Brown Butter Bacon Brussel Sprouts

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Recipes     bacon, Christmas, holidays, sides, tasty, thanksgiving

What you’ll need…

1/2 cup butter (unsalted)

1 TBSP curry powder

2 TSP brown sugar

3 cups fresh brussel sprouts

1 yellow onion

1 head fennel

4 bacon strips

salt & pepper

olive oil

Little known fact: People that don’t eat brussel sprouts are crazy (fact source: unknown). Fennel plays second fiddle in this dish as I’ve always held brussel sprouts near and dear to my heart. They’re kind of like the little cabbages that could, and, let’s be honest, [the addition of] bacon makes any side dish situation a little bit butter better…

Start off by preheating your oven to 425 degrees. Now, melt the butter in a small pot on medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add-in the curry powder, brown sugar, whisk and let it cook for 1o minutes. In the meantime, halve the brussel sprouts, slice the onions, fennel, and bacon. Place in a large bowl, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper, toss a few times, then place into a prepared, medium-sized, baking dish.

Pour the brown butter mixture over the dish, cover with tin foil (shiny side in!), and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes are up, remove the tin foil and return to the oven on high-broil for 5 minutes to crisp things up.

This is one hell of a side dish. Guaranteed!

Serves 3-4

Total cook time…30 min

Merlot & Chorizo Sausage Pizza

Dan    Mains, Recipes     olives, pizza, sauce, sausage, wine

What you’ll need…

Merlot Pizza Sauce:

1/2 yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

2 medium-sized tomatoes

1 cup merlot

1 TBSP balsamic vinegar

1 TSP dried basil

1 TSP sugar

salt & pepper

olive oil

Pizza toppings:

2 chorizo sausages (cooked, sliced)

6 red swiss chard leaves (blanched, chopped)

1/4 red onion (thinly sliced)

1/4 cup pitted green olives (sliced)

1 cup goat’s cheese

Now you can have your wine and eat it too! My favourite part about cooking with wine is that you can drink what you don’t use. Needless to say, I cook with wine quite often, but I digress…I had never thought of putting swiss chard on a pizza until I had the Swiss Chard Pie at Una Pizza. This is, more or less, an ode to them. Thank you for inspiring me with that utterly delicious pizza pie! This one is not quite at their pizza level, but delicious nonetheless! Shall we?

Just to briefly address to the pizza dough situation. Feel free to use a plain old run-of-the-mill frozen pizza shell, but making your own pizza dough at home is super easy! Most pizza dough-appropriate yeast’s will have the recipe right on the jar. C’mon, enjoy a sense of do-it-yourself satisfaction!

To make the sauce you’re going to start by chopping the onion and garlic. Place into a medium-sized pan with some olive oil. Turn to medium-high heat and cook until softened. While you’re waiting, chop the tomatoes. When you add the tomatoes, sprinkle some salt on top of the mixture. It helps release their juices. Let cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add-in the remaining ingredients. Give a good stir and once everything starts to bubble, reduce to low heat and let simmer for 15 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced by 1/2. Remove from heat, pour sauce into a blender (or food processor) and puree until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Now for the pizza dressings…This recipe is set to cover 2 12″ diameter pizzas, with some sauce leftover (for crust dipping of course). Start with a nice slathering of your merlot sauce, followed by the chorizo sausage, swiss chard, red onion slices and green olives. Finish the pizza by crumbling the goat cheese on top. Place into your preheated oven and let bake for 15 minutes, or until the crust turns golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool briefly before slicing. Top with some sliced green olives and a drizzle of olive oil.

Served best with the remainder of that bottle of merlot you used in the sauce.

Serves 5-6

Total cook time…40 min

P!nk

Dan    Thoughts    

I feel as though P!nk and I have had a special relationship ever since I won her debut album, Can’t Take Me Home, back in 2000. Yup, that would be a true story. Winning a CD via a fantastic Much Music contest is just about the be-all-end-all for a 16 year old boy.

Now, to the point, P!nk has consistently been one of those stand-out stars who is vocal about what she believes in, what she stands for, and, arguably, one of the absolute best female voices to come out of the past decade. Generally I chalk ‘greatest hits’ albums up to lazy record sales for artists (hell, even Hilary Duff has made one…), but after DLing P!nk’s Greatest Hits So Far… album, it has only reminded me of all of the great tracks she’s put out…has it really been 10 years? Now I feel old…..I vividly remember the first time I played the song U &…….never mind……I am continuing to date myself here….

Well, cheers to another 10 years of great music!

Check out her website: www.pinkspage.com

Twitter: @pink

Berry, It’s Cold Outside (Cake)

Dan    Recipes, Something Sweet     baking, berries, comforting, desserts, holidays, rustic

What you’ll need…

Cake:

3 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 TBSP cinnamon

1 TSP ground cloves

1 TBSP baking powder

1/4 TSP salt

1 cup softened butter (or vegan margarine)

2 eggs (or egg-replacer equivalent)

3/4 cup milk (soy if vegan)

a handful (or so) of the berries listed below…

Sauce:

1 cup brewed MarketSpice tea (water will do if cooking with tea scares you)

1 cup raspberries

1 cup blueberries

1 cup blackberries

1/2 cup white sugar

This one is for all of those people who pull the ‘I really can’t stay’. No buts, baby, you’re going to stay and have some god damn delicious dessert. This should, perhaps, be titled ‘Rustic Berry Cake‘, but due to our current holiday season I felt as though a Christmas song title should be referenced.

This will be a cake walk…(officially my best joke. ever.) First off, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Using an electric mixer, on low setting, combine all cake dry ingredients. Now, add the softened butter, and let mix until crumbly. Finally, add-in the milk, eggs, and that handful of berries (I favour blackberries, so my handful leans towards those, but a mixed handful is encouraged). Mix until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Press the dough into a prepared 8″ round cake pan and let bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick poke comes back clean!

Moving on…take all of the sauce ingredients and place them into a medium-sized pot. Give the mixture a few good stirs until the sugar dissolves. Turn to medium-high heat until the pot starts to bubble then reduce to low heat and let simmer for 25 minutes, or until the sauce reduces by 2/3s. Remember to stir occasionally.

Once the cake is out of the oven and the sauce is ready and warm dish it out to your girlfriend/boyfriend/friends/cat/family/whomever you are eating with…Remember to be nice and generous with the sauce. It’s the best part.

** Note: I did let the cake cool, then sliced in half so I could put the berry mixture in the middle and on top. Double down.

Serves 5-6

Total cook time…40 min

Bacon Bits: Beef Up Your Bacon

Dan    Thoughts     awesome, bacon, calgary, ingenious

A love affair with bacon is one which is never fleeting. It is a strong, life-long connection that begins at an early age. That first recognition of salty, tasty ‘goodness’ in that very first bite as a youngster. Now, like yourselves, I’ve committed myself to bacon for a good chunk of my life, so you can imagine my dismay when I discovered temptation, also known as beef bacon (yes, I said ‘beef bacon‘), at the Calgary Farmers’ Market.

Alberta Beef Bacon is offering up a tasty alternate to the everyday pork version you’ll find in the aisles of neighbourhood grocery stores. Taken from a short plate cut of a beef steer (doesn’t sound familiar? This is where short ribs…

Want more on beef bacon? Head over to Food Network Canada’s site to read the rest of the article, and to mouth-water over more crispy bacon pictures!

The Living Dead: Ginger Zombies

Dan    Recipes, Something Sweet     Christmas, cookies, dessert, gingerbread, holidays

What you’ll need…

1 egg (or egg-replacer equivalent)

1/4 cup butter (or vegan margarine)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 TSP cinnamon

2 TSP ground ginger

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 TSP baking soda

1/4 TSP salt

icing/sprinkles

creativity

You say Christmas, I say gingerbread men ginger zombies! The holidays are a happy time, merry, if you will, but if watching The Living Dead has taught me anything it’s the fact that zombie is now the new vampire. It’s true, my ginger vampires of Christmas ’09 proved to be a flash in the pan, err….baking sheet. At any rate…let’s frost!

Ok, this will be simple enough, I promise. First off, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place the egg and butter into a large mixing bowl. Gradually add the brown sugar to the bowl, using an electric mixer on low setting, until the mixture looks nice and creamy. Now, still mixing on ‘low’, add-in the cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Finally, slowly add the flour and mix until a dough forms.

The cookie-cutting part can be left up to interpretation. Severe limbs below baking/after, scrap out their middles with a melon baller, create your own zombie shape sans-cookie cutter, you know, something nice and creative!

Pop into your preheated oven for 8 minutes, and voila! Ginger zombies ready to be iced. Of course, let them cool a bit before applying icing so it doesn’t melt. On the other hand, that might give them a neat ‘my face is melting’ kind of look.

Yields 16 cookies (or less if you’re making mega zombies)

Total cook time…20 min