Brussels Sprout and Pancetta Salad w/Citrus Ginger Beer Vinaigrette

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Recipes     brussels sprouts, pancetta, recipes, salad, salad dressing, spring, vinaigrette

What you’ll need…

Vinaigrette:

4 cloves roasted garlic (minced)

1 orange (zest and juice)

1/4 cup Steam Whistle Pilsner

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 TBSP soy sauce

1 TBSP freshly grated ginger

2 TSP brown sugar

1 TSP sriracha

ground black pepper

Salad:

1/2 cup pancetta (loosely chopped)

1/2 cup walnuts

1 TBSP white sugar

1TBSP water

3 cups brussels sprouts (trimmed and leaves separated)

2 Belgian endives (trimmed, halved and thinly sliced)

1 orange (segmented and halved)

I seem to be on a weird salad kick lately. Well, nothing like being deliciously healthy I suppose. This salad is perfect for any brussels sprouts haters out there. Long gone are the days of microwaving previously frozen b-sprouts and smothering them in processed cheese. Sometimes it’s alright to allow these little green guys to get a sorta fancy once in awhile.

For the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. If you have any mason jars kicking around, just place the dressing ingredients in there and give ‘er a good shake…with the lid on, of course. Season with a bit of ground black pepper and set aside for now.

Place the chopped pancetta in a small pan and cook on medium-high heat until nice and crispy. Remove the pancetta from the pan and onto some paper towel to a soak up any excess grease. Next, add the walnuts, sugar and water into the same pan, tossing a few times to coat. Let the walnuts cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Blanch the brussels sprout leaves for one minute in a medium-sized pot of liberally salted, boiling water. Remove from pot and bring into an ice bath or rinse with cold tap water. Pat dry with some paper towel, or salad spinner if you have one.

When it’s time to eat, combine all salad ingredients in a large serving bowl, pour in approximately 1/2 cup of the vinaigrette and toss gently with hands or tongs until the salad is dressed.

Serve with a cold beer! You deserve it!

Serves 4

Total prep time…20 min

Roasted Kale and Radicchio Salad with Blueberry Green Tea Vinaigrette

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Recipes     gluten-free, green tea, kale, recipes, salad, salad dressing, vegetarian

What you’ll need…

Vinaigrette:

2 cloves garlic (minced)

1 lemon (juiced, reserve zest for salad)

2 TBSP dried blueberries

2 TSP sugar

2 TSP grainy mustard

1/4 cup steeped green tea (cooled)

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Salad:

1 bunch green kale (stem removed, loosely chopped)

1 head raddichio (chopped)

1 lemon (zested, sliced into thin strips)

1/2 red onion (thinly sliced)

5 radishes (thinly sliced)

1 orange (sliced, then quartered)

1/2 cup green pumpkin seeds

2/3 cup ricotta cheese

Now that it’s finally spring, my love of salads has finally returned. Not that it ever disappeared, it just takes a back seat to comfort food and beer in the colder months of the year. As well, as a result of my increased intake of comfort food and beer during the winter, I will obligated to keep on the lighter side for awhile, diet-wise. Kale is a superhero green with it’s hearty and almost meaty kind of flavour. Makes for a wicked salad. Roasting it will bring out a more vibrant green colour and give it a bit of a crunch as well. This is spring on a plate people! Eat it up!

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Roasted Green Beans with Drunk Tomato Sauce

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Recipes     beans, delicious, gluten-free, green beans, recipes, tomato sauce, vegetarian

What you’ll need…

3 TBSP butter

2 cloves garlic

2/3 cup white whine

3 TBSP tomato paste

1 TBSP balsamic vinegar

1 TSP cayenne pepper

1 TSP brown sugar

zest of 1 lemon

salt and pepper

4 cups fresh green beans (trimmed)

2/3 cup bread crumbs (crushed rice crackers to stay gluten-free)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese (finely grated)

Today marks the beginning of my official Top Chef Canada, thirteen week, cooking venture. With the show’s season two premiere looming over my head (only mere hours away now!), I have been tasked, by Food Network Canada, with the challenge of taking one dish from each episode and trying to recreate it at home.

What scares me is not having to try and recreate something. What scares me is the fact that viewers can vote online for the dish I have to try and recreate. You and I both know that they’re going to vote for the weird crocodile steak, or raccoon filet, or goldfish caviar, etc….You get my point. Nonetheless, I shall try my best to persevere regardless of appointed dish.

In honour of committing myself to being ridiculously stressed out in my kitchen for the next thirteen weeks, I’ve whipped up a very simple, yet delicious, and surprisingly inexpensive, dish at home this weekend. Green beans are totally where it’s at!

Start off by preheating your oven to 425 degrees. melting the butter over medium-high heat in a large pan. Once the butter is melted and starts to bubble, add the garlic and the wine. Reduce to medium heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Next, place the following five ingredients in the pan and stir to combine. Let the sauce cook for another five minutes. Take a taste, then add some salt and pepper.

Once the sauces done simmering, place the green beans into the pan and toss to coat. Remove from heat and let sit for the moment. Combine bread crumbs, or rice crumbs (is that what you call them?), in a small mixing bowl. This next part of the recipe will kind of be like ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’…

- If you’ve been using an oven safe frying pan, sprinkle bread crumb mixture on top of the sauce-coated beans. Pop into the oven for 15 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and the topping looks crisp.

- If your frying pan is not oven safe, transfer beans and sauce to prepared baking dish, top with bread crumb mixture and bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and the topping looks crisp.

Yes, I am aware that this was not nearly as exciting as a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story…

Once the beans are done baking, serve, piping hot, to the table. Best served with hyacinth macaw. In lieu of that, some simple roasted chicken will do!

Serves 3-4

Total cook time…35 min

Top Chef Canada premieres tonight, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, on Food Network Canada. Head to FoodNetwork.ca after the show to help decide which dish from the season two premiere episode I have to recreate this week. Remember, do not vote for the hard ones!

Orange Chocolate Walnut Biscuits

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Something Sweet     baking, biscuits, chocolate, dessert, quick and easy, recipes

What you’ll need…

2 cups flour

1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup walnuts (loosely chopped)

1 TBSP orange zest

2 TSP cinnamon

3 TSP baking powder

1 TSP salt

1/2 cup butter (chilled, 1/2″ cubed)

1 cup milk

2 TSP vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 egg (for egg wash, optional)

I’m not much of a baker. So, when I ‘bake’, I make biscuits. They’re simple and consistently delicious no matter what you decide to fold into them. Since I’m not much of a baker, I don’t often excel in the dessert category of awesomeness. These orange biscuits are just sweet enough and can pass as a delicious dessert if you slice them in half, add a dollop of whipped cream and some orange slices (from the orange you zested for the recipe, peel to pulp cooking, right?). One day I’ll learn to make a one-of-a-kind cake or something…I promise…Until then, enjoy this biscuit-y goodness I guess?

So, this recipe will be easier to make than your bed. Unless you have a really complicated linens system…Start by preheating your oven to 425 degrees. Place the first 7 ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Whisk to combine. Add the chunks of butter and loosely mix in with your hands.

Next, mix the milk, vanilla and sugar together in a separate bowl, stir until sugar dissolves. Pour the mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix together with a spoon, or by hand, until a dough forms. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and form into a circle-esque shape, 2″ thick. Slice into 12 pieces and place onto a prepared baking sheet. Brush the top of each piece of dough with the egg wash and let bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the biscuits start to brown.

Let cool slightly before eating, however hard that may be…

As previously mentioned, slice in half, add a spoonful of whipped cream, some orange slices, and you have yourself a simple, ‘rustic’ if you will, dessert. Happy eating!

Yields 12 biscuits

Total cook time…20 min

Top Secret Smokey Tomato And Chorizo Soup

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Recipes     calgary, chorizo, comfort food, delicious, recipes, soup, winter

What you’ll need…

1/2 pound chorizo sausage

1 yellow onion (finely chopped)

2 cloves garlic (minced)

2 cups crushed tomatoes

3 cups chicken broth

1 russet potato (1/2″ cubed, approximately 1 1/2 cups)

1 TBSP lapsang souchong tea (ground or crushed with a mortor and pestle)

1 TSP chili powder

1 TSP paprika

1 TSP cayenne pepper

1 meyer lemon (zest and juice)

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup harvarti cheese (grated)

2 cups fresh spinach

salt and pepper

olive oil

As I’m typing this, inside my house, away from the -30 degree (celsius for any Americans reading this!) weather, I’m fairly happy to be back home in Calgary. Shortly after Christmas, I departed from Canada for a three week adventure in the United Kingdom and Denmark. On this adventure I encountered delicious food, more pubs than you could shake a stick at and, of course, Hogwarts…but I digress, these are all stories for another day.

Today it is cold. Really, really damn cold. When it’s cold, all I want to do is wear my sweatpants, my TMNT bunnyhug and sip some soup. So, I did just that. I had some lapsang souchong tea kicking around the house and since I hadn’t used tea in a recipe since the summer, I thought its smokey flavour fit the bill perfectly for a tomato and chorizo style soup. I know it must sound weird reading through the ingredient listings…tea, lemon, cream, but, trust me, it all works! If you don’t trust me, then I dare you to make a liar out of me.

Time to cook! Place the sausage in a large pot, drizzle with some olive oil and cook on medium-high heat until it is completely cooked through, about 5 minutes. Spoon out the cooked meat and cooking oil, leaving just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pot. Now, toss in the onions, minced garlic and let cook until the onions soften, another 5 minutes or so. Next, add the following seven ingredients to the pot as well as the juice of the meyer lemon. Once the mixture starts to bubble, reduce to low heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.

On a side note, take a big whiff of your soup after stirring in those ingredients. Doesn’t the lapsang souchong tea make it smell amazing? Smokey deliciousness here we come!

(In the meantime…tidy up your living room! I know it’s messy…)

 After that time, the chunks of potato should be, at the very least, fork tender. If that’s the case, let the lemon zest, cream, shredded cheese and spinach join the soup party. You can now return the cooked sausage to the pot as well. Give the pot a good stir until the cheese melts away into nothingness and you’re left with a thick, rich-tasting soup. Let the soup cook for another 10 minutes. Finally, take a sip, season with salt and pepper to taste and you’re done! Bam!

Serves 4-5

Total cook time…40 min

Rosemary Mushroom Pate with Homemade Cranberry Crackers

Dan    Appetizers & Co., Recipes, Vegan     appetizers, crackers, delicious, mushrooms, pate, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

What you’ll need…

Pate:

1 yellow onion (finely chopped)

3 garlic cloves

1 cup crimini mushrooms (quartered)

1 cup white mushrooms (quartered)

2 portabella mushrooms (loosely chopped)

1 TBSP red wine vinegar

1/4 cup sundried tomatoes

2 TBSP fresh rosemary (chopped)

1 cup vegetable stock

1 cup bread crumbs

salt and pepper

Crackers:

3 cups flour

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1 TBSP fresh rosemary

2 TSP sea salt

1 cup warm water

1/3 cup olive oil

Poor little vegans…They’re always overlooked in a holiday season full of buttery baking, roasts, turkeys and bacon-wrapped appetizers. Never fear, for I have got your back! This is an ideal dish for a holiday party whether or not your friends are vegan/vegetarian. Whenever I’m at a Christmas party, I tend to overindulge in any spreadable mixture that happens to be available on the table. And, besides, you’ve never really lived until you’ve tasted a delicious mushroom pate!

Start off by placing the chopped onion in a large pan. Drizzle with some olive oil and cook on medium-high heat until they start to caramelize, about 10-12 minutes. Next, add the garlic, three kinds of mushrooms and vinegar to the pan. Give the pan a good sprinkling of salt and pepper and let the mixture cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the time’s up, remove from heat to cool slightly.

Pour the mushroom mixture into a blender or food processor and add all remaining ingredients. Puree until smooth. Salt and pepper to taste, then place in a covered container in the fridge to chill. (this can be made several days in advance)

Moving swiftly along to the crackers…Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Combine the first four ingredients in a bowl. Pour in the water and olive oil and mix with a spoon until a soft dough forms (Note: an electric mixer, i.e. KitchenAid, makes short work of this task!). Take the dough out of the bowl and place onto a floured surface, then knead it a few times. Cut into ten even sections and roll each out until they’re nice and thin.

Place on some prepared baking trays, brush with olive oil and let them bake for 15 minutes, or until the crackers are crisp, starting to brown on the edges. Feel free to make whichever size of cracker you please. I tend to err on the side of larger, as it looks more rustic to my guests, but less work for me! Now that’s a win/win!

Once the pate is nice and chilled, scoop some into a bowl and serve with your beautifully rustic crackers. Done and done!

Yields 4 cups of pate

Total cook time…45 min (not including chill time)