Any Which Way You Can...Have Chili

We love leftovers around here. I recently posted about our chili in a bread bowl, and not wanting to consume another half loaf of bread in one sitting, we had to change up how we ate the leftovers.

Bring on the chili fries! We baked some homemade fries, topped them with chili, cheese, and guacamole. It was a winning combination!

Chili in a Bread Bowl

Yow know what’s ridiculous? Chili in a bread bowl. You know what’s even more ridiculous? Homemade chili in a bread bowl. For real.

First we made awesome chili. Do you have a favourite chili recipe? We throw multiple varieties of beans into a pot with ground beef or turkey, onion, mushrooms, pasta sauce, and spices. It is a definite hit at our house.

Next we made a bread bowl. We used a loaf from our bread machine, cut it in half lengthwise, and hollowed it out in the shape of a bowl. I think it is over the top and awesome that we did this, but please know this was John’s idea. My brain wouldn’t come up with something this awesome/ridiculous, as I usually think foolish things like: “I can’t eat half a loaf of bread.” I sometimes underestimate myself!

We toasted the bead bowl in the oven (after basting it in a garlic powder/olive oil mixture) and then we put chili in the bread bowl!

We had a crazy fun dinner and laughed at how silly we are sometimes.

We Love Leftovers

Leftovers are my favourite. They are great for a quick lunch or a just-reheat-it-and-it's-ready dinner. You might even find us eating them for lunch and dinner (Pesto Pasta is a good one for that). And why not? The flavours of some foods can intensify overnight, and with the simple effort of making one dinner, you get two. Or three. Or more. Love it! And if we know we can't use them within a few days, we pop them in the freezer to feed our future selves (future us loves presents from the past).

This week we were able to use our awesome taco leftovers in two different ways. Leftovers have to work in this house!

Taco salad looking pretty for the blog.

Taco leftovers made an appearance in my all time favourite leftover lunch: taco salad. I'm sure this salad has more taco shells, meat, and cheese than, say, a garden salad would, but that is why it is so awesome. It is in my top three salads for sure. This is also a great way to use up those two extra taco shells that we normally find stale a few weeks from now.

All mixed up and ready to eat!

This magic salad has green leaf lettuce, green olives, broken taco shells, taco meat, shredded cheese, and salsa for dressing. Always love adding chunks of avocado when I have them too. I love love love this salad.

We also turned the taco leftovers into a pizza topping. It was as tasty as it sounds. We often make over the top pizza, but this one was crazy delicious. And leftover bonus: I had leftover pizza for lunch the next day. LEFTOVER WIN!

Piles of toppings, starring taco meat.

Oh what the hell, let's add more cheese!

Finished pizza had all the win.

Taco Tray

While out shopping one evening we noticed something called a Taco Serving Tray. They were being sold for $10 and we seriously considered buying one. Our taco nights involve many toppings and we marveled at how convenient it would be to have them all on one tray. We didn't end up buying one, but when I got home I looked around to see if we had something that would do the same thing. Turns out we did!

A regular party tray works just perfectly. There is room for all the taco fixings and now we only have one topping dish at clean up. And dressing your taco is as easy as saying: "can you pass me the tray?"

Easily Filled Tacos

Easy Pesto Pasta

One of our favourite meals is Pesto Pasta. It is quick and easy to make, which makes it great for nights when we don't feel like cooking. It also tastes delicious, so we usually make heaps of it and eat it for days. This is one of the vegetarian meals we eat on our meal plan, and I just love it.

Key ingredients:
Rotini (we are currently working through a giant bag of tri-colour rotini that we got on super sale)
Basil Pesto (we get it in a jar...and we love it!)
Parmesan Cheese (we are shaker people except for special occasions)
Various vegetables (we like zuchinni and spinach)
Balsamic vinegar - optional (sometimes we add it, and sometimes we don't. We like to mix it up!)

The recipe is super simple. Boil pasta, saute vegetables, and mix everything together with Pesto and Parmesan cheese. So easy!

Sauteing spinach and zucchini

Add Parmesan and pesto to boiled pasta and stir

Mix in spinach and zucchini - I love how this meal looks!

I could eat this for days - and often I do! :)

Homemade Panzerottos

On our meal plan we have homemade pizza once a week. It is quick, fun to make, and we have perfected our pizza making skills so it is guaranteed to satisfy. I'm not sure how we got to thinking about panzerottos but the idea got into our heads and we knew we had to make them. We didn't really follow a recipe, we just made our usual bread maker pizza dough and hoped it would work out! Wonderfully, panzerottos are as easy to make as pizza (just a few extra steps) so we are definitely adding them to the meal plan rotation.

We made our pizza dough in the bread maker and sectioned it into four equally sized balls.

Next, we pressed each ball out thinly to form a circle.

Then we piled on the toppings! This one was mine and it had sauce, seasonings, spinach, hot peppers, green olives, mushrooms, and a mozzarella/old cheddar blend of cheese.

We folded them over and pressed the edges securely together. The first one was tricky, but by the third one we were pros! They all held together surprisingly well. We put them in the oven at 375°F for 25 minutes.

They looked and tasted amazing! I can't wait to make them again!

I Love Leftovers - Especially Turkey!

Everything we ate for dinner tonight was entirely John's fault! :)

It's the first of the month, which is often when I think about going for more walks and exercising a little more portion control at meal time. I had to put those thoughts on hold though, as we had turkey leftovers in the house and John excitedly announced that we should make awesome club sandwiches. How could I disagree?

This is only one sandwich, you guys!

So we had triple-decker club sandwiches full of turkey, bacon, cheese, and mayo. Apparently others put lettuce and tomato in theirs, but we forgot about vegetables! Whoops! We fried up some mashed potatoes and had some leftover sweet potatoes, so our meal wasn't completely vegetable free, right?

We followed that up with some cake John's grandma made.

It was a yellow cake but she told us: "It's a chocolate cake, I just didn't add the cocoa". Adorable.

I am very full and very happy right now. Hope you are too!

St. Patrick's Day Stew

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day we made some stew and a loaf of bread that I dyed green. That sounds kinda Irish, right?

I grew up on a beef cattle farm, so stew is one of those meals that makes me feel comfy and warm with good memories of home. The recipe I use is pretty similar to the one Mom used to make, with the addition of a few more exotic vegetables (yams!) and spices.

For our stew we used a beef roast that we cut into chunks. The roast was crazy cheap and that made the stew beef we cut even cheaper. I love saving money by doing some of the prep work myself (plus I really like doing the prep work!).

Beef Roast

Beef roast cut into stew beef chunks

Jen and John's Simple Stew

Ingredients:

1 lb (or so) stewing beef
onion, finely diced
garlic, finely diced

2 medium carrots, chopped
1 yam, cut in chunks
2-3 potatoes, cut in chunks
1 can of diced mushrooms
1 cup frozen corn kernels
Broth packet (beef or what you have)
Various spices to taste: garlic salt, salt, pepper, basil, turmeric
Corn starch + water

Method:

1. Brown beef in pot you intend to use for your stew. Once browned, add water to pot, almost covering the beef. Add in finely diced onion and garlic (I use a small food processor) and simmer on low heat with lid on for 2 -3 hours. I recently learned that this is called braising the beef.

2. Add in chopped vegetables and enough water to cover them. Add a broth packet or two to add flavour (beef if you have it). Add various spices to taste. Soften the vegetables over medium-low heat for 1 hour.

3. Continue simmering as long as desired. The more it cooks the more it thickens. To thicken to desired consistency, add corn starch mixed with water until it looks right.

Serve with bread (dying it green for St. Patty's Day is optional).

Sometimes we make the stew the day before and let it sit in the fridge overnight to allow the flavours to intensify. It makes it super yummy.

Enjoy! And Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

Freezer Meals - Steel Cut Oats

I love the idea of Freezer meals; just pull something out and heat it up. It's home made fast food. Actually making the food takes time, but the time saved when I am hungry is totally worth it.

I eat steel cut oats everyday for breakfast, and if you've made them before you know they take about thirty minutes to prepare.  That doesn't work for me everyday.  According to the package directions, prepared steel cut oats last 5 days in the fridge, so I used to make them in 5 day intervals.  That didn't work for me either. I first thought about freezing them while watching my friend Betony freeze meals for her daughter using ice cube trays. I did some internet research and discovered that prepared steel cut oats can be kept for 30 days in the freezer and that adults get to freeze their foods in cupcake pans.

Start with Steel Cut Oats.  Have you tried them? I think they have so much flavour and I love the texture.

Cook oats as per package directions. I cook 5 cups at a time, in two different pots, so I end up with 25 portions for the freezer.

Scoop hot, cooked oats into freezer containers.  I use a cupcake pan and a mini loaf pan, each portion measuring about 2/3 cup.

 
Freeze for about 2 hours.  Remove from freezer for about 5 minutes to loosen edges. Remove portions from cup cake pan and put in a resealable Ziploc bag and return to the freezer.

Pop in microwave when ready to eat and enjoy quick steel cut oats.  I eat mine with cinnamon, 1 tbs dried cranberries, and 2 tbs chopped walnuts.

Pizza Friday

Friday is Pizza night on our meal plan and last night we may have made the best home made pizza we ever have! We changed up the dough recipe we were using, as we thought there might be fluffier options out there.  I searched around the internet and think I've hit on one that works.

The dough rises more than the dough we used to make, so John used this fluffier dough to make a thick edge around the pizza. He basted the edge with olive oil and spices and sprinkled it with sesame seeds. It ended up tasting like garlic toast which really helped to make this pizza a winner!

The best part is that there are leftovers today!! YAY!

Fish On Friday

After an amazing afternoon at the beach, we went to our local Chip Wagon so I could let my Bro experience all the joy that is Perky's Fish and Chips. Every time we go there it is the best fish and chips we have ever had. And after a good long swim, it was even more perfect!! Super Yum!!!

Haddock + Chips + Coleslaw

Breakfast For Dinner

Sometimes you just gotta have it...

Experimenting with Sushi

In my sushi making experience, I've made and consumed many California rolls (and posted about them here).  I recently became obsessed with spicy sauce and all the joyous possibilities associated with making spicy sushi maki at home.  I have been collecting ingredients over the past few weeks and yesterday it was finally Sushi Fun Day for me.

My morning started with how to videos on YouTube, as I was experimenting with hand rolls and trying to properly prepare the sushi rice (I picked up Rice Vinegar to add to it!).  My morning instructional videos got me pretty excited about the idea of eating a whole lotta yummy sushi!


Spicy California Hand Rolls

I shredded some imitation crab legs and tossed them with spicy mayo (mixture of Hellman's and Sriracha Sauce). So easy to make and super yummy to eat.

Also important were the avocados and cucumber!

I cut my Nori sheets in half and got down to business!  First I added rice on one end and made an indent for the filling:

Then I added my cucumber, avocado, and spicy crab meat:

Then I rolled it up!

Spicy California Inside Out Rolls

Another adventure in sushi for me yesterday was maki with the rice on the outside of the roll.  I wrapped my bamboo mat in plastic wrap and went for it!  I added rice to the Nori sheet and sprinkled it with toasted sesame seeds.

Then I flipped it over and put fillings on the non rice side:

And then rolled it up!

I ended up making a lot of these:

And If That Wasn't Enough...

I also made some smoked salmon and avocado hand and maki rolls, avocado maki, and avocado and cucumber maki.  I put some spicy sauce on some of the maki to make it look and taste amazing.  Not pictured are the four hand rolls John and I ate while I was preparing everything and the countless pieces of maki that accidentally got eaten.

And finally my beautiful plate that was quickly and happily devoured:

I can't wait to make it again!!  And we are eating leftovers for dinner tonight. Yay!!

A New Favourite

Lately I have been obsessed with the idea of making my own spicy sushi maki rolls.  Spicy tuna roll is my favourite roll to eat at a sushi restaurant, and any roll that has spicy sauce in it is my second favourite.  I have previous experience making California rolls, and I am really excited about adding spicy sauce to the mix.  I was not 100% sure what the spicy in Spicy sauce was, but I did some Googling to find a recipe and many sites suggested something called Sriracha Sauce mixed with mayo. I went searching in Midland and Food Basics had a bottle of the stuff!

I didn't know of Sriracha Sauce before yesterday, but now I am completely obsessed with it! I'm not waiting until I make my spicy sushi rolls, I am currently adding it to everything I consume.  Last night we added it to a pack of drained Mr. Noodles and it was glorious!  I couldn't help but have more Sriracha soaked Mr. Noodles again for lunch today.  The sauce adds an amazing flavour with the perfect amount of spice.

I was home alone for dinner tonight, and when that happens I often find myself eating the weirdest assortment of foods.  When I lived alone I was able to make my own meals regularly (and be really good at it), but now if John's away I'm likely to eat things like Mr Noodles for dinner (even if I had it for lunch).  My eclectic meal from this evening was pretty much anything that could be a vehicle for the Sriracha sauce. I had half a can of baked beans in tomato sauce (drenched in Sriracha sauce), 2 egg rolls (that I dipped in Sriracha sauce), and 3 hash browns (which I also dipped in Sriracha sauce).  Super yum!  I kind of want to bring the bottle with me to Easter dinner tomorrow and put it on...everything!  I hope I have some sauce left for when I get around to actually making maki rolls!!

Have you tried Sriracha Sauce?  What do you think? 

Also check out this comic from The Oatmeal that also expresses a love for Sriracha sauce!

Spring BBQ

A few weeks ago when we had those Summer Days in March, John and I fired up the BBQ and had us some Spring steak.  Food and I have been amazing friends this year - we can't get enough of each other!  I keep telling myself that I'm going to stop eating everything soon, but everything tastes so fricken' good.  My new plan is to start walking to work so I can keep up this steady pace of eating.  Google Maps says it will take 3 hours to walk the 17 KM it is to get there, so I better set my alarm early on Monday!  Or maybe I could just exercise at all.  I'll get there.  Until then, here are photos of yummy steak dinner!!