watch.learn.cook with canadian beef

As much as I love my cookbooks and following recipes, sometimes, I find it so much easier to watch a video. There are days when my brain just isn't wrapping around a concept and a quick video viewing makes things much, much easier. Who isn't a visual learner?

That said, one of my favourite features by the lovely folks at Canadian Beef are their beef-related videos. As part of the Watch.Learn.Cook with Canadian Beef campaign, they have a series of instructional videos to help you master cooking any cut of beef you may want to try!

The one that I've already used myself is the Easy Oven Roast Beef video. In the past, we've pretty much always stuck our roast in the slow cooker, but recently, I've learned how simple it is to make an oven roast and it's a nice change of pace when we have a little more time in the kitchen!

Up next, I'll probably tackle a Beef Stew - something I've never made before, but definitely love to eat.

Contest Alert! 

Speaking of recipes...although most of the recipes I try are pulled from one of my many cookbooks, Paul usually prefers the internet for his new cooking adventures and he uses his handy tablet to have the recipe easily at hand. Want a chance to win your own iPad4? Click here to go to the contest, hosted by Canadian Beef and Eat In Eat Out magazine. Each prize pack consisting of one 32GB Apple iPad4 (Wi-Fi with Retina Display), one remote talking thermometer (these are pretty amazing!) and one cooler tote. Approximate retail value of each prize pack is CAD $770.00. Contest closes at noon on March 31, 2013, so what are you waiting for?

Disclosure: I am a Canadian Beef Ambassador and have been compensated for this post. However, all opinions expressed are my own and have not been influenced in any way by my association with the program.

the business of food trucks

Most people who like food and like to eat are aware of the growing trend of Food Trucks. I think my fascination with food trucks stems from my childhood memories of hearing the musical tinkling of the ice cream truck rollling down the street.

But Food Trucks are serious business and it's growing. Although many cities are now working on laws and regulations to keep the Food Truck trend in check, I think it's definitely something that will only continue to grow.

Now, I recently was sent this infographic about the business of food trucks and thought it would be cool to share it with my readers. To let you in on a secret: I'm a real sucker for infographics - they make reading facts so much more fun!

Anyhow, the information in this particular infographic is for the US only, but it's still interesting to me as I believe that the US is far ahead of Canada in the Food Truck game.

Have a look and let me know if there's anything in this infographic that surprises you!

Infographic provided by carinsurance.org

mmm...steak...plus, a *giveaway* (mmm...steak knives)!

I love steak. Paul loves steak too, so it's always easy for one of us to convince the other that we should have steak for dinner. There's something so beautiful about a thick, juicy, perfectly marbled slab of meat sitting on our grill. We almost never dress it up with anything more than a coat of freshly ground salt and pepper.

Now, as you can probably tell, our favourite type of steak is a Grilling one, but did you know that steaks fall into three categories? Before becoming a Canadian Beef Brand Ambassador, I could never keep this straight! Basically, they're grouped according to how they should be prepared:

• GRILLING - can be grilled without any extra prep or effort 
• MARINATING - needs to be marinated before you cook it (no matter how you cook it)
• SIMMERING - needs a slow simmer in a nice liquid to ensure tenderness (like a steak version of a pot roast!)

Since I'm not that familiar with the other steak groups besides Grilling, I wanted to learn more about how to cook them properly. Curious? Check out this very useful page that give you tips, cooking notes and timing on cooking all three types of steaks.

I definitely want to start cooking with Marinating and Simmering steaks more often - there's a whole bunch of recipes I've already bookmarked on the Canadian Beef site that I want to try. (Hmmm...how long do you think it would take me to try out every steak recipe here?)

Want to join me and other steak lovers in a fun Twitter chat all about STEAK? Canadian Beef and ShesConnected are having a #LoveCDNBeef Twitter Party on Thursday, September 13 at 8:30 pm EST. Follow @CanadianBeef and @shesconnected, and use the #LoveCDNBeef hashtag.

In anticipation of all the steak I'm going to be eating, CUTCO (in partnership with Canadian Beef) was kind enough to send me a set of their new steak knives. Although we already own several sets of steak knives, these ones are pretty darn nice. They have a thick, full tang, which Paul and I noticed right away, and both of us also loved how great the knives feel in our hands - they have an ergonomic design and a really good weight to them.

• Exclusive Double-D® edge provides a clean, smooth cut every time and stays sharp longer than straight-edge knives. Can be factory sharpened. 
• Ergonomic handle is a universal fit for large or small, left or right hands. Thumb and forefinger lock into place for safety and control. Fatigue-resistant design. 
• With CUTCO's Forever Guarantee, we will sharpen, hone, buff, repair and if necessary replace your CUTCO knives and accessories for FREE. No receipt is required. 
• Like all CUTCO products, the Steak Knife is guaranteed forever.

Are you envious of my new steak knives? Well, you don't have to be! The generous team at CUTCO is also giving a set of these steak knives to one lucky kitchen frolic reader! 

To enter:

• Leave a comment, telling me how you like your steak (2 entries)

If you want extra entries (1 entre for each action):

• Leave a comment, telling me what CUTCO product you'd like to try out most.
• Follow me on Twitter (leave a comment letting me know you're following me)
• Follow CUTCO on Twitter (leave a comment letting me know you're following them)
• Tweet about this giveaway (please include my Twitter handle, @kitchenfrolic so I can see the tweet!)

Don't forget to leave an email so I can contact you if you win! Contest is open to residents of Canada and the USA. Contest ends Friday, September 28, 2012.

(If you had already entered using the Rafflecopter form I had up earlier, don't worry, I have those entries saved. I was having problems with their form, so I had to take it down, but don't worry - you're entered!)

Oh, and if you're wondering - I prefer my steaks Medium-Rare, and will sit sullenly glaring at you if I have to chew on anything more done than Medium.

Disclosure: I am a Canadian Beef Ambassador and have been compensated for this post. However, all opinions expressed are my own and have not been influenced in any way by my association with the program.

sharing my love of canadian beef

Earlier this year, I was chosen as a Brand Ambassador for Canada Beef Inc, which I am totally excited about (Paul's pretty excited too). Not only are we both big beef eaters, we generally feel pretty patriotic whenever we're travelling and see "Canadian Beef" on the menu (which has happened in London, Cuba and Hong Kong!).

So, for the past month, I've been learning more about Canadian beef and already have my in-laws asking "Is it Canadian?" every time anyone buys beef for a family dinner. However, being a city girl, I don't really know much about where my beef comes from, so I thought that this would be a great opportunity to not only try new recipes involving beef, but also to learn more about how this product ends up from a farm to my table.

Since being chosen as an Ambassador, one of my go-to sources for all things beef is the Canada Beef site at http://www.beefinfo.org. Not only is it full of eye-opening information about beef and the beef industry, there are also tons of useful tips, recipes and useful tools on the site. For example, there's a Virtual Beef Nutrition Counter where you can see the nutrition values for various cuts of beef (I must admit, I played with this for awhile), a Make It Beef Club that lets you sign up for an e-newsletter, and lots of ways to connect to other beef-lovers!

(photo credit: from the Canadian Beef Facebook page)

And since I'm a little nerdy when it comes to facts and figures, check out these impressive stats about Canadian beef:

- There are 83,000 farms and ranches with beef cattle across Canada with a total of 4.27 million beef cows (Statistics Canada, Jan. 2011)
- Beef production contributed $24.6 billion to Canada's economy in 2010 (Canfax, Statistics Canada 2010)
- In 2010, Canada exported 50% of the total beef and cattle produced in Canada (Statistics Canada, Canfax, AAFC 2010), making it the 5th largest beef exporter in the world (excluding live cattle exports)

And my favourite factoid: On average, Canadians are eating 44.5 lbs (20.2 kg) of beef per person every year (Statistics Canada 2010). 45 pounds of beef! On average! That's quite a bit of beef!

Well, if I'm going to be eating that much beef in a year, I'd better make the most of it and make sure I'm cooking it properly! So, one of my favourite areas of the Canada Beef site is definitely the Cooking Lessons section of the site. This area not only gives you lots of beef-related recipes, but also has videos and step-by-step lessons on how to cook beef in various ways (ie. oven-roasting, broiling, grilling, etc). 

I'm definitely going to be learning a lot during my time as a Brand Ambassador! I hope you'll join me as I wrangle up some beef at the market and experiment with different beefy recipes (like these juicy homemade pesto burgers!)

Disclosure: I am a Canadian Beef Ambassador and have been compensated for this post. However, all opinions expressed are my own and have not been influenced in any way by my association with the program.