Dinner Party for 6

Last Saturday I had the honour of catering a private dinner party for a group of six people.  This dinner was the result of a gift donation I made to support charity fundraiser that one of my friends organized.  I decided to help in the best way possible:  offer my services. 

Mango cranberry salad was served as the appetizer.  The main course was glazed short beef ribs on a bed of wild rice with grilled zucchini and carrots on the side. Finally the meal was finished off with my apple turnover pie. 

The dinner received rave reviews.

Mango Salad

Beef short ribs on a bed of rice

Apple turnover pie with ice cream

Apple Turnover Pie

 I recently catered a birthday party and their was a special request for the birthday boy: apple turnovers.  To be different,  I thought, why not make an apple turnover pie. My friends told me it wasn't going to work and it doesn't make sense, but I laughed and did it!

Behold my apple turnover pie.

The pie dough with sections filling

Creating individual pieces

Glazing it with egg wash mix

The finished pie



Split Pea Soup

My wife loves soups because they're a quick and easy meal filled with all the nutrients she needs. I'm going to say my wife loves my soups, not because she's my wife, but because it taste better then any soups she's ever had (there, I said it!).

I regularly make this simple split peas soup which gives her about 4 1-litre jars to freeze for later.  Reheated from frozen or fresh, it taste the same every time.  The key is to soak the split peas ahead of time to soften them (I usually do overnight).  This recipe takes about an hour to make.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic finley diced
• 3 cups dry yellow split peas
• 5 cups water
• 2 stalks green onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 an onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup sweet potato, cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup pumpkin, cut into cubes
• 1 tbsp thyme
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp black pepper
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 pinch of ginger
• 1 tbsp brown sugar

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cover 3 cups of dry split peas with water.  Let stand for at least 3 hours (overnight is fine)
2. Drain the split peas.
3. In a large pot (that can hold at least 4 liters),  add olive oil and heat on medium.
4. Once oil is hot, add garlic to the pot. 
5. Once the garlic is golden brown, add the split peas to the pot.  Stir in the water.
6. Add green onions, onions, salt, black peper, brown sugar, thyme, and ginger to the pot.
7. After 5 minutes, add the coconut milk, sweet potato, and pumpkin.
8. Cover the pot and turn the stove down to low and cook for 40 minutes. 
9. Check the pot and stir every ten minutes to avoid letting the peas stick to the bottom. 

Serve with your favourite side like fresh french bread or corn bread.

Rice & Peas T&T Style

 

Rice & peas with fried fish and plantains

I grew up in a household where rice and peas was a staple to most of our meals.  It's a great compliment to beef, chicken, goat, or fish (like in the picture).

The good thing with rice and peas is you can use any type of peas you have in stock and you can make a large batch and freeze some for later.  In my house we use two types, red beans (kidney) or dry pigeon peas.

Here's how I make mine.  It takes about 30 minutes to make.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 cup of peas (dry or can)
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 2 cups water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 green onions
• 1 1/2 cups rice (white or brown)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp finely grated scotch bonnet pepper
• 1/4 cup coconut milk

Steps:

1. Add olive oil in the pot of your choice
2. Mix the garlic with the oil in the pot.  Burn the garlic until it turns dark brown.
3. Add the peas to the pot while the garlic is still burning.  Stir the garlic and peas together.
4. Mix in the onion and the green onion.  
5. Stir in the water, salt, thyme, black pepper.  
6. Let the pot simmer on the medium heat for 5 minutes.  
7. Turn the stove down to low and stir in the rice, the coconut milk,  and the butter.  
8. Add the scotch bonnet pepper. 
9. Cover the pot and let it dry down until the rice is cooked (about 20 minutes).  You may have to add water more water if it starts to stick.  It really all depends of what type of rice your using.  



Golden Accra



Accra ( Fish Cake)

Every Carribean household near and far knows about these light, spicy, and flavourful fried puffs of dough.  There are many names for them: some call them

fish cakes, saltfish fritters.  In my Trinidadian house, we call them accra.

Accra is basically salted cod fish mixed with chopped vegetables and heavily seasoned with spices and pepper.  They take minutes to make and are full of nutrients.  You can vary the ingredients to give it different flavours and textures. Most recently, I had one that was made with curry and celery - different, but tasty.

Give my simple recipe a try and let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of salted cod fish boiled out 3 times and broken into small pieces
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/2 onion finely chopped
• 1green onion finely chopped
• 1/2 a red pepper diced
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 tsp finely grated scotch bonnet pepper

Steps:

1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together until you get a thick paste.  
2. Pre-heat a frying pan with 1/4 cup of cooking oil.
3. Using a tablespoon, scoop some of the mixture into the pan.  Fit as many scoops as the pan allows.
4. When the side is golden brown, flip the cake.  Brown the other side and remove from pan.  
5. Cool in a bowl lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil.   

Enjoy!

Sweet Baked Chicken

Most of my friends can't cook to save there lives.  In fairness they have their reasons: for the most part they're extremely busy with work or kids.  So, I understand. They asked me to stop telling them about this wonderful chicken that I make and just give the recipe on how to make it.  So,  here I go...

Step 1: Cut the whole chicken in half

Step 1: Get a whole chicken, cut it in half or leave it whole.  Clean and wash the chicken with lemon or vinegar before you start to season the chicken.  Put the clean chicken in a roasting pan.

Step 2:  Season the chicken on both sides

Step 2: I first face the chicken inside up if cut into two or bottom up if whole.  I rub the chicken with olive oil and then rub  1 tablespoon of each of these spices:
-Sea Salt
-Black pepper
-Parsely
-Brown sugar
-Rosemary
-Thyme
-Roasted red pepper and garlic mix

                                                                          

Step 3: Cover with onion

Step 3:  Flip the chicken and repeat the same seasoning process.  Then take one whole onion and dice it up and spread it over the whole chicken. 

Step 4: Make the awesome sauce

Step 4:  I make the this awesome sauce that I pour over the chicken before putting it in the oven.  Mix these together in a bowl:
-1 cup of bbq sauce
-1 tablespoon of honey
-1 tablespoon of jerk sauce
-1 tablespoon of thyme
-1 tablespoon of salt and pepper.

Step 5: Moist baked chicken

Step 5: Pour the sauce over the chicken in the roaster.  Cover the pan and place in the oven and bake at 350 F for 1 hour and 20 minutes.   Uncover the pan and bake for 10 more minutes.

You can thank me when it's done.

Heavenly Chocolate Crunch

 

 

 

 

 

Heavenly Chocolate Crunch Cookies

We all know that I love cookies.  Actually, I love anything sweet, except for jelly or custard fillings in cake.  But that's just me.

Do you remember back in the days when the soft chip ahoy chocolate cookies were a big craze?  Well I differently remember.  But over the years I believe the recipe has changed, and not for the better.  They all of a sudden began to taste salty and the texture felt dense inside.

So, I said enough is enough.  I decided to make my own soft and chewy cookies with a couples of differences:   my cookies had a fluffy almost cake like texture   filled with chocolate chip, coconut bits, walnuts, and almond slivers. The coconut gives it a chewy texture to compliment the chocolate chips, the crunchy walnut and cake like fluffiness.  This, my friends, is the king of cookies!

Here is the recipe:

• 2 cups of flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 cup of soften butter
• 1/4 cup of margine
• 1 tbsp of water
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of choloclate chips
• 1/4 cup of walnut pieces
• 1/4 cup of shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup of almond slivers

This recipe should only take ten minutes to mix and ten minutes to bake ( 350 degrees Fahrenheit). You get 24 to 30 cookies in a batch.

You can thank me later!!!

Oreo Cake

Oreo Cake

I have a major sweet tooth.  Oreo cookies and a light sponge cake are my favourite treats.  With that said, sometimes a feel for a cake on a weekend but the supermarket never has the kind I like.  Either the cake in the supermarkets are dry because they've exceeded their shelf life or the cakes are over priced or they are much to sweet.

I'm also extremely fussy when it comes to the layers in between the cake:  I seem to see a lot of custard or jelly fillings as layers between the cake, which I dislike.  I love just icing (whether it's butter cream, chocolate, or french vanilla icing).

So I thought, why not make the cake I want with little cost, and I'd know when it was made. I created a basic french vanilla cake mix and crumbled 4 Oreo cookies into the mix.  I placed the cake mix in the desired pan of my choice.  When it finished baking,  I waited until it cooled and iced the cake with a french vanilla icing.  Then I placed half Oreos on top and sprinkled crumbled pieces in between.  Now that's a Cake that i can eat allllllllll weekend, LOL.

Steak Dinner at Home

Steak with seasoned potatoes and vegetables

For our date night I decided to do a steak dinner at home.  It's pretty easy to make a great steak diner at home in under 30 minutes.  Here's all I did.

The steak: The night before I marinated the steak  in a roasted red pepper, sea salt, black pepper, and garlic marinade.  When it was time to cook it, I broke out the stove top grill pan and heated it up with a little olive oil to increase the flavour.   Once the pan was extremely hot, I placed the steak in the pan and grilled it until the juices from the steak started to come from the top.  Then I did a quarter turn to give the grill marks, waited 5 minutes and then flipped it.  I repeated the process on the  other side.  To cook to well done, it only took 20 minutes. Once it was done but still on the grill, I topped it with a teaspoon of butter to help moisten the steak and reanimate the flavour.

The sides: I simply sautéed some vegetables and baked some seasoned potatoes.  For the seasoned potatoes:  cut potatoes into cubes and season with a mix of garlic powder, salt, parsley, thyme.  Put the potatoes in a baking dish with a quarter cup of water and a teaspoon of butter. Bake covered for 20 minutes.  Start the seasoned potatoes before you put the steak on the grill.