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The Making of a Chef

~ The Many Musings of a Budding Chef

The Making of a Chef

Category Archives: Recipe Thoughts

Apologies

30 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Meals, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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Blogging, busy, Food, posts

It’s been two months since I’ve last written, but they have not been spent idly.

As a matter of speaking, it’s been quite the opposite and I have done enough cooking to merit some blog posts.

This week, you can expect:

  • Lamb tacos
  • Ravioli 2 ways (one served with a hearty pan tomato sauce and chicken, topped with fresh grated cheese; the other done with brown butter and fresh sage served with pan seared rosemary and thyme rubbed chicken)
  • Polenta 2 ways (one with creamy goat cheese, topped with steak and served with a drizzle of balsamic syrup; the other “to go” made with tomato-basil goat cheese, served with grilled chicken that marinated in extra virgin olive oil, nutmeg and thyme tied together by a garlicky tomato sauce)

As always-

Stay Hungry!

Pasta with Turkey Meatballs

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Food Critiques, Lunch, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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broccoli, Cooking, Food, Food Network Recipes, Garlic, Homecooking, How To's, Lighter Fare, Meat, Orechiette, Pasta, Photography, recipes, Stovetop Cooking, Turkey Sausage, Vegetables

Lately, I’ve been stepping out of the box with my cooking. Sometimes it goes well, other times, not so much. I’d like to color my experience with turkey sausage a success… save for the excessive garlic taste, but that can be easily resolved.  Continue reading →

Experiment: Pistachio Pesto

09 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Food Critiques, Lunch, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts

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Bon Apetit Recipes, Cooking, Failed Experiments, Garlic, Pasta, Pesto, Pistachio Pesto, Pistachios, Stovetop Cooking, Tomatoes

A while back, my aunt subscribed me to Bon Apetit magazine. It quickly became one of the things I most often looked forward to. Near the end of every month a new issue came out and I would peruse it, looking for something that I might be adventurous enough to try. Back in… October, the home entertaining issue came out and on one of its pages, there was 3 different ways in which you could use the pistachio.  Continue reading →

Spicy Lamb & Chorizo Chili

23 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by A Budding Chef in Dinner, Lunch, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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chicken broth, chiles, chili recipes, chorizo sausage, Cooking, Food, Food Photography, Garlic, Homecooking, How To's, lamb, lamb recipes, Musings, Onions, Personal Posts, Quotes About Food, Stovetop Cooking

I’ve had a bunch of different chilies. From your everyday obtainable-by-can chili con carne, to chili with ground chuck and sausage simmered overnight with a touch of chocolate and lots of chiles, I’d thought I’d seen it all. Then came along a recipe from Bon Appetit calling for lamb and chorizo. This definitely isn’t your run of the mill chili, and not for those who are faint of heart.  Continue reading →

Chicken Parmesan Melts

13 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Food Critiques, Lunch, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Snacks

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Baking, Chef Things, Chicken, Chicken Parmesan, Confessions, Cooking, Dinner, Food, Food Photography, Grilled Cheese, Homecooking, How To's, How To's in Pictures, Lunch, Melt, Prep Work, Stovetop Cooking

At the beginning of the season, I mentioned how autumn is the perfect time of the year to bake things. Since then, I have incorporated baking into my cooking repertoire more than usual. A little while back, I made the perfect bisquick chicken. It was perfectly baked and crisp on the outside and still juicy, yet cooked through on the inside. The parmesan chicken melts were the same way. While baking was only one of the steps, I didn’t hesitate to use the oven like I so often do in the summer. In fact, I cranked the heat up and enjoyed the warmth it brought to the house.  Continue reading →

For Nostalgia’s Sake

06 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Food Critiques, Lunch, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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After School Recipes, Bagels, Cheese, Chicken, Cooking, English Muffins, Food, Food Photography, How To's, pepperoni, Pizza Bagels, Pizza Muffins, recipes

Lately, I’ve been looking at things to make that are different. Now that I know where I can get duck breasts, I’ll be making duck breasts and polenta with a port wine reduction at some point. Or maybe once I get my hands on some pistachios, I found this wicked recipe for pistachio pesto in Bon Apetit. The idea of taking that pesto and having it with whole wheat spaghetti and a side of chicken (still figuring out how to cook it to accent the pasta) sounds divine, doesn’t it? But until then, yesterday I settled on something simple and nostalgic.  Continue reading →

An Interesting Sandwich

25 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Food Critiques, Lunch, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts

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Chicken, Chili Peppers, Cooking, Experiments, Food, Food Photography, Garlic, Sandwich, Thoughts, Tomatoes

I think about cooking almost constantly. I’m always thinking of ways to better my cooking, of new things to try. Right now, I’m sitting on the idea of cooking some sort of white fish en papillote. En papillote, for those who don’t know, translates to “in parchment.” It’s, as my mate loves to refer to it, “pouch cooking.” You take a protein, fish or chicken is commonly used here, and wrap it up in a parchment paper pouch to let the steam cook it through. The dilemma that I’m facing is that I don’t want to do this with chicken, but instead I’d rather do it with fish. I’ve never cooked fish before and rarely eat it. This alone causes a couple of problems: I don’t know how it’s “supposed” to taste, nor do I know what to pair the fish with. Everything I’ve seen has pointed me towards summer vegetables: squash, mushrooms (which I’m not particularly fond of), et cetera. When something finally catches my eye, I’ll make it; until then, I’ll continue to brood.  Continue reading →

Comfort Food: Chicken and Rice Casserole

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dessert, Food Critiques, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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Baking, Chef Things, Chicken, Cooking, Dinner, Food, Food Photography, Homecooking, How To's, Musings, Personal Posts, Prep Work, Rice

For me, cold weather and comfort food go hand in hand. Autumn and Winter are the best seasons to enjoy more heavy and warming dishes. One of our favourites all year round is mum’s spaghetti and meatballs; it’s worth suffering through the heat to make in the summer, but absolutely enjoyable to come home to in the winter. The same can be said of my grandmother’s bisquick chicken. It’s an absolute favourite. In the summer, the kitchen turns into an oven, a place to avoid if you know what’s good for you. But in the winter, when you’re seeking warmth, the aroma of chicken baking lures you in and the warmth keeps you there. Not to mention there’s the promise of getting to try other cooking foods. But that’s another story. Then there are some dishes that were just made for autumn. To me, any meal that requires a long slow cooking process is perfect for the shorter colder days of fall and winter. Think of a pot roast for instance. While it simmers all day without heating up the kitchen, pairing it with stewed carrots and fluffy mashed potatoes with gravy makes it entirely too heavy of a meal to eat during the summer. The same could be said of casseroles. Casseroles are great and I’m partial to the holiday months because there are two casseroles that mum makes that I look forward to all year round. For years, I (like any other child who didn’t know what tasted good) wouldn’t go within a mile of mum’s green bean casserole at Thanksgiving. Why would I want to? Even though it smelled delicious, I would still wrinkle my nose at it. It was green and looked gross. What was that she put on top of it? Were the green beans held together by some kind of whitish sauce? A couple years ago, I took the dive and tried it. I couldn’t believe I had been missing that all these years and now I go back for seconds not for the turkey, but for the casserole. At Christmas mum makes this thing with sweet yams. Again, for years I wouldn’t go near the stuff. It smelled sweet like candy but they looked orange and were covered in a glaze. I finally got brave last year and asked mum to pass the sweet potatoes. They’re super delicious and now there’s one less box in the fridge for Christmas leftovers. Before Sunday, I hadn’t actually made a casserole myself and I’m happy I did. Though chicken and rice casserole is one of the more basic casseroles out there, it was slightly beyond my comfort zone in cooking and it sounded really good when I was reading through my behemoth cookbook at some ungodly hour of the morning.

Continue reading →

Comfort Food: Bisquick Chicken

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Food Critiques, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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Baking, Bisquick Chicken, Chicken, Chicken Recipe, Comfort Food, Comfort Food Recipe, Cooking, Food, Food Photography, Homecooking, How To's, Personal Posts, Photography, Potatoes, Prep Work, recipe

During the vlog this week, I mentioned nostalgia brought on by tasting food. The movie I was referencing was Ratatouille. For those of you who don’t know what the premise of the movie is, it’s that anybody can cook, even if you are a mouse. It follows the narrator, Remy through his journey from the Parisian countryside to ending up in the heart of Paris at the restaurant Gusteau. The scene I was referencing comes toward the end, where this critic Anton Ego is coming to the restaurant and they bring him out a plate of ratatouille. He studies it almost sceptically and then takes a bite. The next thing that happens is that we are taken to a glimpse of his childhood. He’s standing in the kitchen looking like he’s just been beaten up. The scene cuts to the young Ego sitting at the table, his mum handing him a bowl of what looks like ratatouille and he tucking in, a smile forming on his lips before we’re taken back to present day. Continue reading →

Another Living Room Picnic

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by A Budding Chef in Anecdotes, Dinner, Food Critiques, Lunch, Meals, Pictures, Recipe Thoughts, Recipes

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chicken tacos, Cooking, Dinner Recipes, Food, Lime, Lime Chicken, Lunch Recipes, recipes, Stovetop Cooking, tacos, Tortillas

A while ago, I learned about this wonderful game on the android market called “Alchemy”. The premise of the game was to start with the very basic elements (earth, air, fire, water) and to combine them to create things. For instance, water plus air gives you a rain cloud. And a rain cloud plus earth gives you a plant. Earth plus earth gives you PSI. When you combine the plant plus PSI you come up with coal. It goes on like that, so on and so forth until you’ve created all of the “elements”.  Continue reading →

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Who Am I?


Steffanni Daddario. Aspiring, budding chef. Some people are born to go into mathematics, science, interior design. Whatever. I was born to cook.

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Soup Du Jour

  • Ugly Noodles
  • Spicy Lamb & Chorizo Chili

What’s On The Menu?

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  • Apologies
  • Pasta with Turkey Meatballs

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