Chef at Home

Michael hosts a deck party and shows how easy it is to fill your grill with flavours from all over the world. Chicken satay with peanut sauce, Argentinean burgers with Chimichurri sauce, beer broth mussels and grilled oysters all set the stage but an amazing mint margarita steals the show!

Michael finds that the kitchen can be a place to relax while you explore your creative side. He finds artistic inspiration in the colourful flavours of the southwest, creating a strawberry margarita pie and a southwestern dinner salad complete with crispy spicy chicken, avocadoes, corn and a zesty chipotle lime dressing.

Michael receives an unexpected treat, a large box of top quality chocolate. So he calls a few friends and starts playing. Dark chocolate brownies, chocolate covered grapes and popcorn, caramel chocolate sauce and chocolate whipped cream are the result.

Michael rolls flank steak around dried tomato pesto and roasts pinwheels of flavour stuffed beef. He serves them with steakhouse vegetables and a batch of intriguing twice baked potatoes stuffed with smoked salmon, cream cheese and chives.

Michael shows off a unique way to cook a whole chicken, pollo al mattone: flattened under a brick. The results are spectacularly golden brown and crispy! He completes the meal with a side dish of fennel roasted with apples and a simple strawberry arugula salad.

Michael shows how to harness the scientific side of cooking by using simple kitchen physics. He creates the perfect chewy chocolate chip cookie, crisp oven fries and Asian orange grilled chicken wings. You don’t have to be a scientist to be a great home cook, but your kitchen can be a flavour laboratory.

Michael finds dinner inspiration and ideas all over the world. His travels encourage a spirit of adventure as he cooks salmon with a Mediterranean flair in a Scandinavian Muurikka over an open fire. Egyptian molokhia, Mexican ceviche, Arabic coffee and candied crickets from Japan round out the global menu around the backyard fire.

Michael invests time to save time as he gears up his kitchen for the busy week ahead. The result is a batch of chicken soup with a Mediterranean flair, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, hummus, oven roast tomatoes, twenty fruit salad and a menus worth of other time saving tips.

Michael shows how to show off for a memorable cocktail party. He creates a tasty selection of bite sized tastes, Hors d’oeuvres. Smoked salmon pesto pinwheels, proscuitto mesclun bundles, olive oil fried almonds, grilled Cambazola cheese sandwiches with marmalade, blue cheese walnut crusted grapes and incredibly, grapes wrapped in 24 Kt. gold leaf. Talk about showing off!

It’s hero night! Michael slows down his family’s fast-paced life by trying out some new dinner ideas. Sausage, peppers and fennel stuffed in whole-wheat buns, turnip French fries with green ketchup, an Italian inspired slaw, and peanut butter and jelly cookies round out the menu.

Michael explores the globe and finds that formerly exotic flavours of the world can become everyday mainstream. From Asia he creates a perfect food balance in orange sesame crusted pork tenderloin. From India, he makes a batch of sweet potato aloo gobi and some of the worlds easiest homemade cheese, paneer.

Michael shows off a spectacular way to cook an extra thick steak: grilled, sliced into a warm salad with arugula, lemon, olive oil and shaved Parmesan. Tomato bread pudding and steakhouse mushroom stew share top billing too.

Michael shows that cooking for a crowd can be just as fun and easy as cooking for one. He creates proscuitto roast salmon with tomato tarragon salsa, grilled Caribbean chicken with pineapple salsa then fills a pot with Thai coconut steamed mussels.

Michael sets out to achieve perfection in the kitchen. He makes a simple sweet yeast dough and uses it to create a magnificent batch of homemade cinnamon rolls. Along the way he enjoys chocolate French toast for breakfast and finds that perfection is both a journey and a destination.

Michael sets aside the cookbooks and looks for ways to stir his personality into dinner. He shows how you can add southwestern flavour to a simple beef stew, turn a few baked sweet potatoes into dumplings and add some zest to sweet and sour cabbage. All topped off with a southwestern sundae with spicy chocolate sauce and strawberry salsa.

East meets West in Michael’s kitchen as he shows how to make one of his favourite restaurant dishes: spicy Kung Pao chicken. This fusion dish’s origins encourage a playful approach instead of rigid authenticity. The same approach inspires a Chinese salad.

Michael looks for ways to fight boredom in the kitchen. Along the way he finds a batch of freshly baked blondies, a round of prosciutto wrapped grilled shrimp cocktails and a spectacular homemade pasta dish; green pea spaetzle with smoked salmon and dill.

Michael tries out a few new ideas and relies on a few time tested and true techniques while he cooks up a pan of juicy pork chops with a new rosemary scented apple sauce. A batch of creamy bacon cheddar polenta and brown butter green beans completes the plate.

Michael has some spare time and decides to play around with a few kitchen projects. He finds his pasta machine and makes up a batch of salt & pepper fettuccini with the worlds tastiest tomato sauce, San Marzano sauce. For a treat he whips extra virgin olive oil into a simple cake batter and serves it with basil whipped cream.

Michael hosts his monthly dining club friends. On the menu? Cooking with wine and spirits. Pinot Noir cherry chutney tops grilled veal chops. Sherry aromatizes creamed spinach. Single malt butterscotch sundaes round out the evening as Michael mixes up old-school Sazerac nightcap cocktails for everyone!

Michael demonstrates one of the simplest ways to cook a chicken, bake it in a closed pot. The results are spectacularly simple and full of rich, deep chicken flavour. Bacon barley risotto and a warm wilted spinach cherry tomato salad fill the table with even more flavour.

Michael explores the flavours of love. He creates a new menu for Rachel and discovers that cooking a special dinner is more of an aphrodisiac than any single ingredient. Tea poached salmon, Moroccan almond apricot couscous and Pina Colada Panna Cotta all help him seal the deal!

Michael explores the pursuit of flavour and how it affects your cooking style. He discovers that once you’ve decided to make something taste the best it can, the ideas to make it happen are never far behind. Like adding a tomato twist to old-fashioned macaroni & cheese. Or the extra aromatic boost of a double vanilla cake with dark chocolate frosting.

Michael shows off winning strategies for a home cook’s most important job: filling the table with healthy flavour. He shows how easy it is to crust whitefish with Dijon & Pesto crusts, mash sweet potatoes with olive oil and maple while steaming Brussels sprouts with bacon and your favourite herb. He even sneaks some extra special goodness into a blueberry shake.

Michael shares a wide variety of secrets and time saving tricks of the trade from his days as a restaurant cook. Two simple steps produce perfectly pan roasted golden brown and juicy chicken breasts complete with their own sauce. He free styles a batch of butterscotch bread pudding and a quick pot full of classically simple Fettuccine Alfredo.