A variety

This one doesn't have pictures. (sorry) It should but it doesn't ... I was too busy cooking and then quite a bit of eating took place. So here are a few of my latest creations.

Rosemary herb flatbread. I took a basic dough recipe ... flour, water, yeast and some oil I think. I added some ground rosemary (using my mortar and pestle - which, as a pharmacist, is always handy) and some random herbs from the cupboard. Then it rose in a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Then I stretched it out by hand onto my preheated pizza stone. I let it sit there for a while to rise a bit, then brushed it with milk for a crispy glazed top. Then I baked it until crispy and just barely browned. Some leftover pasta sauce served as a wonderful dipping sauce. A perfect alternative to the usual array of late night snacking food.

Then I had a friend over who is doing some diet where you cut all the carbs out. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me! Alas, I said I'd make dinner for her. So I opted for a veggie beef stirfry minus the noodles/rice. I used my handy Tupperware(R) mini-chopper for all the veggies -- it really cuts down on the prep-time. After stirfrying, I added an oyster sauce-sesame oil-soy sauce-honey mixture to it all. I managed to scrape together a few morsels for lunch the next day.

Lastly, I got up early to make muffins this morning. I took my standard banana chocolate chip bread recipe and made muffins instead. Flour, baking soda and powder, salt, butter, eggs, sugar, chocolate chips and banana. I find it much easier to used previously frozen bananas and simply slice them open. Already all squished up - no mashing required. When I arrived, I discovered someone else decided to bring muffins as well. I am proud to say that, despite a plethora of muffins, my tray was completely gone! Hooray for that.

Garlic Dill Sweet Potatoes

I was pretty hungry on the drive home from work. I spent pretty much the whole 45 min or so dreaming up what I could make for dinner, and this idea dawned on me. I'm sure it's been done before, but that doesn't make it any less tasty.


I started by throwing a slab of butter into a pot. Real butter, none of this margerine bullcrap. (Hydrogenated = bad).


I added some garlic salt and dill to the melting butter.


Once everything was melted and all mixed up, I added it to a dish of blurry sweet potatoes and baked the whole thing in the oven for about 40 min. (It took about twice as long as I thought it would). In hindsight, I think my slab of butter may have been a bit too big as there was a lot left in the dish after I took the potatoes out. Oh well.


Baking the sweet potatoes caused them to become slightly less blurry. They also absorbed the flavor from the garlic and dill, and became melt-in-your-mouth soft from the butter. They actually turned out a lot better than I expected. I thought I made enough for leftovers, but I ended up eating them all. Soo full right now.

Apple Sauce

When I was a kid my grandmother always used to make homemade apple sauce. When I was in Toronto last week, I asked her how to make it. Turns out it's super easy.


First you take your apples. I used granny smith, because everyone knows they are the best kind of apples.


I peeled the apples, chopped them up and threw them in a pot with some water. You don't need a lot of water, if you use too much the sauce will end up being super runny. You can add some sugar too if you want (white or brown). I chose not to because I figure there's enough sugar in everything else these days.


From there all you do is bring the whole thing to a boil and stir it occasionally until the apples turn to mush.


And at the end of it all you have some apple sauce! A tasty treat! I'd make some pork chops to go with if it was only about 40 degrees warmer outside. Winter sucks for the bbq. :(

A Hard-Boiled Secret

I have discovered the secret to making the perfect hard boiled egg. (Pay attention Jilly)


You start with your eggs.


Instead of adding the eggs to an already boiling pot, start with room temperature water.


Bring the pot the boil. Once it boils, remove the pot from heat, but leave the eggs in the water until it cools back down to around room temperature


And enjoy your eggs! Look at that, not even a hint a grey around those yolks. Perfect! Oh yeah!

Baileys + ? = yum

Went to Rob's place to hang out with him and Vince. It was a snowy evening so I felt like drinking something cozy--Baileys! Caramel Baileys to be precise. You can drink Baileys with coffee or hot chocolate, you can drink Bailey's straight on ice. You can drink it in a house with a mouse, on a train with a dame... As I sat there in Rob's big comfy leather chair with my Bailey's on ice I thought to myself, "hmm, this is good. This makes me think of a Paralyzer--Kahlua, vodka, milk, and Coke. What if you mixed Baileys with Coke? No need for milk cuz Baileys is already creamy." This is what happens when you mix Baileys and Coke.






Begin by pouring some random amount of Baileys over ice.




















Next, add some random amount of Coke (we're not supposed to measure for this blog, right?)
















Hmmm....













Yeah, the results are not pretty. It reminded me of a demonstration of how yeast works. It tasted okay (I would have added milk but I didn't see any in Rob's fridge and I didn't want to continue experimenting by adding eggnog as a substitute). The lesson learned here was, you cannot always improve upon something that tastes good already on its own.

Food Songs

Food songs, or songs that have food in them. Please expand!

Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson
The Beer Song - They Might Be Giants
Do the Funky Chicken - Rufus Thomas
Eat It - Weird Al
Green Onions - Booker T. & The MGs
Lemon Tree - Peter, Paul & Mary
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off - Louis Armstrong
No Sugar Tonight - The Guess Who
Saturday Night Fish Fry - Louis Jordan
That's Amore - Frank Sinatra

Sweet Potato Pancakes

I was a little bored today, so I decided to cook. I decided to attempt to make some sweet potato pancakes. For fun, I did this completely by the seat of my pants, no recipe was involved whatsoever. I only had a theory, which I hoped would result in something edible.


First step: I baked a sweet potato in the oven for a bit to soften it up, then I mashed it up on the breadboard with some flour.


For step two I added some brown sugar and an egg. (In retrospect, I may have used too much brown sugar.. ah well live and learn :P).


Next I mixed it all together into a big ball of dough. I had to add a bit more flour halfway through because it got all super sticky. This was actually the funnest part because afterwards I had all this orange sweet potato goo all over my hands. It was just like playdough, only tastier.


After I had the dough ready, I flattened it out (which was tricky because I don't have one of those dough rolling contraptions), cut it into pieces, and fried them up in some vegetable oil.


And voila! The finished product. Pretty simple "recipe" I guess. They didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned, but considering I was making it up as I went it's a miracle they were edible at all.