Seafood and Salmon Casserole

I had no idea what to do for diner tonight. There was a little piece of salmon leftover from a few nights ago, half a zucchini and a few mushrooms about to turn, and a nice chunck of Fontina cheese begging for mercy. This called for some freestyle cooking! I didn't want to just warm up the salmon, cook some rice on the side and fry up the zucch's and shrooms. Bo-ring...So here's what I did:



I started by cooking some rice, in a bit more water than usual so there'd be some liquid to moistened everything else later! Then I sauteed some onions, garlic, zucchinis and mushrooms in a bit of oil and butter until soft, with some salt, pepper, paprika and thyme. Meanwhile I defrosted a bit of seafood mix. Yes, a frozen seafood mix. It comes in very handy when it's winter time and fresh seafood is not really available...
When the veggies got soft I added the seafood and cooked them for a few minutes, until semi-done. Then I added the rice and the little bit of water left at the bottom of the the pot, along with the already cooked salmon and a bit of milk to tie everything together*. And a bit more salt and pepper.
*I originally thought of making a bechamel sauce but I decided to keep it semi-healthy...
All of this wonderful stuff went in to a baking dish, dotted with a few knobs of butter and got covered in Fontina and some Parmesan.





In a 450 oven it went, for about 5 minutes, then on broil until it got nice and golden.



Easy and delicious. Can't really beat that.

Cheddar-Jalapeno Bread with a Quinoa Twist

I've been thinking about making this bread for a few days now. Now that I understand the process and the necessary ingredients and how they work, you can expect a lot of bread on this website!!



This is totally my own recipe. I kinda went into it blindly, and hoped it would work. And boy did it work! I'm eating a slice as I type this and I can't believe how good it turned out. I actually got the idea from a bakery I used to work at in Lake Louise, we used to get cheddar and jalapeno bagels. I looooved them! With cream cheese, wow. And jam? Even better. Or both...And of course just by itself, toasted with butter. This bread doesn't taste the same of course(bread and bagels are totally different in texture!). I put some quinoa in it and that comes out really subtle but obvious when you know it's there. The jalapeno is not too spicy at all, I only put in one just to be safe, but when I make this bread again I'll use 2. The cheddar taste also is veeeeery subtle. I used mild marble cheddar so next time I'll get a stronger cheese. But trust me, it's awesome like this too! The texture is very soft, the oil in the cheese did it's job!!



So here's the "formula":

4 cups bread flour(3 white, 1 whole wheat)
1/2 cup quinoa flakes(available at health food stores)
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 TBSP canola oil
1 1/2 cups warm water, at 120F
1 cup cheddar cheese(*little trick: toss in about a teaspoon of flour in the cheese so it doesn't clump together...)
1 jalapeno, finely chopped.

Mix the flour, quinoa, yeast salt and sugar in a big bowl.
Heat up the water at 120F, add oil and pour in the flour mixture while stirring with a fork. If it seems too dry add more water, if it's too wet add flour. When it starts to form a ball transfer to a floured surface and knead until it starts getting smooth. Add the cheese and the jalapeno, and knead more until it's all incorporated. When it's nice and smooth with the consistency of an earlobe put the dough ball in a greased bowl, cover and let rise until double. This one only took 45 minutes.
*A good way to speed things up: turn on the oven and put the bowl on it. My stove top gets kinda hot, that helps the rising process!

When it's risen enough punch it down gently, turn into a floured work surface and knead again for no more than a minute and very gently, all the while shaping it into a short and thinck kinda log. Now you can either put it on an oiled baking sheet and bake it as a rustic-looking loaf, or do the pan thing, like I did. In an oil-sprayed 9x5 loaf pan. Loosely cover with plastic and let rise again until doubled, it took this one 30 minutes(again, on the hot stove top...). Before sending it to the oven brush with eggwhite or milk, or butter, or nothing...I did eggwhites. It's just a fantasy, really, not essential. It changes the look and texture of the crust.
Bake it at 375 for 30-35 minutes, when it's done it'll sound hollow when tapped and thermometer will read 180F. Let it cool on a rack.
As you can see my pretty baby here got really big!(and lopsided because my floors are not quite even...)



Sandwiches this week are gonna rock!

I will submit this to yeastspotting for next week!

I don't how to call this one...brown rice gratin? ok.. Brown Rice Gratin.

This is a perfect example of freestyle cooking. Tonight i had NO idea where I was going with this, I just kinda made this dish up as I was going along. I knew I wanted something with rice, brown rice, so as that was cooking I kinda startd chopping veggies with the intention of a stir fry, then I had the idea of turning it into a gratin. A little cheese never hurt anybody right? Everything tastes better with cheese anyway. So I think I ended up with something pretty darn good.



Here's how it happened:
First, I cooked the brown rice. Toasted it first in a bit of butter(unsalted butter!) and added 3 parts of water. I knew it was gonna be a little too much but that water can be used to add moisture to the stri fry. Meawhile, I shredded half a zucchini(it was a big zucchini...), chopped about 1/2 a cup of mushrooms. couple of green onions, clove of garlic and 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley. When the rice seemed to be almost done I started sauteing the veggies in grapeseed oil, added salt, pepper, paprika and cajun spices. As I had thought the rice was done with a little extra liquid at the bottom, I threw all that in and cokked for a few minutes. That would have been awsome on its own. But the cheese! So I threw the rice mix in an oven proof dish, mixed in a couple big pinches of parm in it, stirred and topped it with about 1/3 cup shredded Montrey Jack queso. In the oven at 425 for about 10 minutes to make the cheese melt,(in the meantime the dishes are done...)broil for 5 minutes to give it a crisp and voila! Oh and to be fancy I sprinkled dried parsley on top. Restaurant habits die hard...
Pretty good diner. Also, the brown rice and the cheese together make a complete protein, so it's a great vegetarian meal!

When you just HAVE to have pizza...

Everybody loves pizza. I mean, it's bread, meat and cheese(ok, some veggies too...). What's better than that? But we all know it takes forever to make real dough, and ordering in can be quite pricey. Here's an easy way to get your pizza fix anytime, without getting stuck with leftovers that end up being dry and tough and usually gets eaten cold out of the box(ok, sometimes that can be good, like the day after a night of drinking for example...ya, i don't do that anymore...).
This is a freestyle type of meal, whatever's in the fridge will do.
For the "dough", use flatbread. It's sold in most grocery stores. I like the onion Naan bread. There's cumin in it, soooo tasty!
Next, smear some tomato sauce on it. I love italian food, I'm a pasta addict so I always have pasta sauce in my fridge, or a can of tomato sauce lying around somewhere. Today I used some spag sauce I had leftover from a few nights ago. 1-2 tablespoons is usually enough.(sometimes i smash a few slices of sundried tomatoes with garlic and oil and use that as a sauce; very tasty.)
Next, I like to put the meat under the cheese. In my case it's usually salami. I LOOOOVE salami. I'm not big on cold cuts but I could live with just salami and bread if I had to.
Then it's cheese time. Here I used cheddar. Another staple in my fridge. I try to use no more than 1/4 cup 'cause it's pretty greasy...
Finally, the "decorations": black olives and green onions. Olives is something else I could not live without. And green onions go in pretty much everything.
So there you have it. Perfect little pizza for 1!

Sundried tomato and Feta omelette.

We've already established that muffins are my pre-swim snack. For the after swim I usually go with eggs. Omelettes, sunny-side, softboiled or scrambled...i love eggs. And omelltes are quite easy to make and they're very versatile. Today I went for sundried tomatoes and feta. I looooooove sundied tomatoes. You can buy them dry or in oil; I like them in oil. Then when the tomatoes are gone you're left with this awesome flavored oil perfect for salads. I also love love love feta cheese. So the two together can only be a delicious combo.
Now, today I had a bit of a "sticky" situation with my non-stick pan that's not really non-stick anymore...you can probably tell on that picture. But it was good anyway. Anything with sundried tomatoes...
This recipe is for 1 omelette. For 2 people double the ingredients.

Ingredients:
1 egg
2 egg whites(you can buy just the whites, in a carton. 2tbsp is 1 egg white)
1 green onion(or 2 if they're really thin)
2 slices sundried tomatoes
Black pepper(no salt! the feta is pretty salty already)
Oregano(eyeball it, i love oregano so I put like 1 teaspoon in it.)
1-2 TBSP Feta cheese.(not sure of the exact quantities, i'd say the size of a golfball...)

-Mix egg, egg whites, onion, tomatoes, pepper and oregano.
-Throw in a med-high heated pan(i always put a little nub of margarine, to prevent from sticking to my "non-stick" pan...it works MOST of the time...)
-When it starts to "take" throw in the feta.
-Fold carefully in half, let it go for a minute on one side, flip it and turn the heat off.
-Done!