Asparagus Quiche And A Nursery

Well, i'm officially on maternity leave and frankly, Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I have been a busy bee both in the kitchen and in my nesting while I get ready for baby (25 days to go!) Now that I am not at work all day and exhausted and unwilling to try anything too unfamiliar or time consuming, I have had lots of time to get things done. I also finally have cable, after 2 years of being without it. What does this mean? FOOD NETWORK! I have been having fun trying new things, and aimed to do at least 2 new recipes a week.
So far so good!
I have gotten the babies nursery to an almost complete state, and preparing for him is about done too. We kept it neutral and animal themed. Matt's computer and some music equipment is still in the room for now but hopefully we will find another cozy space for it all soon.

I got this recipe for Asparagus White Cheddar Quiche from Food Network's Big Daddy Aaron McCargo.- and it looked easy and awesome on his show. Sure there are more than a few steps, but it was easy and relaxing to make. I tried my hand at it for a lunch with a girlfriend and my hubby, and everyone was in taste bud heaven. Sooooo good. Thank you Big Daddy!

ASPARAGUS CHEDDAR QUICHE

Ingredients

• 1 (11-inch) store-bought pie dough
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 bunch asparagus, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
• Pinch cayenne
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped chives
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream (It was really creamy, I suggest trying 3/4)
  
• 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups shredded white Cheddar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Roll out pie dough and mold into an 11-inch pie dish, crimping the edges to make ridges. Pierce the dough with a fork several times. Bake in the hot oven until slightly browned, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees F.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the butter, onions, asparagus, cayenne and garlic. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes until the asparagus is soft and mixture is fragrant. Remove from the pan to a bowl and let cool.

In a large bowl, add the chives, Dijon mustard, eggs, heavy cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Whisk together until well combined. Add the asparagus mixture to the pie shell, then pour in the egg mixture. Top with the Cheddar and bake until the eggs are set, about 35 minutes. (Mine took 55 minutes) Remove from the oven, cut into wedges and serve.

More excuses and Mac N Cheese.

oops....massive fail on the keeping up to date. it feels like every one of my blogs in the last year have been sparatic and appologetic with empty promises to stay up to date. They aren't purposefully empty as much as I am scatterbrained and half the time I forget my blog exists. But this time my reasons are legitimate! Lots of changes have been going on in my little life up here, and they have definitely been a cause for distraction.

1- Finally got into the apartment! We couldn't be more pleased, I finally have my kitchen all to myself and am slowly still putting it together. There are boxes of missing things but im hoping to dig them out eventually. I need my mandolin and my salad spinner, and all my fancy tongs! boo.

2- I'm baking a bun in the oven right now, and I don't mean in the literal food sense. Being pregnant and trying to work, get my place in order and plan for baby has definitely taken up alot of my free time. Only 8 weeks to go before he gets here!


Hopefully when baby does arrive, and I know I must be kidding myself, I will have more time to blog. Even though I have no time now, and having an infant will definitely slow down my cooking, time to take pictures of it, and time to put it online, I may still really want to have something to do during nap time. Here is hoping! It will also add baby food to my culinary repertoire so im looking forward to new fun food thoughts brewing up in my brain.

FOOD! I have tried before to make stovetop macaroni and cheese. I thought it would be easy, and it should be. But the other times I made it, I botched it. I was scared it was sour and I over scorched the milk, and everytime I would add the cheese directly to the beschamel it would separate. pfft. I don't know how and yet I do know how. This time I tried a different technique other than just tossing the cheese right into the beschamel and according to the tastebuds of both myself and my husand, BINGO!

STOVETOP MACARONI AND CHEESE

(Photo from google images, couldnt find my camera...I know I know )

For this recipe, the only number you really need to remember is 2.

2 cups dry elbow macaroni
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 cups milk
2.5 cups (or 3) grated cheddar- you choose the grade, I used old. blends are nice too.
salt and pepper

In a pot, boil well salted water and add macaroni. Cook to al dente and drain.

When the pasta is about 4 mins into cooking, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low. as soon as it is just melted, whisk in the flour and stay with it. let it cook for a moment to cook off some of the flour taste. I turned it down at this point because I usually end up scorching my milk. Slowly add the 2 cups of milk, whisking constantly. DO NOT LEAVE THE STOVE! You are stuck to the stove now but it's ok it only takes about five minutes. (its ok to walk away for a second to drain your pasta of course, just turn it down to low and try to be quick)

Turn up the heat to just under medium low and whisk constantly until it starts to just bubble and thicken. Add your salt and pepper (and even garlic salt) now.

Add the macaroni, and mix together with a spoon, tossing until it is obviously considerably hot (again, dont turn it up we dont want to scorch). Remove from heat and pour in the cheese. stir it vigorously until it is fully melted and you are ready to eat.

Doing it this way and adding the cheese at the end is a tip I got from Sandy Richard of Food network Canada and this was the best and creamiest way I have ever gotten it to turn out. Thanks Sandy!

Possible Variations-
*add ham in small bite sized chunks. Serve then or put all in a casserole dish, cover with crushed croutons or a favourite casserole topping of your choice and bake.
*Some recipes tell you to add mustard powder to your beschamel....haven't tried it yet. You choose!

Ham Broccoli Braid- I return to my blog

Blogging world! Or Should I say one follower- ha ha. I am back. For how long, I do not know. But I do have the goal to get blogging more as a form of company, as I am working nights right now and my hubby is asleep ten minutes after i get home. Therefore my usual entertainment is down for the count. We are believe it or not, STILL WAITING ON OUR KITCHEN AND APARTMENT. But it is literally, this time, 6-8 weeks away. 4 weeks ago i was told 6 weeks, no surprise here. I've waited 2 years I suppose I can handle 1-2 more months. As long as I am fully moved in for Christmas, I won't bite yet. That said, today's recipe is a home made one so Dave, you will be happy about that.

HAM AND BROCCOLI BRAID

This is my mother in law's recipe that she introduced me to. It may be from pampered chef, I'm not sure. either way, easy, cheesy, delicious.

• 2 cups cooked ham, chopped
• 1 cup chopped fresh broccoli
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
• 2 (8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent roll dough

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a large bowl, combine ham, broccoli, onion, parsley, mustard and cheese. Stir well.






Unroll crescent roll dough, and arrange flat on a medium baking sheet. Pinch together perforations to form a single sheet of dough. Using a knife or scissors, cut 1 inch wide strips in towards the center, starting on the long sides. There should be a solid strip about 3 inches wide down the center, with the cut strips forming a fringe down each side.



**For me, the dough came out of the can like it hated me and the perforations refused to stay together so I had to get to pounding it back together, and just sort of winged it**



Spread the filling along the center strip. Fold the side strips over filling, alternating strips from each side. Pinch or twist to seal.






Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until deep golden brown.

When In The Big Apple...

After a couple weeks of forgetting about my blog I'm back again. I've misplaced the camera so I haven't had a chance to take any shots of anything i have made this week. So today I will pick up on my Honeymoon food streak.

I waited 23 years to see New York City and I had 3 separate trips canceled almost last minute. Needless to say at this point I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to see and do. A small culinary adventure point we had made for ourselves was to hit up a few of the popular stands and try the famous treats of the city. It was so much fun running around seeking them out. The only place i wanted to go to that I never made it to was the A. Carnegi Deli and B. Katz Deli. I was down for either or but ended up getting to neither. A late night walk to the MAXIE deli on the last evening was in order to get the long awaited, New York Corned Beef On Rye.

Here We Go!

1. First Stop- The Black And White Cookie!


Seinfeld had it right, this cookie is neither a cake, or a cookie. But eating it cautiously, black and white icing at the same time makes for one hell of a yummy treat. We picked these up in Times Square at the Roxie Deli.

2. New York City Pizza- The best!


We didn't make it to the 11th street Rays, which I'm told is the "real" one. But the one in Times Square and just around the block was A.O.K scrumptious. Very cheesy, very greasy. Just like it should be.

3. Corporate Juice Pimps


They make one hell of a smoothie. Jamba juice was a place we stopped in more than once as my husband has a serious smoothie lust. The first time I had a peachy smoothie. It was nice but it didn't blow me to the moon. They were handing out samples that day of a very delicious little smoothie I tried on the next stop in. No idea what it was called but it has strawberries, Bananas, soy milk, oatmeal and peanut butter. It was awesome. I'm not a big smoothie drinker..or in this particular case eater. But I plan to figure this one out at home.

4. The New York Hotdog and Drink Combo- Grays papaya


When I was much younger I saw the Movie Fools Rush in. In it Matthew Perry tells Salma Hayek that his favourite part of New York is Grays Papaya Hotdog, and for his birthday she has a box of hot dogs sent to him in Nevada. Since then I really wanted to try them and this famous Papaya juice. We took a considerably longish walk to the nearest Grays papaya stand and got the recession special. 2 hot dogs and a medium drink for $3.99. Not bad. The juice was delicious and even creamy. The Hotdogs were fabulous. The restaurant was open, and covered in garbage that had fallen out of the over full bins. Maybe next time we can hit the more uptown location.

5. The New Yorker Sandwich- I think... Corned Beef On Rye.


This sandwich was big. So big. So juicy. I had to take half of the Beef out because trying to get my mouth around it was giving me lock jaw. I was disappointed my first NYC CBOR wasn't from KATZ or CARNEGIE but it was still delicious. Hubby didnt have one due to 2 weeks of rich eating leaving him at maximum capacity. Next time, we will make it to KATZ.

There you have it. I think we did pretty good in our treat adventure. Of course you can see we ate terribly but hey, how often do you get to have a tiny culinary adventure?

The other restaurants we ate it were:
Bubba Gumps- good fun, great waiter
SWIZZ- adorable little fondue restaurant
Roxie Deli- overpriced but delicious breakfast
Heartland Brewery- Fun tiny beer sampling restaurant- food not awesome
The Met Basement Cafe- awesome fun selection- delicious coconut cupcakes

Lickety Split Pea Soup

There is an awesome little shop just around the bend from me called The Bean Ladies. I first became familiar with them at Kempenfest, then the Canadian National Exhibition, then at the Barrie craft show all in a few months. They sell awesome roasted soy beans in all kinds of awesome flavours, along with pre mixed soups.

I shopped there for some stocking stuffers for some fam and friends at christmas and picked up a soup for myself. Lickety Split pea Soup! It was fast, easy and pretty tasty. Very thick but we like that. Next time I stop in I'll grab this again and maybe try one of their other soups.

Lickety Split Pea Soup

1 Package Bean ladies Lickety Split Pea Soup
1 Cup cooked Ham, cut into bite sized bites
1 medium onion, finely diced
1/2 cup carrot, finely diced
1/2 cup celery, finely diced
6 cups water buttered croutons
sour cream

This recipe can take one hour in a pot on the stove or 5 hours in the slow cooker on high- whichever way you like. Rinse the mix of peas and lentils well and place in your pot with the ham, carrot, celery, onion, water and seasoning pack (included in the package).


Stovetop Method: Bring to a boil and simmer for one hour
Slow Cooker- Cook on high for 5-6 hours (mine took 5.5)

When soup is finished garnish with buttered croutons and a dollop of sour cream. We added a multigrain tomato sandwich because we are beats. This was so easy and nutritious and all in all a good little comfort food.



Next Post: New York food adventures

Top Five Honeymoon Dinners

I got married in June and for a honeymoon we chose to take an Eastern Caribbean cruise from New York. The Caribbean Princess has a really wonderful Italian chef who's name escapes me today. This is Hubby and I's list of the top 5 non dessert dishes we ate.

#5: Pot Aux Roux?

The hubby chose this dish as his main on seafood night. I'm not a huge crustation fan but he is, and he was ecstatic with this dish.

#4: Steamed asparagus with Hollandaise sauce and pancetta

This was really nice. It was decadent and savory, I will definitely be imitating this one day.

#3: Cocoa Crusted Pork Tenderloin with Champagne Risotto and Ratatouille

This pork was so tender and sweet, the cocoa was such an awesome ingredient to use, I have only ever seen recipes that involve cocoa and meat. What a treat! The risotto was so perfect, so sweet and my first taste of ratatouille was even more exciting then imagined. The movie seems to have really boosted it's popularity.

#2: Shrimp Diavolo

Shrimp simmered in a hot pepper and tomato based sauce with both tasty and adorable polenta and your everyday steamed broccoli. This year is my first year enjoying and actually ordering shrimp

#1: Garlic and Goat Cheese Souffle

The most amazingly delcious,tart and garlicy thin I have ever had the pleasure of eating. This souffle was featured on the Chef's showcase menu. It was so good that all we both could think about for days was this delicious masterpiece. As God is my witness, I will make this one day. I will never be able to live in a world where I don't get to eat one of these annually!

Cakes For All

3 posts this week! Score! Just a small picture full blog featuring a few cakes I've banged out. I am by no means a cake decorator of professional sense but I like to play around. Hopefully I can take some classes in the next year to help me step it up a notch. In the last year I have made a few cakes I have been considerably proud of. One from this pile is from 4 years ago and my first bachelorette cake ever.

Cake One: The Dick Cake

I
made this cake for my big sister's bachelorette cake. I was made fun of for this one, as I drew it freehand and managed a vein texture. This shot is before the writing was piped on, as i screwed it up.

Cake Two: The Boob Cake

I made this cake for my buddy Jeff's birthday. I was pleased as punch when I went to the Bulk Barn because they always have so many colours of dye. I found fleshy colours and it really made the cake.

Cake Three: The Baby Cake

My Friend K.T's son turned one and she trusted me enough to ask me to make his cake. I made this Elmo cake. I was really busy at work that week so to save some time and frustration I commissioned an UN-DECORATED cake with cream filling from Costco. I'm not sure how but I messed up his nose a bit. Elmo has an oval nose and I Sort of made the top of his nose go into the eye as opposed to over it. Eh, it was still a damn cute cake!

Cake Four: The Cup Cake

For Christmas last year my Aunt bought my sister and I both these Wilton cupcake-cake mold. It was super cute and the possibilities are endless. I actually used the top piece mold 2x to craft my boob cake!

Next Blog: The cutest and craziest cupcake book I have ever seen.

Sugar High Ham

Two days, two blogs. What a role!
Matty and I had most of the family away during the New Year break and so the kitchen was available for play time. One thing we never really made in our house was glazed ham. Perhaps this can be contributed to the whole being Italian thing as we tend to be chicken and beef and *sigh* lamb and rabbit people. But whenever someone had us over for dinner and made us Glazed Ham I was always excited for the change.
I had leftover pineapple from the new years pizza and so I referenced some "how-to" glaze recipes online and spun up this ham glaze. In the end, this was really nice but maybe a little too sweet. Next time I may need to hit it up with some vinegar to knock it back a peg. I served it with my cheesy cauliflower mash which was delicious and considerably nutritious, sweet potatoes and grilled tomato. I felt pretty good about it, next time more leafy greens needed.

SUGAR HIGH HAM

1/2c Brown sugar, packed
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tbsp Frank's Red Hot
1/4c Pineapple Tidbits
1/2c Pineapple juice (from can)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp prepared garlic
Salt & pepper to taste
1/4c Coca Cola
2-4 lb cooked ham

Mix all ingredients discluding the coca cola and ham (of course) in a container and whisk together. Can be used immediately but if you have a couple hours to let it sit, you should give it a whirl.

Cut small diamonds into the ham and rub the garlic into it, pushing in as far as you can. Be careful not to tear it open. Stab the ham 6-8 times with a toothpick as long as possible and pour over coca cola.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour sauce into a saucepan and bring to a quick boil. Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer and reduce by half, about 15 minutes. Pour half of the hot glaze over the ham, letting it drip from the top down the sides.

Bake for 30 minutes, uncovered. Pour remaining glaze over ham and bake for another 30 minutes until golden and sticky looking.

Remove ham and let it rest, covered for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Easy, just takes a little while to cook!

Cauliflower Mash!

clean and cut up a head of cauliflower into small florets. Steam until just more than fork tender. Mix with butter- 1 tsp garlic salt - 1/4 c grated cheddar and mozzarella mixed-pepper to taste. Mash up the cauliflower and mix well until it becomes numerous small bits but stop before you get to a mashed potato consistency. This is meant to be pretty chunky. Enjoy!

Next Post: Christmas Breakfast? Something from last year? Naughty cakes? Stay tuned!

Happy New Year! A Foodsie Resolution

Happy New Year! Seeing how it is that time of the year where you are supposed to make a resolution, I made a couple small ones. I didn't set one huge unsustainable goal, instead I set a few small personal notes for myself.

1. Attempt to tidy up a little more everyday, because the hubbster and I tend to let the apartment get away from us. Who wants to spend their whole Saturday off cleaning?

2. Cook Cook Cook! We're currently waiting out the building process of our apartment and staying in a loft apartment, sans KITCHEN. With only a microwave, a rice cooker and a bar fridge to keep some milk and condiments cold, we eat out more than we like to admit. We can however have access to a kitchen off and on so I have managed a couple New Years recipes. My resolution was to cook more, eat out less, try new things and eat healthier.

I started a kitchen journal and so far so good. (Thank's for the tip Michael Smith!) In it i made a list of things I really want to try to make this year. Here goes!

Polenta- Pad Thai - Butter Chicken - Sushi - Roast Chicken - Pizza Dough - Pasta Noodles - Borscht - Miso Soup - Yorkshire Pudding - Brownies - Red Velvet Cupcakes - Green Tea Cake - Buttercream - Pie Crust - English Trifle and more!

The list in my head is much bigger of course, but these are just what stood out in my mind. They also give me more blog goals, as I will post whenever I get through one.

On New Years I only had 6 guests, 8 including us. I kept it easy and pretty quick.

The Menu:
Meat Lovers Pizza- Bacon, Pepperoni and Ham
Hawaiian Pizza- Pineapple, Ham and Pepperoni
Family Cheeseball- delicious tradition!
Veggies & Dip- Roasted Garlic and Cheddar by DEB'S DIPS




***Next Blog: Sugar High Ham and Cauliflower Mash - Stay Tuned!

A wedding day Rundown

I just reformatted my blog page, and switched it from a dark blue background to a creamy colour. All my text in the other 57 posts are bright pinks, blues, tangerines.... a horror to the eye really when i think about it. But this page gets to play with ALL colours. If the look of the page doesn't make your eyes bleed, that's a good day.


My last blog wave was back when I was planning my wedding and right before things got HECTIC. I'm talking, living out of a suitcase cause my house is a big wooden box still and I'm planning a wedding for 250 people. But seeing how everything went so swimmingly and I am finally getting more settled in my newly married life I can get back to blogging...for a while at least. So here are just a few shots from the wedding to give you an idea of the day. It was sunny, we were on top of the world and I have never danced so much in my life.

The Hairdo

The Ladies Help Me Prep- Just thought it was a nice shot

The Ladies in a row

Happy Over Eccentric Newlyweds in the limo


A decent shot of my dress without using a photographers shot


Our First dance was gonna suck because we are not the most compatible on the dance floor together. But we are musically compatible and so we did a first song instead of a first dance. My Husband Matt played Guitar and I sang Jack Johnson's "Better Together"

That's it for today I'm thinkin. ciao!

Can It Be?

ok, im in a new house. my wedding has already 6 months come and gone. in fact, my blog has not been updated in like, 10 months or sumn! insane! the reason i strayed away? my blog was being a pain in the ass! im not exceptionally tech smart, i have a husband who fixes everything for me. But this blog was becoming so hard to do. My net, my laptop and more all made it very hard for me to upload pictures, or even to drag and drop. it owuldnt let me drag, the nightmares i was having. and i got pissed and gave up for a little wee while...10 months wee while.

but i am on a new computer, with a proper mouse, in a new home with shitty country internet but i'm going to give this another try. I really love doing this blog and i love reading other foodies blogs.... and i just want to learn how to make a decent one! lol




to test todays little entry, a photo! This smoggy, grey, finger smudged photo is believe it or not, a sight that made me almost cry. This is my shot of the NYC city skyline as our plane landed in LaGuardia. I waited my entire life to soo the big apple, and 3 separate attempts prior to this FAILED. so when you finally get to see something you always wanted to, you get...well... HAPPY!


now to test photos again....i added only one photo and it did not allow me to drag it down without dropping it in the middle of some text....i dont get it there is sooooo much white unused space on the screen why cant it be more open? *sigh*



ok...drag and drop didnt work...bastardo. however, i switched over to html and took a guess at what could happen if i cut and pasted all that jargin that represents a photo and that worked out to my favour....feeling better! This shot is one we took of the pond in Central Park, it was a gorgeous day!

now that the shoot the shit trouble shooting blog is done, let's see how i can get a years worth of back bloggin up hahahah. look out!

Lion Man tries on suits

Matt took 2 years to agree to grow his beard back! Which i love!~ But now he has a big beard and his hair got long, and he hasn't had a chance to get it cut! So I have started teasing him.

We went to pick out the very dapper sexy suits for our wedding. Matt looked like Lion Man from these car commercials these days. He was so furry and unkempt in the hot suits We had to take pictures to laugh at. I know when he is all clean and unkempt it will be even hotter than it is now! weeeee...

First we tried on a chocolate brown suit with a couple different ties. SEVENTIES MUCH? it was awesome for like a night out or sumn to be silly but not for a wedding. 8 groomsman in brown= shit parade?



We tried on the brown suit because I was hot for this brown tie! it looked hot but the suit didn't work for the wedding. And the tie didnt work with out final suit choice!

The final suit choice is sweeeet. this is it here! Matt is making a silly goodball face!
OW OW what a sexyyyy suit.




Thats it for the suits! I am planning to make covered button boutenniers! what fun!