Chicken Schnitzel with Bacon and White Wine

Oh schnitzel....the only thing good about you is that you cook so damn fast. Otherwise I'm not too impressed with schnitzel. Then again, my opinion is that of a person who hasn't eaten meat for a full year....Husband wasn't overly impressed with the schnitzel either though. And he would marry meat if he could. This recipe is okay..and I do mean just okay. I mean honestly, do you really need someone to tell you that chicken and bacon are good together? Just look at any fast food menu and there is it, chicken and bacon. So you put them together at home instead of some punk kid putting it together for you getting paid ten bucks an hour. Incidentally I used to be one of those punk kids putting your fast food sandwiches together - it's just as shitty a job as you think it is.

Anyhow, back to the recipe. If you do need someone to tell you to put chicken and bacon in the same pan together then sure give this one a try. It's a great recipe if you're just learning how to cook but if you've got a few notches in your kitchen bedpost don't waste your time - this ones for culinary virgins.

Crunchy Salad with Hot and Sour Dressing

So this salad has peaked my interest for quite some time but I knew I'd have a problem getting the tom yam paste. And keeping with their reputation Metro proved fruitless for me. I scoured the international food aisle for at least 15 minutes and found a ton of different pastes but not tom yam paste. So I went to customer service and (no I didn't tell them their grocery store is piece of shit - though I should have) asked them if they carry it - just to make sure I wasn't missing it. The girl called the manger and she'd never even heard of tom yam paste. Did I mention I love living in the suburbs???

Anyway, I headed back to the international food aisle cursing myself for not having an iphone or any kind of phone that can surf the web (I don't even remember what year I got my phone - that's how old it is). I considered texting sister but I thought - nah just wing it. So after careful contemplation I came up with "Sambal Oelek Ground Fresh chili Paste" ...Use it to "heat up" your stir-fry dishes, pizza, eggs, pasta, or anything you desire. .... That's what the label says. I figured it would do the job. I'm quite sure that tom yam paste would be much better but this suited fine.

The recipe is simple and straight forward -and it makes a considerable amount - well speaking as someone who cooks for 2. We have left overs for sure. I thought it was decent and Husband just straight out told me he liked it without me even asking -which means he must have really liked it. This salasd has lots of greens for you which is what I was looking for from this - I've neglected my veggies lately. I think this makes a pretty decent dish and I'd say adding some firm spicy tofu to it would make it really hearty.

I've managed to drink and entire martini while writing this blog - and its hasn't taken me that long. I gotta tell ya my head feels a little lighter right now....time for another! Cheers!

Budino Di Cioccolato

Well, this turned out shit in my humble opinion. True the milk I used wasn't "full fat" but still that shouldn't have meant that this be more like a soup. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be??? I don't know. Either way I'm not a fan. Because even if this had set more like I wanted it to it is still WAY too sweet. I can't effing stand sugary chocolate. I need my chocolate to be pure. And guess what chocolate is bitter!!! Just like I am about this recipe. NEXT!

Irish Cream Tiramisu

My sister was hosting Christmas this year and she asked me to bring a dessert. I decided on bringing the tiramisu. I'm not really sure why I chose it, I guess maybe because I knew there was no way Husband and I would be able to eat this ourselves. It's pretty simple to prepare especially if you get the alcohol content correct...I didn't. I made this without paying close attention to what I was doing and I ended up pouring the entire cup of Bailey's in with the espresso that I dipped the savoiardi in...oops! but a delicious oops. It may have even been a subconscious effort to add more booze. Really you're supposed to reserve 75ml for mixing in with the mascarpone but I just added an extra 75ml. I'm not sure how much this effected the overall taste because my extra booze was in the coffee bath but this tiramisu was booze hound tiramisu - which means it was pretty yummy. It turned out fantastic I'd say, with the way it set and all so I think this is a great recipe for a tiramisu. You can of course control the level of booze flavour you want by adding more or less to the coffee bath and you could even replace the bailey's in the mascarpone with espresso coffee if you want no booze at all - but don't be a jerk and remove all the fun from the party.

In the end I'd say this dessert turned out much like my Christmas, very enjoyable and a little bit drunk.

Cocktail Sausages

Well, at this time of the year we are all looking for appetizers to take to parties. Cocktail Sausages are a classic dish but I find they are being replaced by the meatball. To me this is a little sad. I mean who doesn't prefer a little wienie over a little ball.

I took these to a Christmas exchange and they were a hit. I had lots of compliments on the dish and even a request for the recipe. I didn't taste any myself because of the whole meat thing but Husband ate about 1/3 of them all by himself. Next time you're thinking party meatballs try the party sausage instead!

Seasonal Fruit Salad

Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Bart starts singing 'you don't win friends with salad'? Well this recipe proves that wrong. Today was my office Christmas Pot Luck. I decided that nothing says work party like a boozey fruit salad. I started the prep on Tuesday night (2 days prior). What you do is you soak the sections of clementines in the booze overnight. But for me it was 2 nights. That made my clementines super-duper boozey. Now the booze that you're to soak these in is called Tuaca - that's not available in Ontario. Nigella seemed to know that this wasn't available all over the place because she suggests that if you can't get your hands on some Tuaca then you can use a mix of Brandy and Cointreau. Well, that wasn't working for me either as I'm too cheap to go buy more booze right now when, as I've mentioned before, we have crazy amounts of booze already. So I did some reading up on Tuaca. Seems this is a liqueur that originates from Tuscany and has vanilla and orange flavours. I have a large bottle of Grand Marnier in my stores and I also happened to have a vanilla bean on hand. So what I did was soak the clementines in Grand Marnier and a vanilla bean. Then this morning before work I took the Grand Marnier the citrus has been soaking in and added sugar (oranges removed) and brought to a boil. Here I will interject with a trick I picked up for all the North Americans driven crazy by not having caster sugar available to them. Just put some regular sugar in a food processor to make it a little more fine. - you're welcome.

So you boil your sugar and booze and then pour it back over the oranges and toss in pomegranate seeds. done.

At work this got rave reviews. The clementines were sooooo boozey. It was like doing a shot. The greatest was getting a new person to try some "fruit salad" and then watching their face as they bit into a mouth full of booze. It was hilarious. People's reactions were either "wooooohoooo!" or, a grimace followed by "That's gooooood!". It was always one or the other. Another person came over to me and said " Man, now this is what I'm talkin' about!!! This is a Christmas Party dish!"

This would also make a fantastic dessert salad. And I am highly recommending it.

Croque Monsieur Bake

This recipe is like a cross between a ham sandwich, french toast and lasagna. And it works! Husband was really excited about trying this recipe and I was indifferent. But we both ended up enjoying it. I'm not so crazy about the ham sandwich...but I do like me some french toast. This is a meal that you prepare ahead of time and then pop it in the oven once your ready to enjoy.

Basically you make 3 ham sandwiches and the pour beaten eggs and milk over them. Let that soak/marinate overnight. Then next morning grate some cheese, shake some worshtershire (sp?) and pop it in the oven for 25 minutes. It's not an earth shattering invention but it's a nice change from the ordinary. I'm giving this my vote of confidence, I think it's worth a try.