Thirsty Thursdays: London Fog Tea Latte

It wasn't until recently (okay a year and a half ago) that I discovered the best tea latte ever- the London Fog. I was in university and so like most university students helped to keep the local Tim Horton's and Starbucks in business. I drank coffee like it was going out of style. I started to develop headaches after drinking certain coffees and so decided to switch to tea. Usually I just got a Green Tea with milk and sugar (or honey). That is until one day my friend ordered a London Fog and then exclaimed "OMG this tastes like a Fruit Loop!". I decided that the next time I was at Starbucks I would order a London Fog and taste this Fruit Loop drink. Ever since then I have been hooked!

Recipe Review: Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes from Michael Smith

My husband and I have become addicted to watching The Food Network. We love watching the chef's and cooks make amazing food and then plate it really nicely. My husband was not much of a cook before he met me, but now both of us love finding new and interesting recipes and cooking them together. We have an insane number of cookbooks and still scour the internet for more recipes.

One chef that my husband has absolutely fallen in love with is Michael Smith. I don't know if its because Michael likes to use bacon or because everything he cooks has tons of flavor. My husband is all about bacon and flavor. Whatever it is, I don't really care, because I have now fallen for Michael Smith also.

Recipe Review: Curtis Stone's Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken Cacciatore

Whenever my family wants something that will be quick to make but also tastes delicious we always gravitate towards chicken. We usually do simple things like chicken with garlic goat cheese sauce or shake and bake, but sometimes when we want to have a meal that is a little more "involved" we make Chicken Cacciatore. We've had a number of different versions of Chicken Cacciatore, but I have to admit, this one by Curtis Stone is actually really delicious! 

Recipe Review: Souvlaki-Style Pork Tenderloin with Mixed Vegetables

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I love cooking recipes out of the Canadian Living magazine. Generally the recipes are really delicious and so I was super excited to try the cover recipe: Souvlaki-Style Pork Tenderloin with Mixed Vegetables. The recipe is a "healthy spin on everyone's favourite Greek culinary staple: souvlaki" (Canadian Living). It only requires 25 minutes of hands-on time and 30 minutes of cook time. I love souvlaki and I needed something that was going to be quick and delicious for when my brother and his fiancée came over for dinner.

Recipe Review- Quick Salmon Kedegree

 

My mother has been a long time subscriber to Canadian Living and we often choose recipes that look good to try. The latest issue, March 2014, looked like it had some amazing recipes and so far we have tried two of them- Quick Salmon Kedgeree and Souvlaki-Style Pork Tenderloin with Mixed Vegetables. I'll do a review of the Quick Salmon Kedgeree today and will review the Souvlaki-Style Pork Tenderloin with Mixed Vegetables at a later date.

Opps...

So I know I keep saying this but I am going to get better at staying on top of blog posts. I have a friend who does book blogging and lives around the corner from me and we have decided that we are going to get together one night every week and do all of our blog posts for the upcoming week. I am determined to make this site a go and I feel like if I get together with my friend she will help me stay motivated! 

Stay tuned and I will have cookbook reviews, recipe reviews and restaurant reviews coming your way soon!!!! 

Grain Power by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming (Cookbook Review)

As I said in my previous post, I'm trying to start eating better and exercising more this year. I was happy when Penguin Canada asked me if I wanted to review Joyous Health and this book- Grain Power. Both books contain healthy recipes that I was hoping would be tasty.

Grain Power contains over 100 recipes that are not only gluten-free but that also use ancient grains. It was written by the same authors who wrote Quinoa Revolution (which has some really delicious recipes!). As soon as I received this book in the mail I flipped through it and was salivating over some of the photos- they look so delicious! The pizza on the cover is something I would totally devour!

One thing I really liked about this book was that the beginning portion goes through each of the grains used in the book and explains its flavor, texture, forms, how to cook with it, a nutrition guide, and general cooking instructions. I found this really beneficial because I don't usually cook with grains (except Quinoa) so I really had no idea what some of them were or how to cook them. The back of the book also contains troubleshooting tips and tricks for when you are cooking the grains. The rest of the book is divided into Breakfast; Appetizers, Snacks, Salads & Side Dishes; Soups & Stews; Meals; and Desserts & Baking.

As I mentioned the pictures looked delicious, but as I flipped through and read some of the recipes, they sounded even better. I even liked the fact that some of them had options that you could choose, for example- the Orange, Ginger & Dijon-Glazed Vegetable & Buckwheat Skillet gave you the option of using beef sirloin tip, chicken, pork or salmon. They also gave you the option of using kaniwa, quinoa, amaranth, or teff instead of buckwheat. I really liked this because I know that some people in my family won't eat buckwheat and others won't eat beef. It was nice that I could still use that recipe and was told what else would taste good in it.

The recipes that I tried out were the Orange, Ginger & Dijon-Glazed Vegetable & Buckwheat Skillet  mentioned above and the Mexican Chocolate Millet Pudding. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get pictures of either of these recipes.

The Orange, Ginger & Dijon-Glazed Vegetable & Buckwheat Skillet was really tasty. I kept with the original recipe and did the beef skillet tip with the buckwheat. Unfortunately I overcooked the buckwheat and so it was a little mushy, but the recipe was still tasty. The orange flavor was really clear, unlike some orange flavored foods where you taste absolutely NO orange. The beef was cooked really well and everything tasted good together. This recipe got mixed reviews from my family but that was because they forgot to tell me that they don't like orange flavor in their meals and the other didn't like buckwheat.

The Mexican Chocolate Millet Pudding on the other hand was a big hit. I didn't manage to grind the millet seeds fine enough and so the pudding wasn't smooth, but I've learned for next time. No one realized that this was a "healthy" pudding, they just enjoyed the chocolate pudding. They enjoyed it so much that each of their bowls was licked clean of it!

Overall, this book had some really good recipes and I'm excited to try more of them. I really would love to try the Mango, Cucumber & Red Pepper Quinoa Salad and the Thin Crust Vegetable Pizza with Fresh Basil. This cookbook has a wide variety of meals, with meat, fish and vegetables. I am amazed that you can do so much with ancient grains. Big thank you to Penguin Canada for sending me this book!!!

I give this book:

 out of

 

Joyous Health Cookbook Review

At the beginning of every year I tell myself "This is going to be the year when you eat healthy, exercise daily, and get yourself into amazing health!" and every year I last maybe 5 days, and then I fall into my bad habits again. This year started out much the same way. I try to eat healthy foods, but I eventually find them boring and tasteless. I try to be healthy and drink water, but it too gets boring and tasteless. It is just so much easier to give in to the temptation of having a nice juicy hamburger than to eat healthy. This changed a bit this year when I was asked to review Joyous Health by Joy McCarthy.

At first I thought this health cookbook was going to be very similar to the other health cookbooks I had, creating this dishes that looked amazing in the pages of a book, but tasted like cardboard. I flipped through the pages of the book and found some dishes that sounded good, but I was a little hesitant on making any of them. Finally, I was having a girls night and I decided I was just going to make two things out of the book and see if my friends could tell that it was healthy.

Before I get into what I made, I want to explain a little about the book. The beginning of the book talks about "the path to joyous health", how to get your "gut on track", various foods, supplements and habits that will lead to a joyous mood, the "joyous detox solutions", "superfoods and healthy lifestyle habits", and how to create a joyous kitchen. Each of these sections has various tips, tricks, and hints that help you to get to Joyous Health so that you can eat and live well without dieting. One of the tips I started to do was drinking a glass of lemon and water each morning. Joy states that doing this helps to cleanse the body and it helps to get you glowing. I've been doing this since I got the book and although I haven't noticed a significant difference, I feel good, so I am definitely going to keep doing this.

Be sure to go through the entire front section before the recipes, not only to pick up as many tips as you can, but also because there are recipes at the end of the chapters.

I really enjoyed reading Chapter 5- Superfoods and Healthy Lifestyle Habits for Joyous Health. I discussed what superfoods were and listed the top 12 superfoods. It then went into further detail about the different superfoods and how you can enjoy them. Another thing I really liked about the book were the Joyous Tips that are scattered throughout.

For girls night I needed two dishes that weren't going to be over the top to make and that were also going to be tasty. I finally settled on Beet Goat Cheese Dip and Chia Black Bean Brownies- my friends and I love goat cheese and lot chocolate, so I figured these two were good choices.

The Beet Goat Cheese Dip is made with beets, goat cheese, salt, and garlic. The actual recipe only calls for 1 clove of garlic, but my friends and I are addicted to garlic so I added in 3 cloves. The dip was so delicious. It comes with an Almond Flour Rosemary Cracker recipe, but I unfortunately didn't have time to make them. Instead I served the dip with crackers I had. If you like beets in any form you should definitely try out this recipe. The dip is creamy and is packed with flavor- you'd think that it was actually bad for you.

 

The Chia Black Bean Brownies were also really good. I didn't tell my friends that there were Black Beans in them and they ate them and really enjoyed them. I know my husband doesn't like dark chocolate so instead of using the dark chocolate chips (which are obviously healthier) I used semisweet chocolate chips instead. It turned out really well. I also goofed a little in the baking of them because we just got a new oven so I accidently turned it off when I thought I was just shutting off the timer, but it didn't affect them too badly.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It gave some really good tips to leading a healthier life that aren't that hard to actually do. It also had some really tasty recipes that were easy. I am definitely looking forward to doing more cooking from this book. I highly recommend you pick up a copy yourself and give it a try!

I give this book

 out of

Recipe Review: Chicken Marsala

This year I hosted a New Years party, which isn't something that is out of the ordinary for me, but I changed things up this year. Usually, I have a themed party and my friends come over and we head downstairs  into my basement and we chat, nibble on food, watch tv, and drink. This year I wanted to do something a little, how should I put this... "grown-up"? and so I decided to host a potluck dinner for New Years. I knew that I would be preparing the main "meat" of the dinner, and so asked my friends to bring appetizers, sides, salads, and desserts. I decided to make two "mains"- Chicken Marsala and Vegetable Lasagna. I wanted something I could prepare the night before and just pop into the oven on the day of the party once my guests had arrived. My oven decided to stop working, and so I served cold food, but other than that it went well. Everyone had a great time, and the Chicken Marsala was even better the next day!

Below is the Chicken Marsala recipe that I followed. I doubled the amount of wine, broth, and cream that I put into my sauce because I prefer a creamier sauce and wanted to make sure that anyone who wanted to add extra sauce on top of their chicken was able to.

Chicken Marsala
(adapted from Tina Danze Article)

Ingredients:
8-12 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (halved and pounded to a 1/4 thickness)
2 cups flour (seasoned with salt and pepper to taste)
4-6 tablespoons butter (divided)
4-6 tablespoons canola oil (divided)
1/2 cup diced onions
4 cloves garlic (minced)
16 ounces cremini mushrooms (sliced)
1/2 cup marsala wine
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup whipping cream


Directions:
Cut the pounded chicken breast into halves (or thirds if they are very large). Dredge the chicken pieces in seasoned flour making sure to share off the excess.

Heat 1/2 the butter and oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Ensuring not to crowd the pan, sauté the chicken pieces until they are golden brown (approximately 3 minutes per side). Add additional butter and oil to the skillet as needed. Set aside to cool.

Add onion and garlic to the skilled and sauté the onions until they are translucent. Add the mushrooms and cool, stirring often, until the mushrooms are browned. Add the marsala, and simmer to reduce until the sauce is brown and thickened. Add the chicken broth and whipping cream. Reduce by half, until the sauce thickens to a soupy texture.

Arrange the chicken breasts into a casserole dish or a rimmed baking sheet, make sure to overlap the rows. (If preparing in advance, prepare up to this point and store in the fridge. Make sure to store the sauce separately in a covered container).

To cook the Chicken Marsala:
Preheat the over to 350 F. Pour the sauce over the arranged chicken breasts and bake until heated through (15-20 minutes if refrigerated; 10-15 minutes is going straight into the oven).

Serves 8-12

I would give this recipe:

 

The overall recipe was tasted good and was easy to make, but I felt like there was something missing/ I can't put my finger on what it was though. 

 

Happy New Year!!!!

Hey! It's been an entire month since I last posted which is kind of pathetic, but what Christmas (twice) and New Years, things got incredibly hectic! Anyways, I have finally got my act together and have planned out posts for the rest of the month. I'm hoping that I can stick to this and actually post things more than twice a month!!

I hope you all had a fabulous New Year and are ready to get back in the kitchen with me for an awesome year of baking and cooking.