Monthly Archives: May 2022

Better Burgers

Posted on May 30, 2022 by | Leave a comment

I have to admit I love a good burger and fry night. And while I enjoy a deliciously grilled burger I use to feel guilty for not having some sort of veggies served with the meal. I then started making my own patties and it changed everything. Not only is the taste a lot more complex but I no longer need to worry about the guilt of not serving a veggie because I put them right into the burgers. I use a hamburger press to make them even and for freezing. When I make patties I tend to make a large batch so I don’t have to make them every time we have burgers.

Here’s the recipe I use

4 lbs Ground Beef ( I tend to use lean)

1 Zucchini

4-5 Mushrooms

2 Carrots

1 onion

2 Bell peppers ( I prefer the sweet ones as opposed to the green)

2-3 Cloves of Garlic ( or more if you love garlic as much as I do)

2-3 handfuls of Spinach

1 egg

A splash of Soy sauce

Take your veggies and place them in the food processor and finely chop. You may need to do this in a several batches. Add veggies, ground beef, egg and soy sauce to a large bowl. Mix well. Form into patties (I get between 16-20 burgers depending on size) freeze till ready to grill.

I hope you give this recipe a try! What are your favourite burger recipes?

These look huge but I just took a really close picture of the patties.

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Date Night- Chicken Marsala

Posted on May 28, 2022 by | Leave a comment

When we lived on the west coast we would sometimes go to Olive Garden for a meal as a family. My favourite thing to order was Chicken Marsala. The mushrooms and Marsala sauce and perfectly seared chicken served on creamy mashed potatoes just always hit the spot. So you better believe that I decided I was going to make a homemade version so we could have date night at home.

Here’s the ingredients you’ll need:

4 chicken breast cut in half and pounded thin

2-4 Tbsp flour

salt and pepper

4 Tbsp of Butter

2 cups of mushrooms sliced

3/4 to 1 cup Marsala wine

1/4 cup Water

Parsley to finish

In a shallow dish mix flour, salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour and set aside.

In a large skillet melt 2 TBSP butter over medium heat and add mushrooms. Sautee for 10 minutes and then remove from pan.

Add remaining 2 TBSP of butter to the skillet and cook chicken. You might need to do this in batches depending on size of chicken. Cook chicken till no longer pink and at safe cooking temperature. Remove to a plate or serving platter.

Put mushrooms, wine and water back into skillet, heat and reduce slightly. Pour over chicken, sprinkle with fresh or dried parsley and serve over noodles or mashed potatoes.

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Call Me Julia Child

Posted on May 26, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Have you seen the new Julia Childs show on Prime video? If you haven’t you have to check it out. I have so many of her recipes that I am excited to try but just like Episode 1 of the TV series I decided the best place to start would be an Omelette! I might not quite have the rolled omelette techniques down yet but the taste was delicious. Now I of course couldn’t just make a plain Omelette I filled it with some sautéed mushrooms and shredded cheese. I am hoping to get my hands on the Julia Childs cookbooks or maybe someone will order them for me from Amazon (hint hint husband lol)

Making this omelette only take a few staple ingredients. You will need 1 tbsp of butter, 2 eggs and some salt and pepper. The like I mentioned I added some sautéed mushrooms and shredded cheese.

Heat your pan over medium high heat and melt butter. Crack the eggs in a bowl and whisk with salt and pepper. Once butter is melted add the eggs to the pan and swirl around then put on heat and let set. After the eggs are set and cooked add cheese and mushrooms then attempt to roll the omelette and make picture perfect lol. But in all seriousness even if you don’t roll or fold it perfectly it will still taste amazing!

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Tacos Tuesday!!!

Posted on May 24, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Well as most parents that had toddlers when the Lego Movie came out the Taco Tuesday craziness lol. My oldest is in his teens and still refers to Tuesday as Taco Tuesday. It’s a fun little spin on things and can make a themed meal plan a little simpler. The thing is I’ve discovered Tacos don’t always mean the traditional ground beef tacos most of us have grown up with there’s a whole variety of to choose from from chicken ranch to ground beef to pork. Tonight we went will pork and man these were phenomenal.

Tuesday’s we usually have a homeschool outing so I decided to make the meat in the crockpot so we avoided hitting the drive thru on the way home. The best part of this recipe is it makes enough to eat tonight and throw some in the freezer for another meal.

Here’s the recipe

4 lbs Pork Shoulder Roast

1 Onion diced

4-6 Garlic cloves minced

Seasonings of choice(I used chicken and rib rub, salt and pepper)

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup orange juice

4 tbsp Lime juice

Put the onion, garlic, chicken broth, orange juice and lime juice in the crockpot. Season pork and add to crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Remove roast to a cookie sheet lined with foil and shred the pork. Place in oven under broiler till crispy bits form on the top of the meat. Use the meat to make tacos to your preference. We warmed tortillas topped it with the meat, diced raw onions, cheese, salsa, sour cream and avocado.

How do you like your Tacos?

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Welcome to Date night

Posted on May 21, 2022 by | Leave a comment

So as the title suggests I will be talking about date night. I’ll be incorporating this post into a hopefully weekly series of at home date night ideas, to make your significant other feel appreciated and for you to reconnect at home without breaking the bank. An added bonus is you can get into some comfy clothing and just relax instead of getting ready for hours(not that that isn’t fun once in a while as well).

Now I will warn you the plating was definitely not on par when I took the pictures but the taste of this meal was phenominal. I had some mushrooms and Talapia I wanted to use so I went to google to show me all the wonders I could make with these ingredients. And that’s when I came across this recipe. I knew both my husband and I would love this recipe, I had some leftover roasted veggies and some ingredients for a side salad so we were set for date night. I’ve mentioned the recipe for the side salad in a previous post and I tend to switch it up but this night I made it with arugula, walnuts and homemade balsamic dressing.

I am telling you you’ve got to try this mushroom sauce. I don’t know the exact cost of the recipe but it was cheap. I’ll try and cost out some of the meals in future posts 🙂

There is actually a piece of Tilapia hidden under all that sauce lol

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Ambrosia Salad

Posted on May 19, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Do you ever just come across a recipe and it brings back such vivid and happy memories? Well I had that feeling while browsing vintage recipes and came across Ambrosia Salad.

I can remember being a little kid up at the cottage playing with cousins on hot summers days and having this as our dessert. It sounds like an odd combination of ingredients but trust me try it at least once and you’ll be hooked. And besides vintage is in at the moment lol.

Here’s the link to the Ambrosia Salad I used. Next time I might even add some maraschino cherries to the mix 🙂

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Steak Protein Bowl

Posted on May 18, 2022 by | Leave a comment

I had originally taken out some steak to grill, and have a steak a traditional steak and baked potato meal. But then I got a craving for a protein bowl a local restaurant makes with chicken. So I decided to make my own protein bowl. This is one of those meals that will probably never be recreated the same way again but was incredibly satisfying.

I started by putting some rice and kale on the bottom, then added some diced tomatoes, grilled diced steak, Boondi chickpea snacks and a drizzle of garlic mayo. Sometimes a little kitchen experiment tastes great!

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A Quick and Simple Lunch

Posted on May 17, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Somedays are so packed you barely have time to stop and think. On days like that I like to make a simple yet satisfying lunch. On Saturday we were busy pricing out some house projects, running errands and organizing the house. Before I knew it I hadn’t eaten a thing and it was lunchtime.

I needed to eat and feed the family(they had breakfast so don’t come at me lol) before there was an upheaval in our house. It was the perfect opportunity to take out the panini press. I made some delicious roast beef wraps with mustard, mayo and a slice of cheddar cheese for those of us that enjoy cheese and grilled it on the panini press.

While those were crisping up I made an incredibly simple side salad that consisted of arugula, walnuts and cherry tomatoes served with a drizzle of homemade balsamic dressing. It took about 15 minutes to pull it all together. This meal definitely always hits the spot and in fact I usually make the sandwich on protein up wraps instead of flour tortillas but either way they are delicious.

Excuse the messy plate we were less concerned about aesthetics and more about eating our meal 🙂

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What’s to come on the blog?

Posted on May 15, 2022 by | Leave a comment

So I have so many ideas swirling around my head I thought I would let you all know what they are. I want to plan out a few different things for the blog.

One of those those items is how to deal with the ridiculous price inflation of everything and how I am trying to keep our budget in check. I might even post receipts or keep a list of what we had on hand to use up versus what we bought. So many options for this topic.

Another fun thing I want to post weekly about is at home date night meal ideas. That a delicious meal does not have to break the bank and we can cook our favourites at home. Without feeling deprived of course.

And the last idea I want to share for the day is the one I am the most excited about. As a trained chef and someone that loves cooking I’ve gathered a lot of recipes, cookbooks, cooking magazines, meal plan subscriptions, and ideas from cooking shows. So I don’t want all those recipes/cookbooks to just sit there doing nothing. I want to pick a cookbook per month and only make recipes from that book. Think of the movie Julie vs Julia scenario but with lots of different chefs and books in the weeks and months to come. And I will show you how I source the ingredients or make changes to keep it within the budget.

So stay tuned because this and so much more is in the works 🙂

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Sweet Potato Fries With Curry Dip

Posted on May 12, 2022 by | Leave a comment

The first time I ever had sweet potato fries with curry dip was when I moved to the East Coast. When we would get them on the West Coast they were usually served with a garlic Aioli. I have to say I love both dips. But since the curry dip is new to me I had to try recreating it at home. I could have made the fries from scratch but I had a bag in the freezer so used those and spent time on the actual dip.

Here’s how I made it, I mixed 1/4 cup mayo, 1/4 cup plain greek yogurt, 1/2-1tbsp of curry(you have to play around with just how strong a curry taste you prefer and don’t forget it develops a stronger flavour as it sits) and a pinch of Himalayan pink salt.

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