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.

Mashed Potato Balls

Mashed potato balls with hot sauce

One night I was laying in bed and wondered how I could make the mashed potatoes into an appetizer.  I love mashed potatoes and cheese so, I thought I'd fuse them into a tasty ball.  I roll the balls in seasoned bread crumbs and then bake them the balls a give a nice firm shell. Once baked I serve them with a spicy sauce to kick them up a bit.

Lasagna Shells

Lasagna Shells

I'm all about finger foods and lasagna is one of my favourite meals.  I got tired of cooking it in a big pan and then having to cut it and it getting messy.  So, I just decided to make a compact version in a neat little shell that I could easily pick up with my fingers.  No mess, no need for knives.  Just two quick little bites.

Filled shells is nothing new, but this version bursts with a savoury spinach meat sauce and is loaded with a three-cheese blend.  This is a complete meal all on it's own.

Birthday Formal Dinner

Last weekend I had the honor of catering a 40th birthday party.  The event was a formal dinner at the host's home for a group of 15 people.  My main focus is appetizers parties so this event was going to take more effort and planning.  I was confident in my food but I was nervous about everything happening at the right time. My biggest concern was serving warm, fresh food (I hate serving my food when it gets cold).  I wanted my food to be warm but not dry so I told the host it was very important for us to stay on schedule: appetizers at 5pm, dinner at 6pm.  We stuck to that time!

The host selected zucchini bites, chickpeas bundles, and island skewers for appetizers for the guests to enjoy before dinner.  I had 2 servers offering these to guests.   They did a great job making sure all the guests were satisfied. 

Servers with appetizers

Dinner started with the serving of butternut squash soup and mango salad.  The main course consisted of a choice of 2 meat selections (salmon, goat, jerk chicken), rice and peas, grilled vegetables dressed with balsamic vinegar, and plantain rolls.  Dessert was  my famous "bullet cake".  I got great compliments on the meal and service. 

My bullet cake

I'm glad the night went as planned and the host was happy.  I had a great time and it was good to see people's reaction to the flavours in the food.