Thanks for joining me! My name is Chef Ned 

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“What I’ve enjoyed most, though, is meeting people who have a real interest in food and sharing ideas with them. Good food is a global thing and I find that there is always something new and amazing to learn – I love it” (www.brainyquote.com/author/jamie_oliver.,2001).

Cooking has always been apart of my life, and a passion of mine. This is why I decided to attend culinary school. To learn more in depth about the culinary world. Im very excited to start this new journey in my life. I have worked in the industry in the past and I have realized that I want to make my passion my career.

I have always had love for food and cooking. It started when I was a child cooking with my mom. My mother was always the main cook in our home. Its because of her I will always believe there is nothing better then a home cooked meal, don’t you think so too?

I hope to use this blog as an outlet and a place to express my love for family, cooking and all things food.

(blog.chefsteps.com/tag/gordon-ramsay/)

Todays my childhood soup

The reason this soup is special to me is because my mother and I would make it all the time, she still does till this day. The soup is called Chicken Dumpling Soup. It is not just my favourite but my families as well. She would make this soup for family gatherings, when we were feeling under the weather or just simply to make us happy and it did. So here is me sharing a piece of my Childhood memories with you, hope you enjoy because i know i will.

                                          Chicken Dumpling Soup

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 5 Litres of cold water
• 2 teaspoon of butter
• 1 kg of chicken thigh/ legs
• 2 whole carrots medium dice
• 2 whole celery medium dice
• 1 cup of onion medium dice
• 2 teaspoon of vegeta (dehydrated vegetables and spices)
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of pepper
• 2 bayleaves

Dumplings

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 2 table spoons of water
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Directions

In a large stock pot heat butter add onions and garlic sweat down. Then add chicken thighs, legs to your pot and brown chicken. Then add carrots, celery and all seasonings to your pot and cover with your 5 Litres of water. Bring to a boil then turn heat to medium low and simmer for 1 hour. After 1 hour you can start removing or chicken thighs and legs to remove meat from bone, then throw back in your soup. Now time to start your dumplings combine 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of flour, 1/8 cup of water, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper to a bowl. Mix all ingredients until comes to a thick paste and drop about a teaspoon of mix in boiling soup until used up then continue to simmer for 15 minutes and then ready to serve.

So as always this soup really makes me feel like i’m going back in time. It is a very rustic soup, it isn’t the hardest to make also. So I did get my mother to try my version of her soup and of course she says it’s amazing! Hey it’s my Mom of course she’s going to say nothing but the best. Some of the things i would do to improve this soup, is making my stock before hand and getting rid of any impurities, A clean chicken stock. Other then that i think it’s perfect and helps me make a cold day better. Some of the things i would take away from this experience is that, my Mom always likes to rush things in the kitchen. For myself I would slow things down, take the extra steps to make it perfect in my eyes. Attention to detail i think is so important in this line of work, especially if you want to succeed! Thank you for joining me today see you next time. Ned Keranovic

Oysters East to West Coast

First thing you notice about oysters is they look a little scary for something your going to put in your mouth. After I grew the confidence to do so, I found out it was amazing! It was a little bit sweet, creamy, and salty. Oysters flavours differ from region to region. I noticed that some were bigger than others and some were saltier and creamier than others. Texture is a big part of eating them – from this experience I would say if you don’t like slimy soft textures on your palate then you might not like oysters. Personally, I don’t think there is another food like it, since it’s mostly eaten raw. I think that oysters are unique because of how they are grown – they start off as tiny little shells and can grow on the oceans floor up to 14” long, so pretty big. I learned that just because food doesn’t look good at first sight, it doesn’t mean it will taste bad. I will be eating oysters again and I hope to try many different types. There are many different ways that oysters are prepared and I would like to experience as many as I can. Oysters are served with different accompaniments such as seafood sauce, hot sauce and red wine vinegar sauce known as a mignonette. So you can dress your oyster to your own preference, I thought that was great. Now that I have tried oysters I would like to cook them in different ways such as baking, frying and barbecuing. I want to see how I can change the flavour and texture with different techniques of cooking. Hope you enjoyed this experience as much as I did.

Pickled Turnips

I love pickled turnips for multiple reasons. first it taste great, it has a bit of a crunch and also looks beautiful for presentation, do to it’s vibrant pink colour from the beets. It’s normally seen in middle eastern cooking, for example shawarma, falafel and salads. I think it adds the right amount of acid and salt to those very rich sandwiches/wraps. It takes about five days to pickle, it can have a fairly long shelf life if stored correctly. My Pickled Turnips turned out amazing and I enjoy them by them selves thats how much I love them.