Salmon Dinner!

Believe it or not, I don't do all the cooking in the house, so I want to share with you one of my husband's famous dishes that he is really good at making and it always turns out really well.

He learned this recipe a couple years ago while we were on a very strict diet, but it tastes so good, you cant really tell its good for you ;)

It is salmon with spinach and leeks (or onions)

Preheat the oven at 350

He takes 2 large leeks the whites only slices them thinly half moons and soaks them in water to remove all the dirk. (or 1 whole onion and slices them thinly), 2 cups of spinach washed.

he places the leeks in the bottom on a corning ware dish and spinach on top, then he takes a fillet of salmon, skin on or off doesn't matter as long as the scales are gone, rinses the fish and places it on top of the. Bake the salmon for 30 mins or until it flakes apart. serve with lemon slices and your choice of sides.

For us he choose steamed green beans and Rice.. I love this dish..love it more because he cooked it :)

Happy Cooking!!

Fran :)

Easter Saturday French Toast and Peameal Bacon!!

More Easter time Breakfast .. this time my French Toast...now I make really tasty french toast, I have been working 9 years ever since I met my husband and found out he loves French toast...I have done it many ways, with raisin bread, with just egg, with egg and water with egg and milk..until I had an epiphany why don't I add some flavorings :)
 so this was my second attempt at adding flavor and I have to say it worked out really well. 
what I did was the following to serve two people

4 eggs
2 tblsp of Milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp fresh graded nutmeg
4 pieces of bread- any type will do
2 tsp of butter

whisk the ingredients together, heat your pan on med-high heat, add the butter and let it melt..then take each slice of bread and evenly coat it in the egg mixture allowing it to soak up a little bit of the mixture, cook till brown on both side about 2 mins each side depending on your heat setting.. Serve with your favorite type of syrup.

I dressed ours up with powdered sugar and strawberries and served it with peameal bacon and maple syrup

for the peameal I cooked them on med heat 5 mins on each side till brown and cooked through.. My husband likes them to be a little drier than I do.

We had our nice Tazo green tea with Breakfast too

For the strawberries, I simply cut small
slits into them, then fanned them out

It was a great way to start an Easter Saturday, that continued with a dog park visit and a stop at our friends ice cream store in the sun :)

what a great day!!!



Happy Cooking!

Fran :)
  

Easter Weekend Pancake Breakfast!

Happy Easter Everyone!!
Ours holidays started on Good Friday, I decided to give a new recipe a try..Chocolate Chip Pancakes.. I swear I thought these would work out great.. I used the recipe from Kathy Maister's Startcooking.com and her recipes are usually really good and work out quite well.. well this time they were edible but not great :( sad really..I learnt a couple of things, 1..do not use milk chocolate chips, and 2 med-low heat is better...I also made maple breakfast sausages with it..they were good..:)

here is the recipe and pictures of my blunder 
http://startcooking.com/video/chocolate-chip-pancakes


 * 3/4 cup of white flour
 * 1 1/2 tablespoons of white sugar
 * 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
 * 1/4 teaspoon of salt
 * 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter - Melted
 * 7/8 cup of milk
 * 1 large egg
 * 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla
 * 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
 * 4 tablespoons of chocolate chips 
 In a medium size bowl whisk together the dry 

ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and the salt.

 In another bowl mix together the: melted butter, 

 milk, egg, and vanilla, (wet ingredients).

Add these wet ingredients to the dry ingredients

 and whisk together until just combined.

Serves 2

Pre-heat large non-stick frying pan for 

3-4 minutes on medium heat and add

1 teaspoon of Vegetable oil. 

Using a ¼ cup measuring cup, scoop out

the batter and pour it into the frying pan. 

Repeat so there are three pancakes in the pan. 

Sprinkle on about 1 tablespoon of chocolate 

chips on each pancake. Cook the pancakes 

until bubbles appear on the surface and start to

pop. Flip the pancakes and cook until golden 

brown on the flip side. 

Repeat with remaining batter.

Makes six 4-inch pancakes


So I followed her steps and of course, the heat was too high and I used milk chocolate chips...I should of thought this one through as I know milk chocolate has a lower melting point than semi sweet chocolate .. so my chocolate chips melted on contact and when flipping the pancakes over they burned.. I have learned a valuable lesson here ... Use blueberries next time ;)

My sad burnt chocolate chips :(

Happy Cooking!!

Fran:)

First BBQ Burger of the Season!!!

Good Evening Folks,
So Spring is here, it is still cold out..well I decided I wasn't going to let that get in the way of me having a burger, so I sent my husband to the bakery to pick up some fresh made hamburger buns. While I prepared some fresh made burgers. Now I only made simple burgers this time..but they were still good. I also made BBQ potatoes with it..mmm tasty

Firstly for the burgers here is what you need....
1 lb lean ground beef 
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 Tblsp Worcestershire sauce
1  tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 Tblsp Italian seasoning
Cheese to top it and fresh buns

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl till just combined, (keep in mind the more you mix it, the tougher the burger)
form into patties, should be able to get 4 fair size patties out of the 1 lb of meat. Once you have the patties formed place them on a plate and ever so gently make a well in the center of the burgers, this helps with the shrinking and keeps their form.. Cover and place the patties in the fridge for about an hour, letting the flavors combine, remove the patties from the fridge 20 mins before you cook them to allow them to get up to room temperature (this ensure tenderness) 
Heat the grill for 10 mins on high, place patties on grill and lower to medium low heat, the key here is to not touch them or keep flipping, avoid pressing down etc..close the lid and let the burgers cook for 7-10 mins depending on thickness, you'll know when they are ready to flip when the flipper can easily go underneath them. Continue to cook till they are done to your liking we like ours well done so about 10 mins on each side..We then put the buns on the top warming rack to toast them, and add your slice cheese to top of the burgers while you wait for the buns to toast.. remove from heat and let rest for 3-5mins before serving.

Here is what they looked like done :)













This was the first time we used our new BBQ :) so took some playing with temperatures but we got it figured out.. 



Now for the potatoes

you will need
2-4 russet potatoes 
1 cup graded cheese (what ever kind you like)
1/4 red onion thinly sliced
1/4 pepper diced or sliced thinly
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 tblsp italian seasoning
salt
pepper
foil
vegetable oil

Take your potatoes wash/or peel and thinly slice them, cut out 2-4 lengths of tin foil, lightly grease the foil with vegetable oil. Lay the potatoes on the foil in a semi organized fashion, while ensuring you put the sliced onions and peppers in with them as well, put the crushed garlic on top with the salt, pepper and some Italian seasoning. cover with cheese and fold up the foil sealing the ends. Place on BBQ till cooked through about 20 mins. 

We love BBQ season, this was our first BBQ in our new house with our new BBQ, so alot of firsts for us and we really enjoyed it..I will have to post about the antics of actually getting our BBQ because well that is just a really funny story.. anyway stay tuned for more recipes and stories to come.

Happy Cooking :)



Fran :)

Welcome to my Food Blog...Delicious Fran

Welcome Everyone!!!

This is my first blog about Food.. oh glorious, tasty, yummy delicious food....I love to cook, bake and entertain!!! I love to see people smile and I love the compliments on how good my food is.. In this blog you will see many of my recipe attempts, weather they were failures or successes..Most of the stuff I currently cook is for a couple or families of 4 or more, however eventually I would like to do some videos for the single (man) or lady who doesn't have a lot of time but wants tasty food..so stay tuned and enjoy...if you want me to try making something your afraid to try, let me know I will gladly whip it up and share the pictures and the steps that I took..including the goof ups ;)

Happy Cooking

Fran :)