Smell My Kitchen

Food Bloggers & Recipes Writer

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

Heyo Smell My Kitchen people! Marc here back again.

Last post we said that it had been a while since we posted – as in a few months – and now we are back again after just a few days? OH MY! Thought you could get rid of us that easily? I DON’T THINK SO!

Today’s delectable is called “Stuffed Bell Peppers“! And you know what? It’s freaking excellent!

Does…

Stuffed Bell Peppers 1

this…

Stuffed Bell Peppers 2

look…

Stuffed Bell Peppers 4

good or what??

We had one of our good friends over for dinner when we made this recipe and we all agreed that it was amazing. The fact that the pepper is the bowl is fun, and everything was juicy and crunchy at the same time!

If you want you could take out the cheese, but honestly, why would you do that? Everyone knows that cheese is one of the best food in life along with bacon! Bacon… oh my, YES why not add bacon to this as well!!!

So, who’s brave enough to try it? Come on I dare you! Let us know if you will, and let us know when you do! We want feedback!

Stuffed Bell Peppers 3

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups ground turkey
  • 4 bell Peppers
  • 1/2 cup brown rice
  • 1/4 cup frozen corn
  • 1 cup diced tomatoes (no sugar added)
  • 1 cup tomato sauce (no sugar added)
  • 1/3 cup cheese
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 °F
  2. Cook your rice.
  3. Meanwhile, brown your turkey and add your spices.
  4. In a large bowl mix in cooked meat, diced tomatoes, corn, rice, and tomato sauce.
  5. Cut the caps off your peppers and take out the seeds. stuff the peppers.
  6. Sprinkle on your cheese, and bake for about 45 minutes.
  7. Stop and smell your kitchen – doesn’t it smell DEVINE! Enjoy

21 day fix approved – approx. 1 Red, 1/2 Yellow, 1 Green, 1/4 Blue per stuffed pepper

TRAFFIC AND INCOME REPORT – JULY 2014

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

Hello all, Marc here to talk about the blog’s numbers and statistics in this traffic and income report.

This report, which is published every month, will be a round up of what happened both in front of the scene and behind the scene at Smell My Kitchen.

This is also an acknowledgment of our own efforts to see where we stand as blog owners and it gives us the power to appreciate our website’s evolution. Feel free to comment or ask any questions in the comments section.

This is our third traffic and income report. I’ve been trying to publish them around the 15th of the month but I’m starting to wonder if it’s a bit late in the next month to do it. What are your thoughts?

1. Blog in numbers

In July we wrote a total of 9 posts. I was a little bit discouraged photo-wise in a few of those posts even though the recipes are awesome.

Like I said some of them have awful pictures. I didn’t take my time enough and it shows. We still had a few of them accepted on FoodGawker and TasteSpotting which means it still built traffic so that’s good!

I feel like I didn’t have much time to work on the blog even though I took three weeks of vacations from my day job. The first week we had all the kids during the day, in the second we were gone at Lac St-Jean and the third I was just busy with house chores and what not. To me, July was not a good month for the blog even though we had our best month in terms of traffic.

Here’s why.

2. Traffic and income

But what happened I hear you say?

One of our post, raspberry frozen mini cakes, was featured in a Buzzfeed post! Thanks to Rachel Sanders from Buzzfeed for featuring us. This literally created a storm of traffic all of a sudden and we are still getting a few referral a day from there.

The saying “be at the right place at the right time” really holds up when it comes to a blog. I LOVE IT.

 

As you can see Buzzfeed brought in 683 sessions, and to be honest almost as much in terms in direct traffic. Pinterest was our second biggest referral, but I still need to figure out how to get more followers. Grrr.

Help me, pin away our recipes to your followers! And follow us on Pinterest.

Alright, what about income?

The Buzzfeed buzz brought us a few dollars which was interesting to see.

  • Gourmet Ads – 2.82 USD
  • AdSense – ~10.38 USD
  • Swoop – a big woop! 0 USD
  • Sovrn  – 0.11 USD

Grand total: 13.31 USD

An increase of 537%!!! CREEAAAAZAY

So what did I decided to do? I removed Sovrn and removed one of the Gourmet Ads ads. Why? Because I want to concentrate on building a following and traffic and ads improvement were taking too much on my time.

In June’s report, I had a discussion with Chet from Tomato Boots around the question “When is the right time to monetize your blog?”. Every month he writes a “growing report” about Lindsay’s (his wife) blog but he focuses on traffic more than income.

My answer to his question still stands: to me the right time to monetize your blog is right away. But in moderation. It’s not as important as building traffic, a community or followers, but it can bring a good surprise when you have a surge of traffic coming from referral, like in my Buzzfeed experience. I made about 8$ right there that I wouldn’t have made if AdSense wasn’t configured and on my site.

If you do monetize your blog early in its life, don’t go overboard. Remember that content is king and your ads should be built around it, not the other way around.

3. Other

In June I talked about the fact we were now using MailChimp as an email marketing provider and that I set up an RSS-driven campaign. I asked if some of you were interested and I had a few people contact me in private so I made a blog post about creating an RSS driven campaign in MailChimp as well as a blog post about customizing your email template in Mailchimp.

If your blog is at a point where you feel the need of feeding (see what I did there?) your subscriber with recipes and blog post as soon as they come out, be sure to check them and ask any questions in the comments.

Once again thank you for reading and if you have any tips or questions for me, please do in the comments below.

No Bake Nutella Oreo Cheesecake

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

This is a very simple cheesecake to make that tastes absolutely AMAZING! So amazing that our 8 years old son asked for this cake for his birthday cake. We present to you: the no-bake nutella oreo cheesecake.

Before talking about wonderful things like cheesecakes, sugar, and butterflies I need to say something: tonight I got stabbed right in the heart. Most of you must have heard about the bad news: Robin Williams was found dead a few hours earlier, most likely suicide.

I can honestly say that it’s one of the first celebrity death that affects me. I grew up on movies like Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Aladdin, and Hook. One of my favorite movies of all time is Dead Poet Society which I’ve seen in my teenage years and affected me deeply. Just two weeks ago Nathaniel and I watched Jumanji (his first time!) and he LOVED it. I rediscovered it.

no bake nutella oreo cheese cake

Robin Williams was a comedic genius, great actor and an amazing stand up comic. You will be missed and may you rest in peace. If any of you need the help of any sort, please contact one of the Suicide Hotline before it is too late.

Well if you are like me and need some comfort food, this no-bake nutella oreo cheesecake should be perfect for you. It’s mellow, full of chocolate and soo sweet. I don’t have to tell you that the whole cake didn’t last long in our house.

If you want the ultimate experience, you can add a little bit of caramel syrup on top of it or serve it with ice cream. Vanilla would be the best since there’s already a lot of chocolate in it!

No Bake Nutella Cheese Cake

By Smell My Kitchen
Servings- 8
Preparation time- 15 minute(s)
Cooking time- 0 minute(s)
No Bake Nutella Oreo Cheesecake

Description:

Delicious, smooth and creamy no bakes cheesecake. very easy to make, and best of all, no baking necessary!

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/4 cups bag of Oreo Cookies, crushed
  • 5 tablespoons butter
  • 1 1/2 cups Nutella (or chocolate spread) at room temperature
  • 2 cups cream cheese at room temperature
  • 4 tablespoons icing sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Crush the oreo cookies in a bowl and add butter, mix, and press using the back of a spoon to the bottom of a pyrex bowl. Set aside in the refrigerator.
  2. Beat the cream cheese icing sugar and Nutella until smooth.
  3. Pour the mixture on the crushed Oreos and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
  4. Serve with a few crushed Oreos on top, and enjoy.

Traffic and Income Report – June 2014

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

blogreport 2014 06

Hello all, Marc here to talk about the blog’s numbers and statistics in this traffic and income report.

This report, which is published every month, will be a round-up of what happened both in front of the scene and behind the scene at Smell My Kitchen.

This is also an acknowledgment of our own efforts to see where we stand as blog owners and it gives us the power to appreciate our website’s evolution. Feel free to comment or ask any questions in the comments section.

Our second blog report. Exciting isn’t it? Let’s hope we beat the amount of 0.32$ from last month.

Let’s begin!

1. Blog in numbers

How many posts did we write this month? Last month we wrote 9 posts and this month… 10! Since last month was good – at least 2 posts a week – we are still on track. YEAH!

Speaking of Pinterest: anyone knows how to check the total repins for a particular link? Thank you in advance.

Here’s something I learned about FoodGawker: the picture you are submitting has to be part of the post otherwise it’s going to be rejected. Not a hard thing to correct, but still a waste of time if you do it often.

2. Traffic, followers, and income

Let’s take the “followers” part out of the way first. I got rid of the multiple social media buttons from the sidebar and moved them to the footer.

Why?

Because I want to build our mailing list first and foremost. If you subscribe to our newsletter– which I suggest you do to receive these reports as soon as they are posted! – you will see that after subscribing you will be redirected to a second page where I invite people to follow us on Facebook.

We will never send you spam or sell your email address.

Traffic wise we had a total of 2564 page views in May. Did we beat it in June?

No, we didn’t.

It happens. I attribute this lack of traffic to my lack of time to work on the blog. I was busy preparing my vacations for the first three weeks of July and that meant I had a lot on my plate at my full-time job.

Sorry!

Let’s see the positive though: we had our biggest day ever on June 25th with 195 sessions. Do you want to know what’s interesting with that date? It was the day after we published the 10 tips to keep your refrigerator clean & organized post. 97 sessions out of those 195 sessions came from Pinterest and 80 of them were on the 10 tips post.

And now for what interest most of you: income.

Last month we made 0.32$ with AdSense.

This month we raised our income by 653% 553% (edit: apparently I can’t math). A whooping 2.09$!

The income came from two different sources:

  • AdSense: 1.44$
  • Gourmet Ads: 0.65$

What are Gourmet Ads you say? They are an advertising agency similar to AdSense that is focusing on food and wine publishers. We had no problem entering the agency since they are actively looking for blogs from Canada and New Zealand.

I think 0.65$ is fairly low but again, we only entered Gourmet Ads on the last week of June. We will see how it will perform in July.

We are still very far from Lindsay and Björk at Pinch Of Yum with their amazing 31073.42$, but they are the flag ship of the monetized food blogs.

We are, though, closer to our Canadian counterpart Adrian and Jeremy from The Food Gays who started doing this same kind of report. They are on their second income report so make sure you follow them. You should also check out their new blog design!

3. Blog Changes

Since we are trying to build our mailing list, I thought it would be useful to have something to send to users who subscribe.

We started using MailChimp for our newsletter campaigns, and it is working beautifully. I set up an “RSS to Email” campaign that gets sent automatically every morning when there is a new post on the blog.

Hum, would you like a tutorial on how to do this? Let me know if you think it would be useful to you!

Make sure you start right away and create your MailChimp account so you can start building your mailing list. It is the most direct way you have to contact your users, and those users, those who subscribed by themselves, subscribed because they want to hear about you and read you.

They are the best! ♥

BBQ Teriyaki Chicken Legs

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

Did we ever tell you we love chicken? Chicken is always tender and so delicious! These BBQ teriyaki chicken legs are no exception.

CHICKEN! ♥♥♥

Bring out your BBQ, because tonight you will be making these BBQ teriyaki chicken legs I guarantee it. If you have kids, they surely love chicken legs because they are, normally, allowed to eat them with their hands and get messy all over. At least that’s how it works in our home.

Ribs, chicken legs, burger… hands only! The mess is part of the fun and somehow, it adds to the taste. Somehow, it makes it even better. I remember when I was young it was the same thing. I was allowed to eat the chicken legs with my fingers, and to be honest it is probably the reason why it took me a very, very long time to appreciate chicken breasts.

I think I was 14 years old when I started to appreciate the fullness of the chicken breast compared to the chicken legs. Before that, I hated the fact that I had to use a fork and a knife to cut my chicken. Such a waste of time. The teriyaki sauce for this recipe is very sweet and simple to make. Kids loved it and we did as much as them. You are not limited to chicken legs, you can use it on pretty much anything you can think of and it will surely be good.

BBQ Teriyaki Chicken Legs

Author: Smell My Kitchen
Recipe type: Dinner
Prep time:  
Cook time:  
Total time:  
Chicken legs, marinated in a sweet teriyaki sauce. marinate and use the leftover sauce to brush on the legs while you BBQ.
BBQ Teriyaki Chicken Legs

Ingredients

  • ½ cup soy sauce
  • ¼ cup water
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 clove garlic, minced

Instructions

  • Blend all ingredients in a saucepan, heat on medieval heat until sugar is melted.
  • Cool and pour on top of chicken legs, let marinade at least 20 minutes in the fridge.
  • Heat BBQ to about 375-400F.
  • put the legs on indirect heat. (turn on your left burner for example, and put the legs on the right burner which is turned off)
  • Brush on leftover sauce on legs, cook with lid closed for 10-15 minutes, turn and brush with the sauce, let cook again 10 – 15 minutes with lid closed.
  • Cook until internal temp is at 170 or the juices run clear when poked with a fork.

Let us know in the comments, what you cooked with a teriyaki sauce that was amazing? And did you try our BBQ teriyaki chicken legs?

Raspberry Frozen Mini Cakes

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

Fresh and especially frozen desserts are amazing when the temperature is as hot as it is lately. These raspberry frozen mini cakes arrive just in time! Sometimes it’s hard to be creative with frozen desserts. Ice cream always comes in mind and not much else.

I’m not saying ice cream is bad. Actually ice cream is awesome! But it can be dull by moments. We decided to do those mini cakes, cupcakes, frozen muffins, whatever you want to call them, to show the kids how creative you can be with a recipe. They loved them! We served them as is with a little raspberry puree. You can also serve them inverted with a nice mint leaf for a look.

Like I said, the kids loved this dessert. It was refreshing, although they thaw quickly so if it is a warm day, I suggest you take them out of the wrappers quickly as it can get pretty messy, pretty fast. The taste of the raspberries made the recipe, but personally, I’m a sucker for graham cookies.

raspberries frozen mini cakes

Raspberries Frozen Mini Cakes

Author: Smell My Kitchen
Recipe Type: Desserts
Prep Time:  
Total Time:  
Serves: 12
These chilled amazing little no-bake mini cakes are really refreshing. Make a raspberries puree to accompany it and you have an amazing little dessert the whole family will enjoy.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup graham wafer crumbs
  • 3 tbsp butter, melted
  • 3 cups raspberries
  • 4 oz (125 g) cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 can (300 ml) Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
  • 1 cup frozen light whipped topping, thawed

Instructions

  1. Put 3 cups of raspberries in a food processor and puree, set ½ a cup of the puree aside and put the remaining puree in a container for when the dessert is ready to be served.
  2. Combine graham crumbs and butter.
  3. Press evenly onto 12 large paper-lined muffin cups.
  4. Beat your cream cheese until fluffy and gradually add your condensed milk and a ½ cup of the raspberry puree mix together.
  5. Fold in whipped topping.
  6. Spoon the mixture into cups and cover them with plastic wrap.
  7. Freeze your mini cakes for 5 to 6 hours.
  8. Serve frozen, with remaining raspberry puree. Garnish as desired.
Notes
Adapted from EagleBrand.ca

SWEET BBQ RIBS ON THE GRILL

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

This recipe was amazingly easy to accomplish, and the whole house smelled absolutely amazing and sweet! Learn how to make tender and juicy sweet BBQ ribs on the grill.

The baby would scream at me for more and the other 2 ate about 1/2 a rack each. These ribs literally melted in your mouth. The sauce was sweet and if you like adding a little spicy, you can add a few finely chopped jalapeno peppers to your sauce, it will give it that extra punch.

You can easily prepare the ribs in advance: you can rub them with the spice rub, wrap them in foil and put them in the refrigerator for a few hours, even a few days. Just make sure to let them sit on the counter for about 20-30 minutes so they reach room temperature before putting them in the oven to cook.

I prefer cooking them in the oven to boiling them, but if you want to boil instead of precooking them in the oven, I suggest you cover the ribs with water, add garlic spice, paprika, salt, and pepper,  boil them for about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Then you can put them in the oven or on the grill for another 45 minutes or so until the meat has reached 160 degrees F. I personally find the ribs a little less flavorful when you boil them first. but they are quite good either way.

BBQ Ribs

Author: Smell My Kitchen
Recipe type: Dinner
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4
Melt in your mouth, sweet tasting grilled ribs. Very delicious and satisfying ribs, the whole family enjoyed this recipe.
SWEET BBQ RIBS ON THE GRILL

Ingredients

  • Rib Rub
  • For the ribs:
  • 1½ tablespoons Sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 full racks baby back pork ribs (2.7 kg)
  • BBQ Sauce:
  • 1½ cups ketchup
  • ½ cup water
  • ⅓ cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325°F
  • Mix ingredients except for the ribs in a medium bowl; set aside.
  • Cut 4 pieces of aluminum foil, large enough to wrap your ribs.
  • Cut your ribs in half and place the 2 pieces side by side on a sheet of foil.
  • Coat both sides of the ribs with the spice rub.
  • Wrap ribs to create 2 completely enclosed packets and place on cookie tray.
  • Place the ribs in the oven and roast 2 hours.
  • —– Making the sauce
  • Put ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
  • Whisk occasionally.
  • Reduce the heat to low and continue to simmer for 30 minutes, the flavors will blend and the sauce has reduced slightly.
  • Remove from the heat.
  • ——- On the Grill
  • Heat a gas or charcoal grill to 400°F
  • Remove the ribs from the foil, place them meaty-side up on the grill, and brush them with your homemade BBQ sauce.
  • Close the grill cover for about 5-8 minutes and then flip your ribs. Brush some more sauce and close the cover again and let cook for another 5-8 minutes. Continue flipping until the ribs are completely heated through and started to crisp. about 4 flips in total are plenty.
  • Transfer the ribs to a cutting board and cut the racks between the bones. Transfer the remaining barbecue sauce to a serving bowl and serve with the ribs.

FILET MIGNON STEAK ON THE BBQ GRILL

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

For us, the summer season is the every-two-days-we-need-to-eat-BBQ season. This time was no different as we made filet mignon on the grill.

Steak is a funny kind of meat. At least to me.

Steak is the only meat you can cook, over-cook, under-cook, barely-cook, any in-between-cook and it will still be good, or at least edible without side-effects.

Want to under-cook a chicken? Salmonella for you!

This means that steaks are very versatile and can be enjoyed in so many different forms.

filet mignon 1

 

Our favorite steak is the filet mignon. It is so tender, it tastes absolutely amazing every time.

But what can you do to have the best-grilled filet mignon in the neighborhood? Here is how my dad taught me, and with the years I found a few extra tricks.

First of all, you want to bring your filet mignon to room temperature before cooking it. It will result in a more evenly grilled steak.

Next step would be to season it with a light brushing of olive oil and spices (pepper, garlic powder, onion salt etc let your imagination run wild!)  and then bring it to the grill. But how much cooking does it take to make the perfect filet mignon? It depends on how much you want it cooked.

Here’s a little list of cooking times for about 1″ thick steak;

  • Medium-rare: about 5 minutes per sides or an internal temperature of 135 F.
  • Medium: about 7 minutes per sides or an internal temperature of 140 F.
  • Well-done: about 10 minutes per sides or an internal temperature of 150 F.

You can also go by feel, with the back of your fork – press lightly on the steak, if it is rare it will be soft,  a medium steak will be firm but yielding and a well-done steak will be firm.

Now, those grill marks, if you wish to make the perfect grill marks on your filet mignon, there are a few steps to take. Don’t worry, it’s quite easy.

Put your steak on the grill for 1 minute without touching it. Flip it on the other side for another minute. Then, and here’s the tricky part, flip it again but this time turn it 45 degrees so the grill marks from the first minute are sideways. The new marks will be the one looking good. At that point cook it for the remainder of the time and then flip it again, keeping it at a 45 degrees difference from the second minute, and cook it for the remainder of the time for the second side.

Basically, for a medium-rare steak, it would go like this: 1 minute, flip, 1 minute, flip, turn 45 degrees, 4 minutes, flip, 4 minutes.

Easy, isn’t it?

And now that your steak is ready, put it in a nice looking dish let it sit for a few minutes to let the juices flow and serve it with your favorite side dish (we served ours with thinly sliced potatoes) you can also add a few pieces of blue cheese to your steak and let it slowly melt before serving with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar glaze, as we did with ours, and prepare yourself for the enjoyment of your guests!

filet mignon 2

Filet Mignon Steak on the BBQ Grill

Author: Smell My Kitchen
Prep time:  
Cook time:  
Total time:  
Serves: 4
A nice Filet Mignon Steak on the grill. A great summer meal to enjoy with your family and friends. Try topping it off with a bit of blue cheese, let it melt and take your taste buds to a totally different place!

Ingredients

  • 4 Filet Mignon Steaks (about 4 cm thick)
  • ¼ cup Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • Blue cheese
  • Side dish used to accompany
  • 5 large potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • spices of choice
  • (we used paprika, Italian herbs, salt, pepper, basil)
  • Appetizer
  • Mini cucumbers
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Olive oil
  • Balsamic vinegar glaze
  • Mini Bocconcini soft cheese
  • Oregano

Instructions

  • About 30 minutes before grilling, let the steaks sit at room temperature.
  • Heat your grill to about 450 F. Brush the steaks on both sides with oil and season with salt and pepper.
  • Place the steaks on the grill and cook.
  • to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare (or an internal temperature of 135 degrees F )
  • to 7 minutes per side for medium (or an internal temperature 140 degrees F)
  • to 10 minutes per side for well done ( or an internal temperature of 150 degrees F)
  • Serve with a slice of Blue cheese.
  • ——– SIDE DISH
  • Using a Mandoline – slice your potatoes
  • Put potatoes in a bowl, add spices, garlic, and oil, cover and shake.
  • Wrap in foil put on BBQ grill for 25 minutes.
  • ——— APPETIZER
  • Bocconcini cheese with tomatoes and cucumbers
  • (easy to follow recipe on our site)

HORSE BEEF BURGERS ON THE BBQ GRILL

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

Today’s post is about something a little bit exotic that we made. We decided to make horse beef burgers on the grill. Do you think the kids loved it or hated it?

First of all, stop thinking “ewwww”. I know most of you think it because that’s what we thought too. But part of having a food blog is the excitement we feel about trying new food. The meat tasted very, very good. I actually preferred it to normal beef and Chantal loved it as well. It is cleaner, it tastes great and, surprisingly, it is less expensive. Win, win, win!

We topped our horse beef burgers with feta cheese and tomatoes, as well as ketchup. We put garlic, bell pepper and red onion inside of the meat, it was delicious. So, did you think about the kids? Do you think they liked the horse beef burgers or they hated it? They actually enjoyed it quite a lot! Chantal and I kinda cheated though. We didn’t tell them they were eating horse meat because we know them and they are difficult.

Once they were done, we asked, “Do you know what you ate?” , we then told them it was a horse and they were both surprised and quite happy with their new discovery! All in all, we think we will do more stuff with horse beef since it can replace any beef from any recipes.  Shepherd’s pie with horse beef? Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.

Author: Smell My Kitchen
Recipe type: Dinner
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 8
Horse meat is incredibly lean and tastes amazing, our whole family loved them! Something to remember is that horse meat is dry so let it marinate a little and because it is so lean – adding egg white or breadcrumbs to your hamburger patty is necessary to keep the patty from breaking.
HORSE BEEF BURGERS ON THE BBQ GRILL

Ingredients

  • Ground horse meat – 2.5 lbs
  • ¼ cup BBQ sauce
  • 1 clove of garlic – finely chopped
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Onion powder
  • 1 Bell Pepper, finely chopped
  • ¼ red onion, finely chopped
  • 1 egg white
  • Optional
  • Feta cheese
  • Blue cheese

Instructions

  1. Put BBQ sauce, egg white vegetables, garlic and horse meat in a bowl, mix thoroughly.
  2. Make hamburger patties, makes about 8 large patties.
  3. Start your grill, once the temp is at about 425-450 F put your patties on the grill, grill about 8-10 minutes per side.
  4. Serve n a warm hamburger bun with a slice of feta cheese or a blue cheese and enjoy.
Notes
Recipe adapted from our friend: Joany Bouchard-Wellman

VEGAN BBQ TOFU KABOBS

Posted on by Smell My Kitchen

Grilling season isn’t just about hamburgers, steaks, and ribs. It’s also about another delight called shish kabobs. You know those rows of vegetables and meat and tofu on skewers? Take this vegan BBQ tofu kabobs recipe for example. Yes, it is our first vegan recipe. Will it start a trend on Smell My Kitchen? Welllll it might. We really enjoyed our dinner when we did those tofu kabobs and the healthier we eat, the more vegan recipes we think about that we want to try.

The only thing that makes us reject some ideas is because of kids. are. difficult. Surprisingly I think we’ve made enough tofu recipes in the past 5 months to lure them into eating it and, even better, like it. Our big guy, pictured over here, is the most difficult of our kids and as you can see he ate everything.

The middleman also loved it. When Chantal told him to eat one last piece of potato, he took a big piece of tofu and said “mom, I’m going to eat this instead ok?!  It’s so good!”. Well for someone who used to eat whole potatoes when he was a baby, he came a long way in his food adventure!

Since you will be doing those vegan BBQ tofu kabobs on the grill, it is easy to burn wooden skewers. A tip to help prevent your wooden skewers from burning is to let them soak in water for about 30 minutes before using them. They will accumulate enough humidity to keep them almost intact, or at least not catch on fire.

This recipe would also be amazing with a nice peanut sauce or a teriyaki sauce. Let the tofu marinate at least 1 hour in the sauce and use the rest of it on the kabobs as they finish cooking.

Here is a quick and easy teriyaki sauce:

  • 2 tablespoons of flour
  • 1 tablespoon of water
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup of soya sauce
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
  • Salt and pepper to taste

(put all ingredients in a shaker or mix with a mixer, then let simmer 5 minutes until sauce thickens)

And here’s the recipe for those perfect vegan BBQ tofu kabobs:

Author: Smell My Kitchen
Recipe type: Dinner
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
VEGAN BBQ TOFU KABOBS

Ingredients

  • Sauce:
  • 2 cups of ketchup
  • ¼ cup soya sauce
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of lemon
  • ½ teaspoon chili powder
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • Shish Kabob:
  • 10 wooden or metal shish kabob skewers
  • 1 350 g of extra firm tofu
  • 3 bell peppers, cut into 1-inch squares
  • 2 cups of white mushrooms, cut in half
  • *******Optional
  • Pam BBQ spray
  • 2 small onions cut into 1-inch pieces
  • cherry tomatoes

Instructions

  • If using wooden skewers, let them soak in water for at least 30 minutes before cooking.
  • With a paper towel, pat dries the tofu.
  • Cut Tofu into one-inch squares and let marinate in the sauce for at least 1 hour before using.
  • Skewer vegetables and tofu, alternate them as you wish.
  • Spray your grill with some Pam BBQ spray, this way your shish kabobs won’t stick.
  • Preheat your BBQ to 450 degrees.
  • Put your shish kabobs on the BBQ for about 10 minutes, brush on some leftover sauce and turn for another 5-10 minutes.