Heart Healthy Valentine's Day dinner

Are you one of those people that don't like to go to a packed over priced restaurant for Valentine's Day and feel the pressure of having the perfect dinner with your date?

Maybe you should skip the restaurant and make something for your special someone at home instead.  You can prep as much as you like in advance and just warm and assemble or you can make it a shared experience where you cook together.

Here's a couple of dishes that will make your night a bit more Heart Healthy and still big on flavours.   I came up with this recipe because of things I had on hand that I thought maximized a tasty meal that will leave you feeling great after dinner for a better Valentine's Day Evening.
Here's my 3 course meal that will boost your energy for good things.

1st Course

Steamed Artichoke with Spicy Vinaigrette

This recipe is a mish mash of something my mom used to make all the time with adjustments by my brother and I.  We kept experimenting with the basic vinaigrette sauce my mom made.

To start steam 2 Artichokes until you can remove one of the leaves easily.  Before you cook them soak in a lemon water solution to help hold the color a bit more and then toss the lemon into the steamer pot when cooking.  You can trim the artichokes to make them look better but we never bothered to do that.

In a small bowl combine a teaspoon of mustard.  Our mashup included both yellow mustard and dijon mustard.  You can use grainy mustard if you like too.  Add a small clove of crushed garlic.  Add 1 part acid (lemon juice or vinegar)  we used both lemon juice and different vinegars including malt vinegar.  Add another part of olive oil.  A traditional vinaigrette is more oil than vinegar but I have found that it's better to have equal parts so that it doesn't slide off the artichoke and retains a punch.  Add a teaspoon of chopped parsley.  And to kick up the heat add a couple of drops of sriracha or tabasco sauce.  You can add chili flakes too but the sauce will work better.  Add a pinch of sugar to balance the acids.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well.  To serve just pull an artichoke leave and dip it in little individual sauce bowls as seen in the photo.

2nd Course

Turkey Scallopini with sweet potato and spinach

Turkey Scallopini

2 slices of Turkey Scallopini or pounded turkey white meat if you can't find it.

Get 3 deep dishes and one small cookie sheet.

In one bowl add panko bread crumbs, nutritional yeast, grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, thyme and lemon zest.  

In the second bowl add flour seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper, paprika, cayenne and garlic powder.

In the third bowl beat 3 eggs.  You don't need to season the eggs.

To Bread the Scallopini first coat with the flour mixture and then shake off the excess.  Then dip it into the egg and let the excess drip back into the bowl.  Then dip it into the panko mixture and pat it down and make sure you cover all the spots well.  Place on a cookie sheet and let it rest for 20-30 minutes to make it stick better.  It only takes a couple of minutes to cook it so you will cook it while the other things are done.

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes.  Cut up a large sweet potato into 1/4 inch slices and then using a heart shaped cookie cutter cut out heart shapes from each slice.  In a bowl add a drizzle of olive oil, smoked paprika, regular paprika, salt and pepper.  Add to cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 350degrees for about 20 minutes or until browned.   

Using the leftover sweet potato scraps boil them in water until soft and then drain and add freshly grated nutmeg, butter, salt and pepper and mash until smooth.  Keep warm.

Spinach

In another saucepan boil water with salt and add a bag of spinach and blanch until bright green.  Remove from the water with a spider and drain the water out.  Add the spinach back to the pot and add butter, a tbsp of heavy cream, grated nutmeg, grated parmesan cheese and salt and pepper.  Puree with a stick blender until smooth.  Keep warm.

Once the you have all the sides ready and warming you can heat a frying pan on medium high heat and add vegetable oil to coat the pan.  Once the oil is hot add the breaded turkey and cook until you see it start to rise up on the bottom or until it is golden brown underneath and then flip over to cook the other side.  it should take about 5 or 6 minutes to cook each Scallopini.   Drain on a plate with paper towel.

Now you are ready to plate.    Add the mashed sweet potato first,  then add the Turkey Scallopini,  If you puree your spinach really smooth you can add it on as a sauce or just set it to the side.   Add the brown heart shaped sweet potatoes on top and the side of the plate.   Garnish with a lemon slice and a pinch of paprika.

If you are more creative than me when it comes to plating you can probably make it look even better.. But I made this for myself so this was my first attempt at plating.     Unfortunately the sweet potato and turkey were too close in color but you could make a steak instead if you wanted to change the protein.

3rd Course (Desert)

Blood Orange Chocolate Hazelnut

I kept the desert course easy and light but with a nice sweet finish that will still leave you satisfied.

Cut a couple of blood oranges into thin slices and arrange on a large plate.   Toast hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until they are slightly browned.  Crush or chop the hazelnuts.   Melt a good quality chocolate bar in a microwave or using a double boiler.  A bowl on top of a saucepan with water simmering.   You can also heat up heavy cream and pour into a bowl of broken up chocolate and stir until smooth and shiny.  In a pinch you can use Nutella or chocolate syrup but a good quality dark chocolate would be the best option.  Drizzle the chocolate over the orange slices and then sprinkle the chopped hazelnuts on top.  That's all there is to the desert but it's a really nice balance of sweet, sour, crunchy and smooth that will satisfy your palette but not leave you feeling bloated.

Unfortunately the worst part of this whole thing is the dishes that need to be cleaned up...  but I say do the dishes together and then enjoy the rest of your evening feeling very satisfied and hopefully very Happy.

Have a very Happy Valentine's Day and i hope these suggestions make your night a great one.

Why we watch cooking shows but don't cook anymore

My kitchen after baking.

I love to watch the Food Network Cooking Shows and get inspired but all the great recipes and I have been watching cooking shows on TV since I was a kid and would watch Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet and whoever else was on cooking something fabulous.  I learned how to cook things I have never even eaten or had in my home by watching these shows on tv.   I learned how to make Spaghetti properly,  something my mother could never master.  She would rinse the pasta and let it sit and then pour a greasy meatball laden tomato sauce on top....only to watch it slide off the pasta and leave a puddle of oil on the plate.  Luckily I had many Italian neighbours and liked to watch cooking on tv more than I liked cartoons so I learned how to make Italian food the right way.   From my neighbours I learned what real Italian food tasted like and what it really was and from watching people cook Italian food on tv I learned the proper cooking methods for cooking Italian food.  Just watch Lidia Bastianich for a while and you will be able to cook like a good Italian Nonna even if you are an Irish man.

But here's the thing.  While I learned a lot of techniques and what the food should end up looking like I was still not able to make the food without leaving a trail of destruction after cooking one of these recipes.  The food never looked as pretty as it did on tv but most of the time I could master the taste if I had the right ingredients with a lot of effort put into it.   But mostly I just watched the shows and would be inspired and then just do something similar with what I had or what I knew I could do.

A friend of mine has been urging me to post videos of me preparing some of the recipes I make but to tell you the truth there are a couple of reasons I haven't done this.  Firstly, I don't have a video friendly voice and image that I am comfortable looking at on video all the time.   Secondly, it's not a pretty sight when I cook.  My kitchen will look like a 2 year old had a food fight in there afterward.  I am one of those cooks who puts all my energy into getting the recipe done as quickly as possible and getting all the elements done right.  I haven't mastered the trick of being able to wash the dishes and clean up while I am cooking most of the time because I tend to make multiple things if I have gone to the trouble of taking a bunch of things out of the fridge and already sparked up some of the tools.   I tend to find other things that need to be made at the same time.

Back to the reality of why people watch TV cooking shows more than they actually cook at home these days.   The real reason is that watching food shows is like watching Food Porn in a way.  You watch all these great chefs whip up all kinds of drool worthy foods that you would kill to have passed through the tv and on to your plate.  What you don't see is what it takes behind the scenes to make those recipes look the way they do.

What you don't see is a staff of people that shop for the ingredients and have a fully stocked kitchen with every tool and all the foods needed to make a recipe on a dime.  There is someone to shop for an abundant amount of food to make in case they burn something and have to make it again.   The advantage of editing is that if they do make a mistake you will never see it and the only ones that will know is the chef, the crew and the editor.  it gets left in the edit suite.

The other thing you don't see is a food stylist that will take the recipe and probably spend hours making it look perfect for what they call the money shot, the final filmed version of the recipe.   Also what you only see is the ingredients already ready to go in beautiful containers that magically dispense the ingredients for the chef to use.  Herbs nicely nestled in a glass of water already ready to pick from,   Potatoes all cleaned and ready to chop,  time consuming ingredients pre prepped or measured.

Do you think the TV chef is doing all the prep work before the "dump and cook" version you see on the show?  Nope... there are a bunch of chef elves who behind the scenes are the people who put the ingredients into the containers, or pre measure, or wash and pre prep the foods so that they can magically be transformed on tv.

I like watching shows like Chuck's Day Off mainly because you actually see Chuck making most things from scratch and doing a lot of the prep work but even Chuck doesn't do it all.  Chuck has a full staff of chefs who take care of the food inventory and clean and store all the food for him.

So when you watch a recipe that looks like a 5 minute recipe on TV, you can count on taking an hour to make that same recipe at home.  Don't forget to factor in the time spent going to the grocery store and picking up the ingredients and standing in the checkout line, then loading it into your car and then driving home to unload and put it away in your pantry and kitchen.   Then when you are ready to cook you need to take some of those items out of your fridge and pantry and organize and wash any fruits and vegetables, dispose of the unused bits and then prep the ingredients.  Get your mis en place (everything in place) ready to actually cook the recipe.   Then you have to get your cooking utensils organized.  Then you can finally start to actually cook or make your recipe.  Then you finish your dish and have to plate it and serve it if you are feeding anyone else.   Then after all of that you have to go back in your kitchen and clean up all the mess you made making that one meal.   Phew.. are you tired just reading this?   Well that's why people watch other people cook on tv but don't actually step into their kitchen and make those same recipes.  I can probably cook about 75% of the recipes that I see on TV but in actuality I probably only cook something similar maybe once a week if I am lucky and most likely on a sunday afternoon when there aren't a lot of other distractions.

People are busy, the are tired but the still want to eat well.  I like watching , Jamie Oliver, Chuck's Day Off, Pitchin In,   Chef Michael Smith and the Iron Chef to be entertained,  they are all really entertaining to watch and sometimes they inspire me to get off the couch and actually go into the kitchen and make something that I see.

I just made Gordon Ramsey's scrambled egg recipe that I saw on his Christmas special.  Simple ingredients,  Eggs, butter, chives.   But it still took me about 15 minutes to make and left a pot, plate and utensils to clean up afterward.

This is what the result looked like.  It was delicious and it was a great technique and worth making this way.

But that was a simple breakfast dish.  What happens when you decide to do some holiday baking and you are a messy cook like me. Maybe I should change my blog to the Messy Cook instead the Starving Foodie.

Then I made Gordon's recipe from the Christmas Special for Brussel Sprouts,  it took him about 5 min to make on TV but it took me about an hour or so,  maybe a bit more.

Here's what my end result of the Brussel Sprouts looked like:   Forget about the mess it left afterward.


Well think about all the things that go into baking which is a lot different than actually cooking a recipe that doesn't have to have exact measurements.

When you bake you need to use at minimum these things:

Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Wooden Spoon
Spatula
some sort of mixer sometimes like a Kitchen Aid stand mixer or hand mixer
Bowl(s)  you could use many for one simple recipe if the ingredients have to be done in steps.
Cooking pans, whatever they may be,  cookie sheet, muffin pan, loaf pan etc.
Oven mitts,  you could use a towel but then you can add a tea towel to your list.

I could go on depending on the recipe but you get the idea.

Case in point....

The other day I made 2 different recipes but I plan to try and bake a few recipes over the next week or so.  So to prep I pulled out all of my baking supplies to do an inventory of what I actually had to see what I might be able to make.

I had lot's of coconut oil because I kept buying it when it was cheaper.   Now all of this stuff is still sitting on my counter because I haven't finished baking and don't want to keep climbing up on a ladder to keep taking it all out of the cupboards.   I have a small apartment kitchen and because I am short I have to use a step ladder to reach some of my ingredients.

Moving on.... I decided to make a batch of Brownies because I had a craving for some and thought it might be nice to make little food gifts.   I used a really great standby recipe from Fry's Cocoa and added my little twist of adding a bit of Marshmallow fluff into it at the end.  I was hoping to get a white swirl in the middle,  that didn't happen but it did make the brownies moist.

Here's the end result,  it's sprinkled with a bit of glitter sugar.

This Brownie recipe is made in a sauce pot and then cooked in a square baking dish.

It still left a trail of flour and cocoa scattered around the kitchen.

After that I decided to make a gingerbread cookie recipe.   This time I had to use the Kitchen Aid mixer and then you have to put it in the fridge and chill and then you can roll it out and make the cookies and bake them.   I haven't made the cookies yet but the dough is ready to go in the fridge.

Now look at what my kitchen looked like afterward:   Not exactly how it looks on tv is it?  And this is only a bit of it.

So I wish I had the cooking fairies in my kitchen to help me look like a TV chef and have the perfect looking kitchen and end result.

But at least I can say I did it all myself and it tasted fantastic.  I still wish I had cleaning elves to clean up after me though.

     

When is it worth getting take-out dinner?

When is it worth getting take out food?  

When it's faster than cooking a Chicken.  
Or when you have to do 3 things at once.

Sometimes it's just quicker, easier, cheaper and a whole lot more efficient to order take out.   Not in every instance but today it just seemed a lot more worth it to hit "click click wait for my dinner".   I decided to order the SWISS CHALET Festive Special for dinner today because I was trying to figure out how to get some stuff done while still figuring out what I wanted to eat for dinner.

I wanted to go get Swiss Chalet for dinner yesterday but got distracted by the previous post of the case of the Exploding Pop Bottle.   So I have been craving the Festive Special for the past couple of days.  I love to get their Festive Special at least once every season.  I don't have big holiday meals so I don't get the works of stuffing, etc. and to make it all for just me is totally not worth the effort.

Reasons when it's worth getting take out:

1.  When you can get it a whole lot faster than if you made it yourself.  Saving time grocery shopping, prepping, cooking and cleaning up... which includes taking out the garbage and there's always garbage.

2.  When you are in the middle of doing something else and you are starving and can't wait to make something for yourself.

3.  When you are only one person and it would cost you triple the amount to go and get the ingredients to make what you ordered.

Today's example:

I was doing some serious Multi-tasking today.  I had a couple of loads of laundry going in the laundry room in my building while I was trying to do an online test to figure out what courses I should look into for a better career fit and then replying to emails from a friend overseas and talking to another friend while he was on his way out of town.  After I did all that I did a quick vacuum around the apartment and checked the rest of my social media.   It took me a whole 5 minutes online to click and order my Swiss Chalet dinner and it arrived in less than 40 minutes.   It would have taken me a whole lot longer just to cook the equivalent size piece of chicken.   Forget about even adding the stuffing.   I also ordered perogies instead of fries or potatoes.   It would have taken me 10 minutes just to boil the water to cook frozen perogies, although I wouldn't recommend getting the perogies as they are better made at home the way you like it.   But I also added a side salad as my side and I will have that for lunch tomorrow saving me having to figure out what to have for lunch tomorrow.   Win Win.

Order once eat twice.  Little effort and I didn't have to spend an hour at the grocery store and an hour cooking and an hour cleaning up and wasting a whole lot of extra food.

I would say the best time to order take out is when you want a lot of chinese food with different ingredients that would cost you too much to go out and buy individually and when the cooking process would take you longer to make yourself.

Not to say that you shouldn't cook at home because sometimes it is worth it.  My homemade roasted chicken blows Swiss Chalet chicken away in taste and moistness.   But during the week when you have limited time you have to decide what's more worth your time.... cooking or getting things done in a limited timeline.

The limited timeline won out today.   Dinner is done and no dishes in the sink.

Food that's not worth making at home.

Sometimes it's just not worth cooking food at home especially when you live in a small apartment.
I know you don't know where your food is coming from when you eat at restaurants, but there is also economics and time and convenience that factor into dinner decisions.

I have decided that there are a couple of things that just aren't worth making at home for me.

1. Sushi - because I don't live next to a fish market with sushi grade fish and can't always make it right away so it's just not worth making the rice and going way out of the way to get good fish and then having to be careful about preparing it.

2. Indian Food unless you are just having something easy like butter chicken with the sauce that comes out of a jar. Cooking indian food requires a whole lot of spices and a whole lot of time to prepare a lot of the dishes. Most of the tasty sauces require layering flavours slowly and allowing them to simmer to develop the intense flavours. Then your house smells like indian spices for days afterward. It's a nice smell when you are eating the food but I don't think you want to smell it when you are eating pizza the next day. The other thing I love about Indian food is the Naan bread but it's not going to have the same taste at home without the tandoor oven and it's not likely that any apartments in the city are ever going to have them any time soon.

3. Korean food is the next thing that I probably won't make too much of at home. I can buy the kimchi in any store now but it's the other Korean foods that just aren't worth hunting down special ingredients or trying to figure out how to make them. Then there is the way they prepare and cook it.
The other reason it's just not worth it for me to cook Korean food at home is because I can walk across the street and take my pick of at least 2 Korean restaurants to eat in.

I just had this Bim Bim Bap at a Restaurant a quick walk across the street from where I live. Total time walking there was less than 10 min. from my door. There was no ttc, gas or parking involved. Just the old fashioned walking to get your food. For under $20 including tip I had the BimbimBap and kimchi, and other assorted Korean small dishes and of course the tea.

The best part was that it was delicious. I didn't have to go to a specialty Korean grocery store or find a supermarket that carries the ingredients, which means that I didn't have to spend an hour or possibly more going to the store, parking, trying to find the ingredients, bringing them home and putting them away or preparing them, then cooking the meal and then cleaning up afterwards. I would say about 3 hours in total of time spent to make a meal like this. And I am sure I would have spent a whole lot more than $20 on the various ingredients needed to make all of these things. The reason you pay more to eat at restaurants is because they save you all the time it takes to have these meals.

Then there is my least favourite part after making something at home.....DOING THE DISHES. I am much happier spending the $15-$20 to have someone else do the dishes...thank you very much.

Anyway... I figure the total time spent having dinner tonight was a half an hour, giving me the time to now write this blog.

Some times you just have to leave certain cooking to the experts that do it for a living everyday and spend your time doing other things that they aren't doing.

So thank you to the nice Korean restaurant for making me a satisfying meal and giving me some more free time and keeping my apartment clean and my wallet with a little more green in it.

What foods do you prefer to let someone else cook for you?