Prep Time: Under 30 Minutes

I started making mayonnaise a few months ago, and as I was gathering information on how to do it, I got a lot of feedback from various people on just how finicky it can be to get it to thicken properly. They would talk about adding the ingredients in the correct order, and then drizzling in the oil slowly. And then other tricks to use if it thickens and then starts to break apart again. I tried this first in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer using the whisk attachment, and it would not turn into mayo at all. Then I tried it in my blender, and it did turn into mayo but took a very long time. Then finally I tried my hand blender and BINGO! As you'll see in this video it is almost instantaneous, and does not matter how you add the ingredients.

Salad dressing is incredibly easy to make with ingredients you probably already have around the house. And the basic recipe is so versatile that anyone and everyone will be making their own favorite dressings in no time at all. You start with a simple mix of oil and vinegar - 1/3 to 1/2 oil, and the rest vinegar. Use whatever type of oil you like - olive, canola, vegetable, or as we use here, grape seed. Same goes for vinegar - really all you are looking for is something with a bit of tang. So regular white vinegar works, but some of the fancier ones usually add more character. Regular off-the-shelf apple cider vinegar is one of my favorite. In this video we experiment with rice vinegar for the first time. Lemon juice also works exceptionally well.

A few days ago I cooked up a couple of wonderful steaks from Saffire Farms, but it was a bit too cold out for me to want to do it on the grill outside, so I put them onto one of my cast iron griddles in the oven. When the steaks were done, there were about a half cup or so of drippings left on the griddle, so I poured them into a small bowl and tossed them into the fridge. Drippings of course have an incredible amount of flavour, and are something I am really loath to waste. If all you get is small amounts like what I got from these steaks, it is really easy to keep a container in the freezer that you can keep adding drippings to until you get enough to do something useful with. This time I combined them with some deer drippings I'd canned up a few years ago, and made a truly fantastic sauce / gravy.

Ingredients

• about 2 cups of drippings
• 1/4 cup flour
• onion powder to taste
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste

The dripping usually have a small amount of fat in them, so the easiest way to separate it is to heat them up in a mason jar in the microwave, then stick the jar into the fridge (setting it onto a small cork heat pad / coaster, if you have glass shelves in the fridge like we do). The fat will come to the top and you'll be able to pick it right off with your fingers, like in this video. You then use the fat and some flour to make a "rou", and make your sauce from there.

The other day we were rushing about for whatever reason I do not even recall now, and I had to come up with a good, quick meal for the boys that was healthy and easy to throw together. A few days before this I'd made turkey noodle soup for them, and there was still a half jar (about 250ml) of canned turkey in the fridge that was left over from it, so I wanted to use it up whatever I did. It was canned up at Christmas just passed, from the leftovers. While thinking about that fact, I recalled that I'd also canned up a fantastic turkey organ gravy. I put two-and-two together and a great idea popped into my head.

So I dug through the cupboard and came out with a few different forms of pasta - whole wheat penne, whole wheat rotini, and some regular elbow macaroni. Combined it was about two and a half cups. It was only in hindsight after I'd had them all in the post of boiling water, when I realised I should have cooked the whole wheat ones for about 5 minutes before adding the non whole wheat elbow macaroni. So I cooked it all about 13 minutes and the elbows were a little overdone, and the rest of it a little underdone. No big deal, really.

I saw these the other day over on Suzie the Foodie and knew right away that I had to make some! These were my favorite treats when I was a kid, and I'd never made them before. My mom always called them "Chocolate Macaroons", but most of the kids I knew called them "Haystacks". I knew my boys would love them so I went right to the kitchen and started into it. It went really quickly - less than a half an hour from the point when I decided I was going to make them, until I was done. And that included getting the ingredients out of the cupboard, measuring them, and so forth.

You do not bake these cookies - you just make up the chocolate mixture first in a pot on the stove, then mix in the dry ingredients. I tried a batch reducing the amount of sugar but they did not set up properly, so if anyone has any ideas on how to reduce the sugar without that happening, I'd love to hear it. Typically they have coconut in them, which is how my mom made them, but I wanted to do it without coconut. I've read you just use all rolled oats, but I used flaked barley instead of the coconut.

Oh my, I cannot believe I forgot to post this excellent recipe! At Christmas time just passed I picked up 2 turkeys because they had been mis-priced and I just could not refuse less than half price! My wife does not like putting the organs into the stuffing, and I do not like wasting food, so I put a call out to my friends on facebook for recommendations on what to do with the organs. The first suggestion that came back was "gravy", and I did not even have to ask for a recipe because ideas just started jumping into my head!

Here is what I came up with. It worked really well and I canned some up. I was just reminded of this now when my son wanted some gravy for the pork we had for supper, so I got a 250ml jar of it from the basement.

I'd been hearing a lot lately about people making their own tortilla chips, but never could have imagined how easy it is. I happened to be driving past the local latino grocery store La Tiendita today, and decided to pop in to pick up some corn flour. Someone on Ottawa Foodies suggested the brand name "Masa Mix", so that's what I got. I did notice they had 3 or 4 different brands that ranged quite a bit in price, and the lady at the checkout told me that each has a slightly different character - so I'll have to try the others eventually, too.

The instructions on the Masa Mix say to mix :

• 2 cups corn flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 and 1/4 cups water

They say to mix this up and then add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until it is just right. For me it was 3 extra tablespoons, but that varies depending on ambient temperature and relative humidity, so it may be different for you.

Yesterday was a banner day! I decided to make my own BBQ sauce and in order to do that I had to grill some sausages. But for those, I of course needed some sausage buns. Fortunately I had half of my batch of Basic Dough in the fridge, so I divided it into 4 and rolled each piece out and put it into my baguette pan. I preheated the oven to 485F and baked for about 18 to 20 minutes with the convection turned off.

It is astonishingly easy to make your own pizza - surprising that not more people do it. And in fact it can also be rather healthy when done right. I always make a whole wheat crust - you can find my basic dough recipe here.

Simply roll out your dough, top with your favorite tomato sauce - spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, does not really matter. We don't even add herbs and spices and just go with what is in the sauce and meat. Add your sauce, add your meat, add your grated cheese, then optional items like the few olives we add in this video. This is just a very basic pizza shown here, but obviously you could add whatever you want like green or red peppers, mushrooms, and so forth.

Grilled cheese is never a 'healthy choice', but it can certainly be made a lot better if you choose a good quality whole wheat bread, and a good cheese instead of processed cheese slices. I've experimented with various ways to use good cheese, and slicing it - even thinly - does not work so well as it does not melt as well as you need to hold the two slices of bread together. But grating it works wonderfully!

I've used a number of different types of cheese, including ordinary ones like cheddar and mozza, and more exotic hard cheeses like the asiagio I used in this video. I also choose a decent margarine - even a bargain brand like this one can be good, just read the label.