sriracha mayo

The Missing Ingredient Challenge: sriracha

Sriracha is a hot sauce originating from Thailand that's essentially a paste of chili peppers, distilled water, vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt. One popular version of Sriracha is produced by Huy Fong Foods, which has a rooster on its green-topped bottle, hence Sriracha is often referred to as “Rooster Sauce”.

Frequently used as a dipping sauce or condiment, Sriracha was named as the 2010 Ingredient of the Year by Bon Appétit magazine and its popularity has only increased in the past few years (although it's still a little weird to me to see the Rooster bottle at hot dog carts and small-town burger joints!). Sriracha can also be incorporated into many recipes that call for a hot sauce or chili paste to give it a slightly different kick.

A very tasty use of Sriracha is this extremely simple Sriracha mayo (originally posted as part of my "The Missing Ingredient series over on the foodiepages.blog). Even though it only has two ingredients, it will take your mayonnaise to a whole new level - Paul and I LOVE this mayonnaise alternative.

my week in food photos, march 18-24, 2013

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.

my week in food photos, march 11-17, 2013

bacon jam

Several months ago, I connected with Erin, the mastermind behind foodiepages.com - an "online farmer's market" where you can "buy directly from Canada's best food producers, farmers and artisans". Erin had sent out a tweet looking for a new writers for the foodiepages blog, and since I was looking to add to my writing portfolio, I emailed her to express my interest.

What resulted from our emailed conversation is a monthly series of blog posts on the foodiepages blog called "The Missing Ingredient" in which I experiment with a new (to me) and generally lesser-known ingredient each month.

I was a little nervous when Erin first asked me to take this challenge on - being still relatively new in the kitchen, I'm much more comfortable with well-known ingredients and following recipes written by someone else. But I have to admit, I'm having a lot of fun trying to figure out what to do with the ingredients that Erin suggests for me and whenever she suggests the next ingredient, Paul and I always have a fun conversation about 1) where the heck are we going to find the ingredients and 2) what the heck are we going to make with it. Creating my own recipes is also a lot of fun, especially when they turn out edible!

I'll be sharing some of the recipes that I've created for "The Missing Ingredient" here on kitchen frolic, but if you want to see them all right now, you can head over to the foodiepages blog archives.

my week in food photos, march 4-10, 2013

my week in food photos, february 25 - march 3, 2013

3 peppercorn steak

The next Summer Fresh sauce we tried...well, we didn't exactly cook with it. You see, the Summer Fresh 3 Peppercorn sauce was the first one I pulled out of the box when it arrived and right away, Paul and I looked at each other and said "Steak!"

Yes, as you know, we're both big beef lovers, so there was no question about how we were going to use this sauce. I know, this "recipe" (if you can even call it that) is pretty simple compared to what we've done with the others, but it's one that we were both excited about and really illustrates just how easy these Summer Fresh sauces are.