray.

Cut up all my vegetables. Change cutting boards a few times for no reason at all.

Next I throw them all into the pan, which was supposed to be a wok. I don't have a wok and figured it wouldn't really matter. I was wrong. Many vegetables were lost over the side that day. After the veggies I throw in my chicken. A ton of it, because I love chicken. Then some egg noodles. Mix it all up and add in some soy sauce and that darn oyster sauce.

Plate up both dishes and they're ready to eat! And they look not too bad.

Now Hiring! Somebody to come and clean up my kitchen after I cook. Will pay you in whatever food I just made. Position has just opened up as mom and dad have quit.

So that was a few hours of my life well spent. Definitely worth it as the finished dishes were delicious. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. If technology hasn't failed by next week, come back again for a new dish.