Camera

In an effort to start taking better pictures for my blog, I purchased my first DSLR camera. Its a Canon Rebel T3. Yes, I know it’s only a 12 MP camera and my old point and shoot Sony Cybershoot was a 14.1 MP (I was forever taking blurry photos because it was so small and light) but I wanted to ability to do more, take faster photos, have more options and I thought, get more lighting with a better flash. The biggest benefit with Canon Rebel T3 was the cost. $429 at Henry’s, $399 at BestBuy, $379 at 2001 Audio/Video and $328 at Walmart. I bought it at Walmart last night. The only reason that I can think of for the big price drops is that it’s probably going to be replaced by a newly model very shortly but oh well, I need to start somewhere and $328 is a much better starting price than $500 – 700.

One of the biggest things I noticed right away, that I liked, was the speed at which it takes pictures. It is so much faster and I'm hopefully that will lead to more impromptu photos and less missed opportunities. The biggest drawback I've see is that the standard lens isn’t wide angle… photo’s just look funny to me when they aren’t wide angle. I’ve been shooting everything wide angle for the last 2 or 3 years on that Sony. I'm starting to look for an inexpensive wide angle lens but they are all pretty much above the $200 mark and I really only want to pay like $50 - 80. Then after that, I’m pretty sure that I will want a macro lens so I can take closer / better food photos. sigh… 

Cauliflower Pizza

I saw this recipe on one of my friends Facebook feeds and it sounded so interesting that I just had to try it out. Cauliflower Bread-sticks, or as I like to call it Cauliflower Pizza! Now just for reference, here is a link to the original posting

Ingredients:
1 - large head of cauliflower
2 - cloves of garlic, minced
2 - large eggs, lightly beaten
4 - oz of mozzarella cheese
1 - teaspoon of onion soup mix
salt and pepper to taste
4 - oz of orange cheddar cheese for a topper

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees
chop the cauliflower into chunks and put into the microwave for 5 minutes (it's really it 5 minutes, I tried 2 minutes, not good enough, then 3 more and it was a lot softer)
Take the heated cauliflower, put it into a food processor and blend it until it's mashed potato texture (the crappy boxed kind)

In a medium blow, stir together the cauliflower, eggs, mozzarella cheese, onion soup mix, salt and pepper

Lightly spray a baking pan with spray oil (PAM) and pour in the mixture (about 1/2 inch thick), if it's any thinner then those edge will burn... it happened to me...

Bake at 450 degrees for 20ish minutes (25 was too much for my batch) or until the top starts to brown. Top with the orange cheddar cheese and put it back in the oven to allow it to melt (2 - 3 minutes)

That's it and it's ready to go. It takes about 35 - 40 minutes in total but it was worth it, a glutton free alternative to pizza!

Note-to-self: Buy a better camera and take better photos!

Onion Pizza

My Onion Pizza is a little bit different than a regular pizza because of the pizza crust and the toppings. What's on my Onion Pizza?

Ingredients:

Naan Bread

2 Medium Onions

2 Cloves Garlic

1 tbsp Thyme Leaves

Goat Cheese

butter

Directions:

First we start off with the two onions and some butter. Chop each onion in half and then cut into thin slices. Put the onion and butter in a frying pan and fry for about 8 minutes, adding in the Thyme after a couple minutes.

After frying the onions, butter and thyme for 8 or so minutes, add in the garlic and fry for another couple of minutes

Put the Naan bread on to a pizza sheet

Add the Onion, Thyme and Garlic mixer on to the Naan bread and top with Goat Cheese

Put the pizza into an oven at 350 for about 10 - 12 minutes and pull it out when the cheese has started to melt

Cut into quarters and it's ready to serve!

Flavorless Roast….

Why is it that whenever I make a Roast Beef it has no flavor? It doesn’t matter what I do or what recipe I follow, Roast always just takes like meat! I’ve tried Slower cooker Roasts, Oven Roasts, Pan fried and then Oven Roasts all with the same results. Flavorless…. Here is a breakdown of my latest failure in the Roast department

On Tuesday or Wednesday I was at Central Fresh Market, Which I refer to as Central Meat, getting some chicken and steak (they have the best prices and cuts, which a bunch of full time butchers on staff, this place is known for there meat) when I saw this little Roast. I thought to myself “I could make this for me and the kids”, my wife is on this quantum cleanse right now so she can pretty much only eat veggies, so I picked it up. I have no idea what is the difference between top sirilon or rum or whatelse there is available. All I know is that they were all $3.99 per lbs (generally the more per lbs mean the better the mean but I really didn’t have an option here). So anyway I picked up this Roast.

Whenever I go to make something, unless I have made it a bunch of times before I will look up some recipes for the item online for get basic instructions and cooking times and then do whatever the heck I feel like!

Most of the Roast recipes said to Slow cook or Oven Roast. Since I really didn’t want to have to do any cooking to day I decided on slow cook but I didn’t want to put in all the veggies because I find that they are never really that good slow cooked, they are just kind of mushy. Okay so Slow cooker, with 1 box of beef broth, most of the recipes said to cover it but that’s a lot of water/beef broth so by putting in a box I covered 1/3 to 1/2 of it and I decided that I would flip it around. Most recipes said to put it on for 6 – 8 hours. I put mine on for 10am which means it would be ready for between 4 and 6 pm which is perfect timing. Then they list different spices and sauces, etc. I ending up doing the following:

1 Small Roast

1 Box of Beef Broth (900ml)

1 medium Onion Chopped

Salt

Pepper

3x cloves of Chinese Garlic (I’m trying to use the stuff up before breaking into my Ontario garlic) chopped and sprinkled on top of the exposed Roast

Tamron sauce coating the exposed size

2 tbsp Worshisharier sauce (I have no idea how to spell that word) all around

2 tbsp Soya sauce poured around

1 tbsp Onion soup mix mixed in around it

Then I covered it and put it on low for 7 hours. It was turned a couple times, it smelt amazing and then when I pulled it out it was fall apart goodness but then I tried it…. it was flavorless meat. This is the part that confuses me. if I was to put all that stuff on Steak Skweres it would have an amazing flavor but when I put it on Roast? Nothing… it’s like the meat is too big to absourb anything…

What am I doing wrong!!!

Here’s a photo of what is looked like, then another photo of my whole dinner (I had to use Diana’s Sauce to make the Roast taste better). The only pluse side is that the leftover liquid from cooking it in tasted really good, so I put it in a contains kind of like “Ghetto” French onion soup. I’m sure that once I put my Guerrier cheese on and bake it for a bit it will be really good!

Stratford Garlicfestival

Last weekend I went to the Stratford Garlic festival (It rained the whole time we were there) but I thought it was pretty good. There were two rows of vendors may 60 – 70 in total with lots of different Garlic and Garlic Associates. Now when you buy garlic at the grocery store you either get the bulk imports from China, the bulk imports from China but shipped through another country and labeled at the country, occasionally some garlic from Argentina and if you are really lucky during a week or two in the summer you will see some Ontario Garlic. Garlic from China is fine but because it’s not “fresh” I have to use 3 or so cloves for my recipes instead of just 1 when using Ontario Garlic (oh, who am I kidding I will still use 3 cloves of Ontario Garlic just because I love the stuff so much!)

Why is Ontario Garlic so much better than the bulk imports from China? First off they are generally larger and they just seem to have so much more flavor! I personally hit the Garlicfest each year, buy a bunch of different type and they plant some of each in the fall so I have my own Garlic and Garlic Scapes come the next summer (Garlic Scapes are the top flowering piece that you cut off before they flower, generally in mid to late June). The Scapes are loaded with Garlicy flavor and can either be chopped up and used fresh or pickled and eaten at a later date.

So anyway at the Stratford Garlic festival this year we were there early enough to take in one of the cooking demonstrations. I have the pleasure of meeting Chef D, Darryl Fletcher, who made the most amazing chocolate, cream and garlic sauce just out of those three ingredients. 

After the demonstration we wondered around and tried some different Garlic Sauces, Pickled Garlic Scapes, Dill and Garlic flavored cheese and Garlic popcorn. Everything was really good. The only problem with Ontario Garlic is the cost. You are generally going to pay anywhere from $1 on the low side to $3 on the high side, per bulb of garlic.  They also sell by the braid for anywhere from $15 – 30 depending on the size. I got lucky this time and stumbled into “Golden Acres Farm’” who were selling but the pound. I ended up getting 6 blubs for 8 dollars which is a really good price. Here is a picture of the different type I bought. I haven’t had a chance to type them all yet but I’m looking forward to it!

I posted this photo on Facebook and the first one to comment was my sister who said "They spelt Garlic wrong!" haha, she's a funny one ;)

Edamame Beans and a chunky Milkshake

Have you ever heard of an Edamame bean? Basically they are a bean that is high in protein and, when eaten cold, taste kinds of milky. This is what Wiki has to say about it:

"A soybean that can be eaten fresh and are best known as a snack with a nutritional punch.
Edamame beans are rich in carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber, and micronutrients, particularly folates, manganese, and vitamin K. Edamame beans contain higher levels of abscisic acid, sucrose, and protein than other types of soybeans and may contain carotenoids."

Why am I talking about Edamame beans? At the start of this month Jen decided to do a "Quantum Cleanse" which is basically cutting out animal products, gluten, sugar and pretty much everything else that is good. One of the things she picked up to snack on was shelled Edamame beans from the freezer section. The package said that they were high in protein so I thought I would try a couple to see what they tasted like (I totally expected them to taste like Lima Bean - which I dont mind). I tried a couple of them and they tasted pretty good but what I immediately thought was "I could combine this milky flavored bean with a nutty flavor to make something really good".

The first thing I did was Google "Edamame Bean Milkshake". The results weren't very promising, nothing came back about using Edamame beans in a milkshake type fashion so I thought "what the heck, lets experiment a bit".

I combined 1/3 cup of frozen Edamame beans with 3/4 cups of Almond milk (Silk True Almond because it's thicker than normal Almond milks), 1 tbsp of Vanilla extract, blended the heck out of it and it made an amazing milkshake! It's a little bit of a chunky milkshake but if you are craving that milkshake and can't have dairy then go with one of these and it will quench that craving.

Borscht

After making the 10 jars of pickled beets I still had a ton of beets left over. I decided to make some Borscht! Now I make Borscht a little differently. My recipe is basically Beets, Water, Vinegar, Salt, Garlic and sometimes Cloves. I'd like to tell you the proportions but I really don't know, I just go by taste.

To prepare the beets you need to peel them, which is so much harder and messier than peeling them after they are boiled, but you need them clean as you are going to keep the water for the soup base. After the beets have boiled for 30 or so minute (until they start to get tender), I pull them out and let them cool for a little bit. Once the beets can be handled now it's time to start Shredding them. Shredding takes a while but to me it makes all the difference in the taste and texture of the soup.

Ok, now the beets are shredded, transfer them back into the soup base add vinegar 1/2 a cup to start, 4 cloves of garlic and some salt. Simmer the soup on low-med for another 15-20 minutes to allow the flavors to mix in.

I ended up making three different batches of Borscht, canning them into 7 Jars. Then I found out that "Unlike fruits and tomatoes, soup is a low-acid food and cannot be safely preserved using the boiling water bath method". I either need to find a couple people who like Borscht or I'll be eating a lot of Beet soup in the coming weeks...