Dance Mixes & Avocado Pie

On St. Patrick's day my husband and I were on day 2 of withdrawal from our trip to Jamaica and decided that we needed food, company and lots of drinks asap.  We invited some peeps over for green beer and pizza and to celebrate St. Patty's day in style and spent the evening laughing, drinking and listening to old school dance mix CD's, circa 1993-1999.  Our fav of the night - dancemix '93. Oh, the memories! When did I get so old? I digress....story of my life!

My lovely lady friends brought some very yummy treats for dessert, including chocolate chip cookies, Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's icing, and avocado pie!  I'm drooling just thinking about them.  The avocado pie is something that I was absolutely blown away by.  My friend got the recipe from a blog called 'How About Orange' which is definitely worth checking out.  Here is the recipe.  Hope you like it as much as we did! Thanks JC :)

Ingredients
2 peeled avocados
½ cup fresh lemon juice
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
9" graham cracker crust
whipped cream (I had it without this and it was great!)

Method
In a blender put the peeled avocado and ½ cup lemon juice. Pulse a couple of times. Add condensed milk and blend till creamy. Pour into the pie shell and refrigerate for 1 hour. Add whipped cream when serving.

Potato Wedges on the BBQ

I wanted to serve potato wedges with the jerk chicken and came up with this is super duper easy recipe. This would be great with burgs and dogs in the summer.

Yields: 2 servings
Ingredients
2 large potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons taco seasoning

Method
Cut potatoes into wedges.  Throw into a bowl and coat with olive oil.  Coat with taco seasoning.  Wrap wedges in tin foil and put on the BBQ over medium heat for 40 minutes, rotating once.

Enjoy!

Dry Jerk Rub & Jamacian BBQ Sauce

I told you here that I would write about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it came to my cooking so here it is. I had very high hopes that my jerk chicken meal was going to be amazing but I ended up burning the shit out of the chicken.  Although the skin/rub of the chicken was charred the chicken was very yummy once the skin was peeled off. It might have been because of the Jamaican BBQ sauce I made to go with it.  In Jamaican the jerk chicken was served with a ridiculously delicious BBQ sauce; the best I've ever had (that's what she said).  My mission is to find this recipe.  I will keep you posted with my progress ... because you care, right?! Humour me...

Dry Rub Ingredients (Yields about 1/2 cup of rub)
1 1/2 tablespoons allspice

6 tablespoons salt

5 tablespoons garlic powder

4 tablespoons white sugar

1 tablespoons chili powder

1/2 tablespoon ground cloves

2 tablespoons dried thyme

2 tablespoons ground black pepper

4 tablespoons cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Method

Mix all ingredients together in a airtight container. Use about 1 tablespoon for two chicken breasts. Rub the mixture all over entire chicken breasts. I used skin on, bone in which was a great choice because the skin ended up keeping the chicken very moist despite the outside being burnt to a crisp.   Cook over medium heat on the BBQ for 40 minutes (or until juices run clear), turning once every 5 minutes so they don't burn like mine did.

Jamaican BBQ Sauce Ingredients (Yields 2 cups)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 onion, chopped

2 green onions, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped jalapeno pepper

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup molasses

1 tablespoon lemon juice concentrate

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (if you don't have this, no big deal!)

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Method
In a pot over medium heat warm olive oil and saute onion and jalapenos for 5 minutes. Add everything else and simmer for 10 additional minutes. Throw leftovers in the fridge.

Salted Water

This week my Nutrition students made pasta with homemade fresh tomato sauce.  I get such satisfaction from watching teenagers in the kitchen having so much fun while working with food.  Can you believe that some of them had never boiled water before?! Crazy!  I cannot wait to have little kiddies running around my house so I can get them in an apron.  Cooking with kids can be so much fun.  I digress...

Back to the boiling water.  A lot of student asked "where is the salt?", to which I responded "This is a low sodium recipe, no salt needed".  A few students were confused because they were taught at home to cook pasta in salted water.  This is not something I do in my own kitchen at home and told them it wasn't necessary.  I spent the rest of the day wondering if I had missing a step all these years when I cooked pasta.  I spent some time doing some reading and have found that there aren't any benefits of adding salt. This is what I dug up

 Myths about salting your pasta water

• It makes pasta less sticky
• Enhances the flavour of the pasta
• Makes the water boil faster
• Makes the water hotter

Facts about salting your pasta water

• costs you more money to add salt
• Increases sodium in your food
• an extra step

There you have it folks, breaking news. Quick, call all of your friends...

Individual Portions

This morning my husband and I had a great visit with a very dear friend.  Great company, coffee, laughs and doughnuts from Spicer's - can't get much better (ok, ok, maybe if we were visiting on the beach in Jamaica it would make it a teeny bit better!).  My lovely lady friend has been feeling under-the-weather so I wanted to bring her some grub to toss in her freezer.  I opted for homemade carrot soup found here.  I wanted to make it easy to warm up so I froze it in individual portions.  Someone please tell me why I have never considered doing this before!!  I'm always making large batches of soups, chili's and stews so that I can toss some in the freezer and always end up freezing in a large container. No more of that.  Here is the simple process;

1. Cook the goods
2. Pour into cereal bowls
3. Place bowls in freezer over night
4. Fill sink with 2 inches of hot water and place bowls in for 1 minute
5. Flip bowl over and the goods will pop out (might need a little help by sliding a knife down the edge)
6.  Place into freezer bags & label with a sharpie
7. Toss back in the freezer

ps: am I the only one who likes to take a whiff of the sharpie when I use it?....

Tin Foil Chicken on the BBQ

Western Ontario is currently experiencing ah-maaaaazing weather! When I rolled in from work with the sunroof open, windows down and my tunes cranked (Jay-Z; I'm gangsta like that), I decided that I would be ridiculous not to BBQ something for dinner.  I had 4 chicken thighs in the fridge so I decided on a tin foil package dinner.  Super-duper easy and hardly any dishes. Cha-ching!




Ingredients
4 chicken thighs (bone in, skin on)
2 medium potatoes, skin on, cubed (I used peeled sweet potato in my foil package)
1 carrot, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 yellow pepper, chopped
A few mushrooms
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
sprinkle of your fav herbs/spices (I used paprika, rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano and garlic powder)

Method
Throw everything in a bowl and mix until coated. Separate everything into two servings.  Wrap each serving in tin foil and chuck onto the BBQ over medium/high heat (350ish degrees) for 40 minutes or until chicken juices run clear.  Rotate once half way through.

Ya Mon! Jerk Chicken

My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few weeks.  I was working ahead on a course I'm taking and finishing reportcards off at school so that my husband and I could escape to Jamaica over March Break.  It was 4 days of eating, drinking, sunning and relaxing.  I hadn't really be exposed to Jamaican food before this trip and figured out that it is mighty yummy.  While sitting on the beach, my husband and I feasted on jerk chicken and sausage (that's what she said).  I will attempt to recreate this deliciousness over the next week or so.  Be sure to check back!

Caprese Kabobs

This weekend my husband and I travelled to Toronto for a very special celebration.  A close friend of mine and the man of her dreams are getting hitched this summer.  We celebrated their engagement in style at a beautiful gathering of friends and family on Saturday afternoon.  The company was lovely and the abundance of food was delicious.  Since we were traveling about 2 hours to attend we had to be fairly selective as to what appetizer we were going to bring.  The expected guest list was about 50 people so we wanted to make 50 of something that could be transported easily and didn't require any cooking once we arrived.  I decided on caprese kabobs and was very happy I did.  The prep was about 15 minutes and there was pretty much zero clean up! They looked pretty too! I will certainly make these again and again! Below is a recipe for 25 kabobs.

Sidenote: Bocchini is a very mild cheese that takes on the flavour of basically anything. Most people think they don't like this cheese because it doesn't have a flavour.  Make sure you season this cheese in some way before serving or it ends up being a waste of money (and calories!).

Ingredients
1 container of cherry tomatoes
1 package of fresh basil
1 container of cocktail sized bocchini cheese, drained (I grabbed PC brand for $4.99 a container)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
sprinkle of dried basil
salt and pepper
25 mini skewers (I cut large ones in half)

Method
Drain brine from cheese.  In the cheese container add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dried basil, salt and pepper. Coat cheese in mixture.  Let cheese marinade for at least 1 hour (I did it over night). The longer it marinades the more flavour it will pick up.  On each kabob add one cherry tomato, one small basil leaf and 1 piece of cheese.  Repeat until everything is used up.  Save leftover marinade to drizzle over the top once you serve. Serve at room temperature to optimize flavour of the cheese.

Congratulations B & A!