Halibut foil dinner

Did you miss me?  I took a mini break from the blog because well...this pregnancy has really been tiring me out!!  I can't wait to be done with this first trimester so I can stop feeling like a blob.


But back to the food.


On Friday night we had fish!  We stay away from meat on Fridays.  It's an old school Catholic thing to do.  Friday, being the day Christ died for us, brings up the notion of sacrifice.  A small way to do that is to just forgo meat on Fridays.

Here was our simple Friday night meal.  It comes together quickly and takes almost zero prep.  It also happens to be a handy way to cook things if you're camping. 

This is sort of a Val improvising recipe.

Halibut (or any fish) foil dinner for 2

 Ingredients

2 pieces of halibut

2tbsp lemon juice

4 tbsp butter

2tsp dill

4 carrots sliced

1 cup of peas

salt and pepper to taste

Aluminum foil!

1.  Cut two large pieces of aluminum foil.  It should be enough to double your fish and veggies.

2.  Butter the bottom of the foil. 

3.  Lay half your carrots and your peas down.  Add salt, pepper and dill.

4.  Lay your fish on top of the veggies and put a dab of butter on top of the fish.  Sprinkle with dill, salt and pepper.  Drizzle with 1tbsp lemon juice.

5.  Bring up the sides of the foil and seal like a packet.  Just fold the edges together until you have a nice foil packet.  Repeat steps for packet #2!

6.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes until the fish flakes nicely and the carrots are tender.  Enjoy!



Important note, make sure your fish is completely thawed before putting it in the packet, or else like me you'll end up with a slight puddle in the packet when you open it.  If this happens to you, no worry, just drain it off before sliding it onto your plate.  Heh.  Did I mention I'm not a real chef?



Watch out!  The packets will be steaming when you open them, so don't stuff your face right up to the packet when you open it!

This goes really well with garlic bread!



I had some extra time before Jon got home on Friday and made some baguettes!  Aren't they pretty?  Thank you bread maker for making it so easy!  Yum.



Enjoy!

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear Jesus, thank you for your Friday sacrifice for us.  Help us to remember to offer up our little sacrifices for you constantly so that we might draw ourselves closer to you.  Amen.

Home made Cheese crackers

So today for dinner we had burgers (freezer leftovers from the other night) again.  Since I didn't have to make dinner I used kiddo nap time for other productive things.  Like making Cheese crackers!!!

Jon used to be a Cheezit addict, but now that we're organic and so picky about the ingredients we consume we don't usually buy crackers anymore.   It's SO hard to find an organic cracker without soy or MSG in it.  Jon read something that says MSG often masquerades as yeast extract in things.  Yuck.  I know, we're crazy about the food thing.  But honestly, I feel a lot healthier and better about what I feed my kids when we stay away from all that. 

I thought our life would pretty much just have to be Cheezit free forever until I saw this link on my friend Shannon's fb wall!  I had to try them.  The first time Jon and I made these (yeah he helped he was so excited!) was at my mom's house while we were visiting.  At the time I didn't have a food processor and I wasn't sure that any old mixer could handle this job.  They turned out great tasting, but we didn't roll them thin enough so they tasted more like cheesy biscuits.  Clare loved them though, so I knew I'd try them again.

I don't know why it's taken me this long, since I've had a food processor since my birthday (thanks mom!), but today I finally tried again while the kiddos were napping.  I love naptime! 
Oh and the great thing about the food processor is that mine grates cheese!  So I didn't even have to grate the cheese for this recipe!  It came together in like 2 minutes!!!  The toughest part was rolling it out.



There's the ball of dough in the food processor ready to be rolled out!



The recipe says to roll them to 3/8th of an inch, but you should really roll them thinner.  Like, as thin as you can get them without them falling apart when you pick them up. 

To make rolling easier and so I didn't have to add a bunch of flour I rolled the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. 

Unfortunately my rolling techniques aren't fabulous yet and I came up with some thick spots and thin spots, but hey, the crackers still taste good!

Also, the person who posted this on her blog made them into cute little heart shapes, but I don't have cute cookie cutters, so I went with rectangle/square shapes.  I can't cut straight, don't make fun of me! 

You really have to try making these!!  They're wonderful!! 

Here's the finished product!  Yum.

Since I had left over egg whites, I used those as a substitution for one of the eggs in an oatmeal cookie recipe.  I'll have to post that some other day.  I'm just too exhausted at the moment. 

Go make yourself some cheese crackers!  You won't regret it, but that cracker company might.

Here's the link again in case you haven't noticed the links all over this blog post.

CHEESE CRACKER RECIPE

 In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Dear God, thank you for the gift of wonderful snacks and thank you for the internet so that we can stay close to our friends from far away and share great recipes!!  Help us to use these gifts and everything that you give us for your glory.  Amen.

UIOGD.

Bicol Express (I think it's like the Filipino version of Green Curry)

So you may or may not have noticed that I didn't blog yesterday.  That's pretty much because we had BBQ chicken sandwiches.  Kinda like pulled pork, except pulled chicken.  Not the most exciting thing in the world to me.  But if the idea of BBQ chicken in a bun makes your mouth water, let me know in the comments and I"ll give you a recipe for BBQ sauce so you can make your own! 

Tonight's recipe is a bit more exciting!  Bicol Express! 

Doesn't that look good?

I think it's the Filipino version of a Thai green curry.  At least that's what I tell friends who are like "Bico what?" 

Two years ago, my mom started to make this dish all of a sudden.  It was a bit strange, because while I was growing up my mom made so many different filipino dishes I just figured that she'd used up her whole filipino repertoire on us already.  Then all of a sudden here comes some curry like dish that I'd never seen before that is AMAZING!  What the heck?  It's like she was holding out on us or something.  Where did that come from anyways ma?

Well anywhoo, apparently this dish is from an area called Bicol and it's one of their signature dishes.  Maybe my friend Jo can comment and tell you more about it because she's from there.  I unfortunately do not have a plethora of knowledge about the Philippines.  I'm what they call....a coconut.  Brown on the outside and white on the inside.  Sort of.....maybe I'm a light tan color on the inside.  In any case, this dish is amazing and it's really easy to make.  It will make your whole house smell exotic and delicious!!

Here's what you need to get started.

Bicol Express

(one of those nebulous recipes that comes out of my mom's head.)

4-5 cloves of garlic minced

half a large onion diced

thumb sized chunk of ginger minced

1tbsp oil

1lb pork cut into chunks (I used pork shoulder again)

2-3 tbsp of shrimp paste/ bagoong /sauteed shrimp paste (I'll show you a picture)

1 can of coconut milk

1tsp turmeric

1 jalapeno diced

2 serrano chiles diced

2 anaheim chiles/peppers cut into chunks

(completely optional and not traditional, 2 handfuls of green beans)



Just so you know, I didn't use all that garlic.  After I peeled it off, I realized that I had double what I needed. 



1.  Saute your garlic, onion and ginger in the oil until soft.

2.  Add your pork and saute until just browned on the outside.

3.  Put in 2tbsp shrimp paste (add more to taste, sometimes this can get really salty) and stir until it coats everything.

So for all you filipinos wondering......  Yes it's supposed to be bagoong, but I can't find any bagoong here that isn't loaded with MSG.  So I had to wander off to the Thai section of the grocery and luckily I found this stuff that is just bagoong paste.  The color is a bit lighter, but the taste is right on.  Good thing too, or no Bicol Express for me!

4.  Add the coconut milk and turmeric and bring to a boil.

5.  Once it boils add all your chiles and turn the temp down to low and let it simmer for at least 30 minutes.  Preferably an hour so that the pork is fork tender (that means you can mash it with a fork). 

That's it!  Yum.  If you want to give your veggies for the night some flavor I highly suggest throwing in a few handfuls of green beans so that they're coated in the curry sauce.  The consistency of the green beans is great with the chiles.  Serve it over hot rice! 

  

Oh and for those of your worried about spice, it's not crazy spicy.  If you want it spicier add more chiles, and if you like it less just use the anaheim peppers with a tiny bit of jalapeno.  I'd say that mine is probably 2 out of 5 stars.  It's got just a bit of heat in the finish.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our joyful day and our satisfying dinner.  When we eat spicy and salty dishes like this help us to remember that "We are the salt of the earth."  Amen.

Bacon Cheeseburger on a bun. A really good bun.

I had this post all planned for tonight.   It was going to be a really great one that went into the history of my special burger recipe.  It brought back certain memories of the Philippines from my last trip there when I was twelve, but alas.  Jon shot that blog post in the foot and it can go no further! 

When Jon and I were eating our burgers tonight I was talking to him about this blog post and he stopped burger in hand and looked at me in all seriousness and said, "Wait, you're going to give away your burger recipe?"  It was like I planned on selling trade secrets to a multi-million dollar company.  Maybe Jon thinks we'll start a burger franchise someday.  I don't know, but seeing his face go pale like that when talking about burgers made me think twice about divulging all the secrets to my special burger recipe. 

I will tell you this.  Tonight's burger was perhaps the best burger I've ever made.  Other secrets.....It has beef in it (surprise we're not Taco Bell!  Ha ha!)  and it has onions chopped and mixed in with the organic grass fed beef.  Of the rest of the contents I can tell you no more.  But the last tip I will give is for you to fry your burger in the bacon grease after you've fried the bacon.  Oh my gosh.  It was fantastic!  Did I just gross some of you out?   Ha ha ha ha!!!

I've learned a few things about oils this year.  Let me share my wisdom.

1.  Extra Virgin Olive Oil is not for cooking!!  You're not supposed to heat it up.  It's for dipping and mixing in stuff and drizzling over salads, but not for throwing in a hot pan.  I don't know why Rachel Ray always uses it for sauteing.

2.  Apparently bacon grease is good for you!  Huh.  Who knew?!

3.  Coconut oil is really good for you.

4.  Sunflower oil has a crazy high smoke point (460 degrees farenheit) which makes it really great for high heat cooking.  Oh and that's good for you too.

So anyways, don't be afraid of the bacon grease.  Just....don't go overboard.  Know what I mean?

 So those are a few tips to making burger heaven.  Oh and slap some cheese and bacon on that burger too. 

But if you really want to get crazy, make your own buns.  Yeah, I do that.  I know, I'm nuts.

It's just so hard to find organic wheat buns without soybean oil.  Or just any buns without high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil.  So, I make my own.  Thanks to my handy dandy bread machine, the most involved step of the process is forming dough into balls! 

Here's the recipe from allrecipes.com  Burger or Hot Dog Buns

I modified it slightly by using 1 1/2 cups wheat flour and 3 cups all purpose and I used the breadmaker instead of doing it by hand.  I just threw it all in and set it on dough cycle, then shaped the buns, let them rise again for 30 minutes and baked them as stated in the recipe.  They're really good.  Very fluffy, but substantial enough to stand up to a thick burger and lots of ketchup, mustard etc. 

As you can see, I made a few (strangely shaped and somewhat large) hot dog buns as well.  Ha ha!  Oops, didn't think they'd rise that much.  Oh well. 

Someday, I might give up the burger recipe.  You might just have to come over to try it. 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear God, thank you for bacon.  Not only did Mikey eat bacon tonight, but he demanded it.  Thank you for bread, Clare devoured hers.  Thank you for giving us food and please help us be generous with everything that we have so that others in the world might have enough to eat as well.  Amen.

Beef Pho, sort of.

Some of you have seen this post on facebook, some of you haven't.  Yet others of you have been around when I've made Pho and had the pleasure (or so you say) of trying it.  I think it's pretty good. 

Jon loves Pho and until ....around 6 months ago(I think) I had never tried making it.  Every time we went to a Pho restaurant Jon would say something like, "We should really learn how to make this at home." or "I'd love to learn how to make this."  To which I'd chuckle because...well for those of you who witnessed Jon's cooking habits in college....you know.  Let's just say Pho is a bit more involved than heating up a costco burrito or making scrambled eggs.  Ha ha ha!! Poor husband.  I kid!  I kid!  He does other things in the kitchen sometimes, like make steak.  One time he really impressed me for Valentine's and make some filet mignons with bordelaise sauce.  It was amazing!

I digress.  Back to the Pho.  And that's pronounced "Fuh" and not "Poe"  hee hee!  My dad always says "Poe" and I still don't know what happened to the "H". 

The preparation isn't actually all that involved, but tonight I wasn't at my Pho best because mommy brain caught up to me and I just forgot to get a bunch of things while we were at Central Market after Mass.  No cilantro for garnish, no noodles, and no beef stock.  It was....okay.  But every other time I've made it, it's been mouth wateringly good. Whenever you make it, it will be delicious!  Just don't forget to actually buy ingredients like I did today.  Sigh.  Here's the recipe!!

I've read a few (like 4 or 5 I don't remember) pho recipes online and sort of mashed a few together.
I hope I don't offend any Vietnamese friends with my recipe.  It tastes great to us, so I hope you like it!

Oh and pay no attention to the noodles in the picture.  We usually use vermicelli noodles but mommy crazy brains forgot to get some at the store and had to make due with pad thai noodles instead.  Bah.

Pho Val style
1lb of beef stew meat.
4 or 5 cloves of garlic minced
2 thumb sized chunks of fresh ginger minced
1 large onion chopped
1 large cinnamon stick
2 star anise pods
3-4 tbsp fish sauce (Patis for you filipinos)
1 carton of beef stock (organic without msg is best!)
oil for sauteing

1/2 package Rice vermicelli noodles.


1.   Saute garlic, onions and ginger in a dutch oven or stock pot until the onions become translucent and the garlic and ginger are soft.

2.  Add stew meat and saute until brown.

3.  Add a carton of beef broth and fill the pot with about 3 quarts of water.  Bring it all to a boil and then let it simmer for ....hours.  At least 4 hours.

4.  Add your noodles to another pot of boiling water and boil for 3 -4 minutes until soft. 

Assembly goes something like this.  Noodles go in the bottom of the bowl.  Then I usually ladle in some broth, pick out a few chunks of meat, and top with whatever condiments you want.

Jon usually likes cilantro as a topping and sometimes Jalapeno slices.  Some people use bean sprouts and sriracha sauce (type of hot sauce) too. 

See?  Saute, brown and simmer.  Easy peasy.

I've seen some recipes for the broth that use beef knuckle and lemongrass, but I didn't use those.  Every now and then I'll add beef soup bones or marrow bones too.

I think traditionally the meat is sliced really thin and is cooked in the super hot broth right before it's served, but I don't really do that.  If the broth has reduced a lot by the time you're done simmering it you can always add more water and just bring it up to a boil.

Hope you like it!

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear Heavenly Father thank you for this soup which has nourished us tonight.  Thank you for the ease of preparation and my children's extreme love of noodles.  You never cease to provide for us, thank you for our blessings.  Amen.

Rosemary Honey Lamb and Herbed Foccacia Bread

Oh I've got a good one for you tonight.

Top foods had a sale on all natural grass fed lamb (and beef too!), so lamb was on the menu tonight. 

I got a couple of lamb shoulder cuts because those looked like the most economical.  You know, more meat, less bone, cheapest.  Gotta go with economical when you're buying grass fed meat.

A few days ago Jon and I were talking about food I should make that I could blog about and he enthusiastically blurted out, "You should do a post on foccacia bread!"  Jon doesn't usually get so enthused about food, but apparently (I found this out today) the foccacia bread is the best bread he's ever had.  Wow!  Ha ha!  Funny, how he doesn't really tell me these things the first time I make them.  Silly husband.

Tonight's lamb recipe comes from mom.  I don't really know where she got it, and again she doesn't really give me measurements, but hey, it all works out.  Let me just say that you can take some liberties with the quantities of ingredients in the lamb marinade. 

I ran out of dijon mustard, but I had some spicy brown mustard in the fridge so I went half and half with that.

Mom's Rosemary and Honey Lamb Chops
adapted from Mom

2 lamb shoulder chops

4 cloves of garlic minced
2tbsp of honey
2 tbsp oil (I used sunflower)
1tbsp dijon mustard
1tbsp spicy brown mustard
juice of 1 lemon
1tbsp rosemary

1.  Throw everything but the lamb into a ziplock bag and mix it around a bit until it's well combined.

2.  Put the lamb chops in the bag, get all the air out and seal it.

3.  Refrigerate the chops for at least 4 hours and up to 24.  I let them marinate for 5-6 hours today.

4.  About an hour before you're ready to bake them take them out of the fridge and let them come up to room temp.

5.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 

6.  Bake your chops for 20-25 minutes depending on size and desired doneness. 

This is a pic of the chops right before they went into the oven. Some people like to take all the marinade off, but I like the chunks of garlic and herbs on there. 

Unfortunately I wasn't so careful about how long I cooked my chops for and they came out slightly overdone after 25 minutes.  They weren't incredibly large and I should have probably only cooked them for 20 minutes. The flavor was still intense though and they weren't rock hard or anything. 

I let them rest for a few minutes after cooking while the foccacia bread was baking too.

Speaking of foccacia bread.  Here's the recipe.

It's adapted from my Cuisinart convection bread maker recipe book.  Just as the sandwich bread was made in the breadmaker, so was this dough.  I'll put some instructions on how to make the dough without a bread maker down at the bottom.

Herbed Foccacia Bread - 1lb foccacia round
Ingredients for bread
3/4c water (80-90 degrees)
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp italian seasoning
1tsp salt
3/4c whole wheat flour
1 1/3c all purpose flour
1tsp active dry yeast

Ingredients for topping

2 tbsp oil (I used sunflower because of the high heat, though I know that extra virgin gives a better flavor.  Darn carcinogens.  Bah.)

1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
1/4 cup parmigiano reggiano
3 tbsp italian seasoning (or chopped fresh herbs - basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, parsley) - I used dried.

1.  Place all these ingredients in your bread maker in the order shown and set it on the dough cycle!

2.  When the cycle is done oil your fingers and take the dough out, punch it down, shape it into a round disc (about 1 inch thick), put it onto your baking sheet and cover with a tea towel and let it rise for 40 minutes.

3.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
(If you have a pizza stone feel free to use this, otherwise a regular cookie sheet works fine.  If you want the crust on the bottom to be crispy you can take the bread off the cookie sheet a few minutes before it's done and put it straight on an oven rack. )

4.  Make indentations in the dough with oiled fingertips all over.  Drizzle with oil.  Sprinkle with salt, cheese, and herbs and put your dough into the oven.

If you're wondering about my crazy cookie sheet it's specially designed for pizza baking.  It ensures a crispy bottom without a pizza stone.

 

5.  Bake for 10-12 minutes until crust is golden brown and cheese has darkened a bit.

(If you need to make this without a bread maker combine the yeast and warm water.  When the yeast/water mixture is frothy add the rest of the ingredients and mix well until a dough ball forms.   Knead it for a couple minutes.  Put the dough ball into a well oiled bowl and let it rise until doubled in bulk. Probably around 45 minutes.  Then just follow the rest of the instructions starting with #2.)

Enjoy!!

Oh, but you must enjoy it this way.  It's the best.  I got this idea from this fantastic restaurant called Griffins.  It's one of my family's favorite restaurants to go to for celebrations (birthdays, mother's day, father's day etc.)  It's at the bottom of the Hotel Vancouver in downtown.  You should go, the food is great.

In a bowl combine extra virgin olive oil, good quality balsamic (I say good quality because I've had some really sour horrible stuff before.  I got what I paid for.  Ick!), and 2 cloves of minced garlic!   Use this as your dipping sauce.  It's wonderful.  If you want to get super fancy you can add some minced sun dried tomatoes and italian herbs to this.  Tonight we went simpler with just the garlic.

Dinner must have been decent tonight because Jon ate in the wrong order.  He usually goes for his veggies first like a good health nut.  Then the meat, then the starch.  Yes, he eats everything in separate stages.  I still think it's odd.  Anyways, tonight he ate meat first, then bread, then broccoli.  Success in my book.  Hee hee!

Sometimes I just get lazy. So here's a bread recipe.

Well tonight I just couldn't bring myself to break out the halibut sitting in the freezer.  I didn't really know what to do with it and I just had this intense desire for sushi. 

Jon indulged me and we tried a restaurant around here that I think is relatively new called Sushi Spott.  It was decent.  The spider roll and california rolls I had were great, but it was kinda pricey.  But I'll be honest, any sushi down here seems ridiculously expensive to me in comparison to sushi prices in Vancouver (BC).  I think it's because sushi is like fast food in Vancouver.  I almost think there are more sushi places than McDonald's in Vancouver.   

Nonetheless, I didn't cook tonight.  But I did make a loaf of bread earlier in the week that I didn't blog about.  So if you're interested in making whole wheat bread that is great for sandwiches read on. 

Buttermilk Whole Wheat Bread (2lb loaf)

adapted from the Cuisinart convection bread maker recipe booklet

1 1/2 cups buttermilk (warm 80-90 degrees)
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey
4 cups whole wheat flour
2tsp vital wheat gluten
2 1/4tsp active dry yeast

If you're using a bread machine, you can just throw all of those ingredients into it in the order listed and set it to the whole wheat setting.  That's what I do.

If you're doing it by hand (or by mixer) I think you'd just have to mix together the yeast and buttermilk first and wait until it's frothy, then mix in the rest of the ingredients and knead it well.  Put it in a greased bowl, cover it with a dish towel and let it rise somewhere warm until it has doubled in bulk, then punch it down, knead it again and let it rise in a greased, covered bowl again.  Then punch down, knead and roll it into a loaf and tuck the ends under and let it rise in a loaf pan (again covered with a dish towel).  Then bake!
From checking other bread recipes I think 35-50 minutes at 350 degrees should do it.
After it's done baking try to get it out of the pan as soon as possible and onto a cooling rack so that it doesn't get a soggy bottom. 

I know that some other recipes only have you let the bread rise twice (the last rise being inside the loaf pan) but I haven't ever tried that since I always use the breadmaker.  I haven't mixed this type of bread without a bread maker since right after Jon and I got married.  Sourdough is another story. 

Unlike most recipes you'll find for whole wheat bread this bread recipe uses completely whole wheat flour. So more fiber!  I've had success with variations  like replacing 1/2cup of the wheat flour with rye flour and adding 1 tbsp caraway seeds for a light rye bread.  The only thing you should really be careful with is the size of the grains on your wheat flour.  I have tried 2 different types and one of my flours was just too heavy because you could still see chunks of wheat berries in there.  It makes for a nice grainy texture in some breads, but loaves don't rise very well with flour that heavy. 

So go ahead and try it!  You'll be making bread without high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, msg and preservatives!  We love having fresh bread and this is the stuff Jon makes his work lunch with every day.....so it can't be that bad.  If nothing else, the smell of fresh bread in your house is enough motivation to try right?