Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
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!)
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!)
Thursday, February 21, 2013
trying out summer fresh sauces
A couple of weeks ago, I was among a group of Canadian bloggers chosen by Summer Fresh Salads to try out their new Fresh Sauces! I was pretty excited to get my hands on these sauces and start cooking with them in the kitchen - what fun!
The new line of products consists of five new flavours:
Disclosure: I was provided with product samples from Summer Fresh for this post series. However, all opinions expressed are my own.
The new line of products consists of five new flavours:
- 3 Peppercorn: a traditional peppercorn sauce made with a blend of three peppercorn varieties and real Burgundy red wine
- Butter Chicken: a rich and buttery Indian sauce made with stewed tomatoes, real cream and ginger
- Cranberry Madeira: authentic Portuguese Madeira sweet wine expertly blended with whole cranberries and traditional spices
- Mushroom Marsala: a traditional marsala sauce made with a blend of Cremini, Porcini and button mushrooms
- Thai Curry: an authentic Thai sauce made with fresh coconut milk, lemongrass and spicy chili peppers
At a quick glance, some of the points I already love about these sauces:
Visit their website to learn more about Summer Fresh Sauces!
- they're versatile - you can use them as marinades, stir-fry sauces, finishing sauces or to cook with
- they're time-savers - instead of spending time creating a sauce, on busier days, these sauces can be a real help in the kitchen
- there's no artificial preservatives, colours or flavours
- it's a Canadian company - I love supporting home-grown, and Summer Fresh is located in Woodbridge, Ontario.
Visit their website to learn more about Summer Fresh Sauces!
Disclosure: I was provided with product samples from Summer Fresh for this post series. However, all opinions expressed are my own.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
a week's worth of ground beef...
Recently, Canada Beef asked the Canadian Beef Ambassadors to share tips on saving money and/or time in the kitchen. On the same day that I got that email, Paul announced that it was "meat week" at our house, so the two just seemed to meld together into one perfectly-timed blog post.
"Meat Week", as Paul coined it, would more appropriately be called "Ground Beef Week" - it's not only a budget-friendly week of dinners (well, five days but you can stretch it to a week if you really wanted to), but really time-saving too, which makes life easier on us.
One of the main problems for us is grocery shopping. Since there's only two of us, a lot of the things that we want to buy in bulk (to save money) go to waste when we can't finish it before it goes bad (not everything can be tossed in the freezer, as we have learned the hard way!) So one of the things that we do love to buy in large quantities is ground beef.
Basically, Meat Week starts off on with a huge package of ground Canadian beef that becomes 5 days' worth of main dishes for our dinner. The day that we buy the beef, we cook it and then we use part of it right away and freeze the rest for later use. It makes things super quick and easy on other nights, plus lets us take advantage of the bulk price.
So, our favourite way to have ground beef in 5 days week?
"Meat Week", as Paul coined it, would more appropriately be called "Ground Beef Week" - it's not only a budget-friendly week of dinners (well, five days but you can stretch it to a week if you really wanted to), but really time-saving too, which makes life easier on us.
One of the main problems for us is grocery shopping. Since there's only two of us, a lot of the things that we want to buy in bulk (to save money) go to waste when we can't finish it before it goes bad (not everything can be tossed in the freezer, as we have learned the hard way!) So one of the things that we do love to buy in large quantities is ground beef.
Basically, Meat Week starts off on with a huge package of ground Canadian beef that becomes 5 days' worth of main dishes for our dinner. The day that we buy the beef, we cook it and then we use part of it right away and freeze the rest for later use. It makes things super quick and easy on other nights, plus lets us take advantage of the bulk price.
So, our favourite way to have ground beef in 5 days week?
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
impromptu wing sauce taste test
Today just happens to be Super Bowl Sunday, and although I'm not a football fan, this post is definitely a timely one (especially if you plan on having chicken wings at your Super Bowl party!).
Last night Paul and I headed to his parents house to fry up some chicken wings and watch the hockey game on TV. As I was packing up the wings and fries, I asked Paul which wing sauce to bring with us and he said he wasn't sure. So of course, I get the crazy idea to bring them all and have an impromptu taste-testing session.
It didn't take much to convince Paul and his dad to join in on the taste test (actually, it didn't take any convincing at all) so I opened up the four different wing sauces while Paul started deep-frying 106 wings!
The four that we tried were (from left to right):
1. Original Anchor Bar Buffalo Wing Sauce - Medium Recipe
2. Duff's Famous Wings Hot Sauce
3. Huy Fung Foods Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
4. Frank's Red Hot Wings Buffalo Sauce
Since Paul's mom and I both aren't big fans of HOT sauces, I cut all the sauces with some butter, which reduces the heat (I use approximately 2 teaspoons of melted butter per 1/3 cup of sauce).
After several batches of wings had come out of the deep-fryer and we had a chance to try all the sauces, the unanimous favourite was definitely Duff's. It was the sweetest of the four, with the most flavour and the perfect amount of heat.
My personal favourite was Duff's, while the one I liked the least was Anchor Bar's (I found it the least flavourful and a bit too vinegary).
The most watery sauce was Anchor Bar and the thickest was the Sriracha (although that wasn't a big surprise).
By the time we were done, I was STUFFED. I love chicken wings as much as the next gal, but at the end of the night, I was definitely ready for some salad - haha!
I know there are tons of other great wing sauces out there, so next time, Duff's will just have to go up against three new competitors! I'm sure Paul will be up for it!
What about you? What's your favourite hot sauce for chicken wings? Maybe I'll take some of your recommendations and make it part of our next Hot Sauce Taste Test!
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