Everyday Exotic: Season 1

Like many parents, Chef Roger Mooking sometimes has to goad his kids into eating their meat.

Chef Roger Mooking is a real man, and isn't afraid to admit that he loves quiche!

Chef Roger Mooking reminisces about cold Canadian winter days, street hockey, and a hot soup and meat sandwich dinner waiting for him at home.

Chef Roger Mooking jokes that if he learned one thing from his days in culinary school, it was that Spaghetti and Meatballs don't have to come from a can!

TGIF because Chef Roger Mooking loves fish and chips! And through the magic of his obedient ingredient edamame (soy beans) in its many forms, a traditional fish and chip meal becomes anything but everyday.

On a recent visit to the southern US, Chef Roger Mooking fell in love with the exhilarating and explosive flavr of Creole cooking.

Chef Roger Mooking's mom and grandma taught him to make lasagna.

One of Chef Roger Mooking's first kitchen memories was of his father teaching him how to wrap wontons.

Everyone has a soft spot when it comes to breakfast for dinner, and Chef Roger Mooking is bringing home more than the bacon when he builds a not so everyday dinner around his obedient ingredient, pork belly.

It's pizza night, and Chef Roger Mooking's got a hankerin' for a pizza that's hot and gooey and really delivers!

Chef Roger Mooking spent much of his childhood in Trinidad eating fresh avocado, or as he knows it, zaboca- straight from the tree.

Chef Roger Mooking remembers his college days, hanging out in the pub downing beers, wings and a bowl of peanuts with good friends.

Meat, potatoes, gravy and vegetables are a recipe for warming the tummy on a cold winter's day in any culture.

The popularity of Mexican snack food has turned Tex-Mex into an everyday meal.

Chef Roger Mooking has a warm spot in his heart and belly for soup and crackers, after all he spent his youth living with western Canadian winters!

Chef Roger Mooking remembers his dad making the best Chinese Pork Roast this side of Shanghai for dinner. Roger sets out to transform an everyday Pork Roast meal complete with a sauerkraut twist on the side.

The Prairies, where Chef Roger Mooking spent his youth, has a large Ukrainian-Canadian population.

If you've ever had left-over chicken, then chances are you've had a chicken salad sandwich... but not like this.

Chef Roger Mooking dips into his special ingredients cupboard for his latest obedient ingredient and lets us in on one of his family's ancient Chinese secrets, fermented black beans.

Chef Roger Mooking pays tribute to an old friend who ate fast-food chicken finger combos EVERYDAY!

Chef Roger Mooking considers himself a "pork-aholic", not just because of the sweet taste, but because it's a cost effective everyday meal for even the largest of families.

The first time Chef Roger Mooking saw a Jerusalem artichoke was when a supplier showed up at the back door of a restaurant he was working in with a box load of them.

Open sesame! Sesame paste that is. Chef Roger Mooking takes an everyday Grilled Salmon with veggies meal as close to the Middle East as a half-hour in your kitchen will get you, by way of his Obedient Ingredient, Tahini.

Before Chef Roger Mooking was a chef, he always thought of pasta as being smothered in tomato sauce. Then one of his bandmates introduced him to pasta with pesto.