Canada Goose with Sweet Chili Sauce

Oh yes, the mighty hunter has gone out and provided the house with goose a plenty. Mmmm, free meat for one, and two it's pretty tasty when cooked in a delicious recipe such as this.

Yesterday Mike went out with his buddy Cameron and another guy from Cameron's job and went to a farmer's field and pond to set up and await the goose hunting. He left the house at 6 am and was done hunting by 11. He returned around 4 pm to clean geese and package them in baggies. I now have about 4 breast halves in my freezer awaiting a delicious recipe.

That is the decoy spread from the layout blind. I guess some of the geese were very upset and one was attacking Cameron's decoy. Had to chase it off, that's bizarre, crazy birds.

They took Goose out, yes the dogs name is Goose. He evidently didn't do anything since ice freaks him out I guess. So he just chilled out in the layout blinds while the guys took on the Canada's.

Cameron

Mike

Mike & 'Goose'

Here we have the mighty hunters with a two man limit (6 birds) they had a total of 9 due to having three men in the hunt so all in all a good day for the men. Not such a great day for 9 of the geese out there. Oh well, they tasted delicious :)

We made Canada Goose in a Sweet Chili Glaze. Put a 1/4 cup ish of EVOO into the pan and sauteed the onion and garlic until translucent. Then added the goose meat, about 2 breast halves cut into 1/8 inch strips. Then we added about 1/2 a cup of sweet chili sauce to it after cooking until just to rare (that way we didn't overcook), - ok, MIKE cooked the goose, but followed the recipe I found. :)

Oh my my my, this smelled SOOOOOOO good and looked pretty amazing too. So simple.

Also, about 1 hour prior to starting the goose I decided I wanted carrot souffle. I first discovered this mouth-gasm at Piccadilly's Cafeteria when I was a teenager and it was oh so delicious but I could never find a recipe that even came close. I found this one and for the next time I need to make sure I have a food processor to really mash up the carrots to a finer consistency, either way it was delicious.

2 lbs of carrots and a potato masher later we had that delicious souffle of sweet carrot goodness. (Not my any means super healthy but it tastes good and all things in moderation right?)

So when all was cooked and done we had this lovely dinner, sweet chili glazed Canadian goose with a side of carrot souffle and brown rice. Perfection in a meal. Mike and I agree, we cook well together as well as coming up with great ideas to cook.

So for those that would like to try, you can buy goose at your local supermarket, you may have to ask the meat counter, or if you're a hunter - you know where to get goose. Otherwise, substitute beef or chicken as you please. Experiment - have fun.

Canada Goose in Sweet Chili Sauce
via: allrecipes.com

**Note, we doubled the recipe**

Prep: 15 min Cook: 10 min

1/4 cup olive oil, evoo
1 small sweet onion, diced
2 tsp minced garlic
1 (8 oz) skinless, boneless, goose breast half, cut into 1/8-inch slices
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup sweet Thai chili sauce (kikkoman makes a really good one)

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir onion and garlic in hot oil until fragrant. About 2 minutes.
2. Season goose with salt and pepper; add to hot oil. Cook goose breast slices in hot oil for 2 minutes, flip, and continue cooking until evenly browned, about 2 minutes more.
3. Pour chili sauce over the goose; reduce heat to medium-low and cook at a simmer until chili sauce thickens, about 3 minutes.

Serves 4

199 calories, 16g fat, 18mg cholesterol, and 6g protein per serving


Carrot Souffle (like Piccadilly's Cafeteria)
via: allrecipes.com

Prep: 15 min Cook: 1 hour 15 min

1 3/4 pounds carrots, peeled and chopped (we used 2lbs worked just fine)
1 cup white sugar (if you look at the recipe on the site, people say they were cutting the sugar in half, why? I don't know, I would think it would take away from the original intent of this recipe, it's fine this way - sub your favorite sugar sub if you like though)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup butter, soft
2 tsp confectioners' sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
2. In a large pot of boiling water, cook carrots until very tender, must be able to mash. Drain, and transfer to large mixing bowl.
3. While carrots are warm, use an electric mixer to beat with sugar, baking powder, and vanilla extract until smooth. Mix in flour, eggs, and butter. Transfer to a 2 quart baking dish.
4. Bake 1 hour in preheated oven, or until top is golden brown. Sprinkle lightly with confectioners' sugar before serving (we baked for 1 hour 15 min and it worked fine, I have a gas oven).

271 calories, 13g fat, 79 mg cholesterol, 3g fiber, 307mg sodium, 3.4g protein

All in all, not a totally unhealthy dinner, brown rice balanced it out perfectly. Could also serve with mashed potatoes or baked potatoes. Soo good, can't wait for leftovers.

Go out and cook!

Mike's Chicken Marsala Tomato pasta

Hello Mike here, yes it is Mike and not Sarah.  I usually allow her to write the blogs since she tends to have a great way of wording things.  I am more of a blunt and simple guy but I am going to try today with my Chicken Marsala Tomato pasta.

So I was hungry and wanting to cook something easier so I came up with this meal.  I wanted chicken in a tomato sauce over some pasta.  I started to think of what veggies to add in with the chicken.  I had some carrots that needed to be used, so they went in.  Next was mushrooms because they just absorb flavors so well.  Third veggie was sweet peas.  I went with canned sweet peas instead of frozen since my roomie has a bunch of junk in the freezer and no room for a bag of peas.  I was looking at pasta at Walmart and decided upon whole wheat penne pasta.

Now time to cook, I just enjoy cooking.  It is a way for me to relax and it usually tastes good.  I can not say it always tastes good though unfortunately.  So I started the water for the pasta.  I put some roasted garlic olive oil in a pot of water and some sea salt.  I thought the garlic olive oil would help but I think it was a waste of expensive oil, good thing it was free thanks Wendy.  I use the oil to flavor the pasta some and to keep the water from boiling over.  How does the oil keep it from boiling over you ask.  Well the oil breaks the surface tension of the water and prevents it from boiling over.  Sarah accomplishes the same thing by placing a wooden spoon across the top of the pot, so when the water boils up it breaks the surface tension when it touches the spoon.  So I turned on the burner under the water and started browning the chicken, I seasoned with S&P, in a different pan.

I was about done with the chicken browning and looked over at the water.  It was not boiling.  How is it not boiling yet, the electric rings are not even glowing yet.  Oh that is right I rent an apartment and the stove is not top quality or even mediocre quality.  I guessed the ring was not getting a solid connection in the stove top so I moved the pot to a different burner and started again.  Since I was waiting for water to boil I poured some Marsala wine into the pan to get a nice steamed wine facial and scrap the brown goodness off of the bottom of the pan. The smell of the Marsala wine started to fill my apartment up.  Finally the water is boiling so I put my pasta in its bath of oil and salt.

Now that the pasta is cooking I can start more on my sauce.  I had juilenned  two carrots into small pieces.  Knowing they will take a while to cook I put those in with the chicken.  I added a can of Rotel sauce into the pot with the chicken.  Not a can of Rotel tomatoes and peppers but just a can of sauce.  I added a little more Marsala into the pan.  I sliced up three baby button mushrooms and add them to the pan with a little more Marsala.  The mushrooms just absorb the flavor of the Marsala so well along with the tomato sauce flavor.  I added some Italian seasoning into the pot, I need to add some more for next time.  Finally I added a little over have a small can of Del Monte sweet peas to the pan

All the kids in the pool

My pasta took longer to cook than expected, even after the water was boiling.  So I had to add a little more Marsala to keep the sauce from thicken up to tight.  No, it was not a lot of Marsala.  It just seems like it.  In reality my pours of Marsala are very small, probably close to an ounce with each pour.  So the final product was ready to combine.  Next time I will add the pasta in the pan with the sauce and stir it around to help the pasta take on the sauce.  I added some Parmesan cheese because everything is better with cheese, don't let Sarah convince you otherwise.

Final product not super pretty but not bad.

Sarah has gotten my eating healthier and proper serving sizes.  To help with that she got me using myfitnesspal.com app for my phone.  I used the app to make my recipe.  I determined it was three servings of sauce and 242 calories per serving.  That is only a rough estimate from the app, just FYI.

Then later in the night I felt like an adult beverage.  Sarah and I have a recipe called a Yummy Gummy vodka drink.  The drink has 2 oz or Pinnacle Gummy vodka, 2 oz of Triple Sec and 4 oz of sweet and sour mix.  I have to stir it up since I do not have a shaker.  Yes the drink may seem girlie but if it tastes good and is half full of alcohol then it sounds like a good drink to me.  Who needs to drink something that is only somewhat tasty and weak on the alcohol, aka beer.  I am a more of hard alcohol drinker over beer.

Yummy Gummy vodka drink

So in closing "Get out and cook."  What better way to bond with the family or just relax by yourself than seeing your work turn out well and taste so good.