For those of you not up to date on/following my Sunday Schnauzer posts: right now I am in Grand Forks, British Columbia (a 2 hr ferry and 7 hr drive from where I live) helping my sister move to a new abode. My other sister flew in from Ontario to help as well, and this is the first time we three have been together since our mom died in December 2015!
Moving is chaotic and tiring but you still gotta eat, and lucky for us Grand Forks has a wonderful Japanese restaurant: Sushi Ocean Dream. Definitely stop there if you are in the area.
We were pretty tired after a productive first day of all 3 of us schlepping stuff from the old place to the new, but not too tired to have some fun with the menu.
Can you guess which rolls we picked?We started with some tempura.From top left, going clockwise: Rock n’ Roll, Crazy Girl, Party Roll, and Gangster Roll. 😜Diving in…
Us crazy girls went full-on gangster and had us a rock n’ roll sushi party! And then we went to our respective beds and rested up for the rest of the moving yet to come.
And now it’s Day 5 and we are coming to the end – the old place is empty and we are concentrating on making the new place “home” for my sister. Tomorrow is going to be a shopping day for some necessities so we need to leave town in search of some big box stores.
Please let Donna and myself know what’s on your plate this month! I may be late at getting to the Comments but I am definitely looking forward to reading and responding to them!
I’m just too brain dead tired to fiddle with the InLinkz thing this month (sorry, Donna) but Donna will have it on her blog if you want to join the WOYPBC party that way.
It’s still summertime and the living is crazy. At least it is where I am at. I created this blog post several months ago, anticipating a summer full of packing, moving and renovations and I was not wrong. As of the date this post goes live, I’ll have moved to my new place, and be neck deep in Renovation Hell, Address: RIGHT HERE 🤪
I’ve been looking for recipes that are easy to make initially, and then easy to pull together from the fridge for a meal after a busy day. This one ticks all the boxes!
I came across this recipe from Dani Spies’ wonderful YouTube channel, Clean and Delicious. I’ve posted WOYPBC recipes from her before, and this one is another winner.
Dani used bison but that would mean another trip to another store so I settled for extra lean ground beef instead. Frying the veggies next to the ground beef. I mistakenly threw the tomatoes in with the veggie mix, instead of saving them to add to the bowl later. Still good!Finished brown rice, in the rice cookerThis is my favourite brown rice. Chewy and nutty tasting. Delish! (Their white rice is awesome too.)Beans, spices, and beef broth added and everything simmering nicely.Rinsing the chopped romaine.Bowl assembled and topped with tex-mex cheese blend.Closeup of bowl.I added some salsa and sour cream to really amp things up. Guacamole would make a nice addition too…for those whose stomachs can handle avocado…unfortunately mine can’t. I’ll live vicariously through you, if you don’t mind…
What I really like about this recipe is that it has inspired me to think of so many ways I could vary it. For instance, I could use ground chicken or turkey. I could make it vegetarian with beans only, or a veggie crumble instead of ground meat. I could add in extra greens. I could skip the rice and I could add some crushed tortilla chips instead. I could throw it all in a soft tortilla, to make a burrito. Etc. You get the idea.
Please let me know what’s on your plate this month! Either in the comments or by using InLinkz to link your post (🤞it works this time) or at Donna’s blog!
I had a whole ‘nother post lined up for August’s WOYPBC and now it will have to wait until September…because of a conversation Joanne and I had on the morning of my birthday (July 27 – mark your calendars 😉). We FaceTime most mornings (I know – lucky me, right? 😄) and this was my birthday morning and the conversation turned to food. Well, OK it usually does. Specifically what was I going to eat on my special day. I mentally went through my cupboards and my fridge and decided I had all the ingredients to make myself French toast for breakfast on this most auspicious day – fresh BC raspberries, sourdough bread, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon and milk. And maple syrup, of course!
So after our call I got to “work”. And while I was assembling everything I had another thought: I wonder if I could make French toast in the air fryer? A quick Google search confirmed that I most certainly can. I didn’t follow a specific recipe but just noted the approximate times and temperatures, and off I went!
Fresh and local. It doesn’t get better than this!Bread soaking in beaten egg, milk, vanilla and cinnamon.In parchment-lined air fryer basket. I used a temp of 370F, for 4 minutes. Then I flipped the toast and did the other side for another 3-4 minutes.The finished product. Beauty!Plated and ready to eat!Food p*rn money shot 😜Mmmmmmm. Happy birthday to ME! 😁
Please let my co-host Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments section of either of our WOYPBC posts (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s August post where she details her typical meals!
Trying this InLinkz thing yet again – thanks to Donna for setting this up! Please use this if you’d rather:
Thanks to inspiration from my co-host Donna and from the delightful Julia series on Crave TV, I recently became once again consumed with the idea of trying out some of Julia Child’s recipes. When the movie Julie and Julia came out, I was charmed by the idea of working my way through a cookbook like that (and also blogging about it). As I was firmly entrenched as the Mayor of Crazytown at that time, it was only a pipe dream (that I soon forgot about).
But now I am retired and I have an Amazon Prime membership, so it was only a matter a time before Amazon notified me of a price drop…
Oh yes, she did!
But what to cook first? The next time I was on YouTube, this video showed up in my feed as a “suggestion” to watch. Coincidence or was Big Brother watching/listening? You decide.
Hell yeah, I am making these.I think I have enough butter to proceed 😉
I’d like to tell you that I had some kind of epiphany while attempting this recipe…well, actually I did. But not in the way that I thought I would. Hear me out. I thought that perhaps making one of Julia Child’s recipes would revolutionize the way I cooked from that moment forward. No high expectations here, eh? Instead, my revolution came in the knowledge that Julia Child was asking me to cook meat exactly the way I had been first taught by my mother.
The recipeSlowly frying the onionsPatties done and dusted
Uh huh. Long before fat (especially butter) became a kitchen pariah, Mom was showing me how to cook the Dutch way. Melt plenty of butter (or *gasp* margarine because we were a broke-ass immigrant family) in the pan and wait until the foaming subsides and the fat starts to turn brown to introduce the meat.
Frying the hamburgers
I have to say that I was kinda disappointed and thrilled at the same time. Weird as that sounds. Even the addition of more margarine butter later in the recipe, to make a sauce/thin gravy to accompany the meat was what I learned at the kitchen stove from my mom. No wonder people sang the praises of her cooking…
Plated hamburger patty and fixin’s. Including truffle fries. And my homemade quick dill pickle slices.It was delicious. Tasted like my childhood, minus the truffle fries of course. And the wine. 😄
Nope, I am not going to be working my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking anytime soon. But I may dip into it for inspiration (and a challenge) from time to time.
Please let my co-host Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments section of either of our WOYPBC posts (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s July post, where she posts some mouth-watering photos of her vacation in the mountains.
Trying this InLinkz thing once again – thanks to Donna for setting this up!
Gentle readers, do you remember our last Snack Box adventure? The one where Donna treated me to a wonderful chicken shawarma lunch? I enjoyed that lunch so much that I decided I had to try to recreate it at Chez Badass. There was just one teeny tiny problem. I couldn’t ask Donna for the recipe she used to create her slow-cooked shawarma because…
Waiting for the ferry to take them to the airport
…I had recently dropped Donna and Richard off at the ferry terminal, where they were about to start their journey to Prince Edward Island for their Canadian Camino adventure! You can (and should!) read all about it at Donna’s blog, here.
So I scoured the interwebs (as one does) for a suitably similar recipe. I didn’t find the exact recipe (it’s here , I found out later) but this one caught my eye and I had all the ingredients already in house so I was off to the races. I prepared the chicken in its spicy yogurt marinade and let it do its thing overnight in the refrigerator. Then the next day I slow-cooked it for 4 hours on low…counting the minutes until I could shred it up and assemble my pita!
Ready to go! I decided on only one condiment to go with the chicken and the veggies: my new favourite – baba ganoush. Hummus or tzatziki would make delightful additions as well.
I had spent the previous week scrubbing down and tidying up my balcony so I was ready to enjoy a meal outside at the first opportunity. And this was it!
So lovely to be able to comfortably sit on my balcony again. It’s been such a cold, damp spring here on the island.Closeup of all that fresh deliciousness!
It’s hard to say which version of the slow cooker chicken shawarma I prefer, dear readers. They each have their merits. The yogurt marinade made the spices more mellow (I decided not to add back in more dry spice blend after cooking as the recipe suggested) and the chicken was very moist. Donna’s recipe had more of a punch, spice-wise…and was dairy-free (for those that would prefer this). Whichever recipe I use again, I think the next time I make slow-cooker shawarma I will make a double batch, and portion some out for the freezer as it is a quick and easy fair-weather meal. And very portable too!
I’m all by my little lonesome this month for WOYPBC as my co-host Donna has gone walkabout (see above!). Please let me know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments section. InLinkz hates doesn’t like me or my blog so I am not even going to try to set that up, for this month. Sigh…I am sure it is a case of user error again. Isn’t it always? 😉
Orange you glad it’s not another Air Fryer post? But it does involve potatoes, again…LOL!
This month what’s on my plate is such a delicious, easy recipe first introduced to me by my darling daughter: The Primal Gourmet’s Greek Potatoes.
You also need olive oil, which I forgot to pull out of the cupboard for this photo. Ronny’s recipe calls for EVOO, but I find regular olive oil is much better for cooking with. Leave the EVOO for bread dipping and salads…
The first stage is to dress the peeled spuds with olive oil and spices, and the chopped garlic. Then plop them in the oven for 20 minutes.
Then remove from the oven and pour over the chicken broth/tomato paste mixture before returning to the oven for the next 20 minutes of roasting time.
It’s starting to smell pretty awesome around here.
Time to add the last, vital ingredient:
Fresh lemon juice!
And here is what they look like, when the roasting is done.
These potatoes are absolutely delicious. And, if you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, they make a sublime fried potato…I think I would make extra next time, just so as to have plenty more some on hand for the next day.
Ironically, I never took an actual photo of said potatoes ON MY PLATE. I promise to do better next month!
Please let my co-host Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments section of either of our WOYPBC posts (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s May post, here where she lets her pictures do the talking on a fabulous curry dish.
Oh, and here’s the Link party button if you’re so inclined (🤞 it works for me again!).
My love for my air fryer is still going strong. It is a rare day that I do not use this thing to reheat, broil, roast or air fry something. I know (I think, anyways) that I have mentioned on Ye Olde Blogge that I am not a lover of the french fried potato most days. If we are out to eat and you see me ordering a side of fries or a plate of poutine please keep your digits away from my face because clearly I am hungry enough to bite your hands off. That is the only time that fries have any appeal for me now that I am done with PMS forever. Well, that was BTF (Before Truffle Fries)…
On Valentine’s Day of this year, my WOYPBC co-host and I decided to try a new restaurant for lunch (Galentine’s Lunch, we unoriginally called it). So after a very brisk and windy walk along the shore, we headed to the newly opened Fern and Cedar Brewing Company in Qualicum Beach, to fill our bellies.
Obligatory selfie. Little did I know I was about to develop a new obsession discover a new favourite food in just a few short moments…
You know what? I can’t even remember what I ordered. But what I do remember is that Donna ordered truffle fries, and when they came to the table I was immediately taken in by the glorious aroma of her dish. And it didn’t take much coaxing from my table mate for me to try a few of her fries.
Cue the choir of angels. Wow. What have I been missing all of these years?!?!
Little did Donna know she was going to have to keep her eyes on those fries! Thank you Donna, for sending me this picture. Now I remember what I had – some delicious chowder and a very forgettable piece of bannock.
Even though I had had this complete food revelation mid-February, I kinda forgot about the truffle fries (I know, I can’t believe it either) until a few weeks after I got the air fryer. At that point I googled “air fryer truffle fries” and came up with this recipe. It seemed simple enough except I didn’t have any truffle oil. After coming up empty-handed at the local grocery stores, I ordered some from Amazon as one does these days. The first time I made the fries I was less than wowed. So I re-read the recipe and saw that, as an option, one could add truffle salt to the finished fries. Back to Amazon I went. And that, my friends, made all the difference in the world…my world, anyways!
Soaking the sliced russet potatoes in cold water for 30 minutes.Assembling the other ingredients: freshly grated Parmesan, truffle oil and truffle salt.Drying the soaked potatoes carefully and thoroughly in a clean tea towel.Finished air fryer truffle fries.Even more delicious dipped in a little mayo. I’m Dutch. Don’t judge.I would hazard a guess that one could skip the truffle oil altogether and just use this salt on the fries. I haven’t tried it though…
Life ATF (After Truffle Fries)…sigh… I will never be the same again. 😉
Please let my co-host Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments section of either of our WOYPBC posts (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s April post, here.
OK, I am going to try the InLinkz thingy again too…for those of you who want to join the Link Party Donna set up. Fingers crossed it works…
After resisting the urge to get one of these for – uhh – at least two years now, it finally happened. An air fryer has appeared at Chez Badass. My reasons for hesitating included (not limited to): having to surrender even more precious counter space to yet another small kitchen appliance; pondering if it was all that and a bag of (air-fried) chips i.e. being not entirely convinced it would be better than roasting things in my convection toaster oven; not liking most fried foods anyways; telling myself to “get a fucking grip” on most of my random thoughts on the daily. Meantime, I was studying air fryers…at times, intensely.
OK, I finally caved. My internet “research” led me to this particular make and model.Pretty small footprint, all things considered.
The first thing I made in my new toy kitchen appliance was sweet potato fries.
Cutting up the sweet potatoSeasoning the friesYummy finished productA tasty success!
Next up – I found a package of chicken wings on sale at the grocery store (and it was the time of the Superbowl – not that I pay attention to sports – but in keeping with the situation…):
Seasoned wings waiting for the air fryerFinished wings, with homemade blue cheese dipping sauce and veggiesAnother success!
I also tried my hand at “regular” fries, learning in the process that russet potatoes make the best ones.
A russet potato tossed in a teaspoon of peanut oil and a dusting of saltPure deliciousnessAnd the hits just keep on comin’! Definitely better tasting than oven-roasted.
Alas, my success with my new toy appliance just couldn’t last. In keeping with Widow Badass tradition, I will let you in on my kitchen failure. I attempted to make a recipe with tofu. Not just any tofu but puffed tofu (something new to moi). My daughter and I had tried a delicious tofu appetizer from Shed, when we were in Tofino earlier last month, and I was hoping to recreate it at home. I found this video, which is a close contender to Shed’s version:
Now I just had to find the elusive tofu puffs.
Found, at a local Asian grocery store!I also found the mini size, and brought home both kinds.
I tried the mini-puffs first.
Definitely crispy-looking. (I put a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the air fryer, to make an already easy cleanup even easier.)They look amazing, right?
Unfortunately I had let them go a bit too long in the air fryer. I was left with candied air, basically. So, let’s try this again…this time with the regular sized puffs:
Assembling the 3 ingredients – well, 4 counting the green onionsTimed it right!Second time is the charm!Crunchy, chewy, sweet-hot perfection.
Lesson learned. When the YouTuber says to check every 4 minutes while cooking, do as he instructs!
Since I brought the air fryer home, I have used it almost every single day. In addition to the foods featured above, I have also used it to roast asparagus (delish), kabocha squash (delightful), and chicken thighs (crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside). Dare I say it: this could be my new favourite thing in the kitchen. (Sorry, pressure-cooker!) I love how quick it is to add a roasted vegetable to a meal. And using this little guy instead of heating up an oven (even my toaster oven) is much faster and therefore less wasteful of electricity, methinks. Consider me a convert!
That’s what’s on my plate for this month: anything I can cook in my new air fryer!
Please let my co-host Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments section of either of our WOYPBC posts (or both, if you are so inclined!). If you are feeling extra chatty 🙂 and have the time, please let me know if you have an air fryer, and what are your favourite tips/tricks/things to cook in one. I’d love to learn more about this wonder appliance and what it can do! Please check out Donna’s delicious March post, here.
At the beginning of January, I received an unexpected delivery of a mysterious package. The outside was decorated with cute symbols of food in red and white and it proclaimed it was from a company called Universal Yums. Curious, I opened it up and looked for some kind of note or explanation as to who sent it but there was nothing to be found inside except some packages of snacks, a score card and a booklet. So I looked at the outside of the package again and there it was, partially obscured by the shipping label.
Mystery solved!
What a lovely gift, from my good friends back in Ontario: Jonathan and Kenn!!! Clearly the package was supposed to arrive in December, but what with all the weather difficulties and highway closures it couldn’t make it to my door until early January.
Snack contents of the box: popcorn from Taiwan, truffles from France, candies from the UK, “plum” cake from Argentina, baklava from Jordan, and potato chips from another region of France. Scorecard and guidebook from box
As you can see, the December box is a collection of snacks from around the world. The regular monthly boxes contain snacks from one country, only.
Of course, you know I couldn’t just snack (and score) all by myself…so I called someone whose food judgement I trust implicitly.
Donna is clearly taking this project as seriously as I am. 😉 What concentration! What focus!
And so we began. One by one, we carefully sampled each snack and wrote our thoughts down on the scorecard.
I forgot to take a picture of the “plum” cake. Probably because I was pretty pissed it didn’t contain any plums. Imagine a twinkie stuffed with caramel, in lieu of a photo.
And here are the results of our scoring:
Your happy judgy McJudgersons judging panel (photo by Donna).
This was a whole lotta fun. And I get to do it every month for a whole year! Don’t worry, I won’t post it on WOYPBC each month…just this first time. While I was waiting to get together with Donna to do the scoring, my January box arrived:
Hmmm….what country am I going on a snack holiday to, next?It’s Poland! (Which has bison, apparently…who knew???)
I am so tickled by this subscription. I really love the scoring aspect of it. Something fun to do with friends and family. I think it is both a great idea for a gift to give, and also a joy to receive!
Once again, my co-host Donna and I are using a linkup for people to share their posts on. Please find it here:
Not sure why InLinkz hates me. What have I ever done to it???If the button doesn’t want to work, you can always join up at Retirement Reflections or try this link HERE.
Of course, you are still more than welcome to let Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments of either Donna’s or my post (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s mouth-watering February post, here!
Ah, yes! That butt of a lot of Yuletide-themed jokes…the long suffering fruitcake. Gentle readers, you might have suspected that when Donna gifted me with the Canadian Living Christmas Book and I found the bonus mystery recipe stuck within its pages, that a seed had been planted within my wee brain. You see, I am one of those weirdos that actually likes fruitcake…IF it is well-made and aged. Don’t get me started on the crap fruitcake you can purchase at ye olde grocery emporium. It’s dry as dust and made with cheap ingredients – no wonder people don’t like fruitcake if that is what is being served!
I hadn’t made a fruitcake in probably…uh…decades. I haven’t let fear or rusty skills stop me in the kitchen thus far, so shortly after that blog post (and even before my poll closed) I was assembling my ingredients to make not one but two versions of fruitcake for the upcoming festive season – Violet Burke’s and the Canadian Living Christmas Book Light Orange Almond one.
Oh, and thanks for voting on my poll! 52% of you said I should GO FOR IT, when it came to attempting Violet’s recipe. Another 20% said make the Orange Almond; another 23% wanted further investigation into piecaken. And I think 100% were pissed that Black Forest Trifle was not a choice, amiright? 😉
Orange Almond fruit (and nuts) assembled, and ready to be soaked in Grand Marnier overnight prior to baking.Violet Burke’s fruit mixed and ready to marinate in sherry overnight, prior to baking. (Violet’s recipe did not specify any booze but I FIXED THAT!)Orange Almond fruitcakes out of the oven.Violet Burke’s cakes out of the oven. Can I just say that my house smelled amazing for more than a day?
Since late November, I had been giving the cheesecloth-wrapped cakes generous lashings of the same booze I had soaked the fruit with, every couple of weeks. The results speak for themselves:
Violet Burke recipe on the left, and Orange Almond on the right – ready for testing (and voting!) I’d like to publicly thank the holly bush outside my balcony for contributing to the table decor.Closeup of the Light Orange Almond fruitcakeCloseup of Violet Burke’s fruitcakeNew Year’s Day “judging panel”, including Donna (renowned fruitcake hater critic) behind the camera. Once again, I am rocking the Canadian cashmere, just like Christmas Day (different plaid, though). Hmmmm, am I in a (lack of) fashion rut?More festively-dressed Donna trying the Orange Almond cake. She liked it! After enjoying the New Year’s spread my daughter and I had laid out though, there was absolutely no room for a piece – no matter how small – of Violet’s cake. However…
…Donna was kind enough to send me this photo the next morning – proof she tried (and liked!) Violet’s cake too.
I thought both recipes turned out beautifully – moist and flavourful. However my favourite (and the favourite of the Esteemed Judging Panel) was the Light Orange Almond Cake. (Sorry, Violet!)
The orange almond cake is non-traditional in its citrusy flavour and light colour. The inclusion of the slivered almonds and almond extract in the batter adds a lovely nuttiness that I really appreciated. I think this makes it a great cake for “fruitcake haters and nonbelievers” to try. Both Donna and Richard liked it and said they would definitely eat it again if given the chance, and they also both profess not to like fruitcake. The rest of us already liked fruitcake in general, and we also preferred the light cake.
Violet’s cake was leaning more towards the traditional fruitcake/plum pudding in richness and the addition of the sherry certainly lent it that old-time English fruitcake taste, in my opinion. Definitely a great fruitcake, and definitely head and shoulders above anything store-bought. I think next time I would make it with brandy instead of sherry, and play around with some of the ingredients and add chopped nuts…maybe pecans?
Or maybe I will make Suzanne’s mother’s fruitcake recipe next year instead. Suzanne wrote a lovely blog post recently, in defense of the much maligned fruitcake.
I had so much fun reading your comments about my finding of the Violet Burke recipe. You are so imaginative and creative and some of you really should go into the sleuthing business! Who knew a fruitcake recipe found in a thrifted cookbook would generate such wonderful responses? Certainly, not I.
Blogger and real-life friend Janis was even inspired to write another one of her beautiful short stories; this time about Violet Burke and how her recipe ended up in the pages of the cookbook. You can find it on her blog here. I highly recommend reading it. You might want to have a tissue handy. 😉
Thank you, everyone – for making this ol’ blogger’s heart so happy!
Speaking of Violet’s recipe – here’s what it looks like, now (like a real recipe should):
Donna and I are trying something new this month, for WOYPBC, a linkup!
Fingers (and toes) crossed that it works well, and that people like this way of checking out each others’ WOYPBC posts. (If you don’t like it, it was Donna’s idea. If you do like it, it was our idea. Bwahahahaha!)
Of course, you are still more than welcome to let my co-host Donna or myself know what’s on your plate at your house, in the Comments of either Donna’s or my post (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna’s January post, here!
Hope you all had a lovely holiday, if you celebrated. And all the best for a happy, healthy 2022!
