Hello Steemians!
My name is Jean-Guy Rouleau and I'm a newly minted Steemian, I guess.
I've seen various formats of intro posts here—long or short, detailed or overview—and I'm going to try to put myself somewhere in the middle (if you ignore all of the pictures at the end, that is!).
I'm here with one main goal: to document and share my newest journey. That journey is one where I work towards starting a company engaged in providing Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)—specifically prepared frozen meals—in Canada.
My mission with this venture is simple: to provide new and unique recipes in an easily consumable and convenient format, while maintaining the quality of home-cooked meals.
Ever since my early teens, I've had a passion for the culinary arts. My father was a chef and worked nearly 20 years in kitchens before getting out. He has taught me a lot over the years, and I've learned so much on my own because of the foundation he laid. I love trying new food and new restaurants, or new recipes in the comfort of my own kitchen. I like to take risks and make weird things, discovering new taste profiles and flavour combinations; sometimes it's a disaster, but sometimes the results are amazing!
I have just started on this foray into CPG and am currently working on the first step: a business plan (including lots of research) as well as figuring out the first recipes to be made and sold. After that, I've already scoped out a commercial grade kitchen in which to produce and once I can pay the fees, I can start producing.
It will start slow, of that I have no doubt: I will be approaching, and focusing on, a few local shops (butchers, markets, specialty food stores) for the first few months up to 2 years—ideally only 1 year, though—in order to start selling before approaching the major national grocers and trying to secure a distribution contract, using initial sales numbers. With a contract in place, I'll be approaching co-packers and trying to scale up production, since they'll likely commit to a decent volume. At some point, I may even need to seek outside investment, but we're a long way from that I think...
In any case, I have chosen Steemit as my platform to share my journey, my steps, my lessons, my mistakes, my failures, my successes and my growth. I'm here to help people learn from my journey and to encourage people to follow their dreams, and turn them into goals. I'm also here to seek advice from people who have been where I am, and to participate in discussions of interest to me. On top of that, I plan to write about and share things relevant to the culinary industry, but mostly articles, news and recipes.
I look forward to interacting with the community here, and I hope you all enjoy what I have to offer!
With that said, here are a few pictures of things that I have made over the years to give you all a taste of the kind of passion and creativity I bring to the kitchen.
Marinated pork chop pan fried with a side of vegetable (tri colour) penne mixed with a mediterranean veggie medley in a white wine and oil dressing, garnished with oregano.
Home made garlic pasta, home made beef sausages (pan fried in e.v. olive oil, then sliced and cooked with red wine), red/orange/yellow peppers, mushrooms and red onion all mixed together in a beef and red wine sauce, garnished with some parsley and fresh parmigiano-reggiano with a glass of merlot on the side.
Lamb skewers dry-rubbed with a mix of spices (rosemary, sweet basil, oregano, thyme, onion flakes) pan-fried in a bit of oil and a little lemon juice, served on a bed of long grain and wild rice garnished with parsley and a bit of smoked paprika. The plating is off because my plates were too small. :(
Venison steak strips pan fried with red wine sautéed onions, served on a bed of garlic and herb quinoa with mixed vegetables, topped with fresh feta.
Lightly blackened jerk and chipotle pork chop with a side of home-style potato slices with garlic, onion, parsley, paprika and a hint of whiskey, all with a side of Corona. Mixin' up those cuisines!
Lamb burgers spiced with/marinated in red wine, garlic, lemon juice, rosemary, thyme, oregano, bit of oil, salt and pepper, with a mayo, horseradish, rosemary, and mint sauce. Quinoa salad with corn, diced tomatoes, dill weed, couple pinches of curry powder (odd combo I know, but it worked). Stuffed vine leaves that were not home made in this instance; purchased from Dollarama, believe it or not...
Honey garlic chicken (honey, garlic, plum sauce, little bit of mustard, onion flakes, soya sauce, Worcestershire sauce, white wine, basil, Franks sriracha) on buns with spicy mayo (mayo, lime juice, sriracha) with rice. Gotta keep it simple sometimes.
Homemade potato, leek and bacon soup, thawed from frozen (made a big batch and froze a bunch of portions).
Mashed potatoes, boiled in water with a bit of red wine, beef stock and garlic powder. Mashed with a bit of milk, minced garlic, and french onion sour cream (sour cream with onion soup mix, leftover from "homemade" chip dip).
Gravy with red wine, crushed peppercorns and horseradish.
Lamb chops marinated in a mix of red wine, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, mint, crushed rosemary and oregano, then cooked on the BBQ.
Side of CC Classic 12 and coke zero.
General Tso chicken pasta salad. Homemade batter (mostly flour with some soy sauce, white wine and vodka), deep fried, sauced and tossed with fettucine noodles, red peppers, broccoli and sesame seeds. Served cold as a nice summer salad meal.
Deviled eggs; a classic, with a twist! Filling is the yolk with mayo and some sriracha, garnished with parsley, paprika and some dill weed. Half also have an olive, but the other half (the twist!) have chopped chorizo sausage in the egg (under the yolk mixture) and a little bit more sausage as garnish on top to identify them. The chorizo eggs were delicious!
Welcome! Please consider checking out minnowsupportproject.com and @minnowsupport. It is a great community of individuals that will help you get started and can answer all of your questions.
Welcome to Steemit @Jgrolo!! Nice post, i will follow your account, please follow me at @khunpoom
Welcome to Steemit @jgrolo :)
Make sure to participate in this weeks giveaway to get known in the community!
Here are some helpful tips to get you started:
@reggaemuffin, the creator of this bot is a witness. See what a witness is and consider voting for the ones you feel are good for steem.
Welcome to Steem @jgrolo I have upvoted and sent you a tip
Let me know if you ever visit NYC! I can give you some recommendations for food :) My fiance and I are huge foodies.
Good luck,
@darius.woo
Welcome @jgrolo aboard the steemit express. This is a great platform to express yourself just like any other social media outlet except this one pays its users for interacting with each other. Post good content and your rewards can be limitless but always stay true to yourself.
@slickhustler007
#minnowtowhale
#minnowsupport
Welcome to Steemit, You will find many like minded people here. Wish you the best. Following your blog.
Hello~ jgrolo, Upvote & Follow is ou great strength.
Let's try to get along. @casu6115
Hello @jgrolo Great introduceyourself post and photos!!
I'm @andyluy and I've been here for a a month, a can tell you that steemit is the most amazing thing I've ever seen at the internet so far. I'm happy seeing it grows every day!
I had some hard time on the firsts week, so I spent some time searching information to improve my experience with steemit, latter I've decided to make posts about those things in order to help the new ones to have a shortcut to get deeper on steemit.
here is some of my posts, I hope It mitght be helpful to you:
SteemBnB
Usefull steemit tool
The Randowhale
Getting videos from facebook
Minnowssupport!
Here is one post from @yoda1917 That i think Is useful to have a look too
just halt for a moment
I intend to keep posting useful info that I may be able to gather, and in a near future some give away. Feel invited to follow me and if you have any question about steemit you can ask me in any of my last posts, I'll try my best to help.
Congratulations @jgrolo! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPWelcome to Steemit community, nice to meet you.
I am very happy to share with you, I invite you to follow me at @chantha, Thank you, hopefully in the future we can share in this best community and can support it.
I can not wait for your best postings. See you ...
Welcome! Followed. Follow me back 😘
Congratulations @jgrolo! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!