It started off as most Sundays do, but Metro’s night service was cancelled because of weather fears so the Metro crew decided to come over early for some grub chez Gregoire.

There was a minor debate, as I recall about whether we were going to enjoy penne or spaghettini, with spaghettini winning on a technicality (we’d had penne the previous Greg-hosted dinner fest).

My meat sauce was well received the previous outing, though the pasta itself was not. So this time, Kate took control of planning the pasta boiling.

Wilson and Kate brought the ingredients to make garlic bread as well.

For desert, we had cheesecake that Kate Y.’s friend Vicky brought to my New Year’s Eve shindig.

All in all, a splendid meal, so why don’t I just go ahead and discuss its preparation?

First, my contribution. For the meat sauce, you’ll need:

1) A clove (or two) of garlic minced

2) A handful (or two) of mushrooms (chopped)

3) Half a green pepper (chopped, pictured here with the garlic)

4) 1lb. beef

5) Salt, pepper and other funky spices you might want to add

6) Four cans of tomato sauce

Here’s how to make it:

1) Fry up the beef until brown on a skillet on your stove, don’t add any seasoning to this, just brown it

2) In a large pot, add the other ingredients and put it on the stove to boil, add the beef after the beef’s been cooked. Let that stuff cook for a couple of hours to let the taste permeate the whole concoction

Kate was in charge of the pasta. Last time, I let the pasta stay on the stove too long and it got overcooked. Everyone was disappointed, except for me, because I know how hard it was for me to even get to the point where I was boiling water for pasta. But I digress:

1) Take a bag of pasta, I recommend anything that is Primo brand, because Primo is Italian for awesome and real Italians use it, too

2) Take 8x in water the amount of pasta you’re using (for example, 450g of pasta requires 3.6kg water) source

3) Salt and boil the water

4) pour the pasta in

5) Take the pasta out when it’s cooked (taste it to find out) and drain it

To properly enjoy the pasta, the pasta and meat sauce have to be added together. You can do it yourself, or let your guests gauge the right amount of each for themselves.

For the garlic bread, we had:

1) Garlic and parsley (smushed up into a paste)

2) Bread (ref. above picture)

To make the garlic bread, we:

1) Spread the garlic sauce on the bread

2) Heated the bread (adding cheese if so desired)

This is the cheese cake we had:

Here’s it getting unboxed:

Here’s it fully unboxed:

I put granola on mine:

Thanks for visiting!

Categories: Cooking with Greg
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Hi Kids!

Today will be the first session of what will hopefully become a regular series, ‘Cooking With Uncle Greg’. Today I’ll be teaching you all how to make my very own brand of iced green tea.

So here’s what you need:

1) 4 green teabags. For today I’ll be using ‘China Green Tea’ which I bought on a recent expedition to China (town). The brand is ‘Merilin’ and it says it’s 100% Natural and it’s a product of China. So hopefully it has no melamine.

I’ve also used ‘Uncle Lee’s Green Tea’ from Shoppers Drug Mart, and that was good too. Jasmine green tea works as well.

2) Water (we’re making 9 cups today).

3) Sugar

4) Lemon juice

5) A percolator

I actually brew my iced tea. I use a percolator but maybe you can use a coffee maker or a Bodum type thing. But I’ve always used a percolator, my pa used a percolator, and his pa used a percolator and that’s good enough for me.

Actually my dad wouldn’t be caught dead drinking iced green tea.

Anyway, here’s the recipe:

1) Fill your percolator up with water

2) Put 4 green teabags into your percolator where coffee would normally go

3) Put the cover thingie over the place where you put your teabags (where coffee would normally go)

4) Put the top on your percolator

5) Turn on the percolator and let it percolate your green tea, which will come out hot – I always use the ’strong’ setting on my percolator

6) After its done percolating, turn the percolator off, and let the tea cool

7) Put some sugar and lemon juice (to taste) in a pitcher

Pour in the cool green tea

9) Stir it up

10) Chill in the fridge and serve cold.

It’s awesome!

If you want to make more, put two more bags in the percolator and make another batch!

Categories: Cooking with Greg
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