Quick Bites: Sweet Banana Spinach Salad

Sometimes you just want to eat a quick healthy dinner without compromising on the meat.
Today I whipped up a quick spinach salad with random ingredients from the kitchen.

Ingredients:

Handful of Sweet Banana Chips
Marble Cheese
Spinach
Montreal Smoked Meat
Blue Cheese

Directions:

* Grab a handful of Banana Chips and break them into small chew-able pieces (about half the size of croutons)
* Chop up the cheese into little bit size squares
* Shred the Montreal Smoked Meat.  I used 4 slices (I like a little meat on my salad)
* Fill your bowl or plate with some spinach. And mix the ingredients together
*Lightly dress the Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing.  (Just lightly dress it barely covering the leaves.)

There you have a quick Salad with a a little sweet and sour flavor along with some protein.

Chez Blodge

Menudo Wraps

Monday's often seem like long days.  No one wants to come home and cook on a Monday, myself included.  I had a bunch of left over dishes and sides from the weekend so I decided to fuse them together into a wrap.  Menudo Wraps to be exact.  Menudo is a Filipino (Pork) dish similar in some ways to a beef stew without all the sauce.  

So I took some leftover spinach salad, made up of Spinach, Eggs, Bacon Bits, Marble Cheese and home made Croutons.  I always keep my salad dressings separate from the greens in cases like this where there were left overs.  I used a Roti Wrap and lined it with a few slices of Monterrey Jack Cheese.  Next I combined the rice and Menudo together and put it in the wrap then topped it with the left over spinach salad.  And lastly for a little extra flavor I added a White BBQ sauce.  You can toast it or heat it on a grill if you prefer.  And there you have a little Filipino and Canadian Fusion all from left overs.

Women's Day, Solar Storm, Hamburgers

Today is International Women's Day so a big hug from Bloggin Blodgett to all the beautiful women out there who make the world a better place.    Also today is the big solar storm day.  The Solar flare is expected to pass the earth today.  A Solar Flare occurs as a result of when the sun erupts.  Solar energy particles travel through space.  Then end result is that it can harm some of our electronic devices (twitter may be in an uproar) It is also rumoured that the solar flare can expand the northern lights which unfortunately we are cloud covered today so there will be no chance to see much of the sky.  But just in case have your camera handy. 

In other news I made my first burgers from scratch last night and they were pretty good.  I may tweak the ingredients a little but overall I was satisfied. 

All you need is ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, seasonings (you can use anything you like), bacon and cheese for the stuffed hamburgers. 

 I made two types of burgers one plain and one stuffed with Havarti cheese and Bacon. 

Mix it all in a bowl and then you make the patties into which ever size you like.  For the stuffed burgers I made eight patties all the same size.  Place the bacon and cheese in the middle of the patty and then place another patty on top. 

Seal the edges so the burger is rounded and then throw it on the grill.  Serve with toppings of your choice.

Cheers Bloggin B

Peppered Salmon and BBQ Salmon with Maple and Bacon Asparagus

Cooked up some amazing Salmon tonight with some brown rice and two different types of Asparagus.

The first Salmon was baked with a barbeque chip crust.  All you do is rub a very small amount of oil (I used vegetable) on the skinless side (this will help the chip breading from burning) and then coat the salmon with your crushed chips.   You can use any flavor of chips you like.  The second Salmon is marinaded in a Pepper sauce for two hours and then fried.  I also cooked up some Asparagus.  Half of it was glazed with Maple Syrup.  The second half was wrapped in candied bacon.  Cooked at 350 for about 20 minutes. 

Here is the Salmon after being cook.  The BBQ Crusted Salmon is cooked at 350 for about 10 - 15 minutes and then I broiled it for about 2 minutes to give the BBQ crust a bit more of a crunch.

The Peppered Salmon is fried in Canola or Sunflower Oil for about five minutes a side.  You can use a number of different things for this.  I have a bunch of different ingredients in the seasoning.  After marinating the Salmon for two hours it is then topped with about a quarter cup of ground pepper on the skinless side and then fried.  Serve with asparagus and your choice of rice.  Cheers Chez Blodge

Tuesday Dinner ... Tapas

Tuesday night felt like doing something a little different so I made my own version of Tapas.  Tapas are simply a variety of appetizers or finger foods.  Everything is home made  except the Artichoke Dip, Spinach Pies and Fish Sticks

Meatballs

Breaded Garlic Shrimp

Spanakopita  (Spinach Pie)

Paprika Spiced Almonds

Roasted Garlic

Cheese and Quail Eggs

Toasted Pita with Artichoke Dip

Couscous

And some Fish Sticks with Tartar Sauce

Satay Chicken Burger with Stuffed Jalapeno

Started off with a bunch of Jalapeno peppers

Sliced those bad boys in half

Seed them clean

Fill them up with creme cheese

Wrap them in bacon

Cook at 350 for 20 minutes or until bacon is to your liking

For the Chicken Satay Burgers I used ground chicken and 2 tablespoon of flours along with 2 tablespoons of Coconut Milk and a few spices. Cooked them on the grill for about 5 minutes a side.

For the burger I used a Sesame Seed Bun, layered the patty on the bottom added home made Chipotle Mayonnaise, Lettuce, Monterey Jack Cheese, a handful of Deep Fried French fries (onion rings or sweet potato fries will go good too) and topped off with a few of the Stuffed Jalapenos.  Throw the top bun on and chow down. This was really good and filling. 

Just cooked a Greasy Artery Cloggin Brunch ... mmmmm

FRIED BACON

FRIED SPAM

PORK AND BEANS WITH MAPLE SYRUP

RICE WITH WILD MUSHROOM AND GARLIC

POTATOES FRIED IN BACON FAT

EGGS FRIED IN SPAM FAT - YEAH THAT'S RIGHT

The table is set

Breakfast of champs for dinner

Ahh the breakfast of champions for dinner.  Sometimes its just great to eat unhealthy food.  Eggs topped off with Corn beef, rice and seasoned with Franks Red Hot.   Mmmmm. 

Suggestions ..What to Bake?

On Saturday I mentioned that this week I will be doing some Christmas goodies baking.   Bloggin B needs your suggestions.  Enter them in the combox below. 

Caribbean Mango and Eggnog Chicken Casserole

Peanut Butter Snowballs

Cookies, Gingerbread Houses, Candy Canes, Rice Krispies, Peppermint Patties, Brownies ah the list goes on for the Christmas treats that will be making their pounds, I mean rounds over the next few weeks.  While we all love indulging a little in the sweets sometimes the goodies are a lot of work.  Whether you have kids or not time over the next seventeen days will disappear very fast.  A fast and easy treat recipe, one which your kids will love too because they get to make a mess, play with their food and have a nice treat.  All you need is a little peanut butter (or a lot) and some icing sugar. You will need two spoons, a bowl and a plate.

Step 1:  Wash your hand.  This is a hands on recipe.  

Step 2 :  Dump a bunch of icing sugar in the bowl.  If you're unsure of how much start small and add more as needed.

Step 3:  Scoop as much peanut butter as you want into the bowl.  Here is where you will discover the purpose of the second spoon.  (Hint Use it to remove the peanut butter from the other spoon)

Step 4:  Roll up your sleeves its time to jump in. Using your hands fold the icing sugar over the peanut butter and then mix together.  What you want to avoid is having too much icing sugar that the peanut butter begins to crumble. The peanut butter shouldn't be too sticky either.

Step 5:  Start breaking the peanut butter into small balls by rolling them adding icing sugar as need to avoid stickiness. Ideally you should be able to roll them in your hand without the ball sticking to your hand.  Make as many or little as you want. 

Step 6: Sprinkle a little icing sugar on the plate enough that you can lightly roll and cover the peanut butter snowballs.  When the peanut butter balls are ready gently roll them on the plate so they are slightly covered like a light snowfall.

Step 7: Have a treat.  Be careful the addiction to eat as many as possible may be followed by the feeling of over eating.

If you want to get really creative you can cover them in chocolate.



Don't forget to Join Bloggin Blodgett's Face Book Page for Christmas give away.  Details will be available only through Bloggin Blodgett's Page.  Look for the Give away details on the Event Calendar. 

Being longin for

Ahhh another work week done.  Looking forward to this weekend which officially began just over an two hours ago.  Bloggin B has a few dinner events to attend to this weekend.  There's a few projects on the agenda as well including some photography, a few blog posts, as well as editing the wedding pictures I took down in the Dominican.  The flickr page is still online but I have setup up a page over at  500px  which will house my portfolio pictures until I can find the time and resources to build a website. Also Bloggin B is now on facebook add for more exclusive content and information.  I'm also going to try and get some cooking done this well as I haven't posted any recipes later.  Keep an eye

Don't forgot to say hi to the latest member of my aquarium Daewon the Newt.  Daewon is pretty awesome he's very calm and likes to chill on the lily pad and floating wood.  He'll even just hang out in my hand and crawl around but he prefers to be a little wet.  Every now and then he's jump in the water for a dip, looks as if he likes to swim a lot too.  I add some loaches to the tank also and will try to snap a shot of them when they decide to come out of hiding, still a little shy getting use to the new home.

Spicy Thai Chicken Recipe

As promised in past post here is the recipe for the Spicy Thai Chicken Recipe.  Actually I meant to post this a little while ago but it slipped my mind till we feasted on the succulent beast again last night.

You will need the following: 11/2 to 2lbs of Chicken, 2 Red Peppers, 1 Onion, 4 Green Onions, 1 Clove of Garlic, 2 TSP of Fresh Ginger, 1 Jalapeno, Thai Style Chili Sauce (I use Kikkoman), 2 TBSP Rice Wine Vinegar, Vegetable Oil, Salt and Pepper, Sugar.

Serve this dish with a white rice.  I recommend starting your rice first as this dish takes only 20-30 minutes

Step 1 : Heat Oil in a large size pan.  When warm throw your chicken in and fry for about 5-10 minutes. I make sure that the majority of the chicken is lightly cooked outside and slightly pink inside before moving on to step 2.  Watch closely as you don't want to over cook chicken.  You can use any type of chicken you desire.  On the bone adds a lot more flavor to this recipe.

Step 2:  Add garlic and ginger chopped finely.  Cook for about a minute. 

Step 3: Throw in your chopped Onion, Salt and Pepper, 2 Green Onion, Red Peppers, Jalepeno seeded and finely diced.  

*** Note when chopping the Jalepeno make sure you wear gloves.  Touching the pepper with open soars or rubbing your eyes will really burn***

Step 4:  Stir fry the ingredients for about 4 minutes stirring regularly.

Step 5: In a bowl Mix the Chili sauce (I use one jar of Kikkoman for this dish) about 1 cup and 2 TBSP of Rice Wine Vingear.  Stir for a minute or until well mixed. 

Step 6:  Mix in the pot and reduce heat to a medium. If you find that the sauce is too juicy you can always add a little cornstarch to thicken.  This dish has kick especially with fresh Jalapeno.  If you find that the sauce is too hot you can add some sugar to cool the heat a little.  Serve once the peppers are crispy.  Top with the remaining 2 Green Onions before serving.

Serve with rice 
Chow Down

So its round 10

So its round 10 in the fight with the October Virus.  The bells were ringing this morning and the fight began.  Swinging hard with all his effort the October Virus gave me one last uppercut this morning knocking me back into the corner and keeping me there for most of the afternoon.  I had to force myself out of bed around 2 just so I would be able to sleep tonight.  The last two nights I've been up both nights past 3 tossing and turning.  So when I arose this afternoon I dosed myself with a bunch of vitamins, tea, water and read the 200 tweets I missed being KO'd.  Here's a couple interesting articles;

Bosco Verticale : the world's first vertical forest  -

I can for see a number of issue with this being a little bit of a plant fan myself.  Weight, root growth and fire concerns come to mind.  Full article is over here

While I usually don't pay much attention to all the Hollywood hype this one is liking promising considering Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon brought in over a billion dollars.  So for all you Transformers fans Hasbro and Paramount are currently in discussions for filming Transformers 4 and 5 according to a number of news sources.  Most of the details are speculation but the movies are likely

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/joshw24/news/?a=48390&t=iTransformers_4i_And_i5i_May_Film_Back-To-Back_LaBeouf_Out_Statham_In

http://collider.com/transformers-4-news-micronauts-movie/120848/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hasbro-talks-fo-fourth-transformers-ouija-budget-249277

BlogTo has posted a ton of protest pictures from their coverage of Occupy Toronto

Actually I didn't spend much time today on the Blog Feed I've been taking it easy and when not unconscious I've been rereading The Hobbit  before the movie comes out next year. So I spent the afternoon on the couch reading before making dinner which entailed some Jerk Chicken and Egg Plant Fingers done Parmesan style.  I may share the recipe in a later post along with the Spicy Thai Chicken I promised you.

Now I am off to see the wizard the wonderful wizard of Green Pills better know as Nyquil so that I may fall asleep before midnight otherwise I may begin howling tonight full moon or not.  Cheers till tomorrow
Bloggin B.