Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Proscuitto snack

Proscuitto, Apples and Cheese with Maple Drizzle
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 2 - 3 minutes

Being pregnant, and having an athletic boyfriend, sometimes we require snacks to sustain ourselves between meals.

If you're hungry, craving a little salty and sweet, as well as protein, this fatty dish will satisfy you for a while! A little goes a long way (I go for small portions with big flavour). We shared one old gala apple between two people.

1 apple or pear (old ones work too), cored and sliced
Prosciutto pieces (same number of slices as apples)
Maple syrup
Small amount of cheddar &/or parmesan (or hard cheese of choice)
Small amount of parmesan

Lay out apples on oven safe plate.
Wrap or top apple slices with proscuitto.
Drizzle with maple syrup.
Toast in toaster oven like toast (our toaster oven takes 2.5 minutes)
Top with each slice with small slices of cheese

If you like your cheese melted on, top with cheese before drizzling syrup, and bake it.

Pork usually goes well with apples and pears (and even melon!). Substitute appropriate fruit and cheeses and mix and match until you find your favourite combination! If you use pancetta, you may have to cook it longer. :)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Discount Meat Bins - Prosciutto Heaven!

Sounds disgusting? Just hear me out.

As a fan of prosciutto (but not so much cold cuts), I find that spending $35/1 kg ($3.5/100g) of thinly sliced proscuitto a little expensive for my taste. Plus, I don't use it all that often (it's so high in sodium!), so it ends up drying out anyways. I know, some say "Go to Costco! It's cheaper there!". But there's also SOOO much packaging that's wasted!

Well, I'm also a fan of "waste not, want not". I suppose seeing traumatic images of starving children in Ethiopia after not being able to finish my dinner does that to me.

So - a good way to get prosciutto that'll last forever in the fridge is by checking out the discount meat bins at your local grocer/deli. Sometimes they repackage the ends of their charcuterie when they get too small to slice and sell them at a discounted price (hence discounted meat!).

If I go at the right time to the Italian Centre here in Edmonton, I will find a chunk of prosciutto for about $8 - $10. It's a pretty sweet deal. It's uncut, so it doesn't dry out as fast, and instead of being required to eat 9 slices within 3 days, I can just cut the slices myself, and I can cook them into pastas, add them to salads, and even use the slices to wrap random veggies (asparagus) and fruits (pears) for consumption. It lasts up to a couple of weeks in my fridge!

It's pretty classy when I can say "I used prosciutto on this pizza".

My favourite prosciutto dishes (you can figure out the recipes - they are pretty self explanatory):

Prosciutto wrapped pears (add a drizzle of maple syrup and toast in the toaster oven for a quick snack).

Prosciutto infused asparagus (steam asparagus in pan with butter and lemon and the excess prosciutto fat to flavour the butter, add slices/raclettes of fresh parmesan to top).

Prosciutto pasta - simply make your favourite pasta with prosciutto chunks (when fried will taste like bacon bits!)

Duck prosciutto and prosciutto pizza with goat cheese and figs. (Buy frozen dough at the Italian Centre in Edmonton for $4/4 dough balls, defrost, and bake on pizza stone with favourite toppings).

Welcome!

The idea of this blog has been in the back of my mind since my idea to create a "Cooking with Bedhead" youtube channel.

I know, I know, food blogging is all the rage, and what makes this blog better than others?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

As a soon to be mother, and having lived a life of soul-searching (only to find that I will be creating a soul before finding mine), I came up with the idea of this blog in shower, after an extremely disguting bout of morning sickness.

So stay tuned - as I attempt to be frugal and classy at the same time. :)