Barbecued Sweet Potato Fries!

Is everyone as pumped as I am that BBQ season has started??? Food just tastes better BBQ'd. I didn't make the rules, I just follow them. When I was cooking some burgers last weekend, I thought well what goes with burgers? Fries of course, silly. That answer was obvious. Looking at my potato bin (which is really a grocery bag with a few scraggles of last years potatoes, with their gross sprouting tentacles growing through the bag), I decided to use some nice fresh sweet potatoes (aka yams - I've grown tired with this debate, now I consider these vegetables interchangeable in name, even though I know they're not). Anyways, on that hot spring day, I made up some delicious burgs with sweet potato fries on the BBQ and they turned out delicious! Perfectly soft on the inside, with a nice crispy outside.

BBQ'd Sweet Potato Fries

Chop up 1 large sweet potato into fries-looking pieces, put them in a microwavable bowl.

Mix some olive oil into it (a couple twirls around the bowl full of fries).

Add generous amounts of seasoning salt, garlic powder, pepper, and a few sprinkles of thyme.

Add 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Mix all this well, and pop it in the microwave for 7-10 minutes until fries are pretty well cooked.

Toss them into a grill basket (so you don't lose any through the grate) and place on the BBQ. Grill over low heat, stirring frequently so they don't get too crispy!

Tip 1) These have oil in them, oil + flame = FIRE!!! Stir frequently to avoid charring and have some oven mitts handy to remove grill basket from BBQ if catches on fire.

Tip 2) Pour fries into grill basket and THEN place on grill, not the other way around. Flames will grow very tall and may even leave black smoky evidence on the mixing bowl you used to transfer them in. Significant other may question you about this at a later date and you will have to come up with some clever excuse. Just avoid this all together. Saves on arm hair too.

Beef Pot Roast with Really Good Gravy

I have infinite love for my slow cooker. It takes zero effort to make a fabulous meal that everyone will rave about for minutes to hours to days (depending on how good of a food memory these people have). But seriously, meat + slowcooker = tender melt in your mouth yet fully cooked heaven. I found a recipe on canadianliving.com (of course) for beef pot roast with really good gravy - and this is the kicker. I kid you not, this recipe exists with this exact title. I've made it exactly as the Beef Pot Roast with Really Good Gravy recipe says to and I've also made quick and easy substitutions.

Here's how to make this recipe even quicker and easier... instead of slicing up all the onions yourself, use some Liptons Onion Soup Mix! (EASY!) and instead of spending all your time chopping up garlic and then having your hands reek of garlic, add a couple teaspoons of pre-diced garlic from a little jar (QUICK!). Don't have fresh parsley on hand? Use dried - seriously, who cares??

But I do have to say, the gravy is not just really good, it's delicious. So make sure you make a ton of mashed potatoes to use up that gravy with! Then again, when have you ever had 'not enough' mashed potatoes. If you cook anything like me, there's enough for a football team plus leftovers - yup, I turned out just like my mother. OR, you could toss some leftover gravy in the freezer for some yummy poutine at a later date). mmmmm.. that reminds me, must start poutine club....

Lemon Cream Sauce Made Over

So last week I posted the delicious recipe for Fettucine in Lemon Cream Sauce. Well I didn't have any whipping cream in the fridge, but as always, I have an ample stock of cream cheese, therefore came up with my own slightly healthier version (or atleast I'm pretending it is :P).

Shawna's Lemon Cream Sauce

250g tub of spreadable 95% fat free cream cheese

3-4 capfulls lemon juice (depends on how strong you want the lemony flavour)

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup grated parm

salt and pepper

sprinkle of dill *optional

Melt cream cheese in sauce pan on stove, add milk to thin (can add more if you like a thinner sauce), add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for a couple minutes until your pasta is ready. I like to add a bit of margarine to my pasta before adding the sauce, just so it mixes easier. Add sauce to pasta, stirring to evenly coat and serve in warm pasta dishes! Can top with some extra parm or some grated old cheddar. Super easy and delicious!

Serve this with a salad and you have dinner for four!

Fettucine in Lemon Cream Sauce

I got this recipe way back in highschool off of some show on the Food Network, and actually come to think of it, it may have been from that bird Elizabeth Baird from Canadian Living. I've made this countless times and made a few variations to the recipe over the years, but the original is just so yummy, I have to post it. Okay, so just did a quick search and it WAS Canadian Living. So in their recipe they suggest you make the pasta but really who has that kinda time?? I remember the first time I made this recipe, Byron Gwilliam (may he rest in peace) and I were hanging out and he stayed for supper. Everyone loved it and said it was definitely a keeper recipe. And I guess it was since I've been making it for the past 10 years!

So I'm just gonna link to the recipe for Fettucine in Lemon Cream Sauce so that I don't leave anything out! Enjoy!!

Crispy Ginger-Lime Chicken

So I unfortunately have been doing absolutely no 'real' cooking lately, as my hubby is out of town and I've been totally bach-ing it while he's out of town. A girlfriend of mine, Amanda Pokentickle, gave me the heads up on this super quick and easy recipe from Martha Stewart's website. It sounds delicious and she gave it rave reviews. Generally I would try this before posting it on my site, so I could include pictures and general commentary but hey, my readers need another recipe and I haven't had time so therefore I will rely on my trusted source!

You can find the recipe for Crispy Ginger-Lime Chicken here! I shall post pics once I've made it!

Oh and this is just an aside, but I was watching an old Julia Childs cooking show the other day and it was absolutely hilarious! She's flinging her cooking utensils across the cupboards, dropping things, losing things, and generally just making a mess and sweeping everything onto the floor. It was hilarious. (But the food did still look amazing!)

p.s. Happy Easter everyone!

Ravioli

You know those busy nights when you've been running around all day and really don't have time to make supper? OR you just came off a set of nights or maybe you're in the middle of a set and just don't have the energy to think about what to cook. Well I am all for convenience food. If it's fast, tasty, and nutritious, why not?? I have never made my own pasta, and I don't feel inclined to.. ever. I feel that there are great fresh pasta options out there on the market who can do it better than I can! I found this Gourmet Ravioli or Ravioli Gourmet at Costco for about $10.95. They had it as one of their samples and I was hooked! It's super quick and easy and stuffed with yummy spinach and mozzarella. You can add different pasta sauces or whatever you want, but usually I just add a couple twirls of olive oil and the herb and parm mix that comes with it in the bag and voila, in ten minutes you got a gourmet pasta dish.

Tourtiere

Being from French-Canadian descent, I've grown up with tourtiere, also known as meat pie. It always reminds me of Christmas and I love it. Why am I posting it mid-March? Because it's super easy, delicious, and you will thank me, that's why. This can be served with gravy or ketchup, but I like it plain. This moves away from the more traditional recipe that I'm used to with a variation in the spices and in the meats used, but I found it delicious, full of flavor and quite moist. I can't quite remember where exactly I got this recipe from but it was floating around in cyber-space sometime last November. And of course, I use pre-made pie dough, I mean who has that kind of time?

Tourtiere

1 onion chopped

1 TBSP margarine

1 lb ground pork

1 stalk celery chopped

1 tsp garlic, minced

3/4 cup chicken stock

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

2 TBSP dry bread crumbs

Cook onions, celery and garlic in the margarine until onions are clear. Add the ground pork, break it up in the pan and cook until changes color. Add the chicken stock and spices and simmer for half an hour. Cool, take out the bay leaf, and stir in the bread crumbs.

Add pork mixture to pie shell, cover with pie top. Press edges together with a little bit of warm water to help them seal together. Brush dough with egg glaze (1 egg, beaten, with 2 tbsp cream).

This makes any crust look and taste great!

Bake at 425 deg F for 10 min, then reduce heat to 375 and bake for an additional 25 minutes or until crust is golden. YUMM!