Salt Beef Dinner aka Jigg's Dinner

I love salt beef, maybe more than most people. I don't soak or pre boil my salt beef or cut any of the fat off, I love the fat. This is probably one of the most unhealthy meals I eat, because I eat the fat and it's filled with so much sodium...and well, I really can't help myself, I find the biggest plate I can and fill it up! This is another traditional Newfoundland meal, however, the salt beef is usually cooked as a side meat with another roasted meat as the main meat. Some people make it with pease pudding as well, I don't. I have never had a salt beef meal I didn't enjoy, although, I have to say I do like mine the best, nobody seems to make it as salty as I do. It's so simple to do, it does take alot of time to cook but it's worth it!

Here is a plate that I had at Thanksgiving, so there was some turkey on the plate too. What you don't see is the homemade cranberry sauce and homemade mustard pickles that were eaten with this, I had to make some room on the plate before I could add them!

1 bucket of salt beef , here's the kind I use, I use a whole pail if I don't have any other meat cooked, if I have other meat I use 1/2 -3/4 of the bucket

7- 8 carrots, peeled

1 turnip (rutabaga) peeled and cut into big chunks

1 cabbage, cut into wedges

8-10 potato

The night before, if you want, soak your salt beef in cold water, in the fridge. If not, cut your beef into chunks and add to a big stock pot filled about halfway with water. Some people pre boil their beef, if you want to do that, bring it to a boil, then drain the water and refill it half way with water again. 

Boil the beef, covered,for about 1.5 hours. Then add the carrot, turnip and cabbage to the pot. Cover again, boil for about another 45 minutes. Put the potato in and boil for 30 minutes.

Take it off the heat, pour as much water as you can out. I use some of the liquid for my gravy. Separate all the vegetables. Mash the turnip with little bit of pepper and butter. 

My mom makes doughboys with our dinner, I can never get them right so I don't have a recipe for them.

I also make dressing, also known as stuffing, with my dinner. It is super easy to make.

1 loaf of french bread

2 tbsp dried savory

1/2 small onion diced

1/2 cup liquid from the salt beef

2 tbsp of butter, cubed

Make bread crumbs out of the bread. I use a mix of chunks and crumbs. Then mix everything in a large bowl. Place in a casserole dish and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Here's my turkey

Leek and Potato Soup with Pancetta

In my food box last week I was given leeks and potatoes, well and lots of other stuff, but as soon as I saw these two things, I knew leek and potato soup had to be on the menu this week. I made the soup on a day where I work a little later than usual, and was starving. It is a quick soup to make, when it was done, my chicken was done baking in the oven. I didn't take any pictures, I was way to hungry to worry about pictures and could only hold the kids off from eating other things for so long. So here's the recipe

3 leeks, cleaned well and sliced thin

6 medium to large Yukon potato, peeled and diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

150 g chopped pancetta

2 cartons of reduced sodium chicken stock, or homemade if you have it

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup of milk

salt and pepper to taste

optional: sour cream, shredded cheese, green onion or chives

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the pancetta, cook it for a few minutes to give the oil some flavour. Use a slotted spoon to take it out, keep as much oil as you can in the pot. Let the oil from the pancetta drain on a paper towel. Add the leeks and garlic to the pot, season with about 1/4 tsp each of salt and pepper. Saute the leeks and garlic for a few minutes or until the leeks start to soften a bit. Add the chicken stock a little bit at first to deglaze the pot. Scrape up all the little bits, then pour in the rest of the stock. Add the potatoes. Cover and boil until the potatoes are soft. At this point you can either blend the soup, a little bit at a time in a blender or use an immersion blender to blend it. Keep it chunky or make it smooth. When your done blending, add in your milk. Stir. Taste, add more salt and pepper if needed. Add the pancetta back to the soup. You can top it off with any of the optional ingredients and you can easily use bacon instead of pancetta.

Fish and Brewis

Every now and then I get a huge craving for traditional Newfoundland food. This is one of them. It doesn't look the prettiest and it's very bland looking but it is delicious. The salt fat pork is not as easy to get these days as it was. I have asked in stores and they have directed me to slabs of bacon. That isn't what it is, there is no meat on it, just the fat. This is one of those meals that take me back to my childhood. I never ate the brewis then, but I love it now.

Ingredients
1 fillet of boned salt cod
7 potatoes peeled
1 cake of hard bread for each person

Scrunchions
1 slab of salt fat pork
1/2 onion diced
1/2 cup oil, I used extra virgin olive oil

The night before:
You need 2 large bowls. Put the hard bread in 1 bowl and the salt fish in a another bowl. Cover them each with cold water and cover the bowls. I placed a plate and a bowl on top of the salt fish bowl to keep the fish submerged. Soak overnight.

The next day you can dump the water for the salt fish and replace it with new cold fresh water if you don't want your fish too salty. When your ready to cook peel your potatoes and cover with water. Start boiling them.Cut up your fat pork into small cubes and place in a pan with the oil. Cook the fat pork for about 5 minutes. Dice and onion and put that in the oil as well.  Drain your fish, put it in another pot and bring to a boil, watch this pot carefully, it will more than likely boil over. Turn the fat pork fat off when it gets brown. Boil the fish for about 10 minutes, then turn the burner off. When the potatoes are cooked, drain off some of the water. Drain the hard bread, Put the hard bread on top of the potatoes. Cover and steam the hard bread for about5 minutes, or until it's soft. Drain the potatoes and brewis and drain the fish. Top it all off with scrunchions.

Beef and Moose Barley Soup

I ate moose when I was young and hated it. Well, it was more like I hated any kind of meat my Mom cooked. I still don't eat much of what she cooks now. An Aunt of mine was visiting from  Newfoundland not that long ago. She was cooking a big salt beef dinner and moose. After a lot of going back in forth in my mind, I decided to try it. I loved it! I was able to get my hands on some moose recently but it was a variety of steaks and minced moose. There was no way I was putting a strip loin or tenderloin in my slow cooker, but I had one inside moose steak. So I bought some eye of round steaks and made some soup for my lunch. I prep my food for the week almost every weekend. I've blogged about some of the stuff I've made here, here, here and here. Soup is so easy for me to put in a thermos and have a hot lunch when I get tired of cold lunches. You could easily make this with all moose or all beef.

 12 oz eye of round

10 oz inside moose steak

2 backs of beef bouillon

10 cups of water

1 sweet potato

2 medium yukon gold potatoes

4 small carrot

2 turnips

2 red pepper

Couple sprigs of thyme

S&P

1 tomato

1 green onion

¼ cup barley, rinsed

 Cut the meat in 1 inch cubes. Cut the vegetables about the same size. Brown you meat in a pan, then put it in the slow cooker. Throw everything else in. Cook for 12 hours on medium.

This made enough for 2 weeks, I froze half of it. I was also thinking about how great it would be with some salt beef in it! Yum!

Chicken Ezekiel Wrap

Almost every Sunday I make food for myself for the week. My job takes me all over the place, I don't have an office space, so that means no fridge or means to heat anything up. I don't have a lunch break, I eat whenever I can, which is usually at lunch time. Sometimes I pullover and eat on the side of the road, in a cafe, while I'm waiting for an appointment with someone or sometimes at our community kitchen where I work. This wrap was perfect for the week!

Ingredients

1 pack of Ezekiel wraps (6 in a pack)

Shredded rotisserie chicken

1 yellow, 1 orange pepper sauteed

1 onion sauteed

Hot pepper jelly 1 tbsp per wrap

1 avocado, divided into 6

1/8 cup of daiya mozzarella per wrap

Pickled jalapeno (optional)

Heat a pan over medium heat. Spread the hot pepper jelly over the wrap, put all the other ingredients in. Roll it up. Place in the pan and brown on both sides. I placed a heavier plate on top of the wrap to flatten it a bit.

Simple Slow Cooker Beef Soup

What is better on a rainy day than a hot bowl of soup? Nothing really! It was a looking ahead at what I was going to make and decided beef soup was probably the best option. It was a Friday, and I was going to be in a workshop all afternoon. Who wants to come home on a Friday at 5 and cook, I don't. So beef soup it is.

Here's what you need

5 eye of round steaks

4 carrots

1 onions

4 medium sized potatoes

1 box of beef stock

1 bottle of beer

1/4 cup of flour

a couple sprigs of thyme

salt and pepper

2.5 tbsp olive oil

Cut your steak into 1inch ish cubes, not need to be exact. Toss them in flour. Cut up the carrot and potato to be about equal size as the beef. Slice the onion thin. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan. Brown the beef . I did it in two batches so I used 1 tbsp of oil per batch.Transfer to a slow cooker. Put 1/2 tbsp of oil in the pan, cook the onion until it gets some colour. Pour a bit of stock in with the onion once they are a bit brown to deglaze the pan. Pour it all in the slow cooker. Pour the rest of the stock and beer in the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper and add a couple sprigs of thyme. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Canning and Preserving

So it's been quite a while since I've written anything. I have been spending so much time canning and preserving over the past month I haven't had time to do much else.

This is my first year canning and I have to say, I think it may be a new addiction. Here is how it all started. I picked some strawberries in the summer and made a small batch of delicious strawberry jam. That was in July. At the beginning of September, a friend of mine posted a picture of salsa she made on Facebook. Then I wanted to make salsa. So I went out and bought what I needed. Then she continued to post pictures of jam that she made. So naturally I went out and bought 25lbs each of pears and peaches, a bushel of pickling cucumbers, beets, tomatoes and green beans. I spent the entire weekend canning. I was exhausted. Two weeks later, I went out to buy more beets, because they were so delicious. I also bought hot peppers, a giant bag of onions and more pickling cucumbers.

I have a Pinterest board just for everything I've made and one for what I want to make.

Here they are

What I want to make

What I made

I have been sharing and trading and looking forward to making so much more.

Here's my canned stuff, there is quite a bit missing from here!

Slow cooked BBQ Pork Ribs

I love ribs, I could eat them almost everyday. Unfortunately they take hours to cook. So they aren't really a doable meal on weekdays right? Wrong! You can make them any day of the week. Slow cooking them while you are at work or doing whatever else you need to do is all it takes. It melts so much of the fat off as well. I don't like having them slow cooking for too long though. Then they fall apart and you cant take them out of the slow cooker without shredding the meat, that's not what we want. After you take them out you can either BBQ or broil them in the oven. They are so easy! 

Ingredients

2 racks of ribs (or how ever many you want to make, as long as they fit in the slow cooker)

1 tbsp dried onion flakes

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black peppercorns

BBQ sauce of your choice

Place your ribs in your slow cooker standing up. Fill your slow cooker with water just until it reaches the top of the ribs. Add all the remaining ingredients. 

You could add any other spices you want here too. Set the slow cooker to low for 6 hours. Mine switches to keep warm after the 6 hours is done. 

When you get home, carefully take them out of the slow cooker. Cover them with BBQ sauce and either grill them just until you get some grill marks or broil until they get a bit of colour. 

They will fall right apart when your eating them.

What I Ate Wednesday #17

I haven't participated in What I Ate Wednesday in quite a while. But it's September...the kids are now back to school and life is starting to get back into more of a routine. I forgot to take a picture of two things I ate and took a bad cell phone picture of another meal, but hey, something is better than nothing! Here it goes

Breakfast

See bad cellphone photo!

2 eggs over easy, with 1/4 cup egg whites, 4 oz of BBQ eye of round (I will post this recipe another day), a whole wheat English muffing with my homemade strawberry jam and a coffee

Lunch

I didn't eat all of this! These pictures are from my food prep on Monday. I forgot to take a picture so I had a bit of the pasta and 1 patty.

Sun dried Tomato and Pesto Chicken Pasta

2 cups whole wheat penne (uncooked)
1/4 cup julienned sun dried tomatoes (not in oil)

1/4 pesto

8 oz of grilled chicken breast

Corn cut from 2 cobs of corn

Cook the penne. Put the sun dried tomatoes in the pasta while it's cooking for the last 2 minutes or so. Mix everything together.

Greek Turkey Burger

1/4 cup goat's feta

1 lb ground turkey

1 tsp oregano

juice and zest from 1/2 lemon

Mix all the ingredients, grill until cooked through.

Supper

Homemade chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese

 After supper I had a piece of vanilla cheesecake with more of my strawberry jam on top with a coffee

That's it!

 Head on over to Peas and Crayons to check out what others are eating!

Beercan Chicken

It is so hot here and it has been for the past week. I had a couple of chickens in the freezer that needed to be cooked, so I thought beer can chicken was perfect. I have only made it once before, last year and we loved it. Why haven't I made it since? Anyways, it turned out great. The kids loved it too. I didn't have a can of beer so I poured 1/2 bottle of Rickard's Red into an empty Pepsi can and it worked just fine. 

I use a stand for the chicken, I bought in on clearance last year, but I have seen recipes that don't, they just use the can. I also set mine into a pan to collect the juices, you can pour them over at the end if you want.

Ingredients

Rub

1 tbsp dried sage leaves

1 tsp lemon pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt free barbecue chicken powder

3 lb chicken

1/2 can beer (do whatever you want with the other half)

Remove any giblets and/or pieces that don't belong in your chicken and rinse out the chicken. Rub the cavity with some of the rub. Lift the skin on the breasts to put some of the rub under the skin. Rub the rest of the the seasoning all over the chicken.

Put the chicken over top of the can that is opened with 1/2 can of beer left. Preheat the grill. You want to put the chicken over indirect heat. I lit two of my burners and left the third off. Put the chicken in the pan and put it over the burner that isn't lit. 

You can do this with charcoal too. Just put charcoals on one side and the chicken on the other.

Leave it on the BBQ for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a meat thermometer reads 180. I checked on it every 10 minutes or so after 1 hour.Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting. 

Enjoy!

Freezer Egg and Sausage Muffins

I have been buying boxes of frozen sausage and egg mcmuffins for a while. My son loves them for breakfast, he would rather these than anything else really. I would buy a box maybe twice a month. I often wondered why I didn't just make them and freeze them myself, so I finally did!

12 English muffins

12 sausage rounds (you could also use bacon, ham or whatever meat you like, you could also have no meat)

12 eggs

12 slices of cheese ( I ran out and cut up marbled cheese, 3 slices per muffin)

Preheat oven to 425F.  Place the sausage rounds on a rack, I used a flat  vegetable grill pan. Put a baking sheet under the rack. Bake for 10 minutes, flip, bake another 10 minutes. Mine were cooked from frozen, if yours are fresh you can cut the time down. You could also pan fry then. 

Toast 12 English muffins while the sausage is cooking.

Place the cheese on top of the English muffin. Followed by the sausage when it's cooked.

Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray. Crack 12 eggs into the muffin tins. Scramble them or leave them as is. My son wanted half of them scrambled and half not.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Place the eggs over top. 

Let them cool. Wrap in foil and freeze. 

Warm them up in the microwave for 1-2 minutes from frozen.

Update
According to my oldest, the sliced processed cheese is better than marbled and the eggs were better scrambled

What I Ate Wednesday #16

  Click the link above to check out what other people have been eating over the past week.   Thanks to Peas and Crayons for hosting again!   It's been  a few weeks since I've posted anything on here, so I thought it was time that I started again.    I was posting some of my workouts, however, now I am doing the James Wilson 12 week program and haven't been doing any of my own. I am on week 3 of the program and I am loving it! I am super sweaty by the end of it and I feel like I have worked hard the next day!   I have also been  in a bit of a food rut. I've been cooking things that I have already posted, I just haven't wanted to make anything new. I have also been trying to eat cleaner since staring this new program. I'm doing pretty good with it, I'd say I'm eating about 80% clean.    So here's what I ate yesterday!   Breakfast

 Non fat plain Greek yogurt with blueberries, strawberries and unsweetened granola 1 piece of whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter coffee
Snack Protein shake
Lunch

This doesn't look very good but it was actually pretty tasty 1/2 zucchini, 1/2 cup eggplant, broccoli slaw and coleslaw mix all stir fried together with 2 poached eggs on top
Snack

Celery, carrot and hummus
Supper

This was supposed to be supper. I do not like curry but I thought I would try it again to see if I liked it this time. It's still a no. I ate the kebabs, they were great! So I was starving. I let the kids have whatever they wanted for supper, my daughter picked a can a alphagetties, I finished off the other can. And then because alphagetties are garbage, I was still hungry, so I had a piece of my sons KFC, more bad stuff. Links to the recipes Kebabs  Coconut Curry Soup, if you like curry you need to check this out!
Snack

2 rice cakes, no fat cottage cheese and a blueberry tea                 

What I Ate Wednesday #15

 
I started the James Wilson 12 week workout program on Monday and I know I'm only 3 days in but I love it. Today was my rest day and I am still eating tons! I'm trying to get my macros close to where the are supposed to be, but it's taking a bit of work. I don't think I'm eating enough at this point.
I have also started ordering food from Pfennings, a local organic farm that collects organic foods from other farms and delivers them to you house. I love waking up Wednesday mornings to a food box filled with fresh local fruits and veggies. Check out what I got today

 For my family this is enough. I usually buy a couple more bananas on the weekend and some berries from the grocery store, but this pretty much covers it!

So anyways here's what I ate today

Breakfast

This is just an Ezekiel English muffin with natural peanut butter and a few strawberries...I also had a coffee

Snack, Lunch, Snack

 

I knew that today I wouldn't be able to take pictures of my food before I ate it, so I took a picture before I packed it all up.

For my first snack I had 1/3 cup 0% vanilla Greek yogurt mixed with 1 scoop of protein powder, 1/2 cup blackberries and a green tea

Lunch was 6 baked chicken meatballs (extra lean ground chicken mixed with no salt added BBQ chicken seasoning), I dipped them in mustard and 1 cup cubed roasted sweet potatoes. I was so full I didn't end up eating the salad. I had another coffee as well.

My second snack was 3 hard boiled egg whites and 10 almonds

Supper

Grilled hoki fish, I'm not even sure what kind of fish that is but it's good. I added a little salt and chipotle mango seasoning. Three grilled shrimp skewers, 1 grilled peach and 1 cup of roasted broccoli.

Night Snack

Egg white pancakes, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/3 banana and 1/2 cup egg whites, I used no sugar added maple syrup and had a Lemon Blueberry Passion tea!

Well that's it! Head on over to Peas and Crayons to check out a whole bunch of other fabulous blogs!

Asian Blade Steak

I am participating in my first Foodie Friday today. I really like doing these link parties, I get to read so many blogs that I probably wouldn't have stumbled upon if it weren't for them. Click on the picture above to check it out!

 This steak recipe that I am posting was made a few weeks ago. I have never cooked a blade steak before this. It was this tough piece of beef that I wasn't quite sure what to do with. I don't like steaks with sauces so I knew doing a braise or slow cooker thing wasn't going to work.

I figured out that marinating beef in ginger really helps make it tender. We have used flank in our pho in the past and that's what we do, so I figured I might as well try it here. I wanted to grill the steak, I paid $9.00 for 2 big blade steaks, what a great deal. So I marinated it overnight and grilled it until medium well, let it rest, then sliced it against the grain. It was soooo tender and had so much flavour. We ate it with vermicelli, lettuce, cilantro, basil and mint and Vietnamese dipping sauce.

 

Asian Blade Steak

2 blade steaks

1/2 cup fish sauce

4 garlic

1/2 onion

1 tbsp grated ginger

1 tbsp minced lemon grass

2 tbsp sugar

Put all ingredients in a freezer bag or bowl. Let the steak marinate overnight. The next day, heat up your grill. Cook the steak 3-6 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the steak and how well you like the steak cooked. Let it rest on a cutting board for 10 minutes, while tented with foil. Slice it against the grain, serve it with whatever you like.

What I Ate Wednesday #14

 
It's that time of the week again..man the week goes quick! Well I think maybe it's the weekend that goes quick, too quick. Click the picture above to head on over to Peas and Crayons, there you will find some great recipes and links to other bloggers participating in What I Ate Wednesday.

This weekend was the airshow that we have here every year. I have gone to a couple of airshows in other cities but have now gone to 3 here in my city. I looove the airshow! Check out this awesome plane

Okay enough about planes!

So here's what I ate

Breakfast

Chocolate Protein Oat Bran with strawberries and coffee, man I love that oatbran!

After this workout I had a protein shake
then another coffee

Lunch

Turkey Burger....mmmmm....

Supper

2 BBQ Chicken thighs, a sliced roma tomato, greek salad and white cheddar KD

After supper I had another coffee

Snack

Green tea, a rice cake with natural peanut butter and cinnamon and a few sour cream and onion popchips

Have you ever been to an airshow?
If you have what are your favourite planes?