Bison Burger

This summer when you're firing up the barbie for some burgers, try using something other than beef! We tried using bison! It was tasty but be sure to get as lean as you can, it was greasy! Something else thats easy to spice up any burger is to add flavor to your mayo. For the Bison burger, Dwayne added hot sauce and chili powder! You can add anything from sun dried tomatoes to pickles!

Stuffed Peppers

I've been experimenting a lot with using ground veggie round instead of beef and I have yet to find a recipe that it doesn't work with.

This is a really good meal and pretty easy too!

Stuffed Peppers

med red peppers, tops cut off and cleaned

1 pk ground veggie round

1 med onion

4-5 mushrooms

3 cloves garlic

1 pk pre-cooked rice (can use any kind)

1/2 cup diced tomatoes

1/4 cup shredded cheese

In a frying pan put chopped onion, garlic, mushroom and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add veggie round and diced tomatoes and rice. Season to taste. I used flavoured rice so I just added some chili powder and s and p. Cook for another 10 minutes and let simmer.

Once fully cooked, fill peppers and top with shredded cheese. Bake in oven for about 30 minutes on 350 degrees.

Inside the mind of a Cakeball

"I'm tasty."

Won Ton Soup

Won Ton Soup is delicious when made with homemade won tons! Luckily Dwayne makes the best wontons! We have tried them with tofu, pork, and chicken and my personal favorite is the plain old pork. So here it is!

Won Ton Soup

For the won tons:

(this will make a ton of won tons, you can freeze what you don't use)

Won Ton Wrappers

6 Green Onions

2 Eggs

5 cloves Garlic

Chunk of Ginger

2 tbsp Hoisin

1 tbsp Sesame Oil

3 tbsp Soya Sauce

2 lbs ground pork

Mix all the ingredients together (except for the wrappers)

Prepare the wrappers with a little bowl of water on the side. Place about a tbsp of filling in the middle of a wrapper and experiment with closing them! Use the water as glue, but don't use too much! Once they are all wrapped, they can be added to the prepared soup and will cook in the broth. Any unused won tons can be frozen and saved for another rainy day!

For the soup

2 baby bok choy

Won Ton Soup Stock

Enjoy!

Butter Pecan Cake with Penuche Icing and Candied Pecans

I made a birthday cake for my Mom and I wanted to make an icing that wasn't so boring, and went well with a butter pecan cake and I stumbled upon a VERY tasty icing that was absolutely perfect for my Mom.

Penuche Icing

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar firmly packed

1/4 cup milk

1 3/4 cup icing sugar

In a saucepan, melt the butter and add brown sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for about 2 minutes. Whisk constantly and add milk slowly, boil for another minute or so. Take off heat and let it come down to room temp/ don't put in fridge.

When it's cool, whip in icing sugar until it reaches your desired consistency. Can add more or less icing sugar.

Ice, and enjoy!

Perogie Pita Pizza

Pita Pizza's are a great way for everyone to have pizza just exactly how they like it. 

This is how I like it.

Perogie Pizza

Pita Bread

Sour Cream

Bacon

Shredded Hasbrowns

Mozzarella Cheese

Onion

Mushroom

Using sour cream as a base for the pizza, then top with (de-frosted) shredded hashbrowns, onion, mushroom, cooked bacon bits and grated mozzarella. Cook until golden. 

Sunomono Salad

One of my favorite things is going for japanese food and one of my favorite menu items is Sunomono Salad! It's vinegary, a little sweet and really delicious! 

This recipe is only my version but it can be made in so many different ways, and its all to taste. 

Sunomono Salad

Vermicelli Noodles

Thinly sliced Cucumber

Carrots slices

Vinegar

Soya Sauce

pinch of Sugar

Optional:

Sake

Wakame Seaweed

Seafood

Lemon Slices

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

These salad rolls are so good! You can put anything you want in them, I mostly make veggie and avocado rolls but you can add chicken and shrimp too! Great for dipping in thai sweet chili sauce and if you're feeling up to it you could even whip up a peanut sauce!

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

Rice wraps 

Lettuce

Carrot

Cucumber

Avocado

vermicelli or rice noodles (vermicelli is less filling)

Meat or seafood of your choice

Soak the rice wraps ONE AT A TIME in warm water, until they are soft and pliable (about 20-30 seconds) Shake excess water off wraps and lay on a plate. In the middle of the wrap place your sliced veggies and/or meats, and noodles. Wrap like a burrito, make sure it's tight. Let it sit and dry for a few minutes to avoid a wet, messy wrap. Serve with Sweet Chili Sauce and Peanut Sauce.

Peanut Sauce

Vegetable Oil enough for frying onions

Chopped onions

Dried Chilis to taste

1 cup Chunky peanut butter

2 tbsp Sesame oil 

Fry onions, in Vegetable Oil until sweating (not you, the onions). Add chilies and cook a bit longer. Add peanut butter and sesame oil and cook until well combined. Let it chill and serve with salad rolls cold.

Chocolate Cake Balls

I found this yummy recipe on one of my favorite food blogs: http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2007/12/red-velvet-cake-balls.html

Her recipe calls for Red Velvet Cake but I decided to try it with just chocolate cake and cream cheese icing. 

Be warned! They are a lot of work and VERY time consuming,make sure you are patient and let the balls chill for long enough, or else they will turn into a goopy mess when you try to dip them in the coating. They are perfect for any occasion and can be made using any type of cake. (Though I would make sure to stick with the cream cheese icing, it's just that much richer in flavour!) Anyways, give them a try! They're irresistible!!

Mmmojitos..

When we were in Airlie Beach, Australia, we stumbled upon a Rum Bar that served the MOST amazing Mojitos I've ever tasted. They offered the classic mint mojitos but they also had Blueberry, Mango and Raspberry infused mojitos. Of course I couldn't resist the Blueberry mojito. The picture above is the actual Mojito that sparked my newfound love. The recipe, however is taken from www.foodandwine.com and it seems to be just right!

Blueberry Mojitos

10 mint leaves, plus one for garnish

10 blueberries

3/4 oz simple syrup 

ice

1 1/2 oz gold rum

2 wedges lime

1 oz club soda

1 oz sprite (can omit and add more club soda)

In the bottom of the glass, mash the mint, lime, syrup and blueberries together. Add ice and mash a bit more. Pour in rum, club soda and sprite. Garnish with sprig of mint and enjoy!!

Baking Experiments..

My baking skills are not as good as my cooking skills, but I still like to attempt it. I mostly just enjoy the smells that come along with baking, not to mention I'm all about 'licking the spoon'. 

Top left: Chocolate Peanut butter Marshmallow Square, Top Right: Sugar Cookies, Middle Left: Mango Apple Pie, Middle Right: Chocolate Chip Cookies, Bottom Left: Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Icing, Bottom right: Strawberry Puff Parcels

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I have turned into one of those people who puts all the old bananas in the freezer after they've ripened and I ended up having tons in there so I had to make something!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

3 or 4 ripened bananas

1/3 cup melted butter

3/4 cup chocolate chips

1 cup sugar

1 egg beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cup flour

No need for a mixer. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a mixing bowl. Mix in sugar, egg and vanilla. Sprinkle baking soda and salt over the mix, and mix in. Add chocolate chips and mix.  Add flour last, mix. Pour mix into a buttered 4 x 8 loaf pan. Bake for one hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve!

I'll just have a bowl of soup..

 I made this soup when I was trying the dreaded Cabbage Soup Diet, and I couldn't stand it, so I decided I would make it just a vegetable soup diet with cabbage on the side.

Vegetable Soup

5 mushroom

2 cloves garlic

4 stalks celery

1 med onion

1-2 carrots

1 can crushed tomatoes

1 litre soup stock (I used chicken stock)

2 tsp oil

seasoning to taste (I used basil and oregano)

Dice all veggies into pieces. In a stock pot, fry oil, garlic and onion until onions are 'sweating'. Add all other veggies and seasoning and cook for a few more minutes. Add crushed tomatoes and stock, keep simmering on med heat until veggies are cooked.  Best served on a cold day with some garlic toast! Yum.

How sweet it is..

I love sweet potatoes, I love crisps. So I made... 

Sweet Potato Crisps

1 large sweet potato

oil for frying

seasoning you prefer

Peel the skin off of the sweet potato, then use a mandolin slicer, or a potato peeler to slice small strips of sweet potato.

In HOT oil, enough for shallow frying, cook the crisps until..well, crispy. Strain out of oil and place on a paper towel. Sprinkle with seasoning at this point.

Serve with a basil garlic mayo.

Veggie Quesadilla!

Just plain and simple veggie quesadillas with homemade fresh salsa and sour cream really make my day! 

Quesadillas

1 pack of flour tortillas

1 whole tomato diced

1/2 red onion diced

1 green pepper diced

1 large avocado 

hot sauce to taste

however much cheese you like!

I find it easiest to use one tortilla folded in half instead of using two.. so on one side of the tortilla layer all ingredients and make sure cheese is on top and bottom layer. Drizzle hot sauce over ingredients. Fold in half and fry in a non stick pan or on a grill until each side is browned and cheese has melted.

You can also add taco beef or chicken if you prefer.

Serve with fresh tomato salsa.

Get Stuffed!

This past christmas I was appointed head chef so I wanted to make everything just perfect, especially my favorite part of turkey dinner, STUFFING! So I came up with this recipe..

Turkey Stuffing

1 large pack of bread crumbs(I used a pack of 12 dinner rolls- I just diced 'em up and toasted them)

1-2 cans mushroom soup

5-10 mushrooms

1 large onion

4 stalks celery

1/2 cup pinenuts

Poultry seasoning to your taste.

In a frying pan, saute the chopped onion, sliced celery, and sliced mushrooms. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add mushroom soup and seasoning and cook for another 2 minutes. Take off heat and add to breadcrumbs and pinenuts. Toss until coated and add boiling water, enough to soak the mix. Stuff the turkey and cook as usual. Enjoy!!!!

Purple Hashbrowns

I just made this recipe the other day and it was SO GOOD. 

Purple Hashbrowns

1/2 cup prepared red cabbage

1 1/2 cups frozen shredded hashbrowns

1/2 med onion sliced 

Dollop of sour cream per serving

On med high heat, fry onions in 2 tbsp oil until caramelized. Add hashbrowns and cook until crispy. Mix in cabbage and cook for 2 more minutes (just enough to heat cabbage) Season to your taste and serve with a small dollop of sour cream on top!

Batter Up

When we lived in Noosa, Dwayne would go fishing almost everyday, so we had to create some good recipes to cook all the fish he brought home. This batter that Dwayne would make was really good, and had a little kick to it. Excellent with calamari and prawns as well.

Beer Battered Fish

1 bottle of beer

1 tsp chili powder

s & p

2 cups flour

Any kind of fish you like

Calamari

Prawns

Lemon

Tartar Sauce

Enough oil for deep frying.

Whisk top 4 ingredients together in a bowl. Heat oil to med-high, until a drop of batter starts to sizzle. Dip any kind of seafood you like into batter, shake off excess, put in fryer. Cook until both sides are golden and crispy. 

Serve with lemon wedges and tartar sauce. 

Slow down.. and enjoy Slow Cooker Beef Stew

I love any chance I get to use my slow cooker, and beef stew is a favorite! It's so easy to prep the night before then in the morning you just turn it on and when you get home, there's a meal waiting for you! This is a basic recipe, but it always makes Dwayne happy.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

1 Lb your choice of beef

2 carrots

3 stalks celery

1 medium onion

2 large potatoes

5-10 mushrooms

4 cloves garlic

3-4 tbsp thyme

worchestershire sauce to taste

3 tbsp flour to coat beef and 4 extra to thicken stew

8 cups beef stock

s & p

enough oil for frying beef

Chop all veggies into bite sized chunks, dice garlic and chop beef. Toss uncooked been into the flour to coat, add s & p. 

In a large skillet, very shallow fry the meat until just browned.

combine all ingredients into the slow cooker, pour in beef stock and worchestershire sauce.

Cook for 7-8 hours on low.

When done, mix in flour to thicken to your desire.

Enjoy!

Fijian Fruit Salad

On our last trip to Fiji, we visited the islands and ended up staying in quite an odd "resort" called "Bay of Plenty".. though, I wasn't sure what the 'plenty' part meant due to the fact that we were 2 of 4 guests staying there. Anyways.. one day I decided to go on a farm walk with the other couple staying there, while Dwayne went spearfishing.  We walked along while one of the fijian men told us about all the different types of things they grew and what they did with it. We picked tomatoes, peppers, mangoes, papayas and bananas, then the fijian sat down on the group and wove us all baskets out of palm fronds so that we could carry our goods back. Oh, this was after he chopped an ENTIRE tree down with a machete to get us a hand of bananas!

We headed back and then we had a fijian "cooking lesson".. I really would have called it a "sit and watch while I make you a fruit salad". Anyways, here's what we got..

Fijian Fruit Salad

3 bananas

1 large papaya

1 mango

1/2 cup coconut milk

Chop all fruits into same size pieces. Put in bowl. Pour in coconut milk, stir and enjoy.

Best served on a beach in the fijian sun.

Mmmmushroom and Goat Cheese Tart

This recipe comes from my not so wonderful "puff pastry phase". Only reason it wasn't wonderful was due to the large amount of butter in the puff pastry.. but shh on that. These tarts are GooOod.

Mushroom  & Goat Cheese Tart

1 pack of pre-made puff pastry

10 mushrooms

3 cloves garlic

1 med red onion

sprinkle of thyme

1/2 cup goat cheese

Easy as pie, well a tart actually.

Preheat oven to puff pastry package directions.

Defrost puff pastry until its moldable and cut 2 circles per tart (top and bottom). Put bottom pieces of puff pastry on an oiled cookie sheet.

Saute in a pan with some olive oil, the chopped garlic, onion and mushroom. Season with any spices you like; I used thyme. Do not over cook, just enough to sweat onions and cook mushrooms.

Place a spoonful of mix onto one of the bottom puff pastry circles. Leave room around the edges so pastry can stick to itself. Put a few small dollops of cheese on top of each mushroom mix. 

Place top puff pastry pieces onto bottom with mix and press together around the edges. Cut slits into top. 

Cook according to package directions, or until pastry has puffed up and browned.

Serve warm.

Mmm tasty!

Cucumber Salad

A very simple, yet very yummy salad, good as a small side dish.

Cucumber Salad

2 lg cucumbers

1/4 cup vinegar

1-2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp soy sauce

chili flakes to taste

salt and pepper

Peel, slice and de-seed the cuc's. Chop into thin slices. 

In a small bowl combine vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and chili flakes. Mix well and toss in with cucumbers.

Let it sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. 

So yummy! So vinegary!