A Lovely Prime Rib Dinner

Hello everyone! I've got another good recipe for you all! This one includes a perfectly juicy, tender prime rib roast, cooked slowly over an afternoon, roasted asparagus with a lemon butter, and tasty mashed potatoes with gravy. Mmm!

I'd never "slow cooked" a roast before, but after trying it, I will never crank the oven up to 350-400 ever again for a beef roast!

I started off this dinner by seasoning the bejesus out of the roast with plain old salt and pepper in preparation for a good ol' sear in the frying pan. Oh yeah, and always start with meat that has been out of the fridge for a little while and is room temperature!

Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large frying pan until it is almost smoking, then throw in your roast and sear it up until nicely browned on all sides.

If you've got a nice roast with the bones in, place it bone side down in the roasting pan you've got out. The bones act as a roasting rack! Also, the fattiest side is usually opposite of the bones, so during the cooking the fat will drip down over the entire roast making it delectably juicy.

Heat your oven to just 200 degrees F, and season your roast how you like it. I used an army of fresh rosemary, which i pounded with the back of my knife to release the flavour and then finely chopped, and loads of fresh garlic (and even more salt and pepper).

It smelt soo good already before it had even entered the oven!

Then, roast away! Put the lid on your roasting pan, pop it in the oven, and forget about it! For a couple of hours, at least... I put mine in at 2:30 in the afternoon and it was a perfect medium rare at about 6:30 just in time for dinner. It came out beautiful!

For the asparagus I put them in the oven for about 30 minutes at the low 200 temperature, and they were a bit crunchy, but I like them like that for some reason. I topped them with butter I had melted on the stove top combined with the juice of half a lemon. Yum!

To make the gravy I combined the drippings from the roast with flour and water on a hot stovetop, and then added in the bits of roasted garlic that had escaped from the sides and top of the roast. This little touch was soo delicious!

And there you are! The perfect directions for a perfect roast. Enjoy!

xoxo

Mariel

Potato and Celery Salad with Ricotta

Hello everyone! I made this little dish a little while ago and never got a chance to post it - so here you go! I made this salad as a starter dish for some dinner that I can't remember the rest of...

The inspiration for this puppy came from the salad I had at Pizzeria Libretto in Toronto with Chloaye and Tatomme (it's practically a direct recreation of the dish...from everything I remember of it)! I think I remembered everything pretty well though, as this salad tasted almost identical to the one I had then! So enjoy this simple, fresh potato salad recipe!

Potato and Celery Salad with Ricotta

I won't put any measurements because everything depends on how many you're cooking for and your tastes!

baby red, white or fingerling potatoes

white onion

celery

olive oil

dijon mustard

white wine vinegar

flat leaf parsley

ricotta cheese

milk

salt and pepper

Wash and cut your potatoes into nice bite sized wedges or slivers, and bring to a boil in salted water and cook until the potatoes are "al dente" - the potatoes being nice and cooked yet still firm gives this salad a nice texture.

Meanwhile, cut your onion into small slivers, as well as your celery (I cut it on a big angle because that's how they did it in the restaurant)!

Next, mix a little milk into your ricotta cheese, so it's nice and oozy on the plate. Also add in a bit of olive oil and a big helping of salt and pepper to the cheese, and place this mixture down on your serving plates like so:

When the potatoes are finished cooking, let them cool down, and then add them to a large bowl with the celery and onion.

Now it's time to whip up the dressing! I just did a simple olive oil and white wine vinaigrette and added in the most minute amount of dijon for a little zing, and of course salt and pepper.

Toss your potatoes, celery and onion in your dressing.

Lastly add the chopped parsley to this mix and combine everything.

Place your potatoes and friends in a nice little pile on top of the ricotta, and give the salad a good drizzle of olive oil to finish it off!

Enjoy!

I have to say I am quite impressed with how this turned out and will definitely be making it again. It tasted so fresh...and the simplicity of the flavors was a nice change and great way to start a meal! It was very pretty too (I'm a sucker for aesthetically pleasing plates and colours in food)!

Oh yeah, and if you're feeling a little wary of the ricotta in this dish - try it! It might sound bizarre, but it's soo good! Especially since you transform it into a creamy, milky, savory component of the dish with all the salt and pepper and olive oil you pack into it. Mmm.

So there you go! I hope you all enjoy this salad. I thought it was a nice spring salad recipe...but it looks as though spring has disappeared once again (as always), so you can just pretend it's spring in your kitchens with this little dish!

xoxo

Mariel

Korean Chicken Wings and More

Hello everyone! I've got some very yummy recipes for you to try out from tonight's dinner! 

I was on supper duty today, and came home to see a big package of chicken wings sitting out on the counter defrosting. Not in the mood for the usual buffalo or salt and pepper wings, I went searching through the fridge and cupboard to see what we had to add some interest and flavor to those puppies. Upon searching, I realized that we were running pretty low - on almost everything!

It must have been my craving for something nice and garlicky paired with our abundance of Asian flavours that inspired tonight's meal! Whenever I think garlic + Asian ingredients, Korean food always come to my mind first. 

After a quick search on the internet to see how things go together nicely to form uniquely Korean flavours, I got started on making dinner!

The menu for the night: Korean chicken wings, Gamja Jorim (potato side dish) & Ol Namul (cucumber salad).

I started off with the wings, as they would take the longest. Here's how I made them!

Korean Chicken Wings

1 to 2 pounds chicken wings

2 tablespoons canola oil (plus more for frying)

3 tablespoons grated ginger

1/4 cup sherry or port

1/4 cup white or rice vinegar

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Sriracha or other chili/garlic sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place wings on a baking sheet, sprinkle lightly with salt (there's a ton of soy sauce coming later), and cook in the oven for 35 minutes.

While the wings are cooking, in a medium sized frying pan or sauce pan over medium heat, add the canola oil and ginger.

Let the ginger cook for 2 minutes, then add the sherry, vinegar, sesame oil, honey, soy sauce and chili sauce.

Let this mixture simmer for about 2 minutes, then remove from heat and set aside.

In a large sauce pan, pour about an inch or 2 of canola oil, and let it heat up to about 350 degrees F for frying.

Add the cooked wings from the oven into the pot and let them crisp up and get golden brown.

Remove from the fry and let them chill out on some paper towel for a bit.

Finally, toss the fried and baked wings in the sauce and serve up!

These wings turned out amazing! The crispiness from the frying and the intense flavours in the sauce were so incredible. I will definitely be tossing those ingredients together again for a marinade, or another sauce in the future. It is packed with multi-layered flavour, and just the right level of spiciness. 

With our lack of ingredients, and need for some sort of salad/vegetable dish, cucumbers were the answer tonight. After a quick Google search, I learned that Korean food actually does include yummy cucumber recipes! What I did with the cucumbers was super simple, and they were a nice, cool addition to the meal.

Ol Namul (Korean Cucumber Salad)

1 long english cucumber

dash of salt

2 cloves minced garlic

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon Sriracha

Cut the cucumber into circles, and "marinate" with a bit of salt while the chicken wings (or whatever else you're cooking) are being made.

Mix the remainder of the ingredients together, and dress the sliced cucumbers!

Serve chilled, enjoy!

The other thing I was surprised to learn tonight is that simple dressed, cooked, cubed, and cooled potatoes (a kind-of potato salad you could say) are also traditionally Korean! This made me happy as I was just not in the mood for rice tonight.

Gamja Jorim (Korean Potato Side Dish)

4 medium sized potatoes

3 tablespoons soy sauce

3 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons garlic, minced

3 teaspoons sesame oil

4 tablespoons onions, finely minced (scallions would have been much better, but we didn't have any)

Peel the potatoes and cut into approximately 1 inch cubes.

Place cubed potatoes into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them.

Bring to a boil and cook until just tender.

In the meantime, combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.

When the potatoes are cooked, toss them in the bowl while they're still hot and coat them with the mixture.

Pop in the fridge to cool down.

Serve chilled!

Here's my plate ready to be demolished!

All the flavours went together so well tonight (I sure am glad those cucumbers were in there for a little variety...)!

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I did! Tonight was a nice change from boring old chicken wings, and I learned a couple things about Korean cooking too!

xoxo

Mariel