Soft Chicken Tacos

We are sweltering here in Vancouver in the midst of a heat wave. And no one has air conditioning, and fans are hard to come by. So how do you beat the heat? Head down to the ocean for a quick dip after work, and then cook up some spicy Mexican food. Is it working? I don't know, but it sure tasted good!

Reebs Chicken Tacos
- 1 chicken breast, bone in skin on
- 1/2 cup salsa
- plum tomato, chopped
- juice from quarter of lime
- 4-5 pickeled, chopped jalapeno's (more or less depending on your tastes)
- 1 tsp cumin
- soft taco shellsFixings
- guacamole (2 avocado's, mashed, juice of quarter of lime, chopped tomato, 2-3 chopped jalapeno's, salt and pepper, all mixed together)
- salsa
- sour cream
- refried beans
- cheese

Preheat oven to 350, place chicken breast on baking sheet. Rub skin with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 40 minutes or until cooked through. Once chicken has cooled enough to handle, remove skin, and then shred meat. (You could also use a rotisserie chicken to save time).

Heat olive oil in a pan, add chicken, cumin, lime juice, jalapeno's, tomato and salsa. Stir and heat through.

Put everything out to make your own soft tacos.


If possible try and find authentic soft taco shells, it really makes a difference. I bought mine at this European Deli in my neighborhood, but I have seen them at Safeway as well.

Enjoy!!!
-

Twice Baked Potatoes

These potatoes are the bomb. I’m taking my time, I don’t want it to end.
- Rachel Cavanagh

I kid you not, this is what I heard the other night at the table. We were celebrating my parents 33rd wedding anniversary, and I had made dinner for everyone (although my dad took care of the roast). Seated around the table on the screened-in porch, enjoying a meal together, the 6 of us, at the cottage. The entire meal was fantastic, but I think the twice baked potatoes were the definitive hit.

Reebs’ Twice Baked Potatoes (adapted from a Canadian Living recipe)
-4 baking potatoes

-2 cups broccoli florets, chopped

-6 slices bacon

-1 cup finely chopped onion

-4 tsp flour

-1 cup milk

-salt and pepper

-½ cup old cheddar cheese (crumbled or shredded)

Scrub potatoes, prick all over with a fork. Bake in 400F oven for 1 hour or until tender.

Meanwhile, in skillet bring ½ cup water to boil. Add broccoli and cook 2 minutes, until tender and bright green. Drain and set aside. Add bacon to skillet, cook on medium for 5-6 minutes, or until bacon is crisp. Drain off fat, let bacon cool on paper-towel lined plate. Chop and set aside.

Add onion to pan, cook on medium-high for 2-3 minutes until softened. Stir in flour, cook for 30 seconds. Whisk in milk, salt and pepper, cook, stirring for 1 minute or until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese until melted. Add bacon and broccoli and mix well.

Cut potatoes lengthwise down centre. Scoop out flesh into bowl and mash. Stir sauce into mashed potatoes, until blended. Spoon into shells. Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350F for 20 minutes.

Summer and Potato Salad

I'm writing this post from my parents cabin on Big Basswood Lake in Northern Ontario. It's so nice out here (even if it's raining and the lake is a bit colder than I'd like). This is a place that I plan to return to every summer for as long as I can. There are no agenda's, no schedules, while I'm here it's easy to forget about the hustle and bustle of life.

We had a big crew out for an afternoon of fishing, kayaking, hot tubing, boating and eating on the weekend, so I thought I'd do a quick post on the potato salad I made. Potato salad is a great side dish anytime of year, but especially in the summer. The great thing about it is that you can add whatever you would like, and there's no end to the possibilities.

Basswood Lake Potato Salad
- 20 - 30 little potatoes ( I used half white half red skinned)
- fresh peas
- 5-6 gherkins, chopped
- 1/2 cup mayo
- 1/4 dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
- salt, pepper, dill

*Note, I don't actually measure any of the ingredients for the dressing, these are my best approximations.

Cook potatoes until they are fork tender, but not mushy. Let cool and quarter.
In small bowl, mix mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper and dill. Add more of whatever you'd like to get the flavour you are looking for.

In large bowl add chopped gherkins, peas and potatoes. Pour dressing over potatoes and toss gently to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour before serving. This salad is great the next day as well.

Mustard Dill Salmon

I never used to be much of a salmon fan, occasionally I would buy some of those frozen salmon fillets, and figured that was as good as it was going to get. Now living in Vancouver, there is such an abundance of good salmon to be found, that I'll sometimes find myself eating it once a week at least. And that's not counting the smoked salmon. During the summer months, the local farmer's markets are a great place to get salmon fillets. When buying salmon, you want to buy wild not farmed, and frozen not 'fresh'. I put 'fresh' in quotation marks because all salmon (unless you catch it yourself or buy it from a fisherman on a boat while he's fishing) is previously frozen. Much seafood is, and often times frozen at sea. So, while you may think the refrigerated salmon is fresher, it's most probably just been thawed, and if you do buy it, you better eat it that day. We try and buy our salmon at the Farmer's Market, right out of the freezer, and boy is it tasty. I love it bbq'd on skewers, just roasted, cooked and made into salmon cakes. The following recipe is so easy, there are barely any ingredients required.




Mustard Dill Salmon
- 1 piece of salmon
- Olive oil
- Dijon mustard
- salt and pepper
- chopped fresh dill





Place salmon on parchment lined baking sheet. Rub salmon with olive oil. Mix together in a small bowl as much mustard, salt, pepper and fresh dill as you need to cover the fish. Coat salmon. Cook in 375 oven for 12 - 15 minutes or until salmon flakes easily and is cooked through. Serve with rice or potatoes and a salad.

Sunday Night Dinner - Father's Day Lamb

This year my parents were in town for Father's Day. Rather than going out for dinner, Brent and I decided to make dinner for my parents at our place. One of my dad's favorite meals is lamb, and I boldly decided to try my hand at it. Needless to say, I was very nervous as I've never made lamb before, and have always heard that while it may not be difficult, if it is not cooked properly it can be less forgiving than other meats. While searching through my cookbooks I found a recipe for Herb-Roasted Lamb in Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family Style. The recipe looked fairly easy, roast the lamb on potatoes.

So off we headed to Granville Island (which also happens to be one of my dad's favorite places to visit while in Vancouver) to purchase what we needed for dinner.
One of the great things about Ina Garten's recipe is that she includes in it the instructions to give the butcher. So I just marched myself over to Tenderland Meats and told the guy at the counter: 'I need a 6-pound leg of lamb, remove the leg bone but leave the shank intact'. That's a bonus of talking to an actual butcher, they got my leg of lamb ready for me and I was ready to go.


As we were trying to decide what green veggie to get for dinner, I spotted some fiddleheads, and decided, why not try my hand at these. Luckily I was able to text a co-worker who is a bit of a fiddlehead aficionado, and he gave me the instructions:

Fiddleheads - Steam or boil for 20 minutes. Pan fry in a bit of butter, garlic and sea salt. Splash some lemon or vinegar on at the end. So good!

Back to the lamb, it was surprisingly easy to prepare, and another great thing about the recipe is that you roast the lamb on the potatoes, so once that's in the oven, half of your meal is complete. Pair with a nice salad to start, some greens, and there you go. For dessert we had some home made ice cream with fresh strawberries.

Herb-Roasted Lamb (from Ina Garten)
- 12 large unpeeled garlic cloves, divided
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves (you need fresh rosemary!!!)
- Sea Salt and Pepper
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 1 6-lb boneless leg of lamb, trimmed and tied
- 4-5 lbs small unpeeled potatoes (16-20)
- 2 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place rack in the lower third of the oven.
Peel 6 of the cloves of garlic and place them in the bowl of a food processor with the steel blade. Add rosemary, 1 tbsp salt, 1 tsp pepper and butter. Process until garlic and rosemary are finely minced. Coat the top and sides of the lamb with rosemary mixture. Allow to sit at room temperature for 30 mins to an hour.

Toss the potatoes and remaining unpeeled garlic in a bowl with the olive oil. Sprinkle with salt. Place in the bottom of a large roasting pan. Place the lamb on top of the potatoes and roast for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the internal temperature of the lamb is 135 degrees for rare, or 145 degrees for medium. Remove from oven and put lamb on a platter; cover tightly with aluminum foil, allow to rest for 20 minutes. Slice and serve with potatoes.