purplelara

wasabi chicken burgers

Across the street from my office is a little coffee shop called the Wired Bean, which serves a wicked chicken burger with wasabi mayonnaise. I’ve made my version a couple of times now, with varying degrees of success with the wasabi mayo.

It’s completely simple to make wasabi mayo (wasabi powder + mayonnaise = wasabi mayonnaise), but it’s difficult to tell when you have the wasabi level right. Until the powder has had a chance to sit in the mayo for a bit, it doesn’t seem to have that wasabi fire. We thought maybe we’d bought some old, dried out, broken down, non-fiery powder, so we snorted some. Whew, were we wrong.

I love wasabi and I really disliked the taste of the mayo when I first added the powder to it. I’d recommend adding a little at a time and refrigerating it for about an hour before giving it a taste test.

(This reminds me of story about the first time a certain someone I know (ahem) had sushi. This person thought it was weird that they served guacamole with sushi…and I’m sure you see where this is heading…)

Anyways, these burgers are quick, easy and pretty healthy too. I’m not sure they need the cheese, to be honest. They serve it with cheddar at the Bean but wasabi is so flavorful, I don’t think I really tasted the cheese. The rest of my day was pretty low-cal and I went for a walk/run after work, so I don’t feel bad about having it on my burger last night.

Ingredients

Whole wheat buns
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Wasabi mayonnaise (try approximately 1/2 teaspoon of wasabi powder per 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise and adjust from there)
Cheddar cheese
Tomato
Red onion

Prep

Breasts -> BBQ
Buns, cheese, tomato, onion -> Slice
Assemble

Yer done.

Fat, calories, carbs, etc.

changing things up

As most people know, I started this blog as a travel blog for my trip to India and Thailand about 2.5 years ago.  Then I used it to document the reno of my condo about 2 years ago.  And then it kinda sat here.  I’d love to update more, but I don’t seem to think of many things to say that are blog-worthy.

But in the last year or so, I’ve started to cook – and enjoy it. You can get up off the floor now.

Nearly every day I search the internet and my cookbooks for ideas for dinner but I’ve found I’m not great at keeping track of what I’ve made and what our favourites are. I tried signing up for sites like allrecipes (and others) but other than rating the recipes, I didn’t find they helped me record when I made it or whether it was a keeper.

A few weeks ago I remember sitting here going “Wow, this is good. I like this one A LOT.  Will definitely be making this again!”  And now I have absolutely no idea what it was. Hmpf.

I also email my mom nearly daily, exchanging ideas for dinner and sending links of great recipes.  Usually I’m at work when I do this (at lunch! I swear!), so I delete the emails. Not a great system either.

LONG STORY SHORT:  I’m going to start a collection on this blog of “Ramsay’s Recipes” (heh – what? We share a last name and a rather common vocabulary).

I’m not sure it will be updated every day, but hopefully I’ll update at least several times a week.  I hope it helps me remember what I’ve made, allow me to have one central spot on the innernet to find my recipes, and that it’s a good resource for my mom and any others I want to share recipes and ideas with.

A couple of notes.  In most cases, the recipes are not my own. I can cook but I’m not a chef. I can execute but not invent. I will always credit the source of the recipe and include a link to the original if it was found online.

As always, I’m trying to watch my weight and I try to make healthy recipes.  I’ll include the nutritional information (and Weight Watchers points values) when I can BUT and it’s a big but (no pun intended), do not rely on my information!  It will be cobbled together from searches I’ve done myself and I take no responsibility if you follow these recipes and get fat, have your blood pressure go through the roof, turn green or anything else.

Please leave me a comment if you have any questions about the posts. Thanks!

pork with quinoa and black bean salad

We eat a lot of chicken.  A lot.  Last week I felt the hankerin’ for something different and decided on pork chops, but wasn’t interested in putting too much effort into them.  So I threw them in a baggie with some lemon juice, garlic and honey.  Marinated the suckers for an hour or so and threw ‘em on the barbeque.  End of fascinating pork recipe (it was good though).

I had a craving for a grainy salad to go with the pork and came across this one for a Quinoa and Black Bean Salad on epicurious.  Have you tried quinoa (pronounced keen-wa, not kin-oh-wah as Andrew likes to say)? It’s fantastic, it’s a SUPER FOOD!

I’ll post the original recipe (for the traditionalists) and note my modifications noted in purple italics:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups super food…I mean quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans, rinsed
• 1 1/2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups cooked corn
• 3/4 cup finely chopped green red bell pepper (I though red would add better colour, as the jalapeños and cilantro are enough green)
• 2 pickled (ew) fresh jalapeño chilies, seeded and minced (I used one serrano pepper and two jalapeños, seeds and all, ’cause we’re spicy like that)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander (aka cilantro)(I used about half a bunch, as Andrew is a cilantro-freak)
  
• 5 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon salt (really not necessary)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cumin, or to taste (cumin smells like armpit. Just sayin’)
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Prep:

Wash quinoa and drain in a large fine sieve.

(The following is the best way I’ve found to make quinoa. Don’t follow the instructions on the package, follow this).

Cook quinoa 10 minutes in a pot of boiling water.  Drain in sieve and rinse under cold water. Set sieve over a saucepan of boiling water (quinoa should not touch water) and steam, covered with a kitchen towel until fluffy and dry, about 10 minutes (check water level and add more water, if necessary). Remove from heat.

Once the quinoa has cooled, toss in beans, corn, bell pepper, jalapeños, coriander.

I used my Braun hand blender to whip up the oil, lime juice and cumin for the dressing.  I added about half the dressing to the salad right away and cooled it in the fridge for an hour or so, then added the rest of the dressing right before serving.

This makes a TON of salad.  We ate this two nights in a row and got a couple of lunches out of it as well.  When I hit the dregs of it, I mixed it in with scrambled egg whites and stuffed it all in a pita for Andrew’s on the run breakfast.

Great dinner:  Pork ***, Salad ****

Fat, calories, carbs etc (salad)