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.

Ay Lasagna!

The Williams Sonoma website is amazing to find great recipes.  If nothing else you can use it for inspiration to create your own little tasty dish!  On Sunday I made the Slow Cooker Lasagna.  It sounded so great that there was a minimal set up involved and we were still going to end up with a nice comfort food.

We hosted Steve's parents Dan and Julie before they set off for Palm Springs for a couple of months.  Julie brought us some amazing flowers that still look just as great as the day she bought them!  Thanks!

The recipe for this lasagna can be found here on the Williams Sonoma website.  I was lucky to have the exact slow cooker featured in the photo, but if yours is a little different you may need to adjust how you build up your lasagna.

I forgot to put the fresh basil on top of mine (rats!) but it still tasted nice.  I was able to find some really delicious italian sausage for the recipe at the Calgary Farmer's Market that was free range.

Try it this weekend, yum!

New Loves - Just In Time For Valentine's

Steve's New Love:

Masakage - 165mm Santoku Knife

Handmade, blue carbon steel, right off the boat from Japan.  Purchased  from the amazing staff (Thank you to Kasumi, she was amazing) at Knifewear (Inglewood, Calgary).  Everyone was so friendly and allowed us to chop up as many potatoes and tomatoes it took to make a selection.  For a modest $255 you can have one all to yourself!

Check out Knifewear if you're shopping in the area, or even make a special trip, it's worth it!

Kristy's New Love:

The Silk Road Spice Merchant

Also in Inglewood and with equally helpful staff is The Silk Road Spice Merchant.  They sell every kind of spice you might be looking for, as well as some of their own home blends.  They are really well priced, both their spices and jars.  Now I have a fantastically organized spice drawer right next to the cooktop to do all of my baking and cooking!

Maybe not as exciting as a Japanese handmade knife, but it my World it's just as good!