BRANCHING OUT

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Based on that saying, a lot of people are afraid of even borrowing ideas from others and adding their own twists.  I see nothing wrong with borrowing ideas from other cooks and applying my own additions and takeaways.

When I started taking my cooking more seriously in 2014, I solely relied on the recipes of others to try myself.  The more I did this, the more I became accustomed the flavors of the ingredients I was using, especially ingredients that I had never tried before and fell in love with.

My fudge journey began with Skittle Doodle Fudge

As my palette expanded, I would make a dish that I found online or in cookbooks and afterwards ask myself, "What if?"

What if I took Chef Monir Mohammed's Butter Chicken recipe and replaced the chicken with cauliflower and broccoli to make a vegetarian alternative?  So I did, and just like the Butter Chicken, the "Butter Vegetables" turned out great.

After my second attempt at Skittle Doodle Fudge was a success, I thought of using the same basic method, but featuring a different featured ingredient.  That led to Oreo Fudge, Mint Chocolate Fudge with M&M's and Chocolate Peanut Butter fudge with Reese's Pieces.

Using the same basic method from Skittle Doodle Fudge, I changed
a few key ingredients and made Mint Chocolate Fudge with M&M's!

As more time went on and I became more familiar with how certain ingredients and spices taste and cook, I began coming up with my own dishes from scratch.  I will sometimes come up with a possible idea and search the internet to see if it has been done before and will find nothing.  In those cases, you can quit before starting or you can go with your gut.

It might not always turn out like you thought it would (Froot Loops & Grape Juice!), but you never know unless you try.  Even if you are sketchy about an idea, there is always the option of doing a test on a smaller dish and using the same ingredients.  You can easily turn a basic macaroni and cheese into a Greek or Indian version by trading out some spices and swapping one cheese for another.

Ingredients for Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge with Reese's Pieces.  Same
technique as Skittle Doodle, different key ingredients.

A main ingredient is a mannequin.  Don't be afraid to dress it up however you please.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge with Reese's Pieces.

PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE FUDGE WITH REESE'S PIECES

INGREDIENTS

-3 cups milk chocolate chips

-14oz Sweetened condensed milk

-1/2 cup peanut butter AND 1-2 Tbsp peanut butter, melted, for drizzling.

-4 51g boxes Reese's Pieces, divided (3 boxes for fudge mixture, 1 box for topping)

***I know there are 5 boxes in the picture but I only used 4***

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Combine chocolate chips and condensed milk in a small saucepan.

2.  Melt over low to medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is completely melted.

3.  Stir in 1/2 cup peanut butter.  Stir constantly until melted and combined.

4.  Stir in 3 boxes Reese's Pieces.

5.  Pour mixture into 8 inch square pan lined with parchment paper, or a pan or container of similar size (mine was a rectangle Tupperware container.  Don't forget that parchment paper!).

6.  Randomly scatter last box of Reese's pieces on top.

7.  Melt 1-2 Tbsp peanut butter in microwave (or stove top, whichever you prefer).  Drizzle on top of fudge.

8.  Refrigerate or freeze until firm.  (I put mine in the freezer overnight.  It is a lot easier to cut into sharp edged pieces the firmer it is.  Cut into squares and eat them because they taste great!

Chef Nairby

SAY CHEESECAKE!

Most of us love cheesecake, but a lot of us will not dare try to make cheesecake.  It's not like you can walk the baking supplies aisle of the supermarket aisle and find a box of cheesecake mix and jar of icing like you can when making a simple cake.  Cheesecake requires work and effort, right?

Well, that is what I always thought.  That is up until, yet again, I stumbled across a recipe for a cheesecake on the internet and all of my assumptions were debunked.

Ingredients for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Skor Cheesecake!  Minus Dr. Lecter.

Sure, more work goes into making a great cheesecake than simply dumping a package of powdered mixture, eggs and milk into a big bowl and mixing., but not that much more work.  And just like I mentioned a time or two in previous Blog posts, the extra effort is worth it.  In the case of this cheesecake recipe, it is barely that much extra effort.

Most people, when they think of cheesecake, one thing that enters their mind is a graham crust.  That is all fine and good, but is also generic.  I guess you could say that I have become spoiled and a bit of a food snob after trying the chocolate chip cookie dough method.

That's right!  I said chocolate chip cookie dough!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bottom!

Cheesecake filling mixture with chocolate ships and Skor bits inside!

Those ready-to-go graham crusts you can buy in those little pans for cheesecake are all fine and good, but they limit you with their littleness.  And cheesecake does not belong in a typical pie-shaped form.  It belongs in a springform pan.  Those cool little pans with the sides that you can detach.  Those are where the mighty cheesecake belong, so sayeth Chef Nairby!  They are inexpensive and can come in packs of 3 or more, like mine did, with different sizes.  And you get many uses out of them.

I bought a 3-pack of springform pans about a month ago and have already used one of them 4 times in 4 weeks.  With this Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Skor Cheesecake recipe and its simplicity, I don`t blame myself.

Fresh out of the oven and makes the house smell great!

Simply get a package of your preferred cookie dough, spread it out evenly on the bottom of the springform pan, pour in the cheesecake mixture, bake and done!  It is that easy.

"But what about the mixture, Chef Nairby?  Isn't that where all of the work is?"  Yes.  Cream cheese, sugar, 3 eggs, sour cream and vanilla extract.  Whatever you decide to add to it, chocolate chips and Skor bits in this case, is up to you.  The electric hand mixer does all of the work.  And the baking process makes the house smell great!  Once you try making this cheesecake once, you are likely to want to make it again shortly thereafter with a different combination of ingredients!  Perhaps some butterscotch chips instead of chocolate.  Maybe some crushed Oreos.  It's up to your imagination.

Topped with Skor bits after cooling at room temperature for about 10 minutes.

Melted chocolate drizzled after more cooling and ready to spend the
night in the fridge!

As I like to say in my rebuilding posts, "Don't tell ME that YOU can't do it!"

After a night cooling in the fridge.  Ready to devour!

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH SKOR CHEESECAKE

WHAT YOU NEED

Springform pan

Non-stick cooking spray

Electric hand mixer

3 8-oz packages of cream cheese, softened

1 package chocolate chip cookie dough

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup sour cream

1Tbsp vanilla extract

3 eggs

3/4 cup of Skor bits, seperated into 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup

3/4 cup of milk chocolate chips, seperated into 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Preheat oven to 350F.

2.  Spray inside bottom and edges of a springform pan with non-stick cooking spray and spread cookie dough evenly to cover the bottom.

3.  In a large mixing bowl, mix cream cheese and sugar using an electric hand mixer until combined and fluffy.

4.  Add sour cream and vanilla extract.  Mix until combined and smooth.

5.  Add eggs, ONE AT A TIME, mix until combined and smooth each time.

6.  Add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of skor bits.  STIR WITH SPOON.

7.  Pour mixture into the springform pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes.  The cheesecake will rise and appear as though it will overflow and spill out of the pan.  Don't worry.  It won't.

8.  Remove from oven and let it cool at room temperature.  Top with 1/4 cup of Skor bits.  Melt 1/4 chocolate chips and drizzle on top (or forgo melting them and simply sprinkle on top if that is your preference).  Refridgerate overnight.  Remove from springform pan the next day and eat until eaten!

Chef Nairby

Rebuilding: Wake Your Body And Your Taste Buds

This is the first in a series of stories about how I have been rebuilding my life.

I spent the majority of my life being overweight and in terrible physical shape.  I would live in constant physical pain.  I would spend my day at work sitting and doing very little and then go home, sit and do nothing.

At one point, I was in such bad shape that I weighed well over 300 pounds.  I don't know exactly how much over since my scale only went up to 300.

At a family BBQ in 2009.  This isn't even me at my worst which was to come.

I didn't care about anything.  I was content with just living through the constant back and knee pain.  I bought sized 3XL shirts and hated the way I looked.  I looked like a huge freaking bell.  Many times, I would tell myself, "that's it!  Starting tomorrow, it's time to start getting in shape!"  That was usually while I was on my way to work and then the motivation would completely disappear at the end of the day.

My diet consisted of crap.  Junk.  Because it was cheap and made me feel relaxed at the end of, what I thought was a tough day.  But seriously, what is so physically hard about a job where you literally sit on your butt all day?

My awful diet, if you can even call it that, got so out of hand that when I was at my absolute worst, I would order a pizza meal for dinner that was supposed to feed a family of four.  And I would order this thing at least twice a week since I had a pizza place that was a quick 2 minute walk away from me.

Twice a week!  A large pizza with 3 toppings, 10 fried chicken nuggets, two dipping sauces and 4 cans of soda.  TWICE A WEEK!  Add that to the crap I was eating on the other days.  Burgers, triple-decker sandwiches, chocolate bars, doughnuts....pure garbage!  That was my life for so long.

Then in December 2013, something happened in my life that completely made me hit rock bottom.  One of those situations where you realize who your true friends are, and in this case, are NOT.  Only days after this went down, we got hit with an ice storm here in Toronto that took out the power of a lot of residents, myself included.

I was in a very bad place.  And now I had no electricity which the city was saying could take up to a week to restore.  To make things worse, My annual holidays started at the same time.  So it was me in the dark with nothing to do but think.  And with where my head was at, it was a very rough situation.

(May, 2014) Day 50 of my rebuilding process.

I had to get out of the house, so I walked to my local mall to see if there was anything going on there.  There was electricity but very little.  Most of the stores were closed but there were people EVERYWHERE.  And it was one of the most depressing sights I had ever seen.  Hordes of people lined up at every electrical outlet available to the public.  People camped out to charge their devices so they could watch movies and shows on their iPads, iPods and laptops.  Most of these people were in fine shape and there they were throwing their lives away.  Slaves to technology.  I found a place to sit in the mall and fought tears as I could not believe what I was seeing.  I left the mall and walked back home.

My power was restored after two days and my head was a complete mess.  I spent Christmas with family and it did very little to help.  I spent New Years alone.  Then on January 2nd, 2014, still feeling depressed and with another week or so left in my holidays, I said, "screw it!"  I grabbed a yoga mat that I had bought 5 months earlier and started my rebuilding process.

Day 274.  October 2nd, 2014

I laid the yoga mat out on my living room floor, and for the next 10 minutes, I did the most basic yoga poses you can think of while I put 'The Soprano's' on via DVD.  Ten minutes was all I was able to do.  The next day, I was in crazy pain.  My body had been in a coma for so long that it was just waking up.  Despite the pain, I did another ten minutes of basic yoga and watched more 'Soprano's'.

The pain quickly went away as I kept at it.  My body was waking up.  But this journey meant more than just working on my body.  It meant changing what I eat.  I completely dropped the pizza and junk and took advantage of the supermarket across the street and canvassed the fresh produce section on a daily basis.  I came to realize that not only was my body asleep for years, so were my taste buds.

The junk I was eating on a daily basis killed my sense of taste.  When I took that first taste of a fresh clementine, the flavors exploded in my mouth!  And I wanted more!  As time went on and I became more disciplined with my eating habits, I was getting hungry less, and therefore, SPENDING less on food.

When we consume garbage food, it does nothing good for our body because it contains ingredients the body does not use.  Thus, we eliminate it through our poops (that's right!  I said poops!) and become hungry again sooner.  The ingredients in the garbage foods, like sugar, that our body keeps gets turned into fat.  Eating garbage food is cheap because it does very little to satisfy our hunger, therefore we end up buying more and more of it.  Meanwhile, eating healthier foods means more ingredients, vitamins and minerals that our body uses to keep our energy up.  And as our body gets stronger, we end up craving food a lot less and end up spending less on food as a result.  So in the long run, healthy food is actually CHEAPER than junk.  And that is why healthy food is more expensive then junk.

November 4, 2014 (and still going strong!)

Healthy food is more expensive because it is an investment in your health that pays off very quickly.  Junk is simply a temporary solution to fulfill a craving.  I'm not saying that we should all become vegetables or starve ourselves.  I will eat some guilty pleasures every now and then because I know that I will work it off.  The key is that I needed to wake my body up after depriving it for so long.  I built up my metabolism by eating better in the beginning, and once I knew that I had the discipline to work the junk off, I knew it was safe to indulge every once in a while.  But after waking up my taste buds to the awesomeness of healthier foods, a lot of the time I will pass up the junk.  Not because it's junk, but because the good stuff just tastes better.

It is now February 3rd, 2016.  Day 763 of rebuilding.  Working out every day, not because I feel like I have to, but because it has become a regular part of my life.  The first step was waking up my body and taste buds and to not get discouraged at the pain in the beginning.  What should you expect from the first few workouts after a life of immobility?  This pain is what ends up discouraging most people from continuing.  But it goes away quickly.

I was in terrible shape.  Got no exercise.  Weighed well over 300 pounds.  Now I am in the best shape of my life.  Workout every day.  Weigh 240 pounds, last time I checked, building muscle and still going.

There is something that I like to say that I will stick to until I'm dead in the face....Don't tell ME that YOU can't do it!

The first step is to wake up your body and your taste buds.  Start investing in your health.  It's worth it.

Chef Nairby