The Daily Struggles of the Domestic Un-Goddess

mushroom pizza bianca (for the late-night munchies)

2012-12-09T12:53:00.000-05:00

I was hungry last night. Usually when this happens, hubs will jet out and grab a snack (usually terrible for us) or we'll even cave and order in. But something stopped me from doing that last night, and I'm super stoked about it.

One of my favourite shows on the Food Network is Chopped - I love the creativity the chefs have when they are confronted with an odd conglomeration of ingredients that don't really go together. Now, I'm not going to say that this snack was Chopped-worthy, because there's nothing really odd in it, but I'm happy with what I came up with and it's DELICIOUS. It's pretty quick to whip together as a late night snack (like 25 minutes start to finish; definitely faster than delivery!), but it would also be great sliced small as an appetizer, or alongside a green salad and/or soup as a light meal.

Essentially, all you need is some sort of flatbread (I had crappy white tortillas), some vegetables that you like (I had mushrooms and vidalia onion, along with garlic), something to make a sauce (sour cream and dijon), some cheese (cheddar and parmigiano) and then something green to cut through the richness (I had minced parsley, but arugula or any other leafy dark green would be great).

Sorry for the shite pictures - in a perfect world, the cheese would also be more brown, but the edges were starting to smoke, so I had to get it out of the oven before it set off the fire alarm and woke up the kids!

late-night mushroom pizza bianca

2-3 flatbreads (tortillas or pitas)
3-4 cups chopped mushrooms (could also use zucchini, eggplant, roasted peppers, artichokes, etc.)
1/2 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 T butter
salt, pepper
1/3 c red wine (or other booze - white wine, sherry, marsala, or half this amount of brandy or cognac)
1/2 c good sour cream (look at the ingredient list - it should just be cream and bacterial culture. If there's other stabilizers, it's bleh. I like Western Dairy brand and I use light)
1/4 c dijon mustard
2 cups grated cheese (aged cheddar, gruyere, emmenthal are all great choices)
parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1/4 c minced flat-leaf parsley

1. Put flatbreads in oven. Turn it to 400F. Let cook for approximately 6-10 minutes, until they are crispy, slightly toasted and not burnt (just check on it every couple of minutes).

2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large skillet. Add onions, garlic and mushrooms, cook over medium-high heat until mushrooms have released most of their liquid and have browned a bit. Deglaze the pan with red wine, and let wine evaporate pretty much completely. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Take your toasted flatbreads and put them on a foil-lined baking sheet (seriously, who wants to scrub burnt-on cheese??? not me!). In the centre of each, add a large dollop of sour cream and a medium-dollop of dijon (I like mine with almost as much dijon as sour cream, for a bit of bite). Use a silicone brush or a spoon to spread it all around.

4. Turn on the broiler. Add mushrooms over flatbread (just divide the mushrooms according to how many flatbreads you have). Sprinkle with cheese, then grate some parmigiano overtop. Broil for just under 2 minutes (mine started to burn at the edges after about 1min45s. As always with broiling any sort of bread, keep a very close eye on it because it will burn quickly.

5. Once cooked, sprinkle with minced parsley, cut into wedges and enjoy.

I had no intentions of blogging this, but it was seriously just SO yummy that I had to snap a crappy picture and share it anyway. Totally making this again.

In other news, I've had a recent spate of success with some delicious pumpkin recipes. I can HIGHLY recommend this pumpkin-gingerbread loaf with spiced buttercream, as well as this pumpkin mac&cheese (weird but good, I swear), and concluding the trifecta of pumpkin with pumpkin pie french toast (like this recipe, except using more milk, and only 5 pieces of bread). Bonus: you can make all of the recipes with just one big-ass can of pumpkin. Thanks for reading!

maple-mustard salmon with roasted cauliflower, brussels sprouts and mushrooms

2012-11-13T11:12:00.001-05:00

When I started making this dinner, I didn't think it was going to be BAD, but I have to say that it completely surpassed my expectations with just how freaking delicious it was. Sunday was grocery day (always my favourite day; I consider it like a weekly shopping free-for-all), and I picked up a big side of salmon (yum!). I also picked up what seems like a metric ton of veggies and fruits. I was flipping through a couple of recipe books, and came upon a recipe for roasted cauliflower with shitake mushrooms in Clean Start, and I knew I"d found the inspiration I needed. I changed up the method and seasoning a bit, and I had cremini mushrooms instead of shitakes, but the combination is fabulous. On its own, this is a great vegan dish that would be a great accompaniment to something like a quinoa bowl, or a risotto-type dish. And I don't even really like brussels sprouts. I loved how all of the vegetables gained a nice caramelized sweetness, and the umami meatiness of the mushrooms was the perfect textural contrast.

With my salmon, I did a really simple maple-mustard sauce. I just love this flavour profile with salmon. Since salmon is so rich and fatty, I really like the acidity of the mustard, paired with the sweetness of the maple syrup. You could also be lazy and use a commercial honey mustard, but I tend to find most of those REALLY sweet and lacking in flavour. This way you get the acidic bite of a dijon, the al dente bursts of a grainy mustard, with a garlicky wallop of flavour. Fresh herbs (like dill or even basil) would be great in this, but dried dill was pretty wonderful too. You could use this sauce on pretty much any other protein/vegetable, or even as a dipping sauce for chicken or veggies (though maybe tone down the garlic if it's not going to be cooked).

I served these two dishes with a fresh green salad, topped with my favourite store-bought dressing, Farm Boy's Lemon Garlic (love it because the ingredient list is lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic. That's it. Can't beat that!).

roasted cauliflower, mushrooms and brussels sprouts
inspired and adapted from Clean Start

1 head cauliflower
12 large brussels sprouts (or 18 small)
1/2 pound mushrooms (about 225 g)
2 minced cloves of garlic
2-3 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 T herbes de provence (or other herb seasoning of your choice)
coarse sea salt (about 1 t), black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. In the bottom of a large bowl, combine olive oil, salt, herbes, garlic and pepper.

3. Chop the cauliflower into bite-size florets. Put in bowl. Coarsely chop mushrooms (I had big ones and cut them in 6-8 pieces). Quarter brussels sprouts (or halve if they aren't big).

4. Toss all vegetables in the oil mixture; stir until everything is coated.

5. Spread out on a baking sheet (I like to use parchment paper so nothing sticks AND I don't have to wash my baking sheets. It's win-win.). Roast for 20 minutes. Stir and re-distribute. Roast for another 20 minutes, or until tender.

maple-mustard garlic salmon

6 4-oz (125 g) salmon fillets, skin removed
3 T dijon mustard
2 T grainy mustard/moutarde à l'ancienne
2 T maple syrup
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T dried dill (seems like a lot, but it's mild, I swear)
pinch salt, fresh ground pepper

1. Cut salmon/prep salmon how you like it (this would also work with salmon steaks, bbq salmon, cedar plank salmon, etc.). Preheat oven to 400F (or bbq; it's up to you).

2. In a small bowl, combine mustards, maple syrup, garlic, dill, salt and pepper. Taste (you might like it more mustardy, or sweeter, so this is your chance to adjust it to your liking).

3. Place salmon fillets in a 13x9 glass dish (or a baking sheet, or whatever you have). Put a little bit of the mustard mixture on each fillet (about one teaspoon), spread around. Flip the fillets over, and divvy the rest of the sauce up over the fillets.

4. Bake at 400F for 10-20 minutes, depending on thickness (mine were quite thick and took 18 minutes). Start checking at 10 minutes, especially if your fillets are thin. Salmon is done when it flakes apart easily and is opaque all the way through. I don't like mine overcooked and would prefer to err on the side of slightly undercooked, but this is a matter of personal preference/comfort.

This is so good.

And on a quick technical note, apologies for the weird looking photos. Hubs re-installed windows and has not yet installed Lightroom. I am super Photoshop challenged, so did the best I could to hack away at the processing on these photos, but they still look weird. For this, I apologize. Thanks for reading!

What's your favourite fall vegetable recipe? I have a ton of other veggies to use up (asparagus, fennel, chard, beans, spinach, etc.)

cozy, hearty soup & salad

2012-10-24T10:56:00.003-04:00

When it comes to cooking and meal planning, I take inspiration from a huge variety of sources, influences and cuisines. I like to mix it up. Sometimes we eat a lot of meat. Sometimes no meat. Sometimes complicated. Sometimes simple. Sometimes spicy. Sometimes herbacious. Sometimes sweet. Sometimes salty. The way I see it, the world is a giant smorgasbord of inspirational deliciousness, and I want to help myself to the best. ;)

Not that I'm selfish or anything.

One of my go-to sites for the last 10 years has been epicurious.com; epi was doing social media and web 2.0 before any of us even knew what that was. When I first discovered them (and I've been saving recipes since 2001 on there), I loved it because I could see feedback from other people who'd made the recipe (i.e., they allowed comments; nobody else was doing this back then). I could see reviews from people who'd made the recipe, and best of all, I could save everything in my own personalized recipe box.

Now, pretty much every site (including this one, naturally), allows comments. And with Pinterest, we've pretty much eliminated the need for a site-specific recipe box (though I will continue to use epicurious!). And there are hundreds of thousands of blogs and cooking websites out there. And with this overwhelming amount of choice, it can actually be a bit intimidating to start a recipe search.

So with that in mind, and despite all this endless choice, sometimes I still retreat to my trusty cookbook shelf. It's not a huge shelf, and I don't let just anyone have shelf space, but I have a few tried and true cookbooks that I keep around because they are fabulous.

One such pair is Clean Food and Clean Start (Terry Walters). These are seasonally-based vegan cookbooks using natural, healthy ingredients. First, I love the covers (which is shallow, I wholeheartedly admit, and it looks like the revised edition of Clean Food has a photographic cover, rather than the solid green cover with the half-jacket of the original edition, but the originals are pretty and I like them). I also love the seasonal approach to cooking, using what's best from each season. These aren't generally the recipes I serve to guests, as they do tend to have that distinctive wholesome flavour that is not necessarily universally enjoyed (but I love). Anyway, bottom line, before I ramble too much more, these are great cookbooks for when you want to feel good about what you're eating.

And after a weekend of endless treats and sweets, I really felt like we needed to step back a bit and enjoy something healthy and wholesome. But still tasty. ;)

So I took inspiration from the hearty minestrone recipe in Clean Start, and went from there. My version was not vegetarian/vegan, because I used a combination of chicken/beef broth (it's what I had). Obviously, this is a very simple substitution. I used different beans, because I have a massive container of 9-bean mix that I got from Costco. I just soaked them the night before and let them bubble away for about an hour during the afternoon. Nothing wrong with canned beans either though. ;) 1.5 cups of bean mix made about 4.5 cups of cooked beans.

And my salad dressing is not vegan either, but it's really darn good, so you should make it. I have a hard time with bottled dressings now; I do generally keep a bottle or two in my fridge for when I'm feeling really lazy, but I find the saltiness and added flavourings are just overpowering. Nothing like the pure deliciousness of homemade salad dressings, bright and fresh with herbs and garlic. Also, I had buttermilk that needed using up, so this homemade buttermilk ranch dressing was a great way to do that.

hearty minestrone soup
inspired, but modified due to circumstances, from Clean Start; don't be afraid to modify based on what you have available!)

1 medium yellow onion, diced
(3 stalks celery, diced) --> I was out!
1 T olive oil
3 carrots, sliced
3 cups chopped tomatoes (I drained a can and chopped those)
4.5 cups beans (chickpeas, kidney, black beans, etc. --> this is about 3 cans)
1 head broccoli with stems, chopped
1.5 cups chopped green beans (I was out; I chopped up some bok choy instead; any green would work!)
5 cups stock
1 T balsamic vinegar
2 t herbes de provence (or a mixture of fresh herbs, if you have them!)
1 bay leaf
salt, pepper to taste

1. In a big soup pot, sauté onion, celery and carrot of medium heat, about 5 minutes.

2. Add tomatoes, beans, broccoli, stock, green beans/greens, balsamic vinegar, bay leaf and herbes de provence. And lots of pepper.

3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer about 30 minutes (until carrots/celery are done). Remove from heat, discard bay leaf and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 8.

buttermilk ranch dressing

2 green onions, chopped
2 T fresh basil
1 t dried dill
2 T lemon juice
2 T dijon mustard
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 t salt, pepper to taste
1/3 c mayonnaise
1/3 c miracle whip/whipped salad dressing (if you only have mayo, use all mayo, but add about 1 t sugar and 1 t vinegar)
1/3 c greek yogourt
1/2 c buttermilk

1. In a food processor/immersion blender, combine the onions, basil, dill, lejon juice, dijon, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Process until relatively smooth.

2. Add mayo, miracle whip, greek yogourt and buttermilk. Process again. Taste, and use on salad, or as a dip. It's super yummy! I had mine on a mâche mix, but it would be good on anything. The recipe makes about 2 cups.

Hubs and Lil Z had theirs with garlic toast (SO EASY - make toast, rub with fresh cut garlic. Voila. Garlic toast.), but I just stuck with the soup and salad. It was hearty and filling and I'm very stoked to eat more of it for my lunch today.

i forgot how much i love having dinner parties

2012-10-15T11:45:00.002-04:00

Before we had kids, hubs and I used to host dinner parties pretty often; not monthly, but probably at least every couple of months, we'd have people over for a nice fancy dinner party.

Since we and others we know have started having babies, that has fallen a bit to the wayside; part of it is that I'm a little too tired and short on time to host, part of it is that my dinner parties don't tend to be so kid-friendly. Now, it's not that I think kids won't eat the food, it's just that the timing of a four-five course meal is not a reasonable amount of time for a kid to sit still or keep out of trouble (Z would happily gobble all of this food), and they tend to go too late for kids.

Anyway, my solution is that I invite people over close to bedtime, so Lil Z and Lil R can charm my guests for an hour (okay, maybe they just annoy them, lol), partake in appetizers (only Z; R is too little!), and then be whisked off to bed.

It works quite well.

And this time, I was extra excited, because I wasn't navigating a long list of food restrictions. I've posted in my Dinner Party 101 series before that catering to your guests is key to having a good dinner party, and I do maintain that stance BUT it's always nice when the guests just come with an enthusiasm for food in general. :) And wine, but we'll get to that later.

So going back to how I plan a party (and I'm going to apologize in advance for the shoddy quality/quantity of the photos; I was having too much fun and kept forgetting, and then I maybe had too much wine and lost most of my ability to photograph. These pics are so terrible, I'm not sure they add anything to the post, but hey, it's what I've got.

I don't have a photo of the actual caramelized onion, bacon and gruyère dip, but this is what the dish looked like at the end. I think it speaks for itself.

For me, the key to having fun and relaxing and enjoying is that I like to have pretty much everything done in advance. I don't want to be fussing over things while all the fun happens out in the dining room. So I don't tend to serve things like seared scallops, risotto, etc., that require too much last minute energy.

Here's my menu - and I'll go into the how-to in a minute. The recipes without a link (i.e., the original ones) are posted at the bottom of this post.

Appetizer - caramelized onion, bacon and gruyère dip, served with endive and cucumber slices
First course - thai green curry mussels served in a coconut broth, with 5-minute no-knead bread
Salad - spinach, red onion slivers, parmesan shards, pear slices and toasted pecans with a simple balsamic vinaigrette
Main - bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin with a wild mushroom sauce (recipes below), served with pureed celery root and bacon-braised french lentils
Dessert - chocolate pots de creme with an orange whipped cream (1 c whipping cream, 3 T icing sugar, zest of one orange)

I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty darn good. So what I do with a menu like this is that I break it down into components, and I write myself a schedule for those components, and cross things off my list as I go.

So here was my list:
FRIDAY:
- mix together bread
- make dip
- prep endive and cucumber
- prep celery root puree
- prep lentils
- make pots de crème

SATURDAY:
- bake bread
- prep pork, make sauce for pork
- clean and pick through mussels, mise en place for sauce ingredients
- whip cream
- toast pecans
- make salad vinaigrette

See? Not so hard when you break it down.

Then, I have a little schedule for myself. For this dinner, it went something like this (all times approximate and very, very flexible)

7: 00 - bake dip, put cucumber and endive on platter

7:30 - guests arrive - set out platter, serve drinks

8:00 - (kids off to bed!) preheat stove, cook mussels; While mussels are cooking (they take 8 minutes), shove pork in oven, put celery root in microwave to reheat, and put lentils on the stove on very low heat to reheat (this is about 3 minutes worth of work)

8:15 - mussels served with bread. and more drinks.

8:45 - prep salad (assemble components, drizzle dressing). Check temperature of pork (needs to register 145F in the thickest part; use the oven timer and just check every 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let it rest once it gets to the right temperature). About 5 minutes in the kitchen. Serve salad. With more drinks.

9:15 - While pork is resting, reheat the celery root in the microwave. Slice pork and serve with sauce (takes 2 seconds on the stove to reheat), celery and lentils. About 5 minutes in the kitchen. And more drinks.

(much wine and conversation ensues)

whenever seems appropriate - serve dessert with coffee and digestifs, if desired. We served dessert at 1 am. ;) Pots de crème (or any other custard-type dessert) is great because you just take it out of the fridge and top it with whipped cream. Again, only about 5 minutes in the kitchen. They are yummy, but this photo is so blurry, you can barely tell what it is!

When we have dinner parties, I'm in charge of food, and hubs is in charge of drinks; i.e., keeping the water pitcher filled, and keeping the wine flowing (and possibly policing if someone is driving, but thankfully our guests cabbed it so we didn't have to worry about that). This division of labour works well for us, because it means that one person isn't constantly in the kitchen; you alternate a bit.

Anyway, I will say that a great time was had by all, and leave you with the wisdom that while it might SEEM like a good idea to stay up and drink wine until 3:30 am, it seems like a much less good idea at 7 am when the kids are up for the day.

bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin with mushroom sauce

pork
2 pork tenderloins
1 package of bacon (14 slices)
1 T olive oil
1 T dijon mustard
1 T grainy mustard
1 T dark brown sugar
1 T bbq sauce
2 cloves minced garlic
1 T minced rosemary
1 t dried thyme
salt, pepper

1. Whisk together olive oil, mustards, sugar, bbq sauce, garlic, and spices.

2. On a platter/cutting board, arrange the bacon so there are 2 sets of 7 slices side-by-side, to wrap around your pork.

3. Place a tenderloin on in the middle of the bacon (so the slices can wrap around the pork). Smear half of the olive oil/mustard mixture on each pork tenderloin (while it's on the bacon).

4. Wrap the bacon around the pork, and then secure with kitchen twine. You could probably also just cook it seam side down if you didn't have kitchen twine.

5. Let marinate for a few hours.

6. To cook - preheat oven to 425F. Put pork in oven (I put mine in a rack in a pan, so the bacon fat could drip. I also put 1 cup of water in the pan, so I wouldn't have to smell burning bacon fat as it dripped onto the pan). Clean up is easier if you line the pan with foil. ;)

7. Cook for about 35-45 minutes, until the thickest part of the pork measures at least 145F (you can go as high as 160F and it will still be pretty moist). Let rest for at least 10 minutes. Remove twine, slice and serve.

mushroom sauce
1 package dried wild mushrooms (about 14g)
1 cup boiling water
2 T butter
1/4 c minced shallot
1/2 c sherry/marsala (sweetish fortified wine)
LOTS of pepper, some salt
3/4 c whipping cream

1. Reconstitute the mushrooms in the boiling water (you may need more than 1 cup; this is fine). Let them soak for about 15-20 minutes. Strain, but keep the soaking liquid. Chop the mushrooms.

2. Heat a pot over medium-high heat. Add butter, and before the butter burns (but after it browns), add shallots. Sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add chopped mushrooms, saute until most of the liquid is out of the mushrooms and things are starting to stick/brown a bit. Add the sherry/marsala. Let it reduce until it's almost evaporated. Add the soaking liquid. Turn heat to high. Once the liquid has reduced to about half of what it was, add a ton of fresh-ground pepper, and the whipping cream. Keep the heat high until the liquid is reduced to about 1/4 of what it was before, and it nice and thick. The key to a recipe like this is having the patience to wait until the liquids thicken. It takes forever, so I like to do it in advance. The result is a rich, creamy, concentrated sauce and this particular sauce is delicious on almost anything - mashed potatoes, chicken, steak, pork, rice, etc. It's yummy, and it's also vegetarian and gluten-free. I make this up in advance and just reheat before serving.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the shoddy pics. Maybe next time, a little less wine and a little more focus, huh?

caramel date cake with pecans

2012-10-09T11:15:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but this cake is always ugly. I've made it four times now, and every time I think....man, this is uuuuuuuuuuggggly....but it's so delicious, and it smells so incredible that I keep making it.

And I still don't like dates. I still think they look like cockroaches and completely refuse to eat them in an un-baked, un-chopped state. They aren't quite as bad when they are chopped.

Anyway, I got this recipe from a great cookbook called Quinoa 365 (fabulous, fabulous, fabulous...loads of recipes including whole quinoa, quinoa flakes and quinoa flour; I've tried many of them and they've all been really good). However, in reading my recipe, you'll notice that I don't make it with quinoa flour...not that it isn't good that way (I've made it with the flour before and it turned out exactly the same), it's just that I have a really hard time finding quinoa flour in stores, and it's been a while since I made a Bulk Barn run to stock up on it. SO, rest assured, you can make this recipe with or without the quinoa flour.

But you really should make it; it comes together quite quickly, and despite its humble appearance, you could serve it to anyone, and they would be suitably impressed by the flavour. AND, there's no reason that you could just keep the caramel sauce separate and pour it over the served pieces of cake, but I like the all-in-one factor of this dish. And you really don't notice the bits of dates in the finished product.

Last, make sure you buy pitted dates. 1 3/4 c of chopped dates doesn't seem like a whole lot until you have to pit each and every one of them. Then it seems like waaaay too many dates.

caramel date cake with pecans
stolen and slightly modified from Quinoa 365

cake:
1 3/4 c chopped pitted dates
1 c boiling water
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour (OR 1 c AP flour, 3/4 c quinoa flour)
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 c butter, softened
1 c packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 t vanilla

topping:
3/4 c 18% cream
1 c packed dark brown sugar
1/3 c butter
1/2 c chopped pecans
fleur de sel/coarse salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan. Get all your ingredients ready.

2. In a medium bowl (I use a 2-cup liquid measure), combine the dates and boiling water and set aside so the dates absorb the water. NOTE: Depending on how soft/fresh your dates are, they probably won't absorb all the water. What I do, is pour off the excess water into a little pitcher. If, upon mixing the dates into the cake, I feel the batter is really dry, I'll add some of this excess water.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

4. Cream the butter in a large bowl (ideally with an electric mixer; handheld is perfect for this). Add the brown sugar and cream until fluffy. Add the eggs & vanilla and beat well. Add the flour mixture and continue to mix until well-blended (a couple of minutes).

5. Fold in the (lightly strained) dates. You can see I had about 4 oz of the liquid left, because my dates were really soft and fresh.

Your final batter consistency should be thick, but not dry (if it's pulling away from the sides of your bowl, like a muffin batter, then it's too dry; add some of the water). It should be liquid, but definitely not thin or soupy. This s what mine looked like, for reference. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, combine the cream, sugar and butter in a medium saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and stir constantly (or not so constantly, lol), until the mixture is a thick caramel sauce; about 15-20 minutes.

7. Remove the cake from the oven and pour the caramel sauce over top. Sprinkle with chopped pecans and fleur de sel (just a bit!).

Bake for an additional five minutes. Cut into 9 pieces and serve warm. It's so sweet and caramelly and delicious.

And also kind of ugly.

everybody should meal plan

2012-10-01T10:56:00.002-04:00

I remember my first exposure to meal planning. I was 13, and had a pretty sweet after-school gig sitting for a couple of younger kids in my neighbourhood. All I had to do was get off the bus with them, and we played games and read books until their parents got home an hour or so later. Easy peasy.

On the fridge of this family, there was a laminated menu indicating what dinner would be had on what night. It was the same every week (i.e., chicken tuesday, taco wednesday, etc.).

This seemed weird to me. I couldn't imagine wanting to eat the same thing week after week after week. So I always thought THAT was what meal planning was. That it wouldn't allow any spontaneity and that it meant one would be doomed to endless repetition of the same dreary old things. Totally not my thing.

And now of course, we have all of these blogs and planning websites telling us we can cook once a month and then take a break from the kitchen. I'll be honest, those sites kinda scare me, with their uber-organized alpha personalities cooking up 20 lbs of ground beef and chopping 50 lb of vegetables when they return from the grocery store, all to end up in an endless sea of labelled and vacuum-sealed ziploc (yes, I exaggerate). That's not my thing either.

So with trial and error over the last few years, I've got *my* way of meal planning. It's low-key, it's flexible, and it works, regardless of how simple or complex you want your meals to be.

First, I check the freezer to see if there's stuff I'd like to use up. This week, I decided I wanted to use up osso buco, stewing beef, chicken, and some of my Supperworks order. In my fridge, I had kale that needed to be used, along with leeks, and in the pantry I have squash and potatoes that I should get to.

So I came up with this:
Sunday - osso buco served with potato-leek puree and steamed broccoli
Monday - roasted garlic and pumpkin soup with kale caesar salad
Tuesday - chicken lettuce wraps
Wednesday - beef tagine with squash and couscous (I initially was thinking of Korean beef, but the flavour profile was too similar to the lettuce wraps!)
Thursday - vegetarian stuffed peppers from Supperworks
Friday - fend for yourself/leftovers

This is the plan. I also write down WHERE the recipe is, so I can remember later. I will probably switch at least one of these nights around, possibly not get to one of them, but at least I have a plan. This makes it easy to, the night before, grab whatever I need from the freezer. In fact, right now, I'm thinking I might make beef lettuce wraps instead of chicken, because I have already-ground beef, whereas I would have to grind the chicken myself....

I absolutely LOVE Pinterest for pinning stuff that looks intriguing. I try to make sure that the text of my pin has some of the recipe keywords, and then I'll just go to my food board, and use the find function to browse through recipes containing my main ingredients (i.e., chicken, pasta, kale, etc.). You should totally follow me on Pinterest.

Once I've got my recipes, I systematically write down the ingredients I need (and group by section of the grocery store --> produce, grocery, dairy, bakery), then I check the flyer of my local store to see what's on sale, and add things like fruits and veggies and staples to the list (for example, pineapple was 3/$5, so we got pineapple this week).

I also usually write down one baking-type recipe so I have muffins or something like them to put in Lil Z's school snack (whole wheat pumpkin spice latte muffins this week. I also made these AMAZING lemon-coconut raw bites. I'm scheming as to how I can make them nut-free so Z could take them to school....I'm thinking pepitas and shelled sunflower seeds...).

And voila. It takes about 20-25 minutes over a nice cup of coffee and then I have a plan for the week. And it's different every week; no boring, no repetition, no huge amounts of advance prep. Don't get me wrong, I admire those who do all that prep, but I frankly don't have my schmidt together to do that when I get home from the store. I also don't plan for lunches, because I eat leftover dinner from the night before for lunch. Or, because I'm on mat leave, I'll just have something like a tuna sandwich, or eggs. I keep it simple.

You could make it even simpler - there are meal planning companies like the Fresh 20 that will email you meal plans every week for a small fee. I don't need this now, but I love the idea for when I go back to work. I'm particularly intrigued by this company because it's only 20 ingredients, and it's all natural, whole foods. If anyone has tried it, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Oh, and the cool meal-planning notepad? You can find it here. I love it! Not necessary, but cute, and it makes me feel all organized.

Edited to add - you can also get the notepad at Chapters (I've seen it in-store as well). For Canadian readers, this is probably way cheaper when you take shipping into account.

Anyway, that's how I do it. And there's no reason you couldn't recycle plans; it's just not my style. Hope you find it helpful!

chicken drumsticks & rice pilaf

2012-09-28T11:16:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was meet the teacher (again, still in shock my little mini foodie is big enough to be in SCHOOL - egads!)...so I wanted something quick and tasty for dinner.

Hubs and I (and lil Z) all love chicken drumsticks. They are super tasty, always nice and moist, and I love the fact that you can almost always get a wicked sale on them. When I'm feeling less lazy, I skin them, but because of the later start to dinner tonight, I didn't bother. Besides, I (not-so-secretly) love crispy skin.

Lil Z loves them too, because they are easy to pick up and eat right off the bone.

Another reason I love serving them is that I think it's important for kids to know where their food comes from. I think that kids should know that chicken comes from an actual chicken; drumsticks help illustrate that because I can show Z a picture of a chicken and tell her about what part we're eating. If all you ever serve is boneless, skinless cuts, it's hard for kids to picture what you're actually eating. Whole chicken is even better for this. I digress.

One cookbook I can always rely on for quick and relatively healthy recipes is Eat, Shrink and Be Merry. So I opted for a quick honey-mustard chicken drumstick recipe and a brown rice pilaf. Rice is a bit of a picky dish for me; whenever I try to make it on the stovetop, I end up with a hot gluey mess and a burnt pot.

I like to start my pilaf on the stove, and finish it in the rice cooker. Works beautifully every time!

honey-mustard chicken drumsticks
stolen and lightly modified from Eat Shrink & Be Merry

12 skinless chicken drumsticks (can also use with-skin)
1/4 c honey
2 T cider vinegar
2 T dijon mustard
1 t garlic
1 t herbes de provence
pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Arrange drumsticks in a single layer, keeping the bone toward the centre, and the meaty parts on the outside (it will cook better this way).

2. Whisk together honey, vinegar, dijon, garlic, herbes de provence and pepper. Pour evenly over chicken pieces. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven and baste chicken with sauce. Baste every 10 minutes until chicken has cooked for about 45-50 minutes (use a thermometer to be sure --> 75C). I like to use a standard turkey baster rather than a brush as I find you can build up the glaze a bit better that way.

3. Serve, spooning remaining sauce over chicken.

So, once you've got the chicken in the oven, you can start the rice.

brown rice pilaf with cranberries and nuts
stolen and lightly modified from Eat Shrink & Be Merry

1 T olive oil
2 cups chopped mushrooms
1 cup minced onion
1 clove minced garlic
1 cup brown rice
2 cups broth
1/4 c each dried cranberries and chopped nuts (I used pecans and almonds)
2 T fresh parsley

1. Heat olive oil in a medium, non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, onions and garlic. Cook and stir until vegetables begin to soften (3 mins or so).

2. Stir in rice, cook about 1 more minute, until rice is translucent. (at this point, you can add broth and cook in a pot, but I use a rice cooker). Take mushroom/rice mixture and put in a rice cooker. Add broth. Let the rice maker do its magic (it will take about 40 minutes).

3. Once the rice is cooked, stir in cranberries, nuts and parsley.

ENDED: GIVEAWAY: KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer

2012-09-26T10:23:00.001-04:00

I'm totally stoked about this.

You guys all know that I don't have advertising on my blog (partially laziness, and partially that I don't really want your visits to the site interrupted with endless ads that may or may not be interesting and/or relevant). And I don't normally do giveaways, because most of the possibilities tend to be for odd new products that I personally would never use. I don't really want to use my blog to sell other people's stuff.

BUT, there are a few products that I totally love, and when I'm lucky enough to hear from one of them, I need to pass on that love.

I've never made any secret about my love for my KitchenAid mixer. A stand mixer obviously isn't a necessity, but there are SO MANY recipes that are made infinitely easier through its use --> meringues, whipped cream, breads, swiss meringue buttercream, even mashed potatoes. I love mine; I posted my first ode to it just over five years ago and it's been serving me well ever since.

So when the folks at KitchenAid (or specifically at their PR firm) asked me if I wanted to give away a stand mixer to my readers....ummmmm...OBVIOUSLY I do.

So here's the deal, first, I've got to restrict this to Canadian residents (or people who know people with a Canadian address). I know I've got a lot of US readers, so I'll keep an eye out for something for you guys.

Now, what you have to do (and you'll see it below in the Rafflecopter widget), is first go to http://www.kitchenaidcolourology.ca/ - there, they have a quiz, so you can determine "your KitchenAid Colour Personality" (their words, not mine). After you do the quiz, you need to comment and let me know your "true colour." I got boysenberry, which is GORGEOUS (I really just want to be able to have all 26 colours because they are soooooo pretty). My stand mixer is Empire Red, which is also pretty. ;)

As a bonus entry, if you already like Definitely Not Martha on Facebook, or if you are willing to like DNM on FB, then you can have two chances.

Giveaway runs until 12:01 AM on October 9th./// This giveaway is now over. Thanks to all who entered!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and I'm super excited to be able to do this! For the winner, Rafflecopter will have your email address, so I will email you once the winner is selected to get further information. And in theory, you will get to pick the colour as well!

*** Giveaway ended! Thanks so all who entered! ***

quick and easy - the bbq chicken pasta edition

2012-09-25T12:24:00.001-04:00

The tiniest person in my house turned six months old today. It's crazy to think how quickly time flies. While I write this, she is happily bouncing up and down in her Jolly Jumper, watching me type and giggling away. Have you seen those things? I want one.

But I digress.

Last night, I was going out for Indian food with a few friends, and so I wanted something quick and easy to make for hubs and Little Z. I also wanted it to make copious amounts of leftovers, so we'd all have something for lunch today too.

I was flipping through books/websites, and then I decided that I'd create a sort of BBQ chicken pasta dish. Kind of along the idea of a bbq chicken pizza, except in pasta form. I'd say it was pretty successful, and hit all the right notes (as in, easy, fast, made a lot), but the one thing that was missing was smokiness, and I think that's because I didn't use the most appropriate kind of bbq sauce. I just used a chicken&rib sauce thta had a lot of sweetness, but none of the smokey/hickory flavour that was needed. So if you make this, be sure to use a smokey bbq sauce, and you won't regret it.

bbq black bean & chicken pasta bowl

1 T olive oil
1 lb chicken breast, diced
(montreal steak spice)
1 onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn (or fresh or canned)
1 T chili powder
1 can spaghetti sauce (use a fairly plain sauce)
3/4 c bbq sauce (I suggest a smokey one --> look for hickory or mesquite)
1 box of pasta (I used penne; I think wagon wheels would be so cute for this dish though)

Garnish:
grated cheddar
minced cilantro

1. Heat large pasta pot full of water.

2. While water is heating, in a large, deep skillet, sauté chicken in olive oil over medium heat, until cooked through, sprinkle with a bit of montreal steak spice, if you have it). Remove chicken from skillet.

3. To skillet (don't bother to clean it), add a touch more olive oil, then add onion, red pepper, green pepper and garlic. Saute until veggies are softened (about 5-6 mins). Add black beans and corn. Saute a couple more minutes, until corn is heated through. Stir in chili powder.

4. By this point, your pasta water is probably boiling. Add about 1 T salt (optional), and then cook pasta according to directions. Penne takes 11 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, add spaghetti sauce and bbq sauce to veggie mixture. Stir. Return chicken to skillet, stir and turn heat down to low and let simmer while pasta cooks (otherwise you will have exploding tomato sauce all over your stove).

6. Drain pasta, but do not rinse. Return pasta to pasta pot. Dump skillet contents in. Combine.

7. Serve, topped with cheddar and cilantro.

Easy-peasy and pretty delicious. But like I said, go for a smokey bbq sauce!

spain in a bowl

2012-09-24T09:59:00.000-04:00

When I was coming up with a title for this post, I vascillated between spain in a bowl and adventures in charcuterie. I opted for the former, primarily because the adventures in charcuterie were not entirely my own, AND I was so excited by this dish (and also the charcuterie) that I wanted to make sure more people read the post. I figured a lot of people would be put off by the idea of making their own ham.

So I'll preface the recipe by saying that you could make this with ANY ham or pork. Good quality is better, but with all the delicious seasoning, even with run of the mill ham, I think it would still be pretty awesome (though probably salty; definitely go easy on the salt).

The road that led us to our ham (and BACON!)-making adventures did not come altogether honestly. Frankly, last year, we ordered 1/4 pig from a local farmer. And the pork has been delicious, but we were left with a number of cuts (side pork, ham hocks, ham steaks, ham roasts) where we weren't really sure what to do. They were uncured/brined and unsmoked, so we decided that they needed some sort of processing to get them to a point where we would want to eat them. Hubs is braver than I in this respect, so he just bit the bullet and brined them for a few days (fairly simple brine - salt, sugar, bay leaves, spices, etc.). And a kind foodie co-worker of his smoked them for us.

The result? Meat that makes your house smell like a firepit. It's epic.

So aside from a decent stockpile of bacon, I also had this large slab of 'ham steak' (bone-in) and a couple of ham hocks. I wasn't really sure what to do with it, but I came across this recipe on epicurious, and I thought it sounded like a great place to start.

And it was. I will say that the dish was probably improved by the sheer deliciousness of my ham, but the flavours are so rich and wonderful. This is a three-part dish, definitely something you'd want to make on a weekend. I'd definitely serve this to guests, though I'd have to make sure they were non-picky meat-eaters. The ham was braised in a smokey, rich tomato broth with a touch of sherry, served over chickpeas sauteed with saffron, garlic and minced prosciutto, and topped with an almond-orange-parsley gremolata. I loved it.

spanish ham braise with saffron chickpeas and gremolata
stolen and modified from epicurious.com

Pork
1 large good-quality ham steak (2-3 inches thick); you could also use chunks of ham, chunks of pork, etc.)
1 ham hock (optional)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
5 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (or 1 t dried)
1 28-ounce can plum tomatoes in juice, tomatoes coarsely chopped
2 cups low-salt chicken broth (if using salty ham, consider either water or unsalted broth)
1 cup medium-dry Sherry
3 dried ancho chiles,* halved, stemmed, seeded (I just used about 1 t of ancho chile powder; you could use a bit of cayenne or skip this)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon Spanish sweet paprika (pimenton dulce --> I used smoked sweet paprika) or Hungarian sweet paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander

Chickpeas:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 15 1/2-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
1 large garlic clove, minced
Large pinch of saffron threads
2 thin prosciutto slices, finely chopped

Gremolata
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
1/4 cup chopped toasted almonds
1 tablespoon grated orange peel

For pork:
1. Preheat oven to 250°F. Sprinkle ham/pork shanks and ham hock, if using, with salt and pepper (TIP: if using commercial ham, no salt; it's salty enough!).

2. Heat oil in heavy wide pot over medium-high heat. Working in batches, sauté ham and hock until brown, about 5-6 minutes per batch; transfer to platter/plate.

3. Add carrots, onion, garlic, and thyme to pot. Sauté until onion softens, about 5 minutes.

4. Add coarsely chopped tomatoes with juice, broth, Sherry, chiles, tomato paste, chili powder, paprika, cumin, and coriander. Bring to boil, scraping up browned bits from pan bottom.

5. Return ham and hock, if using, to pot. Return to boil. Cover pot and place in oven. Braise until ham is tender, about 3-4 hours (note: if using commercial ham, yours will be tender from the get-go; so you can just cook for about 1-2 hours). Tilt pot; carefully spoon off all fat.

6. Simmer pork uncovered over medium heat until sauce thickens to desired consistency, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper (it probably won't need more)

For chickpeas & gremolata:
1. While pork/ham is reducing on the stove-top, make garbanzo beans and gremolata: Heat oil in medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add chickpeas, garlic, and saffron and prosciutto. Sauté until heated through, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle beans with salt and pepper (I found the canned beans and prosciutto had enough salt on their own).

2. Mix parsley, almonds, and orange peel in small bowl for gremolata; I'm lazy, I did mine all in the food processor.

To serve:
Place chickpeas in bottom of shallow bowl. Top with chunk of ham/pork, spoon sauce over top and sprinkle with gremolata.

I just love the contrast in richness in this dish - rich, meaty pork, luscious saffron chickpeas, and then the bright crunch of the gremolata. It smells like Spain and I think it's a pretty fabulous tribute to Spanish cooking.

pumpkin and coconut got together and it was very very good

2012-09-18T16:08:00.000-04:00

We had a frost warning a couple of days ago, and it's currently pouring rain.

So I guess that means it’s time to break out those rich, delicious and comforting fall flavours – spice, pumpkin, rich stews and braises. YUM. I’ve got a few things in the freezer that are begging to be braised. Can’t wait.

One of the fall flavours I like most is pumpkin. I freaking looooooooove pumpkin pie (it’s a borderline obsessive relationship, much to the dismay of hubs, who thinks it’s gross). Clearly he is wrong.

Anyway…I was browsing through the latest issue of Food&Drink (free magazine put out by Ontario’s LCBO). Eventually, the recipes do appear online in the rather cryptic F&Ddatabase, but not usually for a couple of months. So I just have to share this recipe with you, because if you don’t have this magazine, you just shouldn’t have to wait that long to make this. ;)

Imagine a torrid culinary affair between pumpkin pie and coconut cream pie. This is their love child. Delicious and delicate pumpkin-coconut cream phyllo tartlets. It’s so light and so amazing….the buttery browned phyllo just crackles apart with every bite, and the creamy pumpkin-coconut filling spills out, topped with lightly-sweetened whipped cream and the slightest touch of toasted coconut.

Be still my heart.

I had never made tarts with phyllo before, but I’ll absolutely be doing it again. I’ve written COUNTLESS times just how much I hate working with pastry dough, and while you can buy tart shells, these cute little phyllo guys are super easy, impossible to screw up, and they look and taste phenomenal. Even better, hubs had made tourtiere phyllo triangles over the weekend and I had precisely 5 sheets of phyllo left.

I found the pumpkin filling to be a bit runnier than I would have liked. I might increase the cornstarch a touch (maybe a ½ T) and cook just a bit longer. I was expecting more of a pudding consistency, rather than a sauce. This dessert can easily be made in advance (case in point: I made these yesterday and took pics today; the crust was just as explosively flakey, and the only casualty was that my whipped cream wasn’t holding its shape as well today). The only caveat is that they must be assembled at the last minute. But if you have the tart shells ready to go, it just takes a few minutes to spoon in the filling, pipe/spoon the cream and sprinkle the coconut.

This recipe makes 12, but if you’re serving it as your only dessert, I expect most people would eat two, so I would consider that it serves 6. The only change I made to the recipe was to add about ¾ t of pumpkin pie spice. I really wanted the pumpkin pie idea to come through more strongly; I think the spice made the dessert, so I would suggest you do that same. ;)

pumpkin-coconut cream tartlets

stolen from the Autumn 2012 issue of Food&Drink

FILLING

2 eggs

6 T granulated sugar

2 T cornstarch (consider adding an extra 1/2T)

1 can (400 mL) coconut milk

1 T unsalted butter

½ t vanilla

Pinch of salt

½ c pumpkin puree

¾ t pumpkin pie spice (or combination of ½ t cinnamon, and 1/8 t each cloves and nutmeg)

PASTRY

5 sheets of phyllo pastry, thawed

¼ c unsalted butter, melted (and slightly cooled)

2 T granulated sugar

TOPPINGS

2 T unsweetened coconut

1 c whipping cream

1 t granulated sugar

¼ t coconut extract (not necessary, but adds to the coconut flavour)

1. To prepare filling, whisk eggs with 3 T sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a medium bowl.

2. In a small saucepan, whisk remaining 3 T sugar with cornstarch. Slowly whisk in coconut milk until evenly mixed. Set over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, whisking occasionally (I would bring it to a gentle boil).

3. Very, very slowly, pour some of the hot coconut mixture into the eggs, while furiously whisking (this tempers the eggs so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs). Once you’ve poured about half the coconut stuff in, take the egg/coconut mixture, and whisk it BACK into your coconut pot. Set back over medium heat. Whisk until it comes to a simmer and thickens a bit.

4. Remove from heat. Whisk in butter, vanilla and salt, then pumpkin puree, until evenly mixed. Pour into a bowl and press plastic wrap onto surface. Refrigerate until chilled.

5. To prepare pastry, preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan. Unroll phyllo onto counter.

6. Cover with damp kitchen towel. Carefully remove one sheet to counter and recover stack of pastry with towel. Lightly brush single sheet of pastry with butter. Sprinkle with about 1 t of sugar. Top with another sheet of phyllo (try to line up edges). Repeat until you’ve used all sheets of phyllo. Cut into 12 even squares (I used a fancy pastry cutter, but a pizza cutter works great, as will a sharp knife).

7. Press squares into muffin tin. Bake in centre of oven for 10-12 minutes, or until golden (after 10 minutes, I turned the temp up to 400F and cooked another 2, because I wanted mine nice and toasted; watch closely though because burnt phyllo is bad news!). Remove to a rack and cool completely.

8. Toast your coconut (I toasted mine in a dry frying pan; you could use the oven as well). Again, watch closely because it will go from toasted to burnt very quickly. Let cool.

9. Beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. Add sugar and coconut extract, then continue to whip for stiff peaks.

10. To assemble, spoon filling into each cup. Top with cream. Sprinkle with coconut. Serve immediately.

Because I had so much pumpkin left after this was done, I also made some pumpkin muffins.

Check out this tasty pumpking-gingerbread muffin recipe from the Paleo Mom. They aren’t overly sweet and fit the bill perfectly for Lil Z’s school snack – nut-free, healthy and yummy.

muffins are really cake in disguise

2012-09-11T10:33:00.002-04:00

When I was growing up, my mom used to make a dozen blueberry muffins fresh, from scratch, almost every morning. Those muffins were LEGENDARY. My brothers used to devour them as quickly as she could bake them.

I was actually indifferent to blueberry muffins (a fact I didn't tell her until much later), but my friends used to pretty much fall all over themselves to see who could claim the fresh-baked muffin in my lunch.

A nice homemade muffin is such a comforting treat....if it's fresh, it has that delicious crunchy top, the sweet taste, that feeling of satiety....yum.

Somehow though, in the unnamed number of years since I had my mom making my lunch (we'll just say it's a lot more than 10), the muffin has morphed. It's gone from a few bites, to a cake-like monstrosity sugar bomb. So muffins have a bad rap now (unlike the nutrition halo enjoyed by granola bars).

I maintain that muffins can totally be part of a tasty snack or breakfast, we just need to do a few things with them. We need to make them smaller. We need to cut the sugar. And we need them to be whole grain. Because I also love chocolate chip muffins, I'm going to use the Tim Hortons Chocolate Chip mufffin as a comparison.

Weight - TH has a 115g muffin. My muffins weigh between 50g and 68g.

Calories - TH is 410 calories. A muffin should not be 400 calories. These muffins are about 181 calories.

Sugar - TH is 37 g. That is almost 10 teaspoons. Mine have 8g. That's about 2 teaspoons. They still taste sweet.

Fibre - TH has 2g. Mine have 4g, despite being half the size.

Sodium - TH has 430 mg. Mine have 94 mg.

Bottom line, these muffins are denser, pack more fibre, way less sugar and sodium. They are about equal in terms of fat, but mine get the fat from avocado and canola oil.

I got this recipe from the October 2012 issue of Clean Eating, and just tweaked it a wee bit. It's not my recipe but it's so yummy, and I couldn't find it online anywhere to share it with you. So I'm posting it. And the picture is from my phone, so it is sub-par. I'm feeling lazy, and didn't feel like dragging out my DSLR.

spelt avocado-banana chocolate chip muffins
stolen and lightly modified from October 2012 Clean Eating

1 3/4 c spelt flour (or whole wheat flour)
1/4 c brown sugar (or evaporated cane juice; I was out!)
1 t baking powder
1/2 t sea salt
2 eggs
2 T canola or olive oil
1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
1 ripe banana
1 t vanilla
1/2 c dark chocolate chips (I use minis for better distribution of chocolate OMNOMNOM)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Line a muffin tin with papers, or mist with cooking spray. I let Lil Z pick the papers.

3. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

4. In a medium bowl, place the avocado and banana. Mash with a potato masher/pastry blender/fork. Lil Z helped with this too. Add eggs, oil and vanilla. Combine with a whisk.

5. Add liquids to flour mixture, and stir lightly until mostly combined. Add chocolate chips and fold in. Don't overwork your batter or your muffins will be hockey pucks.

6. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full (I use a 1/3 c. measure and don't quite fill it).

7. Bake for 21-25 minutes, until tops are browned. Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes, then remove and let cool on a rack. Voila.

According to clean eating, here is the nutritional lowdown: per muffin, 181 calories, 7g fat, 27g carbs, 4g fibre, 8g sugar, 4g protein, 94mg sodium.

These are DELICIOUS. Hubs, who normally eschews my chocolate chip muffins in favour of my mother's blueberry ones (apparently chocolate chip muffins are juvenile?) just loves them. Lil Z hasn't tried them yet, but I am willing to bet that she is going to just love them. And I love that I've given her something that's packed full of healthy fats, satiating fibre, and just enough chocolate to make it all yummy.

Had to post this because you NEED to make these muffins. Dense and delightful.

pasta + meatballs + pesto + veggies = omg

2012-09-04T21:38:00.001-04:00

yes, I know it's been a while since I posted.

I have been cooking (so I totally encourage anyone who wants to know what I'm cooking from day-to-day to like my FB Page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Definitely-Not-Martha/155084067933484 :)

Since I'm linking to so many recipes from FB, it seemed like overkill to be reposting my versions of them here.

That said, since I created my own 'recipe' (I use the term loosely) tonight, I felt I had to share. I've been craving pesto for a few days, and last night, I had defrosted a pack of extra-lean ground beef.....so I figured, why not make mini-meatballs, and serve with veggies, pasta and pesto.

As a bonus, I visited the farmers' market on the weekend, so I had a surfeit of luscious (and a bit overripe) heirloom tomatoes, some pattypan squash and a whole whack of basil. EVEN BETTER.

This is a recipe that lends itself well to substitutions. You could buy the meatballs. You could make your own pesto. Really, any mix of veggies that you have would work well. It's more the idea of the recipe - pasta + pesto + meatballs + veg. My version is pretty kick ass though. Just sayin'

shells with pesto and mini-meatballs

meatballs:
1 lb extra-lean ground beef
1/2 c finely chopped onion
3 T minced parsley
1/2 c breadcrumbs (I used panko)
1 egg
1 T worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper

1. Combine all ingredients.

2. Preheat oven to 400F.
3. Form into about 50 mini-meatballs and arrange on cookie sheet (I cover mine with foil because I"m lazy and hate handwashing).

4. Bake for 10 minutes. Turn the broiler on, and broil for about 2 minutes to brown the tops. (Note: use a digital thermometer to ensure your meatballs have reached at least 71C. Test 3-4 of the biggest one. Because nobody wants e.coli!)

everything else:
2 T olive oil
1.5 cups diced onion
3-4 cups sauté veggies (I used zucchini and pattypan squash; but peppers or mushrooms would be great)
2-3 cups chopped tomatoes (or about a pint of halved grape tomatoes....or more)
1 tub bocconcini, chopped into bite-size pieces (optional)
large handful of basil, roughly chopped
1 jar of pesto (I used Classico, which is about 1 cup or so)
1 lb dry pasta (I used large shells....penne, farfalle, etc. would totally work)

1. While meatballs are baking, put large pot of water on for pasta.
2. Chop your onion and sauté veggies.

3. In a large skillet, heat olive oil and cook onion and veggies for about 10 minutes or so (until they reach your desired softness).
4. Cook pasta according to package directions (and meanwhile, chop your tomatoes, basil and bocconcini).
5. Drain pasta (don't rinse). Return to large pot (turn burner off). Combine pasta, pesto, meatballs and sautéed veggies. Gently stir in tomatoes, bocconcini and basil.

Enjoy.

Because it's freaking AWESOME. I had two servings. Hubs had two servings. Lil Z also had two servings, and there are still 5 containers of leftovers left. This easily would serve 8 hungry people. I just loved the heartiness of the pasta and the meatballs, with the freshness of the heirloom tomatoes and basil. And the chewy melty bites of bocconcini were just the perfect little treat. If you didn't have bocconcini, you could just grate some of your favourite aged cheese overtop (grana padano, parmigiano, etc.).

real fruit, real food, dang good muffins

2012-01-29T21:35:00.002-05:00

If there's one thing that drives me nutty when it comes to selling food, it's when companies advertise something they are not truly delivering. They aren't breaking the law, because you can always find out the real story through the ingredient list and the nutrition facts table....but it's still a poopy practice that makes me crazy.

Case in point - companies that sell products with fruit on the package, but no fruit *in* the package. Baked goods are one of the WORST offenders for these.

For example, take this blueberry muffin mix - if you click the link and read the label....it does not contain any actual blueberries (although it does contain delicious-sounding artificial blueberry flavor bits, which themselves contain sugar, oil, artificial flavour and 2 different artificial colours). Blech. No thanks. These triple berry muffins are just as bad - containing the similarly appetizing imitation berry bits.

As an alternate example, there are those products that DO contain real fruit....just not so much the fruit that's being promoted.

This one actually peeved me, because it's a product I've purchased before (as you can imagine, I don't buy muffin mix, so I haven't fallen for the tactics above....that said, if any of you ever buy cake mix, before the carrot and banana nut cake....they probably don't contain carrots or bananas....always read the label....or google a recipe and make your own cake). The example above, while enlightening, don't really irritate me THAT much, because I don't think anyone really expects packaged muffin and cake mixes to be healthy, wholesome foods.

But when I buy an unsweetened applesauce product, labelled with a flavour....I do think it's reasonable to expect that the flavour labelled on the outside matches the ingredients that make up the product within. Mott's Fruitsations is a brand of applesauce product that advertises itself as unsweetened, boasts the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check label and in general, would like you to think that your Raspberry, Cherry, Starfruit puree is as pure and untainted as unicorn poop.

Except check out the ingredient list: apples, water, concentrated apple puree, vegetable juice concentrate for colour (black carrot), natural flavour, concentrated raspberry puree, ascorbic acid.

So um....I don't see any starfruit on that label. I don't see any cherry on that label. I do see black carrot juice for colour, though since the end product does not taste like carrot, I can only imagine that the tiny amounts of "natural flavour" and "concentrated raspberry puree" are the source of the berry deliciousness of this snack.

And it is pretty delicious, not gonna lie.

But I still feel that it's misleading to be a supposedly healthy product with these supposedly natural ingredients, and it turns out that the flavour is not, in fact, coming from the ingredient, but from some 'natural flavour' that is likely INCREDIBLY far processed from an actual fruit.

Don't even get me started on things like granola bars. Cereal bars (like the jam-filled Nutri-Grain bars) are some of the worst offenders over-promoting ingredients that barely make an appearance. My favourite? The cherry-pomegranate one. Ingredients for the filling are as follows: invert sugar, corn syrup, water, glycerin, cherry puree concentrate, sugar, modified corn starch, pomegranate juice concentrate, sodium alginate, sodium citrate, natural and artificial flavor, malic acid, citric acid, methylcellulose, dicalcium phosphate, caramel color, red #40.

I love how they advertise it as full of antioxidants, but I mostly see a bunch of sugar, gelling agents, additives I don't really understand, marginal amounts of concentrate fruit [which is also essentially sugar], flavours (both natural and artificial) and two different artificial colours.

Again...blech. Do yourself a favour and buy a pomegranate and some cherries. Eat them with oatmeal. You'll be much better off.

Allllll this bring me to the point that you really have to read product labels carefully. If you want a fruit muffin, I suggest you set aside 40 minutes and make yourself one. In fact, I suggest you make the one below. :)

It's not complicated to make (I've added a bit of complication, but not too much, I swear! And it's totally optional) and the end result is a muffin that you can feel relatively good about. You can pronounce all the ingredients, it's made with whole grains, it's not AS sweet as a purchased muffin, and it's got real fruit.

You'd still be better off with fruit and a bowl of oatmeal, but it wouldn't taste this good. ;)

Triple-berry explosion muffins

stolen and modified from here

1 1/2 c oat bran (or wheat bran)

1 cup milk

1/2 c unsweetened applesauce

1 egg

1/2 c honey

1 t vanilla

1 c whole wheat flour (I think spelt would work well too)

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2 T ground flax (optional)

2 T ground chia (optional)

2/3 c frozen raspberries (still frozen)

2/3 c frozen blueberries (still frozen)

1/3 c reduced-sugar jam (I used strawberry) - this is optional

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line tins with paper. Get all your ingredients together.

Except forget a few, and then get them out after.

2. Mix together bran and milk. Let stand 10 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, mix applesauce, egg, honey and vanilla.

4. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, chia and flax seeds. Again, the seeds are optional - if you have 'em, go for it, but they aren't necessary.

5. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Give it a quick stir. Add the bran, stir just a few more times (lumps are fine...remember, the more you stir a muffin batter, the more your muffins will resemble hockey pucks. Be gentle).

6. Stir in raspberries and blueberries. Gently spoon into 12 muffin cups.

7. OPTIONAL: Using a piping bag (or icing gun), gently poke about 1 teaspoon of jam into the centre of each muffin. I use an icing gun with a plain small round tip. I added a bit more on top, because I still had a loaded icing gun. :) It does up the sugar content but it's a nice little surprise.

Filled muffins:

8. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Once the jam is bubbling and oozing a bit, they are done. Let them sit in the muffin tin for about 5 minutes (especially if you haven't used paper...lower-fat muffins do tend to stick a bit!).

Cool on a rack.

These muffins are delicious....when you look at the ingredients, you can tell they are pretty healthy, but when you taste them, you just get to enjoy the delicious summery tang of real berries, just a hint of sweetness and a whole lot of whole grain goodness.

NOTE: I have also made these muffins omitting the berries and jam, and using dark chocolate chips. They were awesome. Also worth trying.

Hope you enjoy! And don't forget to check me out on Facebook!

winter seafood dinner party

2012-01-22T20:38:00.002-05:00

Before I get into this dinner party menu, just wanted to show you my snazzy new facebook page - just adding another way for you to keep up. I also add some content on there that you don't get on the blog or via twitter. More snark and links and that kind of thing. So it's toooooooooooootally worth liking. :)

I'll apologize in advance for the cruddiness of these photos - my camera battery (all four camera batteries, actually....) was, of course, toast when I went to take prep pictures (so there are none of those). And that's when the light was actually good.

So unfortunately, these pics are a result of overhead kitchen light. But I swear the food is just as delicious as normal, so read on......

I was having some friends over for dinner, and I wasn't really sure what to make - the only restrictions I had were no peanuts, and that one of the diners was not a fan of big bloody masses of meat. Fine by me anyway, as I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be steering clear of steak tartare these days.

So I went with a seafood theme, and tried to stay a little bit seasonal (not that you can really eat *seasonal* food in Ottawa in January...).

For an appetizer, I opted to make some coconut shrimp - I was inspired from a recipe in the Kraft What's Cooking holiday magazine (I know...heinous, but I was inspired, what can I say?). So I took out the Shake and Bake, and the pre-made sauce, and made my own version with panko and a sour cream sauce. It was really delicious, but the shrimp are best right out of the oven, so they are nice and crispy.

I did find that the panko adhered well and really gave a nice crunch to the shrimp, which is unusual in a non-deep-fried appie. I served these with some venison pepperettes (courtesy of my bro), and some red and green pepper strips. I like to keep appetizers relatively light, and not too filling, because I just want to get people geared up for some gooooood eatin' later in the evening.

Coconut-Panko Shrimp
makes about two dozen

1 lb large shrimp (26/lb), peeled and deveined. Take off the tails, nobody eats them and they leave a mess
1 cup flaked unsweetened coconut, toasted (toast in a frying pan for 5-6 minutes on medium, stirring often and watching like a hawk)
1 cup panko
1 t curry powder

1 t garlic powder
dash cayenne pepper
salt and pepper

1 egg, beaten

1/2 c low-fat sour cream
2 T indian curry paste
1/4 c chopped cilantro

1. (If you are baking right after assembling, preheat your oven to 400F).

2. Combine coconut, panko and seasonings in a shallow bowl.

3. Dip shrimp in egg (I actually just tossed the whole batch of shrimp in with the egg because I'm lazy like that).

4. Coat shrimp in coconut-panko mixture until evenly coated. TIP: have one 'wet hand' and one 'dry hand' - use one hand to grab the slimy eggy shrimp and use the other to help toss/pretty the coating mixture. The coating will adhere better and you won't end up covered in eggy coconut goo.

5. Lay each shrimp on a baking sheet. Don't let them touch. I baked mine on a silpat.

6. Bake at 400F for 10-12 minutes. Mine were perfect after 10 minutes (just pick one and cut through to make sure it's pink and opaque the whole way through).

7. While shrimp is baking, mix together sour cream, curry paste and cilantro.

Enjoy! It's awesome and pretty easy to put together.

I came across a really intriguing roasted cauliflower salad recipe on epicurious, and pretty much followed the recipe exactly (though I halved it because it was a huuuuuuuuuuuuge recipe).

Half of the recipe was just about perfect for 6 appetizer servings. I'm sharing my version below, but I've linked to the original. I figure most people are likely to need 4-6 servings of salad, rather than 12ish.

You can do all of the components in advance (i.e., the cauliflower, chopping the lettuce). I dressed each salad individually and this worked well.

Roasted Cauliflower and Radicchio Salad

stolen and slightly modified from epicurious

1 small head cauliflower cut into 1-inch-wide florets
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup white-wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
9 large leaves of romaine, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 small head radicchio, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide strips
3/4 cup loosely packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/2 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped

parmesan cheese for grating on top

1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450°F.

2. Toss cauliflower with 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl. Spread in 1 layer in a shallow baking pan (1 inch deep) and roast, turning over with tongs halfway through roasting, until tender and golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes total. Cool in pan on a rack, then transfer to large bowl.

3. Whisk together vinegar, shallot, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl, then add remaining 5 tablespoons oil in a slow stream, whisking until emulsified. (FYI - this does not emulsify...just whisk before drizzling)

4. Add romaine, radicchio, parsley and dressing to cauliflower and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with nuts and parmesan.

I loved the richness of the nuts and cheese with the deep roasted flavour of the cauliflower. The acidity of the dressing really made it fabulous. Great salad. It's a bit labour-intensive, but I think it's wonderful for fall/winter and would make a great meal with a grilled chicken breast or something.

For soup, I went back to seafood.....I've made this mussel-fennel bisque before. I'm not going to re-post the recipe here, because I make it pretty much EXACTLY as written.

The only changes I recommend is just including all of the fennel in the soup itself, and skipping the browned fennel cubes (too much work). I think you could also reduce the cream by half. The seafood broth with rice is so rich on its own that I don't think 1 c of heavy cream is fully necessary. It's so yummy though. I love this soup. It's rich and delicious and really just the perfect seafoody-indulgence. With bread and salad, it would make a great meal.

For the main, I had some salmon hanging around in my freezer and so that's where I started. I ended up with another epicurious winner, this salmon fillet recipe with a creamy horseradish sauce. I just made a few small changes (I baked my salmon at 400F for 12 minutes, because I"m lazy and because my bbq is under about a metre of snow and ice. Baking is great for dinner parties, because you just pop the dish in the oven, and then go back to your guests - no fuss! I marinated the salmon for about two hours, which was great.

I can also attest that the leftovers are PHENOMENAL made into a salmon salad - I just combined my leftover salmon with the leftover sauce, added some minced onion/green pepper/celery and it was perfection in a sammich. YUM. I'd make this again - it's super easy and quick to come together and the sauce was delicious.

I served the salmon with this butternut squash dish - it's simple squash wedges, roasted in olive oil, salt and pepper, and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, sprinkled with pepitas and mint. It was a simple dish, but I really liked it as well. I think the serving estimate is a bit low (4 people ate most of the squash), but I also baked my squash over an hour to get it nice and soft and caramelized.

That said, I have a squash PSA. WEAR GLOVES WHEN CHOPPING BUTTERNUT SQUASH. The internets have not come to a consensus on why this is, but with some squash and some people, skin will react. After I chopped the squash, the fingers on my right hand started feeling numb. Then they started feeling tight. And swollen. It really kinda freaked me out. And then the skin that was feeling tight cracked in about a million places (sorry, I know that's gross). It seems it's like some sort of chemical coming from the squash that did it to me. Anyway, the moral of the story is....wear your damn gloves when you chop that squash. And then you can avoid freaking out about your bizarre reaction. #learnfrommyfail

Last, I wanted to finish with something pretty simple, and on the lighter side of desserts. I've made passionfruit pavlova before, so I just made a variation of it this time and it was sooooooooo fabulous.

I followed a different meringue recipe this time, and I think the oven temperature was too high....my meringues really did brown quite a bit. But they were still yummy, so I don't think it was a big deal. Also, rather than filling with whipped cream, I opted to fill with the most decadently delicious coconut yogurt in the world. Even at nearly 10% fat, I figured it was a lighter choice than the 35% whipping cream. And man, it's sooooooooooo good. Instead of a simple passionfruit drizzle, I added some pureed mango (just 3/4 of a large mango, a bit of superfine sugar, and a splash of water, pureed together) to amp up the volume. Passionfruits are $3/each and don't really give a whole lotta pulp each. It was a great balance and the tropical flavour of the passionfruit really came through nicely. I would make this again and again. Perfect easy dessert.

So that's my menu....I wanted to keep it on the simpler side, and not ultra-indulgent. I thought it balanced really well and the flavours were really good. YUM. Any of these recipes would be great as part of another menu as well.

Thanks for reading - and don't forget to check out DNM on facebook!

ringing in the new year with chickpeas and dark leafy greens

2012-01-02T22:15:00.004-05:00

If you guys are anything at all like me, you probably tend to start out the new year with all sorts of healthy eating resolutions. For me, it's not even really about the idea that it's a "NEW YEAR" and thus I must resolve to renew myself and become somehow better. Mostly, it's that I've just come through an orgy of unhealthy (yet oh so delicious) food and celebration and that I think it's time for a little more restraint.

Also, it doesn't hurt that I'm six months pregnant and would prefer not to gain 10 zillion pounds. Not that I did that last time or anything *cough.*

Veggies are good for me.

Hubs is less than thrilled. In fact, he pronounced that tonight's creation tasted like "New Year's resolution food." Not sure that's the most ringing endorsement. At any rate, I thought it was tasty, and if you crave something a little more indulgent, these wraps are easily doctored to include such toppings as cheese, salsa, sour cream, etc. Really, they can be as indulgent as you want them to be. For all I know or care, you could douse them in gobs of butter and a few slabs of bacon.

But you won't do that, right?

Because it's ALL about the healthy...2012 means more swiss chard and kale.....

I doctored this recipe pretty substantially in terms of flavourings. I could tell from reading the original in the Jan/Feb issue of Clean Eating that some flavour was going to be needed.

I started with these guys and went from there (hence adding curry powder, etc.).

I'm all for eating healthy, but food still needs to have a certain amount of flavour and taste to be yummy. I simplified the instructions as well, because I'm all about keeping things as easy as possible. :)

Chickpea-swiss chard veggie wraps

(adapted from Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Clean Eating)

1 t olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas)

1 zucchini, chopped

2 c frozen corn

1 bell pepper, chopped (red or green.....your choice)

1 large carrot, peeled and chopped (use 2 if they are small)

1 bunch swiss chard, chopped (smaller bunch is probably best)

***Note - spice measurements are approximate. Taste and adjust as necessary.

1 t turmeric

1 t garlic powder (or use fresh if you are feeling less lazy)

1 t cumin

1/4 t cinnamon

2 t curry powder

1/2 t salt

pepper to taste

1 T vinegar

tortillas

cilantro, chopped

tomatoes, chopped

sri racha hot sauce, because it is awesome.

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, pepper, zucchini and carrot.

Once they have sautéed for a couple of minutes, add in the corn. It's okay if it's still frozen (you can see Lil Z likes to steal it while it's still frozen....)

Cook until veggies are softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Add in dry spices (turmeric, garlic powder, cinnamon, cumin, curry powder). Combine well. Throw swiss chard over top.

Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5-7 minutes, until the greens have wilted down. Add salt and pepper and vinegar. Taste - adjust as needed.

I found this mix could take a lot of spice and I may have even used more than I call for above. Since this forms the bulk of your filling, you will want this to be pretty flavourful.

3. While chard is cooking, chop your tomatoes and cilantro. Combine if you want. I think fresh lettuce (or something else with crunch) would be a great addition to this.

4. Top each tortilla with about 1/2 cup of filling (I had huge tortillas, so I used about 3/4 c) and a good sprinkling of tomato/cilantro. Top with a nice amount of sri racha....as much as you can handle. :)

I think it's a great way to start off the year. The spice of the sri racha really gives the bite that this dish needs. I think the filling would also be a great side dish with fish or chicken. Hubs is really not as thrilled about it, but has promised me that he will in fact eat his leftovers tomorrow for lunch...

Perfect to start the new year with a meatless Monday.

spooky spiderweb cupcakes

2011-10-30T23:26:00.003-04:00

They really aren't that spooky - more cute than anything!

This is just going to be a quick post, but thought I would share.

I made double chocolate cupcakes, using this cake recipe I've used millions of times before (it makes 36 cupcakes, if you use a 1/4 c measure to scoop the cupcakes). Bake at 300F for about 21 minutes (don't overbake, or they will be dry). At some point, I'd kinda like to experiment in making this recipe a tiny bit less sweet (maybe less sugar, or using unsweetened chocolate instead of dark chocolate....)...otherwise, it's sheer chocolate perfection. It's nice and soft, and moist and deeply chocolatey. OMNOMNOM.

I tried a different icing technique - I'd recently read about icings that involved a cooked milk/flour mixture incorporated into whipped sugar and butter. I used this whipped vanilla buttercream recipe from Epicurious. I was intrigued for a couple of reasons....first, the flour/milk would cut the pure buttery sweetness of a classic buttercream, and second, I had hopes that the use of granulated sugar would avoid that powdery blech taste of regular buttercream too. I wasn't disappointed. I made this recipe, doubled it, and added the zest of an orange, along with enough orange gel colour to make them a bit more Halloweeney. The icing is delicious - it has a wonderfully soft texture and isn't as dead sweet as most. I'll try this technique again!

Last, I topped them with white chocolate spiderwebs. I was actually shocked at how easy they were to make - I just purchased some white chocolate pastilles, melted them, and piped them from a ziploc bag (with the teeeniest snip ever in the corner). I drew a freehand template with a sharpie, and just piped onto waxed paper overtop of the template.

For good measure, I piped a few freehand ghosts too (had too much chocolate left, and was not convinced that any of my spiderwebs would make it off the paper). I used currants for eyes, and sprinkled with a little bit of black glittery sugar.

It was super easy to do (even for me, who is COMPLETELY talentless at piping/decorating) and they came off the wax paper pretty easily too (no need to chill in the fridge). You'll see that Geek Sweets has a beautiful photo walkthrough of these spiderwebs. Check it out!

Coming up soon - a post about my $50 Food Day dinner party (four courses AND bread for $5/person), and a phenomenal braised chicken cashew curry. I have a new toy.....isn't it beautiful? Look forward to lots of braising in the near future. ;)

Oh, and last but not least, mini-foodie two is on the way....coming sometime in April. Should be good times...

Cheers, and thanks for reading!

falling in love with fall comfort food

2011-10-02T20:53:00.005-04:00

I have both the fortune and misfortune to live in a country where the weather is pretty much unpleasant for at least half the year. As a result, I'm surrounded by people who are completely devoted to and consumed by all things Summer and sun, and are all about taking advantage of everything the warm weather has to offer.

I am not one of those people. I actually don't like hot weather.

I love the Fall. I love cool crisp mornings, I love fiery bright forests, and I absolutely love Fall comfort food. Like obsessively love it. For the last month, I'll I've been able to think about is stew, roast, pot pie and root vegetables. I've actually been a bit gleeful that it's finally getting cold (kay, maybe I was not so gleeful to greet a cold, rainy, gray morning today...but I digress).

Mmmmmmmmmmm.....potatoes. I could live on potatoes.

So I'm indulging myself. I hope you enjoy some of these treats as much as I have been. I've been in a cooking frenzy this weekend. On top of the wonderful feast I'm about to share, I also made a batch of baked beans today (from October's Clean Eating - on shelves now) (for tomorrow's dinner, to be gobbled up accompanied by cheddar garlic biscuits). For tonight, I made a bolognese sauce that Lil Z and I enjoyed with farfalle. YUM. PS - If you make that bolognese, add a can of tomato paste and a good palmful (2T) of italian herbs).

For Saturday's dinner, I wanted to use seasonal ingredients, so that basically gave me a harvest theme. I started the meal with my favourite curried parsnip fries, with yogourt curry dip. Love these guys - they are so easy to make and they usually go flying off the table. 1lb of parsnips feeds 3ish people, and 2lb of parsnips is best for a crowd. If people are dieting, then probably best to stick with 1lb of parsnips (I had some dieters in the crowd, and hence lots of leftovers).

I followed the parsnip fries with the most decadent roasted tomato soup. I have recently discovered that Costco (in Canada, at least) carries these amazing San Marzano style tomatoes (no, not controlled origin, but they are San Marzano type of tomatoes, grown in that region of Italy....just no AOC-type label).

They are delicious and for the price, I'm totally cool with the lack of formal pedigree. I found the recipe on SmittenKitchen (who in turn, had adapted it from America's Test Kitchen). At this point, I don't care who came up with it - it is genius, and I totally agree with the simplified processed instituted by Deb at SK, because there's no need to strain your soup. Not for a fall feast. Perhaps if the Queen were coming, but that wasn't happening for me, so I didn't strain either.

Now, I confess that I had *intended* on serving my soup with no-knead spelt bread. Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of those ideas that was fabulous in my head, and utter failure in reality. The night before the dinner, I had mixed my flour, yeast, water and salt. I waited the requisite 18 hours. But when I went to try to 'fold' my dough, I discovered that the water and the flour had not actually merged. It was strange. So I pitched it. Ergo, there was no bread with the soup. But it's just was well, because frankly, the soup is robust enough to stand on its own.

As a main, I served a centre-cut pork loin (I know, it's been four months since I posted, and I"m writing about pork AGAIN...sorry!), along with wine-poached plums. I accompanied this with sage-roasted potatoes/sweet potatoes, and sauteed spinach with garlic (spinach+garlic + splash of soy). It made for a colourful plate, with nicely balanced flavours. It would have been improved had I not (again...oops) overcooked the pork. In my defence, the thermometer went from 150F (not done enough for this particular dinner) to 170F in about five minutes. Zoinks. It was a little dry, but enough of the wine poaching liquid and it was very salvageable. :) Note to self: next time, take the damn roast out at 150F and let'er rest. Lesson learned. Again.

For dessert, I finished it off with a chocolate spelt cake. Why the spelt obsession, you ask? My guest of honour has a wheat intolerance, and spelt is often well-tolerated by those with wheat sensitivities. That said, it's important to note that spelt is NOT okay for someone who has celiac disease, because it does have some gluten in it.

All that said, after my epic spelt bread failure, I was a little dubious of this chocolate cake actually being any good. It was a wholegrain chocolate cake, made only with cocoa (no actual chocolate) and filled with dates. I was definitely skeptical. I needn't have been though - it was actually pretty fabulous! You have to be careful not to overbake (take the cake out of the oven before any toothpick comes out dry....once the cake is set and mostly baked, take it out. It's delicious and even though you can see the odd date bit, but you really can't tell they are in there. And that means a lot, coming from me, because I maintain (and always have) that dates look like cockroaches.

See? Pile of cockroaches. ;)

Parsnip fries with curry dip

1 lb parsnips

1-2 T thai red curry paste

2 T vegetable oil

1 c plain yogourt

2 T indian curry paste (mild or hot, depending on your taste buds)

2 T honey/maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Peel parsnips and cut into 'fries'. Look at these babies in all of their root vegetable-ey goodness.

2. Combine thai curry paste and vegetable oil.

Toss parsnips in oil/curry paste mixture.

3. Spread out parsnips on baking sheet (I line with parchment paper) and bake for about 30 minutes. You can go as long as 45, just watch the little bits for signs of burning.

4. Meanwhile, combine yogourt, indian curry paste and honey/syrup. Taste and adjust to your taste (i.e., if it's too hot, add yogourt. If it's too boring, add more curry paste. Add more sweetener if that is to your taste).

5. Enjoy parsnip fries with dip! It's that easy.

Roasted Tomato Soup

(from Smitten Kitchen and America's Test Kitchen)

2 (28-ounce) cans whole tomatoes packed in juice, drained, 3 cups juice reserved (I used San Marzanos)
1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 large shallots, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Pinch ground allspice
2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups chicken stock, homemade or canned low-sodium
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons brandy or dry sherry (I used marsala)
Salt and cayenne pepper

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 450°F. Line rimmed baking sheet with foil. With fingers, carefully open whole tomatoes over strainer set in bowl and push out seeds, allowing juices to fall through strainer into bowl. I had help for this part. ;)

Spread seeded tomatoes in single layer on foil. Sprinkle evenly with brown sugar (I forgot to sprinkle with sugar....I just mixed it into the soup....I'm pretty sure it was almost as good!).

Bake until all liquid has evaporated and tomatoes begin to color, about 30 minutes. Let tomatoes cool slightly, then peel them off foil; transfer to small bowl and set aside.

2. Heat butter over medium heat in large saucepan until foaming. Add shallots, tomato paste and allspice. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until shallots are softened, 7 to 10 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds. Gradually add chicken stock, whisking constantly to combine; stir in reserved tomato juice and roasted tomatoes. Cover, increase heat to medium, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, to blend flavors, about 10 minutes.

3. Blend with the pulverizer of your choice (for me: immersion blender....no extra pots to clean!). Add cream and warm over low heat until hot, about 3 minutes. Off heat, stir in brandy and season with salt and cayenne. Serve immediately. I didn't find that extra salt was really needed, but to each his/her own.

This soup was what canned tomato soup only wished it could be....sophisticated, rich, delicious and SO perfect for a cold rainy day. It WOULD be perfect with grilled cheese. Yum. I had grandiose plans of swirling some more on top of the soup, but it really doesn't need a thing....so it doesn't look fancy, but it's YUM. Make it.

Roasted Pork Loin with Poached Plums
stolen and slightly modified from Epicurious.com
makes 6 servings

6 sweet firm red or black plums (such as Burgundies, Satsumas, or El Dorados; about 2 pounds), quartered, pitted
2 cups Pinot Gris or Viognier
1 cup dry red wine
2 whole star anise
cinnamon stick
1/4 cup plus 1 1/4 teaspoons sugar, divided
2 cups low-salt chicken broth
5 fresh thyme sprigs plus 1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme, divided

2 tablespoons chopped shallot

Pork
2 1 1/4-pound pork tenderloins (I used 1 centre-cut loin roast, about 2.5 lbs)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, minced
Chopped fresh chives

For Plums:
1. Combine first 5 ingredients and 1/4 cup sugar in heavy large saucepan; bring to boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat; simmer until plums are tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer plums to platter. Strain wine mixture.

Star anise is pretty.

2. Return strained liquid to same saucepan. Add broth, thyme sprigs, and shallot. Boil until mixture is reduced to 1 cup, about 25 minutes. Strain sauce; stir in 1 1/4 teaspoons sugar and chopped thyme. Season with salt and pepper.

For Pork:
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Brush pork with 1 tablespoon oil; sprinkle with thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper.

2. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork and cook until brown on all sides, turning often, about 5 minutes. Transfer skillet to oven, and roast pork until thermometer inserted into center registers 160F, about 20 minutes (I cooked mine for 40 minutes because center loins are much thicker than tenderloins....when in doubt, use a thermometer).

3. Remove skillet from oven and let pork stand 10 minutes. Cut pork crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Serve with poached plums and sauce. Sprinkle with chopped chives.

Chocolate Espresso Spelt Cake

from epicurious.com

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for pan
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder plus additional for dusting pan and cake (I confess to not knowing whether my cocoa is dutch process or not...it was Fry's...I think it is)
1 cup boiling-hot water
1 1/2 tablespoons instant-espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 lb Medjool dates (12 to 14), pitted and coarsely chopped (1 1/2 cups)
2 cups spelt flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs

Special equipment: a 9-inch springform pan

1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter springform pan, then lightly dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess. I actually lined the bottom of my pan with parchment, just to be doubly sure, AND I baked it on a lined baking pan (I always do this because I do not trust liquidy substances in springform pans....learn from my mistakes)

2. Stir together boiling-hot water, espresso powder, vanilla, and baking soda in a bowl, then add dates, mashing lightly with a fork, and steep until liquid cools to room temperature, about 10 minutes.

3. Whisk together spelt flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in another bowl. I'm told it's important to spoon spelt lightly into the measuring cup...so that's what I did.

4. In yet another bowl (yes, by this point, your counter will be covered....), beat together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until just combined.

5. Beat in date mixture (batter will look curdled), then reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined. The batter is pretty thick.

6. Spoon batter into springform pan, smoothing top, and bake until a wooden pick or skewer inserted into center comes out with just a few crumbs....do NOT overbake....start checking at 40 minutes (the recipe says about 50 minutes to 1 hour).

7. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes, then remove side of pan and cool cake on rack.

I decided to top my cake with a simple ganache - 4 oz whipping cream (35%), 4 oz dark chocolate (I used 70% Callebaut dark chocolate). Melt together in the microwave on 50% power. Stir until smooth. Pour over cake.....I cheated and used my ganache to fill in the slightly sunken middle of my cake. :)

It was a great finish to the meal. Highly recommend it, especially if you or someone you know has issues with wheat. This would also be easy to make dairy-free (use vegan margarine or oil in lieu of butter) and I'm *told* (although cannot attest) that you can also use egg replacer in it. If someone tries that out, lemme know....

Thanks for reading!

bbq tastes of summer

2011-06-12T22:15:00.003-04:00

One of the many things to love about summer is that you just can't go wrong when you invite people over for a barbecue. Nobody expects anything fancy (most are content with burgers and hot dogs), and anything you do that's a bit outside of the box looks extra fancy as a result.

For example, tonight's dinner was nothing crazy - bbq'd pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes, salad and dessert - but having a little fun with the execution of the dinner made it super delicious.

Of course, things would have been helped had hubs not practically petrified the pork on the grill (you know that memo from the FDA last week, where they said it was safe to cook pork to 145F? hubs burned it). I was surprised that despite it's inner temperature reading of 180F (no, not joking), some parts of the pork were still not bad.....definitely not juice, but still edible. The thinner parts were chewy and hard (yuck), but the thicker middle parts were workable.

I'm so obsessed with cooking magazines that I took the chance to use two of my latest - June 2011 Clean Eating and Early Summer 2011 Food & Drink - they absolutely did not disappoint, and you'll see the recipes for southwestern cheddar potato wedges, salad with endive, feta, avocado and mint, and passionfruit pavlova following. They were all such delicious twists on ordinary...I felt compelled to share them.

For the main, I opted for an asian-inspired (more pan-asian than any specific geographic location, hehe) pork tenderloin. Aside from charring, I thought the recipe would have benefited from longer marinating. I marinated about 3 hours, but I think that the flavours would have better permeated the pork with an overnight marinade. It was good though...I mean really, when there are meat and fire....it's hard for anything to be especially bad.

A little tip, when you are entertaining, make sure you have all of your garnishes ready to go before company arrives. In this instance, I had crumbled feta, cilantro, glaze for meat, grated cheddar and minced red peppers ready to go for last minute additions. It makes you look more organized and makes the whole meal flow a lot better.

Honey-lime dressed salad with avocado, endive, mint and feta

from Early Summer 2011 Food & Drink (will be online here soon)

As soon as I saw this combination of flavours, I knew it would be delicious. It's light and yummy and fresh...the mint adds that little bit of something extra, and it's all wonderfully balanced with the rich avocado, bright mind, sharp feta and yummy honey lime dressing all playing off each other. Can't go wrong with this. I'm sure it would be fine without the endive though - it was good, but you wouldn't be missing anything if you felt like not buying endives)

DRESSING:

1/4 c olive oil

3 T lime juice

1 T honey

2 t dijon mustard

1 small garlic clove, minced

salt and pepper

SALAD:

1 large belgian endive (optional, I think)

1/2 cup mint leaves

8 cups greens (I used red leaf lettuce, baby spinach or mixed greens would work well)

1 large ripe but firm avocado, sliced

4 oz feta, crumbled

1. Combine dressing ingredients. Set aside (can be made in advance and fridgified)

2. Slice endive in half lengthwise. Cut out and discard core. Thinly slice. Coarsely tear mint leaves.

3. Combine salad ingredients in a large bowl. Toss. Add dressing. Toss. Eat immediately (will not keep).

Delicious. I think it would be great with a grilled chicken breast on top, or with a nice piece of fish, if you wanted to make the salad into a meal on its own).

Southwestern Cheddar Steak Fries

stolen and lightly modified from the June 2011 issue of Clean Eating

Potatoes are inherently yummy, so it's hard to go wrong, but this is like the love child of a potato skin and a roasted potato....and it's actually not too bad for you. YUM. I reduced teh amount of smoked paprika (and subbed sweet spanish paprika) because I find that smoked paprika tends to completely dominate all recipes. A little bit goes a long way. If you don't have smoked paprika, you could get some smokiness by using smoked salt, a drop of liquid smoke or some chipotle powder. I think they would be good even without the smoke though.

1 lb red or yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut lengthwise into wedges

1 T olive oil

1/2 t smoked paprika (I used bittersweet)

1.5 t sweet spanish paprika (not the cheap grocery store stuff)

1/2 t ground cumin

1/2 t garlic powder

1/4 t sea salt

1 oz finely shredded aged cheddar

1/3 c finely chopped red pepper

2 t minced cilantro

1. Preheat oven to 425F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper/silpat. In a large bowl, combine oil with paprika, cumin, garlic and salt. Toss potatoes with spice mixture. Place potatoes in a single layer on the baking sheet.

2. Bake in centre of oven for 10 minutes. Flip and stir potatoes, and bake for another 10 minutes.

3. Remove potatoes from oven and sprinkle with cheese and red peppers. Bake another 5-7 minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve immediately.

Asian-inspired grilled pork tenderloin

stolen from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry

I've changed this recipe a little bit, because I like to marinate my pork to infuse the flavours a little more. I would marinate this overnight for maximum yum factor.

1/4 c hoisin sauce

2 T lemon juice

1 T dijon mustard

1 T honey

1 T toasted sesame oil

1 T low-sodium soy sauce

1 T grated ginger

1 T minced garlic

[1 t lemon zest....I omited because I juiced my lemons and was too lazy to zest them after]

2 pork tenderloins

1. To make marinade/glaze, combine all ingredients except pork in a bowl. Mix. Pour 2/3 of marinade over pork. Reserve the rest of the marinade to use as a glaze/sauce.

2. Let pork marinate 24 hours (I say this is crucial...mine only marinated for 4 hours and the flavours were not permeated enough).

3. Grill pork to desired doneness (FDA recommends a temperature of 145F, with a rest time of at least three minutes). Brush pork generously with marinade during laste five minutes of cooking. As mentioned above, hubs grilled to a temp of 180F. I let it rest for 10 minutes....it was still edible, but I think anything over 160F is really kinda overdone. Slice into thin slices and serve.

You could use this same recipe with either pork chops or chicken pieces and I think it would be equally great. The leftovers are awesom in stir fry, or in wraps or on salads. I was lucky enough to find pork tenderloin at half price today, so we royally stocked up.

Passionfruit pavlova

from Early Summer 2011 Food & Drink (will be online here soon)

I've written about pavlova before....for the uninitiated, it is a dessert consisting of a baked meringue, whipped cream and fruit. This is a relatively simple pavlova, and I think it's incredibly delicious. That said, I also found it too sweet, so I'm providing a recipe NOT based on what I actually made, but tweaked slightly to proportions that I am confident would yield a more balanced dessert.

Overall though, this is amazing...passionfruit is one of the most wonderful flavours in the entire planet - it's so intoxicatingly tropical....if you've never tried if before, this would be a most decadent initiation.

MERINGUE:

4 large egg whites at room temperature

1/2 t cream of tartar

3/4 c superfine sugar (just take regular and whiz it in the food processor)

1 t cornstarch

1 t white vinegar

CREAM & FRUIT

1 c whipping cream

2 T sugar

1 t lemon zest

1 T lemon juice

2 ripe passion fruit

1. Preheat the oven to 250F (120C).

2. Trace an 8-inch circle onto a piece of parchment paper using a marker. Line a baking tray with the parchment paper, marker-side down (so the marker does not get on your meringue).

3. Whip the egg whites and cream of tartar until they are foamy. Slowly pour in the sugar while whipping and continue whipping on high speed until the whites hold a stiff peak and the sugar is dissolved (no longer feels gritty between your fingers). Fold in the cornstarch and vinegar.

This is the point where I'm thankful to have my beautiful Kitchenaid mixer:

4. Spoon the whites onto the parchment paper and try to make them look snazzy with a spatula. I tried and failed, - you can see.

5. Bake the meringue for 75-90 minutes, until the exterior is dry, cracking the oven door if the merinque starts showing signs of browning (I think mine browned a bit....it was still delish). Once out of the oven and cooled, the meringue should feel dry on the outside and peel away from the parchment paper easily. If still a little soft, return to the 250F oven for about 10-20 minutes. Cool the meringue on the tray before removing.

6. Whip the cream into soft peaks and beat in the sugar, lemon zest, juice and chill.

7. Just before serving, spoon the whipped cream over the meringue, and spoon the passion fruit seeds over the meringue - all you have to do is cut the fruit in half, stir the seeds with a spoon, and drizzle over top.

Voila. Tropical perfection. Slice and serve like a cake - serves 8.

One final tip, given that this is a bbq-themed post. You can bbq bacon. Go do it and thank me later.

That is all.

something seriously good for meatless monday - lentil tacos and chocolate chickpea cake

2011-05-16T21:05:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure why it is, but there's something about the combination of a crunchy shell, spicy filling, rich cheese, and bright notes of cilantro that just call to my soul. You can cobble together pretty much anything vaguely Mexican/South American/Tex-Mex/South-Western, and I will probably like it.

I grew up with Old El Paso Taco kits (as I'm sure did a large portion of my readership...if not, you can read about them here - essentially a box containing taco shells, taco mix and some sort of taco sauce. Just add meat, lettuce and cheese and voila.). I liked them as a kid, but when I was a teenager, our family discovered fajitas, and frankly, there was no looking back. We raced ahead with our soft tortillas, grilled chicken and steak, and the lowly crunchy taco of our youth was forgotten in some cobweb-ridden corner of our minds.

Ever the nutritionally obsessed, I actually always thought that the soft shells were better for you than the tantalizingly crispy hard corn shells. (For my American readers, you have to understand that corn tortillas are few and far between in most parts of Canada). In recent years, I've made sure that my shells were 100% whole grain, usually opting for the Dempsters Ancient Grains type. A small tortilla (7 inches - you know you're going to eat at least two!) has about 100 calories, and features such stellar ingredients as whole wheat flour, flax, millet, spelt, kamut, barley, etc. It also features such not-so-stellar ingredients as glucose-fructose (that's Canadian for high-fructose corn syrup), sodium acid pyrophosphate, potassium sorbate, sodium propionate, monoglyceries, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, fumaric acid, cellulose gum, carrageenan, maltodextrin. And maybe sulfites.

Even if most of those ingredients aren't actually BAD, I just don't think so many ingredients are NECESSARY. I like shorter ingredient lists, most because I feel the food is then closer to what I could make at home. :) They also have 230 mg of sodium, so if you eat two (and seriously, you will), you've got 520 mg of sodium before you've even put anything in your fajita.

So I decided to go for a blast from the past (for me, at least) and try out hard taco shells. I was pleasantly surprised by a few things...first, the ingredient list was relatively short - corn flour, palm oil, salt, water and calcium hydroxide.

Even though there is palm oil, two stand n stuff shells (bigger than classic shells) have 130 calories, 6 g fat (2.5 g sat fat), 115 mg of sodium and 1 g fibre. The soft tortillas do getter on fibre and a bit better on fat, but 130 calories vs. 200 calories, and 115 mg sodium vs. 520 mg sodium...this makes the shells a solid contender. They certainly aren't any hard-core sort of health food, but they certainly aren't too bad either. I'm in.

Especially when you fill them with the most delicious filling of spiced lentils.

Yes, I realize this is madness.

Do lentils really belong in tacos? Can they really hold their own against the meaty deliciousness of seasoned ground beef?

And surprisingly....they can. YUM. If you've a hankering for something meatless and wonderful, this meal is perfect. THe lentils are warm and delicious, and the spicy chipotle sour cream is the perfect creamy yet spicy foil. I've modified the recipe quite a bit from the epicurious original, but I think the end result is pretty darn delicious.

Make it now!!!

spiced lentil tacos

stolen and modified from epicurious.com/SELF magazine

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried brown or green lentils, rinsed
1 T chili powder

1 t cumin

1 t ground coriander

1 t paprika (sweet, not smoked)

pinch cinnamon
2 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, finely chopped***

2 teaspoons adobo sauce

8-10 taco shells
1 1/4 cups shredded lettuce/greens (I used cilantro)
1 cup chopped tomato
1/2 cup shredded cheddar

***What to do with leftover chipotle in adobo (which, unless you are a sword-swallowing fire-breather, you probably cannot down in one sitting)? I dump the contents of can into a freezer bag, and freeze it all flattened out. Next time you make this recipe (cuz there will, naturally, be a next time), just break off a pepper and off you go!

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook onion, garlic and salt until onion begins to soften, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add lentils and spices.

Cook until spices are fragrant and lentils are dry, about 1 minute. Add water; bring to a boil.

3. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until lentils are tender, 25 to 30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, Mix sour cream, chile and adobo sauce in a bowl.

Uncover lentils and cook until mixture thickens, 6 to 8 minutes.

Spoon 1/4 cup lentil mixture into each taco shell (my taco shells needed 5 minutes in a 350F oven. Check the label on yours to see if they do too!). Top with 2 heaping teaspoons sour cream mixture, greens, tomato and cheese.

YUM. So good.

That said, I thought that these stand n stuff taco shells would be a good idea. Alas, the broader base exponentially increases the amount of filling that goes blasting out as you take your first bite. Behold:

Stick with the normal shells - less mess, fewer calories. And as long as you don't go running around taking pictures of your dinner like a ~~crazy person~~ food blogger, you should be fine.

After dinner, I made the most random cake recipe. I came across this chocolate chickpea cake recipe while browsing on Serious Eats (SUCH an awesome site). It was just so weird....chickpeas, chocolate, no flour, no oil...how could this be possible?

And I'm no stranger to incorporating legumes into my baking (witness: the bean cookie) This was just too weird not to make. Even better, I actually had all the ingredients on hand (hubs tucked some yummy 85% dark chocolate from Laura Secord into my Mother's Day gift...smart, smart man).

The cake is uber easy to throw together. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, and whizz the rest of the ingredients through the food processor. The best part was not having to use flour...I swear, every single time I take out my flour, it's like some evil little flour gnome has run up inside and carefully placed a whole bunch in the rolled-up top of the bag, just perfectly positioned to explode onto my [black] counter top in a white, powdery testament to my kitchen failures. Meh.

This was so easy. I baked the recipe for 50 minutes instead of 60 (though my oven was on convection). I think I'd check it at 45 minutes next time. Also, because I had no butter and was too lazy to 'flour' my pan with cocoa [relying instead on a brush of canola oil] my cake stuck a bit. You could eliminate this problem entirely by baking in a parchment paper lining. Alas, I was too lazy.

The results are a really delicious chocolate loaf...I wouldn't serve it for dessert on its own, I don't think (although topped with ice cream and chocolate sauce, with raspberry coulis, it would probably pretty fantastic). It's a great nibbling cake. The chocolate flavour (from mostly 85% cocoa, with a small handful of chips and one small square of 70%) is rich and deep and the cake is not too sweet. It lacks the soft squishy richness of a classic shortening/white flour loaf, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

I think I will be having cake for breakfast. :)

chocolate chickpea cake

(stolen and marginally modified from Serious Eats)

1 tablespoon butter, softened (or oil)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder (skipped it)
5 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips (I used 3.8 oz 85%, 1 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips and 0.5 oz 70%)
1 (19-ounce) can chickpeas beans, rinsed and drained
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used raw cane sugar)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Grease interior of 1 pound loaf pan with flour, then dust all surfaces with cocoa, tapping out extra.

2. In a large microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate by microwaving in 45-second intervals, at 50% power, stirring with a rubber spatula each time until melted. Alternatively, heat, stirring constantly, over double boiler until melted.

3. Puree beans, eggs and vanilla in a food processor (or using an immersion blender) until smooth, about 1 minute. Add sugar, baking powder and salt and blend to combine, about 20 seconds.

4. Add melted chocolate and blend to combine, scraping down sides of bowl well as necessary. Batter will have a thick, pudding-like consistency.

Transfer batter into prepared pan and bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

5. Allow cake to cool for 15 minutes on wire cooling rack before inverting onto serving platter. Cool completely. Dust with confectioner's sugar just before serving. Mine only stuck a little bit! (this is an achievement for me).

Thanks for reading! If you're interested in more meatless monday ideas, check out the Meatless Monday website.

PS - sorry for the cruddy low-light photos. Sadly, I blog in the real world and thus far, the sun has not yet listened to my pleas to hold off setting until I've finished cooking. ;)

melty savoury goodness - tuna melts

2011-04-30T10:55:00.002-04:00

I may occasionally have the palate of a pre-schooler, but I just absolutely love tuna melts. It's one of my favourite treats to make - the perfect lunch for a rainy afternoon, or a quick easy dinner on a day when I don't feel like cooking.

One of my favourite things about these sandwiches is they are super versatile and forgiving; you can make them work no matter what you have in the house. As long as you have bread + tuna + cheese, you can probably figure something out.

I like to add some saltiness and crunch to mine, so I tend to put in whatever chopped up veggies I can wrangle up (in this case, gherkins and onion, on other cases, celery, green pepper, shallots, sundried tomatoes, capers). And last, you just need some sort of binding agent. I usually use a mixture of light miracle whip and dijon mustard, but I've done it with yogourt, sour cream and even a simple vinaigrette. So you really can always figure something out.

You can whip these sandwiches together in about 10 minutes. Do it now, and thank me later.

easy-peasy tuna melts

(can be infinitely varied to suit your needs and audience)

3 English muffins (my favourite bread...buns and sliced bread work too)

2 cans low-salt light tuna

1/3 c finely chopped onion (or shallot)

1/3 c finely chopped pickles (or other veggies --> celery, green pepper, sundried tomato, etc)

3 T light miracle whip

2 T dijon mustard

pepper

cheese (I think I used cheddar and parmesan, but any cheese that melts reasonably well will work)

1. Spread your English muffins out on a foil-lined baking sheet (there will inevitably be cheese melting carnage...save yourself the scrubbing!). Preheat your broiler.

2. Toast the English muffins under the broiler (about 6 inches from the heat source) for 2 minutes or so. Keep a close watch on them!

3. Meanwhile, combine the tuna salad ingredients. Taste - and season accordingly. If the mix is too dry to hold together, add a little more miracle whip/dijon.

4. Top each toasted English muffin with tuna salad mix (I like to heap mine pretty generously, so two cans seems to be about perfect for six English muffin halves).

5. Top with cheese - I used slices of cheddar and grated parmesan. Any mix of grated/sliced would work.

6. Cook under broiler for 3-4 minutes (checking every minute) until cheese is nice and melted and slightly brown.

7. Let cool slightly.

Enjoy! OMNOMNOMNOMNOM. These are so yummy. Very retro, very easy to make and just a fabulous lunch.

some housekeeping...

2011-04-27T22:18:00.004-04:00

...and goodness knows, my house could use it!

You may have noticed a few changes around here lately...part of the problem of starting your blog in 2006, is that in 2011....it looks like you have a blog from 2006. :p

Now, I'm no designer, and I certainly am not about to hire one, so you'll just have to deal with my little tweaks as I bring this blog up to date....so here's what's goin' on:

1) I changed the colour scheme (a couple of weeks ago). No more burgundy. I'm sure your burning eyeballs are thanking me.

2) I've added some easy options for you to subscribe. In addition to Google Friend Connect, I've also added RSS and email subscriptions via feedburner. (second widget from the top right). Now you don't have to remember to go through your bookmarks and physically come to the site - you can get new post notifications right in your email inbox.

3) I've started adding printable versions of my recipes. It's not fancy, like you'll see over at some other blogs, or on the pro-cooking sites, but if you want a photo-free, quick black and white print, it should do the trick.

4) New email address - leslie at definitelynotmartha dot com (sorry, gotta make the spammers work if they're going to invade my inbox). Hate mail, love letters, recipe ideas, whatever - I'm happy to hear it and I do my best to respond (I usually do!). If I don't respond, it's not because I'm a stuck-up diva...it's mostly because trying to balance full-time work, part-time work, parenthood, wifedom and blogging sometimes leave me in a bit of a tizzy. No hard feelings?

5) As the new email address indicates, I've got my own domain now! You can change your bookmarks to http://definitelynotmartha.com . Eventually this change will be reflected in the address bar, but I'm just not enough of a tech genius to make it happen quickly.

6) I briefly pondered adding a 'jump' to my post, but a short-lived poll overwhelmingly showed that readers do not like this. I don't like it either. So I won't be doing it. BUT, in order for the homepage to be a little less pic-heavy, I'm shortening it to five posts instead of 10. *I* don't need the jump, because one thing that won't be changing is that I still don't run ads on my blog. Unless I miraculously become so super famous that it would be ridiculous not to have ads, I'm just not willing to do it for a teeny amount of income that would just mess up my taxes. I hate forms and I hate taxes and I also hate ads. So none of that here.

7) Comment moderation - not on new posts, but I've had to add this to older posts (older than a month, right now) because I kept getting aphrodisiac-hawking douchebags filling the comments with spammy linky garbage. I won't censor anything but spam, and I do try to moderate one or twice a day, so there isn't a long wait to be part of a discussion. I do get emails of comments on my old posts, so if you have a question, don't hesitate to ask!

8) Layout....this will slowly evolve soon. I'm going to have to enlist hubs' help because my crowning design achievement was figuring out how to make my main column 500 pixels wide to accommodate my photos. I want to add a third column, but this has thus far eluded me. Stay tuned.

Anyway, feel free to check out the new feed features, print new recipes (eventually I would like to add printable versions of the older recipes, but oy...that's a big laborious job....).

So there you have it. Oh, also I ordered pizza for dinner tonight. Cooking fail. :p

brunch: sweet, savoury, rich and healthy

2011-04-25T12:21:00.003-04:00

To me, sweet, savoury, rich and healthy are the essential building blocks of a delicious brunch. I really love making brunch, because it gives you the chance to something a sweet and indulgent (like cinnamon buns, pastries, scones, croissants) and balance it with savoury flavours, either healthful (slimmed-down broccoli cheddar quiche) or not so much... (quiche lorraine). I like to finish brunch with a nice fruit salad.

For my morning-after Easter brunch, I had the challenge of having made a (last-minute) big dinner the night before, so I didn't have any time to prep anything in advance. I chose everything in the menu because it could be thrown together relatively quickly, and would also hold quite well.

I'm a huge fan of quiche and strata-type dishes because you can mix them together in advance, bake them, and then they stay good for quite a while. I actually will sometimes mix one up at the beginning of the week and then nuke it for a quick breakfast later on. When it comes to quiche, I am utterly and completely sold on the crustless variety. It's not just because I am really terrible at making pastry, but I find that I like the filling SO much better and the crust really doesn't bring anything to the table (refined flour, fat and salt...none of which we really need). I prefer to limit my indulgence to the filling. :)

These types of dishes are also great because you can really make them super healthy, or make them more indulgent. For this brunch, I decided to make a broccoli cheddar crustless quiche. This was a healthier recipe from Cooking Light, though I didn't really follow it to the letter (I don't believe in throwing out egg yolks!). For the more indulgent recipe, I found an absolutely exquisite crustless quiche lorraine recipe on epicurious. I do recommend a couple of tweaks, as I found the resulting quiche could have benefited from an extra egg (it was a little watery....but still yummy).

The sweetness of the meal came from what one of my guests dubbed "the love-child of a timbit and a cinnamon bun" - monkey bread with caramel glaze.

I've been hearing about monkey bread for a few months now, and it seems this 50s mainstay has made a comeback of late. I couldn't find a recipe that was quite what I wanted, so I've taken inspiration from a few different versions and come up with my own - a half-whole wheat, spiced version covered in an exquisite caramel glaze (the glaze being a last minute addition because I felt the bread looked a little drier).

To round out the meal, I served a tropical fruit salad - the key to a pretty fruit salad (rather than a sad-looking bowl of browned apples and squashed bananas) is to try to include fruits in bright colours, and make sure they won't brown (apples and pears brown quickly. I hate bananas and find they overpower fruit salads, so I never use them). Oranges work well, as long as you're willing to take the time to suprême them. Nobody likes an errant membrane in their fruit salad. Blech. I have a tropical fruit weakness, which is, I realize, TERRIBLE for my carbon footprint....

tropical fruit salad

1 mango, diced

1 kiwi, diced

1/4 pineapple, diced

2 cups diced strawberries

1 cup blackberries

1. Chop fruit.

2. Combine. No need to add anything more. This is a delicious, healthy addition to any meal.

Crustless Broccoli and Cheese Quiche

stolen and lightly modified from Cooking Light

2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 cup vertically sliced onion
1 garlic clove, minced
5 cups broccoli florets
Cooking spray
1 1/4 cups 1% low-fat milk
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 large eggs lightly beaten
1 tablespoon grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 1 1/2 minutes. Add broccoli; sauté 1 minute. Spread broccoli mixture into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Combine milk and next 8 ingredients (milk through eggs) in a large bowl. Pour milk mixture over broccoli mixture; sprinkle with Parmesan.

3. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until top is golden and a knife inserted in center comes out clean; let stand 5 minutes.

This quiche is very tasty and super easy to throw together. I cut mine into eight pieces, because I was serving two quiches to seven guests (this way, everyone can have a piece of each!). If it's all you're serving, you'd probably want to cut in six pieces.

Crustless Quiche Lorraine

stolen and lightly modified from epicurious.com

Makes 4-6 servings
Active Time: 10 min
Total Time: 30 min (not including cooling)

1 1/2 tablespoons fine dry plain bread crumbs
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup diced cooked ham (1/4 pound)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 (8-ounce) package shredded Swiss cheese (2 cups)
5 large eggs (original recipe calls for four...use five!!!!)
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

2. Butter 9-10 inch pie plate/quiche dish, then sprinkle all over with bread crumbs.

3. Cook onions with ham in butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until pale golden, about 5 minutes. Spread in dish, then evenly sprinkle cheese on top.

4. Whisk together eggs, cream, milk, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and pour over cheese.

Bake until top is golden and custard is set in center, 35-40 minutes***

5. Cool slightly before cutting into wedges.

***Note that the initial recipe called for cooking at 425F for 20-25 minutes. I had two other things to bake that necessitated a 350F oven, so I just modified. I liked the results. Also, I love the convection function on my oven - even with two quiches and a batch of monkey bread, everything ended up evenly and perfectly cooked. Score!

half whole-wheat monkey bread with the ultimate salted caramel glaze

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE: https://sites.google.com/site/definitelynotmartha/half-whole-wheat-monkey-bread-with-salted-caramel-glaze

dough:

**you could substitute any dough - frozen, refrigerated, or any dough recipe of your choosing

1 1/2 c all purpose/bread flour

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 package quick yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

2 t pumpkin pie spice (or combo of cinnamon/cloves/allspice/ginger)

1/2 c milk

1/2 c water

4 T sugar

1 T oil

1 egg

1/2 t salt

1. In a stand mixer, combine flours, yeast, pie spice and salt.

2. In a small saucepan (or in the microwave) heat milk, water, oil and sugar until a thermometer reads 110-120F (warm but not burning) and sugar is dissolved.

3. Add milk mixture and the egg to the flours and process with dough hook (or stir with strong arm!). Once everything is all combined, you should have a soft dough - it should be a tiny bit sticky, but not ridiculously so. If there is too much flour, add a little more milk. If the dough is a liquid, sticky mess (more likely), add more flour, about 2 T at a time. Knead/process dough for a couple of minutes.

4. Transfer dough to an oiled bowl, turn to cover with oil. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place somewhere warm to rise for an hour. I like to put mine in the oven with the light on. Out of the way, and nice and warm.

5. Sprinkle work surface with flour (I like to cover mine with waxed paper so I'm not stuck scrubbing dough bits off the counter). Spread dough out into a large rectangle.

6. Cut into 70-ish pieces - about 1 inch diameter...this is not an exact science though.

I just use a butcher knife. I leave my pieces mostly rectangular...you could try to make them more ball-like, but if you just plump the sides of the dough rectangles, they get round enough for me.

glaze for dough balls

1/2 cup butter (unsalted), melted and cool enough to get your fingers in.

1 1/2 c brown sugar (I used dark brown)

2 t cinnamon

1. Combine sugar and cinnamon. Take a tube/bundt pan and butter/grease it.

2. Dip each dough ball into butter. Let excess run off (you can try using a fork for this...it's a messy process no matter how you do it.

3. Cover dough in brown sugar/cinnamon mixture. Place in tube pan. Continue. I found that most of the way through, my brown sugar was reduced to a buttery paste. Whatever. It still worked.

4. Continue layering dough balls around your tube pan until you run out.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for another hour.

5. If your monkey bread was rising in the oven, remove from oven. Preheat oven to 350F. Remove plastic wrap. Bake 35ish minutes at 350F. Let sit in pan for five minutes, and then remove from pan.

At this point, I was pretty pleased with myself, but thought that the resulting monkey bread looked less gooey and more dry than I wanted. This is where the ultimate glaze comes in.....

ultimate salted caramel glaze

1/4 cup butter (salted or not)

1/4 c dark brown sugar, packed

1/4 c white sugar

1/2 c whipping cream

(1/4 t sea salt, if using unsalted butter)

1 t cinnamon

1. In a sauce pan, melt the butter with the two sugars. Bring to a boil and let the sugars dissolve.

2. Add the whipping cream (there will be serious bubbles going on). Cook together. Add cinnamon and salt (if needed) and continue cooking until thickened slightly.

3. Remove from heat and let cool for five minutes. Slowly pour over still-warm (but not too hot) monkey bread.

This is the ultimate. I would be lying if I said that six people did not polish this off in one fell swoop. It's really freaking good. Like my guest said - love child of a timbit and a cinnamon bun. MAKE IT NOW.

You know what would also be good though? A savoury version, with herbed dough, dipped in garlic butter, then rolled in parmesan. And served with either a marinara sauce, or an herbed garlic butter glaze. The mind, it boggles, and the possibilities are infinite.

i feel like a round stuffed easter egg

2011-04-24T21:25:00.003-04:00

When I spent Thursday evening loafing instead of grocery shopping and menu planning (which, ofcourse, relegated me to spending Good Friday doing nothing, because grocery stores, etc. are not open on Good Friday)....I didn't really have high expectations of the food this weekend.

For Easter, we were entertaining hubs' parents, as well as hubs' sister and her hubs (and newborn! yep, the same newborn who was the subject of much merriment back in Feb). It wasn't really a full house, but I still wanted to have some fun with the menu and put on a good spread.

After some brainstorming Friday night, and some frantic (and crazy) grocery shopping on Saturday....I didn't even get down to cooking/starting ANYTHING until 1 pm. If you're at all familiar with my modus operandi, this is not normal. I like to be prepping the day before. Not midday the day of.

I had decided on an Easter dinner menu of crown roast of pork with onion stuffing, (because it makes sense to cook 10 lbs of meat for 7 people...), potato gratin, anise-roasted asparagus and pea salad with feta and spinach. Dessert was a three-nut maple tart with maple cream.

When tackling a menu like this, it's really important to have a plan. When you make your list of recipes, at the same time, note a few things:

1. Where the recipes are (i.e., epicurious, cookbook, magazine). Make sure to note page numbers and issue numbers (for print) or to create a favourites bookmark folder (for online). This will avoid last minute panic.

2. After choosing your recipe, carefully read through each recipe. Make a categorized grocery list (i.e., sort by produce, deli, dairy, meat, grocery).

3. While making your grocery list, make note of all components that need to be made (i.e., for a salad, you need to prep veggies and make dressing. For a tart, you need to make crust, make filling and bake). While noting all of these components, make sure you write down baking times (i.e., make pork - 3 hours oven, make tart crush - 30 min rest, 30 min oven).

4. Make a game plan. I take a look at my component list (i.e., the dressings, crusts, seasonings, dishes) and figure out what HAS to be done (i.e., pork need to go into oven by four, in order to serve dinner at 7:30), and what needs to work around that (i.e., tart needs to bake before pork...MUST FINISH TART BY 4). From here, I am able to make a 'work order'. In this dinner, I started by making tart crust. While the crust was resting, I made the pork stuffing. While the crust baked I made the tart filling. While the tart baked, I prepped the pork. While the pork baked, I made the potato gratin. Things like veggies can (and are usually best) be left to the last minute.

5. It seems a little haphazard, but I find that having a plan makes me feel more confident and ready to get a meal (and a complicated one like this) on the table on time. I also find that having a list of components is SUPER helpful when you have family coming, because you can assign and eager, early and willing family member to a component (i.e., make salad dressing, prep asparagus, chop onions, make breadcrumbs). I wouldn't do that for a fancy dinner party, but we all know it's different and more casual with (most?) families.

Dinner was on the table by 7:45. Not bad for making a tart, a roast, stuffing, gravy, potato gratin, roasted asparagus and a salad. And entertaining. And having fun. :)

I rocked it out pretty good...not gonna lie.

crown roast of pork with onion and bread-crumb stuffing

stolen and modified from epicurious.com

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE: https://sites.google.com/site/definitelynotmartha/crown-roast-of-pork

Yield: Makes 10 to 12 servings
Active Time: 1 1/2 hr
Total Time: 4 1/4 hr

For stuffing
2 lb onions, finely chopped (6 cups)
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram (dried is fine)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 (1-lb) piece fresh Pullman loaf, pain de mie, or country loaf, cut into 1-inch cubes, then pulsed to coarse crumbs in a food processor (I used a multi-grain wheat country loaf)
3/4 lb sausage (something garlicky)
1 cup finely chopped celery

For roast
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh marjoram or thyme (dried = fine)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 (9- to 10-lb) crown roast of pork, rib ends frenched (so my butcher, whom I love dearly, did not to the best job on this part....it ended up looking fine in the end!)
1 1/2 cups water

For sauce
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons cornstarch, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

Special equipment: an instant-read thermometer

Make stuffing:
1. Cook onions with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in 3/4 stick butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 10 minutes. Add celery and continue to cook, uncovered, stirring frequently, until onions are pale golden, about 10 minutes more. Add sage, marjoram, and pepper and cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Add vinegar and wine and boil, stirring occasionally, until liquid is evaporated, then remove from heat.

2. Melt the remaining 3/4 stick of butter and pour over bread crumbs. Remove sausage from casings, break apart, and cook in a skillet over medium heat until nicely browned.

3. Reserve 1 cup onion mixture, covered and chilled, for sauce. Transfer remaining mixture to a large bowl and combine with crumbs.

Cook roast and stuffing:

1. Put 1 oven rack in lower third of oven and another on bottom of oven and preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Stir together sage, marjoram, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, then rub over outside and bottom of roast. Put roast in a small flameproof roasting pan and mound 2 cups stuffing loosely in center, then add water (I used chicken brown) to pan. Transfer remaining stuffing to a buttered 2-quart baking dish and chill until ready to bake.

3. Roast pork in lower third of oven, covering stuffing and tips of ribs with a sheet of foil after about 30 minutes and adding more water if pan becomes dry, until thermometer inserted 2 inches into center of meat (do not touch bones) registers 155°F, 2 1/4 to 2 3/4 hours total. (If your guests are skittish about pink pork, as mine were, you'll want to cook your roast to a point where a thermometer inserted in the thinner side of the roast reads closer to 170F. The thicker side of the roast will still be juicy and delicious, but this way, you have some classically 'well-done' (*cough* overdone *cough*) pork for the squeamish. That said, pink pork is fine to eat.

Transfer pork to a platter and let stand 30 minutes. Bake stuffing for 30-45 minutes, until heated through (as long as your sausage is well-cooked, you don't need to worry about reaching a certain temperature for this dish).

****NOTE: If you've let your pork rest, and you've cut into it and are completely skeeved by pinkness, just pan-sear the dinosaur-sized pork chops to your desired doneness, in a bit of olive oil and butter. But I swear, pink pork is deeeeeelish. Just don't serve it to the immuno-compromised (young kids, pregnant women, etc.).

Make sauce while pork stands:
1. Transfer pan juices from roasting pan to a gravy separator or a glass measure and skim off fat.

2. Straddle roasting pan across 2 burners, then add wine to pan and boil over high heat, stirring and scraping up brown bits, until reduced by about half, about 5 minutes. Add reserved onion mixture, broth, pan juices, and any juices on platter from roast and bring to a simmer. Restir cornstarch mixture and add to pan, whisking, then simmer 2 minutes. Add butter and swirl pan until incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.

Carve pork and serve with stuffing and sauce.

This is pretty good. Like I said, I found that parts of mine were (to my taste) overdone and a little dry, but parts will still juicy and delicious...so there's a little something for everyone with this dish. When in doubt, take some advice from my employer and get thyself a digital food thermometer and know how to use it.

Potato Gratin

from the Spring 2011 edition of Food and Drink - will be online in a month or two here: http://www.lcbo.com/fooddrink/index.shtml

1/2 c milk

1 c whipping cream

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1 t dried thyme

1 T chopped fresh rosemary

2 lbs potatoes ~~peeled and~~ thinly sliced - mandoline = your friend

salt and pepper

1/2 c (or more, mebbe) grated parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Combine milk, cream, garlic, thyme and rosemary in a wide pot over medium heat and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Add potatoes and stir together. Season well with salt and pepper.

3. Grease a gratin dish large enough to hold the potatoes (I increase the potato amount, so I just used a 9x13). Arrange a layer of potato slices in your dish. Cover with a thin layer of parmesan. Repeat until you run out of potatoes, adding some fresh grated parmesan between each layer.

4. Pour remaining liquid over top. Add more parmesan.

5. Bake for 50 minutes- 1 hour, until potatoes are tender and liquid is absorbed.

This is basically potatoes alfredo.....and it's pretty tasty. I think I would almost like it more with only milk, because I felt like the cream was just over the top. Not that that's a bad thing....BTW, I made mine in advance, and some of the raw potatoes were exposed to the air for a while...they got a little dark, and this is a bit unattractive. :p It's not harmful though...just a little ugly.

I'm not going to post the recipes for my sides, because you can get them both on epicurious. They were yummy though, and provided some great colour and nutritional balance to the meal.

Roasted Asparagus with Anise Seeds

recipe available on epicurious.com: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Asparagus-with-Anise-Seeds-12025

(only change I made is that I didn't cut my asparagus up)

Pea Salad with Radishes and Feta Cheese

recipe available on epicurious.com: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pea-Salad-with-Radishes-and-Feta-Cheese-237895

(only change I made is to use caraway in lieu of cumin because I had a cumin-hating guest). Also, I did not have pea tendrils...not really sure where to find them).

And for the finale, I made this delicious and sophisticated take on a pecan pie - a three-nut maple tart from the Spring 2011 issue of Food and Drink. I liked the incorporation of the pine nuts, and this gave me a great opportunity to showcase some of my uncle's amazing maple syrup (it is SO flavourful).

As tarts go, this is not complicated. There is pastry...which I hate making....but this one turned out not too horrific.). The filling is very easy - toast (and don't burn) nuts, and top with a maple-egg filling. YUM. If you have nut/caramel/buttertart lovers, this is great.

Three Nut Pie with Maple Cream

from Spring 2011 Food and Drink (should be online in a month here: http://www.lcbo.com/fooddrink/index.shtml )

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE: https://sites.google.com/site/definitelynotmartha/three-nut-pie-with-maple-cream

CRUST:

1 1/2 c flour (I used cake and pastry)

2 T granulated sugar

1/2 c COLD butter, cut into cubes

1 egg

1 t vanilla

1/4 t salt

ice water

FILLING:

1 cup pecan halves

1 cup walnut halves

1/3 c pine nuts

3 eggs

3/4 c maple syrup (DO NOT USE FAKE STUFF. JUST DON'T. IF YOU DO, I WILL NOT BE YOUR FRIEND. EVER.)

1/3 c packed brown sugar or maple sugar

2 T butter, melted

2 t vanilla

MAPLE CREAM:

1/2 c whipping cream

1-2 T maple syrup

Make pastry:

1. Combine flour and sugar in food processor. Add in butter. Pulse a couple of times. Whisk together egg and vanilla in a measuring cup. Add enough ice water to make 1/2 c.

2. Drizzle egg mixture over flour. Process until it forms a ball.

3. Shape ball into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap. Freeze for 15 minutes (or refrigerate for 30....I was in a hurry!).

4. Roll pastry out on a lightly floured surface (I like wax paper because it is cheap and stuff doesn't stick to it. I only own one tart pan - 11 inches. The initial recipe is for a 10-inch pan, but the crust was just fine for 11 inches, and I just increased the nuts a bit. Roll the pastry to fit your tart pan. Press into pan, trim edges and prick lightly with a fork. Freeze for 15 minutes. This is probably one of my better pastry efforts. Yes, I am aware it still looks like poop. :p

5. Preheat oven to 375F. Line tart shell with foil, and fill with rice/beans (or pastry weights) to weigh pastry down. Place a baking sheet on the bottom rack in the oven, and bake the tart shell on the midde rack for 15-20 minutes, or until edges are dry.

6. Remove paper and bake for 5-10 minutes more, until starting to turn golden brown and firm. Let cool (but leave oven on).

7. Spread pecans and walnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast for 3 minutes. Add pine nuts and stir. Toast for 3 more minutes. You could try to brown them a little more, but they will burn SUPER quickly...so I wouldn't. Scatter slightly-cooled toasty nuts in the baked tart shell.

8. Reduce oven temperature to 325F.

9. Whisk eggs, syrup, sugar, butter and vanilla until well-blended. Pour over nuts. For expediency and sanity's sakes, place your tart pan on a foil-lined pizza pan. Mine did not really leak, but tart pans can and DO leak, and you really don't want a burnt maple mess on the bottom of your oven. Bake for 30 minutes, until filling is puffed in the centre and just set around the edges.

10. Just before serving, whip cream in a chilled bowl until soft peaks form. Add in syrup. Serve with tart.

Yummy. This would be a great fall recipe, but maple syrup is a spring thing, so I'm calling spring on it. A great finish to a delectable meal.

pork and muffins. not at the same time.

2011-04-19T00:00:00.000-04:00

In terms of food budgeting, today was medium.

It was GOOD because I brought and English muffin and toasted it at work (and topped with some peanut butter, which I keep in a jar at my desk. And which I do not ever eat with a spoon.)

Okay, that last sentence was a lie. :p I don't do it often though. And I don't double dip.

It was also good, because I brought my lunch and ate all of it. But then I was staaaaaarving partway through the afternoon. And when I reached into my lunch bag to grab the apple I totally thought I had brought....I came up empty-handed.

So of course I ended up at the caf and bought a boiled egg (0.55), a piece of cheese (1.00) and a medium coffee (1.50). Meh. It wasn't the craziest of snacks, but when I think that I can buy a DOZEN eggs for $3 (and water is almost free), I feel like a bit of a heel.

To be fair though, there was a strong possibility of going out for lunch, and I didn't go for it.

But Hubs is rubbing in the fact that not only did he not spend any extra $$ on food today, but he didn't really do so last week either. Meh. :p

In terms of cooking, the planned meal for tonight was pulled pork on multi-grain toast with provolone, accompanied with a quick coleslaw. I really did a lot of mods to the pulled-pork recipe, so I can't fairly evaluate the Clean Eating version. But my version was good. And super easy.

Slow-cooker pulled pork with toast and coleslaw

***NEW - PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE: https://sites.google.com/site/definitelynotmartha/home/pulled-pork-sandwiches-with-coleslaw

1.5 pounds pork (I used a centre-cut roast - you could use tenderloin, chops, or a more traditional cut like shoulder or butt)

1 cup broth

sea salt, black pepper and thyme

1. In the morning, put the pork in the slow cooker on low. Put it fat side up, to keep it moist. The fat will render slightly during cooking and keep the pork from drying out. Pour broth around the pork, and sprinkle with salt, black pepper and a good bit of thyme.

(sorry, no pics...was too crazy with Monday morning madness to take photos)

2. When you get home, take the pork out of the slow cooker (I used a 2.5 qt cooker. This recipe is best suited to a small slow cooker. If you don't have a slow cooker, you could braise the meat in the oven - at about 275F - for 4ish hours). Don't try to quick cook your pork, or it won't shred.

My pork cooked from 8 am to 6 pm. This worked for me. The fat had rendered a little bit, but when I took the pork out, I was actually able to scrape most of the fat off. It's win-win, because, as mentioned, the fat keeps the meat moist, but then you can scrape it off, so you aren't stuck eating it.

3. Shred the pork with two forks. If it doesn't shred, you've probably either a) cooked it not long enough, or b) cooked it at too high a temperature. DO NOT COOK ON HIGH.

4. Strain the juices from the slow cooker. If there is fat, skim it off the top. You can see here that there was very little fat in mine. ***I'm assuming that if you read my blog, you're probably trying to eat healthy. If I am mistaken, leave the fat in. It will only make things better. ;)

5. Pour the juices in a pan, and boil to reduce by half. I added about 3 T cider vinegar, 1/4 c of sherry (it was hanging out in the cupboard...nobody here drinks that crap). I also added about 1/2 t chipotle powder, to add spice and smoke.

6. Mix the juices with the shredded pork. Taste. This is a pretty 'clean' version --> in order to be to your taste, you may need to add some sweetness (ketchup, bbq sauce, honey), some acidity (vinegar), some salt (worcestershire sauce, salt), or some heat (sri racha, cayenne). I added a little bbq sauce, and then drizzled some over top of our sammies.

Coleslaw

1/4 head of cabbage, chopped

1 large carrot, grated

1 tiny onion, chopped

1/2 t mustard seeds

1/2 t celery seeds

2 T cider vinegar

1 T dijon mustard

1 T olive oil

1. Mix cabbage, carrot and onion.

2. Make dressing from mustard seeds, celery seeds (you can omit these if you don't have 'em), cider vinegar, dijon mustard and olive oil.

3. Toss dressing with veggies. Taste and adjust accordingly (again, this is a clean recipe; you may be used to something sweeter and/or saltier).

Sammiches

multi-grain bread

reduced-fat provolone cheese slices

pulled pork

coleslaw

1. Toast bread. Top with cheese slice while still hot. Top with approximately 3 oz of pulled pork. Serve with coleslaw. I drizzled mine with bbq sauce.

Voila. This was awesome. Hubs devoured his (and then ate a plate of just pork, mixed with bbq sauce and sri racha). Lil Z thought it rocked and pounded it back.

After dinner, I cleaned up (unplanned visitors coming tomorrow) and then had to re-jig the week's menu. We're going to have company tomorrow, so rather than serve the ginger chicken soup (which only serves four and would be tight, leaving us with no lunches for Wednesday), I'm going to make a shrimp pasta carbonara dish. I have loads of frozen shrimp, a pound of bacon and some pasta. I think I"ll do a creamy sauce using shallots, garlic, evaporated skim milk and fresh-grated parmesan. It may end up short on veggies, but I think it will be good. And it will keep me on budget. :)

Last, I mixed up a batch of muffins. YES, in case you were wondering I did spend my entire evening physically in the kitchen tonight. I don't mind....it's one of my favourite places. Plus, hubs is monopolizing the TV (playoff hockey, *sigh*) so it's not like I have anything better to do anyway. :p

These muffins are from the April/May 2011 issue of Clean Eating. Pretty straightforward to make. I made a couple of modifications (shown in brackets).

Mango Spice Muffins

***NEW - printable recipe available here: https://sites.google.com/site/definitelynotmartha/mango-spice-muffins

from April/May 2011 issue of Clean Eating

2 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c evaporated cane juice (or sugar...they are essentially the same)

2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1 t ground ginger

1/4 t ground cloves

1/2 t sea salt

(2 T ground chia seeds (optional - they have fibre and omega 3s. I decided to add some))

(2 T ground flax seeds)

1 egg

1/4 c oil (I used canola, CE recommends safflower)

1 c nonfat greek yogourt (I used non-fat regular yogourt that was 1 week past its due date. It smelled fine...)

1/3 c milk (1/2 c milk if using the flax and/or chia as they soak up liquid)

1 t vanilla

1 large mango, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch dice. Mine actually made about 1 1/4 c, just like the recipe said it would. (For anyone who does not know how to wrangle a mango, I've posted a how-to for you)

1/4 c raisins (I used walnuts instead. Lil Z gobbled all of my raisins)

2 T unsweetened flaked/shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line a muffin tin with papers (or spray if you are a masochist, and enjoy scouring muffin tins). In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cane juice, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cloves and salt (and chia/flax). In a separate large bowl, beat egg. Add oil, yogourt, milk and vanilla. Whisk to combine.

Dry ingredients:

2. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir gently until flour is moist.

Fold in mango and ~~raisins~~ walnuts.

Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin cups and sprinkle each muffin with 1/2 t coconut.

3. Bake until edges are light golden brown and a tester comes out clean when inserted into the centre of a muffin...about 16-18 minutes. Let cool in pan for five minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Voila! Brekkie for the next couple of days. The rubber duckies are a bonus. ;)

Last, I wanted to leave you with a cheap night-time snack idea. Hubs is pretty much the king of night-time snacking...and going out to pick up a $3 bag of chips at the local convenience store/pharmacy can really add up. One thing that we've found awesome for those late night cravings (besides willpower....) is popcorn. Not the scary orange microwaved sludge, but simple air-popped popcorn with a bit of butter and salt. I have also been known to mist my popcorn with a bit of canola in a pinch. This is super tasty because it's all natural (no weird chemicals) and you can control how much salt and butter you end up putting on your popcorn. Popped corn is also a good source of fibre, and you can get kernels for dirt-cheap at bulk stores. Here is hubs in action.....

So that's my day. And now it's really late, so I'm out. Thanks for reading!