Fancy(ish) Friday Breakfast for One

Okay, i'm in the middle of essay hell - hence the lack of posts. This one was from just before the hell, i actually can barely remembering sitting down to eating a real meal or eating anything that isn't subway or ramen noodles. So here is probably one of my last decent meals. Hopefully i will get through this soon and be back to cooking and blogging!

Looking at this - well this looks like everything in my fridge - i see spinach, rapini... english muffins, red peppers... eggs, and looks like cheese on top.

Sauteeing the rapini and spinach

Right, right now i remember - i made hollandaise!!! Talk about fancy

I also over-poached the egg apparently. (and made home fries)

Amaretto Sours and homemade pizza

As a new feature i've decided to add a drink to this menu. Eric and i were having a lazy friday - in part due to thursday's apartment football game. We were both kinda lazy and broke, but still wanted to do something so i thought i would make cocktails and pizza - so civilized.

I have a special Amaretto sour recipe that i took inspiration from the Paddock at Queen and Bathurst. What makes it different is using lemon rather than cheap bar lime, along with vodka and orange juice.

As for the pizzas, they were good, but pretty standard. We were going to make them on real dough, but the grocery store didn't have any. We used whole wheat nan instead.

One of the more unique toppings we used was rapini. I still had a bunch left from the cod, so it was pretty good, i put a little olive oil on mine to keep it from burning.

Eric made one, i made another, and the third was a collaboration.

(mine's the one with out the sauce)

Here we are ready to pounce!

John Carpenter and Cod

Sometimes i remember why Thursday is my favorite day of the week. This was one of those nights, and one of those meals that capped a pretty long four day week at school. This was an evening dedicated to fish and John Carpenter - plus it worked with fish week!

I've made this fish dish before, but i did it with basa. I didn't see any fresh, but cod was on sale so i figured that would work too.

Here is the cod in corn starch and sake. The sauce is a simple soy sauce blend also with corn starch.

I also made eric my new favorite rapini dish, since i just can't get enough of it.

Rice, rapini, cod and wine. Sounds good to me.

Dancehall Revenge and Sunday Brunch

On saturday night (technically sunday) my neighbours decided that they were going to have an impromptu afterhours party, complete with a Pogues sing along and a thrash metal dance party. This all began at 3 am. When i finally got up on Sunday i wrote my neighbours a small note, and then realizing how hungover they must be - made myself a nice brunch, and had a little party of my own - featuring some dancehall....

I actually didn't really have the appropriate ingredients, but i managed to pull this off. I used the new PC bagel thins, which are great, but not really to support a sunday brunch. I also didn't have any spinach for eggs Florentine, so i used rapini!

Without a great deal of sleep, i wasn't really in the mood to make hollandaise, and for one it seems a little much - even when one is musically inducing a hangover. Instead i made this sauce which is a mix of sour cream, dijon and horseradish. This was actually a good choice considering the bitterness of the rapini.

Didn't really make up for the aborted sleep or the cans of PBR i found all over the hallway, but it did cheer me up a little - and the soundtrack didn't hurt either!

Thai Veggie Curry

Really haven't made this meal in a while, but i was trying to clean out the fridge as i am out of town hiding from all the G-20 crap that is going on in the city. I had a whole bunch of veggies i had picked up at T&T, and the best way to use them up - Curry!!!!

I won't be updating for a few days, but will have lot of meals to report on when i get back.

The Veggies

Cooking the veggies


The meal
(there is successful brown rice hiding in the red bowl
the curse may be over)

Talapia and Cherry Salsa

It is almost embarrassing how excited i was with my most recent purchase- a cherry pitter. I love cherries, and recently had some good ones with my dessert at Fat Cat. I have always wanted to make cherry pie - so while i was looking for recipes for a suitable cherry pie, i also found a recipe that really intrigued me - it was Talapia with Cherry Salsa. Talapia is such a reasonably priced fish that you can get fresh or frozen - i always like to cook with it.


I of course had to see if my cherry pitter would also work on olives, so i did a few of those, and didn't want to waste them so i made a few little apps with things i had in my fridge (goat cheese, pesto, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella, roasted garlic, tomato and avocado).


The cherry Salsa was really good - it had a nice bite to it, and complimented the fish. I would really make this dish again because it was quite nice on its own too.

Cherry Salsa

1/2 lb of cherries (about 2 cups), pitted and coarsely chopped
1/2 a small red onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup of fresh cilantro*, chopped
1 large jalapeno, seeds removed and minced
1 tbsp of fresh lime juice
salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients, season to taste and let sit.


*the original recipe called for parsley, but i didn't have any and i can't really stand it anyway


For the sides i did a lemon butter rapini - which i thought was a nice accompaniment - asparagus of course, since i always have it in the fridge. For the potatoes, instead of doing my usual roasted ones, i thought that i would make them sweeter rather than savory, so i roasted them in olive oil, a bit of pepper and maple syrup.

Voila - a very nice and unique meal

Scallops with Rapini and Asparagus

I really like scallops, but i actually don't cook with them often, for some reason i'm a little intimidated by them. A few weeks before i had bought some quality frozen ones, and in order to force myself to use them i put them out saturday morning in the sink before i went out to run errands. These were a little pricey so there was no way i would have wasted them. Sometimes you've got to trick yourself.

I'm sure you have noticed that i really haven't been cooking lately, i have only myself to blame, and i really haven't been doing anything in particular, so lets call it April blahs. I've been a little more of a homebody the last few days as i've been watching the second round of the NBA playoffs, hence more cooking. I also am planning an upcoming Mother's Day Brunch which i'm pretty excited about.

When i finally got home after helping my friend Melanie moving saturday evening, i still didn't have a real plan for the scallops - i was hoping seeing them thawed would somehow trigger a recipe.... It didn't.

I ended up just tossing them in some olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper and sauteeing them. I was going to add saffron, but i couldn't find mine, and i had decided it might be too delicate with the Rapini which is quite a bitter and powerful flavour. I also had to cook them quickly because the lemon juice was starting to cook the raw scallops.

For the rapini sauteed some shallots and garlic in butter and olive oil, once they were turning brown i added some lemon zest and quickly tossed it, adding the Rapini to soften. While it was wilting i added some sake - i didn't have any white or vermouth, and a little bit of lemon juice to finish it.

The asparagus i just tossed in olive oil and baked, topping it with Parmesan. And i actually was able to make the rice without burning it or any other tragedy. (it was basmati)

When i was putting all together i realized that the scallops really needed some sort of sauce. I was about to make a yogurt sauce when i realized that the yogurt i had was vanilla, not plain - which would have made for nasty sauce. So instead i ended up mixing mayo, whole grain dijon, olive oil and lemon juice for the sauce.

Above:

Scallops
Wilting the rapini
Rapini ingredients
The meal
Ingredients
Asparagus ready for the oven

Polenta Breakfast

A while ago i was soliciting inspiration for my blog via Facebook, and an old friend suggested Polenta. I can't actually say i have a whole lot of experience with Polenta, but i've eaten it a few times and thought it was a little bland, but does make a good base for things. The only other time i made it i did it from scratch, but at my No Frills all i could find was the ready made polenta. That certainly made things easier.

I decided to use the polenta as a base for a poached egg breakfast. I didn't really know what to do with it, and even the internet wasn't much help. I remembered having it this way, so i simply sliced it into 1/2 inch pieces and lightly brushed it with olive oil and baked it on parchment paper. At the same time i made some oven homefries to go with the breakie.

Instead of just the usual spinach, i added some rapini, which although pretty bitter it is a little different and a good source of iron and calcium. I also blanched some leftover asparagus, since a few more veggies wouldn't hurt me! I used my mom's ceramic poacher to do the eggs, which i didn't pay that much attention to and they were a little overdone :-(

I've not had much success with hollandaise, and its pretty bad for you, so i made a sauce using light sour cream, lemon juice, tarragon and dijon. I served the sauce over the eggs and the asparagus.

I assembled the beakie and dug in. The polenta was okay - still bland, but a different base. Now of course i have a ton of polenta, so expect a few more recipes with polenta.