Month: August 2018

Labour Day Clam Bake on the BBQ…Alternative to Burgers!

Posted in UncategorizedLeave a comment

Are you tired of burgers for your summer get-togethers?  Why not try a BBQ Clam Bake on your BBQ this Labour Day Weekend?  We tried this a few years ago after seeing the recipe in an LCBO magazine and it was absolutely fabulous!  I added scallops and used cooked lobster meat that I added at the end of the cooking time and it was unbelievably tasty and delicious!  We did this in a disposable foil pan on the BBQ…and it worked out great!

Since this is not my recipe, I’ll just include the link to the recipe and a photo below of my finished product.  If you have seafood lovers this Labour Day, try it out…it’s easy and looks super fancy!  It’s a one-pot BBQ dish!  Use mussels, littleneck clams, cooked lobster meat, corn on the cob, and chorizo sausage if you have it…I didn’t have all the herbs suggested, so I just used what I had and it was great!  Serve with fresh crusty bread and your favourite wine!  It’s a lovely alternative after a season of BBQ’d burgers, steaks, and ribs!

Clam bake

Happy Cooking friends!  Enjoy this fabulous dish and send a comment to let me know how you modified it to your liking!

Submitted by the everydayhomegourmet…send a note to let me know how you liked it, or modified it!

 

Friday Night Favourite -Quick and Impressive!

Posted in Friday Night Favourites, RecipesLeave a comment

Food and Friday nights are always tricky…You’ve worked hard all week and just want to order takeout, but you know the weekend is coming and you may not be able to predict healthy eating…so, you want something quick yet healthy, but you are tired and don’t want to spend tons of time in the kitchen, and you might not want to resort to take-out.  Here’s a quick and lovely meal to serve for your seafood lovers. Mussels cooked in a quick tomato sauce, with fresh crusty bread and a green salad is an inviting, and perhaps exotic meal that looks like it took way more time to cook than it did.  

Mussels in tomato sauceAll you have to do is quickly sautee the garlic, onions, tomatoes, and oregano in a little olive oil until the tomatoes break down.  Next, add the fresh mussels and cook with the lid on until the shells open fully. That’s less than 5 minutes. Serve in a bowl with chopped fresh parsley, sliced crusty bread, and a little green salad and you’ll look like a star (or you’ll have a delicious gourmet meal for yourself!!).  If you are in a rush, pick up a prepared salad and use your own oil and vinegar dressing.

Mussels and tomatoes are served in many Italian restaurants.  My Mom and grandmother did not make these dishes at home, but when we started to go to restaurants later in our family life, we often ate these in Italian restaurants.  Courtesy of my favourite Italian chef, Pasquale Carpino, I started to make this mussel dish at home in the mid 80’s. The recipe below is Pasquale’s recipe with minor changes.  Refer to my post from April 20, 2018 for more info on Chef Pasquale.  With the availability of cultivated mussels in the local grocery store, this dish has become very accessible and economical as a quick dinner.

Using cultivated mussels means that you don’t have to scrape the beards off the mussels, which saves time.  In the eastern part of our country mussels are cultivated and sustainably maintained, so they are a great option for this dish.  Typically, our grocery store sells a two pound bag which would serve a two and possibly three diners very inexpensively by adding a salad and some bread.  Use Roma tomatoes as they are meatier and have less water and seeds.  If you are in a hurry, use good quality tomatoe puree.  Here’s the recipe:

Mussels with tomatoes

  • Servings: 3 for dinner - more if serving as appetizer
  • Difficulty: very easy
  • Print

Mussels in tomato sauce

Here’s a lovely dish for seafood lovers that is economical, quick and full of flavour!  Serve it as an appetizer or a full dinner with crusty bread and a green salad. Use Roma or San Marzano tomatoes since they are meatier and do well as a sauce

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs of cultivated mussels (this saves scraping and cleaning of beards)
  • About 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 to 4 green onions, sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 6 to 8 Roma tomatoes, chopped, seed removed
  • 4 oz white wine
  • ½ tsp dried oregano
  • Pinch of salt and pepper
  • 2 tbsp Fresh Italian parsley, chopped

Directions

  1. Heat oil in large pot and cook onion and garlic for 2 minutes or less
  2. Stir in tomatoes, wine and seasoning and simmer until tomatoes are soft and broken down (about 8 minutes)
  3. Add the mussle and cook, covered, until shells are opened.  Serve in bowl sprinkled with chopped parsley.

 

posted by: everydayhomegourmet.blog/  

 

Summer cook ahead #3 – Tri-colour Pasta Salad

Posted in Side dishes, Summer cook ahead1 Comment

When I was young, I was not a pasta fan, which is not typical for kids, and certainly not for kids of Italian backgrounds!  I think it was the soft texture that didn’t agree with me at that time. There were lots of soft foods I did not like. I loved all the sauces my Mom and grandmother made and would enjoy them with crusty bread and their wonderful salads.  When I started to do some of my own cooking in my late teens, I knew very well that most people loved pasta and I wanted to like it too, so I began adding lots of crunchy veggies to my dishes to help me overcome my texture issues. After all, pasta is available in many shapes and colours and is a versatile and affordable food, so I knew I needed to like it!  The pasta salad recipe I developed became a very popular dish at my parties, and a number of my family members now make that salad regularly too. My Mom and grandmother used to call it Macaroni Salad…in fact, I think we referred to most pasta as macaroni in those days. I remember my grandmother asking, “What kind of macaroni do you want?”.

I started making my pasta salad recipe for parties and get-togethers, but for many years now, I‘ve been including pasta salad in my rotation of summer cook ahead salads.  (Check out previous posts for other summer cook ahead dishes and tips).  This Tri-Colour Pasta Salad a great side dish with lots of crunchy vegetables in it and if you top it with grilled chicken or other grilled meat or fish, it can be a complete meal too. For vegetarians or vegans, you can use chickpeas or other beans and legumes as the protein.  I like to use 3 coloured fusilli for this dish, but you can use any pasta you like. For those who require gluten-free dishes, there are many good gluten-free pasta options available as well.

Pasta Salad (2)My dressing uses olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, and pepper.  Cook the pasta according to directions for ‘al dente’. When the pasta is still quite hot add the dressing.  This will allow the pasta to fully absorb the dressing, increasing the flavour of the dish and you won’t have to adjust the seasonings before serving.  Thanks again to our local chef friend, Tim C. for that tip years ago! It has improved all my summer side salads immensely! I used to find it so frustrating to make the potato, rice or pasta salad that tasted great when I first made it, only to find when I went to serve it a few hours later, it tasted like it didn’t have enough dressing, so I’d add more.  Thanks to Tim’s direction, I never have to adjust the seasonings before serving. I love that!

As far as vegetables go, I steam broccoli for 2 minutes leaving it a bright green.  I used to include those miniature canned corn cobs too, which people liked, but I haven’t included those for a few years now, mostly because it’s something that I only used in this dish and I didn’t regularly stock it in my pantry.  (As time has passed, I prefer to keep my pantry stocked with a wide variety of ingredients that I use for multiple dishes. It makes things so much easier! Hmmm…sounds like an idea for another blog post!).  I also like to use green onions, red and green peppers, artichoke hearts, and sliced olives.  Of course, you can use whatever vegetables you like to make this your own. But finishing with fresh basil is a must! I hope you enjoy this versatile dish as much as my family and I do. Head on over to the recipe tab for full instructions. If you create another version, I’d love to hear about it! Happy cooking, friends!

 

Easy No-bake Ice Cream Cake…a Summer Favourite

Posted in Desserts2 Comments

For most of us summer brings the feeling of a more relaxed pace, probably because everything is a little easier – getting out the door with less clothing, getting around our towns and cities with less traffic and dramatic weather, perhaps less routine since kids are out of school and those around us take vacations or staycations at this time of year.   Many people are more visibly relaxed in the summer. I know I am! It’s always been my favourite time of year. Maybe it’s the ease of getting outdoors daily and the calming effect that nature brings whether you are at a park, cottage, an ocean, or in your own backyard oasis. Our get-togethers and entertaining are usually more relaxed in the summer, and more frequent!

Although many of us entertain more in the summer months, I know we don’t want to spend more hours in the kitchen!  So, my last few posts have contained side dish ideas to help stay ahead of the game in summer. You might notice that I do not post about desserts very often.  The main reason is that I am not a dessert lover, so it’s not really a focus for me. But of course, I always provide dessert when I am entertaining. I used to make lovely cakes, tarts, and pies when I had people over, which of course meant spending lots of time in the kitchen!  So, for many years now, I have opted for satisfying and beautiful no-bake options…(I guess that can be another series of blog posts at some point!!).

I received this wonderful recipe for a very easy ice cream cake from ‘H’, one of my former colleagues.  The first time she made it for our staff, everyone raved about it. And when she shared how easy it was to make, we all begged for the recipe.  I have now been making this cake a few times every summer, and it’s a hit with all ages – every time! The cake is made with store-bought ice cream sandwiches, Cool Whip, and caramel sauce. Only 3 ingredients! The hardest thing about this cake is unwrapping the ice cream sandwiches! :>))

You can make this cake in any size you like.  I have done a small version in an 8” x 8” pan and a large one in a 10” x 15” pan.  When making the small cake, I’ve used about 18 mini ice cream sandwiches, and the large one took about 20 regular size sandwiches.  Of course, you could do the small one with regular sized sandwiches too and would simply need to cut them to fit.

After you’ve unwrapped the sandwiches, cover the pan with one layer of sandwiches.  You may need to cut some to fit your pan. Next, pour caramel ice cream sundae sauce over the sandwiches:  


Spread half a large tub of Cool Whip over top of the caramel sauce.  (If you are making a smaller version, you’ll use less). Repeat another layer with the sandwiches, caramel sauce, and Cool Whip.  I finish off with vertical streams of caramel sauce and then use my knife to create a cross pattern similar to the pattern of a Mille Feuille pastry.  As you’ll see mine is not perfect, but the overall effect is quite nice.  I try to make it prettier each time!  My good friend, S, shared that you can do this with a toothpick also. I will try that next time, as I’ve found I go a little too deep with the knife, at times.

I try to use natural ingredients whenever I can in my recipes, so this year I used real whipped cream instead of Cool Whip.  Upon eating the cake, I noticed that the whipped cream tasted a little icier than the Cool Whip, but it still worked and I felt better about having something less processed in there.  Of course, whipping the cream adds another step also, so you’d need some extra time for that.

There are many variations you can try with this cake:

  • Make it one layer if your pan is shallow
  • Use chocolate sauce instead of caramel sauce
  • Use caramel on one layer, and chocolate on the other
  • Add sliced bananas to the middle layer
  • Use blended mixed berries instead of the sundae sauce – they can be fresh or frozen

All in all, this is a definite crowd pleaser that I make again and again.  You can make this anytime and then just pull it out of the freezer ten minutes before you need it.  You can even use small foil takeout containers to make individual servings! The possibilities are endless for this cake and I’m so grateful to ‘H’ for sharing this recipe!  Take this to your next BBQ and listen for the rave reviews! I’d love to hear which version you choose…Go to the recipe page to get instructions for Easy Ice Cream Cake.  

Happy ‘baking’….Happy Summer!

IMG-2416.JPG