Welcome to week 4, the final week of casserole cooking class.  This week we returned to "easy casseroles".  Hopefully these time savers become some of your favourites.  Hopefully everyone enjoyed our 4 weeks together and I look forward to seeing some of you next week for "Jazz your Veggies" class.  Although I would like to take the class's advice and play Jazz music while we make veggies I am not sure if the others in the class will find that as funny as we did.
     We started this weeks class with a request from one of our absent class-mates for pie.  Not exactly casserole but the group consensus was: no objections.    

     With our quick and tasty sidetrack we returned to the topic at hand.  Our first casserole was Macaroni Pie.  This dish is one of my Caribbean favourites and is usually enjoyed cold although we enjoyed it warm.

     Welcome to week 3 of casserole cooking.  This week was the vegetarian casserole week as requested by class.  Although none of us are current vegetarians (1 former or recovering vegetarian lol) we now all have 4 recipes under our belts for the next time we celebrate meat-less Monday or are entertaining a vegetarian for dinner.  One of the 4 dishes is even perfect if one finds themselves with a vegan coming over for dinner.  Each dish could stand as a meal by itself but all would be a great side dish to a larger meal.
Green Bean and Mushroom Casserole:

     I hope that everyone enjoyed week 2 of Turkey Dinner 101.  During session 2 we made Glazed Carrots, Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Rosemary Potatoes, Stuffing and Gravy 2 ways.  We also reheated the frozen make ahead dishes from week 1.  We craved the turkey that came to class magically prepared and sat down to a full Turkey Dinner with a side of Cranberry Chutney.  For dessert we took the Pumpkin Pie challenge, frozen reheated pie vs. fresh pie cooked during class.  Please find the recipes from week 2 bellow:

Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes:

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 250ml tub mascarpone cheese
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 cups 10% cream
• 1/4 cup butter

Directions:
Peel and cut potatoes into small cubes.  Leave mascarpone cheese out to soften while potatoes are boiling.  Place potatoes into large pot, cover with water, salt and bring to a boil.  Once potatoes are soft, drain water.  Meanwhile sauté garlic and butter in a small frying pan (try to do this 5 minutes before the potatoes are soft).   Mash potatoes, fold in mascarpone cheese and butter/garlic mix.  Slowly add cream and stir.  Season with pepper (fresh black pepper as used in class), salt and serve.  Try to make mashed potatoes as the last dish you make before serving the turkey. 

     As promised here are the recipes from what we covered in week 1 of Turkey Dinner 101's class.  We made Cranberry Chutney from scratch, Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows, Turnip Puff, Pumpkin Pie and prepped a Turkey for the oven.  Please find the recipes bellow:

Chef Jason's Cranberry Chutney (Specially developed for Turkey Dinner 101)

     To the regular followers of Jay Eatz you may be wondering why this post hasn't started with "So......."?  Jay Eatz has been instructing various cooking classes and has promised his students he would make the recipes and relevant course content available via the inter-web.  So rather than "So I taught BBQ spices and rubs class last night......." the post title follows the course description to make it easier for participants to find.  With that said here goes.

The first 2 rubs come courtesy of The BBQ Pit Boys, for other recipes from them visit http://bbqpitboys.com/.

Coffee Dry Rub Recipe

     Prior to a recent journey to the Caribbean Island of Grenada I reached out to the twitter-sphere seeking advice about what to do and where to go.  One of the greatest resources available on line is the twitter account and website of a company called Beach Bar Bums( https://twitter.com/BeachBarBums, http://beachbarbums.com/).  I posed the question to Beach Bar Bums: Where are the good beach bars in Grenada?  I was given the list of a few of his picks and Umbrellas Beach Bar in Grande Anse Beach was one of them.  I added this to my itinerary and off to Grenada I went.
     While there the G.F. and I meet another couple (Alex and Clark) staying at our resort who rented a car and offered to take us to Morne Rouge Beach (A.K.A. BBC beach, yours to figure out) for the afternoon.  One of Beach Bar Bums other picks was located there, called Plywood Bar.  Coincidentally this was also the location for SUP Grenada http://www.supgnd.com/ (stand up paddle board) which is ran by a fellow Canadian named Derek.  I spoke with Derek before heading down and asked him if he wanted anything from Canada that he couldn't find down there.  Guess what his request was?

     So you've decided to have a BBQ and told your entire guests not to bring anything (pot luck may have been the way to go).  You have your menu planed which includes meat on the grill (needs your attention), a few appetizers (need to go out before the meal) and a multitude of side dishes (some you're making while juggling the BBQ).  You need that one dish that's a crowd pleaser, requires little babysitting and takes minimal prep time.  I recommend easy crock pot baked beans.

     If you like to entertain, host parties or BBQ's or even take a dish to a friend's party you have been invited to you need a few quick and easy dishes in your recipe repertoire.  One of my favourites (and my guest favourites) is hot artichoke dip.  I love it because it takes 5 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake.  My guests love it because of the richness of the dish's Umami components.  (Umami (savoury taste) is one of the 5 basic tastes, it is picked up by glutamate receptors and leaves a long lasting, mouth-watering and coating sensation over the tongue)  The Umami component in this dish is parmesan cheese with natural levels of glutamate at about 1200 (mg/100g). 

     I enter a beef cook off BBQ competition most years and decided to give Chimichurri beef a go.  I was in a rush the day before out buying ingredients for the Chimichurri marinade.  The recipe called for cilantro and the first store I went to was sold out.  I figured the Asian supermarket would have it because they have almost anything and everything.  In my rush I accidently picked up a pack of culantro instead.  Lucky for me culantro has a similar flavour profile to cilantro; it's just more pungent and stronger.    

     The good people at Grace Foods http://gracefoods.ca/ make an excellent bottle of Jerk Marinade for about $4.00.  This is usually my got to ingredient when I'm feeling jerk chicken.  You buy it, open the bottle and it's ready to use, convenience factor +10. 

     There is another way, all you need is about 16 ingredients and you're almost there (this is why Grace Foods is in business).  It will cost around $15 to make if you have some of the spices on hand, if you need everything expect double to triple that number.

     Well I kind of made key lime pie, maybe it would be best to call it lime pie.  I used Real Lime brand lime juice so I cannot verify that they used key limes to make their product.  It is defiantly a good alternative if you can't get your hands on real key limes.
     Anyways enough about lime juice.  I had the misfortune of eating some fluorescent green thing on holidays that was passed off as a key lime pie.  It was a bit of a letdown to say the least as I have had one of the best key lime pies in my life on a previous vacation to the Caribbean.  I guess I was expecting the same thing on every Island down there.  Miracle's South Coast Restaurant and Bar knows what's up when it comes to key lime pie.

     So basically out of disappointment I had to make some a proper key lime pie when I got back from vacation.  I went with "easy key lime pie" recipe I found on-line.  Apparently it won the 1999 American Pie Council's national pie championship.  This is probably because Miracle's didn't enter.  I might also add the word "super" in front of "easy" to this recipe's title.  So here is what you will need:

     There is something about Caribbean food that has got a hold of me.  Besides the ocean and the beach I think the food is the thing I look forward to the most when traveling to the Islands (well maybe that and a cold Carib).  Everything down there is so fresh and in season and local.  One thing we could learn from them is to treat our own local area like an island and source our meals locally but that's another article for another day.  About a week after my return from Grenada I was jonesing for something to take me back to here:

     Lucky for me I found it here: