Jamie Oliver's white fish wrapped in smoked bacon with lemon mayo and asparagus

During our most recent trip to Costco we decided to get a package of tilapia and do some experimenting. We stumbled upon this recipe in our Jamie Oliver cookbook. It took maybe 10 minutes to put together and was so delicious we nearly made it again the next night.

Ingredients:

Serves 4

4 pieces of white fish fillets
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped
Juice from 2 lemons and their zest
ground pepper
16 pieces of thinly sliced bacon
4 tablespoons of mayo
olive oil
2 bunches of asparagus, trimmed

1. Preheat oven to 400 F
2. Rub fillets with lemon zest, pepper, and fresh rosemary
3. Flatten 4 pieces of bacon on a board, slightly overlapping
4. Lay fish on top of bacon and roll the bacon around it tightly
5. In an oven-safe pan, cook the bacon-wrapped fillets for one minute
6. Place pan in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until bacon is golden-brown.
   

For the lemon mayo:

1. While fish is in the oven, mix the lemon juice with mayo and add pepper.
2. Taste to ensure the lemon is strong enough.
3. Boil the asparagus with slightly salted water
4. Drizzle the lemon mayo onto the asparagus and serve with the fish.

Fiddle Heads Attempt #4

I just found this picture on my camera. Geoff and I made this for dinner a couple weeks ago after having gone out for drinks with his sister and brother-in-law. His brother-in-law ordered a pasta with lots of garlic, some tomatoes and oil. It smelled so good, I thought about it for days. It seemed easy enough so we gave it a shot and added a couple of extras.

Ingredients:
Pasta
Shrimp, peeled and de-veined
Fiddle Heads, ends trimmed and washed
Tomatoes (diced, or cherry tomatoes cut in half)
4 cloves garlic, chopped as much as possible
Olive oil
Butter
4 tsp lemon juice

1. Boil fiddle heads for 5 minutes
2. When fiddle heads are done, begin boiling pasta (should take about 10 minutes for the pasta to be ready)
3. While the pasta is cooking, cook shrimp in a little bit of butter, 2 tsp lemon juice and garlic
4. Fry fiddle heads in a little butter and 2 tsp lemon juice
5. Once pasta is done, drain and put back in the pot, add fiddle heads, shrimp diced tomatoes and garlic. Toss with enough oil to just cover the noodles.
   

Sarah's Nanny's Strawberry Shortcake

This is the best cake ever. My nanny has been making this since my cousin was born (she's now in her mid-twenties). Every summer when the strawberries are ripening she makes cake after cake since they never last more than two days around my family.

Today, my grandfather shared the first cake of the season with Geoff and I, and it was fantastic. My grandpa is always VERY reluctant to share this cake with anyone, so we have to sneak pieces when he's not looking. When he can, he'll eat an entire cake on his own because it is THAT good.

Ingredients:
2c Flour
1/3c Sugar
1/2c shortening, butter or margarine
3/4c milk
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 container Cool Whip
some mashed strawberries with about 2 tsp sugar (my nanny was really vague on this point, she said to mash enough strawberries to put in the middle of the cake and cover the top)

1. Heat oven to 375F. Grease 9 inch round cake pan
2. In a large bowl, combine the first four ingredients. Cut in the shortening using either two butter knives or a pastry blender until it has a consistency of coarse meal.
3. Add milk and eggs, stir just until the dry ingredients are just moistened.
4. Put dough in pan, bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Once the cake has cooled, cut in half so you have two layers. Put half of the mashed strawberries on one side, then place the second half of the cake on top and put the remaining mashed strawberries on top.
   
6. Cover with Cool Whip and decorate with entire strawberries ontop.
   

Father's Day Brunch

For Father's Day, Geoff and I went up to his cottage for the weekend. To be honest, we had no idea what kind of breakfast foods he liked to eat so we gave his mom a list of foods that we like to make. She informed us that crepes would be good, so we just had to decide on what to put on them.

We quickly decided to make them as breakfast-y as possible and decided to add eggs and bacon. They were great. I knew they were going to be good but they turned out great.

We also made the dessert crepes again for a breakfast dessert. A kind of heavy but great meal!

Ingredients:
1 c cold water
1 c cold milk
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c flour
4 tbsp melted butter
(add 2 tsp sugar for dessert crepes).

1. Cook a slice of bacon per crepe you plan on eating. Once done, pat with paper towel to remove excess grease then crumble into bits and set aside.
   
2. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender. I don't think it really matters in what order you add everything, since it's all just going to be mixed up together anyway. At this point, you're supposed to refrigerate the batter for two hours to let it settle down, but we never have and they always turn out great.
3. Heat up a frying pan to about medium high and put a little tiny bit of oil on it to stop the crepe from sticking.
   
4. Here's the tricky part, figuring out how much batter to use to make each crepe. Be prepared to screw the first few up. Pour a little in and quickly turn the pan about until the batter is completely covering the bottom of a pan. Let it cook until it looks stable enough, then flip.
5. Crack an egg into the center of the crepe and put some of the bacon bits on top. Fold up the edges to make a rough square. Place onto a baking sheet and then under the broiler for about 1 minute to let the rest of the egg cook.
6. If you are making dessert crepes as well, with the rest of the batter, add 2 tsp sugar, and cook as above. When done, add sliced fruit, some melted Nutella and a bit of whipped cream.
   

New Camera!

Thanks to my wonderful family, I am now the proud proprietor of the Nikon D60. It's so much better than my point-and-shoot 6.1 MP Casio. YAY!

Tomato, Portobello & Fresh Mozzarella Melts

This was what Geoff and I made for dinner last night. Although there was no meat, it did taste very meaty. There's something about grilled mushrooms, and especially portobellos that tastes a lot like meat.

I can't say enough good things about this meal. Super fast and super healthy (although it didn't taste like it was healthy).

From Good Housekeeping: Grilling for Every Day

Ingredients:
2 c. loosely packed arugula or watercress
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 lg portobello mushrooms, stems removed and cut in half
2 med. tomatoes cut into 3/4 in. thick slices
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
4 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
1 loaf focaccia or ciabatta bread about 1-in. thick (we couldn't find other, so we got a loaf of light rye bread)

1. Heat BBQ to medium-high heat and clean the grill. In a small bowl, toss arugula and vinegar until evenly coated. Cut bread into two 8" by 2" pieces. Cut each piece horizontally in half to make a total of four 8" by 2" pieces (or cut the rye into 1 or 1/2 in. slices).
2. Brush mushrooms and tomatoes with oil; sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Place mushrooms, stem-sides up, and tomatoes on grill and cook 6 to 8 minutes, or until tender and charred, turning once. Transfer tomatoes to plate. Arrange mozzarella on mushrooms; cover and cook 1 to 2 minutes longer.
3. place bread, cut-sides up, on work surface; top with arugula mixture, grilled tomatoes, and cheese-topped mushrooms. Cut each sandwich into quarters and serve.

For some of the pieces of bread, we left plain, some with a little butter and some with a little cream cheese. Each was really tasty, but you really don't need to put butter or cream cheese on the bread since everything else has enough flavour.

Mmmmm! Dessert Crepes!

The picture describes how good the crepes are better than my words ever could. This same recipe can be used for savoury crepes as long as you don't put in the sugar.

I first had crepes when I went to France in grade 10 on a school exchange. Instead of fry stands on the streets, they had crepe stands. The stand right by school always put Nutella on them. I've been hooked since.

The family I stayed with also made crepes a few times, except we had savoury crepes for dinner. This was also my first experience with goat cheese (which is my favourite cheese now). The crepes were made on a crepe pan, and then a big clump of goat cheese was melted into the middle while it finished cooking then it was folded all together so the melted cheese was trapped inside.

You can make the crepes ahead of time then just add whipped cream or nutella or fruit or whatever awesome sweet thing you want to have with your crepes.

Ingredients:
1 c cold water
1 c cold milk
4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c flour
2 tsp sugar
4 tbsp melted butter

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender. I don't think it really matters in what order you add everything, since it's all just going to be mixed up together anyway. At this point, you're supposed to refrigerate the batter for two hours to let it settle down, but we never have and they always turn out great.
2. Heat up a frying pan to about medium high and put a little tiny bit of oil on it to stop the crepe from sticking.
   
3. Here's the tricky part, figuring out how much batter to use to make each crepe. Be prepared to screw the first few up. Pour a little in and quickly turn the pan about until the batter is completely covering the bottom of a pan. Let it cook until it looks stable enough, then flip.
   
4. Once done, set it aside for a minute on a cookie rack to cool then you can stack them all up together.
   

putting nutella on the crepes is super good, but so is whipped cream, and fruit. You really can put on whatever you want.

Fiddle Heads Attempt #3 plus CRASH Potatoes!

I'm not sure what part of this meal was better, the fiddle heads or the potatoes. Probably the potatoes... but then I do love bacon... and fiddle heads.

The potatoes were AWESOME. I've never had potatoes that tasted sooooo good. They were delicious. We first made them for Geoff's sister, Brother-in-law and their sometimes roommate. They were a hit.

This attempt at fiddle heads was our best yet. I think frying them up really made them taste much much better than just putting a sauce on top.

Ingredients for Crash Potatoes
12 or so baby red potatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
Coarse salt and pepper
garlic powder (or whatever spice you want to use)
sour cream for topping (optional)

Ingredients for fiddle heads
Fiddle heads
4 slices thick bacon

Potatoes

1. Boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes until fork tender.
   
2. Preheat oven to 400F.
   
3. Arrange potatoes on a baking sheet and smash them down once or twice so they're broken open and kind of flattened but still in one piece.
   
4. Drizzle the olive oil on top, sprinkle salt, pepper and garlic powder on top. Bake for 20 minutes, serve with sour cream on top.

Fiddle heads

1. Trim the ends and boil for 5 minutes to get the gross brown coating off.
   
2. Meanwhile, fry up the bacon until crispy and set aside onto paper towel to soak up some of the grease.
   
3. Drain about half of the bacon grease from the pan and fry the fiddle heads up in the remaining grease for about 5 minutes.
   
4. Crumble the bacon up with the fiddle heads and serve!

Easy Cheesey Appetizer

I really wish I had bookmarked this recipe so I could give credit to whomever first made it.

It's pretty much a Caprese salad but it's not quite. It only takes 5 minutes to put these together. Super tastey and super easy. Perfect appetizer.

Ingredients
1 pint cherry tomatoes
6-7 fresh basil leaves
ball of fresh mozzarella (around 500g I think is what we used but I could be completely wrong)
4 tbsp olive oil
skewers

Cut up the mozzarella up into squares and put them on skewers alternating with the cherry tomatoes. Blend olive oil and basil together until kind of frothy and pour on top of finished skewers.

Our first awesome dumplings

If we're ever out to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant, we always order some fried dumplings. The contents are very basic, yet the combination of the dough and sauce is what gives them the sweet and tasty flavour.

As we wanted to make our own, but had no idea how to go about doing so, we found this extremely detailed recipe.

We'd been searching for months for a recipe that was easy enough with ingredients that we could find without searching through Asian grocery stores in Chinatown.

Definitely try making these. The recipe is a little time consuming, but definitely worth it. Tastes just like from the restaurant. Just be sure you have one or two helpers so you can get the wrapping done quickly

Edit: Unless you love making dough, I would really recommend just buying the dough that's already been rolled out and cut up for you

Fiddle Heads Attempt #2

So this is our second attempt at fiddle heads. We had to leave the cottage early one weekend, so my grandpa gave Geoff and I each a delicious tender rib steak to make for our own dinner at home (we actually don't have steak every night even though Geoff would love that)

This time we decided to top our steak with quartered white mushrooms fried in butter and garlic. As for the fiddle heads, Geoff Googled some recipes in an attempt to find something new. He clearly can't read properly because he thought there was a recipe that included wasabi, so we mixed some into soya sauce and poured the mixture over the fiddle heads and rice. While wasabi can be fairly strong, we figured the rice would be able to soak up the excess spice.

Although it was something new, we probably wouldn't make it again. At least not with a juicy steak since the flavours clashed a little much, but it might compliment various types of seafood instead.

Fiddle Heads Attempt #1

This is our first attempt at fiddle heads this spring. They were good, but we've since done WAY better. Everyone probably knows how to grill a steak and how to cook rice already, so we're not going to talk about that here.

Ingredients
1/2 lb Fiddle heads ends trimmed
2 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp jarred garlic (could use fresh garlic but it would give it a much stronger garlic taste)
1 tsp lemon juice

1. Boil fiddle heads for 5 minutes in salted water in order to get rid of the brown coat that grows on the fiddle heads to protect them over the winter (it's this that makes the fiddle heads bitter, so you have to boil them even if you plan on pan frying them as well).
   
2. Mix the butter, garlic and lemon, pour on top. This mixture is really good if you have the rice underneath because it flavours the rice as well.