Sliders! The new grill-less grilled burger!

Today's dictionary definition:

"Slider": a little hamburger.

Who thought of this? Obviously there was craziness in the air. Large chain restaurants may have gathered around trying to find a different name than "little hamburger" and started playing air hockey when they got hungry and thought the puck was also a little hamburger. Or maybe there is a technical reason. I don't really care. They're really good.

I mentioned that not eating beef takes a negative toll on my life sometimes (such as during O-Week in university when you either have to eat a gross beef burger or a gross veggie burger with visible peas and carrots in it or worse, a plastic looking tofu hot dog). But I have found that most things that traditionally require beef (meatloaf, pasta sauce, meatballs, etc) can easily replace beef with turkey instead. It is also supposed to be way healthier for you according to many health things which I have not checked out.

Sliders are no exception to the turkey awesomeness. Here is a basic recipe of my turkey sliders:

Ingredients:

-Ground Turkey
-Breadcrumbs
-Paprika
-Cayanne Pepper (skip this if you don't want them spicy)
-Garlic (both dried and wet minced are best for ultimate garlic taste)
-Onion Powder
-Dried Basil

-Slider Buns (or little dinner rolls if your grocery store is not hip with this little food trend, go Market Fresh! you overpriced evils!)

Directions:

Mix a little bit of the turkey with about a small handful of breadcrumbs (if you are using a full pack of ground turkey) and the desired amount of spices. When everything is all mixed with the small amount of turkey, mix the small amount with the rest of the turkey and make sure it's all mixed evenly.

Roll the meat into little balls a bit smaller than the buns you will be serving the sliders on and flatten them almost half as flat as you want them to be when you serve them (they will shrink hecticlly when you cook them).

…at this point, I left my meat patties in the fridge and waited until later to cook them. If you have time to prepare them in advance, this is probably best for adding more taste from the spices to the meat.

Put the buns in an oven or toaster oven and put them at a low temperature (maybe 275) so they can be toasted and served whent he patties are cooked).

Cook the patties on a frying pan at medium temperature until the the meat is fully cooked. Basically, you don't want to cut a piece in half and see them pink, like the raw meat. (Remember turkey cooks to be a little pink, so don't freak out if they're a little pink on the outside. You just want to make sure you see a colour change.) About 2 minutes per patty is probably good.

SERVE THE FOOD!


I put garlic mayo (my new favourite thing!), mango chutney and fresh mozzarella on my sliders, but you can dress them like you would a regular burger.

Go crazy!

The New Cool Whip!

Recently I wanted to make a recipe that called for "creme fraiche". Not knowing what that was, I googled it and found out it was kind of like sour cream. So I used sour cream in the recipe. However, last farmer's market the goat milk people had a sign that said they now had creme fraiche. The sign said to try it with all the summer berries. So clearly I was meant to buy this. And for $3 a tub, it seemed like a good deal (especially because their chevre goat cheese spread is about $6 for the same size, so I felt like I was getting a deal).

I tried this creamy goat milk stuff with peaches and it was so good! It was just like heavy whipping cream in a little dip tub. I totally recommend trying some of this stuff with all your farmer's market treats! If you don't like goat's milk, you can get the regular creme fraiche in the supermarket as well.

Props to the goat milk people for finding a way to keep up with the summer market crowd!

Fruit Pakoras

I think Chef at Home's Michael Smith is probably for sure one of my favourite chefs. He makes everything look so simple, has such a soothing voice and just is such an overall family man. After today I hate him a little bit because his cooking looks so easy, but after trying his stupid banana fritters and caramel sauce, I have decided he is just a little evil for making it look that easy.

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Eggs-Dairy/recipe.html?dishid=9515
Ingredients
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs
2 very ripe bananas
1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions
Heat your deep fryer to 365°. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl. Whisk the eggs, bananas and vanilla together in a separate bowl. Pour the wet into the dry and stir gently until just mixed.
Drop heaping tablespoons of the batter into the hot oil and fry until golden brown. They will float to the surface when they are done. Flip them so they fry evenly. Drain on paper towels until ready to serve.

Serve with caramel sauce for dipping.

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Eggs-Dairy/recipe.html?dishid=9516

Caramel Sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup 35% whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions
Pour the water into a saucepan then pour the sugar in a pile in the middle of the water. Turn the heat to medium-high heat and begin cooking without stirring. The sugar will dissolve in the water and begin to boil. The water will evaporate, leaving behind a pure sugar syrup that will then begin to rise in temperature, past the boiling point of water, and into the flavour zone.
When the sugar begins to lightly brown here and there, gently swirl the pan until all of the sugar is a deep golden brown. Carefully pour in the cream and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Cool until thickened or serve hot!


So turned out that my "home made deep fryer" almost boiled over (as in 1/2 inch of oil almost boiled over a soup pot, see photo) and set on fire when I tried it in a smaller pot (lesson is I should buy a deep fryer... can you hear me Santa?!). My caramel sauce (after two tries!) end up as just a sweet, brown milk. I learned after eatinig too many fritters in the goopy milk mixture that I should have just continued to heat and wisk the cream and sugar mixture for another minute or so (which is what I did with both the failed attempts but then learned that if I let the more successful caramel sauce "cool until thickened", it can cool too much to a consistency of fudge!).



I also put in some strawberries in the fritters and have decided that since they are a bit small, I will call them Fruit Pakoras instead. All in all, they were okay, just very unsafe to cook...

Before I go, I just want to say that I don't hate Michael Smith, but I do think he shouldn't make it all look so easy so that I feel bad when my food sucks. Stay tuned for more of his recipes because let's face it, he is amazing :P

Mexican Breakfast

With all the leftover ingredients I had from my tacos, quesadillas and salsa verde, I decided it was time to take my Mexican food to a new level. Huevos rancheros is that level I took it to. Unsure if huevos rancheros really is anything specific (even though Foodnetwork recipes disagree and make it be basically anything with eggs, beans and tortillas), I have decided to call this Edesia's Huevos Rancheros to avoid confusion.

All I did was fry 1/2 a tortilla, smother it with some refried black beans, fry an egg and some potatoes and throw them on top. The fried potatoes were just fried in some oil and sprinkled with paprika and salt.

I like to eat it with a knife and fork with lots of sour cream and salsa verde, Edesio likes to make it into a wrap and eat it that way. It's pretty simple and easy to do.

So cook up Mexican for your next brunch!

Thinking Healthy and Mexican

I've heard that Mexican food is some of the healthiest food in the world. Now I feel that since I have been eating lots of fried foods lately, I should try out some Mexican. Also, I'm loving how to shred rotisserie chicken. It is so easy, I will admit a bit time consuming, but it's definitely faster, easier and safer than needing to cook that much chicken on my own. Rotisserie chicken also has an amazing seasoning on it already.

I looked up a recipe for Chipotle Lime Tacos (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/claire-robinson/chipotle-lime-chicken-tacos-recipe/index.html) which seemed amazing, but Market Fresh had no canned chipotles, which made the reciple not work out at all. So I bought some jalapanos and decided to make just Lime Tacos with them. I put the recipe below.

When I was at Market Fresh, I decided to also buy some canned green tomatoes, tomatillos, to make salsa verde. Salsa verde is probably one of the best Mexican sauces ever. If you ever go to Vancouver, go to Vancouver, go to Steamrollers and order the Tommy burrito. It showcases just how amazing salsa verde and just plain simply tomatillos can be!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any cilantro for the salsa, but I recommend adding that if you have the chance at the grocery store. It makes a very spicy, fresh taste for the salsa.

Salsa Verde

1 can tomatillos (820 g, 435 g drained) removed from liquid, squished
1 small white onion coarsely chopped
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 jalapano coarsely chopped
1 tsp lime juice
cilantro

Bring all the vegetables in a pot to a boil. Once they boil, bring to a simmer and blend all the ingredients.

Serve hot over tacos, eggs or cold as a dip.

I didn't have any cilantro, but all the salsa verde recipes required it. It definitely would be better to give the salsa a fresh taste. So definitely remember to add it to your shopping list!


Lime Chicken Tacos

1 cooked rotissarie chicken shredded
1 lime zested and juice
1 jalapano finely chopped
1 white onion finely chopped
whole wheat tortillas
sour cream

Add the lime zest and juice evenly to the chicken. Make the tacos with the chicken, sour cream, jalapanos and onions. To make it even better, cover with salsa verde and eat with a fork and knife.

With the leftover chicken from the tacos, you can make quesadillas and dip them in the salsa!

That is exactly what I did. Quesadillas turned out to be even better than the tacos. I recommend being crazy and pureing some black beans or buying refried black beans and throwing them in the quesdaldilla too.

Pictured below are the salsa verde and the start of a chicken and black bean quesadilla.

Farmer's Market in a Soup!

Farmer's Market Soup

This summer started with me having nothing to do. So that is one of the reasons I started this blog. Since then, I have discovered a million TV shows, movies, video games, made-up sports, and other countless things to take up my time. I have also been away so much on the weekends that I have missed going to the farmer's market in such a long time! So I decided that enough was enough and bought out the entire farmers market to make a vegetable soup. Turns out, minestrone soup, the not-like-Eastside Mario's-soup-beacuase-it's-not-unlimited-but-probably-way-more-awesome you always get at the Spaghetti Factory with your garlic butter bread and pasta and such, on the Foodnetwork often starts with bacon (at least according to Chef at Home). I love the farmer's market bacon like there's no tomorrow. Either from the people you take a number or from the people who are by the goat cheese people, both have very good thick bacon. The only thing is that I really like the farmer's market sausage too. So I decided to make a bacon and sausage soup with all the fresh vegetables and meats from the Farmer's Market. Here's the recipe I made up. The best part of this is you can change it with the seasons. It's probably most exciting to have pieces of bacon in your soup!

Ingredients

vegetable and meat suggestions

2 sausages (I used 1 honey garlic and 1 medium choirizo) fried and cut into 1/4" pieces
6 strips bacon cut into squares
1 onion chopped to small sizes
1 zucchini chopped
1 green and 1 red pepper chopped to small sizes
2 stems broccoli chopped to desired size
1/2 stem cauliflower chopped to desired size
8 little red tomatoes chopped to large sizes
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 dry bay leaves
pepper to taste

for broth

3 bouillon cubes plus 8 cups water
or 6 cups chicken stock and 2 cups water
1 cup red wine

Directions

in large pot fry bacon and sausage
add peppers, zuchini and onions to frying mix until a bit soft
boil the wine and half the chicken broth in a separate pot to cook out alcohol
add wine-broth mixture to frying mix
add potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower to mix
finally add tomatoes and rest of liquids
at end of soup mix, add garlic, leaves and pepper to soup
let simmer for a few hours
when broccoli and cauliflower are soft, the soup is ready to eat!
freeze it for later, or eat it all in one sitting, if you choose :p

Waffles and Fried Chicken

Inspired by:
-hunger
-the awful buffalo chiken recipe
-the need to redeem my stomach with crispy, fried chicken
-the awsomeness of fried chicken
-The Next Foodnetwork Star recipe of fried chicken and waffles yesterday
-NYC's Le Pain Quiotden's awesome sugar waffles

I decided to make sugar waffles and fried chicken.

PS: This was not inspired by the need to be healthy :P

So the fried chicken, I've tried out a few recipes now. My modification to my last recipe was the best one I've tried. So check out the Parma Jarma recipe from The Foodnetwork for the recipe of the breading. I also tried Brad's recipe (below and pictured) and found it to be pretty good (minus the fact I didn't have blue cornmeal and fried it in olive oil instead of shortening). I think if I keep up deep frying, I would like to buy some peanut oil because olive oil is not making my deep fried breading that flaky. Maybe I should just buy a deep fryer...

http://www.waffle-recipe.com/recipes/liege-waffle-recipe/

Liege Waffle Recipe
Another waffle from Belgium. These guys really know their waffles. This Liege Waffle Recipe comes from tadaaaa – the city of Liege in Belgium. Again the Liege waffle recipe is almost the same as the ordinary Belgian waffle recipe, just sweeter. Liege waffles are also smaller, so you can hold them in your hands while Brussels waffles are eaten from a plate with a fork and knife. To make Liege waffles you have to add some extra vanilla sugar (What is vanilla sugar? – it is vanilla scented sugar. You can even make your own if you put a whole vanilla bean in a jar of white sugar for a week or so.) Liege waffles are a bit denser and also sweeter. A little piece of history before we start cooking, yeah it is always fun to learn new things – Liege waffles were invented in eighteenth century by one of the cooks of Prince-Bishop of Liege. I bet you did not know that, we sure didn't.

Liege Waffle Recipe


For a Liege Waffle recipe we will need:
2 cups flour
1 cup pearl sugar
1 cup melted butter
3 eggs
1 (1/4 ounce) package yeast
1/3 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (add some vanilla sugar)
1/8 teaspoon salt

How to make Liege Waffles in nine easy steps:
1. Take the lukewarm water and mix in yeast, 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar and salt. Let the yeast develop for 15 minutes. In the meanwhile you can melt the butter, but be careful - do not burn it.

2. Now take a large bowl and put in the flour, make a hole in the middle, pour in the yeast that you made in step one. Also add eggs and melted butter and knead until you get nice and even dough. Then let it rest so the yeast does it's magic and the dough doubles.

3. Now take pearl sugar and gently mix it in.

4. Again, let it rest for 15 minutes, in the meanwhile you can turn on the waffle maker so its nice and hot.

5. All there is left is to pour the waffle dough into the waffle maker and bake for 3-5 minutes. Because we mixed in the sugar late in the process it will melt and caramelize and give that special Liege waffle taste. Just be careful when you take them out of the waffle maker, caramelized sugar can make them sticky.

6. Enjoy!!


This is the end of the Liege waffle recipe. Bon appetit!

So some modifications to the waffles would be: to use a little less butter (maybe a little bit more than 3/4 cups) because 1 cup is too much. Melted butter comes out of the dough and messes up the waffle iron. I also don't have vanilla sugar or pearl sugar. So I make a sugar solution with about 1/4 cup regular sugar and add a splash of rum (kind of vanilla scented). I microwaved it a bit to get some alcohol out and to carmalize the sugar a bit. I also usually let it stand for a bit to let it harden (make it at the beginning of the recipe to give yourself time). Also, be a bit healthy and add some fresh berries. It's summer!

Fried Chickens:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/brad-sorenson/blue-corn-fried-chicken-with-malt-vinegar-aioli-recipe/index.html


Ingredients
1 cup hot sauce
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
12 chicken legs
Vegetable shortening, for frying
4 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups fine ground blue cornmeal
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons poultry seasoning salt
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
Malt Vinegar Aioli, recipe follows
Directions
In a large bowl, combine the hot sauce, mustard, garlic powder, and paprika. Toss the chicken legs in the mixture to coat. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to cook the chicken, remove it from the refrigerator and let the chicken come to room temperature.

In a deep saute pan with tall sides, over medium-high heat, add the shortening until you have enough to fill halfway up the sides of the pan. Heat the shortening to 325 degrees F. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a shallow baking dish, combine the flour, cornmeal, cornstarch, poultry seasoning salt, and black pepper. Remove the chicken from the marinade, shaking off excess and dredge the chicken in the flour and let rest about 5 minutes to let the flour soak in. Dredge again in the flour and fry, in batches, in the shortening until golden brown on both sides. Be careful not to overcrowd the pan. Transfer the chicken to a rack fitted over a sheet pan and finish the chicken in the oven until internal temperature of 165 degrees F, about 10 minutes.


I didn't make the malt vinegar stuff because I didn't have malt vinegar and prefer ranch or bleu cheese sauce. Also, I used small pieces of chicken because I don't like bones.