My Attempt at Michelle's Dinner....

A few weeks ago while visiting Abbotsford, our great friends Michelle and Peter invited us over for a double date. Michelle made her famous sangria (I'm slightly addicted now :P), ceasar salad, asparagus, and bbq chicken covered with shrimp and a bernaise sauce. It was delicious!!!!! We followed that up with the pool and hot tub.. making it a perfect evening.

This morning I decided to try and replicate that yummy dinner, as best I could anyway. Looking through the fridge I picked ceasar salad and corn on the cob for our sides (sadly we had already eaten all of the asparagus). I took out the tiger prawns, thawed them with a little warm water, and removed the shells. I know this might sound strange but I love peeling the shells... don't judge haha. I needed half a grapefruit for ribs tomorrow so I squirted the rest of it on the prawns and added a little salt and pepper. I left them to marinate all day... I think this is my new favourite way to do prawns - citrus all the way! I just rubbed some pre-made garlic pepper mix on the chicken and left it to Matt to bbq.

Once the corn and chicken were on the bbq and the prawns were starting to cook in the juice (just in a frying pan for a few minutes), I went to grab my packet of bernaise sauce. To my shock there wasn't one. I must have decided on the hollandaise instead :S So I was like.. shhhhhiiiiiittttt..... and decided to whip up an asiago cheese sauce. I melted a few tablespoons of butter, whisked in a few more tablespoons of flour. Poured in some milk and added some salt and pepper. Once it was thicker, I stirred in grated asiago until it all melted. I kinda threw together a super boring salad while this was happening :(

At this point... Matt walked in with the corn and chicken. I dished up the toppings while Matt chucked the corn (my girly hands can't handle the heat). It turned out sooooo good, Matt ate his left overs as seconds. So It wasn't exactly like Michelle's but it turned out pretty good!! Thanks for the inspiration girl :D

The Great Cheesecake Adventure

Ok... so I'm going to start off by saying I am NOT a fan of cheesecake. I very rarely like and more often than not, refuse to eat it. However, Matt LOVES it and has mentioned it every time I ask him what dessert he wants me to make. I decided to finally make one!! If only I knew what I was getting myself into...

My dad swears by my mom's cheesecake (I usually take an automatic pass when she makes it). Matt swears by his mom's cheesecake (I've never had it). I decided to try Matt's favorite... We bought everything we needed, mixed it up, and threw it in the oven. After 40 minutes I was wondering why it separated and looked gross so I phoned and asked. To my surprise it was a NO BAKE cheesecake :( ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Needless to say, I was bummed. I poured it down the toilette (it looked like something out of a horror movie) and I tried it again.. but with my mom's recipe. Here's the details in case you want to try it. I actually loved it, so it must be good :) 

Cake Crust 

- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs

- 1/4 cup butter, melted

- 2 tbs granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 325F. In a medium bowl, combine crumbs, butter and sugar. Press onto the bottom of a 9" springform pan. * I don't have one so I used a square casserole dish. bake for 10 minutes, then cool. 

Lemon Cake Filling

- 3 packages cream cheese (250g each)

- 1 cup granulated sugar

- 2 tbs flour

- 1 tbs lemon rind

- 1/4 cup lemon juice

- 4 eggs

Heat oven to 425F. With a mixer or food processor, blend together cream cheese, sugar, flour, lemon juice and lemon rind until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Pour over crust. 

Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 275F and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the center of the cake is just barely firm to the touch. If you're using a springform pan, loosen the cake from the edges with a knife. do not remove the cake until it has cooled. 

This was one of the easiest cakes I've made. It was super fast, I always thought cheesecakes were hard to make. Earlier in the morning we had bought some blackberries from a sunday market so I made a classic coulis for it. Normally my mom uses raspberries but any fruit works!

Blackberry Coulis

- 2 cups blackberries

- 1/4 cup granulated sugar

- 1 tsp lemon juice

Using a blender or food processor, puree the fruit, sugar and lemon juice. Strain using a fine-meshed sieve. Press firmly with a spatula or spoon until there are only seeds left. * You can use frozen fruit but remove some of the liquid first. 

This is what the final product looked like... YUM!!

Seafood Pasta and Green Beans

I have been OBSESSED with the deals at save on lately. I guess in a small town fish and meat  don’t sell as fast as they do back in Abby. Yesterday I bought 3 red snapper fillets for $1.50!! I decided to make a seafood pasta sauce with them and some prawns I had in the freezer. Green beans were on sale as well so I grabbed a big bag of those. (On a side note... we had a rotisserie ham on the bbq and some sesame green beans last night... yum!). I saw some fresh thick sliced bacon on for $3 this morning and decided to make green beans with bacon and onions tonight. I got a call to come into work early so I prepped everything so Matt can make dinner when he gets home. I decided to make some of dinner early so I could bring it to work J

 My multitasking skills were put to the test since everything was going to take about the same time to cook. I chopped up the snapper and took the shells off the prawns. I had half a grapefruit in the fridge and squeezed as much juice out of it as I could :P I threw in some olive oil and garlic for good measure. The fish were left to marinate in the grapefruit juice for a few hours. 

  

For the beans... I first cooked the bacon, set it aside, and then cooked the onions with some garlic. I added the beans and a touch of water, stirring occasionally until cooked. 

For the seafood sauce...  I pan fried the seafood while making a lemon dill sauce I had bought the seasoning pack for. While the pasta boiled away I stirred and mixed like a mad woman. Everything turn out great! So excited for my yummy dinner at work tonight :P

Lime Snapper and Broccoli Salad

Yesterday I picked up some red snapper fillets on sale (the best before date was today so they only cost $3!). I decided to make a easy marinade with the magic bullet... just some olive oil, lime juice (I was out of lemons), pepper and 2 garlic cloves. I poured it in two tin foil bowls, put the fillets over top, and then poured the remainder over the fish. I closed the little packets and left them in the fridge for a few hours.

I had a few heads of broccoli in the fridge so I decided to try and make Julie's Broccoli Salad (it's insanely delicious... the only way I'll eat raw broccoli haha). I cut up the broccoli into small pieces, including the peeled stem. I added some cranberries, strawberries, diced red onion, shredded cheddar cheese and sliced almonds. I whipped up some dressing using mayo, white vinegar, sugar, and a pinch of dried mustard, paprika, and pepper. I threw on the dressing and gave it a good mix.

The snapper took about 20 minutes on the BBQ to cook. It all turned out great! Matt ate three huge helpings of salad so it must have been ok :) I'm definitely making this fish again.

Cucumber Bacon Muffins (I know this sounds weird...)

For a few weeks I've been wanting to make some kind of savory muffin but a lack of muffin tins has stood in my way. I was trying to think what I could make with a cucumber that's been hanging around and figured what the heck... lets make muffins out of it! I found a recipe for salami and cucumber muffins. However, I ended up changing almost everything. So here's my big experiment...

I cooked approximately 150g of bacon (helpful hint - cut bacon while its frozen, it makes it so much easier). 

Next I peeled and grated a medium cucumber, as well as one medium white onion. I also grated about 1 cup of cheddar cheese.

In a bowl, mix together 150ml milk, 100ml light sour cream, 2 eggs, 1/3 tbsp dried dill weed and 1 tbsp olive oil.

In an electric mixer, combine 2.5 cups flour, 1 tbsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt. Then add all remaining ingredients, be careful not to over mix.

I only have mini muffin tray so I used these... One GIANT problem was that I followed part of the recipe. It said to use muffin liners (which I'm always a fan of because it means easy cleaning). When I pulled them out I discovered the muffins wont come out of the liners. Next time I'm going to just pam the tray before pouring the batter in. I baked the muffin at 400F for about 20 minutes, until the tops were golden.

This recipe ended up making exactly 48 mini muffins. Honestly, I was a little skeptical about how good they would be but they are actually great!! Except for having to work to get them out of the liner :)

Tequila prawns, mushrooms, and corn!

I don't have much time to write so this will be quick..... We bought some frozen prawns a few days ago since they were on sale so I decided to experiment with them. We had discussed using tequila to marinade something so I figured prawns were as good as anything to try it with. I found a recipe for tequila-lime BBQ prawns. I blended some tequila, olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper, cumin, an onion slice and garlic together. I poured it over the shrimp and left it in the fridge for 6 hours.

Matt requested mushroom caps... so easy and so yummy! I diced some orange pepper, onion, mushroom stems and through them into a pan with cooked diced bacon. When the veggies were soft, I mixed them with shredded cheddar and goat cheese. After the caps had cooked for 10 minutes in the oven, I filled them and cooked them for an additional 5 minutes. These were a nice little appie while corn was cooking on the BBQ

Once the corn was done, we threw the shrimp on. It only took a few minutes for them to cook.

Thanks to our landlord for the BBQ!! :P

The prawns smelt soooooo strong, I was convinced they would taste disgusting!

Perfect corn!

The prawns ended up delicious! Matt loved them. They definitely had some zip though :)