 Welcome to the kitchen life. The kitchen life is all about fewer ingredients, simple recipes, surefire techniques and passionate cooking. I'm Chef Jonathan Collins and I've got a couple really great recipes for you today. I'm focused on some beautiful Ontario greenhouse vegetables and you can see them here. Have a look at their vibrant color. I've got bell peppers and colors of orange and yellow and red. Beautiful cucumbers and look at those tomatoes. Now when I was thinking about recipes that would best feature these beautiful healthy ingredients, I was thinking about something very savory, so chicken gadgetory which makes great use of both the peppers and the tomatoes. And then for me, cucumbers, I always get a hankering for some pickled cucumbers. So I'm going to pickle the cucumbers and the beautiful peppers and they teach you how to can and we're going to do it all right here on the kitchen life. So let's start first of all with a pickling brine or the liquid that's used to pickle and we'll just quickly assemble it. One of the things I want you to take away from today is how simple it is. Few simple steps and you'll get it right every single time. First thing I have is 750 milliliters of white vinegar. You can use cider vinegar. You can use a variety of different. The white is beautiful. Remember however you change the vinegars that's going to change the flavor profile. What I really want to get here is those beautiful cucumbers. I want to get that cucumber flavor and then I've got water. So water in and this is just still water and then spices and that's really the key. So there's a few that are the usual suspects and then there is a few that I love to add myself. So I've got dill seed. So I'm going to put two teaspoons of dill seed in. Now remember you don't have to fish these out afterwards. I love just leaving them right in the canning jar. It looks so awesome and it's intense flavor. Then I've got mustard seeds. So I'm going to do a couple teaspoons of mustard seed and then coriander. Now coriander is just beautiful when you're doing pickles. So I'm going to put two heaping tablespoons in. Now I'm going to put all of this in but the way that I bring these flavors together is by heating them up. When I do heat them up what happens is it activates everything that's great about these. And then I've got one of my favorites and maybe one that you don't use very often but it's star anise. Now star anise has this very subtle licorice flavor and I don't know what happened but I was testing a recipe about six months ago and I just kind of literally I had a cucumber a couple cucumbers in my hand or I think we had just sliced them and I had the star anise and I just smelled the two together. I'm like those go perfectly together. So I'm going to take four of the whole star anise. Those are going in. Now with all of this combined the only thing that I need to add is just a little bit of sugar. You don't need very much but the sugar balances out the flavor. So I'm going to put a couple tablespoons in and then this is going to go over to the stove. I'm just going to bring it up to a boil and then simmer. The nice thing is we can do a few of these recipes together and I get a chance to show you all kinds of really great uses. Now the very next thing I'm going to do is start on the chicken cagatory and I'm going to start with one of the really important steps which is getting a really nice coloring or sauté on the chicken. Now you can see what I've done is I've broken down a whole chicken. Now a whole chicken generally speaking is less expensive. It's very easy to break down and if I have time later in this segment I'll show you how to do that. But what I want to start with here is literally just a little bit of flour. So all-purpose flour and you don't need very much. What happens is it does brown but one of the kind of secrets of doing this is you're creating a bit of a rue in the bottom of the pan and what happens is all of that flour will help to thicken the beautiful sauce. Now I've got a heavy bottom cast iron pan that's preheating over here. I have it nicely preheated and I'll just bring this over so that I can show you each and every step. The one thing that's so important about preheating your pan is that you get that nice coloring. Woo, it's hot. There we go. So there's a couple things we're going to do. We're going to start off by putting a fair amount of butter in. So I'm going to put that butter in. You can see how hot that pan is and then I'm going to add a little camalina oil and that camalina oil will allow that smoke point to come up. Allow me to work with that comfortably. I'm just going to take it. Now I'm just going to roll that around in that pan. I want to make sure I have a really nice coating of fat all the way through and then I'm going to season the chicken. So a little bit of pepper and a little bit of fresh always fresh ground pepper if you can. It's going to be that much more pungent, that much more fragrant. It's going to be very intense and salt. And then literally, you know what? When you're at home, why not just take and use the tongs? That's hot fat in there and I'm going to roll that in. Look at that. Beautiful chicken. Notice I'm doing the presentation side or the finish side. In this case, the skin side down and I'm just going to arrange this in the pan and you'll notice that I make sure I arrange it so that none of it is really touching. The reason I do that is I don't want to crowd the pan. I want to make sure that everything has the ability to saute without kind of boiling. So one of the things that happens when you saute, saute means to jump literally out of the pan. And one of the things that you expect is you're going to get rid of some of the liquid. Now let's say I had put two full chickens into this dish. What would happen is rather than getting really nice coloring, some of the moisture tries to escape but there's not quite enough heat. Now I'm going to season the second side as well with salt and fresh ground black pepper. And that's already, we're already well into both of these recipes and both are extremely simple to do and that's really important to me. I know that it's, if it's simple to do and it tastes great, I know that you'll be inclined to do it again and again. Now let's look at some of the fun stuff we've got going here. So while that sauteing, you keep, you remind me to check on it, okay? While this is sauteing, I'm going to work a little bit on the both the pickled cucumbers and the beautiful, look at these. I have these absolutely gorgeous bell peppers. So bell peppers are both sweet and incredibly good for you. They're packed with vitamin C. There's a lot of nutrition. I'm just going to check this so that heat, the temperature on this chicken right now, I'm going to go kind of medium high. What I'm going to do right now is I'm going to show you how fast you can prep a lot of peppers for my pickled peppers. I'm not going to dare do the tongue twister about pickled peppers, but you know which one I'm talking about. Okay, so pickled peppers are perfect for sandwiches. They're awesome for hamburgers, for hot dogs. And let's face it with decent weather finally just around the corner. Now is the time to start thinking about compliments to your barbecue. And for me, pickled peppers, they go with just about everything. Now you're going to see that the pickled peppers are great, but also in this chicken gadgetori, what you'll see is that we've got beautiful flavor developed by sauteing the peppers along with that chicken. So I'm just doing a little bit of prep. Do you see how easy it is to just take those sides right off? And then for pickled peppers, you don't want big pieces. You want nice, modest sized pieces that will hug your sandwich nicely. Yes, Cindy, you have a question? Well, I don't know which pepper do you think is sweetest. I think the red is the sweetest. Red for me is the sweetest pepper, but each one brings its own flavor complement, and I find them to be very, very refreshing in terms of what they look like. So texture is important, but for us also, what does it look like? So you have all these incredibly bright flavors, and what they look like is just as important to how they taste and their beautiful nutrition. One of the things about these greenhouse grown peppers, which I don't know about you, but I'm pretty amazed by the fact that these can be grown in the greenhouse. For me, having this available to us here in Ontario and having it just within a day's delivery time means I get really fresh produce, and we can get it in the dead of winter at a time when you wouldn't be thinking about just about anything fresh. These peppers, these are absolutely beautiful. Now this dish, I'm just going to check on my chicken. This dish I am calling kaleidoscope peppers, and that's, oh yeah, okay. I'm just going to turn these over. I've got a little bit of nice coloration there now. I'm going to start turning these, and I'll show you this color in just a moment. And what's happening right now in the bottom of the pan is I am developing flavor. Now a nice, rich chicken gadgetori, you need to make sure to develop that flavor at every stage, and nice browning on the chicken is going to make all the difference. Notice how fast I'm doing this. Now peppers are great stored, both peppers and cucumbers. If you store them in the crisper of your fridge, you're going to have them nice and fresh all the time ready for your access, and you'll have a good texture. Texture is very important with fresh vegetables, but those tomatoes, we want to store them. If you can get them in a sunny window, that would be just perfect. I love storing the tomatoes at room temperature, and they're perfect that way. Yes, any other question? Great question, Dave. So produce should be washed just before use. It's really important because produce contains all kinds of natural protectants that will keep it fresher for longer. So wash just before you go to use it. Great question, Dave. Thank you. So I don't know about you, but this is looking pretty attractive. Now with our nice, now you'll notice over here, now this is one of the things we want to talk about today. I have a very, very large stock pot going, and on that stock pot, in that stock pot, I've got it filled with hot water. Now it sterilized the tongs, everything's been sterilized, and it was in on a rolling boil. So very, very hot for an extended period. Now these, look at this, I'm just going to add these. This is awesome. And the only thing I have to warn you about is as you begin to share these with friends and family, you're going to have to make a lot more because as soon as they taste what pickled peppers are like, as soon as they have them on chicken or fish or anything that you're making, this is going to be a huge hit. Now not only does this look gorgeous in the kitchen, but this is the perfect gift. You know, I was at a wedding not that long ago, where the bride and groom took the time to make these for all of the guests, and I'm telling you, I don't think I've ever seen a better reception. I mean, you can give away a lot of things, but giving away food that you've worked hard to prepare for me, this is just perfect. So this I'm just going to take and set this aside. Now one of the things about canning is that you don't want to handle anything around the lid. We're going to put this back in, but sterilized for 10 minutes in a rolling boil, the lids, the screw caps, and the glass jars, and then handle it with a sterilized set of tongs. So I'm going to set that down, and I'm going to show you, this is coming along nicely. So one of the surefire ways to know that the chicken is coming along nicely is, what does it smell like? So I'm starting to smell this beautiful chicken. I can tell that, well, it's getting a little bit fragrant. We're developing some nice flavors there. I'm just going to turn that down for a second because we've got some work to do here. Now, spiralizing for me with cucumbers is just a ticket. Now you can do a lot of different things, and we're going to show you a few things right now. But for me, spiralizing is just awesome. Now show you how simple it is. This is very inexpensive spiralizer, maybe $15 or $20. But what you can do is, first of all, no need to peel, ton of nutrition in those skins. And what I'm going to do is just take nice pieces here, just trimming the ends, and this is a lot of fun. Kids love doing this, and I've got to be honest with you, I love it too. Now, why am I spiralizing pickles? Well, when I'm doing a sandwich, whether it's a burger, or maybe a cubano, or something that I just love pickles on. When you put sliced pickles on, sometimes they have a tendency to slide off. Now, I want to direct your attention to these. When you spiralize cucumbers, they hang on because they're a little thinner, they're more fine. And let's just show them this, this I just love. So press firmly and just spin. This is the easiest thing to do. And I'm telling you, it's a lot of fun. So let's have a look at that. Oh yeah, look at that. That's just perfect. And then what I do with that, so I'm going to go back, and I'm going to get another jar here. So sterilized jar, sterilized utensils. Now these recipes, these recipes are going to be available at ProduceMadeSimple.ca. And Produce Made Simple, they've got, they've got so many of my recipes and so many other great chefs recipes that allow you to make the kitchen work very simple. So the spiralized now goes in. Now, just before it does, I've got some beautiful, are you looking at this, this gorgeous fresh, you can take and chop that up. But for me, I want anybody that I give this to or anybody that has this, I want them to see that I made this. This doesn't look like you bought it at the store. As soon as I put that dill in immediately, I can smell that heat activating that beautiful dill. And look at these, I'm going to put these ribbons in. Oh man, I love doing this. And look at this, put this in. And you really want to pack this tight because as soon as I put that hot liquid in, you're going to be surprised at how many cucumbers you can get in here. Now in this pile that you saw me start off with right here, I had two full cucumbers. What I do every now and then is I separate them just a little bit and that'll give me lots of space. I'm going to take and press that down. See how you can press those down and you really want to press them down. Otherwise your pickling juice is going to, you know, you're going to use a lot more than you need to. Now, cucumbers are 90% water. So keep that in mind as you do this, whether you're eating them fresh or you're doing a beautiful pickling like we're doing here today. Cucumbers are a great source of nutrition, great source of vitamin C. And you can see, now let's have a look at that. So we've got this beautiful, so again, I'm handling the outside of this, but I'm not putting my hands anywhere near that mouth. I'm going to drop a bay leaf in this one and a bay leaf here. And then one of the things I really like, and I've got some beautiful fresh oregano, I'm going to tuck some fresh oregano down inside with those peppers. And we're just going to let that sit there for just a moment while we start to work on our chicken casually. So chicken casually is also known as a hunter style chicken. This is a classic dish. It's very, very old in its roots, but it's incredible in its flavor profile. So we're going to get just a little bit of prep done here for the casually. So you can see what the spiralizer is like in just a minute. When I get the gadgetory on, I'm going to show you a couple other styles of pickles that you can do that are also very simple. So I've got a regular yellow onion here. I'm taking off the top and the root and then just slicing it in half or sauteed or caramelized onion. There's really nothing quite like that. You see, I'm just peeling off. These are nice fresh onions. So I'm just peeling off a couple layers here. And then I'm going to make a cut that is long and thin. And this is really, this is known as a chiffonade. And you can see how easy it is. So I'm literally slicing from the top of the root or from the top of the onion down to the root, but I've removed that full top and I've removed that full root. Now back to the chicken. I'm going to take a dish and I am going to take out the chicken just for a moment. I'm just going to set that aside. And I want to show you how I've developed flavor here. I think you're going to love this dish. This is a dish. The nice thing is you can use a pan like I've got here. You can use a slow cooker. You can do this if you do it in steps. You can do this at home for large groups of people. And the nice thing is it gives you a little bit of flexibility because you're using a variety of different cuts. Some people go crazy for the dark meat. Others, white meat is a must, but the best part is nothing goes to waste. And the reason why there's so much flavor is because it's bone in. So you can make it with the bone out, but if I can encourage you to use a full chicken and break it down, you're going to be very, very happy. So now with my temperature back up. Now let's have a quick look at this. This is starting to simmer. So this is my pickling liquid. And I just want to give this a light stir. You just want to see what's happening here. First of all, oh man, I can already smell that beautiful star anise. It smells so good. And the coriander, that's coming together nicely. So this is going to be an incredible little piece of flavor base. I'm just going to take some of that fresh dill and place that fresh dill inside. And this is going to go back on. Now that it's come up to a boil, I'm going to reduce it to a simmer so that it can have time for it to all come together. I don't need a rapid boil. Whenever you're incorporating flavors like that, you just need to simmer it. Now I'm going to put a little bit more butter in. What I've got in the pan now is I have some of that beautiful chicken fat, very flavorful, and the onions are going to go in. So with the onions in first, it allows me to saute them, develop the flavor, and also it gives me a chance to really pick up some of the flavors that have developed on the bottom. Now when you put a raw vegetable in, like the onions, there's lots of water. And what happens naturally is that it begins to deglaze the pan. It brings up some of those incredible flavors. So I've been working on recipes lately where everything needs to basically fit in a pan. And if it doesn't, I just don't want to do it. The nice thing about this recipe is it will easily fit in a pan. So I'm going to grab these. I'm going to grab again this beautiful kaleidoscope of peppers. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to do something a little different. Rather than just slicing strips, I'm going to take and I'm going to slice rings. And the reason that I do this is I just like the presentation. It's just very cool. I love it. So I'm literally just slicing rings. Plus, you know, you at home, you can do this very simply. And then just take a knife and just nick out those little pieces. You're just going to take out that inside. And you know what, if you get a seed or two in there, I don't want you to worry about that at all. So you just kind of flick it and they come off nicely and trim that out. Man, the nice thing is about having a little bit of design or a little bit of style in your dish. When you saute these and bring these together and serve these beautiful rings, they're very easy to slice. So it's not going to be cumbersome for you or your family or your guests. But one thing that it will be is, boy, will it ever be attractive. It's going to be very attractive. I always save little trimmings and little bits like that. There's no need to waste those. Most of the time I end up just enjoying them as a quick snack. Another way you can do it is you can take and slice through the top and take out that core. I'm just showing you a few techniques. You have to do whatever you're comfortable with. So if you're not comfortable with the knife, then what I want you to do is you get the majority of the seeds out that way. And then I can still go back to doing that slice literally just like this. And it just passes through so easily. Make sure you start with a sharp knife ahead of time. If you're just joining us, we're working on a classic chicken cacciatore. And also we're working on some beautiful pickled peppers and pickled cucumbers. So I'm just checking my onions now. They're starting to color beautifully. They look so nice. Smells great. I can really smell that beautiful sautéed onion fragrance. There's nothing like it. And then of course, one of our viewers had mentioned earlier, which is the sweetest. One great thing about using peppers is you get that sweetness. And it's sweet when it's raw, but let me tell you, when you cook it, it gets even sweeter. What you're doing is you're removing some of the acidity, some of the slight bitterness, and you're taking and literally just caramelizing all that incredible flavor. So I think that looks pretty great. To me, that's very attractive. I think anybody would love that. And it's a little bit unique. So the next time you're cutting your peppers, that's something that you can do effortlessly. Now we've got these gorgeous tomatoes. And tomatoes being available like this are, you know, it's important. You can use canned tomatoes in the off season. But you know, here in Ontario, fresh tomatoes are really only available from the field for a couple months. So having these available is just awesome. So what you'll see, first of all, is I just want to remove that stem. An easy way to do it is just to quarter the tomato. And then I can just simply nick out that little bit of a center. If you don't want to waste very much and you don't want to struggle with it, that's something you can do. I just need to sharpen my knife here a little bit. Now, one of the things you'll see here, I've got some wine. So in order to finish the deglazing process, I'm going to deglaze with the white wine. And that's going to bring up any flavor that was left on the bottom. Any white wine will do. But something that is very drinkable and, you know, preferably from Ontario and if not Ontario from Canada, you can, you'll be able to enjoy it. Now what you see in the bottom of this right now is essentially a stock. So that beautiful flavor development of both the chicken and the onions has developed a gorgeous stock. Just going to quickly sharpen my knife here. Sharp knife is a safe knife and it's important to do it on a regular basis. Sometimes you can bring it back with just the honing steel and sometimes you need to take it to have it sharpen. So quartered and with the tops out, those stems out, what I'm going to do is just make a very simple dice. So one more time, sliced in half and you can slice right through that and then just take, this is the way that I like to do it best because you just, you literally you waste the least amount of that tomato and let's face it, once you buy this fresh produce you want to use every last little bit of it. So again quartered and then just take off that little bit and it comes out quite easily. So you have to make a decision now. You have to decide if you're going to leave the seeds in or not. For me because we're sauteing this dish, I want to leave those seeds in and I want this to be a rustic dish. So you can imagine in its classic form it would be a bunch of these ingredients that are coming into season all at the same time. So you've got tomatoes, you've got peppers, you've got and I've got some mushrooms to put in there as well and all I'm doing right now is a very very rustic cut because when I serve this you can imagine how incredible that chicken is going to be but served with tomatoes and the beautiful fresh herbs, there's nothing quite like it. So I'm literally just going to make a large dice. So I've taken and sliced the tomato by eight and now I'm just going to slice these in half. The thing that I want you to be able to do is to do this and do it quickly. So you can throw a meal like this together. The nice thing is you can even do it the day ahead, cook it, leave it in the same pan and then just reheat it in that pan. There's no need to make it the day of. As you know most dishes that we make they get better with time and I think you'll find this one is certainly that's certainly the case. So I'm going to turn the heat up here. I want to make sure I reduce all of that wine down to almost the point where it's dry and that way I'll get the right kind of, I'll get all the flavor I want from the wine but with none of the alcohol and it'll just be beautifully and perfectly sweet. So the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take and we're basically just going to start to reassemble all of this. I've got peppers or mushrooms that need to go in. The tomatoes are going to go in and I'm going to bring this over here so you can see what I'm going to do with the chicken. Tomatoes are going to go in. You don't have to cover this up but you'll get, if you can cover it up for a time you will actually get really good results. It's something that you can make quite easily and I'm going to show you this right now. We'll do this, bring it right here so you have a good look at it. I'm going to get that chicken back in there. Beautiful chicken and these peppers and all I'm going to do is just begin to nestle now. Remember we had flour on the chicken so you can see that liquid. What's going to happen is that beautiful stock is going to start to thicken up. So I'm just arranging the chicken. You can imagine now you can see the juice that was rendered there just by resting. I want to make sure to put that in. We're going to put that juice in and now we're going to finish assembling this. So I'm going to take those gorgeous peppers. I told you about the peppers. These are beautiful. The peppers are going in and what's nice is these are going to soften. They're going to look beautiful. They're going to taste beautiful. Now I'm going to put a couple bay leaves in. I'm going to tuck these down inside and here's one of the keys. I'm going to pour some chicken stock and when we're done this dish, all of this liquid will have reduced and given us a beautiful kind of a gravy. I'm literally just taking this whole oregano and I'm taking some and stripping it off putting that on top. We've got a beautiful spice base with the salt and with the pepper but we want to add a fragrant base using the fresh herbs and I'm going to tuck a little bit of fresh rosemary in. Now remember you can chop this up and put it on top and I'll probably do some of that to finish but what I really like here is just the simple fact that we get all these flavors together. Now I'm going to take and I'm going to slice the top off ahead of garlic just like that and I'm going to tuck this right inside there as well. So we have a lot of intense flavors going on here. One of the last things I need to do is to season this. It's a little bit of salt and a little bit of black pepper and now this is ready to go back to the stove. I'm going to bring that up to medium temperature and that will begin to reduce. That's looking good and now we can move to that beautiful pickling liquid that is ready to be finished. Now remember what we did with both of these jars. I haven't touched anywhere near the lid. The inside is sterilized. We put all the contents in. I'm just going to put a few cloves of garlic in both of them and I'll just put them in whole. There's no need to, you know, you've seen whole garlic in canned goods many times before and so I'm literally going to put one in there. I put at least one in each and we'll make sure to get that flavor base. Yes, do we have a question? Sarah, great question Sarah and I really want to be clear about this. I used a large stock pot. I filled it about 80% more than three quarters full and I brought it to a rolling boil. I took my jars and generally speaking using new lids and new caps. You can use old jars but always replace the lids. I put it in and in a rolling boil I kept it boiling for 10 minutes. Then I made this beautiful fragrant brine. So my pickling liquid which by the way is absolutely beautifully fragrant and in it I put I had dill seed, mustard seed, coriander seed and star anise and then the beautiful white vinegar with some white sugar and this is ready to go in and now you're caught up and now here are the final steps. So I've got this beautiful liquid and what I'm going to do is I'll start off with the I got a little bit of a pour here guys so let's and I don't want to let me see how we're going to I'm going to take you know what I'm going to do hold with me just stay on that for a second I got that that pan filled right up so high I'm going to take and I'm just going to got a stainless steel ladle I'll just quickly it was sterilized earlier but I'll just take another quick pass at it there and what I'm going to do is just literally begin to ladle this in this dill that I put in there can be removed you can see you've got all those beautiful seeds I'm going to leave that star anise in there as well how's that look guys that look good that look appetizing I want to make sure to get the seeds in because keep in mind it's going to finish it's cooking now you see that was only three ladles in so three ladles in and I've already got that filled now one of the things I want I cautioned you about earlier is make sure that your jar has enough product in it because otherwise you're going to go through a ton of this pickling liquid which is fine it's it's inexpensive to make but you want it to go a long ways if you can so the pickled peppers these beautiful kaleidoscope pickled peppers you don't want to say that too many times too fast and what you'll see is I'm filling up with the pickling liquid right up to but not past the neck I'm just going to give these a little shake just a little shake those both look good that's the pickling liquid in and now let's take it for the final step so inside my and notice I've kept this boiling the whole time so what I've got is I've got a couple lids just set those there and I know that there's a lot of confusion about how to successfully accomplish this so what I wanted to do today is just kind of share with you how I accomplished this you'll notice that I'm I'm not touching those lids I'm using the tongs to handle it that's your lid now that's been in the liquid in the water and it has boiled second one here and one of the mistakes I originally made is when I started doing this I thought you had to super tighten these on once you get it on you can just snugly close it just like this and that's all you want again just a nice snug close because technically as it cans this will actually be the thing that seals not the pressure of the lid so now I'm going to take these and very carefully you know support this going over this is one liter so it's very heavy and I'm going to put those back into my liquid keep in mind you know turn that temperature back up I'm going to set a timer for these keep in mind that you have to put these in a rolling boil for at least 10 minutes now some people do it with they do it in the stove for me the submerged in water is the safest and it's really the easiest you're guaranteed a few things first of all the pickles and the peppers they'll be fully cooked that liquid is going to come up to temperature and when you're finished that remove it put it on a cooling rack and the final test to make sure that it's done is you want to make sure that that lid let's show them this one so that lid just made that pop sound it needs to be concave if it's still up then you haven't you don't have a good seal there's air in there it has not contracted and the reason you leave the neck open is you want that that air that's left in there you want it to contract and you want to make sure to get a very very good seal so my chicken gadgetory is cooking away nicely now it is reducing you can see the steam coming off it that tells me that I have that I am getting a reduction that I'm taking and I'm concentrating flavors chicken gadgetory is a beautiful way to really enjoy fresh vegetables and these Ontario greenhouse grown vegetables are exceptional I'm just going to take a moment and throw to you so I want you to see have a look at the produce made simple website this produce made simple website the best part about it is its search engine you can find the ingredients that you want and then you can find the recipes that you need it's everything that you'll ever need and by the way take a moment go over to their social channels find them the posts on recipes and the pictures it'll get you inspired to cook uh whether it's breakfast lunch dinner or desserts and I've done some of them all anyway have a look at this website and we'll take just a quick break as we look okay as you can see that is a great resource and listen as a professional chef I don't want to miss this opportunity to talk about buying local so sometimes buying local means from your local market in August and September but in this case buying local means supporting greenhouse growers they employ thousands of people many many families and over 200 growing operations these are the people working day in and day out to bring you product that is produced with some of the most technologically advanced systems that I've ever seen it's fresh it's close and the consistency and the quality of this product is like nothing I've ever seen so I want to show you one other way to do some pickles I love these because for me these are both good for uh drinks so if you're doing something like a a spice pickle uh for maybe a Caesar these are great and so one one time you know one of the things we we leave the skin on sometimes and other times we can kind of make a very cool a modeled look by just taking every other slice and leaving some of the skin leaving some of the skin means I'm leaving some of the flavor and I'm leaving some of the texture but at the same time I want to do something that's a little bit fun now I'm going to take these and I'm going to look at it and that's going to be I want I want a very big wedge here so I'm going to take I'm going to slice the end off and then I'm going to take and slice it like this so I've got these really these giant pickles and I'll tell you the cucumbers are priced so that you can really do this kind of these kinds of projects and have a lot of fun with it so I'm going to slice that in half first and then I'm going to take and slice it in half again and what you end up with is this giant pickle it's very so this can go on the side of a plate this is something that can be put in a drink but what the best part is is that it's going to soak up all of that incredible pickle flavor so I'm going to do another one because I really want to finish these for you I think you're going to love these and make sure that these will fit in these jars it's it's something that gives you a little bit of a wow factor if you're making drinks and if you're serving this with a sandwich what it means is that you've got something very special to share with your guests so remember when you do begin the canning process make sure to set a timer I want you to be sure each and every time that you've got at least 10 minutes and then what I'm going to do is start again with these this beautiful fresh dill there's nothing like fresh dill and just tuck that in there fresh dill in make sure you can tuck it in there love that then the pickles are going in all the perfect size love that these are going to be monster pickles I'm just going to trim the ends and we'll make sure we have them approximately the same size of course with the trimmings the nice thing about this is I could do some spiralized I could do some rings as a matter of fact I'll show you that in a minute and then in this case we're just doing these quarters if you think the quarters are maybe a little bit big then you can do do them in sixth or eighths so let's tuck these in I love this this is a beautiful way to use fresh produce and it's a creative way I think you're going to love it I think you'll use it and do it time and again I don't know how that one got a little longer take that off make sure it's trim it's got to be trimmed it's got to be below that we're not going to have any liquid there so let's make sure we get that down the other thing that you could do is take this beautiful kuk and with those strips left on there making nice little rings like this this makes a beautiful canning opportunity as well so let's do just a few more of these because I think this is gorgeous and I'm just doing this because my catchatory is cooking away back there remember you could use you could use turkey breast for this as well I'm going to grab another jar and you know your creativity this is where you really get to you know take and make things that you will own things that belong to you so I'm going to put more of the that beautiful dill in there these are things that that will become your classics they'll become your recipes so I'm going to put these rings in of course these would make beautiful pickles as well and I'm going to do one more so we'll peel it again peel that this is so much fun this is the this is a great way to and this is a great thing to pass on if you're a grandparent like I am this is a great thing to pass on to your grandkids if you're a parent this is a great way to get your kids into the kitchen and I'll tell you tasting will be believing when they taste this and the difference between something that's been commercially produced and something that you made yourself with fresh ingredients from Ontario they're going to be pretty impressed yet I can tell you one thing it'll take your your sandwiches to a whole new level so I'm going to drop these in and again when you're filling the jars make sure to fill the jars as tightly as possible without going over top of that neck this one's going to have a few more seeds are we going to press that down and then let's put a bit more of this liquid in now I'm going to have to I got to do something here guys these I'm just going to I'm just going to take a moment I don't want to do something incorrect live so I'm going to take and I just have to trim about half an inch off these really important I want to make sure to get this right so just measure it ahead of time I'm just going to take a bit more off drop these in beautiful love it okay so have a look there at our pickling liquid and we're just going to fill that up again you can see using the ladle helps to have an accurate pour I've got little bits of of all those beautiful fresh herbs in there and look at this and then we've got our drink pickles or we'll call them or or you never know I remember my oldest son every time we go to one of these county fairs they have those giant pickles kid would devour one shamelessly okay so this is going in top this up let's hope we have just enough put some seeds up there a few seeds here okay so we're a little light here so I'm just going to fill it up with a little bit of water we'll just top it up just a little bit there we go and top this up just a little bit and then let's get those for one last time because we want to be so clear about it I'm going to grab the lids I'm going to grab which are sterilized and we are going to do some more canning here so the lids they've got a rubber seal you can see it there that seal makes the seal on the jar whoops okay so when it falls on the floor make sure to resteralize it and let's show you this one we'll put this one on here and remember that what I want is I want this to be snug but not super tight if you put it on too tight it'll actually prevent it from sealing properly so I'm going to take that and support it it's going to go in you can see those beautiful pickles those are going to be a huge hit love that rolling boil and I'm going to show you the stage at which our gadgetory is at so you can see how those flavors develop so inside that gadgetory you can see it begins to to really to cook down what I want you to see is the color of that liquid because for me that is the key this is the beautiful thing about gadgetory are you looking at that look at the color of that beautiful liquid that is that is packed with so much nutrition and so much flavor that is going to be a hit when you make chicken gadgetory I guarantee you you are going to make it again and again and again now listen a classic gadgetory has sauteed mushrooms so one of the things you can do that I didn't do is you can slice up some mushrooms and put them in at the stage of the onions to develop flavor again I'm going to put this back on and for this broadcast of the kitchen life I have to say that I am a huge fan of these three ingredients as a matter of fact if you think about how often you use tomatoes and cucumbers whether cucumbers fresh in a salad pickled and peppers whether they're cooked or fresh of course all these make beautiful crudities eating them raw gets them in their very best form full of nutrition full of vitamin c all kinds of great liquid there's so much water in these they're extremely healthy for you I'm going to tell you very quickly so as a professional chef there's been many opportunities I've had I can tell you that I almost always for the people I'm working for I almost always have accrued a accrued a platter or fresh vegetables cut covered and in the refrigerator for them or their family at any time it's one of the things that even after you cut it if you keep it wrapped in plastic it holds its texture tastes very good and man if you're looking for a quick snack there's nothing quite like it so for myself and for my entire family here at our farm in southwestern Ontario the kitchen life is something that if you go back and watch previous broadcast I know that you'll enjoy it do me a favor go to my social at chef Jonathan Collins on Facebook Twitter and Instagram and also the kitchen life and definitely check out produce made simple and the Ontario greenhouse growers you're going to love all the links are going to be below this broadcast click on it see what they have to say look at the families look at the communities that they support and hey when you're buying fresh buy local and buy Ontario I guarantee you won't be disappointed