You’re having some people over, or a date perhaps. You’ve found a great recipe and followed it with precision. Everythings ready to go, wine is poured, table is set.

Then, you spoon a mound of your masterpiece on a neon yellow plastic plate, splashing sauce and chunks of vegetables everywhere and plop it down in front of your guests. Bon Appetite?

It may be cliche, but no one can deny it: we eat with our eyes. If it looks good, we want it! And you would definitely be surprised at how a few simple plating tips can jack up your next cooking experience and impress even the most distinguished of diners. Let’s start with some basics:

1. Pick the right canvas

The plate is your canvas, and that means you want the food to stand out, not your circa 1976 avocado green chipped plastic plates. Keep it simple; white, round, with no obnoxious designs to detract from your hard work.

2. Odd Numbers Look Better

This is a weird one, but trust me, it’s true. One of the best chefs I’ve worked for told me this and it’s something that has just stuck with me. Say you’re plating some beautiful grilled tiger prawns for example, plate 3 or 5 instead of 4 or 6. The rule applies to anything where you’re plating more than 1 of a certain item. Try it out for yourself and you’ll see.

3. A Little Colour Goes a Long Way

Say you’ve been building the perfect flavorful cream sauce for your pasta, you top it with a perfectly grilled chicken breast and what do you see on the plate? Beige, white, maybe some hints of gray and black, did I mention beige? A colourful and well suited garnish of some fresh flat leaf parsley, some sliced cherry tomatoes and some grated cheese will go a long way to splash some life into your dish. Just remember to keep it appropriate, meaning don’t throw a sprig of rosemary on a dish that contains none of it whatsoever. You know what I mean.

4. Keep it Clean

No one wants sauce or food splashed up to the very edge of their plates, coating the handle of their forks and knives each time they set them down (I hate that) for a moment. Keep your masterpiece a tight little package towards the center of the plate. A bit of sauce or reduction carefully drizzled around is more than okay, just don’t go nuts with it and make it a challenge to navigate without coating hands and cutlery while enjoying it.

5. Height

Chefs love to build height with their dishes. It’s impressive and visually appealing and can be done fairly easily. Try this next time for example you’re making that old pantry stand-by, spaghetti and tomato sauce:

- Instead of plopping down a flat layer of noodles and ladeling sauce overtop, coat the noodles with the sauce before hand. They’ll absorb more of the flavour and make it easier to build a little height with your presentation.

- Next, use a pair of tongs and grab some of the sauce-coated noodles. Lower them into the center of the plate, twisting the tongs as you do this so the noodles stay in a nice tall pile. Garnish with some parsley, some parmesan cheese and some fresh cracked pepper. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil around the whole dish to finish it off. Let me know how it turns out!

For those that are visual learners and have trouble putting together a recipe from a piece of paper, fear not! Drew Cooks! is now on youtube for your viewing pleasure:

Mediterranean Stuffed Chicken

Online Videos by Veoh.com

As promised, here is the full recipe and method that serves 4:

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1.5 cups crumbled feta cheese
- 1/2 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
- 3/4 cup chopped kalamata olives
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped oregano
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme
- salt and pepper

Crumble the feta cheese in a mixing bowl, and add in the olive oil, oregano and thyme. Stir and let this mixture sit for about 30 mins to absorb flavour. Next add in the sun dried tomatoes, olives and salt and pepper and set mixture aside.

Cut a pocket in each of the chicken breasts, careful not to slice all the way through. Spoon the mixture into each chicken breast generously, then using butchers string, skewers or toothpicks, secure the chicken breasts closed to ensure filling does not leak out.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Using a hot saute pan, sear the chicken breasts for 4-5 minutes on either side, until nicely browned. Transfer the pan (if oven-safe) into the hot oven and continue cooking for approx 10-12 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Roasted Balsamic Carrots

- 10-15 carrots, peeled
- 3/4 cup good quality balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper
- few sprigs fresh thyme

Place the peeled carrots in a pot of boiling water for 5-6 minutes. Drain carrots and place in a baking dish or roasting pan. Season them with salt and pepper and then drizle the balsamic vinegar until carrots are completely coated. Top with the fresh springs of thyme and roast carrots in the oven for 2o-25 minutes until tender.

Roasted Garlic and Thyme Mashed Potatoes

- 2-3 lbs boiled potatoes (skins on or off depending on your preference)
- 2 heads roasted garlic (see video for instruction on how to do this)
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp of butter (or to taste)
- 1/2 cup of milk (or to taste)

There you have it guys! Nothing to it!

Check out the video to see a plating example, or go nuts and do it however you want…it’s your meal

If you’re tired of making the same old burgers for every BBQ, dripping with boring condiments and processed cheese, then please allow me to share with you a personal creation of mine.

I call it the Easy Brie-zy Burger, and I’ve served it to many a guest with rave reviews. I’m going to post the full recipe below (I swore I would never share it, but I’ve been worn down), but here is a breakdown of what you can expect on this burger:

- A flavorful brie and pesto mayonnaise
- Crispy fried onion strings
- Juicy heirloom tomatoes (sure, you can use regular ones if you want, but why not go for the gold?)
- And an optional upgrade to slices of crispy maple bacon

If none of that sounds good to you, please, stop reading now. For the rest of you, here is the full recipe good for about 8 burgers:

BRIE AND PESTO MAYONNAISE:

- 1.5 cups mayonnaise
- 2-3 tablespoons pre-made or fresh pesto
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 3/4 of a cup small cubed brie (put in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to make it easier to cut)
- few dashes of Tabasco sauce
- 1/2 tsp brown sugar
- salt and fresh cracked pepper

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly, place in refrigerator until ready to use.

CRISPY ONION STRINGS

- 3 medium onions, sliced thinly
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup corn starch
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon pepper
- 4-6 cups vegetable oil or other suitable frying oil

Slice onions as thinly as possible, preferably using a mandolin, although a very sharp knife will do the trick also. Heat oil in a medium sized heavy – bottomed sauce pan over high heat. Using a thermometer, heat the oil until at 350F. Mix the flour, corn starch and salt and pepper in a mixing bowl and toss the sliced onions until evenly coated. Very carefully place the onion strings into the hot oil, and fry until crispy and golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. Place on a paper towel to drain excess oil.

PUTTING THE BURGER TOGETHER

Alright, I’m not going to post a burger from scratch recipe, because everyone makes it their own way and there’s nothing wrong with that. But here is how we want to assemble our burger now that we’ve gotten the individual parts done.

Step 1. Liberally apply the brie and pesto mayonnaise to both sides of a fresh toasted burger bun.
Step 2. Place a grilled burger patty on the bottom half, and top with a thick slice or two of tomato, followed by lettuce.
Step 3. Top with your crispy onion strings, and if you feel like indulging, top with a couple slices of crispy bacon as well.
Step 4. Finish with the top half of the burger, and eat! The heat from the bun and burger will slowly melt the chunks of brie in the mayonnaise, giving you flavor, texture from the crispy onions and just plain good stuff in each bite.

Optional beverage choice: A crisp Strongbow cider

I want to share something with you that I’ve discovered in practicing my recent obsession with true slow smokin’ BBQ. While at the end of the day, it’s all about the meat, any serious Q’er will tell you the appetizers and sides are just as important. If you’ve ever gorged on the Elvis platter (pictures below) from Memphis Blues BBQ on either Broadway or Commercial, you know what I’m talking about.

But the appetizer I’m about to share is not even a part of the Memphis Blues menu, it’s a cult favorite among backyard Q’ers and weekend warriors, an appetizer so unbelievably addicting it has been said that it is physically impossible to make enough of them no matter what size gathering you are hosting.

Now, don’t prepare yourself for something modern or revolutionary, fancy plating or exotic ingredients. You won’t find it here, what you will find however, are:

ABTs!

Now, stick with me for awhile on the name, I didn’t invent this, but ABT stands for:

Atomic.

Buffalo.

Turds.

I know, I know. Moving on, an ABT is, essentially, a jalapeno which has been cut in half and seeded, filled with cream cheese (Q’ers often add their own seasonings to the cream cheese mixture), then, a mini sausage is placed onto the cream cheese, and the entire thing is wrapped in bacon and smoked. I don’t know about you, but any sentence with both the words bacon AND smoke in it, I pay attention. Here is a full tutorial:

Start by halving and seeding the jalapenos:

They should look like this when you’re finished:

Fill the halves with cream cheese, and at this point you can mix anything you want with the mixture. Shredded cheddar cheese, cumin, paprika, brown sugar are all nice additions:

Place one mini sausage in the middle of the halved peppers:

Wrap the entire concoction in bacon and secure it with a toothpick:

Place them in a pre-heated smoker at 250F or a gas grill with wood chips and smoke slowly for approx 2 hours. In a pinch you CAN do these in the oven, but seriously, the smoke flavor really makes them what they are. When they come out, they should look like this:

Here is a delicious cross-section:

The slow cooking will also remove nearly all of the jalapeno’s heat, and they are just ridiculously delicious.

I may take some flack for this, as this is about as far away from quote unquote “gourmet” cooking as you can get, but let’s just relax a little bit, and realize that some of the best tasting food out there can come from backyards and homes, and not from over-priced over the top restaurants. Keep it simple!

If you eat red meat, odds are you enjoy a steak as much as the next person. Some of you may have mastered the grill, or can rattle off stats about the fat content and flavor levels of various cuts, or have a shed in your backyard with hundreds of pounds of steer dry aging to obtain optimum flavor. Okay, maybe not that far.

But I’d be willing to bet most of you couldn’t tell me much about a hanger steak without rushing off to google.

Just so we’re clear, this is not an alternative name for another common cut, this is an often-overlooked cut of beef that very recently is starting to creep its way back onto some menus. Here are some fun facts:

- Perhaps my favorite fact, there is only one hanger steak per steer. That’s right, one cow, one hanger steak weighing about a pound.

- It is unbelievably flavorful. Cut from a section of the plate, between the  brisket and the flank, some believe its close proximity to the kidneys give it a unique and delicious flavor.

- It has a very unique texture. Almost stringy, but in a good way. It is almost a necessity to have this cut cooked rare or medium rare at most. Anything more and it can become a little tough.

Are you sold on trying one yet?

If you have a good butcher, odds are he can get you one, though they can be tough to find. Luckily, I’ve come across a great place that serves them in our beautiful city.

The Hamilton Street Grill serves a terrific grass-fed organic hanger steak. Go check it out and try something new.