Me and my assistant went to the grocery store yesterday, the first day after the storm for it to be open and it was chaotic. Not as bad as the day before the storm but it was still pretty bad. Trying to cram pass people in the isles. Finding the right ingredients and finding anything organic was hard even. I suppose it has been rough for the store itself to receive groceries. Anyway, we got what we came for.

• 1 lbs ground beef
• ½ yellow onion
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 14 oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 4 oz can of mushrooms
• 1 jalapeño
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbs ketchup
• 1 tbs dried oregano
• salt & pepper to taste

We got home and immediately started cooking. She helped me mince the onion, chop up the bell peppers and crush the garlic cloves.

I heated up a large frying pan with some olive oil and started frying the onions, adding the meat after the onions got soft and let sear until almost all the meat has colour. I added the bell peppers, garlic, jalapeño and mushrooms stirring and giving more colour to the meat and vegetables. Lastly I added the can of tomatoes and the oregano. Let it boil up for a little bit and then add salt and pepper to taste. Ready to serve!

As I said earlier it can probably be used as a bolognese on pasta as well but I prefer eating it by itself, maybe it’s just me. Enjoy! :)

Anyway, I saw a nice oven steamed vegetable recipe and decided to recreated with whatever I could find: bell peppers, squashes and shrimp. Sounds like a meal right?

For this storm emergency dish I found:

• 18 shrimp
• 1 yellow squash
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 2 tbs white wine
• olive oil

Chop both the squash and bell pepper length wise to make strips. The bell pepper about half an inch thick and the bell pepper very thin. Pour white wine over the vegetables and a good amount of olive oil, to really moisten the vegetables. Mix around until all is covered and put in the middle of a big aluminium foil sheet. Peel the shrimp and put on top of the vegetables and wrap the foil sheet up. Preheat the oven to 450F and let the “foil hut” cook for about 20-25 minutes.

Served with potatoes fried in Old Bay seasoning.

I rushed home after a long day out and about and started preparing the kitchen. I started out by making the marinade. I went with something sweet, something foresty, something different…

My balsamic/forest marinade:

• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp honey
• plenty of thyme
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 2 tbsp juniper
• 2 cloves of garlic
• dash of liquid smoke

To make it you just have to mix everything together basically. I added everything in the order of my recipe (it’s an original!) got out the garlic press for the garlic cloves, crushed the juniper with the back of a knife and halved all the rosemary leaves. Stripped the thyme sprigs off of its leaves and mixed. While letting the flavours mix I prepared the skewers.

Here’s what I used:

• 1 lbs deer steak
• 1 orange bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 yellow squash
• 10 portobello mushrooms
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 jalapeño

Cut up everything into similar sized squares, with exception for the jalapeños of course. I cut the mushrooms into pieces of four. For the squashes I first halved them and then chopped them. Some of the steak pieces were long and thin so I wrapped up onions and jalapeños in some. Like hidden goodies.

Brush the marinade over the skewers. And put into the oven to broil for about ten minutes or until vegetables is starting to get golden. The venison will stay pink/red when broiling.

Boil up some rice and mix all of these ingredients in a big bowl.

• Rice
• Big handful of Italian parsley
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 lemons

It’s all ready to serve. I wish I had a barbecue or one of those grilling pans, but broiling things in the oven works almost as well. Extra thanks to the liquid smoke. It really gave it that barbecue flavour!

After 10 mins of broiling

Served on top of lettuce with a side of rice