pan-fried mahi-mahi with honey grapefruit dressing

Ever since our honeymoon in Hawaii many years ago, Paul and I have always been partial to mahi-mahi. Also known as dorado or dolphin fish (relax people, it's not related to dolphins in any way), mahi-mahi is a very "meaty" fish. By meaty, I mean that the texture is much more substantial and "sturdy" (but not tougher) compared to other fish, which are often lighter and flakier. Because of the heavier texture, mahi-mahi is great on the grill or pan-fried and I love cooking with it because it never falls apart on me when I'm moving it around.

The other day, Paul wanted something light for dinner, so I pulled out some mahi-mahi fillets and when I noticed we had some pink grapefruit in the fridge, I pulled those out too.

This meal takes no time to make and is a perfect, light dinner for hot summer evenings!

pesto cheeseburgers

Paul makes awesome burgers. Seriously awesome burgers. One of his secrets is to add some "moisture" ingredient to the meat before shaping the patty - it can be mustard, pesto sauce, barbeque sauce, beer...really, there are an unlimited number of options. But that addition really flavours and moistens the burger.

Our next creation with Maison Le Grand sauces was a pesto cheeseburger. It's barbeque season, so of course, we had to include a grilling recipe!  :)

rustic chicken pasta bake

Paul and I make our own tomato sauce all the time - in fact, we've never purchased tomato sauce before and we have bought pesto sauce, but mainly because fresh basil is expensive and for some reason, basil is the only plant that refuses to grow in our garden. We have never, however, purchased or made rosee sauce. I've ordered pasta with rosee sauce in restaurants, but we've never had it at home.

Maison Le Grand recently sent me some samples of their sauces, including their new collection of rosee sauces, to create some recipes with. I didn't want to use them to make normal pasta dishes with (ie. make regular pasta, cover with sauce), so Paul and I brainstormed some more interesting dishes.

One pasta dish that I always want to make more often is a pasta bake (or skillet bake), so the first recipe we tried used Maison Le Grand's Rustic Rosee Tomato Sauce.

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.

simple butter chicken pizza

I have always loved the saucy goodness of butter chicken. Especially on a bed of rice. There's just something about the sauce that I can't get enough of. So I was pretty excited to see that one of the sauces in the set that Summer Fresh sent me to try was Butter Chicken.

Although I didn't want to do my usual Butter Chicken on rice dish, I still wanted to use chicken as the meat...and since Paul makes an amazing pizza dough, I asked him to get out the yeast and whip up some pizza dough for a Butter Chicken pizza.

I can humbly say that the results were INCREDIBLE. I used the sauce three times in this recipe - as a marinade for the chicken, to cook the chicken in and as a sauce on the pizza (instead of our usual tomato sauce).

You can use your favourite pizza dough (crust) for this recipe, but in case you're wondering about the pizza in our photos, Paul usually rolls his dough out so that the pizza ends up being about one foot across and less than 1/4 inches thick (oh yeah, we like our pizza crust THIN!)

thai curry chicken stir-fry

Paul and I love doing stir-fry - it's quick, healthy and uses up any random meats or vegetables that we have handy in the fridge and/or freezer.

The Summer Fresh Thai Curry was a perfect complement to this soba noodles and vegetable stir-fry - it adds a pop of colour and a kick of flavour to the recipe. If you prefer more heat, feel free to adjust the recipe and use more sauce!

thai curry chicken stir-fry
printer-friendly version

ingredients:

5 cups soba noodles
1 cup Summer Fresh Thai Curry sauce
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, thinly chopped
1 sweet red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup snow peas
1 tablespoon of soy sauce

veal scaloppine with mushroom marsala sauce

I love veal scaloppine (even though I have trouble spelling scaloppine) so when I saw the Mushroom Marsala sauce in the Summer Fresh line-up, I knew what I wanted to make with it.



Confession time (well, not MY confession), but Paul doesn't like mushrooms. Which sucks because I LOVE MUSHROOMS. But he agreed to help me make this dish, and tried the final results as well (that's true love, isn't it?)

Using the Summer Fresh sauce was incredibly easy and the results were really delicious (even Paul admitted that the dish was good, even with the mushrooms). I can't stress how easy this meal was - it look less than 20 minutes from start to finish. In fact, the pasta that we made to go along with the veal took way longer (a recipe for the lovely bow-tie pasta with chunky tomato sauce that you see in these photos will come in a future blog post!)

my first oven roast

Confession time - I have never made an oven roast. Never. I've "kind of" made a pot roast (usually, Paul makes the pot roast and I assist), but I've never made an oven roast by myself. So when I got my latest Canadian Beef Ambassador assignment, I was excited and nervous - I had to make an oven roast! This was the first time they had asked me to make something that I had never cooked before.

Paul was extra excited because lately he's been complaining that I need to cook more and bake less since he wants to eat some real meals and less desserts (apparently, he can't survive solely on baked goods like I can).

Cooking an oven roast is actually MUCH easier than I had anticipated. The one important kitchen gadget that I highly recommend having is a meat thermometer. Paul and I actually own several different meat thermometers (the little round non-digital metal ones and also a couple of digital ones) but Canadian Beef sent me a new one - a talking digital thermometer.

The new thermometer is really simple to use and has different settings for beef, chicken, veal, turkey, lamb, and pork. They have pre-set temperatures, so you just choose how well done you want your meat. For example, under the Beef setting, you can choose from Rare, Medium-Rare, Medium and Well Done. Under some meats, like chicken, you can only choose Well Done. When the temperature is close to ideal (about 5 degrees lower than the pre-set), a voice comes on and tells you that the cooking is almost done. You'll get more talking reminders as you get closer to the ideal temperature and again when you reach it. This method is much easier than trying to figure out timing based on the weight of the meat.

leftover turkey dinner pucks

Paul and I always have a plan for Thanksgiving leftovers - turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwiches! For a week! LOL. I'm sure there are many of you out there that have similar plans for your leftovers, whether you celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving (in October) or American Thanksgiving (in November).

This year, we had another plan for our leftovers.

Paul and I attended the Toronto Underground Market back in September and one of the treats we tried was the awesome Thanksgiving Puck from Royal Tree Beaver. After blogging about how much we enjoyed them, Royal Tree Beaver tweeted us back and challenged us to create our own (especially timely since Thanksgiving was right around the corner).

So, after stuffing ourselves at two family dinners, we made sure to take home lots of leftovers to put together our own Leftover Turkey Dinner Pucks - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. 


I'm providing a recipe for our version of Leftover Turkey Dinner Pucks (which differs from Royal Tree Beaver's with the addition of turkey), but really, this is more of a general guideline than a recipe. The pucks can be adjusted based on the leftovers you have and your own preferences.

Our pucks came out AMAZING. They were crispy and full of flavour and were a really delicious way to use up leftovers. We can't wait until the next turkey dinner (at Christmas) to make these again. Actually, would it be weird if we celebrated American Thanksgiving too? 

baked chicken ziti

Most of the time, I cook new things by choosing a recipe and then going to the grocery store and picking up the required ingredients. But once in awhile, I do things a little backwards. There was a sale on ricotta cheese earlier this week so we stocked up. Seriously, who stocks up on ricotta cheese (besides us, I mean)? But that meant we had all this ricotta cheese and no plans for it.

So, last night I had a brainstorm. I pulled some of the ricotta out of the fridge and tried my hand at making a baked chicken ziti. The pasta bake came out creamy and cheesy and is definitely going to be going into our regular dinner rotation.  :)

mmm...burgers

If there's one meal that Paul and I love, it's hamburgers. Especially Paul - he really loves his burgers!

During the summer, we tend to have burgers a lot since the BBQ is in use at least two times a week. Plus, this year Paul has been whipping up his own homemade burgers instead of the frozen ones we used to buy. I LOVE the way Paul's burgers come out - they're always meaty and juicy - just the way I want a burger to be. Mmm, I'm getting hungry just writing this blog post!

As a Canadian Beef Brand Ambassador, we've been having even more hamburgers than usual and in the past two weeks, we've made burgers three times! Our favourite toppings are the basics: thick slices of cheese (we tend to throw a variety on there), ketchup and mustard (one of the many from Paul's growing collection).

Paul is still "perfecting" his burger recipe and I'll be sure to share it on this blog once he gives it his seal of approval. In the meantime, I'm having fun taste-testing the trial burgers!

What about you burger fans out there? What's your secret ingredient to the perfect burger?

And speaking of burgers, what's your burger personality? Yes, I said "burger personality"! Turns out I'm a split personality - I'm definitely mostly Old School ("You believe that the classic burgers is sacred. You keep your toppings pristine: ketchup, mustard, a fluffy white bun. Why mess with a good thing?"), but once in a while, I tend to be a little Gourmet ("You can’t eat your burger unless it’s been elevated to the level of Emperor. At your house, Truffle oil, sautéed chanterelle mushrooms, and sundried tomato pesto have taken the place of yellow mustard and good old ketchup. Why use iceberg when you can have Arugula is your motto.")


You can find out your own Burger Personality here (and please come share it with me!)

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.

pork dumplings (potstickers)

My mom is a great cook. I know a lot of kids grow up thinking this way, but what I love about my mom is that she still makes a lot of traditional Chinese dishes, even though she's been a Canadian citizen for over 40 years. She even makes many traditional dishes that her friends and family don't bother to make any more at home because they're too time-consuming (like zong zhi, turnip cake and Fa Cai Hao Shi).

Now that I've decided to become a better cook myself, I've been shadowing my mother in the kitchen, in the hopes of picking up some of her recipes so that I can try making them myself. A lovely idea in theory, but, as many of you know, moms who are great cooks never seem to have a "recipe" - they just throw in the ingredients and it magically comes together. Whenever I ask my mom for measurements, I get a shrug and an "I don't know, it'll just look right". Yeah, thanks mom. That doesn't help me when I 'm trying to make the dish on my own (or trying to write a recipe blog post!)

I finally managed to nail down (I hope) my mom's pork dumpling recipe. These are probably better known as "potstickers", but I've never referred to them as such, so prefer to continue calling them dumplings. They have that nice crispy brown bottom and I you can exchange the pork for another meat (or shrimp), but my mom has always made these with pork (she does, however, sometimes sub in another green for the Napa cabbage). 

Make sure you get dumpling wrappers, and not won ton wrappers (they're square and thinner) so that these hold up to the steaming and frying.

food fight! macaroni and cheese - paul

As mentioned in my previous post, Paul and I had a little competition to see who could make the better macaroni and cheese - me from a cookbook recipe or him just "winging it". Needless to say, my mac and cheese turned out to be a disaster, so I was pretty sure Paul would have to go that extra mile in order to lose this Food Fight.

Paul decided to go with penne pasta for his creation and used three cheeses: a bright yellow powdered cheese we got at the Healthy Planet bulk store (think Kraft Dinner powder), Marble and (for the top crust) Romano.

But do you know when I knew for certain I would lose this battle? When he tossed this onto the counter...

What little hope I had left that I might still eke out a victory when I saw him pull out the bacon. Yes, bacon. Lovely, delicious, flavour-giving bacon. Game over.

Luckily for me (and unluckily for Paul) he didn't use enough cheese, so his mac and cheese turned out almost as bland as mine. I say almost as bland, because those flecks of bacon scattered throughout did do their best to spread some flavour through the dish. I do have to admit that his dish had a really nice crust on the top (thanks to the Romano), so that's definitely something we'd repeat again.

Food Fight! Macaroni and Cheese Winner: Paul (by a teeny, tiny bit)

Lessons learned:
- Stephanie - cookbooks with better editors and recipe testers!
- Paul - more cheese (and more bacon!)

food fight! macaroni and cheese - stephanie

Anyone who knows Paul and me, knows that we can get pretty competitive. Most of the time, it's pretty harmless and sometimes it can even be productive...

Case in point - I'm innocently mentioning that I'll be making macaroni and cheese for dinner out of a cookbook that I've never used before, when Paul states that he could make a better one without the use of any cookbook! Has he gone mad? Keep in mind - we are both really new at this whole cooking thing and neither of us has ever made macaroni and cheese before. I just scoff and went on my merry way, planning my ingredients and reading the recipe numerous times to make sure I knew what I was doing. What could possibly go wrong? The book says this recipe is from a famous restaurant in New York City! It says no one ever refuses a second helping! I've got it made!

So, on the evening of my attempt, I pull out all the ingredients and diligently prepare them before I turn on the oven and stove to start the real cooking. I think Paul was napping somewhere.


After I start cooking what seems to be a very large amount of pasta (8 cups) into the boiling water, I was standing at the stove, stirring the cheese sauce, watching the pasta boil, when I glanced again at the cookbook and felt my heart drop. I looked again. Oh no. The book didn't say 8 CUPS of pasta. It said 8 OUNCES of pasta! No wonder it looked like too much!

But wait...8 ounces? That doesn't seem right either. In my shock, I actually went and measured out 8 ounces of the cooked pasta (which is pretty funny in hindsight) just to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. Yes, ok, that is definitely a SMALL amount of pasta. Can that be right? Hmm...the recipe says that it makes four servings as a main dish. Ok, there's no way 4 adults would survive on 2 ounces of pasta each.

Emergency situation. So, what do I do? I do the first thing that pops into my head - I text the competition. "Paul - I need your help and advice urgently."

Paul comes in and together, after some deliberation and re-reading of the recipe, we settle on 6 cups of pasta, because that's what looks like would fit comfortably in the bakeware dish size that was recommended.

I put together the macaroni and cheese, popped it into the oven, silently cursed the cookbook and crossed my fingers.

Soooooo....needless to say, my macaroni and cheese was a flop. There was way too much pasta and way too little cheese. Humph. And the white cheddar I had used wasn't strong enough so what cheesy flavour you could taste was very bland.

Of course, at this point, Paul re-iterates the fact that he could do a better macaroni and cheese without a cookbook so I tell him to go for it. (In my head, I'm thinking - "Yeah, like you can do better", but I'm also thinking "Great! That's one less night I have to worry about making dinner!"). Of course, I've already conceded the Macaroni and Cheese battle - Paul would have to do an absolutely horrific job in order to be worse than my attempt!

At which point we decide that a little friendly competition in the kitchen may not be a bad thing, as long as we were up to eating the same thing twice and sometimes really bad versions of the same thing twice. So the Kitchen Frolic Food Fight was born. It's basically Paul vs. Stephanie, beginner vs. beginner, husband vs. wife. Let the games begin!  :)

p.s. Apparently, Paul says my mac and cheese was a lot better with Sriracha sauce.

Watch for my write-up of Paul's take on macaroni and cheese coming soon!

linguine with shrimp for two

Paul and I love pasta - it's affordable and can be made in so many ways, but we almost always stick to the basic pasta and tomato sauce combination, which is fine (especially since Paul makes a great classic tomato sauce) but once in a while we like to try something new.

I saw this recipe on Kraft Canada but I didn't have some of the ingredients they called for so I adapted it to use the things I did have ready in my fridge instead of making a trip to the grocery store.

It turned out really well and is definitely something we'll be doing more often. This recipe is super easy and quick and perfect for beginner cooks (like me) who want to do something a little more fancy than the usual pasta and tomato sauce.

Plus, this recipe is perfect for two people. One of my pet peeves is that almost all the recipes I find and want to try serve a huge amount of people, which is such a waste. I know that I can adapt any recipe down to two servings, but once in a while, it's just nice to see something that's made with a couple in mind.  :)