Ham & Sausage Jambalaya

In a large pot cook 3 celery stalks, 6 cloves of garlic, 1 large green pepper, 2 white onions along with 2/3 cup of bacon fat until vegetables are soft.

Add 1 lb. ham and chorizo, cook for about 8 minutes.

Add 2 cups of rice, stir well and brown for about 5 minutes.

Add 28 oz can of diced tomatoes.

Add 3 cups of stock (I like to use homemade veal stock) and season with freshly ground black pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper. Reduce to a simmer, cover and let cook for 45-55 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked.  

At the final stage of cooking add shrimp and green onions.

And there is dinner.

Indian Chickpea Curry

Simmering away... wish you could smell how wonderful the kitchen smells.  

Served with brown rice.  

Made with this spice mix.  

And it is so good!  

Quinoa!

Quinoa cooked with water = good.  

Quinoa cooked with broth = delicious.  

Quinoa cooked in left-over water that homemade chorizo was cooked in = super un-believeable-ly yummy!  

Just saying.    

What's cookin'

Cozido a Portuguesa

Chicken

Homemade Chorizo

Beef

Potatoes

Cooked this way, it is the most tender meats you will eat. And the flavour from the homemade smoked chorizo is unbelievable. Wish you smell how good the kitchen smells when this is cooking. 

I cracked the code!

The third time is the charm! The first two attempts at making this cake were an epic fail, but I'm quite thrilled that it worked out this weekend.

I finally cracked the code to a gluten free version of my Mom's delicious Marble Cake.  

What's cookin'

Coat pickerel in seasoned all-purpose gluten free flour,
pan-fry with butter.

 Pan-fried Pickerel

Sesame seed, Ginger Sugar Snap Peas

White Quinao

While pickerel is cooking, heat sesame seed oil in a wok.  Add freshly minced ginger.  

Turn over pickerel, cook until golden on both sides.  Add a dab of butter if needed.  

As soon as the oil is heated and the ginger is fragrant
add the sugar snap peas and toss until desired doneness.  

Squeeze fresh lemon over the pickerel and serve with quinao.  

Don't knock it until you try it!

Eggs, white onion, tomato, and left-over sweet potato fries.  

Scrambled... 

and delicious!  

Good Morning!

Favourite kitchen tool. Found at Ikea. 

Soundtrack playing in the background:
Devo's Whip It!  

Oh yeah!  Coffee.  Organic Free Trade Coffee from Tanzania.
Level Ground Trading.  

Sweetened with Organic Cane Sugar.  

And topped with cinnamon.  

Pizza #2

Well, I'm making another pizza this weekend. This time I've decided to try one of the many gluten-free dough recipes out there. Yes, I'm motivated by cost-cutting measures. It is hard to justify paying five-fifty (Cdn $) for a pizza mix never mind the eight dollar price tag for those pre-made pizza shells. Gluten-free product costs are a whole other blog post that I'm saving for another time. So back to the pizza: Since I didn't have any dry milk in the house and no intention of purchasing any I tried this recipe.

I did have to do some tweaking with the recipe. With no millet flour in the house I substituted that with chickpea flour.

And instead of brown rice flour I used an all-purpose rice flour that I had at home.

While the yeast was busy proofing I greased and floured the cookie sheet that I planned of using for the pizza.

I used chickpea flour for this job.

The recipe found here said that the dough would be the consistency of a batter. And that you would require a spatula and wet hands to smooth it along.

I didn't find that it was so, maybe because I used different flours?

Now the fun part, toppings!

Pop into a 400 degree F oven for 20 minutes.

What yummy looks like!

Chestnut Bisque

Melt 1 Tbsp of butter in a large saucepan.
Add 1 diced onion, 4 carrots, 2 stalks of celery.
Saute for about 7 minutes

Add 2 pounds of peeled chestnuts.
I used fresh chestnuts that were cooked in a pot of salted water.
Saute for another 5 minutes.  

Add 6 cups of chicken stock, 1/2 cup fresh parsley, salt, pinch of nutmeg, and freshly ground pepper.
Bring to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes.  

Puree, adjust seasoning if needed.  

Enjoy!