Roast Chicken with Thyme Gravy for My Bucket List Dinner Challenge

 

Roast Chicken with Thyme Gravy

Welcome back for round two of my latest personal challenge where I "knock out" another dish from my bucket list. As you know I love to create a menu around an ingredient, an idea or a theme. If you have been following More Than Burnt Toast you will know that I have been creating personal challenges based on a theme to infuse new life into my cooking adventures. Even every day food should be an adventure either with new ideas, or experimenting with a new cuisine. Every day we should be excited about what we are eating even if it just means making use of a wonderful find in your culinary exploration. With these personally imposed challenges my own culinary skills have been rejuvenated and are back on track and I am once again inspired. With the holidays coming this is the perfect time of year to pump up our kitchens into high gear!

For the next week or so I am sharing with you recipes I have created a menu from beginning to end.. from starters to dessert... from my "bucket list". We all have a bucket list of recipes we want to try from magazines, cookbooks, our blogging friends or wherever you find your inspiration. We started off with an hors d'oeuvres that made our tastebuds sing with citrus notes...Crab Cake Sliders with Lemon Remoulade.

Crab Cake Sliders with Lemon Remoulade for My Bucket List Menu

Crab Cake Sliders with Lemon Remoulade

I love to create a menu around an ingredient or an idea which means it is time again for another personal challenge here at More Than Burnt Toast. If you have been following More Than Burnt Toast you will know that I have been creating personal challenges based on a theme to infuse new life into my cooking adventures. Even every day food should be an adventure either with new ideas, or experimenting with a new cuisine. Every day we should be excited about what we are eating even if it just means making use of a wonderful find at our local farmers market for our favourite comfort foods.With these personally imposed challenges my own culinary skills have been rejuvenated and back on track and I am once again inspired. With the holidays coming this is the perfect time of year to pump up our kitchens into high gear!

Ricotta and Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells with Smoky Marinara Sauce

In true More Than Burnt Toast form I am doing all that I can to support Meatless Mondays. What better way to show my support than with a vegetarian pasta favourite from my kitchen to yours. Nothing fancy... nothing gourmet... just every day cooking.

You know the kind of meal that can be prepared well ahead of time and perhaps even in stages. Make the marinara sauce one day and freeze it as I did and your weekday meal will be on the table in no time. The holidays are looming and we need simple and classic dishes to get us through stress free! A slight twist with your own homemade pesto and you have made this dish all your own.

Creamy Hot Chocolate Muffins for Taste and Create

 

Creamy Hot Chocolate Muffins

It has been a while since I have participated in Taste and Create one of the very first events to grace the pages of More Than Burnt Toast. This time honoured event is the brainchild of Nicole (aka Myamii) over at For the Love of Food.  I love to visit her site for all the delicious recipes and tidbits. She is very generous and always helpful whenever I have a question...or two. She has also been a long-lasting competitor in the Foodbuzz quest to find the next Food Blog Star and has made it to the video stage so far. You go girl!!!.  If you haven't had the chance to visit please take the time...you will be glad you did.

The premise of the Taste and Create event is simple. We are paired with another blogger
... we choose a recipe from their extensive posts...we prepare the dish and then... blog about it.

I love this event because I am able to showcase someone else's blog, a favourite dish or just "chat up" a friend. The blogosphere is filled with delicious recipes that are piling up waiting in the wings for me to try. It's time to get some of them out from the blogosphere and into my kitchen!!!! Taste and Create allows me to to do just that!!! What could be better!

Getting in the Holiday Spirit with President's Choice

After a long and gruelling day at work I arrived home to a message on the answering machine. "Please pick up a package between the hours of 8 - 6", the canned voice chimed in. Nothing perks me up better than the anticipation of a Christmas bundle. A package for little 'ole me! Well let me tell you Christmas has come early here at the More Than Burnt Toast household!! It was something I have been eagerly anticipating from the Presidents Choice Brand of companies and Hill and Knowlton. And they did not disappoint me. What a fun idea!!!!

Butternut Squash Gnocchi alla Romana

Most gnocchi, or as they say in the Italian translation "lumps", that I am familiar with are tiny potato or ricotta dumplings. Florentines call these tasty gnocchi morsels "topini", or "field mice". My first taste memory was at a family-style restaurant in Northern Ontario at Wasaga Beach where my family spent many a summer vacation. Being a teenager without a truly developed palate I don't know if these were the best "lumps" I have ever tried but I do know they are embedded in the recesses of my foodie memories. The gnocchi of my childhood is boiled briefly and then seasoned with a sauce limited only by your imagination.

Lately I have been wanting to try a completely different animal. Gnocchi alla Romana are a pasta made with milk and semolina flour, and baked. This type of gnocchi is quite different from the potato or ricotta recipes of my childhood. Semolina flour is used to make a thick muscle-straining dough which requires about 20 minutes of stove top time similar to preparing polenta or even a brioche dough. I started by roasting the squash with seasonings right in the oven, mashed it to a fine texture and add it to the semolina mixture while stirring on the stove top. This version doesn't have any eggs but gets the extra moisture from mashed butternut squash instead. I wanted to experiment with these fall flavours, and reduced the milk as well. The dough is allowed to cool and is then cut into discs and baked. A light butter and Parmesan topping is all that's needed. They are tremendously satisfying, and extraordinarily tasty but they are also rich. To me their only defect is that they have a way of disappearing off your plate!!!

Home Made Raincoast Crisps Paired with an Oregon Award Winning Cheese

 

Cranberry and Hazelnut Raincoast Crisps

Vancouverite Lesley Stowe's culinary journey took her from the streets of Paris back to her roots on the West Coast of Canada where she helped set up a small cooking school. At that time she had her culinary hand in catering and doing high-end desserts for local Vancouver restaurants. She eventually opened a retail location off Granville Island with an eye to growing her specialty food line of high-end cheeses, preparing take-out and packaged foods.

One of the catering items that became increasingly successful from Stowe’s catering line was a product called Raincoast Crisps. They were making them for parties and then offering them in their store where they sold out immediately. The original Raincoast Crisps are available in 5 different flavours, some of them like Turkish Fig and Olive are available only seasonally.

We absolutely love the Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps but at $7 a box why not try your hand at making your own to spread the love a little further.

We All Caught the Buzz.....The Second Annual Foodbuzz Festival

Being one of the lucky bloggers who attended last years Foodbuzz Festival I have struggled not to compare this years festival with that spectacular event. In my books who can top a much anticipated "Outstanding in the Field" dinner with long tables snaking through a warehouse with course after course of sensual taste pleasures. But if we are living in the moment, and not in the past, the whole experience at Foodbuzz 2010 was definitely one for the memory books and exceeded all my expectations, despite comparisons, in more ways than one.

 Here it is Thursday already and I am only just now sitting back and savouring every moment of this adventure through attendee write ups, amazing videos, taste flash backs, new friendships forged and old renewed. This past weekend 350 food bloggers descended on controversially the best foodie town in the United States...San Fransisco.  With world-class wineries, artisanal cheese makers and small farms just a short drive away, San Francisco is awash in culinary riches. The quality and quantity of the restaurants and food carts here make San Francisco an unparalleled food city. The quality of the food did not stop on the streets of San Francisco but rose to the occasion for the biggest foodie "Lovefest" San Francisco has ever seen!!!! A big thanks to Foodbuzz who worked till they were "dog tired" to create an event that captured the heart and soul of the food industry and the blogging world in one elliptical event.

We're Back

...from the Foodbuzz Festival in San Francisco...more to come

You are reading this post on More Than Burnt Toast at http://morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com. Content must be credited to this author.

Tostadas with Avocado and Fresh Cheese

Tostadas with Avocado and Fresh Cheese

As we speak I am enjoying my second day in San Francisco. The Foodbuzz Festival begins tonight and I am looking forward to meeting new and old friends. This post is set to publish itself today so I wish I could tell you what I have been up to for the past few days in San Francisco. It is not top secret, it just hasn't happened yet! Other than a small historic tour of Chinatown, dinner with Joan of FOODalogue and Norma of Platanos, Mangoes and Me at a Peruvian restaurant La Mar I don't know what I have been up to:D I assure you I have been a good girl and I will fill you in when I return. 

Before I left the Okanagan I made these delicious soft tostados I wanted to share with you from ingredients I discovered while in Seattle a few weekends ago. I couldn't resist the uncooked flour tortillas. They add so much to the flavour and texture of the dish. Let's not forget the cojita and queso fresco neither of which are available where I live. 

Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club Celebrates with Corn

 

Creamed Corn with Bacon and Leeks

We are so glad you have decided to join us once again for our Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. This is a monthly event where 5 ladies in two neighbouring countries get together to create a delicious meal with a theme in mind. We are now in our second year and continue to share a love for Cooking Light magazine which has an emphasis on healthy eating and living. The idea is simple because of our common interest in cooking and healthy cuisine. We love to share these ideas with you each and every month through our Virtual Supper Club. This is a team effort where we combine what Cooking Light readers like best...good food with great company!!!!This months theme "A Celebration of Corn" was chosen by Sandi of The Whistestop Cafe.