I stopped at the local grocery store and checked out the fish isle. Lately I have been trying to put fresh fish into my bi-weekly meal rotation. One of my new favourites is steelhead trout. You can Google steelhead trout recipes and all kinds of fancy dishes will come up, some quick, but most require $5 to $10 worth of ingredients to prepare. I suggest trying some of these some time but for quick, simple and easy only two ingredients are required. Butter and salt.
Jay Eatz was once again eating on the cheap, cheap in time, cheap on money but tasty on the mouth. With a Hungry Man costing almost $5 and taking 8+ mins in the microwave you can't tell me you don't have an extra dollar or an extra 12 mins. This meal is a million times lighter in sodium and 10 times as healthy. Here is what i did.
I stopped at the local grocery store and checked out the fish isle. Lately I have been trying to put fresh fish into my bi-weekly meal rotation. One of my new favourites is steelhead trout. You can Google steelhead trout recipes and all kinds of fancy dishes will come up, some quick, but most require $5 to $10 worth of ingredients to prepare. I suggest trying some of these some time but for quick, simple and easy only two ingredients are required. Butter and salt.
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There is nothing like working all day, slipping your key in the front door, walking in and getting smacked in the face with the smell of grandmas Sunday roast beef dinner. Best thing it's Thursday, you didn't have to drive all the way to grandmas and when your done eating you can veg out on the couch and let the beef digest. Second best thing is while you were working the crock pot was doing it's thing for 10 hours and you barely lifted a finger. The hardest thing is tearing apart the tender roast, scooping out the carrots and whipping up a batch of gravy to smother over the beef.
Now Jay Eatz recommends purchasing a cheap cut of beef. There is no sense of buying a prime rib roast, a top sirloin roast or a tenderloin roast and boiling it all day on low in that magical device called the crock pot. These roast are great in the oven and do not require a 10 hour cook to make them tender. A cross rib roast or a blade roast is the ideal choice. Look for some good Canadian AAA beef and hunt for a deal. I picked up a $15 roast on special for half price. So it's Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday or better yet Pancake Tuesday and in keeping with the day Jay Eatz made a couple batches of pancakes. You could go out and pick a box of Aunt Jemima up at the store but pancakes are so simple to make from scratch. Here is my favourite recipe I learned in kindergarten class and has been my go to ever since.
The weather outside is frightful but BBQ is so delightful and for 4 bucks how could one say no. Feels like -21 outdoors might discourage some people, maybe our neighbors to the south currently experiencing their "nor'easter", but in Canada it's still prime time BBQ season. The key is to keep it quick and simple on the colder days. It's not the best time to do a 3 hour roast on the grill or anything that needs constant babysitting and will make you sit outdoors for the entire BBQ process. I recommend simple items that you are familiar with grilling times to minimize outdoor time. Two flip burgers or steaks make an excellent choice. I opted for sausage which also kept the budget low like the temperature.
I hit the grocery store up and scored a dozen hot Italian sausages for $7 which is about 60 cents a link. Divided the pack into 3 parts, froze 2 bags of 4 and kept the other third ready for the grill. I also picked up a small red pepper for about a dollar. I looked in the freezer and saw a bag of mixed veg which consisted of green beans, yellow beans and carrots ($2.89 for entire bag, I used 1/5). Having my game plan established I fired up the grill at 7:04. By 7:07 all the snow and ice on the lid had evaporated so the links were ready for the grill. I placed them on and went inside to deal with the pepper. I cut out the stem, de-seeded the pepper and cut it into about 6 pieces. By the time this was done the sausages were ready for a turn. Then I threw a handful of the frozen veg mix in the fry pan with a splash of olive oil and set it to low. Back out to turn the sausage again, approximately 7:21. At this point I added the red pepper to the grill, about 2 mins a side with the lid down. When I turned the pepper I rotated the sausage. In between the flips I transitioned the fry pan from low to medium and gave the veg a toss and a sprinkle of salt. Then back out to pull the peppers and give the sausage one final turn. Time, about 7:26. The peppers joined the veg in the frying pan, tossed a few times to cover with the oil and seasoning. Back out to the grill and sausages were done, shut down the propane, pull sausage and head indoors. It's about 7:31 and the plate the sausage walked threw the door on is now the vessel for the veg on the fry pan. 7:32, sit down with knife and fork, a condiment or 2 for the sausage and enjoy. Alternative, put key in ignition. Drive to fast food place, drop $6 to $10 on a combo and maybe complete food run in 20 mins instead of 28. Not tonight. Hey I'm back, had a small break for the holidays. I was very busy making this and that and Santa was very good to Jay Eatz this year. Scored a sweet chef jacket from Mrs. Clause, a kick ass chef knife from ma dukes and a nice carving knife and diamond steel from grandpa.
So you might have read previously that I scored some cheap pork, cut it up and ended up with a couple of roast and some thick chops. Well the chops and one of the roast ended up in the freezer, but what happened to the other roast? Stuffed boneless sirloin pork roast happened. Super easy to make and super tasty to eat.
Well it could be complex, it all depends on the amount of time you have, the ingredients available and generally what level you want to take it to. I chose quick and easy. Here goes.... I grabbed my steak knife and slit the sirloin approximately down the middle of the main muscle. So it's date night, but what to do? Can you cook, or at least try to? Why not eat in, step it up a notch and make your significant other something good to eat and do it better than the restaurant you were thinking about going to and spending 50+ bucks at. You might as well make something a little more on the indulgent side as well because you know your not eating off the light menu if your dropping that 50+ bucks going out (or using your 2 can dine for 11.99 coupon at the fast food joint).
For last nights meal I decided to bring a few items and raid the girlfriends freezer for the protein. All in the meal was about $30.00. She provided the pork tenderloin which I might add she scored a two pack for less than $6.50 because it was on sale and got an additional 10% off because she bought it on a Tuesday using her student card. So were in for about $5.90 for almost 2 lbs of lean and delicious protein. Also on the shopping list, a pre-made caesar salad (because I wasn't even thinking about salad until I walked by it at the store), 1 lb of white mushrooms, a 237 ml container of whipping cream, a tub of cream cheese (I was going to buy mascarpone cheese but a small tub was $6.79 W.T.F.) and a bottle of the cheapest white wine I could find because it was mainly for cooking (although the rest of the bottle did go nice with the meal). I brought a handful of potatoes from home and some Dijon mustard because she would never finish the mustard on her own and 5 lbs of potatoes would end up growing sprouts by the time she finished them. All said less than 20 bucks at the store plus maybe 2 bucks in potatoes and mustard. So were in for about $27.90 and the girlfriend made the dessert which was less than $5. So what was this delicious meal you ask? Pork Dijoinnaise with mushrooms and cream cheese mashed (but more like whipped potatoes due to the lack of a potato smasher which was substituted by a hand held wand mixer = bad life decision), caesar salad to start and cinnamon rolls for desert. I wont get into the potatoes too much but I added butter to the boiled potatoes after they were drained. Then added a half tub of cream cheese, seasoned and then attempted to mash with the hand wand mixer which turned the potatoes into an over whipped paste like substance which although edible was not my greatest side dish. For the Pork Dijoinnaise, I first heated up a fry pan with some olive oil and gave the two pieces of pork tenderloin a good sear. Meanwhile I preheated the oven to 325 and when the pork had finished its sear I placed it in the oven for 20 minutes to cook to a medium well to well state of done-ness. I used the same olive oiled pan and tossed in some minced garlic that was in the fridge. I gave the garlic a chance to heat up being careful not to let it burn. I then added the 1 lb of mushrooms to the fry pan and waited for them to sweat out and reduce to about half of there original size, on about medium heat. Then I poured a little less then half the bottle of wine into the mix. Now the important part, let the wine reduce to about half of what you pour in to the fry pan, I turned the dial up to medium high to help this process speed up a bit. By now the pork tenderloin was finished so I pulled it out to rest. Then I added the whipping cream, pepper and 2 generous spoonfuls of Dijon mustard to the pan. You want to let this reduce a bit too. Mean while I sliced the pork tenderloin into medallions and added it to the pan. Then toss the mixture ensuring the pork tenderloin gets a good coating of the sauce and mushrooms. Do not overdue this part as by now the sauce has reduced to a good constancy and the pork has already been cooked to perfection by the oven and leaving the pan on the heat to long may result in the pork becoming overdone. Meanwhile the girlfriend set the table, dressed the salad, had the wine breathing and a candle lite. I plated the potatoes on half the dish and the pork, mushroom and Dijonnaise mix on the other side. I also drizzled some of the excess sauce over the potatoes (so good as a sauce on potatoes). And voila dinner is served and all for around $30. You spent some quality time in the kitchen with your significant other, you saved a few bucks by not going out and have a nice glow from the wine that will surely enhance the rest of your evening. ;) Yes that's right Masterchef season 1 hopeful, that was me in the summer off 2013. Lucky for me retail meat cutting did not disqualify me, nor did the sub 100 hours I had put in as a sous chef at a local banquet hall. I was so pumped up when I received a V.I.P. audition after the good folks at Masterchef Canada watched my audition video (which got me a guaranteed audition in the first group of day 2). But what should I make??? And it had to be served cold and be pretty much made as there was only a 5 minute time allocation to plate and have my creation ready to serve the myriad of judges and producers ready to put me through to the next round. I had so many ideas but wanted to look fancy, stand out from the crowd and generally impress. I turned to my favorite fancy cook book, Margaret's Table: Easy Cooking & Inspiring Entertaining by Margaret H. Dickenson (which I recommend everyone should own). The recipe I thought was a sure winner, Smoked Salmon Kasha/Wild Rice Martinis.
I figured I could pull it off, the presentation would look amazing and it would represent Canadian cuisine. Ill let you in on how its made, keep in mind this recipe serves 4 and I only made one dish for the audition ( I had made the other 3 servings for a chef, my girlfriend and her mom to "Eatz" to give me their opinion/feedback prior to the 3:30 a.m. departure to make it to down town Toronto for the 6:30 a.m. e.t.a to wait in the audition line). Ingredients:
How do you make this wonderful dish? Grab 4 martini glasses. Make the lemon mustard sour cream sauce by adding the 3 ingredients together and mix. Add a bit of the rice to the martin glass, level, add 1 tbsp of the lemon cream sauce and then add about 1/3 of one portion of the smoked salmon. Continue this process by adding a bit more of the rice, sauce and salmon creating a trifle effect in the martini glass, finish with the last 1/3 of your salmon portion (I attempted to make a rose looking piece of salmon to top of the martini glass by folding the salmon into a flower resembling spiral shaped object). Refrigerate at least 15 mins before serving, garnish with capers and lemon zest just before serving. So I thought I had a winner. I had my components all ready in a cooler and waited in line outside of the audition. I was given my V.I.P. bracelet and was part of the first group to be judged. Closer to 10 a.m. 50 of us were corralled into a meeting room at a conference center, given a 3 foot section of a folding table and put on the clock, 5 mins to plate our creations and await our fate. The judge strolled up and asked me some questions. Did you smoke the salmon yourself? Did you make your own sour cream? How did you make your wild rice? I answered no, no and Uncle Ben's (I opted to go with Uncle Ben's after the chef I had try my dish said the wild rice I made from scratch was visually unappealing and inferior to my main man Uncle Ben's creation). And so ended my quest to be Canada's first Masterchef. I wasn't all that disjointed as Gordon, Joe nor Graham were going to be judges, nor were any of my favorite TV chefs from Food Network Canada. On a plus note I learned that my girlfriend and her mom don't care much for smoked salmon. I also replicated the dish again when I had my mother over for a Jay Eatz cooked mother's day dinner in her honor cooked by her 1 and only (also favorite son, because she called children quits after I was born) son. Coincidentally the rest of that mother's day dinner is also the pic in the background of my website, so I would also recommend this recipe as a great starter for a surf and turf meal. Buy Mrs. Dickenson's book and try it for yourself but if your going to use it as your Masterchef audition dish due ensure to make your own sour cream, catch and smoke your own salmon and travel to China or the deep south in U.S.A. to harvest your own rice to really impress those judges and producers. Sorry Uncle Ben....... (even though your rice really makes the dish) |
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