Cafe World Challenge Week 49

It's been over a month since my last post, but I've been VERY busy in my blog absence. We're moving in August so I've been busy getting the house ready for listing. A good friend of ours is our realtor and she's been helping me pack away all the excess stuff and stage our home beautifully. I am now absolutely besotted with the house again, at least we still get to stay in the 'new and improved' version for a few more months. While I've been working I've still fed my family and have 4 more Cafe World dishes to report. That means according to my final list...... I am DONE with my Cafe World Challenge. It was a self-imposed challenge to add a weekly component to my blog and keep it active, but now that it's done I'll try to keep posting, I'm a VERY slow sewist and I'm trying to not dominate my blog with excessive cooking stuff. My cutting table and my patterns and fabric have been packed away so I might be limited to the amount of sewing I can do in the next weeks. Hopefully the house gets sold quickly and I can move some of my sewing essentials back into the house. I'm still cooking yummy stuff, so you'll get a recipe here and there if there's time and definitely a post showing the house photos for the listing. I LOVE the way it looks now. I don't have before photos for every room, just the messiest ie. the sewing/computer room.

Anyway Happy Easter to everyone and on to the LAST Cafe World dishes.

GRAND TANDOORI CHICKEN

I love Indian food. Need I say more. So even if this recipe was bad, it would have been great to me. But my husband seems to think it was good too, so it might be worthy of sharing. Tandoori chicken is grilled chicken marinated yogurt and spices. It can be prepared in a traditional tandoor clay oven or just grilled in the oven or on the barbecue. It usually has a red or orange colour, but mine came out a little more yellow. I used only ingredients I had at home so it was an experiment, but I do have a very well stocked spice collection.

Tandoori Chicken

1 lb (500g) chicken breasts
1 large onion, finely chopped

Marinade:

3 tbsp lemon juice
1 3/4 cup plain fat free yogurt
2 tbsp ground coriander
2 tbsp turmeric powder
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp crushed/minced ginger
1 tbsp crushed/minced garlic

Combine all the ingredients for the marinade and add the onion. Wash and dry the chicken and using a sharp knife cut diagonal slits into the chicken breasts.Place the chicken in the marinade mixture and rub into the chicken. Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours, turning occasionally. Preheat the grill. Place on a grill tray in the oven and grill for 20 -30 minutes or until done. It can also be prepared on a barbecue.

IRISH STEW

Cafe World's Irish Stew was made with beef, but if I wanted to be traditional I think I should have rather used lamb. An Irish stew definitely needs potatoes, so I added those and I debated about using Guinness, which I've done before, but I was making this in the crock pot and it was still too early for the liquor store to be open, so the decision was made.

"Irish Stew"

2 lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp paprika
4 carrots sliced
3 potatoes diced
1 onion chopped
1 celery stalk sliced

Put meat in stone ware. Mix flour, salt and pepper and pour over the meat and stir to coat. Add remaining ingredients and stir to mix well. Cover and cook on LOW for 10 hours (or HIGH for 6). Stir before serving.

I LOVE stew, I think I've mentioned this before. A good meal which I served with Pumpkin Scones RECIPE HERE.

BEEF WELLINGTON

I also love Beef Wellington, a very English dish consisting of a beef fillet wrapped in puff pastry with a layer of pâté and/or mushrooms.

I love chicken livers and I bought a delicious pâté topped with crushed black pepper from my local deli..awesome on its own, but unbelievable in this dish. I used Martha Stewarts's version. Très magnifique!!!

My husband was skeptical of the description, but wholeheartedly enjoyed this one.

GEM CAKE

I finally used Fondant, and it was so very easy. I initially balked at the price of the tub ($18) but I only used about a 1/3 so I'll get a few more cakes out of it. I could've made my own but didn't want to be scared off by icing that didn't turn out well. I admit I spent quite a while watching demonstration videos on YouTube just to be certain and then I took the plunge. To replicate the look of the Gem cake I used a light moss green fondant, but instead of gems I opted to make a Spring/Easter cake for our dinner at my in-laws today. So I made little "flowers" with the Easter pastel shade smarties in the centre. The cake inside is just box Devil's Food Cake.

Progress: 88/88, ALL DONE

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Cafe World Challenge Week 45

We had a great Cafe World inspired dish this week, Chicken Adobo. I don't know how authentic the version was, but it tasted great. Like the stew in the previous post, my boys loved it.

I'm still pondering how to make an affordable Unbirthday cake. I could really cheat and say since it's no one's birthday and its a cake, it's an Unbirthday cake, but I don't think so. I investigated using fondant for decorating the stacked cakes, but it was $18 for each coloured tub and the multicolour packs with smaller quantities to cut out shapes and decorate is $11. What I might do is use coloured butter cream frosting and then use the $11 fondant to add stripes and shapes. Since I am expending lots of energy on the decorating I bought two boxes of devil's food cake to make the process a little simpler.

Anyway...back to the Chicken.

CHICKEN ADOBO

Here in North America, if you hear Adobo you think Mexican, which it is too. But this version is the Filipino version. Read the wikipedia entry for the detailed explanation.

Basically the Filipino version is meat simmered in vinegar. My husband grimaced at the thought, but ended up really liking it. My only change to the recipe I would make in future is to use reduced sodium soy sauce. Since you're using a whole cup, it was a touch too salty for my liking. The other great thing about the recipe, for me at least, was that it used pretty standard pantry staples. I only needed to buy the chicken and sprite (which is optional anyway). The sprite is suggested to sweeten up the tangy sauce. I used it because I knew it would bubble up the sauce when added and I figured my son who sometimes helps me in the kitchen would get a kick out of it. He thought it was really cool. Although I think he liked his little glass of sprite better, my kids are still little and I don't let them drink pop, so it was a treat. The bubbles in pop or even carbonated water seem to wreck havoc on his poor tummy though and he usually ends up with tummy cramps, so he told me, "mom I can't have too much I don't want my tummy to hurt." SMART LITTLE BOY!!

Okay so enough chatter, click here to get the recipe on Cooks.com

Up Next: I'm hoping to get an Unbirthday cake done.

Progress: 79/86

* Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property.

Cafe World Challenge Week 44

I went for some Greek inspired fare this week....Chicken Gyros and Fries.

CHICKEN GYROS

Usually Gyros are made from meat that has been skewered and slow cooked and then sliced when needed. I'm not able to do this at home, so I just marinated sliced chicken breast and added some of the usual fillings.

Recipe:

1 lb chicken breast sliced (450-500g)
olive oil
1/2 tsp oregano
2 tsp Greek seasoning ( I used Epicure Selections' version)
1 red onion thinly sliced
2 tomatoes chopped
black pepper to taste
Juice of a lemon
warmed pita breads
Shredded lettuce
Tzatziki sauce

Drizzle chicken with olive oil and add the oregano and Greek seasoning. Mix to coat chicken. Allow it to marinate for a half hour.
Heat a little oil and stir fry the chicken till it's cooked.
Toss together onion, tomatoes, pepper and lemon juice. Split the pita breads, stuff with lettuce and tomato mix and top with chicken and Tzatziki sauce.
Enjoy!!

I didn't make my own sauce, I just bought a fresh deli version. Those who know me well, know that I don't touch a cucumber and absolutely won't cut into one either. It's something to do with the smell and the taste. I've just never liked them.

Progress: 78/86

Next up: no idea, but I am making Loco Moco again tonight.

* Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property.

Cafe World Challenge Week 41

I'm back in the kitchen. Did I ever leave? No not really, I just took off a week posting while travelling around visiting family over Christmas. Since I have two weeks worth of dishes to report on, this post will be longer than usual. I finished up four more dishes to cross off the list, although one is a new addition.

PITA AND DOLMAS

The Cafe World version has a pita stuffed with Falafel and Dolmas. I have previously made Falafel for the challenge, so I made Tabbouleh instead. It is a fantastic salad made from Bulgar wheat, tomatoes, green onions, parsley and mint with an olive oil and lemon juice dressing. I make it pretty regularly and just estimate quantities and taste. I found a recipe on SimplyRecipes.com which is pretty much exactly how I make mine. So check it out there, it would save me typing it all out.

I've never made dolmas/dolmadas/stuffed grape leaves/stuffed vine leaves...whatever you call them. I've always enjoyed them though and had fun making them. I was in the middle of a biscotti baking marathon for a cookie tray fundraiser, so I chose a crockpot recipe to keep pots off my stove and out of the way of the baking. They turned out great. I made this recipe on the Blog "A Year of Slow Cooking" . This blog is a great resource for crockpot recipes and tips. The year involved was 2008, but the blog is still kept current with new recipes and crockpot related posts. These dolmas are stuffed with a rice and ground lamb and turkey (I used chicken) mixture. Once you get the hang of it, the stuffing and rolling of the leaves is quite easy and fast. I still have a big jar of leaves left so I'll probably make these again.

ATOMIC BUFFALO WINGS

I used a Betty Crocker recipe, it was simple enough except for the whole deep frying in batches thing which takes forever if you don't have a great big pot or deep fryer. It is fried in a seasoned flour and then tossed in a hot butter sauce. I set aside some wings for the kids before coating mine in sauce, it was spicy but not atomic. My husband's were probably ATOMIC as he made up his own dipping sauce using all the remnants of his hot sauces. He loves HOT sauce and the hotter the better. I dipped mine in some yummy chunky blue cheese dressing.

WALDORF SALAD

As my regular readers know, I didn't grow up in North America so I am only vaguely aware of what constitutes a Waldorf salad. The Cafe World game had you gathering walnuts, celery and lettuce and I knew there had to be apples in there. So I came up with my own version, although after further investigation I suppose you couldn't really call mine a Waldorf salad at all. It doesn't have grapes or raisins and isn't in a mayonnaise dressing. But what the hell, no apologies, mine was good, better than good, it was superb!! After using a blue cheese dressing the night before for the wings, I got a craving for some good blue cheese.  So this is my version:

Jen's Apple & Walnut Salad:

A bag or about 12 handfuls of mixed salad greens
2 stalks celery sliced
1 small green apple cored and thinly sliced
1 small red apple cored and thinly sliced
1/4 cup walnut crumbs
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
Vinaigrette or dressing of choice (I used a zesty Italian)

Toss together greens, celery and apple. Sprinkle with walnuts and blue cheese.

BLOOD SAUSAGE

I bought a package of blood pudding and cooked it up with some mash and butternut. I remember blood pudding from my childhood. My dad would buy it and I remember enjoying it and considered it a special treat. I haven't eaten it since then and couldn't even remember what to expect. It was good-ish, although it is very rich and I think it should be eaten in small quantities. No recipe here, just a dish to cross off the list.

CAFE WORLD COOKBOOK ADDITIONS

I unlocked the Waldorf Salad and there is also a new cake - Gem Cake.

Next Up: I'm making Kung Pao Stir Fry this weekend.

Progress: 75/86

Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Cafe World Challenge Week 34

He won!!!! Our mayor got elected for his third term and I am now relaxing after the hectic campaign and an awesome victory.
This is also a busy weekend with both Halloween and a Ball my husband and I are attending out of town. I've had a lovely day getting my hair done, having lunch with hubbie and buying some va-va voom shoes (the blue ones) for the ball. If I remember I'll post a pic from the ball and the kid's cute halloween outfits next week.

Back to cooking, I completed two dishes: the Crackling "Peking" Duck and Chicken Pot Pie.

CRACKLING "PEKING" DUCK

You'll notice the scare quotes around Peking, that is because this version isn't exactly Peking Duck, according to Joy Of Cooking, where the recipe was found, "with its crispy, lacquered-looking skin, this is similar to the famous Pekin duck but requires much less time and effort."

Real Peking Duck have ducks specially raised for the dish and have air blown between the skin and fat to separate. They are also hung while cooked in a special oven. Real more in this Wikipedia entry.

For those that have the Joy Of Cooking cookbook, I used the recipe for Chinese Roast Duck, found on pg 448 of my 75th anniversary edition. I cannot find a recipe online the same as the one I used, but I'll give a brief outline, otherwise go buy the book or get it from the library.

Chinese Roast Duck:
Bring a pan of water with soy sauce and honey to the boil. Place duck in solution for 1 minute, ensuring to coat the whole duck. Remove, pat dry and place on a rack over a baking sheet, uncovered in the the fridge overnight. This dries it out.
The roasting process takes place on a V-rack over a roasting pan. Roast at 425 F for 20 min, turn over and roast again for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, reduce heat to 350 F. Prick duck skin all over, careful not to pierce the meat. Brush the duck with a mixture containing: orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, honey and 5-spice powder.
Roast again for 20 minutes, turn over and brush again. Repeat twice more turning, brushing and roasting.
Let rest and serve.

The mixture really gives the duck a fantastic flavour and the skin is crispy and the dish was overall very delicious. It was a huge hit, especially hubbie loved it....he'd turned down duck the night before in a great Quebec city restaurant, because I'd warned him I'd be making it. He said it was worth it.

CHICKEN POT PIE

I made this one the night before the election with the intent that the family could eat the leftovers when I was working election day and night. They ended up having cereal....silly boys, but thank goodness they had good pizza and pasta at the victory party later that night so they got some decent food in and I then didn't need to cook the next day when I was super tired. My James seemed to really like it as he requested it for breakfast and wanted some for school and told his teachers about it. He was really disappointed when it was done, I should make it again soon.

Recipe:

1 can condensed chicken broth (10 oz)
About 1 1/2 cups sliced carrot
1 1/2 cups diced red potato (I think it was 2 or 3)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups white mushrooms quartered
1 onion chopped
1 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup flour
2 1/2 cups cooked diced chicken, 2 large breasts
1 defrosted unbaked piecrust/ puff pastry enough for a 10 inch piecrust

Preheat oven to 425F
Combine broth, 1 cup water and carrots and potatoes in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for about 10 minutes.
Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat and saute onions and mushrooms until softened. Add to broth mixture. Add peas.
To thicken: whisk together flour with equal amount of water (1/3 cup) to form a paste. Whisk into vegetables. Turn up heat to medium high and bring to a boil. Add chicken.
Roll out piecrust on a floured surface. Roll it out to overhang the pie-dish using. I used a 10 inch pie-dish.
Transfer chicken and veg mixture to the pie-dish. Place crust over filling, trim and flute edge. Cut a hole in centre using a cookie cutter. (I used a cute pie crust cutter set, featuring Fall designs..my son chose the pumpkin for this pie)
Bake until filling is bubbly and the crust browned, about 20 minutes.

I had some leftover pie dough, so I like to roll it out, put some blobs of my favourite jam and fold it over and voila, a dessert too.

CAFE WORLD COOKBOOK ADDITIONS

I unlocked Caramel Corn after the Halloween catering event, so that will be added to my master list.

Up Next: I need some sweetness, so Angel Fruit Cake it will be.

Progress: 62/83

Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Cafe World Challenge Week 31

Another week has rolled by and I still haven't posted about my Expo visit, but I have been sewing. I've picked up some of my UFO (unfinished objects) dresses from my SWAP plan and been fitting in a few seams here and there.

On the cooking front I made beans again this week, it really seems to please my husband..he loves beans, but you know the problem with too many beans!!! I think I will lay off them for a bit. I made a big pot and made a tamale pie for use on Monday and made tamales as well and then froze them and they were eaten on Thursday night. Tuesday was leftover Tamale pie and Wednesday for a change I made Spaghetti Carbonara. I'm really trying to be better at multi-function dishes, as I'm  finding that making a full meal from scratch every night is really hard now that I'm not home all day. I had some chicken carcasses in the freezer, so I made a batch of chicken stock on Sunday night and used some to make the masa dough for the tamale pie and tamales, as well as for the spaghetti dish. I also now have some lovely stock in the freezer for use with the stuffing and gravy for the Thanksgiving turkey this weekend. Making homemade stock is super simple, just load chicken carcass with some meat attached into the crock pot with whatever vegetables you have on hand and cook long on low. When I woke up in the morning the house smelt fragrant and yummy and the stock just had to be strained and cooled. I wrote down the ingredients for this batch, so I will share after the tamale recipes.

VEGETARIAN TAMALES (and Tamale Pie)

This recipe can be broken into two parts, the filling and the masa dough. Since the Cafe World version is vegetarian, I opted to make mine with beans, but ground meat, chicken or anything else is great too.

Filling:

1/2 large onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup frozen corn
28 oz (796ml) canned tomato
1/2 bell pepper
2 19oz (540ml) cans beans, I used red kidney and black beans
chilli powder, to taste
oregano and cumin, about a tsp each
1/4 cup black olives
salt and pepper

Cook onion and garlic until softened. Add diced bell pepper, cook for two minutes. Add rest of ingredients and simmer over medium heat for 15-20 minutes.

Masa dough:

2 cups masa (I used Maseca brand)
2 cups warm chicken broth or water
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup lard or shortening
2 tsp chilli powder (optional)

Combine masa, baking powder, salt and chili powder, add broth and combine with fingers or a fork. In a separate bowl, beat lard/shortening till fluffy. Add to masa mix and beat till it has a spongy texture.

Tamale Pie:

Place filling into a casserole dish and top with masa dough. Bake at 350F until masa topping browns slightly and filling bubbles. You can top with some grated cheese during the last minutes of baking.

Tamales:

Soak dried corn husks in water to soften and then dry. Spread some masa dough on husk and top with a line of the topping. Fold over husks, encapsulating the filling in the dough and tie with kitchen twine or whatever will work for you. A few tricks I learnt here...using the bigger corn husks works better or you might need to use two husks to cover a tamale, use your hand to form and flatten the dough on the husk, it seemed to work better for me. Let your filling cool a bit before working with it, I found mine was initially too hot and was melting the shortening in the dough and made things really difficult. My tamales weren't pretty as you can see in the photo, but they tasted great and that counts more in my opinion.

I read that tamales freeze really well, so I placed mine in the freezer and steamed them two nights later from the frozen state. I used a bamboo steamer in a few inches of water in a pan. You need to keep adding water as you will steam the tamales for about 90 minutes. Open and enjoy!!

Chicken stock recipe:

1 lb chicken carcass
1 large onion quartered with skin on
4 carrots washed and cut in 4
1 garlic clove
small handful of black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
few sprigs of fresh parsley
water to fill crock pot and cover ingredients

Place all ingredients in a large crock pot, cover with water and cook on low for 10 hours to 24 hours. I either make at night and strain the next morning or I make in the morning and strain at night. I use a cheesecloth lined sieve over a large bowl to strain my broth, I then let it cool and usually fill a few ice trays, for smaller quantities of broth for sauces or I have 1 litre containers for larger quantities for soups.

Next up: It is Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, have a great weekend Canadian readers, so I will share a stuffed turkey and I made Vampire Staked Steak tonight, so that will be included as well.

Progress: 56/80

 Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Cafe World Challenge Week 23

This week was a one pan dish of awesomeness (yes I know that's not a word). I made Paella, but with a twist.



Seafood Paella

I've been watching the Martha Stewart show archives on the Internet. The shows are broken onto the segments, it's great because I can watch the segments that interest me and skip the others. I found her show on her South African visit interesting and she made one of my South African favourites, Bobotie, I suppose I should make it and post the recipe sometime. Martha's version is a bit different to mine though. Okay so I digressed a little, in my wanderings and watchings on her site I came across the video and recipe for Mexican Paella (click the photo for the video).

The Mexican elements are the poblano pepper, fire roasted canned tomato and Mexican chorizo sausage. The traditional Spanish version would have dry cured chorizo sausage and saffron. I had difficulty finding poblano pepper and fire roasted canned tomato, so instead I used canned chipotle peppers with some of the sauce washed off and regular canned tomatoes. The chipotle peppers added a bit more heat than the milder poblanos would have, but they gave the smoky fire-roasted taste. I could also not find Mexican chorizo, so I used regular Spanish dry chorizo. I used large green New Zealand mussels and they were great too. Oh and I didn't want to buy a whole bottle of tequila for just two tablespoons, so that didn't go in either, and NO I wouldn't drink the rest, my tequila days are long gone.

The resulting fusion of flavour was perfect......give it a try!!!!




Up next: I thought I'd put together some Fish Tacos.

Progress: 46/76


Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Cafe World Challenge Week 19

I finally made the lobster, I've been planning this for 6 weeks, but since I didn't want the shells in the garbage in this heat, it left me with one day in the week it could be made. The stars and our schedule finally aligned. I also made a yummy chicken recipe this week.

I'm also making corned beef from scratch. My husband thinks I'm crazy, but I had a brisket to use and I would've needed to specially order corned beef and it doesn't come cheap. So my fridge has a big crock pot with a hunk of meat brining, unfortunately my whole fridge now also smells of the garlic in the brine. The meat should be done in 2.5 weeks and I'll cook it up then. I'll share the brining process in another post.

I also have my sushi class coming up next week, which also includes other Japanese cuisine. Mmmm should be good.






Lemon Butter Lobster

I took my son shopping for the lobsters and he had a blast, the lady at the seafood counter was a little grouchy, so didn't appreciate my 4 year old telling her the ins and outs of lobsters. He gets a "Lobstering" DVD from the library at least once a month and has all the info stored in his little, yet huge, brain. Unfortunately he has a seafood sensitivity so couldn't eat any, but he did get to choose the alternative and was happy with pizza.

When it came to actually putting the lobsters in the boiling water, I left that to my hubbie, not that I'm squeamish about doing it, but I didn't trust myself with wriggling things with big claws and boiling water. I have some rather serious clumsiness issues.

I can't remember how long I cooked the bugs, maybe 5-7 minutes, but they turned out just great.

I'll share the recipe for the Lemon Butter dipping sauce, which is great with all forms of seafood or fish, but not so great for the figure.

Lemon Garlic Butter for Seafood

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
5 cloves garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt
fresh parsley

Melt the butter, add the garlic and lightly saute. Squeeze in the lemon juice and add the olive oil. Turn the heat to low and simmer until the lobster is ready. Add salt to taste and chopped fresh parsley. I serve mine in a little ramekin for dipping, but it would also work for baking fish or seafood.




BBQ Chicken

I saw this recipe in an email from Kraft Kitchens and since I had some of their BBQ sauce in the fridge, I tried it out. I grilled mine in the oven since we don't own a barbecue (not my decision) and it turned out great. The flavour was awesome and the chicken was tender. I think I also did a good job of jointing a whole chicken. That was kinda fun!!!

Find the recipe here.



Cafe World Cookbook Changes

Super Sliders are out.....Vegetarian Tamales are in.

Up Next: Sushi Class and Beef still corning.

Progress: 38/71

Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property

Easy Chicken Teriyaki

I have a number of dishes that I classify as my go-to dishes in various situations. Spaghetti and store bought sauce is my "I'm hungry and have no time" dinner. Store bought soup is the standby for the kids when I prepare very spicy food or shellfish, which James has a sensitivity toward ie. he throws up uncontrollably for hours afterward. When I have veggies in the fridge that need to get used up before they spoil, I do a stir-fry and if I have chicken in the freezer, I turn that stir-fry into Chicken Teriyaki.

The Teriyaki part is complements of Epicure Selection's Teriyaki Seasoning. I adore Epicure's products!! No I am not a consultant, but a friend of mine in Quebec was and I attended a number of tasting parties and hosted a few as well. I now buy the products from a local consultant and keep the catalogue and monthly specials handy. The products are of great quality and don't have all the excess salt and preservatives sometimes found in other spice mixes. They also have good kitchen and cleaning products. They're a Canadian company and you can buy through a local consultant or order online. Enough of that...you'll see me use many more of their products along the way. Back to the recipe.

Chicken Teriyaki

Chicken cut into 1 inch cubes
assorted veggies sliced or diced
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp VE Teriyaki seasoning or another brand
2 tsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp soy sauce

Mix seasoning with soy sauce and sugar. Marinade chicken in mixture in fridge or if pressed for time just add the teriyaki sauce mixture straight to the cooked chicken.
Cook chicken in preheated oil until cooked through. Set aside. Stir-fry vegetables in same pan and cook till done. Combine with cooked chicken, heat through and serve with rice.



In the photo above, I used carrot, onion and zucchini. I have onion, red & yellow peppers and mushroom in the fridge now so that will probably be used tonight. I sometimes also add garlic and fresh ginger, although I think they are already in the seasoning. This meal is healthy, easy and my family loves it.

Cafe World Challenge Week 9

It has been nine weeks already and I'm about a third the way through the Cafe World Cookbook. I've realised that some weeks are really slow, like this one, with only one dish completed and other weeks I'm able to do more cooking. I try to do at least one of the dishes early in the week, usually on a Sunday, so that I can show some progress by Friday. This week has been particularly difficult as I've simply not been eating at home.

My husband is the Commanding Officer of the Naval unit in the city and this week was the 100th anniversary of our Canadian Navy, so we have been VERY busy. We usually attend about 2 formal dinners a month and have a few other events scattered in between. But this last week has been CRAZY. We've attended three formal dinners this week and have another next week and we've also had the naval parades during the day. Not that I'm complaining, it sure is fun getting dressed up and having delicious dinners served to you and meeting very interesting people, but this girl really needs a little downtime and little boys don't let mamma sleep in. So here's to hoping that Mamma gets some rest on Mothers Day and I can get back to making more of the Cafe World Meals.

Although I had a hectic week I did manage to make one Indian inspired dish.



Tikka Masala Kabobs

By far my favourite cuisine is Indian and I make Indian food quite often. I don't think this dish is very authentic, but it has the flavours I love.

Recipe

2 chicken breasts cut into 1 inch cubes
1 each red and green peppers cut into 1 inch squares
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp minced ginger
1/4 tsp chili powder
6 skewers


If using bamboo skewers, soak in water for a few hours to prevent them getting too charred.
Mix all ingredients, except the chicken and peppers, together and pour over chicken in a shallow dish. Coat chicken and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to marinate.
Thread chicken and peppers alternatively onto skewers.
Grill for about 10 minutes or until chicken is done.




New Cafe World dishes

Stuffed Mushrooms have been added. I haven't made the game dish yet, so I'm not sure what the CW version is stuffed with, but these are always yummy.

Progress: 22/61

Next up: I'll attempt King Crab Bisque, might be a little less Kingly (is that a word?) and a little more homestyle. I've also been looking for a Basic Sushi making class, as I'd rather not buy all the ingredients for the Sushi Spread myself. It would be easier and more fun for me to prepare this in a class setting. The earliest class I've found is only in July, but I'll keep looking.

* Disclaimer: Image owned by Zynga. This site is not owned by Zynga. This site is not the owner of the intellectual property.

Cafe World Challenge Week 6

I had my most productive week yet, finishing 5 dishes. A successful repeat, a Chinese New Year dish, a dessert and two chicken dishes.



French Onion Soup

I tried this one in week 2 and was disappointed by the result. I had a bag of onions to finish, so I gave it another try. I used the same recipe as before, but this time I got the onions caramelized, used commercial beef broth and added snipped chives at the end.

It worked!!! Hubbie liked it (no references to onions in water), James actually had two huge bowls and I had the leftovers the next day for lunch.

Failure is nothing but the step to success in this case.



White Radish Cake

I'd made bread the night before (see previous post) and my house smelled divine...well it pretty much reeked after this dish.

I should've looked at the steps in the Cafe World game, because it seemed that they used bacon instead of the horribly stinky dried shrimp in my recipe. I suppose using bacon is very westernized. In my post-cooking analysis I also found a vegetarian version in my Vegetarian Thai cookbook.

I used this White Radish Cake recipe. It provides great descriptions and step by step photos.

My other problem with this dish was the steaming then frying. My cake seemed like a jellied mush and getting it out the steamer and then fried was a mess.

Although I really did enjoy getting to browse through my local Asian food store, I think I'll stick to eating this in restaurants.




Triple Berry Cheesecake

The Cafe World version has only strawberries, but done three ways: sliced, diced & pureed. My version has strawberry and wildberry swirls and is topped with strawberries and raspberries.

I went to the CookingwithPhilly.ca website and scoured their abundant resource of cheesecake recipes and settled for the New York Style Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake. I've made a few of their cheesecake (and other) recipes and have always had great results. I used half strawberry and half wildberry jam for the swirls and substituted one of the three cream cheese packages with the reduced fat version.

This cheesecake didn't last long...it was a hit with the whole family. Actually I don't think I've met a cheesecake I didn't like. ;)




Spitfire Roasted Chicken

Roast chicken is a classic and I love to make different versions. I'm not sure about Spitfire Chicken, as suggested by Cafe World, it kind of has images of chickens roasting on a spit over a fire, but I decided to go classic and used lemon like the Cafe World version.

Roast Chicken Recipe

1 whole fresh chicken
1 lemon
2 sprigs rosemary or thyme
olive oil or melted butter
salt & pepper

Rinse the chicken and pat dry with a paper towel. Prick lemon all over. I find a wooden skewer works well. Place lemon and herbs in chicken cavity and truss chicken.
I then rub the outside with the oil or butter and then season with salt and pepper.
Roast at 350F for 20 minutes per pound. I usually check the breast with a meat thermometer to make sure it's at 180F. I let it rest for 10 minutes before I carve (or I ask my husband to do it).

I added white wine to the pan drippings, let it boil and added a little flour & had an easy gravy.



Voodoo Chicken Salad

This was my delicious find of the week. I wanted to use the leftover chicken from the roast, but it seems the leftovers "disappeared" from the fridge. I did a web search for Voodoo Chicken Salad to get some ideas and found this recipe on Cooks.com.

On reading the recipe, I thought there was a lot going on with that dressing, just too many flavours, but I'll attest that it is superb. I little bit spicy and sweet. I used walnut oil instead of the sesame/olive oil in the recipe.

I'll definitely make this again....give it a try.



New Cafe World recipes

Two more dishes have been added: Vegas Buffet and Sirius Sorbet



Progress: 17/61

Up Next: Not sure, check in next week.


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