Recipe of the week: Creamy pasta and honey-mustard-garlic grilled shrimp

You know when you've had a long day at work and don't want to spend more than 30 minutes cooking stuff in the kitchen?

Yeah. That was me last night. I originally wanted to make

Easy marinade recipe, perfect for grilling seafood on the BBQ

Okay so over the past few years, I've came up with different marinades both for meat and seafood. They were usually created randomly, with no recipe and using whatever was left in the fridge.

My 3 "must haves" for a perfect marinade: Acid (lemon, lime), an oil (usually EVOO) and spices. The rest depends on your taste! Options for a yummy marinade include: honey, BBQ sauce, ketchup, apple cider vinegar, garlic, cilantro, avocado oil etc.

The other day, I was craving seafood and when I looked in my fridge, I had EVERYTHING I needed for the perfect marinade!! This doesn't happen often at all so let me share this easy recipe with you guys. Hopefully, you will have all of these ingredients but if you don't, you can remix this recipe.

YOU WILL NEED

-1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

-1 tablespoon mustard

-1 tablespoon of champagne vinegar (optional, but makes a BIG difference)

-The juice of 1/2 a lime

-1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

-1 tablespoon of your favorite herbs: I like to use a mix of fresh flat leave Italian parley and basil

-1 garlic clove, minced very very very thinly

-Spices of your choice: I used salt and freshly grounded pepper

SO!

Whip everything together. 

If you want to

Recipe of the week: BBQ grilled potato skins

BBQ season is far from being over! My fellow bacon lovers will love this easy recipe.

BBQ grilled potato skins with butter and pesto

YOU WILL NEED
-4 Large potatoes, I love using Yukon Gold
-4-8 strips of bacon, depending on how much you love it
-Broccoli, chopped
-One large onion, chopped finely
-1/2 cup of butter
-1 tablespoon of pesto
-Optional: Cheese, sour cream

SO!

-Pre-heat

Keepin' it real with Sass + Recipe of the week: Macaroni salad with a twist

Hey Sass

It's BBQ season and I am out of ideas for side dishes! I think my husband will stop talking to me if I make another Caesar salad! Any ideas?

Helen

********

Hey! Thanks Helen for actually writing your name and allowing me to use it!


I made a macaroni salad the other day that was a little different than the ones I make usually. Why?


-I used fresh herbs from my garden. Yes. I have a garden. Fresh herbs are 34893287492374 times better in a macaroni salad than dried herbs.
-I wanted to add a little teeny tiny bit of champagne vinegar but ended up putting too much and it was pretty good! Sometimes, the mistakes you make in the kitchen are the base of an awesome, creative recipe. Champagne vinegar can be found in specialty grocery stores like at Marché Jean Talon in Montreal. I got mine at Chelsea Market in NYC at a store called "The Filling Station"
-Lemon juice made a difference eh?

YOU WILL NEED

Keepin' it real with Sass: What is béchamel sauce and how to make it

I got this email a month ago and I'd like to start by apoligizing for taking such a long time to respone! Anyways! Better late than never! We always appreciate when you guys email us your questions! Here it goes:

Hey Sass,

I'm not French but I keep seeing this white sauce they call bechamel in a lot of recipes online. What is it exactly? Is it good? How do you make it? 

P.S. I am lazy. I saw recipes online and they seemed too difficult. I'm sure you have an easy one! LOL! 

Anonymous

Hey anonymous! I know who you are because of your email address but I won't expose you, Mrs. Lazy! 

So! Béchamel is

Keepin' it real with Sass: How to know when your chicken is ready

I got this email and I felt it needed to be written about immediately. Here it goes:

Hey Sass

I've been reading your blog for a few months and I really like it: I just started cooking and it is helping me a lot. I kind of have a very stupid question though: Everytime I make chicken, it's never cooked! It looks ready, sometimes it even looks burnt, but the inside is always gooey and sometimes even has blood in it! How do I know if it is ready without cutting out a piece?

Thank you in advance,

Stephanie T.

Oh my.

Hey Steph! I could personally relate to this one, since I had the same problem when I started cooking. By the way, this is not a stupid question. I mean, the chicken can look super yummy on the outside but uncooked and weird on the inside. That's just how chicken is! And unlike beef, chicken is NOT GOOD when it is not fully cooked, it can also give you food poisoning. There is no such thing as "medium-rare" chicken. No. No...no.

Here are a few tricks!

BOIL IT!

-If you are baking your chicken or intend on grilling it on the BBQ or whatnot, BOIL IT before! With a knife or fork, poke the chicken after a few minutes. If there is blood still gushing out, it's not ready. If there isn't, you can bake it or put it on the grill. I like to boil it in chicken broth with some herbs like thyme.

If you don't feel like boiling it first...or just can't because you can't fry chicken after boiling it...anyways you get the point! Hehe.

-If baking it, make sure you don't cook it at a high temperature, 350 degrees Fahrenheit is usually fine. Cover your plate and cook it for about 30 minutes, poke it to verify if it is still bloody. If it isn't, uncover it and bake it (at a higher temperature if you want) until you get the desired crisp. If it is still bloody, cover it and cook it until it isn't.

-If you want to grill it...same thing! Cook it on LOW!! No one wants burnt and black chicken that is uncooked inside. Such a disspointment. You can put it in foil paper and cook it on the bbq until it's less bloody then grill it on high, or you can just cook it on low, with the BBQ top closed.  Don't forget to turn it often.

-If you want some gooood fried chicken that is actually fully cooked, put it in the oven for a bit after frying it. Not only you will get rid of a lot of the oil and fat, but you will also ensure that the inside is well cooked.

Hey. You can always have a "Testing Piece of Chicken". It's simply a little piece of chicken that will not be served (duh): You simply use it to evaluate if it is cooked, if the taste is good, if there is anything you should add etc. It helps! It's always better to test and taste your food instead impatiently waiting for everyone's reaction at the table.

I hope this helped!! Thank you for the question!

Check out this epic BBQ chicken recipe!

xoxo

Sass

First photo from http://ahungerartist.bobdelgrosso.com/2008/10/bloody-chicken-hypothesis.html

Keepin it real with Sass: Basic techniques/recipes

Hey guys!

So you know I have only started cooking about 5-6 years ago, so really, I had to start off SOMEWHERE! I find that sometimes people are shy to ask for recipes or techniques for the meals that are considered "easy". Let me tell you, I did NOT know how to poach an egg back in 2006, and definitely always over cooked my pasta back then. I had no idea how to make pesto or even how to cut an onion the right way! Although it was often humiliating, I had to ask, google it or spend entire days watching the Food Network (especially Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals, which is a very useful show). Can you imagine that I recently had to google "How to boil an egg" because I could never get it right?  We're human, we mess up, and we're not perfect. However, practice makes perfect: We can always get better by asking questions and helping each other :)

SO! I want you guys to let me know the basic things you want to learn in the kitchen. A couple of ideas I had in mind:

-How to know if your chicken is ready
-How to slice an onion
-Different meanings in the kitchen (for exemple: Julienne, chop v.s. slice, roast, bake etc.)
-How to make your own bread crumbs (when you run out)
-How to make eggs perfectly (scrambled, over easy, mirror, poached, omelet)
-How to make french toast and homemade pancakes when you have no more Aunt Jemimah mix.
-How to make sure your gravy, creamy sauce or bechamel has no clumps in it (ughhh I hate clumps)
-How to not overcook fish
-AND MORE!!!

Guys don't be shy! Please send me your recipe/technique requests at info@versass.com or if you want, ask me on Twitter! Don't forget to follow me @iLoveSassou! Also, if you have any requests of ANY KIND, I will be really happy to make an article about it!

I love food. I hope you do too :)

xoxo

Sassou

Recipe of the week: Potatoe bacon & spinach cakes

My veggie loves can do it without the bacon 

So what happens when you're supposed to make stuffed potatoes but overcook the potatoes? In other words, I cooked them for too long and they became so soft that my attempt to cut the "O" out of  them failed miserably. My reaction to that: "Uhhh nevermind all that I'll just make mashed potatoes with butter and milk" (YAWN). But you know me and my weirdly never-ending creativity: I decided to add some spinach, onions and bacon to it + more ingredients, make mini patties and fry em!  Turned out great! Crispy and crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, tasty and a perfect complement to my bbq pork chops.

YOU WILL NEED (For approximately 4 people)

-4 large potatoes (Yukon works well)

-1 pack of

Recipe of the week: Delicious couscous for the broke ass

Amazing couscous...one of my good friends Jane had it in her fridge once. It was delicious. Then I came to the realization that couscous is easy and quick to make (15 minutes max, if you cut veggies veeeeery slowly), healthy, and can be varied to your taste. And its really not expensive.

The other day, came home, and saw that I only had leftovers....canned meat....veggies and couscous. Sad? Somehow, but the bright side of being limited in things is the fact that it helps creativity! Here's this good couscous I made!! (And I repeat...the ingredients can vary!)

YOU WILL NEED

-1 cup of Couscous

-2/4 cup of boiled water

-A tomato, chopped

-Canned turkey, chopped

-Canned red beans

-1 tablespoon of olive oil 

-1 teaspoon of butter

-Half an onion, chopped

-Parsley, salt, pepper (to your taste!)

SO......

-In a large bowl, add the boiled water, then the couscous. Mix, cover for about 5 minutes.

-Add all of the ingredients, mix.

-Eat

-Refrigerate any couscous leftovers.

Recipe of the week: Sassou's sassy quiche

Mmmm i always loved quiche, but I never had one that made me go like WOW! So I decided to invent my own and its sooooooo good!! I'm telling you!!! I made it for myself a couple of times in the past and when I made it at my mom's brunch the other day, everyone loved it!! It takes less than half an hour to make and about 20 minutes in the oven! Here's the recipe :)

For one pie, you will need:

-A pie shell (they sell em in a box of two in the frozen section at the grocery store)

-6 eggs

-The big ham, diced

-One large onion, sliced

-One pack of spinach

-Spices (to your taste, of course, I used GOYA Adobo, garlic powder and herbs)

-Half a cup of grated cheddar (I like the marble one)

-Half a cup of grated mozzarella

-Butter or margarine

-Oil

-One tablespoon of corn starch (or flour)

(for the cheese, if you prefer one over the other, you can just use a cup of it instead of the two)

SOOOO!!!

-Put the pie shell in the oven for about 15 minutes on 375 degrees. While it is heating....

-In a large pan, caramelize the onions. For those who do not know what that means, you should heat some butter, a bit of oil and then when everything is real hot, add the onions and reduce the heat to medium. Let the onions get very very tender and if you see that they start to burn, add a couple of teaspoons of water. I also always add a spoon of sugar (to give it the dark color) and some salt and pepper. When you see that the onions are a nice brown color and ares super tender, turn off the heat.

-Remove pie shell from the oven, add the caramelized onions, put aside.

-Crank up the heat in the oven to 425 degrees.

-In the same pan you caramelized the onions, heat some oil (or butter) and add the ham, just a couple of minutes to give a it a nice color. DO NOT overcook. When ready, add it on top of the caramelized onions in the pie. 

-In that same pan, again (for the taste :) ), heat up a teaspoon of butter and cook the spinach. Guys, spinach looks huge when it is in the pack, but once you cook it it really, reaaaaaaally reduces lol so don't think you're doing something wrong if you only end up with a smaller quantity! When ready, add it on top of the ham in the pie.

-In a large bown, mix the eggs with the spices, corn starch and half of the grated cheeses.

-Add the beated eggs to the pie...its starting to look good!!!

-Then, at the end, add the rest of the cheese on top of the quiche.

-Put in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy!! mmmmm

*Tips*

-If you dont have ham, use any good meat you have! I've done it with bacon, bologna etc.

-The cheese is really to your taste. If you have less than the required quantity, it's still gonna be good.

-You can do it with other veggies, if you don't like spinach. Its also great with brocoli, red pepper etc :)

Here is my mom cutting the pie...mmm :)

RecipeS of the week...with an S because I had a CRAZY dinner party!

And it all cost me 60 bucks! 


So i'm leaving this apartment that I love and I decided to have a cool dinner party for my family and close friends. 


I had an 80$ budget for ALL THE FOOD (:O) and the Dollarama stuff (plastic plates, foil etc.). But the dinner party turned out great! How do I know? There was nothing left! And I got compliments! Enough to make me smile and continue having those lil dinner parties :) The things that I did to save money: I asked everyone to bring the wine, and I went to Maxi instead of Metro (LOTS of savings!). And thanks to my wonderful friend Jeanne for bringing the baguette and the meat pâté :)


Since I love you guys so much (thank you so much for following my blog, it means so much to me), I will share with you my menu and the recipes! P.S. The food dissapeared so quickly that I don't have pictures of everything!

The menu:

-Shrimp in puff pastry

-Sausage and bacon rolls

-Mini veal burgers 

-Asian chicken brochettes (Everyone's favorite!)

-Macaroni "au gratin" haitian/sassou style

-Couscous

-Toblerone chocolate fondue with asian fried bananas and fresh fruit

SHRIMP IN PUFF PASTRY

I love shrimp and I love garlic, so imagine combining the two for an amazing apetizer!!! The pack of shrimp was on special at Maxi for 5$! heheheh

You will need:
-Shrimp (the frozen pack...please please remove the tail when you unfreeze them...i'm just sayin)