A Superb Owl.

Another busy week in the books...It's hard to believe that I've already been blogging for 3 months! I have so much more to give ;)

The Superbowl festivities were a success - there were punts, and field goals, and touchdowns, and Gatorade attacks....and most importantly, a group of friends getting together for some chow! (and beer and vodka infused Fresca!)

I thought pot-luck style would be the ticket, and invited guests to bring a treat along. From the Mills-MacGregor household (me!) came chili and potato skins. Candace and Brian brought some homemade guacamole, and flavourful navy bean dip for dipping Tostitos and warm pita triangles. Joanne brought a tex-mex style nacho dip, and the hit of the night - a blue cheese, buffalo wing dip. For dessert Erin, Andy and Pops Armitage brought some amazingly rich and surpringly low(er) fat Lucy Waverman brownies from her new cookbook  A Year in Lucy's Kitchen.  An amazing cookbook that inspires some wonderful seasonal cooking.  In fact, my favorite cookbook from my whole whopping collection is Lucy Waverman's last cookbook (of which I have a signed copy!) -  Lucy's Kitchen .

 

Joanne's Hot Chicken Wing Dip Recipe (sorry no photo!)

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup pepper sauce (such as Frank's Red Hot® or Frank's Buffalo)
• 1 cup Renee's chunky blue cheese dressing.
• 2 cups diced cooked chicken (this is optional, it was good with, but would've been good witout too!)
• 1 cup shredded old Cheddar cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the cream cheese and hot pepper sauce until well blended. Mix in the Blue Cheese dressing, chicken and Cheddar cheese. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
3. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven. If oil collects on the top (yikes), dab it off using a paper towel. Serve with tortilla chips, carrot and celery sticks.

Chili

 

Ingredients

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 lb lean ground pork
• 2 cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes
• 2 cans red kidney beans with brine
• 1 can white kidney beans rinsed
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 2 jalepenos minced
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1 large onion chopped (ON)
• 2 pints crimini mushrooms sliced (ON)
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/2 - 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup of Ketchup (trust me!)
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown your meat in a large skillet, and drain about 80% of the fat
2. Transfer meat and remaining fat to a large pot
3. Add onions and garlic, sautee until translucent
4. Add everything else!

Simmer for as long as you can - ours simmered allll day - 7 hours, but anything over an hour would work.

This was a rich and flavourful (and even better leftover!) - we had sour cream and cheddar cheese to add as toppings too. This is going to be my basic go-to chili recipe from now on - Thanks to Erin for suggesting to not rinse the kidney beans, and to add the whole can brine and all to the pot!

 

Potato Skins

 

The potato skins were excellent! The recipe was adapted from All Recipes' Baked Potato Skins. I used small (ontario!) white potatoes that I had on hand, did not use parmesan, and brushed the potatoes with a mixture of canola oil, garlic powder, onion powder, s&p. I also dolloped a little 14% sour cream and sprinkle on chopped chives to finish them off.  Mmmmm....miniature 2-bite bowls of savoury goodness!

Dessert!

On to a few other weekday items...

 

This recipe features the rutabagas that I received in my last FDO box.  I sliced up both rutagabagas into little 'fries'and tossed them with a little canola oil, s&p, and a couple of Tbsp of birch syrup (think maple syrup from a birch tree).  The birch syrup was a gift from my brother Matt and his gf Mary for Christmas, and this was my first try using it. It's from a local producer in Thunder Bay http://www.birchsyrup.ca/.  Was it ever GOOD! It's sweet like maple syrup, but has an entirely different flavour - I want to describe is a caramel-floral flavour...if you can picture that!

Before I popped this in the oven to roast, I seared a S&P seasoned pork loin in some canola oil, placed it on top of the veg, and let 'er roast away for about an hour at 375.

 

 

The pork was well seasoned, and beautifully juicy...the rutabaga and birch syrup were a tasty and unique partnership.  The rutabaga were a little unevenly cooked, even with a couple of stirs mid-roast, so next time I would cut them in to smaller, more even cubes.  I served this dish with a simple side salad - FDO live Boston leaf lettuce with a red wine vinaigrette (EVOO, red wne vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, s&p).

 

Finally, we have a healthy vegetarian dinner - a disappointment unforunately (Jen social worker - you are right to mock me in this instance). This dish was a take on Michael Smith's soba noodle miso soup recipe from The Best of Chef at Home...I didn't follow the recipe exactly, and since I was disappointed, didn't bother to write the details down. The basic receipe is:

• Miso broth (4 cups of water, 2-3 Tbsp Miso paste)
• Onion (FDO)
• Carrot (FDO)
• Brocolli (FDO)
• White Mushrooms (FDO)
• Nori (dried sheets of seaweed - I think it's universally available at supermarkets now)
• Soba Noodles (buckwheat noodles)
• Lime juice
• Sambal Olek (asian chili sauce)

I didn't love the flavour of the whole grain Soba noodles - they were too overpowering, and the soup turned out more like a stew because of all the starch from the noodles - I had a flavour profile in mind when I decided to make this dish - i was expecting a light flavourful broth, and that just wasn't how it turned out! But, you can't win 'em all :) and Rory liked it!

 

 

Thanks for reading!

I have a STELLAR carrot soup recipe to share next time!