My absence

I was away for five days, kicking up my heels on the east coast! I'll be back to cooking and baking soon, but for now, here are some photos to keep you drooling.

While we were in Halifax we had two really good meals. The first was at the brew-pub, The Split Crow. They stock local brew and cook a mean dinner. Friendly service, too! The photos below are from our meal there:

First, a delicious seafood chowder with lobster, haddock, and potatoes:



Please note the delicious lobster claw left whole in the chowder: mmmmmmmmmmm!

And then a plate of local-beer battered haddock with hand-cut chips, and a pint of India Pale Ale to wash it down.
Crispy batter, moist fish, delicious fries, and home-made tartar sauce. Malt vinegar may also have played a role.


The other delicious meal we had was at Little Fish, which is a little more upscale and a bit pricier, but very much worth it. They showcase Nova Scotian wines, which were actually quite tasty, at least the one we sampled! Again, great friendly service and fantastic food. Some of our party had whole lobster, but I had lobster-stuffed haddock with dauphinoise potatoes and fresh, local asparagus, which was perfectly cooked. The pan-fried haddock with capers was also delicious.

They also have an even more upscale dining room called The Five Fishermen, which we didn't get to try out because of an electrical outage.

Review: Campbell's Cream of Chicken Easy Cooking Sauce

Campbell's has really been pushing these new "Easy Cooking Sauces" - their people shoved about 5 flyers with coupons through my door, and the grocery store was having a crazy sale on them all of last month. I got a carton for about 70 cents, I think.

Anyways, each carton comes with a little recipe to show you how to use the sauce. I got Mediterranean Chicken Rotini Bake on the back of mine.

Basically, you mix the sauce with spices and pasta, put some veggies on top, then chicken, cover with cheese, and bake for about an hour. As with all these ready-made soups and sauces, the sodium levels are through the roof. Each serving has 720mg, out of a daily max of 2300mg.

It's supposed to come out looking like this:

(photo from Campbells.ca)

You need:

1 carton (500mL) CAMPBELL'S Cream of Chicken Easy Cooking Sauce
2 cups uncooked whole wheat rotini
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil *
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups (1/2” / 1 cm dice) zucchini **
2 tbsp chopped pitted black olives
1 cup chopped plum tomatoes
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts ***
1/2 cup shredded part-skim Mozzarella cheese
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
Additional chopped fresh basil for garnish

Directions

• 1. Combine cooking sauce, pasta, basil and garlic in shallow 2 qt (2 L) baking dish.
• 2. Spread evenly with vegetables. Top with chicken. Sprinkle with cheeses. Cover.
• 3. Bake at 400ºF (200ºC) for 50 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Remove cover and broil until cheese is golden and bubbly – about 3 minutes. Stir pasta, sprinkle with additional chopped fresh basil and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

* I used about twice this much basil, as I had some to get rid of.
** I didn't have enough zucchini so I made up the difference with some red and green peppers and a bit of brocolli
*** I think that a whole chicken breast is really a lot for one person, so for four people I used two and just cut each in half.


Verdict:


Meh. It was fine, but nothing to write a blog post about, or anything.

Even though I only cooked it for a total of 50 minutes, rather than the recommended 53, the zucchini were very mushy, and the chicken was quite dry. Despite the amount of sodium, the dish was not overly salty, which was good. As far as flavour, the sauce didn't disappoint; I tasted it before mixing it in with the pasta, and it was nice. But the end product was a bit bland and lacked something.

If I made this again, I would double the garlic, at least, and leave out the zucchini in favour of more peppers, which stood up a bit better to the long baking. I would also add a diced red onion.