Peameal Pileups

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday and since she is vacationing overseas, I only get to send her well wishes over the Internet today. And this year, instead of coming coming up with a dish that I think my mom would love, I decided to share one of her dishes with you.

My mom loves peameal bacon and she loves to BBQ, so it only makes sense that this sandwich is one of her favourites. It has grilled peameal or turkey bacon, fried zucchini, melty cheese, sweet peppers, and a really flavourful tomato marmalade. I have a feeling that you're going to want to eat one of these sandwiches as soon as you see the photo.

Happy Birthday, Mom! Thanks for sharing such a yummy recipe!

It's All Gravy

I don't make gravy very often, but when I do, it's gone in a flash. I guess you could say that I'm a bit of a gravy snob because I don't like canned gravy. I don't even want know what's in it. 

My gravy is made with just turkey stock, corn starch, and water. I know that doesn't sound very special, but it's the stock that's the key. Every time I make a turkey, I save the juices from the baking dish I cook my turkey in for the next time I make gravy. 

I pour the hot stock in a container, I let it cool in the fridge and scrape the fat off the top, then I label it as "gravy stock" and put it in the freezer for the next special occasion I have when I'll make gravy. All that work makes my gravy special and all that work makes it taste amazing. 

Then all I do is heat the rich stock up, mix a tablespoon or so of corn starch in 1/4 cup of water, stir it into my stock, and let it boil. Voila, gravy. 

I know that I'll want to make Valentine's Day special and what better way to do it than by making Yorkshire Puddings with gravy? I don't know what I'll be serving with them, but I know the meal will be special. 

And don't worry, there's still time to make a turkey so you can make Yorkshire Puddings and gravy for Valentine's Day too. :)

Celebrate!

I don't have anything specific to celebrate right now, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't celebrate. I think that celebrating is something that should be done on regular basis. Maybe I'm only celebrating a beautiful day or the fact that I finally got caught up on laundry, but I'm celebrating all the same. 

This lasagna was inspired by a recipe I found on Chatelaine's website and they called it Celebration Lasagna. I wasn't sure why it was named that until I took my first bite. 

Smothered

Some sauces are meant to be messy and that's just because they taste so delicious that they make you want to dive into a big bowl. However, instead of diving into the sauce, it's a bit more normal to just smother everything in sight with it. 

That's this sauce. It has everything I crave in it - curry, coconut cream, citrus, and peanut butter. You might not think that all these would go together, but they do. You'll just have to try it to believe me. 

Double Feature

Sometimes flattery gets you everywhere, and flattery won this round of the guessing game for Lesley this month. Lesley guessed my fruitcakes would cost a whopping $74 to make and while she guessed a tremendously high amount, I appreciated her kind words and I realized that if I had used a different brand of brandy, my fruitcake would have cost more to make. Maybe not quite $74, but still...

For Lesley I have two holiday appetizers, an easy Asian meatball dipping sauce and a holiday bruschetta. I think they're both unique and pretty special, just like Lesley. Here are the recipes!

Holiday Bruschetta and Easy Asian Meatball Dipping Sauce

Will the Real Turkey Please Rise?

Not all meals go smoothly. But while this year's Christmas dinner didn't turn out exactly as I planned, it did turn out completely delicious. Out of all my tried and true recipes I planned on making for Christmas dinner, only two ended up on the plates - simple mashed potatoes and my Apple Carrot and Parsley Dressing. All the rest of my recipes were new!

I know that you might be turkey-ed out now, but incase anyone out there plans for their next turkey as early as I do, here is the recipe that made my Christmas turkey the juiciest, crispiest, best Christmas turkey I have ever made.

God Bless Us, Everyone

Merry Christmas everyone!

Instead of sharing a new recipe today, I'm sharing what my holiday dinner with you. These are tried and true recipes I've shared with you before, with the exception of one, and now you get a taste of what my holiday meal is going to be like. 

I hope all of yours taste as good as mine hopefully will!

Turkey with Maple-Pesto Sauce

Maple Balsamic Brussel Sprouts

Crispy Potatoes for Luke and simple mashed potatoes for me

Apple Carrot and Parsley Dressing

And what's new? A Roasted Beet Salad with hazelnuts and cambozola cheese. I know this will be a great salad to make all winter and I'll share it with you soon!

Simply Delicious

Did you know that Thai curry paste is very different from Indian curry paste? Indian curry paste is made from mainly spices and Thai curry paste is made from many more fresh ingredients like shallots, chilies, and lemon grass. And chicken stock is only used in Indian curries, never in Thai curries; coconut milk is used in Thai curries instead. 

Most Thai curry recipes are traditionally made with raw chicken, but I like to use leftover turkey just as much. The flavour is equally as delicious and the recipe is made even easier with leftover turkey. 

I also like to switch the common side of rice with couscous for a more unique take on a traditional curry meal. I think couscous adds a new texture to the meal that is very unexpected, almost as unexpected as how easy and delicious the actual curry tastes.  

Read on for the recipe. And hungry people be comforted, this dish takes only 30 minutes to make!

Winter Warm Up

I know it's technically still fall, but I am excited about the upcoming holidays. And since I am getting my Christmas tree this weekend, I think it's ok to call the season winter. 

To me winter means frozen cold and, in true winter fashion, I had a brain freeze and discovered something about my slow cooker that I did not like. My brain freeze involved not defrosting my chicken all the way through before I put it into my slow cooker. My discovery was that my slow cooker does not cook ingredients in the middle of the slow cooker as quickly as it cooks ingredients at the edge of my slow cooker. 

Now I will only make this recipe with leftover chicken or turkey. The sauce is delicious and I won't ever feel nervous about eating meat from the middle of slow cooker!

Lattice All Eat Leftovers!

I truly believe that some of my best dinners are made from leftovers, particularly turkey leftovers. And tonight's dinner is no exception. In fact, it may be one of my best leftover dinners ever!

Today's recipe is my new version of a turkey pot pie, but the presentation is a little fancier with a lattice braided puff pastry topper. All you need to do is throw together leftover bites of turkey, leftover veggies, leftover gravy, and heat it before topping your meal with a piece of pastry. Yum!

Read on to find out my recipe. 

Pumpkin Eater

It's weird to think of pumpkin carving as anything other than an activity to make children smile, but pumpkin carving has existed for many, many years and it's origin many not be what you think it is.

Pumpkin carving started as a way to honour deceased loved ones and ward off evil spirits as people hollowed out beets, turnips, and gourds to create lanterns. But since pumpkins are bigger than turnips and other veggies, they eventually became the chosen vessel for the lanterns. 

I prefer to eat pumpkins, rather than carve them, but I still like to have a little fun. I think this meal lets me have my jack-o-lantern and eat it too. What do you think?

Dessert into Dinner

Every year I have to get a little more creative to find ways to make my leftover turkey taste great and this year I've come up with a winner that's going to find it's way into my oven for years to come. 

I always make turkey pies, but I wasn't feeling like eating too much pastry after all the pumpkin pie I inhaled recently, so I decided to pull out a recipe for cobbler I used a few months ago. At first I thought that I was crazy thinking I could make a turkey pie with my sweet dessert topping. But then I thought about adding cheese to cobbler topping and of course I wouldn't use the sugary glaze, so why wouldn't it work? 

This dinner was a huge success! And it's is nothing like a dessert in way other than being delicious!

It's Turkey Time!

Turkey and I are great friends, especially at Thanksgiving. They're relatively easy to make, they're a great bang for your buck when you count all the leftover dinners you can make, and they taste great. 

The only thing about turkeys I don't especially like is that eating them can be a bit on the boring side... You roast the bird, you serve it with cranberries, and that's that. 

Today's post shows a great sauce that will transform your turkey into something new, fresh, and fantastic. I know you'll look at the recipe with questioning eyes at first, but after a quick taste I think you'll really enjoy it.

Read on for a 2012 version of Thanksgiving turkey!

Thankful

I can't believe it's already October! I'll miss summer, but I am thankful for each season I get to experience. And I excited to enjoy stews and casseroles again, see the leaves change colour, and share Thanksgiving with family and friends.

This week my posts are going to be about different kinds of Thanksgiving meals you could make. They'll include a new take on a turkey (complete with a crazy good sauce to use in place of cranberries), fresh sides, and a Moroccan inspired meal that would be great to enjoy on your own or with a friend.

Today's recipe is for a Moroccan Turkey Burgers. They may not look like much in the photo, but they are jam packed with flavour and, since I added some dried cranberries to the meat mixture, I think they're perfectly reminiscent of a big Thanksgiving feast. Read on for the recipe...

Stuff It

Putting yourself out there on the Internet can be hard because people can say whatever they want anonymously. I am lucky that most people have only had good things to say about my posts, recipes, and videos, but every negative comment still hurts. 

So this recipe is for everyone out there that wants to say something bad to someone else on the Internet. I'm telling you to stuff it. Unless you're telling us constructive criticism, we don't want to hear your negative comments.

But because I am nice, despite any negativity, this is an awesome recipe. So even if you don't want to tell someone to stuff it, you really should make these stuffed peppers!

King Of The Castle

The origin of any "a la King" meals is difficult to determine. It could be that the first of the creamy chicken dishes was created by someone with the last name King, or perhaps that an owner of a restaurant had the name King and it was his favourite dish, or maybe a chef just thought that the dish he whipped up was fit for a king.

Regardless of the origin, I think that the meal is comforting and easy to make when I'm feeling a little under the weather. And these aspects of preparing the dinner make me love it.

Here's my easy recipe for Turkey a la King. You can serve it with pasta or with toast, but I prefer toast because it saves me a pot to clean and that sure helps to make it even easier!

A Honey of a Meatball

Meatballs are like the chameleon of food because they can act amazing in so many different styles of cooking.

There’s the obvious choice of pairing meatballs with spaghetti and tomato sauce, my brother’s choice of stuffing them with cheese and rolling them with rice, the Italian wedding choice of serving them in soups, and the Hawaiian way of serving them with pineapple for an appetizer.

Meatballs are delicious in all of these ways and more. For instance, meatballs are also great served with a sticky sauce and rice.

Today’s recipe is a simple sticky sauced meatball meal that’s great to put together on a weeknight. But, the best part of this meal is that it doesn’t taste like you through it together on a weeknight.

It tastes special and delicious. Here’s my Easy Honey Garlic Meatball recipe!

Stocking Up

Today I am home sick and all I want is for someone to make me some soup.

Unfortunately, no one is home with me.

But fortunately, I have some homemade chicken stock in my fridge and, after a nap, I think I will have enough energy to pull myself off the sofa and put something together myself.

I always like to have a stock of homemade stock (pun intended) in my fridge or freezer. And making stock is very easy and inexpensive. All you need are poultry bones, water, veggies, and seasoning.

Just make sure you have some on hand before you get sick, or else you might have to reach for a can of condensed stuff that's been around forever.

Birthmas

Birthmas is a mashed up holiday for people like me; people who are not able to be with their families at all holiday. It's a time that you can get together between birthdays and Christmas and relax, enjoy each other, and above all - eat.

I just got back to Victoria after visiting with my own family in Ontario for a week and we celebrated the elusive holiday of Birthmas to the fullest extent. And instead of making holiday dishes that I am familiar with, my mom and I made her holiday dishes that I missed out on during Christmas.

This week I will sharing recipes from Birthmas that I know will have you drooling and wishing you could celebrate the holiday yourself.

Remember though, if today is between Christmas and a birthday - you can!

First, here is my mom (and Chef Gordon Ramsay's) version of a delicious moist turkey. It would be a keeper for my recipe files even if my mom hadn't made it for my first Birthmas.

That Other Thanksgiving

My fellow Canadians know how I feel when I say that other Thanksgiving. But I am not sure if my American friends know what I mean because the Canadian media providers probably don't promote the Canadian holiday as much as the American providers promote their own.

What I'm talking about is the fact that Canadians already celebrated Thanksgiving last month! We had the family get together, we ate the turkey, and we got the tee-shirt. There aren't even any leftovers in our fridges now.

At least I hope the leftovers are gone...

So I'm not jealous, we gave thanks already. But I am curious as to why we have different dates for the holiday?

It can't be because Canada is so darn cold, can it?

Yes it can!

Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated as a time to give thanks for the harvest and the Canadian frost comes earlier than the American frost, so naturally the Canadian harvest follows suit.

That's all there is to it.

But now that I've thought about it... I am a bit jealous... Not about the extra holiday (that would be nice), but more about the fact that Americans are probably chowing down on leftover turkey sandwiches right now....

What would you do for one?

Well, just read a little more and you won't have to do much else!