The award for best dinner goes to...
Hello sweet treasures! I made so many delicious meals this week it’s hard to choose a winner. Just like it must have been hard to choose the winners at the Canadian Comedy Awards this past Sunday. I had the honour of being nominated for “Best Female Stand-up”. I didn’t win, BUT I had a blast partying the night away with the who’s who of the Canadian comedy scene. Because I’ve made this an award themed blog, I guess I’ll crown my “slow cooker coq au vin” as the winner! Congrats coq au vin!
“Hi, it’s me coq au vin. It’s an honour to be nominated in the same category as Mediterranean chicken, cajun catfish, trout nicoise salad and shrimp lo mein. I wanted to thank Julia for bringing me to life and the slow cooker who keeps me warm and makes me who I am. Shout out to chicken and wine! PEACE!”
*Thunderous applause*
I had a wee dinner party on Friday with some of my best gal pals from Ottawa. It’s been a long time since we’ve all been able to hang out and it was a perfect eve of food, wine and conversation. I played softball during the day so I set up the coq au vin in the slow cooker before I left. This is why I love this thing. I can galavant around town all day and when I get home, all I have to do is serve! This is the basic recipe that I followed. I used shallots in place of pearl onions, chicken stock in place of cognac(I mean, who has cognac these days?) and 4 large chicken legs.
http://www.thezenofslowcooking.com/slow-cooker-coq-au-vin-a-la-julia-child-2/
Coq au vin makes a nice jus so I thought mashed potatoes would go very nicely with it. Egg noodles would be good too but one of my friends has a gluten intolerance so that wasn’t going to fly! I peeled and cooked 3 large potatoes and mashed them up with greek yogurt, salt and pepper. I didn’t have milk or butter so I thought the yogurt was a healthy, suitable alternative.
My friend Christiana made a delicious salad with raspberries, goat cheese and chia seeds, Erica brought an appetizer of asparagus wrapped in proscuitto, pan fried with fresh lemon (they are addictive and amazing), and Carla made gluten free brownies, berry sauce and brought some coconut ice cream. My friends should have food blogs, that’s how good they are! Especially Carla, because she makes such amazing gluten free food. Here’s the thing though. If you read the coq au vin recipe you’ll notice that you lightly dredge the chicken in flour. Unfortunately I wasn’t thinking and I did this step, not realizing at the time that I had RUINED the dish for Carla. She couldn’t eat it and it broke my heart. Luckily we had enough proscuitto to feed an army but still, I felt bad.
I felt bad because the chicken was SOOOOOO good! Fall off the bone, magical winey, rich broth, warming goodness. The potatoes soaked up the gravy and and the acidity and lightness of the salad complimented the robust chicken flavours. It happened to be rainy and shit outside which made this taste even better! Carla’s brownies were out of this world too. I need to get the recipe from her!
Now for the losers *ahem* I meant the other meals I made. Seriously, they were all delicious and it’s just an honour for them to be nominated. I had some nappa cabbage leftover from last week and a tin of opened black olives that I had no idea what to do with. After some light googling I settled on stuffed Mediterranean chicken, braised cabbage and honey carrots. I used this Bobby Flay cabbage recipe as a guide. Not to contradict Flay (he scares me) but I’d use less vinegar. I also used basil instead of mint. COME AT ME, BOBBY.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/braised-napa-cabbage-with-bacon-red-wine-vinegar-and-mint-recipe.html
I planned on stuffing my chicken breasts with feta, chopped tomato(that I left to drain in a colander with salt to remove some of the moisture), sliced olives and parsley. I attempted to stuff the chicken even though I didn’t have any kitchen skewers or twine. That was a mistake. I had to go to plan b which was frying the chicken and lightly heating the tomato, olive, feta mixture in a pan and using it as a topping. It still tasted great! I steamed multi-coloured farmers market carrots and gave them a quick drizzle of honey. There were a lot of flavours going on in this meal, but they got along swimmingly. The braised cabbage reminded me of saurkraut and would be AMAZING on a sausage. Despite my chicken snafu, it was tasty as heck. Also, there’s nothing better than real, fresh carrots. I love a good farmers market carrot!
Every good meal needs a good cocktail (which I never make because wine is easier) so I made my own version of a whiskey sour. For 2 cocktails I combined 3 ounces of whiskey, juice from half a large lemon, generous squeeze of honey, ice cubes. Shake it all up (I used a clean salsa jar because I am resourceful and don’t have a cocktail shaker) and pour into funky glasses. I feel so fancy drinking out of these lil’ guys!
Remember how my boyfriend doesn’t really like fish? Diva. He has however expressed an interest in blackened catfish so I thought I’d give that a wack. Unfortunately the grocery store only had a pre-marinated cajun catfish. I’ve never bought something like this so I indulged. I baked it for 20 minutes at 375, until it flaked.
I made a simple rice and veggie dish to accompany my fish with sauteed onion, yellow peppers, frozen peas, cayenne, garlic powder, cooked white rice, salt and pepper. Serve with a lemon wedge and hot sauce. It was quite good but I would have preferred to season and marinate the fish myself. The cajun seasoning was a bit too salty for me, but the lemon wedge really helped balance it.
The next day Matt went out of town so I treated myself with MORE fish. I got a beautiful piece of trout that would be the focal point of my dinner. I wanted something healthy and light and decided a salad would be my best bet. Not just any salad, a hearty ‘nicoise-esqu’ salad! Salad nicoise typically has hard boiled egg, tuna, potatoes and nicoise olives in a vinaigrette. I made mine with pan seared trout, boiled potatoes, tomatoes, fresh dill, green onion and an apple cider vinaigrette. Come to think about it, this is barely a nicoise salad but it reminded me of one! I lightly salt, peppered and parsley’d my trout and pan seared it in avocado oil for about 3-4 minutes on each side. For the dressing I combined olive oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a drizzle of honey. Pour over salad and garnish with a lemon wedge. I love this salad so much. It’s so bright and fresh and the potatoes make it a substantial meal. Fresh dill really makes this dish pop!
Sometimes you love your slow cooker SO much, you use it twice in one week. I had leftover coq au vin but not enough for Matt so I made some very simple chicken drumsticks to bulk up my leftovers. I pan seared them for about 2 minutes on each side before adding them to the slow cooker with carrots, onion, 1 cup chicken broth, 1 tbsp tomato paste, splash balsamic vinegar, oregano, thyme, salt, pepper and fresh crushed garlic. I put the slow cooker on high for 4.5 hours. Look how beautiful! It tasted great with leftover mashed potatoes. It was a nice hearty meal to have before the Canadian Comedy Awards!
The day after the awards we were feeling less than perfect and as a result Matt and I ordered Chinese food. It’s time for...
JULIA’S REVIEW
Taste of China
http://tasteofchinarestaurant.ca
We’ve ordered here before and so far I’ve been quite satisfied. I like it better than New Ho King take-out and 100% better than Ho Lee Chow(don’t judge me). This time we got the dinner for 2 (sliced beef and veggies, general tso chicken, chicken fried rice and spring rolls) and added an order of deep fried spicy shrimp. I’m obsessed with the deep fried spicy shrimp. It’s so salty and delicious. (well let’s be honest, it’s all salty.) The other dishes were straight forward and tasty but the general tso chicken was a a bit tough and blah. I definitely wouldn’t order it again. I know it’s not the most authentic thing to order from a Chinese restaurant but I was having a hard time being a functioning human, so you understand. I give Taste of China 3 Spatulas! I’m sure if you ate at the restaurant it would be more like 3.5 spatulas...
Seeing as Monday was mostly spent eating Chinese food and watching Netflix I took a stab at making homemade granola, just to to feel productive. I used this recipe as a guide.
http://www.thehealthymaven.com/2015/04/honey-nut-steel-cut-granola.html
I omitted the raisins, used different nuts, added shredded coconut, a mashed banana and maple syrup instead of honey. I also baked it at 325 instead of 300. I feel that if I used honey, I would have been able to form better clusters. Nevertheless, it tastes really good. I ate it on yogurt this morning!
Well that’s it for this week my fellow hungry people! What did we learn?
1) Coq au Vin for the win!
2) Bobby Flay doesn’t always know best. (don’t tell him I said that)
3) Trout “Nicoise-esque” is a great salad.
4) Granola is cool.
Thank you SO much for eating with me! Don’t hesitate to share you recipes or food requests. Also, the newest episode of VIRAL KITCHEN is finally here! This one stars the gorgeous Idris Elba. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIaXpqNGqsI&feature=em-upload_owner
Byeeeeee
Julia