Gourmet Cooking 101: Brought to you by Chef Kitchen & Chef Claes.

Chef Emily Claes and I would like to teach you how to create this delicious meal!

Pear Arugula Salad

Goat Cheese Potato cake and Tenderloin Steak

Okay, Okay... I accept the fact that you snickered when you saw that I referred to myself as a chef... and honestly, I laughed about it TOO! While I L-O-V-E delicious food, I still have a bit to learn about cooking it. Okay, a LOT to learn about cooking. Ever since working with some of the most AMAZING chefs in Canada at the Raw Bar, the desire to cook beautiful gourmet food grew and grew! Whenever I have the time (which seems to be like never these days) I like to play in the kitchen. Thanks to my friend Shannon Wiens, I learned of a great website full of pro recipes! It probably seems obvious, and maybe you have all been there before! The chefs that we know and love on the food network have the recipes they cook on television archived online, and the recipes aren't as difficult as you might think!

I hop between both websites for inspiration, because the recipes are different. Check out foodnetwork.ca and foodnetwork.com and try the recipe finder to find what you are in the mood for.

I have tried this recipe four times now, and I think it gets better every time! In my cooking adventures I find that I struggle the most with managing my time, and trying the same recipe numerous times has really helped me understand this.

To make this dinner you will need...
(Yield: 4)

Ingredients:
[Potato Cake]

6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
3 tablespoons sliced green onion
2x113 gram logs fresh soft goat cheese, crumbled
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions! (I'm pulling these right from the site, so that I don't lead you astray... all the credit goes to Anthony Sedlak of foodnetwork.ca! You can find the recipe here!)

Potato Cake
To prepare potato cakes, preheat oven to 375.
Add whole, unpeeled potatoes to medium pot. Fill pot with cold water just to cover potatoes; season cooking water well with salt (it should taste like the sea) and bring up to a boil.
Boil on medium high heat until potatoes are tneder but not over done, about 10-15 minutes. Drain, peel, and mash roughly with a fork.
When potatoes haved cooled enough to handle, fold in fresh herbs, goat cheese and salt and pepper to taste.
Mix until just combined; pieces of goat cheese should still be visible. Form mix into eight 2 1/2 X 1 inch cakes. Flour lightly and set aside.
Add olive oil to a large non-stick pan and bring up to medium high heat. Add potato cakes and fry until first side is golden brown.
Flip onto other side, fry for another minute and place in oven to finish warming through, about 10 minutes.

Wait until the outside of your potato cake is brown and crispy! The potato cake may fall apart a little bit, but you can always shape it better afterwards!

[Steak]





4 tenderloin steaks 5-6 oz each
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 shallot minced
1 cup port
1 cup beef stock
2 tablespoons butter
coarse salt and pepper

Directions! (I'm pulling these right from the site, so that I don't lead you astray... all the credit goes to Anthony Sedlak of foodnetwork.ca! You can find the recipe here!)

Steak
Preheat oven to 400. To prepare steak, heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pan.
Season steaks well with coarse salt and pepper. When oil is nearly smoking, add steaks and 2 tbsp butter; sear both sides of steak until well coloured. (Depending on size of steak, this may have to be done in two batches.)
Finnish cooking in oven for desired doneness, about 5 minutes for medium rare. Remove from heat, transfer to cutting board and let rest, covered, for at least 10 minutes.
In same pan, add 1 tbsp oil and sweat shallot until softened and lightly coloured. Add port to deglaze and bring to simmer, reducing slightly.
Add beef stock and simmer; reduce volume by half. Remove from heat and swirl in 2 tbsp butter. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

Emily also put together a simple but delicious pear arugula salad with asiago cheese. Tossed with olive oil and a bit of sea salt.

***Emily and I find that dressing up & putting on a cute apron really does inspire anyone to get in touch with their creative side. We would recommend and caution anyone who might attempt making this meal at home, to cook ONLY while wearing that dress, a hairband or pair of heels that you can NEVER seem to find an occasion to pull out of your closet.

If you don't feel like working in the kitchen all day - you may want to stop by your local bakery and pick up dessert! The wine in the photo on the right is one of my all time favorite cheap picks! Bear flag smooth red wine blend. Sweet (but not TOO sweet!) and deliciously full bodied. Mmmm. ($9-$12)

Voila!

Since Emily was house sitting this beautiful home for a couple of weeks, I came up for a "girls night in!" It was a lot of fun pulling together a delicious dinner. We managed to buy everything for dinner for under $20 each. Emily's wonderful mom, Ruth let us shop around her pantry for a bunch of ingredients, so we did cheat a little. ;)

Annnnddd... since we really like our Nikons...and cute hats... we did manage to squeeze a 5 minute photo session outside while the sun was setting.

Emily, I still can't get over you in this photo - and I just want to share it with the world!! You are INTENNNSEE - and I want your eyes.

Oh, and I really do dig your new hat ;)

I can never keep these bangs under control - I really can't see a thing... but I like them, okay? ;)

Emily... I love love love you, thanks for having me over for such a fun housesitting adventure!!

Girl Time!

It was our chance to get some girl time in before the warm days of summer came to an end. We had talked about going to Salt Spring together for some time - and it was one of the only weekends that Mike & I were home on Vancouver Island from Calgary!

We went to Cedar Beach Resort on Saltspring Island, right on St Marys lake. Since we took an early evening ferry over, we went straight to dinner at Moby's Pub Oceanside. The food, music and company were all perfect! The band playing happened to be the same band that played friday nights years ago when I worked downtown Calgary at the Raw Bar - Los Morenos! So random that they were playing at this little pub. These guys create beautiful mood music, their music takes me back to serving couples sharing romantic dates at Raw Bar...

From the restaurant we headed to our campsite, and it was already dark outside. We were shocked when we pulled up to the campsite the camp owners assigned to us - it had a porch with a bistro table, tiki torches all around the fence and a hot tub in the back corner. It was so cute! We were sad though to see that the hot tub had boards on top and couldn't be used. We thought we randomly parked in a communal area, but the owner came by in the morning to assure us we found the right spot. We didn't really make the most out of our cute campsite, because we had big plans for our night & full day on the island. I can't wait to stay at this campground again next summer, or maybe in one of the cabins this winter! This campsite was the perfect getaway.

We had stocked up on all the goods we needed for a successful girls night... wine, more wine, some chocolate and kettle chips. We relaxed and watched some sex and the city on the laptop in bed while we kept warm in tuques and long johns!

In the morning when we woke up we walked down to the lake to explore our campground. The lake was all misty, and we were in love even more with saltspring...

Everything was duey, but the sun was warm and wonderful so early in the morning...

Saltspring Island has quite a few wineries open to the public, and I had it marked in my calendar for almost three months that we should attend the Saltspring Island Wineries Harvest Grape stomp. We came a bit late and didn't have a whole lot of time, so next year I plan to attend with a picnic basket. They had signs saying that they welcome picnics on their lawn, sooo that sounds like a perfect plan for next year. They had their tasting bar open, which was and always is complimentary... while people competed to fill their bottles with the most grape juice. (which was of course made by stomping grapes with their bare feet. )

We had some fun taking pictures in the vineyard! I forgot my camera at home, but Kim was gracious enough to let me steal hers for some shots. Kim set this one up real quick while there were no cars coming... it was slightly scary sitting there waiting for the timer considering her expensive camera was sitting in the middle of the highway!

Julie & her husband Mike moved down the street from us at the end of October. Mike and I couldn't be happier to have such amazing friends so close by! Kim, Julie and I spent our day today sipping tea and playing with Penny in Jewels' living room while we kept toasty by the fire.

Siiiigh... I LOVE being home.

I LOVE these girls!!!!!!

We treated ourselves to breakfast at Kims favorite breakfast place Barbs Buns. It was a busy little bistro, and they had a variety of eggs benedict that did not disappoint. Mine was cooked perfectly, and was absolutely delicious.

We spent the day at the second last outdoor saturday market of the year. We enjoyed sampling delicious goat cheese, listening to music and looking at homemade treasures. The Saturday market on Saltspring is always lovely.

Thanks Kim & Julie for such a fun girly getaway!