Cheese

Sometimes when we do pizza, we do one big one for the whole family, and vary things a bit by doing parts with some ingredients, and parts with other ingredients - so as to keep everyone happy. Mainly the boys since neither my wife nor I are particularly picky when it comes to pizza. But sometimes it is more fun to do personal pizzas and let everyone build their own from the bottom up. I'll roll out the dough and then let the boys have at it, dressing it up as they see fit. It is only slightly more effort than doing one big one, but it is a whole lot more fun!

Here is a great idea for leftover rice that I picked up the other day on one of the blogs I follow - deep fried rice balls! I know, I know, it already sounds awesome, doesn't it?

So I put the bug in my wife's ear for the big container of leftover brown rice in the fridge, and she made it her own with a little twist - in addition to the cube of cheese in the middle she also mixed grated parmesan and asiagio into the rice. Wow they were great, and the kids gobbled them right up. Recipe below.

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.

Today before Aikido #1 son asked if we could go to the chip truck for poutine if he was good in class. I reminded him that I don't have a job and so we don't have money, but I did offer to make him poutine even if he were not good in Aikido! So we stopped at Loeb on the way home and bought some potatoes. Oh, and my applause to both of the boys for understanding that me not having a job means we don't have money for stuff. I was actually laughing as he several times at Loeb ran over to something yummy-looking on the shelf and pointed at it, and hollered across to me very loudly "Popo, look, if you get a job maybe we can buy some of this?". It really was hilarious!

A friend on the brewers' list was chatting about perogies today, and in particular about Hunky Bill's Perogy Maker. It's been likely 20 years since I've made perogies, which as far as I'm concerned is far too long. I was still due a Christmas present from Melissa so I went out and picked up a Hunky Bill's for just shy of 30 bucks, to give it a try. Next time I'll time how long it takes because I'm not entirely convinced that it's quicker to do. Rolling out the 2 sheets of dough takes a fair bit of time. Aside from that, the assembly is far quicker with the device. But all told as mentioned I'm just not sure it is a time saver.

Note they are darker simply because I rarely use anything but whole wheat flour