Shrimp

I had one if them cravings today. Partly because I walked past this thing at the store and couldn't just leave it there. So I acquired it. Yum.

Waffles

That is all.

The ultimate lazy dinner

Some sort of superstore sausage done on a Teflon pan. And because I couldn't be bothered to reheat the mashed potatoes in the fridge, I just got some sprouts. Yeah....

Anyway, it was surprisingly delicious. And sort of healthy. I think.

Mushroom burger

Portabella mushroom, ground sirloin, onion between, and jalapeño Monterey Jack. And mashed potatoes.

Mystery lunch at work

This was a pork thing. Stuffed with something. I never figured out what it was stuffed with. It was surprisingly good.

How to stay awake studying

Just got me this new toy. Ever time I fall asleep studying, I crash on the floor.

No, seriously, this thing is awesome. It was like $25, I don't know why I didn't get this sooner.

Makes an awesome footrest, too.

Oh, and I bought fruits. You can just see them in the photo.

Ribs

Deliciousness. I ate two servings. I will need to roll myself into my bed afterwards.

Stewed ribs for an hour, then added some dying peppers. And sprinkled in some quinoa and couscous. And dill and parsley and smokey chili.

Seafood noodles

A seafood mix in teriyaki/hoisin/soy/ginger sauce.
And some super-thin Vietnamese noodles.

Salmon. Again.

I liked the previous salmon so much, I made it again. This time, I got the salmon at Safeway. It was much better and thicker, but also more expensive.

On a whim, I threw in shrimp as well. Sauce: honey, garlic, hoisin and soy.

That generated a lot of water, so I mixed it into the mashed potatoes. And added smoked paprika to the potatoes - that was just perfect.

Wings

What can possibly be better than chicken wings (honey garlic, in this case) and tater tots? Nothing. Nothing is better than chicken wings and tater tots. Except maybe bacon and hash browns. But besides that, nothing!

Best salmon recipe

I've been craving this salmon for a long time, but have been foiled every time by other delicious looking food items that I purchased instead.

Finally, I decided that the craving had to be satisfied. Sadly, the Sobeys salmon disappointed me gravely. The superstore salmons are about ten times better - no kidding. Costco salmons aren't usually very good, but they're golden compared to the Sobeys salmon I was unfortunate enough to endure.

ANYWAY

Honey, hoisin sauce, a touch of soy sauce, minced garlic. Mix in a cup. Throw the salmon on a pan, cook halfway, turn, pour the sauce mixture. After a couple minutes, cover with a lid. The whole thing cooks on medium heat.

The result is ridiculously delicious. The honey glazes the fish and caramelizes on top, and the garlic adds a spicy touch. The hoisin sauce envelopes the salmon and brings all the flavours together.

Of note: thin sliced salmon works poorly. The thicker the better (ie superstore, not Sobeys). Skins are ok because they prevent burning. Although salmon with skin on works better on a barbeque (I seriously need to buy me a BBQ).

The result: heaven in your mouth.

Butternut squash soup

One of my most favourite meals, and my number one soup.

I love it because it tastes delicious and is perfect in any weather. You can put all kinds of scary veggies in there, like brussel sprouts or broccoli or cauliflower or onions or celery, and your family won't know any better. And you only need to kind of chop up stuff - you'll obliterate it in the food processor later. Any spices work well.

I hate it because it's a pain to make. I don't care that all the websites boast how easy it is. Puréing the soup "in batches" is awkward, and hot, has inevitable spills and, thus, burns. Plus it's a pain to clean up after all the spills. And preparing the squash is a nightmare: it's extremely difficult to cut, peeling is even worse, and your hands are covered in white crap afterwards. Which I think is dead skin. Luckily, Costco had pre-peeled pre-cut butternut squash in boxes, so that saves about an hour and is extremely useful.

I also threw in a frozen fish patty, which was disgusting when fried alone, but went perfectly with the soup (ie: blended). Also I threw in bacon. Because bacon.

Then on top, dill and smoked chili. It was really good. I used a handheld blender and once I figured out how to use it, the number of spills and burns decreased significantly. But I still had a mess to clean up.

Bacon

The great (cardiovascular) sin of Man. The wonderful gift of the Pig (although probably involuntary). Bacon!

And because I bought 4L of milk from Costco, because that's the smallest size they had, I'll be having bacon with cereal. And with omelettes. To uh, use up the milk.

Semi-sober cocktail

I wanted champagne and acquired same. However, I somehow ended up alone this weekend (except for Cat, but she practices abstinence). And drinking champagne alone is depressing, never mind sozzlesizing.

Hence: fake champagne. Non-alcoholic champagne and wine to mix.

Not salmon

I had this random craving for salmon. I drove to the store, imagining exactly how I'll make it, trying to figure out if I had all the ingredients.

When I got to the store, the deli guy was offering samples of this breaded tenderized pork.

Anyway, long story short, I had breaded tenderized pork for dinner. Also I am never eating brussel sprouts again. Whatever health benefit they're supposed to offer, I think I'm set for a while.

Tonight's wine

I like this for two reasons. No, three reasons.
1. It's a Riesling. I've a thing for Rieslings. Also, I found that it goes surprisingly well with spicy seafood.
2. It's a cat. A blue cat. It also comes in pink cat and red cat.
3. You can "strangle it". As I am typing this, Cat is nuzzling to my hand, meowing at me, and biting me to get me to scratch her. But I can't strangle Cat. I can, however, hold the wine bottle around the neck tightly, and threaten Cat with it.

A lonely (but lovely) meal

So I'm working the entire thanksgiving long weekend. I'm not excited about it. My entire building smells of roasted garlic. I couldn't be bothered to make any fancy meal, although I would not have minded turkey. I spent today doing laundry, because it's the only time I have to do it.

ANYWAY I'll stop whining.

After visiting my family last weekend, I brought back a giant bag of peppers. My ideal way to deal with giant bags of peppers is to stuff them with ground beef or something like that. But that requires time and effort, and I was feeling too sorry for myself to bother.

So here was the result of the lazy way out:

Cut up peppers, cut up potatoes from an old bag I discovered in the fridge, and frozen beans. And turkey meatballs from Saveon (premade; they come in a box). I put the potatoes in the oven first, because they take longer, then I put in the rest, covered with foil to keep moist. I added tomatoes at the very end to steam them a bit. I used to hate steamed tomatoes, but now I love them.

Olive oil, Italian seasoning, some garlic spread (for some artificial roasted garlic smell), some paprika.

It was delicious!

Beer cocktail

Learned this one at our local Brewster's.
Mix together; enjoy.
Not as sweet as a straight cooler; and not as beer-y.
The glass is from Kriek Belgian beer, which is $8 per standard bottle. Screw that. Just vary the cooler and the beer and you'll get the same taste.

Perogies

I forgot about these for a long time. I rediscovered them this morning. These ones are potato and bacon (there's no actual bacon inside though, just the flavour). And sour cream. And fresh dill. In retrospect, I should have cut up some actual bacon and sprinkled it on top.

Sandwich

Amazing sandwich at work. Tuna fish and awesomely cut cucumber. I have no idea what made it so good, but it was delicious.

Lazy dinner

So I was exhausted today after a seriously long day at work. I was so tired, I stopped being hungry. I was thinking of having some cereal with chocolate almond milk (which actually is too thick and too sweet, so it's not as good as it sounds).

But then I thought, if I am to keep my sanity, and I guess health, I should probably eat something more reasonable than cereal.

So I drove my zombified butt to the nearest grocery store and bought pork and vegs. And made this. With Guinness BBQ sauce on the pork. Because BBQ sauce. And those annoying Brussel sprouts, whose name I still probably can't spell, but that taste delicious overcooked and sprinkled with salty Parmesan. The beans are for morale boost.

Mushroom burger

This is a twist on an old theme: portobello (or is it portabella?) mushroom instead of a bun plus a hamburger. In this case, a tenderized beef cutlet (it was cheaper than veal). Soft cheese on top (all I had was some weird soft cheese with cranberries and pepper - it worked surprisingly well) and some spices. High protein, high satisfaction, no labour except taking the meat out of its container and putting it on the pan. Then flipping it when it's halfway done. Then, when fully done, putting it on top of the mushroom, putting that back on the pan, and covering for a few minutes.
Tastes very meaty and mushroomy.

I put sliced sweet peppers between the mushroom and the meat, for some crunch. Tomatoes will work too. And lettuce. And basically anything that goes in the burger, except for the bun.

Oh yeah and salad. Coleslaw in this case. With raspberry vinaigrette (which I do NOT recommend for coleslaw in the future, unless you have cranberries, and I was fresh out).

Chili dog

Whoever came up with the idea of adding chili to hot dogs is a genius.

Wedding meal

I loved this meal. It was both delicious and healthy. Tons of vegs, salad and yummy meat.

Intermission

This is it for my backlog.

Next week: meals from restaurants (also a backlog).

Ribs

I had this craving for ribs, and then found a beautiful rack at Save-on-Foods (in case you were wondering what I meant by Saveon).

In order to counteract the un-healthiness of the ribs, I added my usual veggies (I'm not very creative). Left it on the stove for a few hours, probably 3.

My rib craving was satisfied!

Stew

Pre-cut pieces of beef and veggies. Slow cooked over 4 hours. Spices.

The only effort was cutting the vegs. And ripping apart the cauliflower.

A spherical meal...

For some reason, I thought it would be a neat idea to have a meal made entirely of spherical equal sized items.

It wasn't particularly delicious, but looked cute. Especially with grape tomatoes of the same size.

Lazy meal

I mixed quinoa, steel cut oats and couscous; instead of water, I used chicken broth (low salt). I added some canned chicken breast from Costco (with the juice). It tasted really good.

Filling dinner

I don't eat enough brussel sprouts. Probably all of us don't eat enough brussel sprouts. I don't even know how to spell the name properly. They taste bitter.

I found that if you cook them to the point where they are super soft and almost falling apart, they actually taste very nice, and not bitter at all.

This meal was quite elaborate (for me).

I mixed ground beef with ground pork, added some garlic and spices and salt, added a couple eggs, and milk-soaked bread, and mixed it all together. It doesn't take long, it's just messy.

Then fried balls of the above on a pan with some oil, and put the fried result in a pot. Added the vegs, medium heat, and ignored for an hour. I figured by the time the meat cooked, the brussel sprouts would be cooked too (I was right).

It was really good.

Omelette

Same as before. Eggs, milk, sausage, vegs, cheese.

The "other" chicken parts

I won't post the ingredients of this. They're not for the faint of heart (ha ha get it get it?).

Anyway.

I found that the smoked bean salad from Safeway compliments this nicely. Served on a bed of a mix of quinoa, steel cut oats, and couscous.

Tortellini

Absolute cheater food.
Tortellini, mushrooms, diced tomatoes. One from a package, the other from a can.
My rescue when I'm too lazy to go shopping. I add frozen veggies into the pot while I'm cooking the tortellini for at least some semblance of a healthy meal.

The king of the fish pies

Credit: my mom made this and this was her idea. It's a brilliant idea. I loved it. Then I tried to do it myself and failed miserably at it, but it's still a brilliant idea.

Mix fish filet with mashed potatoes (from a box), add cut up onions and some spice. Mix in a blender or food processor. Pour the thick mixture into a Teflon lined oven pan and put in oven. That's pretty much it.

The key is how watery to make the mashed potatoes, so that they're a bit more wet than normal, but not so fluidy that the pie falls apart the moment it's out.

Other than that, it's pretty simple....
Put some random vegs in another pan in the oven at the same time. Both should be ready at the same time.

The other dish on the table is salted salmon, raw. You buy raw salmon, put salt on it, and leave in the fridge for a couple days. The result is fish that melts in your mouth.

And rye bread.

It was probably the most delicious dinner I ate in my entire life. Or at the very least, my top five.

Variant

Here's a variant of previously posted: mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus, and some sort of cutlet (maybe veal, possibly pork, maybe even turkey). Teflon pan, seasoning on the cooked side, covered by some cheese. So good.

A drink!

We had this after a Vertigo Theatre performance. In the play, they kept drinking a certain alcoholic drink that was popular at the time. The bar next door offered it as one of their choices. Unfortunately, I remember neither the name of the play, nor the name of the drink. But it was good. Also, behold my artistic skills of photographing via the iPhone!
(ALL photos here, in fact, have been taken with the (older) iPhone, hence the graininess)

Winter cheat

Mashed potatoes from a box. I can't be bothered to make them from scratch, it takes sooo long. Although when I do actually do that, they're certainly a lot better...
Frozen veggies.
There's some pork in there somewhere that was fried on a pan, and when it was done, I threw in the vegs. Probably with BBQ sauce, since it goes well with the pork (at least I think so).
Cheat because, really, the only "cooked" thing there is the meat.
It takes ten minutes.

Delicious dinner

So here we have chicken. Any chicken. Whole chicken, chicken breast, store bought or home made. Ripped into pieces.

A variant on my veg theme: sweet potatoes (I usually can't be bothered with them, they're so hard to cut). Some other vegs, sprinkle olive oil on top, add some spices like Italian Seasoning, and put in the oven. It's ready when the yams are soft.

This time, it's a sweet pepper salad, cut into circles, with a touch of olive oil and fresh dill.

This was SOO good. The chicken is dry, and the vegs and the salad give it a nice counterbalance of moisture. The wine obviously helps as well (some kind of "house" white).

Sunday breakfast omelette

So I've a thing against milk and eggs. I don't like either (I can handle milk in cereal). But there is something about them together that is just perfect.

I love making omelette. Usually on weekends, though if I planned ahead a little bit, I could easily do this on a weekday.

I take eggs, usually 4 for 2 people, 6 for 4 people. Beat those, then add milk. Throw in some spice.

Then on a Teflon pan, I fry some sausage / leftover chicken breast / leftover steak. Then add my favourite vegs and possibly mushrooms, and pour the egg milk mix on top. Then I cut up small pieces of cheese and sprinkle throughout the omelette (I really like jalapeño - flavored soft cheeses for this). I leave it for a while on low to medium heat (any higher, and it will burn). I personally also like adding tomato slices on top to steam while the rest is cooking. You know it's ready when the cheese on top is melted.

I then stir the whole thing (with a Teflon safe utensil), make sure it's cooked throughout, and serve. With some smoked paprika on top. It has minimal taste, but smells delicious and looks great.

Veal dinner

I don't know what inspired this. I was walking down the meat isle at Saveon and noticed this delicious tenderized ground veal staring at me. It's about a centimeter thick, maybe less, so I figured - dinner in 5 minutes, literally.

Anyway, half an hour later, the veal and I reconvened over my Teflon frying pan in my rental apartment kitchen. No oil. That's the whole point of Teflon. But sometimes I forget that.

ANYWAY.

I put the veal on the pan and focused on the veggies for two minutes. Then turned the veal over and - get this, stroke of genius here (or possibly just a stroke) - put some spices on and covered the veal with some cheese (any cheese worked - it was jalapeño Monterey jack that time, I think). Then sprinkled the smoked paprika and rosemary spice on top.

I tried this same thing with all the other ground meat patties from Saveon, and it's awesome every time.

And, of course, in a separate pan (or same one, while the veal is hanging out on a plate on a warmer), my favourite vegs and mushrooms. They need a touch of olive oil though, mainly for flavour.

Voilà!

Still another cheater meal

Let's finish off the Safeway theme here.
I think this is lamb, with some sort of grassy leaf in between, and some sort of cheese.
Anyway, that's delicious stuff. Whatever it is.
Mashed potatoes (real made or from a box) and steamed asparagus.

Another cheater meal

We're still at Safeway here. They have Italian sausage filled portobello mushrooms. They are delicious, but can be ridiculously salty.
A little salad on the side and voila.
The next post has the explanation of the other meat stuff on the plate.

Cheater meal

Safeway carries these crab-filled salmon fillets occasionally. They are delicious. They were on sale and I bought two.... Then forgot them for a while in the freezer and they dried out. But I wasn't going to waste $20, so I rubbed some mayo on them and stuck them in the oven, on foil and covered by foil, and left them on medium heat for a while. The mayo and the foil gave some nice moisture.

I also had an open bag of shrimp that was planning on dying in the freezer of freezer burn, and some zucchinis about to kick the bucket in the fridge. I just put the two together into a pan with a touch of olive oil. Again, as with all seafood, as soon as the shrimp are hot inside, they're done, else they get chewy. And zucchinis are awesome in any stage of cooking, from raw to pulverized (I struggled with a root canal for a while...)

I usually throw some random spices in there, all of which come from the store in jars. Like "Parmesan and Herbs" or "Smoked paprika and rosemary" or "Italian" or "Roasted Red Peppers" - these are my favourites.

Anyway. That was it. Some Belgian beer and grapes. And smoked cheese. The Cat ate some of my cheese because she's spoiled like that. And I figured I needed more protein, because, for some reason, I felt that fish, crab and shrimp weren't enough.

It was really good.

Cheater food because it's not made from scratch. The salmon was pre-made (but still raw).

Delicious healthy seafood

So you can probably tell that I'm just using up my backlog of photos. Since losing the program and my photos within, I've just been taking photos of the food and leaving them on my phone.

Here's my most favourite meal ever, except for maybe every other dinner I make that takes some actual effort (ie Lipton soup doesn't count).

You take frozen seafood (whatever you like. I found that Asian markets carry the best and cheapest selection). "Seafood medley". Some medleys contain tentacled creatures, so if you don't like them, pay attention. Usually it's shrimp, mussels, clams, squid, cuttlefish. The mixes are cheaper.

Then, if in the middle of Canadian winter, you buy frozen vegs. If not, fresh vegs. And those green beans whose name I can never remember. Zucchinis and peppers work (you may have noticed a trend in my vegs here).

You put it all in a pan on medium heat (the frozen stuff will melt and give you lots of water, so I don't use oil). Cover and ignore.

Then add either tomato sauce of your liking, or hoisin/soy sauce, or teriyaki sauce, or any other sauce you want.

Done.

If you need more carbs, make some spaghetti or rice. Seafood cooks extremely fast (basically, the moment the centre is hot, it's done) and then gets chewy, so you gotta be vigilant.

That massive wok-pan was two large bags of medley, one large bag of beans, and 2 large zucchinis. It took about half an hour on medium heat.

Chicken and salad

Alright. This ain't pretty, but it's good and healthy, and super easy (well, obviously).

Chicken thighs + foil + oven + potatoes + some seasoning; ignore for half an hour (covered with foil); then throw in some vegs like cauliflower, zucchini, sweet peppers, eggplant, mushrooms. Ignore for another half hour (covered); done. Sprinkle some seasoning before ignoring.

Or, while ignoring the chicken thighs and the oven on high, throw the vegs in a pan with some olive oil, sprinkle a seasoning (I like "Italian" or "roasted peppers"). By the time the vegs are done, the thighs will be done. Vegs are easy - if you like them crispy, you only cook them until they're hot. If you like them soft and root-canal-pain compatible, you keep simmering them until they get to this point.

Oh yeah and the cabbage salad. You buy the coleslaw prepackaged at your food store of choice, squeeze a lemon (or lemon juice) into it, and a hint of salt. Mix. Done. Or MY favourite: add cranberries to the coleslaw and add a raspberry vinaigrette (also found in any grocery store).

All in all, 30 mins, and that's if you're slow. The salad takes 60 seconds.