I Would Like To Share Something

I like blogging.  What I like even more than blogging is following other bloggers blogs and then sharing those blogs with other blog readers!

I first saw this blog when a friend of my parents Tracy, posted a recipe on her Facebook page.  Tracy is amazingly fit and happy and is a very successful entrepreneur with her very own yoga studio in Moose Jaw, SK.  It's called Body in Mind Yoga Studio.  If you are ever in the area see if you can check out a class, I hear they're amazing!

So fun!  Ok, so back to the sharing of this blog.  Oh She Glows is a blog by Angela Liddon.  I won't go into too much detail because I think everyone should check her out too.  She has an amazing story, lots of great recipes and other tidbits that keep me occupied for hours!

As a start click here to find her recipe for Portable Baked Oatmeals.  They are so cute and petite.  Perfect to toss in your purse or lunchbag in the morning and you can make enough for the whole week.  I couldn't rave more about them.  They are so delicious, and you can totally personalize them to make them your own!  I'll be honest with you, for me they're basically a vehicle for me to devour Nutella with.

So have a look at both those lovely ladies offerings, eat a lot and then go do some yoga!

Autumn Pasta

Fall arrived this past weekend so I wanted to get in the mood by using some fall ingredients.  On Sunday Julie came over for 'Pasta Day'.  We had been wanting to do this for a while to try out making some ravioli as well as use my new KitchenAid pasta extruder.

Basic Egg Pasta

6 c white flour
9 eggs

By all means you can cut down this recipe.  We made a huge batch because we were splitting it up and wanted to have a lot.  This was the ratio given by the pasta roller.  If you are mixing by hand, you are to put the flour on a board or counter in a hill, make a well, put the eggs in the well and use a fork to slowly incorporate the flour into the egg.  This seemed like a lot of work, so I jammed it all in the mixer with the dough hook attachment and put the speed to 2 and waited.  The dough came out kind of crumbly, it just required a bit of kneading and we were good to go.
For the ravioli sheets you need a pasta roller, or the attachment for your mixer.  They are so precise and make the job so much quicker.
Once you have the sheets made and laid out you can put together the filling!  We chose butternut squash and goat cheese.

Butternut Squash Ravioli Filling

1 1/2 c butternut squash (roast them ahead of time and keep the scooped out fleshy part in the fridge)
1/4-1/2 c goat cheese
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together in the KitchenAid mixer with paddle attachment or by hand.  As long as there aren't any lumps of squash or cheese.

Lay out sheets of ravioli dough and place a small teaspoon of filling.  With a pastry brush, brush an egg wash around each filling.  Lay a second sheet of ravioli dough over top and press around the filling.  Try to get all of the bubbles out.  Whichever tool you have to cut out raviolis is fine.  I have a press but you could even use a small drinking glass if you wanted to.  Lay each ravioli out on parchment lined sheet to dry out a bit.  You can freeze them on the sheet and transfer to a bag after.  Ours were eaten to quick for that!

Julie is doing all the work here!

To cook the ravioli I added to boiling salted water for about 4 minutes and scooped them out with a slotted spoon.

The filling is quite rich so I made a simple butter sauce with clarified butter, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper with a little bit of sage leave thrown in at the end.

After cutting out all of the raviolis we could, the edges were tossed into the pasta extruder, and voila, spaghetti!

I liked watching the pasta make itself :)

Fresh From A Garden

Unfortunately it's not my garden :(  A colleague of mine, Shauntel has a green thumb like I can't even imagine to have.  She asked me last week if I would like some vegetables fresh from the garden at her house, because she simply had too much.  This was a dream come true to me!  

I selected potatoes, carrots, green onion, and beets (I love beets!)  The thing was is that I got home that evening and realized wow, that is a lot of green onion what am I going to do with it? (They were like 3 feet long!)

Onion and Cheddar Scones

2 1/2 cup flour

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 brick cream cheese (make sure it's really soft)

2 cups shredded old cheddar cheese (by old I don't mean scrape the blue fuzzies off and grate)

1/2 cup chopped fresh green onion (this may have been more like a cup)

1 cup homogenized milk

1 egg

Get the oven on to 400 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl, toss in the cream cheese and mix gently with a fork until combined.  If you want you can try to cut up the cream cheese into little squares before you leave it out to soften on the counter.  I just did it the lazy way and microwaved it for about 30 seconds.  (This mixture is akin to the way a crumbly pastry dough will look when you cut in butter.)  Add the cheddar and onion and toss until combined.  In a separate bowl whisk the egg and milk together and then add to the flour mixture.  Mix gently with a rubber spatula until a soft dough forms, at this point you can add extra flour if things are a little sticky.  Divide the dough in half, on a floured surface pat out one half into a 1 inch thick circle.  Cut into 6 triangles and arrange on parchment lined baking sheet.  I prefer to add an egg glaze of one egg mixed with about a tablespoon of milk brushed over the top.  It gets rid of all the floury parts and makes things look nice and smooth!  Bake for 18-22 minutes until golden brown.

My summer blog hiatus is over!  Get me a knife and some butter!

Saucy!

This will be the first time that I have ever recorded what I put into the spaghetti sauce I made.  Usually it's just throw it all in and hopefully it tastes good.  It has never been the same twice, until now!

Spaghetti Sauce


1/4 cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped (very small)
1 white onion, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
4 celery stalks, chopped
2 lbs extra lean ground beef, browned
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp thyme
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
2 - 796mL can diced tomato
1 680mL tomato sauce
1 156mL tomato paste

Heat the olive oil on medium in a large sauce pot, add the garlic and cook until aromatic.  In with the vegetables and stir and cook for about 5 minutes, add the basil, oregano, thyme, red pepper flakes, and a dash each of salt and pepper, cook another 5-10 minutes.  Add in the browned ground beef and cook another 5 minutes.  Add all of the canned ingredients and the bay leaves.  Cook on low with the lid on for at least a half hour to 45 minutes.  Taste along the way and add more salt and pepper, or anything else that you like to see in your spaghetti sauce that makes it taste just right!  Enjoy over a cooked whole wheat pasta.

This makes a lot by the way.  Freeze some for later!

Breakfast for Dinner

The inspiration: A new pie plate

Here's how the conversation went:

Kristy: 'What will you want to eat after your bike ride?'
Steve: 'Something protein-y.'
Kristy: 'I was thinking a quiche.'
Steve: 'Do real men eat quiche?'

Yes, real men eat quiche!  So I made one.  I have never made a from scratch pie-type crust before.  I am not sure that I necessarily mastered it, but it turned out alright!

Crust


3/4 cup flour
6 tbsp butter (cold and cut into cubes)
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
cold water

Put the flour into a mixing bowl and sprinkle the butter cubes on top.  With your finger tips, gently rub the flour into the butter until it looks like bread crumbs.  Add the shredded cheese and mix.  One tablespoon at a time add just enough cold water until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ball.  Cover in plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge for at least a half hour.  Roll out the dough on a floured board and lay over your pie plate, fold and pinch the edges until it looks crinkled and scalloped.  Poke the crust with a fork all over.  If you have pie weights you can add them in, if not that's okay too.  Bake at 350F for 10 minutes.

Filling


You can basically put any ingredients that you like in here, I used:

1/2 red onion, chopped
1 roma tomato, chopped
1/2 yellow pepper, chopped
1/2 pkg beef bacon, chopped
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
salt and pepper

Saute the bacon and onions and peppers, toss in some salt and pepper.  Add in the tomatoes to warm them up.

Whisk together 6 eggs and 1/4 cup sour cream.  Add in the cooled sauteed ingredients and pour into the pre-baked pie shell.  Bake at 350F for another 35 minutes or until quiche is set.

There is also some potato pancakes here.  Pretty simple, used some leftover mashed potatoes, stir in some chopped green onion and coat in panko bread crumbs.  Fry in a few tablespoons of oil until browned and warmed through.

The best meal of the day.

Pizzaz

This was a sort of 'dinner on the fly'.  I enjoy being able to make dinner with what ingredients may be kicking around the house.  It always starts with a classis pizza dough recipe, I have been making this since I was 12:

Pizza Dough

2 1/2 cups of flour
1 tbsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup of warm water

Sift the dry ingredients together and add the oil and water.  Get your hands in there and mix untili combined and form into a ball.  Cover lightly with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot.  On top of a preheating oven works well.  In about 30 minutes you should have a nice, squishy ball of dough that easily forms on your pizza pan.  At this point you can basically cover it with whatever ingredients you most like on a pizza, bake at 400F for about 15-20 minutes.  Keep an eye on it in the later minutes to ensure you have bubbly cheese and a nice golden crust!

On our pizza tonight I put some ranch dressing as the sauce (you can thin it out with a little olive oil if you like), buffalo chicken (I ripped off some wings), tomatoes, jalapenos, peppers, and mozzarella cheese.

Dine-In only.

Jam Session

I have been on holidays for 3 days now, and it's official I am relaxed!  I am hoping this fall to do some serious canning.  I love the idea of having homemade things at the ready in the pantry or to give as gifts.  I love receiving homemade gifts as well!  So to practice I thought it would be a good time to try Strawberry Jam.  Strawberries are in season right now and they were very on sale this week!
I picked up my canning gear from Canadian Tire and it looks like this.  It's a whole canning kit, whatever you do if you're just starting out and can't find these items used.  Get the kit!  It was $50 for everything and if you add up separately the items that come in it, you end up spending about $25 more!
I tried to Google up some recipes, but to be honest everyone's was different.  So I gathered that you kind of have to do a trial and error thing for yourself.  So this first batch will hopefully be a win!

Strawberry Jam


5 containers strawberries (454g each)
5 1/4 cups sugar (don't judge me!)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 pkg pectin

In a small saucepan, put all the sealer lids in about 2 cups of water and heat on the stove until very hot but not boiling.  This will soften the seals and help sterilize.  Also a good time to bring your canner up to a rolling boil so it's ready for the jam jars when you are!

Hull all of the strawberries by hand, don't get lazy and just cut the tops off.  Get your knife in there and do it right.  Make your Nana proud.  Mash the berries with a potato masher in batches this will get the natural pectin to start doing it's thing.  This was by far the hardest part I think.  My biceps are aching!  Mix the package of pectin with 1/4 of sugar.  Put all the mashed strawberries into a nice big pot and add the sugar/pectin mix.  Sir and bring to a hard boil, add the remaining sugar and lemon juice.  Boil and stir for about 5 minutes.  Test your jam on a cold plate (you can put one in the freezer before you start, worked nicely), if the jam runs like syrup it's not ready.  You want it somewhere between there and cold molasses.  I cooked mine about 8 minutes total.  Remove from heat and skim off any foam.  Pour the jam into sterilized jars using a sterilized funnel and ladle.  There is nothing fancy about sterilizing, it's your dishwasher's hottest setting.  Wipe off any jam that may have spilled onto the rims so that you can make a good seal.

Using your fancy magnet grabber, pick up the sealer tops and place onto the jars, screw the lids on finger tight only.  Place all jars into boiling canner and boil for 10 minutes.  We live in Calgary, and so therefore since all things are calibrated as if we lived at sea level (including most recipes) I added a few extra minutes onto this time.  It's not a secret, the pectin package has an insert that tells you how long to boil your jars for at different elevations.

Remove the jars after 10 minutes and place on the counter in a non-drafty place.  Do not move them about for 24 hours.  Give them a chance to seal.  If there are any that haven't sealed after 24 hours, put them in the fridge right away and eat them.  Otherwise they should keep for at least a year!

My jars made their pop seal sound right away!  It was so satisfying!


I also made a playlist to go along with my day, in the time it took me to make this jam is how long this playlist is:

Jam Session Jams


Cough Syrup - Young the Giant
Video Games - Lana Del Rey
Gold On The Ceiling - The Black Keys
Simple Song - The Shins
Girl Is On My Mind - The Black Keys
99 Problems - Jay-Z
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
The Cave - Mumford and Sons
Gravity - John Mayer
Rumor Has It - Adele
Punching In A Dream - The Naked and Famous

Can't wait to jam again!