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!

It's Freezing Outside

Summer is not here.  I shouldn't have opened my big mouth!  Since today was quite a bit chillier than yesterday, I needed a cozy kind of supper to warm things up.
In the fridge we had some asparagus, which is more of a summer veg that I thought would make a good soup.  So for the first time, I made an asparagus soup!

Cream of Asparagus Soup with Thyme
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp thyme
1 potato, chopped
1 batch asparagus, chopped
chicken stock
1/4 cup sour cream

Saute the onion and garlic in the butter until it starts to smell really good.  Add the salt, pepper and thyme. Cook another 5 minutes stirring around.  Toss in the potato, and asparagus and cook another 5 or 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Pour in enough chicken stock just to cover the vegetables.

Bring pot to a boil, cover and simmer on low for about 30 minutes or until all vegetables are tender.  Blend the soup until smooth.  You can use an immersion blender, or do it in batches in your countertop blender.  Add the 1/4 cup sour cream and blend or stir until smooth.

Dish up and add another dollop of sour cream if you like, I also sprinkled some fresh thyme on top!

I know what you're thinking, click here to find out why!

I Think Summer Is Here!

Ok, maybe summer isn't here just yet.  But, it sure felt like it yesterday!  The last temperature on my car read at 30 degrees.  I know that probably isn't accurate, but i'll take it.  It was so nice to finally feel hot sun on my face!

So to celebrate I wanted to make something that looked like summer too.  I barbecued up some pork chops (kinda boring) and then added a mango salsa (not boring!).

Mango Salsa

2 Mangoes 

1/2 Red pepper 

1/2 jalapeno 

handful of cilantro 

juice of 1/2 lime

salt and pepper

Chop up the first four ingredients into a bowl and add the juice of half a lime, and salt and pepper to taste. Try it out, if you want it spicier, more jalapeno.  Make it all your own!

Here it is spooned over a barbecued pork chop with a side salad.

So bright and tasty!

Tomato & Cheese Puff Cups

I have had some puff pastry in my freezer for a little while now and I wanted to try making an appetizer with it.  Turns out we ended up eating them as dinner one night!  Puff pastry is so easy to work with and I think that the possibilites are endless.  Whether its a sweet or a savoury dish, they're perfect for either!

Tomato and Cheese Puff Cups

1 sheet thawed puff pastry (cut into 9 squares)
1 tomato, seeds removed, diced
1/4 of red onion finely diced
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup gouda cheese, shredded, divided.
1 tsp basil
salt and pepper to taste

2 tbsp melted butter

Form the puff pastry squares into cups in a muffin tin.  Mix together the remaining ingredients, except the butter and half of the shredded gouda.  Spoon the filling into the pastry cups.  Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of gouda cheese and brush the outer edges of the pastry with the melted butter, this ensures that the edges will brown up nicely.  Bake at 375F for about 23 minutes.  You may need to adjust the cooking time depending on how deep the muffin cups are and how much filling you put into each cup.

OMG cheesy goodness!

Lemon-Caper Scallops with Broccolini and Brown Butter

This is a recipe from the EveryDay Rachael Ray magazine May 2012.  We love scallops so much and are always looking for new ways to try them out.  We had all of the ingredients on hand and so we went for it!

For the scallops you can get the recipe here.

As for the broccolini, I sauteed it in some grapeseed oil for a few minutes on medium high and added a little bit of salt and pepper.  The sauce from the scallops tasted really good on the broccolini too!

Mmm butter!

Not English Style Fish 'N' Chips

I am not too sure what style these Fish 'N' Chips are to be honest, but they were very tasty!  After getting our carpet installed it was a long day and we didn't really have much energy to go out and pick up groceries.  Ok, have to put something together on the fly.  Steve just came home from a bike ride so I figured he would want something carb-y and salty.

Fish
Sole fillets
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup crushed cornflakes
1/2 cup flour
2 tbsp lemon pepper seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil (I used vegetable)

In a pie plate or something similar soak your sole fillets in the 1/2 cup milk.  I left mine for about a half hour.  There is something about the milk that takes away the 'fishiness'.  In the meantime you can make your crust by combining the cornflakes, flour, lemon pepper, and salt on a plate.  Just use a fork or your fingers to blend it all together.  Heat the oil on medium high, and get it nice and hot.  Coat the fish in the crust mixture, both sides.  Fry the fish on each side about 2 minutes or until it's done.  The outside should be golden brown and the inside flaky.  Remove to a paper lined plate and dab the excess oil.

Chips
2 Potatoes (I used Yukon Gold, they're my fave)
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp salt

Slice the potatoes very thin and lay out on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle with the spices and flip over and sprinkle again.  Bake at 375F for about 15 minutes flipping halfway.  You may have to lengthen or shorten the baking time depending on how thick you cut the potatoes.  That's ok because it's easy to tell when they're done.

Tartar Sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tbsp sweet relish
2 tbsp really finely diced red onion
zest of 1/2 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp chopped fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

Pretty simple; mix it all together, and enjoy!  You may want to adjust your relish:mayonnaise ratio if you prefer a tangier sauce or a milder sauce.

It's not necessarily a healthy meal, but it tasted good and that's what really matters.  Life is short.

The Chicken Man

Ever since we attended a birthday party on St. Patrick's day at the Shamrock Hotel I can't even stand the thought of buying chicken from the grocery store anymore.  For those of you that don't know, the Shamrock Hotel is a pub that is located basically in the parking lot of the Lillydale processing plant.  Couple that with watching the documentary Food, Inc and I am through! (If you haven't seen it yet, watch Food, Inc. it may not spark you to have a coop in your backyard, and a garden on your roof, but it will inspire you to think more about the food that you purchase at your local grocery stores.

Steve's Mom Julie shared with us that she orders her chicken from someone she calls 'The Chicken Man'. I figured this sounded like a pretty legit place to get some great chicken!  What a fantastic recommendation!  Steve picked up our first chicken from them this evening, we purchased 5 bags (each with two breasts) and it was about $110.  It may sound pricey at first but this guy is the real deal and we couldn't help ourselves but have it for dinner.

The chicken breasts come with the bone in so we used some knife work to get around that, and they were ready to go!

A mixture of spices (garlic salt, pepper, Silk Road Spice Merchant All Purpose Blend), and a little bit of melted unsalted butter and these were ready to hit the oven.

I baked them at 375F for about 50 minutes along with some baby potatoes and then broiled them for a few minutes to crisp the skin nicely.

They turned out fantastic!  Just one chicken breast fed both Steve and I and we were both very full! 

If you want to check out who we all call, 'The Chicken Man' who is actually Jerry and Nancy Kamphuis of Country Lane Farms, click here. They have much more than chicken and they offer a convenient order online program.

Green Thumb (I hope!)

I love to cook with fresh herbs, like many do.  So many recipes call for it, and when creating a new recipe  on my own I always find that if you add some fresh herbs to the mix, it will taste that much better.  Keeping fresh herbs can be kind of tricky as they do have a tendency to go soggy and limp or completely dry out.  Solution: grow my own fresh herbs in the kitchen!

If you haven't been to an Indigo/Chapters recently, you must go!  I found this cute herb garden kit there in which you can grow your very own herbs.  They have three different kinds, along with a microgreens kit and a root veg kit, I opted for the pesto garden kit.

These products made by Seracon are endorsed by David Suzuki which made me feel pretty happy about my purchase.  For only $20 you get seeds, aluminum container, dirt, clay beads, and all the instructions that even the novice gardener (such as myself) needs to be successful.
So far it looks like I will have something I can use, which I would chalk up to a win considering the word 'germination' does not make me think of delicious green herbs!

Things In The Kitchen Became A Little More Accurate

I can't even imagine how I used to measure in the kitchen before I received this gift.  I literally would grab handfuls of ingredients and say to myself, "Yep, that's about a cup or so" or, "If I combine my 1/3 cup and my 1/3 cup that makes 2/3 cup which is close to 3/4 cup right?"  No longer!

These measuring cups will last a lifetime and I have no doubt that I will be passing them on to my kids, and their kids after.  All Clad makes a fantastic product and you can feel the quality in their weight and construction.  You can pick up your very own here!

Zoidberg's Scallop Surprise

Someone in this house has been waiting so patiently to cook scallops again.  And, someone in this house has also been watching a lot of Futurama.  So tonight, Steve's job was to do just that.  He is master scallop chef!  The recipe below was kind of thrown together, I think it needs some tweaking.  I wanted to add the lemon with zest to cut through the richness of the scallop.  It did the trick but I am going to work on this one a little more I think!


Mediterranean Pasta & Scallops

2 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp lemon zest
juice of 1/4 lemon
8 leaves chopped fresh basil
1 clove chopped garlic
8 oz quartered grape tomatoes
2 servings whole wheat spaghetti
6 Sea Scallops (rinsed and muscle removed)

Cook whole wheat pasta according to the package directions and drain reserving about 1/4 cup of the starchy water.  In the meantime, rinse, pat dry with a paper towel and season the scallops with salt and pepper.  Heat 2 tbsp of grapeseed oil in a skillet and sear scallops for about 1-2 minutes per side until they are opaque looking.  Remove from the pan to a paper towel lined plate.  Add 1 tbsp butter to pan with garlic and saute until the garlic smells really good.  Pour the 1/4 cup starchy water and scrape the bits from the bottom of the pan, toss in the tomatoes, zest and lemon juice.  Stir around until the tomatoes are warmed through.  Salt and pepper again to taste, dump in the spaghetti and mix to combine, place the scallops on top and serve!

Cappucino Bar

I can hardly believe that it has taken me this long to post about our new coffee situation!  We were recently given a Nespresso Citiz as a gift and purchased a Breville Milk Cafe.  We purchased the espresso cups from the Nespresso website and for about $150 we got 270 espresso pods!  So we can make an espresso drink (latte, cappucino, etc) for less than 70 cents!  That's a fraction of the local coffee shop we've already saved so much!  You can even buy the Chai concentrate from Starbucks and use the Milk Cafe to make your very own Chai Latte!

Of course to go along with a cappucino, who wouldn't want a Blueberry Muffin?

Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups of flour

3/4 c sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 c vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

1 1/4 c fresh blueberries

1/2 c white sugar

1/4 c flour

1/4 c quick oats

1/4 c cold cubed butter

sprinkle cinnamon

Sift together flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.  In a separate bowl stir together the oil, egg and milk.  Mix into dry ingredients only until combined, fold in the blueberries.  Fill paper lined muffin cups (12).  With a fork or pastry cutter mix together sugar, flour, oats, butter and cinnamon, sprinkle on top of each muffin.  Bake at 400 F for about 23 mins or until done.

Enjoy your at home coffee shop.

Boeuf!

It's been some time since I have had time to post.  Ok, to be honest, it's been a long time since I took the time to post!  I love the weekends so much, but I always feel like Friday night goes by so fast, it's nice to come home to dinner basically made!  Roast beef in the slow cooker!

Slow Cooker Roast Beef
Grapeseed oil
Beef roast (I used sirloin tip 1.4 kg)
Onion
Potatoes
Beef stock
Tomato paste
salt & pepper

Last night I seasoned with salt and pepper and seared the roast in a shallow pan on the stove in about 1 tbsp of grapeseed oil.  We heard grapeseed oil is healthy, so we thought to give it a try.  I rough diced the potatoes and onion and placed them in the bottom of the slow cooker, a nice little bed for the beef!  Once the beef is nicely browned on all sides and it's tucked into 'bed' you need to get all those delicious bits off the pan.  I used about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of beef stock to do this and turned the heat up on high.  You could probably use a nice red wine if you wanted but I didn't have an open bottle on hand.  Once all of the bits are brought up and it's nice and hot I stirred in about 1/2 small can of tomato paste.  Pour this little mixture over your roast and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  I turned the slow cooker on low and set it for 6 1/2 hours this morning.  It came out really nice.

I took some of the juice out of the slow cooker and reduced it in a saucepan.  It made a really nice glaze for the roast.

Bring on the meat sweats.

Leftovers - Sort Of!

This past Friday I had the day off and wanted to make some comfort food.  Planet Organic has whole free-run, organic chickens.  These chickens are the best, and certified organic and kind to animals (as you can get) by the BC SPCA.  Steve and his sister Christy tell me that the BC SPCA has very high standards so that made me feel good about roasting this bird!

It was about $27 for the chicken, which I didn't think was too shabby given how special it was.  But, it did make A LOT.  For two people, definitely too much!  And so, we have leftovers.  I don't really care much for leftovers so I have to make them new again and so we have:

Chicken Fried Rice (the quick and dirty version!)
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
Leftover roast chicken (chopped up)
2 cups cooked rice
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 eggs
1/4 cup soy sauce

Warm up the grapeseed oil over medium heat, add the chopped onion and cook until translucent.  Throw the rice, chicken, and frozen peas into the pan and saute until heated through.  Make a well in the middle and crack the eggs into the well.  Fry the eggs until they are almost cooked all the way through, break up with your spatula and toss into the rice mixture.  Pour soy sauce in and mix well.  I added a little bit of fresh cracked pepper at the end as well.

Enjoy some leftovers tonight!

A Sunday Kind of Breakfast

I love having a fancier breakfast on the weekends.  But, sometimes I can do without the spatter of bacon, and cooked on eggs.  Especially when we have an Open House later in the day.  This morning I made some crepes, so easy and so delicious.  Also, they make little to no mess!

Crepes with Blueberry Compote and Fresh Whipped Cream


Crepes
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup flour

Whisk together the eggs and milk, add sugar and salt and flour.  Whisk until smooth.  Set batter aside for 30 minutes.  Using a non-stick skillet on med-high heat, pour a few tablespoons of batter in the middle.  Pick up the pan and rock it around to spread the batter very thin.  Once the edges get golden, flip your crepe over and cook for another minute.  Transfer to a warm pie plate as you do this over and over until all of your batter has been used.

Blueberry Compote
1 shell of fresh blueberries
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

In a skilled on medium heat, melt the butter until it gets a little frothy, stir in the brown sugar, add in the whole shell of blueberries.  Simmer them while you are cooking your crepes so that the blueberries release their juices, get squishy, and smell good.  Sprinkle on the cinnamon and mix in.

Whipped Cream
1 small carton whipping cream
1 tbsp vanilla syrup (the kind you put in a latte)

Pour the whipping cream into a mixing bowl (or you can use a stand mixer if you have one).  Whisk until cream thickens up, add the vanilla syrup and continue whisking until it has the desired consistency. A good trick is to cool your bowl and whisk in the fridge before you begin.  If everything is really cold it makes it easier.

I like to lay out the crepes, scoop some compote into the middle, roll them up and put a little bit more blueberry compote on top and dollop of whipped cream.

If you get too full, Alabama can help.

Happy Sunday!

Cake! No eggs!

I recently found out a friend of ours is allergic to eggs.  I really thought about this for a long time, no eggs, ever.  No eggs benedict, no custards, no over easy, and no cake.  Wait a minute, no cake?  It couldn't be.  I was on a mission to find a recipe even just one, that she could enjoy.  After a lot of thought, it came to me; Wacky Cake.  This is a cake that my Mom used to make all the time when we were little.  I could sit down and put away quite a number of slices after school.  And so, I present to you;

Wacky Cake Cupcakes


1 1/2 cup flour
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
5 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla

Line a muffin tin with baking cups.  Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  In a separate bowl, cream together the sugar, oil, water, vinegar, and vanilla.  Make 3 wells in the flour mixture and pour the wet ingredients into each well.  Stir until mixed together.  Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full of batter and bake at 350F for approximately 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean.

You can also adapt this to make a full cake, just increase the baking time by about 5-7 minutes and be sure to grease your cake pan.

You can frost with a standard buttercream frosting, I chose to use cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 pkg cream cheese
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
dash salt
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
4-5 drops of food coloring (whichever color you like)

Cream all the ingredients together, add milk or icing sugar as needed to get the desired consistency.

Success!

Yes, They Are The Squishy Kind

Squishy chocolate chip cookies, these are the things dreams are made of.  This recipe comes from my Mom's kitchen.  She has this recipe file that I am constantly phoning her and Dad to look up a recipe and read it to me over the phone.  These are the chocolate chip cookies I grew up loving.  They are cavity inducing.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup Margarine [ I used real butter :)]
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream margarine [butter], and sugars together until you can't see sugar granules any longer.  Add in the eggs, one at a time and beat in well, stir in the vanilla.  In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, add to the wet ingredients a portion at a time to make sure everything is incorporated.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Drop by spoonful onto an un-greased cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes.  I baked mine for 11 minutes on airbake pans.

Get some milk, it's going to be a good day!

Winter Classic - Butternut Squash Soup

This will be the second time that I have made this soup specifically for the blog.  Last time I made it, the photos of it went missing in cyberland, and I also forgot to write down what I was putting into the pot, so I decided to have a do-over.  Frankly I made enough soup to last us the rest of the week, so it was a win-win!

Something important to note regarding the vegetable broth that I used for the soup:

Isn't all vegetable broth vegetarian!?  Apparently not, so if you are a vegetarian and wanting to stay true to that, make sure you look for vegetarian vegetable broth!  I tried to research more about this on the internet but had a hard time finding information regarding it.

Butternut Squash Soup

2 tbsp unsalted butter
4 medium carrots (peeled and coarsely chopped)
4 celery stalks (coarsely chopped)
1 large onion (coarsely chopped)
3 medium butternut squash (mine were just a bit longer than my hand)
3 medium russet potatoes
1 tbsp curry
2 900mL cartons of vegetable broth (like the one pictured above)
1/2 cup cream
1/4 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Start by prepping your squash; Halve it, scoop out the seedy guts and roast cut side up at 375F for about 90 minutes - 2 hours.  I like to drizzle a little bit of olive oil over top and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Butternut squash is hearty and tough to deal with when not cooked, if you want the Cherry Pit booth at the Calgary Farmer's Market will "butcher" it up for you and take all the hard work out of this soup.  In which case you have to cut down your roasting time.

In the meantime you can roughly chop up the celery, carrot, onion, and potato.  Saute these ingredients in 2 tbsp of melted butter in your soup pot on medium, add salt and pepper to taste.  Let the onions sweat out for about 10 minutes.  Add 1 tbsp of curry (secret ingredient) and heat for another 10 minutes.  The curry is very subtle but if you're not a curry fan, you can try another spice that you enjoy.  When the squash is all done in the oven, remove the skin and roughly chop it up, and add to the soup pot.  Pour in the vegetable broth until all of the ingredients are covered with the broth.  Bring this to a boil and then simmer with a lid on for about 45 minutes.

(To be honest the longer the better, we went to the dog park and to the computer store, came home and it smelled dreamy.)

If you have an immersion blender, lucky you!  Get blending!  If not, you can blend up the soup in portions in a regular blender.  (Immersion blender is more fun, see below.)

Blend in the 1/2 cup of cream and 1/4 of sour cream.  Let the soup rest a little so everything can come back to a nice hot temperature.  This is a good time to give it a taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Also a great time to chiffon some fresh basil:

 You can stack the leaves one on top of another, and roll up like a cigar.  Make very thin slices and you end up with pretty ribbons of basil.  I added this to my remaining tub of sour cream to garnish the soup with.

My Valentine Chef

This Valentine's day I was one lucky day (as I always am).  Steve slaved in the kitchen and cooked an amazing gourmet meal.

Seared sea scallops, grilled new york strip, and a tomato and goat cheese salad.  He did a fantastic job and the dinner was so delicious!

I'm going to gain at least 5 lbs.