Bacon Cheeseburger Macaroni

Bacon cheeseburger meets mac & cheese. What more do I need to say? It's comfort food heaven.



Ingredients:
1 lb lean ground beef
4 slices bacon, chopped
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup canned tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups macaroni
1 cup shredded cheddar (I used the Tex Mex shredded cheese)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp Dijon mustard (or yellow mustard...whatever you like to put on your burger)
2 tsp Ketchup

Directions
Boil macaroni in a large pot of salted water for 11-12 minutes or until desired
Meanwhile, fry bacon in a skillet. Drain bacon on paper towels, set aside. Drain away fat from the skillet and brown the ground beef.
Make a hole in the middle of the skillet and saute onions and garlic until fragrant.
Add oregano, thyme salt and pepper and tomatoes and mix well and leave on low heat while you deal with the macaroni.
By now, the macaroni should be cooked. Drain water and while macaroni is still hot, add cheese and mix until melted and gooey. Stir in the sour cream, dijon mustard and ketchup. Then add the beef & tomato mixture from the skillet and the bacon. Stir everything together and season with more salt if needed. Serve with additional ketchup and mustard if you so please. I recommend you eat this in your pjs. It's that comforting.

Char Kway Teow

Wow, it's been a while since i've blogged some recipes! A friend reminded me that she liked to get recipe ideas from here, so I will keep on posting when I remember.
Over the weekend, I went to T&T to take advantage of some of the CNY sales, so we'll be indulging in Asian food all week. Sunday night, I made enoki beef rolls and char kway teow. Char kway teow is a really popular dish in Singapore, and during my visit there last February, I ate my fair share in the food courts...ahh...Singaporean food courts...I miss you! Here's my recipe for char kway teow. Enjoy.


Ingredients
1 package of fresh ho fun (rice) noodles (you must use these the same day as you buy them, or they get hard and dried out)
1/2 lb thinly sliced beef
1 clove minced garlic
1 inch minced peeled ginger
2 cups bean sprouts
2 cups spinach
2 green onions chopped

Sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp kecap manis (thick sweet soy sauce or sugar if you can't find it)
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup beef stock

Directions
In a colander, gently wash noodles under hot tap water, carefully separating them.
Mix ingredients for sauce in a measuring cup and set aside.
Heat oil in a wok or large frying pan on med/high heat and fry garlic and ginger quickly until fragrant. Add beef, and stir fry until cooked. Add beansprouts, and saute until softened. Gently stir in noodles and cook through. Add spinach to wilt gently and pour sauce over, while tossing gently. Just before serving, sprinkle with green onions and give a final gentle toss.

Mussels in White Wine Tomato Saffron Sauce

I've never made them at home before but I heard they were super easy, so when I saw them on sale today, I bought a bag.
This recipe was so good. It tasted very restaurant quality if I do say so myself. Can't wait to go diving for fresh mussels while we're in Cape Town.
The broth was so good for dipping fresh crusty bread. Even our baby LOVED the broth. I gave her a few sips from a mussel shell. She couldn't get enough.
Please do try this at home.


Ingredients:
3lb bag mussels, scrubbed and rinsed (discard any cracked or open mussels)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion chopped
5-6 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup canned tomatoes
1 cup good white wine
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp good quality saffron
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

Directions
In a large pot, heat olive oil and butter at medium heat. Saute onions and garlic until fragrant (about 3 minutes). Add tomatoes, wine, thyme, saffron, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Add mussels and stir. Cover pot and cook for about 8-10 minutes. Shake the pot a few times (with the lid closed) while cooking so the bottom of the pot doesn't burn.
Serve in a large bowl with plenty of fresh bread to soak up the broth. Delicious.

Bloody Mary Burgers with Roasted Broccoli

I am usually a purist when it comes to making burgers. I don't like to add any filler to my patties. I simply flatten out the ground beef and salt and pepper both sides before grilling. Today I thought I'd try out a recipe from the trusty Rachel Ray Cookbook my bestie got me for a birthday present one year. I LOOOOOVE Caesars, the Canadian Clamato twist on Bloody Mary's. The burgers were SO good. Of course, I adapted the recipe to suit my tastes. ;)


Ingredients

1 large head broccoli
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp peri peri powder
1 tbsp olive oil
600g ground beef
1 1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp Frank's Red Hot sauce
1 tsp Tobasco
2 tsp prepared horseradish
3 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tomato, diced
1 tbsp Frank's Red Hot Sauce
1/2 tsp dried dill
4 hamburger buns
4 leaves lettuce
cheddar cheese (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 F. Toss broccoli with olive oil, garlic, peri peri powder, salt and pepper and roast in the oven for 15-17 minutes or until stems are tender and treetops are brown.

Lightly mix ground beef with celery salt, hot sauces and horseradish with a fork (fluff, do not mash!) Score meat into 4 equal parts and form into patties. Grill for about 4 1/2 mins per side until cooked through.

Mix mayo with diced tomatoes, hot sauce, dill and black pepper. Serve sauce on burgers with lettuce. I also added cheese, because my husband insists that cheese naturally belongs on burgers!

Hoisin Honey Grilled Pork and Chap Chae

I should have known that eating Korean food a lot while I was pregnant would affect my growing baby. I made chap chae and the little one couldn't get enough of it! She even tilted her head back so I could drop noodles in her mouth with chopsticks, and then she slurped them down. It was the cutest thing. However, baby garlic breath is NOT cute. Okay, it kind of is...
This is my version, and I served it with Chinese-style pork chops.


Ingredients
3 pieces pork loin chops
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
2 tbsp honey
2 thai chilies minced

4 bundles vermicelli noodles (or if you want to be authentic, Korean sweet potato starch noodles)
1 carrot cut into 3 and slivered into matchsticks
1 onion sliced thinly lengthwise
4 Chinese mushrooms soaked in boiling water and sliced
5 pieces Cwiss chard stalks and leaves chopped (should be 1 cup spinach but I didn't have any)
1/4 cup sodium reduced soy sauce
3 tbsp sesame oil
2 cloves garlic finely crushed...use a garlic press or mortar and pestle

Directions
Pork
Place the pork, garlic, hoisin sauce, honey and chilies into a Ziploc bag and marinate in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Grill about 4 minutes per side on the BBQ or until pork is cooked through properly.

Chap Chae
Combine soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic in a bowl and whisk until well blended.
Place vermicelli noodles in a pot of boiling water and boil until softened, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, drain, rinse and set aside.
Heat a little olive oil in a skillet, and sauté onions and carrots until softened, about 3 minutes. Add Swiss chard and sauté until wilted. Add mushrooms, noodles and sauce and mix well and heat until sauce has absorbed, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and eat warm or at room temperature with grilled pork

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

When I brought home vanilla beans from our trip to Indonesia, I knew I would make a vanilla bean cheesecake for my husband's birthday. I didn't take the best pictures (note my baby's finger about to taste a sample) but this was honestly the best cheesecake recipe EVER. The texture was so light and creamy. I brought it to the restaurant to celebrate my husband's and my mom's birthdays and it tasted like it could have been on the dessert menu. I bought a really nice spring form pan from The Cook's Place on the Danforth and they had just about anything you could ever need to cook or bake with very knowledgeable staff. What an awesome store! Anyway...this recipe is pretty much guaranteed, so give it a shot if you want a texture-perfect cheesecake. I found the recipe on My Baking Addiction. The tips were so helpful!



Ingredients
Crust
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cheesecake
3 packages Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
2 vanilla beans, (scraped innards only)
2 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream (I added this)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 if you have a light colored cheesecake pan, or 325 if your spring form pan is darker. Line the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan with parchment paper, and wrap the outside of the pan with aluminum foil to insure it is airtight.

In a bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, sugar and vanilla and press lightly into the bottom of the spring form pan.
In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time ensuring each is incorporated fully.
Add heavy cream, vanilla bean innards and Bailey's and ensure the batter is smooth.

Pour cheesecake batter over the graham cracker crumb crust and place the pan into a larger pan. Pour boiling water into the larger pan so that the water comes halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. Carefully place into the oven and bake for 45-55 minutes. The cheesecake should be slightly wobbly but should hold together when finished. Do not over bake the cheesecake. To avoid cracks, turn off the oven and allow the cheesecake to gradually cool in the oven for an hour or more. Once cool, carefully remove the cheesecake pan from the waterbath and chill in the fridge.

Chinese Meatball Soup

This is a very comforting home style soup. Even my baby loved it and couldn't get enough of it!
My mom makes it with ground pork, but I used extra lean ground chicken for a lighter version.

Ingredients
4-6 cups water
2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced thin
2 tbsp light soya sauce
3/4 lb ground chicken (or pork)
4 dried Chinese mushrooms
1 clove garlic, grated (or use a garlic press)
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
Large handful spinach, torn

Accoutrement
2 birds eye chilies finely chopped and added to a small bowl of soya sauce

Directions
Combine water, ginger and soya sauce in a large pot and put on the stove to boil.
In a small bowl, allow Chinese mushrooms to soak in hot water for 10 minutes until soft, then chop finely.
In a mixing bowl, combine ground chicken, chopped Chinese mushrooms, garlic, egg and salt and pepper until well mixed and form into meatballs.
Drop meatballs into boiling pot, cover and simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes.
Just before serving, add spinach to the pot to wilt.
Serve over rice, with hot chilies mixed with soy sauce if you like the heat!

Pepper Steak and Mushroom Pie

My grandpa loves steak and kidney pies, but they're hard to find in Montreal. So for Christmas I baked him half a dozen of them to store in his freezer. I am NOT a fan of kidneys (or any organ meat, for that matter) so it was kind of gross for me to prepare, but I love my grandpa enough to have made the effort. They pies turned out really well and Grandpa loved them. My husband, who also loves meat pies was only allowed to sample a taste of the sauce so I decided to make the pie again last week. Since I had to eat dinner too I decided to swap out the kidneys for mushrooms, and I thought the result was even better. Rich gravy, tender meat and delicious mushroomy goodness.

Ingredients

2-crust pie shell (I used Pillsbury pie crust to roll in my own pie dish but use homemade if you feel so inclined)

3 strips bacon, sliced

1lb cubed beef

2 tbsp flour

1 onion, diced

1 rib celery, diced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 bay leaf

1 tsp dried thyme

1 package of button mushrooms, washed and quartered

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 egg lightly beaten

Directions

In a large pot, fry bacon until crisp and fat has been rendered. Move bacon pieces aside to paper towel lined plate.

Meanwhile, put flour and beef cubes into a plastic bag (I used a old bread bag...with no holes!) and shake to coat in flour.

Fry beef cubes in batches until brown on all sides. Don't overcrowd the pot or the beef will not brown properly. Move browned cubes to paper towel lined plate.

If there is not enough oil left in the pan, add about 1 tbsp olive oil and saute the onions, carrot, celery, bay leaf and thyme until softened.

Add mushrooms and saute until softened.

Season with salt and pepper

Return beef cubes and bacon to pot and cover with water.

Cover the pot and allow to simmer on low until the meat is fork tender (about an hour or so).

If the gravy does not look thick enough, mix 2 tbsp flour and 1/2 cool cup water in a mug. Slowly add the flour/water mixture to the gravy until it thickens to a nice consistency.

Pour Steak and Mushroom mixture into a 9-inch pie shell and top with remaining pastry, fluting the edges shut. Brush the top with beaten egg and cut some vent holes to let steam escape.

Bake at 350 F for about 45-50 mins or until crust is golden brown.

Grilled Filet Mignon with Peppercorn Mustard Recipe (Cooking Light)

I got a cast iron grill pan for Christmas and absolutely love it! Summer is much too long of a wait for barbeque and an iron grill pan definately solves that problem.

I grilled a couple of filet mignons with a light mustard, peppercorn and brandy sauce.

I made some roasted red potatoes and Tyler's Florence's cream spinach and of course, some bread.

This turned out great!

Antipasto Pasta Salad

I raided my pantry to throw this together because my fridge was empty and company was coming in an hour. The salad turned out amazing and it was ridiculously quick and easy.

Ingredients

1lb rotini pasta cooked al dente

6-8 large olives sliced (I used kalmata and green olives)

5 sun dried tomatoes rehydrated and chopped

3/4 can artichoke hearts quartered

2 tbsp chopped red onion

2 tbsp sun dried tomato pesto

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Toss everything into a large bowl and serve cold.