Quinoa Salad

Salads are pretty easy to make but you can often get into a routine of making the same lettuce salad with cucumber, tomato and a dressing.

Ingredients:
1 - Cup of quinoa (cooked and cooled)
3 - Avocados
8 - Cherry tomatoes (chopped)
1/4 - Cup of Feta Cheese
3 - Tbsp olive Oil
1 - Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/2 - Tsp Salt
1/4 - Tsp Pepper
Chives as a garnish

Directions:
Put Quinoa into a bowl.

Peel and chop your avocado.

Add it to the quinoa.

Chop up some cherry tomatoes.

Add the tomatoes to the bowl.

Add in the Feta Cheese.

Pour in some olive oil, lemon juice, then add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix together and garnish with some chives on the side and chopped over top.

Garlic Scape Pesto

In the Fall, I plant my garlic cloves and in the Spring, the garlic starts to sprout. By the end of June it's time to cut off the garlic scapes so that my garlic bulbs will grow nice and big. But what do you do with those garlic scapes that you cut off? I occasionally use it like normal garlic, chopping finely and adding to recipes but this time I decided to make a pesto with it!

Ingredients:
10 - Garlic Scapes
1/4 - Cup of Pine Nuts
1/3 - Cup Parmesan Cheese
1/2 - Cup of Olive Oil
1/2 - tsp of Salt
1/2 - tsp of Pepper

Directions:
Roughly chop your garlic scapes.

Measure out your pine nuts.

Break up your cheese into small pieces.

Put the scapes, pine nuts, cheese, salt, and pepper into a food processor and cover with 1/4 cup of the olive oil.

Process until all of the big lumps are gone, adding additional olive oil as needed.

Once done, it will look something like this.

Put into a container or bowl and your pesto is complete!

Boil some water and cook 1/2 box of pasta (serves 2 - 3). Once cooked to your liking, drain the pasta and then put it back into the pot.

Scoop in small portions of the pesto and mix into the pasta; add as much as you like. I like everything to be well coated so I end up using about 1/3 of my pesto.

Plate and serve with some additional Parmesan cheese on the side.

Indian Quinoa

This is another random creation that I wasn't really sure what to call but because of the Indian spices, I settled on "Indian Quinoa". I had this as a side with dinner but it can also be eaten on it's own (cold) as a healthy snack for at work.

Ingredients:
2 - Tbsp Olive Oil
1 - Small Pepper (Chopped)
1/2 - White Onion (Chopped)
6 - Button Mushrooms (Chopped)
1 - Clove Garlic (Chopped)
1 - Tsp Grand Marsala
1 - Tsp Paprika
1 - Tbsp Curry Paste (This was a Butter Chicken one)
1 - Cup Quinoa
2 - Cups Beef Stock


Directions:
Heat a large pan over Medium-Low heat (4/10). Add the Pepper.

Add Onion.

Add Mushroom.

Add Garlic and then let cook for 5 or 7 minutes or until everything start to turn a little translucent.

Add in the Grand Marsala, Paprika and Curry Paste.

Mix everything together and let simmer for a couple of minutes.

While the mixture is simmering, rise the quinoa.

Add the quinoa to the mixture.

Mix everything together.

Add the beef stock.

Raise to a boil and then bring back down to low (3/10).

Occasionally stir until the liquid has been fully absorbed. 20 - 25 minutes.

Put into a serving dish and you are all set!

Duck!

I was at the grocery store checking out the frozen food bins, when I noticed that frozen whole ducks were on sale. It was about $10 for a whole duck! I got pretty excited and picked one up. When I got it home, no one else shared my enthusiasm but that didn't deter me; I was going to make this duck!

So where did I start? The internet? No! with a Laura Calder cook book and a Tweet out to her. As luck would have it, she was online and responded within minutes!!!

After some sound advise from my cooking idol, I decided against cooking the duck whole and took up the challenge of cooking the parts separately. In the end, the duck meat turned out really good and I was happy with my purchase and the decision to cook the parts as individuals.

In the top photo I show the duck with my zucchini boats and roasted veggies. See links for cooking those items. This post will only cover the duck. I chose to do the legs and wings first because they take a lot longer to cook than the breast meat does.


Ingredients:
1 - Frozen whole duck (defrosted)
1/2 - Cup red wine
Olive Oil
Salt + Pepper

Directions (Legs):
Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees.
Cut the legs and wings off, then put them into an oven friendly dish.

(It was harder to cut the parts off then I thought it would be!) 

Fill the bottom with 1/2 inch of olive oil, sprinkle the duck with salt and pepper, then cover with tin foil and bake for 2 hours. After 2 hours, remove the tin foil, increase the temperature to 400 degrees and cook for 15 more minutes to crisp the top.

Remove from the oven and serve! I wasn't very creative with this one being my first attempt at duck and I really wanted to see what the legs and wings would taste like on their own without any other influences. They were okay but not amazing.

(I said chicken once when I meant to say duck)

(The duck meat was great to have in my lunch with some left over potatoes)

Directions (Breast):
After cutting off the legs and wings for the previous recipe, you should have pretty good access to get to the breast meat on the duck. Cut off as much of the duck meat as you can but be sure to keep all the fat on it. Duck fat is amazing for cooking!

At this point you can start cooking or you can open a bottle of wine, pour some into with the duck to marinate and have a glass or two before starting to cook :)

Heat up a large frying pan to medium-high heat and add the duck fat side down. We put fat side down as it will melt away like butter.

After it has been sizzling for a little bit, flip it over.

Cook for a little bit more, and you are done! I don't have any timing for you on this one because I really don't remember. I ended up having to cut into one once I was at a point went I felt like it was ready.

Remove the duck from the pan and let rest. While resting, you can deglaze the pan and make a red wine reduction sauce.

While the sauce is settling, you can cut into the duck and check out all the goodness!

Duck is a gammy meat so you should see a little bit of pink in it.

Plate the duck with your starch and veggies. Spoon your sauce reduction over the duck (my reduction didn't turn out as nicely as I would hope) and you are ready to serve!

Mushroom Appetizers with Steph

Steph and I have been wanting to do a cooking project together for a while now, and we finally got the timing to work on a cool weekend in January.

Beforehand, we had decided on the theme, "Mushrooms", and we picked a couple of different appetizers to make. We ended up making 4 different dishes, Mushroom Caps, Brie and Mushroom Phyllo Puffs, Mushroom Ricotta Bruschetta and a Mushroom Risotto. I have to say that I was really impressed with how it all turned out. Here is a little intro video!

Mushroom Caps
I make these all the time so I pretty much just did this one from memory

Ingredients:
1 - Package of button or mini bella mushrooms
2 - Shallots
1 - Clove garlic
1/4 - Cup bread crumbs
1 - Tsp butter
2 - Tsp olive oil
1/4 - Cup white wine
white old cheddar cheese (shredded)
Feta cheese

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Wipe off the mushrooms and pull out the steams making sure to pull all of the steam out.
Brush the cap with olive oil and put open side down on a baking sheet then bake for 5-7 minutes.

Put the butter in a sauce pan and turn it on to medium-heat. Chop up 80% of the steams, both shallots and put them in the frying pan. As they start to sizzle add in the red wine and cook until tender, 5 - 7 minutes. Remove from heat, add breadcrumbs and combined.

Remove the caps from the oven, flipover and spoon in the mixture. Top half of the mushrooms with shredded white cheddar cheese and half with feta cheese. The feta ones will have a nice salty taste.

Put the baking sheet with the mushrooms on it back in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is starting to melt, remove from oven, plate and serve!


Brie and Mushroom Phyllo Puffs
I found a couple of different recipes for the Phyllo Puffs that I combined to make something that is more my style. The phyllo was a little tricky to work with, mostly because I didn't keep it damp, but once I got going, it wasn't too bad.



Ingredients:
8 - Button or mini Bella mushrooms
6 - Shiitake mushroom (if they are dehydrated you can hydrate them saving the liquid for the Risotto)
2 - Shallots
3 - Cloves garlic
1 - Wedge of Camembert cheese (8 ounces)
1 - Package of frozen Phyllo pastry
1 - Cup of butter
Sesame Seeds
Parsley as a garnish

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and pull the frozen phyllo out to thaw a little bit.
Slice all the mushrooms, chop the shallots and garlic.
Fry over medium-low heat with a Tsp of butter in a sauce pan until the mushrooms are tender. If you liked the flavor of the mushroom caps, you can add in some red wine for extra flavor!

Melt 2-Tsp of butter in the microwave. Unroll the phyllo and cut it into three strips. Cover the other sheets with a damp paper towel or they will dry out and tear. Place two sheets of phyllo on a cutting board and butter with the melted butter.

Place a Tbsp amount of cheese on one end topped with a Tbsp of the mushroom mixture. Fold the phyllo over the filling making a triangle. Keep folding until you get to the end. (Do one like this first and then adjust the filling to fill them as much as possible without breaking them). Place each completed triangle on a baking sheet and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Once all triangles are on the baking sheet, put them in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes, turning once and cook until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and sprinkle some parsley on as a garnish.

Mushroom Ricotta Bruschetta

I make a tomato bruschetta that tastes really good so when we saw the Ricotta Bruschetta, I just knew that we had to try it too!

Ingredients:

1 - Baguette

1 - Tbsp olive oil

1 - Cup of ricotta cheese

1 - Egg

1 - Lemon, zested

1 - Pinch of red pepper flakes

Salt and Pepper

1 - Package of button mushrooms, sliced

3 - Green onions, chopped

1/4 - Cup red wine

1/2 - Chicken stock

2 - Tsp lemon juice

2 - Tsp parsley

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the baguette length wise and brush with olive oil. Toast in the pre-heated oven for about 2-3 minutes.

Mix the ricotta, egg, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, and a little bit of salt and black pepper together in a bowl.

Pull the toasted baguette out of the oven, sprinkle with a little olive oil and cover with the ricotta mixture. Put back in the oven and bake until cheese is browned, about 12 minutes.

Heat butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat; cook and stir mushrooms until browned, 5 to 6 minutes. Add green onions; cook and stir until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir wine into mixture and cook until reduced by half, about 1 minute.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add chicken stock and lemon juice to skillet; cook until liquid has evaporated. Reduce heat to low. Stir in parsley and season with salt and black pepper to taste.

Spoon mushroom mixture equally on top of the baguette slices and cut them into smaller more shareable pieces.

Mushroom Risotto
All the credit on the risotto goes to Steph. I've made risotto before and I thought it was pretty good but in all the recipes we looked up, the key part of the recipe was to continually stir the risotto and add in small amounts of stock. I've cooked it more like rice, which isn't correct. After making it this way with Steph, it's the only way that I will be making it from now on!



Ingredients:
6 - Cups chicken stock
Olive oil
1 - Package Portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 - Package White mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 - Shallots, chopped
1 1/2 - Cups of risotto rice (Arborio)
1/2 - Cup dry white wine
Salt and Pepper
Butter
1/3 - Cup of Parmesan cheese
Parsley as a garnish

Directions:
In a saucepan, warm the stock over low heat.

Warm olive oil over medium-low heat and add in the mushrooms. Cook for 5-6 minutes or until soft. Remove the mushrooms and set them to the side.

Increase the heat to just above medium. Add olive oil, shallots and cook for a couple minutes. Add in the risotto, stirring to coat with the pan oils, about 2 more minutes. Pour in the wine stirring constantly until it is fully absorbed (this is the part that Steph was doing, constantly stirring the entire time while I added stuff). Add 1/2 cup of stock to the risotto, stirring until absorbed and then continue until the entire 6 cups and absorbed. I kid you not, all 6 cups will actually absorb!

Remove the risotto from heat and stir in the mushrooms with some butter and Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle with parsley.

It was an amazing night and I'm looking forward to our next cooking collaboration!