You, Miss, Are No Lady

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

2012-01-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

These cupcakes are the greatest cupcakes I have ever made. They don't have much competition, as I do not like to bake all that much, but out of all the cupcakes I have made, these are the best. I'm not a big fan of pumpkin pie, and these cupcakes are a great way to have pumpkin pie spice (so delicious!) without having to have the pie. I also added some pumpkin pie spice to the frosting, which only added to the awesomeness.

Make these. Trust me.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting
by Everyday Food
makes 24

Ingredients:

Nonstick cooking spray

1 cup pure pumpkin puree (from a 15-ounce can)
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
Cream Cheese Frosting (see below)

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Lightly coat 24 standard muffin cups with cooking spray or line with paper liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, buttermilk, and vanilla. In another medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl as needed. With mixer on low, beat in flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions pumpkin mixture, until combined.

2.Spoon 1/4 cup batter into each muffin cup. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes, rotating pans halfway though. Let cupcakes cool in pans on wire racks, 15 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pans and let cool completely on racks, 10 minutes. To serve, spread frosting onto cooled cupcakes

Cream Cheese Frosting:

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons whole milk

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter until smooth, about 4 minutes. With mixer on low, beat in confectioners' sugar and vanilla extract until smooth and fluffy, 5 minutes. Thin with whole milk if necessary.
*add a bit of pumpkin pie spice, you will not be disappointed

Rebekah's Steak Dinner

2011-09-26T08:08:00.000-06:00

There is nothing I love more than a medium rare New York strip. If you have been following this blog for a while you may remember how I feel about steak that is cooked more than medium rare. If you haven't been reading this for very long, I highly recommend that you click that link for a recipe for a delicious steak sandwich. Don't hit the link if you order your steak well done and will be offended by me calling you an idiot.

This steak dinner came entirely from my head, and it was delicious.

Rebekah's Steak Dinner (Steak, loaded mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob)
made enough for me to have 2 meals, but I only ate half a steak for each one

Ingredients:
1 New York strip steak
2 tsp Montreal steak spice (or to taste)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, separated
2 cobs of corn, husks and strings removed
2 potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 strips of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
grated cheddar cheese*
sour cream*
green onions, sliced*
*I have no amounts for these because it's all to personal taste as to how much you want to use. I used roughly 1/2 cup of cheese and 1/4 cup sour cream and about 4 green onions*

1) I don't have a BBQ, so to make the steak I used my grill pan. A grill pan or a pan of any kind will do though. If you are using a grill pan that needs to be preheated slowly, start that now.
2) Place the potatoes and corn into a pot of boiling water, remove the corn after 5 minutes
3) Meanwhile, cook the bacon over medium to medium high in a skillet until crisped. Remove bacon from pan and set to drain on paper towel.
4) Rub the steak with 1 tbsp of oil. Sprinkle the Montreal steak spice on each side. Place the steak in a pan that has been heated on medium high and cook for 3 minutes on each side. Remove steak from pan and tent it with foil. THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT. Let the steak sit for 5 minutes before eating it, this allows the meat to rest and the juices to redistribute throughout the meat. If you cut into it right away, all those juices will leak out. NOT GOOD.
5) Once the steak is removed from the pan, rub the corn with the remaining oil and grill for about 30-45 seconds per side.
6) When the potatoes are fork tender, drain and mash. Add the bacon, cheese, sour cream and green onions to the potatoes and mix together.

Rebekah's Glazed Salmon

2011-09-06T12:18:00.000-06:00

When I made this salmon my intent was to make Nigella's Mirin Glazed Salmon, which is one of the most delicious recipes I have ever made. However, I did not have any mirin at home and I couldn't find any at Sobeys, so I had to make do with what I had on hand. The following came from my head, but was inspired by Nigella's recipe so I probably shouldn't take all the credit.

Rebekah's Glazed Salmon
Serves 1-3 people.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp brown sugar
juice from half a lime
1 tbsp rice vinegar
boneless, skinless salmon fillets *see note*
4 or so green onions, sliced thinly
sesame seeds (optional)
cooked rice, to serve

*Note: I used one salmon fillet for this recipe, but I love sauce. This could actually be good for two or three salmon fillets*

1) Mix together the first 4 ingredients in a small bowl.
2) Heat a dry pan over medium high. Add the salmon and cook about 2 minutes on each side, until the middle looks nearly opaque.
3) Add the sauce to the pan, flipping over the salmon (ensuring all sides have been covered in sauce), and heat for another minute or so. In the end you want a salmon that is fully cooked (should be opaque throughout and flakes apart easily) and the sauce should thicken and reduce.
4) Serve on top of cooked rice, with sesame seeds and green onions on top.

So good!

Beef Tacos

2011-08-17T09:03:00.000-06:00

There is only one thing that can come close to the love I have for pizza, and that is the love I have for tacos. Tacos combine a few of my favorite things like beef, cheese and not using a fork. Which brings me to the real reason why I love tacos so much, which is that no one can eat tacos neatly. It is the only meal where I am not the only person at the table making a hot mess of themselves.

The following is for my sister E, who loves when I demonstrate my mad Paint skills on the Internet.

Sad but true. I am a mess.

Beef Tacos
from Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon canola oil

1 large onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeno chile, minced
Coarse salt and ground pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 pound ground beef
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, with juice
8 (6-inch) corn tortillas (I used flour instead)

Optional Toppings: cilantro, iceberg lettuce, diced jalapenos, pickled jalapenos, Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream (I used cheddar cheese)

Directions:
1) Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and jalapeno; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 minutes.

2)Add garlic, chili powder, and cumin to skillet; stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add beef; cook, breaking up meat with a spoon, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes; simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 10 to 12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, as desired.

3) Meanwhile, warm tortillas in a dry skillet over medium heat or directly over a gas burner, about 30 seconds on each side. At the table, fill tortillas with beef mixture and desired garnishes. (I just used the microwave to heat the flour tortillas)

These were pretty good. I skipped adding salt and pepper, which I regretted upon eating the tacos. They could have used the salt. My only other complaint was that they weren't spicy enough. I think next time I would add some Sriracha sauce to it.

Cobb Salad

2011-08-12T08:53:00.000-06:00

I have tried giving blue cheese a fair chance. I have tried it multiple times, in multiple things and each and every time it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Literally. The entire time that I ate this salad I couldn't help but think it would be so much better if I had made it with feta instead. Feta is the greatest, whereas blue cheese tastes like feet.
If you like the taste of feet, feel free to keep the blue cheese in this salad, but if you would rather eat something delicious swap it for feta.

Cobb Salad
Adapted from Everyday Food (Of course)
Serves 4

Ingredients:
meat from 1/2 a rotisserie chicken
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
course salt and pepper
2 hard-cooked large eggs
4 cups shredded romaine lettuce (from 1 large head)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
8 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
2 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled (1 cup)
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and diced medium

Directions:
1) Shred the meat from the chicken and quarter the eggs.
2) In a large bowl, combine lettuce, lemon juice, and oil. Season with salt and pepper, toss to combine and top with eggs, bacon, tomatoes, cheese, avocado and chicken.

Bacon and avocado may be one of my all time favorite combinations. They are delicious together. As I mentioned earlier, I would have swapped the blue cheese for feta, but also I found the salad dressing to be fairly bland. I think it's because there is so little of it. Next time I would probably make it with 2.5 tbsp lemon juice, and 2.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil.
Overall, a tasty salad which is a surprisingly filling meal.

Quinoa with Corn

2011-08-11T09:25:00.000-06:00

After a four month break, I am back! I know in my last post I had promised I would still be posting, but not as often. I had the best of intentions when I wrote it but a couple things have prevented my blogging as of late.
One of them being I had packed up most of my apartment so it would look big and impersonal when it showed. All my cookbooks and most of my kitchen gadgets were packed away and I was feeling rather uninspired. I was actually surprised at how much I didn't feel like trying to cook anything new without being surrounded by all my cooking related possessions.
I have since moved a lot of my stuff back in, and I have the itch again.

I found this recipe via the FoodGawker. I didn't like it as much as I thought I was going to, but the fault lies with me, not the recipe. I have a tendency to eyeball my ingredients, and my eyes clearly failed me when it came to the amount of lemon juice I added. It was too much, but aside from the citrus overkill, it's a pretty great dish.
Quinoa with Corn
Adapted from: Just A Taste
Serves 8

Ingredients:
4 ears corn, shucked

1 Tablespoon grated fresh lemon zest
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
½ stick (¼ cup) unsalted butter, melted
1 Tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 cups uncooked quinoa
4 scallions, chopped

Directions:
1) Place the corn in a large pot and fill it with enough water to cover the corn. Cover the pot and bring it to a boil. As soon as the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let the pot stand, covered, for 5 minutes.

2) Remove the corn from the pot and let it cool on a cutting board until it's easy to handle. Then, using a sharp knife, cut the kernels off the cob.

3) Prepare the dressing by whisking together the lemon zest, lemon juice, melted butter, honey, salt and pepper in a large bowl.

4) Rinse the uncooked quinoa in a sieve under cold water until the water runs clear.

5) Cook the quinoa in a pot of of boiling salted water per the package directions.

6) Add the quinoa, corn kernels and chopped scallions to the bowl with the dressing and toss until it's evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

So here is where I went wrong. Since I am not going to eat 8 servings of this, I halved the recipe, actually I only halved part of it. I find that recipes don't make things as saucy as I would like, so I kept the ingredients for the dressing as they were.
It was a little overpowering, especially since I used probably 3-4 Tbsp of lemon juice. So should you make this, follow my advice and stick to the amounts in the recipe. And use fresh corn! It's summertime, celebrate and buy fresh corn as it is DELICIOUS right now.

Worth Every Penne

2011-04-14T12:54:00.000-06:00

I have some awful news. My condo board has kicked my dog out of my apartment. It's a long story, and it's due partially to a misunderstanding on my part, but also partially because my condo board is evil. After all, how could you evict something that is as adorable as this:

Sigh. If any of you are wondering, it was not from a noise complaint. My dog is mostly well behaved at home, and she's way quieter than the girl who yells at her boyfriend every single night. The point of my story is that I was left with the options of getting rid of my dog, or moving. I'm choosing to move, and currently have my apartment listed for sale. This is a very stressful and busy time for me, which means I will be blogging even less. I will try to as much as possible, but please bear with me for the time being.
For now, this pasta recipe comes from my Aunt G. I prepped, cooked and ate this meal within 35 minutes, which means it is a fantastic recipe for the weeknight.

Worth Every Penne
serves 4

Ingredients
3 cups dry penne noodles
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 red pepper, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 c mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp pesto
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 c cooked chicken, cut up
½ tsp black pepper
1/2 cup of feta cheese, crumbled (or more, if you are like me and love feta)

1) In a large pot of boiling water, cook the penne according to directions on the box.
2) Meanwhile, in a large skillet heat the oil over medium high. Add the peppers, onion and mushrooms and saute until soft, about 5 minutes.
3) In a bowl mix the honey, pesto and vinegar.
4) When the pasta is finished, drain and return to pot. Toss with the vegetables, sauce and chicken. Top with the feta cheese crumbles.

I didn't have any chicken on hand, so I didn't use it. I also used 1.5 tbsp of honey and pesto, and 3 tbsp of vinegar. I would add a little more vinegar the next time, but only because I'm crazy about it. Overall, this is a really yummy pasta, and I can't believe how fast it came together.

Rebekah's Pizza Muffins

2011-04-04T14:21:00.000-06:00

The second time that I had met my friend J was at her apartment. There was a bunch of us there, and someone ordered pizza for everyone. When the pizza arrived I took a seat right beside it and quickly polished off 3 slices, pineapple free. J's boyfriend then motioned for me to have another piece (unaware that I had already ate 3) as he took a bite of the last slice without pineapple. I said "You're eating the last piece without pineapple" and he jokingly handed me the piece that he had already taken a couple bites of. I took it, and ate it, much to his surprise.
This is his favorite story to tell people. I think partly because I have an enormous appetite for pizza, but also because he is still surprised that I had ate that piece, given that I didn't know him very well at the time.
If soul mates are real, I feel that mine is pizza.
I made these pizza muffins the other night. The inspiration came from this pizza, and Gimme Some Oven's pizza puffs.

Rebekah's Pizza Puffs
Makes 12

Ingredients:
C's Pizza Dough
1 lb ground chicken
1 medium to large onion, diced
2 chipotles in adobo, minced
1 tsp adobo sauce (from the can that had the chipotles)
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese.
Pico de Gallo, for serving

Directions:
1) Prepare the pizza dough, and let rise for an hour. Preheat the oven to 425 F once the dough has risen.
2) Meanwhile, in a large skillet cook the ground chicken. Once it is cooked, add the minced onion and saute for a minute, or until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the chipotles and adobo sauce and stir to combine. Remove from heat.
3) Divide the pizza dough into 12 equal portions. Take a standard size muffin pan and spray it with cooking spray. Place a portion of the pizza dough into each of the muffin cups. Press the dough up the sides so that you have 12 "cups" of pizza dough.
4) Fill each muffin cup with the chicken mixture and top with cheese. Bake in the oven until the dough is golden brown and the cheese has melted, about 15-20 minutes.

These were such a cute way to eat pizza. I found them to be pleasantly warm, but my sister found them "very spicy", but she's too senstive to that sort of thing. They must be served with the pico de gallo, it really takes them from being good to being amazing.

An inside view of the pizza muffin. So good!

Spinach and Feta Macaroni and Cheese

2011-03-28T13:35:00.000-06:00

I love feta. I guess when it comes down to it, I really just love cheese, but feta comes pretty close to being my favorite. I found this recipe on FoodGawker, while searching for a pasta made with feta. The whole dish can be made fairly quick, it took me just over the amount of time it took to cook the pasta. On a weeknight that is definitely something I appreciate.

Spinach and Feta Macaroni and Cheese
courtesy of Babble
serves 10-12

Ingredients:
5 cups fresh spinach

juice of 1 lemon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1 1/2 cups cheddar, shredded
3/4 cup feta cheese crumbles
1 pound macaroni-style pasta or cut spaghetti, cooked to al dente

Directions:
1) Toss lemon juice and spinach. Heat in microwave or over stove in a small saucepan just until it starts to wilt. Set aside.
2) Over medium heat, melt butter in a large saucepan. Whisk in flour and continue cooking for 3 minutes until lightly browned.
3) Slowly whisk in milk and add in salt and oregano. Begin adding cheddar in small amounts, stirring until melted between each addition. When all the cheese is melted stir in the feta.
4) Mix in cooked macaroni and spinach. Serve immediately sprinkled with extra feta if desired.

Delicious! If you are a big feta fan like myself, you will love this. The only thing I would have done differently is cut my spinach into ribbons. I am not a huge fan of cooked spinach, so I didn't like have large bites of cooked spinach in it. The smaller pieces were fine, and they tasted strongly of lemon which cut the saltiness of the feta.

Rebekah's Chickpea Curry

2011-03-21T14:37:00.001-06:00

I am back from vacation and slowly settling back into my normal routine. I had my friend M over for dinner last night, and she loves chickpeas so I made us a curry. I also chose to make curry because it's cold in Edmonton, and I'm having a hard time getting used to this weather again.

Rebekah's Chickpea Curry
serves: A small army of 8 or more

Ingredients:
2 tbsp vegetable oil, divided
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size chunks
1 onion, diced
4 tbsp curry paste
2 cans coconut milk
1 can whole tomatoes
1 habanero pepper, ribs and seeds removed, finely chopped
2 cans chickpeas
2 bell peppers (red, yellow or orange)
1 cup cashews (toasted if desired)

Directions:
1) heat 1 tbsp oil over medium high in a large pot or skillet. Add the chicken and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove chicken from pan.
2) Heat remaining oil and add onion. Saute until soft, about 2 minutes. Add the coconut milk, curry paste and tomatoes, breaking the tomatoes apart with a wooden spoon. (Or, like me, you can puree the tomatoes in a food processor before adding them)
3) Add the habanero pepper and chickpeas. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the peppers and cashews and heat through, about 1 minute.

Serve with rice and/or naan bread.

I made the mistake of adding the habanero with the onions, this is a terrible idea because the room will quickly be permeated with habanero. Habanero peppers are quite hot, and having the air permeated with the oil will cause you and anyone else in the room to cough until the air clears. Add the pepper after all the liquids have been added to the pot.
Aside from that situation, this is a very easy curry to put together. I used a pre-made curry paste for the sake of making it even easier. The curry isn't too spicy, but it does have a bit of heat to it. Overall, a tasty dish on a wintry night.

Maui

2011-03-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

There will be a lack of posting over the next couple weeks. I will be in Maui on vacation. (Note: There will still be someone living in my apartment). I was hoping to be more organized and have some posts ready, but I have had some setbacks in the last couple weeks, so I don't have anything. I'm sorry, but I will be back in two weeks and posting on a regular basis.

Rebekah

Pork Fried Rice

2011-02-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think I should just name this blog after Everyday Food. Most of the recipes that I cook come from there. I can't stop recommending this publication. (They don't even pay me for my glowing reviews, I honestly just think everyone should buy it) By now, if you haven't listened to me and picked up an issue, it's about time you do!

Pork Fried Rice
by Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp plus 1/4 tsp soy sauce
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp minced, peeled fresh ginger (I keep ginger in my freezer, it's easier to grate, and I just leave the peel on)
1 bunch scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced
1/2 ground pork
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 cup frozen peas
2 cups cooked white rice (about 3/4 cup uncooked) The rice should be cooled before using
2 tbsp rice vinegar

Directions:
1) In a wok or large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil over high. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs with 1/4 tsp soy sauce to combine. Add eggs to wok and swirl to coat bottom of pan. Cook, without stirring, until almost set, 1 minute, then fold in thirds with a spatula. Transfer cooked eggs to a work surface and cut into 1/2 inch pieces.

2) Add 1 tbsp oil to wok and swirl to coat. Add garlic, ginger, and scallion whites and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add pork and cook, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until just cooked through, about 3 minutes. Add carrots, peas and rice and stir to combine. Add cooked egg, 2 tbsp soy sauce, and vinegar and cook, stirring constantly, until rice is coated, about 1 minute. Let cook, undisturbed, until warm, about 1 minute. Top with scallion greens and serve.

This fried rice comes in at approximately 411 calories per serving, which is fantastic. I made this meal at my sister's house and my niece loved it so much she had three helpings. (Which turned out to be too much for her, she was sick later)
My brother in law liked it so much he asked for the recipe, and usually he gives reviews like "it's not bad" or "it's alright".
I really enjoyed it. So easy to make, low in calories, and tasted good. I can't ask for much more than that.

Lone Linguine with White Truffle

2011-02-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

My roommate has been in Cuba for the past week. I find having the house to myself lonely and sad. HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAA just kidding, I love it. On my first night alone I celebrated by making Lone Linguine with White Truffle. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson, (LOVE LOVE LOVE) someone who can appreciate how great time to yourself is. Don't let the truffle part fool you, the recipe calls for truffle oil which is much more affordable than the actual truffle itself. This pasta is rich, creamy and luxurious. Would you expect anything less from Nigella?

Lone Linguine with White Truffle
serves 1

Ingredients:
4 ounces linguine

Salt
1 egg
3 tablespoons double cream
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
Few drops white truffle oil, or to taste
Freshly ground white pepper
1 tablespoon butter

Directions:
1) Bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium heat. Salt the water and add the pasta. Add the linguine and cook for 2 minutes less than the instructions on the package. Taste it to make sure it's al dente. Remove 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water and reserve. Drain.

2) In a bowl whisk the egg, the cream, Parmesan, a few drops of white truffle oil and a good pinch of white pepper.

3) Put the drained pasta back into the pan you cooked it in, then add the butter and about 1 tablespoonful of the cooking water. Stir to mix.

4) Stir in the egg mixture and keep mixing so that the pasta becomes smooth, soft and lightly coated. Taste to see if it needs any salt or any more truffle oil and act accordingly.

Transfer the pasta to a bowl and eat alone, and thrillingly.

I didn't have any butter so I skipped that, and it was still delicious. I can only imagine how good it would be with the butter.

Pot Roast

2011-02-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Monday of a long weekend. I decided to take advantage of all my free time by making a pot roast. The pot roast itself doesn't take a lot to put together, but it has a lengthy cooking time (roughly 4 hours). This is a recipe from my head, so the ingredient amounts are all an approximation.

Rebekah's Pot Roast
serves 4 (with leftover meat)

Ingredients:
For roast and gravy
1 sirloin roast. I don't know what the weight of mine was, but it was about $15
salt and pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, halved and sliced thinly
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 4-6 long pieces, depending on the size of carrots
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1/2 cup red wine
2 cups or so beef stock (reduced sodium)
3 rosemary sprigs, left whole
1 rosemary sprig, minced
2 tbsp horseradish
sprinkle of Montreal steak spice

For potatoes:
4 large baker's potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
3 tbsp heavy cream
2 tbsp horseradish

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F
1) Heat the oil in a Dutch oven that is large enough to hold the roast. Season the roast with salt and pepper, and cover with flour, you will not need the entire 1/4 cup of flour for this, just use what you need and set the rest aside.
2) Brown the roast on all sides. This should take a couple minutes on each side. You are looking for a dark golden color, that gives the appearance of a crust on the meat. Meanwhile mix together the horseradish, minced rosemary and Montreal steak spice. (The steak spice isn't necessary, salt and pepper will work if you don't have it. Also a tbsp of Dijon mustard would work really nicely in this, but I didn't think about it until too late)
3) Remove the meat, and add the onion. Saute for about a minute, add the carrots, saute a minute more and add the garlic. Add the bay leaves, rosemary sprigs and the wine, scraping the bottom to loosen the brown bits. Place the roast back in and pour in enough beef stock for it to come halfway up the roast. Top the roast with the horseradish mixture. Cover the roast and cook for 3.5 - 4 hours, depending on the size.
4) About 10 minutes before the roast is done, start boiling the potatoes in salted water. When the roast is finished, remove it from the Dutch oven, tent with foil and set aside to rest. Use a slotted spoon to remove the carrots and most of the onion, place them in a oven safe bowl, tent with foil and set in the oven to keep warm. (The oven can be set to its lowest setting, or even off for that)
5) Place the Dutch oven on the stove, set burner for medium-high. Add another splash of red wine, and another half cup of beef stock. Take roughly a tbsp from the reserved flour and stir it into a cup with a bit of water or stock, add to the gravy. Bring to a boil, boil for a couple minutes. Remove from heat, and remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs.
6) When the potatoes are fork tender, drain and place back in the pot. Add the horseradish and cream (I used cream because I had it on hand, butter or margarine would work too), and mash.
7) Take the foil off the meat, and slice against the grain.

I'm hoping these directions make sense. I was adding ingredients as they came into my head, with what I had on hand. It looks like a lot of steps, but really it came together quickly to start off with, and it wasn't very complicated at the end either.
Overall, if you like horseradish you will like this roast. I can't get enough of it, myself.

Mediterranean Chickpea Burgers

2011-02-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

Most of the time when I check my mail there's nothing exciting in there, mainly just bills or flyers. Sometimes, though, the newest issue of Everyday Food is in there, and it's a beautiful day. Their March 2011 issue has page after page of recipes that I have to try, and the first one I made is the Mediterranean Chickpea Burgers. I have had a recent obsession lately with burgers, especially bean burgers. I had to text my roommate sister the other night to see if she was sick of the Veggie Burgers with Tahini Mayonnaise yet, because I felt like making them again for the third time in two weeks. (Side note: The veggie burgers are even better when a little Sriracha sauce is stirred into the mayonnaise. Also I discovered that butter lettuce is good on them, and I hate lettuce on burgers)
The chickpea burger that I made last night, does have beef in it. The patties are roughly half ground beef and half chickpeas and bulgur wheat. NOM NOM NOM. When I was buying the ground beef I managed to give myself a heart attack and embarrass myself all at the same time. What you need to know is that I am half Dutch, which means I am half cheap. I have zero issue paying lots of money for Lululemon, but I will not spend lots of money on other things, like ground beef.
I was looking at the ground beef and for roughly a pound of it, the price was $9 or so. Usually it's about $5, so this sent me into a panic attack about food prices going up and how I would no longer be able to afford one of the cheapest meats to buy. I spotted a butcher and I said "Hey, why is the ground beef so expensive?" and he said "That's ground bison". I'm an idiot.

Mediterranean Chickpea Burgers
adapted from Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients
2 ounces feta cheese
1/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt
coarse salt and ground pepper
1/4 bulgur
1 can (15.5 ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 pound ground beef chuck
1/3 cup roughly chopped mint leaves
nonstick cooking spray
4 hamburger buns, split and lightly toasted
1 small cucumber, thinly sliced
1 large tomato, sliced

Directions:
1) In a small bowl, mash feta with the back of a fork until smooth. Stir in the yogurt and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

2) In a small heatproof bowl, combine bulgur and 1/2 cup boiling water. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a food processor, pulse chickpeas until coarsely chopped. Transfer to a large bowl and add beef and mint. Drain bulgur and add to chickpea mixture. With your hands, mix until mixture is evenly combined and holds together when pressed into a ball. Divide into four 1-inch-thick patties and season with salt and pepper.

3) Lightly coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium-high. Add patties and cook until browned and crispy on the outside and cooked through, 8-10 minutes, flipping once. Serve on buns with sliced cucumber, tomato and feta-yogurt sauce.

Overall, I found the patty to taste strongly of ground beef. Not a lot of flavor. To combat this, I would add some lemon juice to the feta-yogurt sauce next time. It was a good burger, but it just needed something extra to make it great.

Sriracha Glazed Chicken Burgers

2011-02-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

Generally when I see a recipe for chicken wings that I want to make, I make it as a chicken burger. I do love chicken wings, but I really love burgers, especially chicken ones. In a recent issue of Everyday Food, they had a recipe for Sriracha Glazed Chicken Wings. I took the same sauce, and adapted the recipe to make chicken burgers. These were AMAZING.

Sriracha Glazed Chicken Burgers
adapted from Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients:

Burger
1 lb ground chicken
3 green onions, sliced thinly
1 tsp Sriracha sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 egg
1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tbsp plus one tsp white vinegar
1 tbsp Sriracha
1 tbsp sugar
1.5 tsp grated and peeled fresh ginger
1.5 tsp sesame oil

4 toasted buns, I used sesame kaiser rolls, but the choice is yours.

Directions:
1) Combine all the ingredients for the burgers EXCEPT the oil in a large bowl. Divide mix equally into four, and form them into burger patties.
2) Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high. Place the patties in the skillet and heat until cooked, about 5 minutes on each side.
3) Meanwhile, combine all the ingredients for the sauce. When the patties are cooked through, pour the sauce in the skillet. Flip the patties a couple times to ensure the burgers are coated in the sauce. Remove skillet from heat.
4) Place the patties onto the buns. If there is any extra sauce in the skillet, drizzle on top of the patties.

You can add lettuce, or any toppings that you like, but I thought there was huge amount of flavor just as is. Honestly, these were one of the best chicken burgers that I have made. I could eat them again and again.

Pineapple and Ginger Smoothie

2011-02-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

Smoothies can be a deceitful drink. Sometimes people like to think they are doing themselves a big ol' favor drinking one. Those people can be wrong. Some smoothies are made thick and creamy by adding ice cream, some are made sweet by adding a lot of sugar. This smoothie is actually good for you, and, like most things out of Everyday Food, it tastes good.

Pineapple & Ginger Smoothie
adapted from Everyday Food
serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cup frozen pineapple cut into 1-inch pieces
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1 cup pineapple juice
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions: Blend until smooth.

Hints by Rebekah: If you find yourself with extra ginger, put it in the freezer. Frozen ginger can be grated on a microplane or grater with greater ease than fresh ginger. I used frozen ginger for the recipe, and I also didn't peel it, there's no need to peel ginger.

Twice Baked Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

2011-02-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had twice baked stuffed potatoes at my friend C's house. They were delicious, I could have ate at least 4 of them. The other night I wanted to recreate the recipe, but this time using the vitamin laden sweet potato.

Rebekah's Twice Baked Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
serves 4

Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes
3 strips of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup plain yogurt (sour cream would work as well)
juice of 1 lime
2 tsp chili powder (add more to taste)
4 green onions, white and green parts sliced thinly
1/2 cup (or so) grated cheddar cheese

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 F.
2) Cut the sweet potatoes in half, lengthwise. Place each potato half, inside side facing up, on a baking sheet. Bake for roughly 45 minutes, until the flesh is easily pierced with a fork
3) Meanwhile, cook the bacon until browned and crisp in a skillet. Set aside to drain on a paper towel.
4) Mix the remaining ingredients in a medium to large bowl.
5) When the potatoes are tender, remove from oven and let cool slightly. Use a spoon or melon baller to remove the flesh, leaving enough to form a canoe-like bowl. (If you remove too much flesh, you won't be able to stuff it)
6) Mix the removed flesh with the yogurt mixture. Once combined, spoon it equally into the potato boats.
7) Place the stuffed skins back in the oven for about 20 minutes

I can't get over how much I love sweet potatoes. The first time I tried them, I hated them. Now I can't get enough. I love the chili powder and lime juice combination with sweet potatoes. Very delicious!

Mushroom Stroganoff

2011-02-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is what I had for dinner the night of my birthday. I had spent the weekend in Calgary, and got back to Edmonton fairly late Sunday night and had to still go to my office to get some work done. What I really wanted to do after work was pick up a pizza and just be done with it. However, I have been feeling a bit "puffier" lately, and thought it would be best to make something with a little more nutritional value, and a little less caloric value.
Enter in Mushroom Stroganoff...

Mushroom Stroganoff
adapted from The Svelte Gourmet

Ingredients:
1 tbsp butter

1 large onion, diced
32 ounces mushrooms of your choice (I used a mix of white button, and cremini)
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp flour
1 cup light sour cream
12 oz whole wheat wide egg noodles
1/2 tsp dill weed

Directions:
1) Heat salted water to a boil and cook noodles until al dente.
2) In the meantime, melt butter in a medium saucepan. Cook onions until slightly soft, then add mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms release some of their water.
3) Add flour, stirring well to combine, then add white wine, salt, pepper, Dijon mustard and Worcestershire. Cook on medium until liquid reduces and begins to thicken and mushrooms are tender.
4) Remove from heat and stir in sour cream and dill. Add hot, cooked noodles and stir gently so sauce coats noodles.

This recipe was very easy to put together. If the mushrooms and onion are chopped and ready to go, the whole thing is made in the time it takes to cook the noodles. I made this for dinner after spending the day at a mall, then driving for a long time and going to work. I was exhausted, but this was really simple, and it tasted delicious.

Mirin Glazed Salmon & Leftover Salmon Salad

2011-01-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

I have made this mirin glazed salmon before. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express book, and it is exceptionally quick, easy and delicious. In the recipe she recommends saving some of the salmon to eat cold the next day in a salad. So this time around I made the salmon for dinner, and served it with a hot noodle side. The next day I turned the leftovers into a salad.
Mirin Glazed Salmon
adapted from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:
60ml mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

50g light brown sugar
60ml soy sauce
4 x 125g pieces salmon, cut from the thick part of the fillet so that they are narrow but tall rather than wide and flat
2 x 15ml tablespoons rice vinegar
1-2 spring onions, halved and shredded into fine strips

Directions:
1.Mix the mirin, brown sugar and soy sauce in a shallow dish that will take all 4 pieces of salmon, and marinate the salmon in it for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second. Meanwhile heat a large non-stick frying pan on the hob.

2.Cook the salmon in the hot, dry pan for 2 minutes and then turn the salmon over, add the marinade and cook for another 2 minutes.
3.Remove the salmon to whatever plate you're serving it on, add the rice vinegar to the hot pan, and warm through.
4.Pour the dark, sweet, salty glaze over the salmon and top with the spring onion strips.
5.Serve with rice or noodles as you wish, and consider putting some sushi ginger on the table, too.

Since I was making the noodle dish to go with it, I made double the amount of marinade the salmon recipe called for. I used half to marinate the salmon, and then I added 1 tbsp of rice vinegar to the half that was going into the noodle dish.

The noodle dish was very easy. I chopped up a random assortment of vegetables (1 bell pepper, 3 carrots, 4 green onions, 1 cup of sugar snap peas, and 1 broccoli floret). I cooked a package of Catelli Smart spaghettini according to the package directions. You could also use soba noodles, or vermicelli if you like.
Once the noodles were done cooking, I poured them into a colander. I took the pot I used to make the pasta and added 1 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and set on medium high heat. I added the veggies and sauteed for a few minutes, then I added the pasta back to the pot with the remaining half of the marinade.

The following day I put the cold noodles on top of a bed of butter lettuce, and topped the whole thing with leftover salmon (I flaked the cooked fillet into bite size pieces).

The salmon and noodles were so delicious the night before, and the salad was really good the next day. The salad is a perfect way to eat leftover salmon, without the danger of overcooking it in the microwave.

Chicken Noodle Soup

2011-01-26T11:47:00.001-07:00

My sister S had a touch of the flu last week. Since I am an awesome sister, I went over to her place to make her some chicken noodle soup. I did neglect to take a picture of the soup after I had made it, so this picture was taken the next day at work. The bowl is from Tupperware and was given to me for Christmas. If you look carefully you can see that the calendar underneath is marked on my very favorite day of the year, my birthday. (January 30!)

Rebekah's Chicken Noodle Soup
serves a small army of 9-10

Ingredients
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
3 stalks of celery, sliced thinly
approx. 9 cups of reduced sodium chicken stock (I used 3 cartons of chicken stock)
1 rotisserie chicken, skin removed and meat shredded into small pieces
2 tsp seasoning salt
2 cups uncooked whole wheat macaroni
1 cup canned lentils

Directions:
1) Heat the oil over medium high in your largest pot. Add the onion and saute until soft, about 2 minutes. Add the carrot and celery and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the chicken, salt, and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.

2) Meanwhile cook the pasta according to package directions.

3) After the soup has simmered, add the canned lentils and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the cooked pasta and remove from the heat, and serve.

I found it to be pretty tasty, but I felt that the soup lacked a certain something. When I packaged some leftovers for work I added about 2 tsp of Sriracha sauce to it. The next day the soup tasted perfect, so I would highly recommend serving with Sriracha for people who want a little bit of heat.
This is also more of a chicken noodle stew, just add more broth if you would like your soup to be thinner.

Black Bean and Quinoa Tortilla Cups

2011-01-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

If two of my previous posts, the Taco Cups and the Black Bean Quinoa Quesidillas, were to mate and reproduce, you would end up with these fancy little cups, that are really adorable.

Black Bean Quinoa Cups
adapted from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood
and my head.
Makes 6 cups, serves 3

Filling:
Ingredients

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup quinoa
1/2 cup cooked black beans (I used canned)
1/4 cup finely diced fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup corn kernels
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion
1 T minced fresh cilantro (I left the cilantro out)

Bring the water and quinoa to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave the covered saucepan on the burner for an additional 5 minutes. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Meanwhile, combine all the other ingredients into a bowl. Add the cooked quinoa to the mix.

Take 6 small tortillas and form them into a cone shape, and place into a muffin pan. Spoon the filling equally between the 6 cones. Top each with some grated cheddar cheese. Bake in the oven until cheese is melted and the tortilla cups are a golden brown, approximately 10 minutes.

Serve with salsa, sour cream or pico de gallo (my personal favorite)

Cheesy Chili

2011-01-20T09:26:00.001-07:00

I realize this is not necessarily the most appetizing picture of chili. I can admit that it looks more like a soup than a chili, and there's not actually any chili in the recipe, so it's possibly not really a chili. And you could be asking yourself what the stringy white bits are, answer: melted cheese.

All this aside, would I post a recipe that I didn't think was good? Would I post a recipe that I wouldn't encourage anyone to make? Probably not. So keep an open mind, and check the recipe out, because it's quite good. After all, it came from the Domestic Goddess herself, Nigella Lawson.
Nigella's Cheesy Chili
recipe from Kitchen

Ingredients:
110g chorizo, cut into fat coins and halved (roughly 2 links)
500g beef mince (I used one package, roughly a pound)
1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 x 15ml tablespoon tomato paste
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
125ml water, swilled from empty tomato can
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 X 400g can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 X 125g fresh mozzarella cheese balls, chopped
handful chopped fresh coriander, to serve (I skipped this, fresh coriander is cilantro and we all know how I feel about that)

Directions:
1) Put a cast-iron casserole or heavy-based pan (needs to have a lid) on the stove and heat over medium high, add the chorizo and cook it until an orange oil is released.
2) Add the mince, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. When the meat begins to lose its raw colour, sprinkle with cocoa and oregano, dollop in the puree and give a good stir before adding the canned tomatoes. Swill the empty can with 125ml water, and empty that into the pan, followed by the Worcestershire sauce and kidney beans, then let it come to the boil.
3) Turn the heat down, put the lid on, and simmer for 20 minutes.
4) Remove the lid, and let it come to the boil again, then turn off the heat and stir in the mozzarella. Stir and serve immediately.

What I loved: The chili was simple to make, and took roughly thirty five minutes from beginning to end, which is great on a week night.

What I didn't love: The chili wasn't that spicy, it was flavourful, but I would expect more spice from a chili. The stringy cheese, though delicious, looked a little weird (fine for family, maybe not for guests). The chili was also a little more soup-like than what I would expect.

Overall: I would add hot sauce, or chili powder or cayenne pepper to give it some heat. That's just my personal taste though, this would be a really nice recipe for a family who has some members that don't like heat and can eat as is, and some members who can just add their own heat to taste. I wouldn't add the water next time to keep it from getting too watery. This really was a great dish though, it would make a fantastic meal with a salad and some fresh bread.

Caprese Lasagna aka. Where's the Meat?

2011-01-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

I cannot take credit for this meal, as it was made by my sister S. The first time she made this for her family, her husband asked "where's the meat?", because how can one have a lasagna with no meat? He ate it though, and now requests it for nights that he plays hockey because it is some sort of super food that increases his hockey playing abilities.
I can't vouch for how it aids in hockey, but it is a super energizing and delicious meal. I was sort of a skeptic at first, as I am finicky about tomatoes, but this is really good.

Caprese Lasagna
adapted from Rachael Ray

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken stock (my sister used 2 cups of milk)
A few grates of fresh nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 box oven-ready lasagna noodles
4 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
Half a bunch basil, chopped (about 30 leaves) (my sister used fresh spinach instead)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1) Pre-heat the oven to 375ºF.

2) Place a large saucepot over medium-heat and melt the butter. Add the garlic to the pan and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and garlic and cook for about 1 minute. Whisk the milk and chicken stock (if using stock) into the butter-flour mixture and bring up to a bubble. Add the nutmeg, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and simmer until thickened, 3-4 minutes.
3) Assemble the lasagna by ladling a small amount (about 1/4 cup, just eyeball it) of the sauce into the bottom of a 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish and laying three lasagna noodles over the sauce. Top the noodles with about a third of the sliced tomatoes, a third of the basil, 1/4 cup of sauce and about a third of the shredded cheese. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, topping the lasagna off with a final layer of sauce and shredded cheese.
4) Cover the pan with foil and bake the lasagna for 30 minutes. Remove the foil from the baking dish and bake another 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly. When ready to serve, top with the remaining chopped basil leaves.

I recommend the usage of spinach, it's probably what acts as the energy booster, and spinach is so good for you. If you can find decent basil, use a mix of basil and spinach in the lasagna, but otherwise the lack of basil doesn't mean the lasagna is lacking flavor. The opposite is true, this lasagna is really tasty.

J's Garlic Dressing

2011-01-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

I worked out with my friend J the other night. Afterwards we had dinner at her house, and her boyfriend, J, made the most delicious salad dressing. It is not for people who are concerned about their breath, as it contains an entire head of garlic. THE ENTIRE HEAD. This s*&t is bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S), it is so good.
I will warn you, girl J did say that I was probably the first person who loved the salad dressing, but if you aren't afraid of a little garlic, I encourage you to try it.

J's Garlic Dressing
Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients:
1 head of garlic
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup oil
juice from one lemon
ground pepper
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1) Start by mincing the garlic. You could use a press, but that wouldn't yield chunks of garlic in the dressing.
You will end up with a small pile of deliciousness:

2) Put the garlic in a bowl, and add the oil, lemon juice and vinegar. I used extra virgin olive oil, but I would recommend using a different oil. The olive oil overpowers the taste (even when using that amount of garlic), so use something mild like vegetable or safflower oil.

3) Add the grated Parmesan and a ton of ground pepper. Don't be chintzy with the pepper! Mix and pour over a salad.

This particular salad is romaine lettuce topped with red pepper, feta cheese, bacon bits and croutons.

The dressing is so delicious. I wished that when I had made it, that I had to good sense to buy some fresh bread to clean my salad plate with. Really, I can't express how tasty I think it is.

Spice-Rubbed Fish with Lemony Rice

2011-01-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was not my day. I woke up, got ready and came to work. Once I got there someone (clearly a male, since no woman would say this) said to me "rough night?". No, it was not a rough night. I slept well, and for a decent amount of time. So clearly, it was just my appearance that was rough.
I work in a field that is pretty well dominated by men. They have this ability to say or do the dumbest things. One of my favorites is "did you get your haircut?" and then when I say yes, their reaction is a nod or grimace. A woman would know that even if you hate the haircut, if you brought it up you still say it looks great.
So that was the start of my morning, and the "badness" ended up snowballing until the end of the day when I was making supper at 9 pm. And then things got better, because I made a one pot meal, that took 35 minutes from start to finish, and it was only 348 calories per delicious serving!

Spice-Rubbed Fish with Lemony Rice
adapted from Everyday Food

Ingredients
4 tsp unsalted butter
1 small yellow onion, diced small
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 cup basmati rice - I used jasmine
1/2 tsp poppy seeds (optional) - I opted out
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest, plus 1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 1 inch pieces - I am not a fan of zucchini so I used a half cup or so of frozen peas
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pound cod or other firm white-fleshed fish, cut into four fillets - I used cod, which was already in fillets in a pack of 3
2 tsp Coriander Spice Mix (see below)

Directions:
1) In a medium saucepan, heat butter over medium. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft, 4 minutes. Stir in rice and poppy seeds (if using) and cook 1 minute. Stir in lemon zest, juice, broth and zucchini and season with salt and pepper. (If you are using peas instead of zucchini, do not add the peas right now)
2) Bring to a boil over medium-high. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook 13 minutes. Sprinkle spice mix over fish. (If using peas, add the peas after the 13 minutes and stir before doing the following) Arrange fish snugly in a single layer, spice side up, on top of rice, cover, and cook until rice is tender and fish is opaque throughout, 5 to 7 minutes.

Coriander spice mix: In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup ground coriander, 1 tbsp each ground ginger, paprika and coarse salt, 1.5 tsp ground cumin, and 1/4 tsp ground pepper. (Store in an airtight container up to 3 months)

This turned out really good. The fish was flavourful, and the rice had a similar creaminess to risotto. The recipe notes said that if you wanted some heat you could use Hungarian paprika or 1.5 tsp of cayenne pepper in place of the paprika. I just added cayenne pepper to the spice mix.
This is a really great weeknight (or late night) meal. Minimal cleanup and very little time involved in this recipe.

Pork Bolognese

2011-01-03T08:40:00.002-07:00

When I am looking at a recipe and see the words ground pork, milk and wine listed in the ingredients, I am skeptical about how it will turn out. If I see a pasta sauce with milk in it, and the sauce is tomato based, not cream based, I am hesitant to try it.
This past week has been pretty chilly in Edmonton, one that makes you want to turn the fireplace on and have a bowl full of soup, or chili, or pork bolognese. This recipe comes from, no surprise, Everyday Food.

Pork Bolognese
Recipe from Everyday Food
Serves 8

Ingredients:
3 slices bacon, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
2 pounds ground pork
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/4 cups whole milk
1 can (28 ounces) tomato sauce
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
5 sprigs fresh thyme
Coarse salt and ground pepper
Cooked penne rigate, for serving
Grated Parmesan, for serving

Directions:
1) In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, cook bacon over medium heat until fat is released, 5 minutes. Add onion, carrot, and celery; cook until soft, 6 minutes. Raise heat to medium-high; add pork and cook, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until browned, 7 minutes. Add tomato paste; cook until pork is coated, 4 minutes.
2) Add wine; cook until reduced by three-fourths. Add 1 cup milk; cook until reduced by half. Add tomato sauce, broth, bay leaf, thyme, 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Simmer, stirring occasionally, 1 hour. Stir in 1/4 cup milk. Serve sauce over pasta, topped with cheese

I found the sauce to be a bit runnier than what I like. Next time I would use only 1.5 cups of chicken stock and see if that makes any difference. Overall, the sauce was incredibly good. There was a lot of flavor, and it was very hearty. The sauce takes only a short time to bring together, and then it cooks for an hour. Very low maintenance to make, big flavor in the end.

Pupcakes

2010-12-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

It was my niece's birthday on Boxing Day, and for her birthday party my aunt Tante made these "pupcakes". This was the same Tante who made the Sesame Street Cupcakes.

I think these turned out to be adorable! I want my own pupcakes when it's my birthday next month.

Quinoa Cakes with Maple Pear Topping

2010-12-21T14:44:00.001-07:00

In one of the more recent issues of Everyday Food there was a recipe for Quinoa Cakes. Similar to pancakes, but made with the goodness of quinoa, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite ingredients. The batter gets dropped into the pan in a heaping tablespoon, which will seem small, but it spreads out and puffs up quite a bit. They aren't as light or fluffy as pancakes, but I would go so far as to say that I like them better.
I topped it with a maple pear topping. It is a creation from my friend M, who is a genius in the kitchen. The recipes for both are after the jump.

Quinoa Cakes
recipe by Everyday Food
makes about 12

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked quinoa or brown rice
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg white
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, plus more for skillet (I used cooking spray for the skillet)
1/4 cup low-fat milk
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, plus more for serving
Fresh fruit or fruit preserves (optional), for serving

Directions:
1) In a medium bowl, whisk together quinoa, flour, baking powder, and salt. In another medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg white, butter, milk, and syrup until smooth. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and whisk to combine.
2) Lightly coat a large nonstick skillet or griddle with butter and heat over medium-high. Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls into skillet. Cook until bubbles appear on top, 2 minutes. Flip cakes and cook until golden brown on underside, 2 minutes. Wipe skillet clean and repeat with more melted butter and remaining batter (reduce heat to medium if overbrowning). Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit or preserves if desired.

One time my friend M invited me for waffle breakfast at her house. She topped the waffles with the most amazing maple and pear creation that I have ever had. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup butter
5 red pears, cored and sliced thinly
1 tsp ground cloves
2 or 3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 pint blackberries

Directions:
1) In a large skillet over medium high, heat the maple syrup and butter until it starts to boil. Add the spices and pears and cook them until soft, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Add the blackberries and cook until warmed, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Serve on top of pancakes, waffles, ice cream, or with a spoon.

Note: M was pretty upset when she noticed I was using Aunt Jemima and not real maple syrup for the sauce. And I admit hers tasted way better, so if you are going to make this, use real maple syrup. Also, try to find pears that have a bright red/pinkish hue, the dark amber red pears aren't as good.

Pasta with Pancetta, Tomatoes and Onion

2010-12-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Before we get to the food, I must share some of the latest things on my blog. I have added share buttons, which means if you really like my post you can share it by emailing it to a friend, posting it on Facebook, or Twitter. Speaking of Twitter; I have joined the masses. You can follow me, username missnoladyblog. Finally, on the right side of my blog there is a widget that makes it possible for you to tweet or Facebook my blog itself, not just a link to the individual post. Remember kids, sharing is caring, so if you like what I cook, share it!

Ok, let's get to this pasta. This is an Everyday Food recipe, they call it Bucatini with Pancetta, Tomatoes and Onion. I changed it to pasta since I made it with bowties, not bucatini. This was such a cinch to make, most of the ingredients are listed in the title, and the most time consuming part was dicing the pancetta.

Pasta with Pancetta, Tomatoes and Onion
adapted from Everyday Food

Ingredients:
Coarse salt and ground pepper
12 ounces bucatini or spaghetti (I used whole wheat bowties)
1 slice pancetta (6 ounces), diced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes in juice
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano (2 ounces)

Directions:
1) In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water. Drain pasta; return to pot.

2) While pasta is cooking, heat a large skillet over medium-low. Add pancetta, and cook until browned and crisp, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Using a slotted spoon, transfer pancetta to a paper-towel-lined plate to drain, and set aside (leave fat in skillet).

3) Increase heat to medium. Add onion and garlic to skillet; season with salt and pepper. Cook until onion begins to soften, 5 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes (with juice); cook, breaking them up with a spoon, until sauce has slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Add sauce to pasta in pot; toss, adjusting consistency with pasta water if necessary. Serve pasta topped with pancetta and Pecorino.

I would keep the salting of the sauce to a minimum, the pancetta itself was very salty, so it would be easy to make the entire thing overall too salty. I was really happy with this recipe, so easy to make, and it tasted so good. There's something to be said for homemade pasta sauces.

Pumpkin Scones

2010-12-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not the biggest fan of pumpkin pie, I think it has to do with the texture and not so much the taste. I love the spices that are used in pumpkin pie; cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. I like the taste of pumpkin, but put them in a pie and something just doesn't add up.
These scones are a perfect way to get your pumpkin pie fix, if you don't actually like the texture of the pie.

Pumpkin Scones
Adapted by Authentic Suburban Gourmet
Makes 24 scones

Ingredients:
4 ½ C. flour (I used 2 cups whole wheat flour, and 2.5 cups all purpose flour)

½ C. Dark brown sugar, packed
1 ½ T. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
½ t. salt
1 ½ t. cinnamon
¾ t. ground ginger
½ t. Nutmeg
¼ t. ground clove
1 C. (2 sticks) chilled butter, diced
2 Eggs, beaten
1 C. canned pumpkin purée
2/3 C. Milk
1 egg beaten with 2 T. milk, for egg wash
Granulated or sanding sugar, for garnish (I skipped this)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Use parchment paper, silpat or lightly greased baking sheet and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. On the machine's lowest setting, cut in the chilled butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. The butter should be in small pieces.

Lightly whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée and milk. With the machine on low, pour the liquids slowly into the flour and butter mixture, stirring until just combined. Small bits of butter should still be visible, but almost all the flour should be incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Working quickly, gently knead the dough, folding and pressing gently until smooth. Divide the dough in half and flatten with your hands to about one inch thick. Use a round two inch cookie cutter and cut rounds and place on the prepared baking sheet. Continue to flatten and cut rounds until the dough is gone. You will need to flour the board to prevent sticking. Once finished, brush each scone with the egg wash and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until the the tops are lightly golden and the cut sides look flaky and dry. Cool on a wire rack for at least 5 minutes. Serve warm.

You can serve them as is, or you can top them with a spicy glaze. I decided to use the glaze, which is why I skipped sprinkling the scones with sugar. The glaze is from the same site

Spicy Glaze

Ingredients:
1 C. Powdered sugar

2 T. Milk
1 t. Cinnamon
½ t. Nutmeg
¼ t. All spice
½ t. Ground cloves

Directions:
When the scones are cooling, mix the confectioners sugar, spices and milk together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the scones while they are still warm.

Salmon Burgers With Yogurt Dill Sauce

2010-12-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through some of my older issues of Everyday Food when I found this recipe for salmon burgers. I know that there are some great benefits (omega 3 fatty acids, for instance) to eating salmon, and I generally like it, but I don't eat it very often. I tend to overlook salmon as a protein that I could be eating for dinner. This recipe caught my eye though, and I made it that night.
The salmon is mixed with horseradish which gives the patty a considerable bite of flavor, but doesn't completely cover up the taste of the salmon. The yogurt dill sauce is a fantastic condiment, and the whole burger comes in at roughly 330 calories. What's not to like about a healthy, filling and delicious meal?
(click "read more" for the recipes for the sides I served with the burgers, and a demonstration of my awesome Paint skills)

Salmon Burgers with Yogurt Dill Sauce
adapted from Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients:
1 lb skinless salmon fillet
1 Tbsp prepared white horseradish
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 large egg, lightly beaten
3 thinly sliced scallions (I used 5 or 6)
2 Tbsp plain dried bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/2 cup plain, low-fat yogurt
1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
4 whole wheat hamburger buns (I used white kaiser rolls)

1) Turn the broiler on in the oven
2) Dice the salmon. The easiest way to do this is by slicing the fillet into thin slices, then slicing them into thin slices vertically, and then horizontally. I will demonstrate in Paint.

3) In a medium bowl mix the diced salmon, horseradish, lemon zest, lemon juice, egg, scallions, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Stir the mixture together gently with a fork.
4) Form the mix into 4 patties. Roughly 3.5 inches by 1 inch. (Note: The mix will not form a patty that holds together like a ground meat patty, it binds together during the cooking process). Place the patties on a foil lined baking sheet. Broil for 7 minutes, until they are browned on top and opaque throughout.
5) Meanwhile, stir together the yogurt and dill and season with salt and pepper.

Serve the burgers on toasted buns, with the yogurt dill sauce and lettuce. (I skipped the lettuce)

I really liked these. My sister R was fairly doubtful about how they would taste, but she liked them as well. I could see them being a fairly regular dinner at my house.

I served roasted butternut squash and roasted yam "fries" with the burgers.
I made the squash by peeling and cubing a butternut squash. I tossed it with 1 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and 1 Tbsp brown sugar. I peeled the yam and cut it into fry sized sticks and tossed them with 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, a few dashes of chili powder and the juice from half a lime. I places all of it on a baking sheet and roasted them at 415 F for about 40 minutes, until tender. Then I squeezed another lime half over the yam sticks and seasoned both the yam and squash with salt.

These aren't the greatest pictures ever, but I was really happy with how those two sides turned out. Yams and squash are also items that I don't often make, but I hope to start making more.

Onion and Bacon Soup

2010-11-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

I received a text from my friend C the other night, she was asking if I had read the new December issue of Everyday Food. She went on to say that she made the Onion and Bacon Soup, and that her and her husband loved it more than Julia Child's recipe. Which, given how I knew she felt about Julia Child's recipe, meant the recipe had to be really good.
One thing about Julia Child's recipes is that there can be a lot of steps and ingredients involved. Great recipes for the weekend, but if being made in the work week you could end up eating at 9 or 10 pm. This particular Everyday Food recipe has 5 ingredients, and only uses about 10 minutes hands on time.
It is the perfect recipe for supper on a cold, wintry day.

Onion and Bacon Soup
adapted from Everyday Food
Serves 6

1) In a medium Dutch oven or heavy pot, cook 6 slices bacon, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces, over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 5 minutes. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from pot (reserve for another use). Add 3 large yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced lengthwise, and reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally and scraping up browned bits from pot with a wooden spoon, until onions are very soft and a deep golden brown, about 1 hour (reduce heat if onions are overbrowning). Add 4 cups of low-sodium chicken broth and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

2) Heat broiler, with rack in top position. With a ladle, transfer soup into six 8-ounce broilerproof baking dishes set on a rimmed baking sheet. Top each with a baguette slice (1 inch thick) and 1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese. Transfer sheet to oven and broil until cheese is melted and browned in spots, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately.

I made a couple changes to this recipe. I made it to serve four, instead of six so I used:
- 4 slices bacon
- 2 large yellow onions
- 3 1/4 cups low sodium chicken broth

My grocery store didn't have any Gruyere cheese, so I swapped it with Swiss cheese. And it was delicious. This really is a fantastic soup! You can also choose to freeze the soup, once made. Thaw and reheat before topping with the bread and cheese, then broil.

Black Bean Quinoa Quesadillas

2010-11-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I made a salad from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood. The second recipe I tried was their black bean and quinoa quesadillas. The filling contains black beans, quinoa, green onion, corn, tomato and cheese. The result is a light and healthy dinner that is actually pretty filling. The leftovers reheated nicely the next day for lunch (though the tortilla was no longer crisp).

Quinoa isn't something I would necessarily think to stick between a tortilla, but I was pretty happy with the results.

Black Bean and Quinoa Quesadillas

from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood

Ingredients

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup quinoa
1/2 cup cooked black beans (I used canned)
1/4 cup finely diced fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup corn kernels
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion
1 T minced fresh cilantro (I left the cilantro out)
8 soft whole wheat tortillas
3/4 cup shredded aged cheddar cheese

Directions

Bring the water and quinoa to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave the covered saucepan on the burner for an additional 5 minutes. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Combine the 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa and black beans in a medium bowl. Lightly mash the mixture with a potato masher to bind it together. Add the tomatoes, corn, green onion, and cilantro and mix thoroughly.

Place 4 of the tortillas on 1 large or 2 small baking sheets. Spread the mixture evenly over the tortillas. Sprinkle evenly with the cheese and cover with the remaining 4 tortillas.

Place on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 12 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the filling is heated through. The edges of the quesadillas should be lightly browned.

Remove from the oven and cut into triangles. Serve with fresh guacamole, salsa, and sour cream.

There's a look at the filling once it's been baked. These were really good. I would recommend serving with salsa, sour cream and/or guacamole though. The filling is tasty, but a titch on the boring side without one of the condiments. (I had mine with salsa)

Pomegranate, Almond and Feta Salad

2010-11-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

I picked up a new cookbook the other night, Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood. I was pretty impressed by the diversity of recipes using quinoa, or quinoa flour. Quinoa is hailed as a superfood, the description for the book explains why: "One of the world`s healthiest foods, quinoa contains a perfect balance of all eight essential amino acids, and is a great source of protein, making it an increasingly popular food choice for those looking to incorporate `superfoods` into their everyday diets. Gluten-free, wheat-free, and nutrient-packed, quinoa is ideal for those who are health-conscious, vegetarian, and/or physically active, as well as for those with gluten intolerance, wheat allergies, and other digestive disorders. But that`s not all: You can eat quinoa guiltlessly knowing it`s free of cholesterol and trans fats. In Quinoa 365 sisters Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming show you how to use this miraculous superfood in all your favourite dishes."

Clearly it is awesome for you. The first recipe I made from the book was for a pomegranate, almond and feta salad. I can't get enough of it, I have ate it at four meals in the past two days. This salad is so good, it comes close to changing my mind about salad as a meal.

(also click "read more" to see a super cute picture)

Pomegranate, Almond and Feta Salad
from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood
Serves 4 as a small meal or 6 as a side salad.
(Gluten-Free Vegetarian)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (125 mL) water
1/4 cup (60 mL) black quinoa
1/2 cup (125 mL) sliced almonds
4 cups (1 L) baby spinach leaves
3/4 cup (185 mL) crumbled light feta
1/4 cup (60 mL) sliced red onion
1 pomegranate, seeded
3 Tbsp (45 mL) red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp (45 mL) olive oil
4 tsp (20 mL) honey
1 tsp (5 mL) Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Bring the water and quinoa to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave the covered saucepan on the burner for an additional 5 minutes. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spread the almonds over a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 5 to 7 minutes until they are fragrant and lightly browned.

Divide the spinach into 4 large or 6 small servings. Sprinkle the feta, onion, quinoa, pomegranate seeds and toasted almonds evenly over the salads.

Whisk the vinegar, oil, honey and Dijon in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the salads and serve.

I used yellow/gold/white quinoa, because I couldn't find black quinoa. I also used packaged pomegranate seeds, which happen to be my new favorite product. This salad is so good. I cannot even put into words how much I love it.

And, as promised, a super cute picture of Brooklyn. This is what I usually see at dinner:

Asian Meatballs

2010-11-04T12:01:00.000-06:00

It's no secret that I love Everyday Food. When I received the newest issue in the mail, I immediately flagged a few recipes I wanted to make. The Asian Turkey Meatballs with Carrot Rice was the first one that I tried, though I made it with ground pork instead of turkey. (Ground pork is cheaper)
I was skeptical of how flavourful the meatballs would be, but I needn't have worried. Everyday Food recommended serving them with lime wedges and a squeeze of lime on the meatballs was perfect, it balanced out the spiciness from the hot sauce.

(also hit "read more" for a Sweet Marie bar recipe)

Asian Turkey Meatballs with Carrot Rice
adapted from Everyday Food

Ingredients:
1 cup long-grain white rice

1 carrot, shredded
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed (this wasn't in the original recipe, I added them)
3/4 cup of fresh breadcrumbs (I used 3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs)
1 1/2 pounds ground dark-meat turkey or ground pork (I used ground pork)
3 scallions, white & green parts separated and thinly sliced (I used 6, I love green onion)
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (I did not use cilantro, I do not like it)
4 teaspoons fish sauce
4 teaspoons hot-pepper sauce (preferably Sriracha)
4 teaspoons sugar
1 large garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

lime wedges, for serving

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups salted water to boil. Add rice, stir, and return to a boil. Cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook until rice is tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and top with carrot and peas. Let stand, covered, 5 minutes, then stir in veggies and fluff rice with a fork.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine breadcrumbs and 3 tablespoons water. Let stand 5 minutes. Add meat, scallion whites, cilantro (if using), fish sauce, hot-pepper sauce, sugar, garlic, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Gently mix to combine and form into 12 meatballs.
Note: When I first read through the recipe I thought "How can 12 meatballs serve 4 people??" It's because they are not regular golf ball sized meatballs. Roughly the size of two golf ball sized meatballs formed together into one meatball.

3. In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 teaspoon oil over medium-high. In batches, brown meatballs, on all sides, 10 minutes total (add up to 1 teaspoon oil as needed). Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet and bake until cooked through, 10 minutes. Serve meatballs with rice, scallion greens, and lime wedges.

These were FANTASTIC! I normally eat my lunch around noon, but at 11:00 I broke down and had lunch because I couldn't wait to eat my leftovers. I'm debating making them again this week for a second time. They were so easy to put together and they were so good.

While I was making the meatballs, I also made Sweet Marie bars, recipe courtesy of my friend A.

A's Sweet Marie Bars
1 part peanut butter
1 part corn syrup
1 park brown sugar
6 parts crispy rice cereal
melted chocolate
Note: When I made the recipe I used 1 cup as the measurement.

In a sauce pan over med high heat, stir together the first 3 ingredients. This should only take a couple minutes, you want them to combine and liquefy just a little bit. The goal is not to melt them completely, or bring to a boil.
Place the cereal in a large bowl (use a very large bowl, I made a huge mess by spilling cereal everywhere when trying to combine the cereal and PB mix in a bowl that wasn't big enough), and pour the heated peanut butter mix over the cereal. Stir to combine.
Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan, and press the cereal mix into it. When the cereal mix has been pressed into the pan and is mostly even, pour melted chocolate over the top to cover. (I melted about a cup or so of chocolate chips and poured it over the top)
Let stand until the chocolate cools and hardens.

These are very addictive!

Sesame Street Cupcakes

2010-11-01T09:35:00.000-06:00

My aunt, or Tante as I call her, has been making my nephew's birthday party cake for as long as I can remember. She made the following for previous birthday parties of his:

Last week I was looking at foodgawker, when I found the cutest Cookie Monster cupcakes, courtesy of Penguin Says Feed Me. Since it was my nephew's birthday this weekend, I sent the link to my sister and told her she should ask my aunt to make them for his birthday.
My aunt did not disappoint. She even went beyond the Cookie Monster cupcakes, and made four different Sesame Street characters. I apologize for the poor quality of photos below. I forgot my camera at home and was relying on my cell phone to take these.

Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch

Elmo

Big Bird

The Cookie Monster ones were my favorite. Probably because it involved a cupcake and a cookie, together!

Smushed Banana Sandwich

2010-10-20T09:00:00.000-06:00

This may look like I topped a bagel with baby food, but looks aside, this sandwich is delicious. The mashed banana is mixed with shredded coconut, maple syrup and cinnamon. I served it with apple slices which came in handy to scoop up the mash that fell out of the bagels.

Smushed Banana Sandwich
adapted from (never home) maker
Makes 1 sandwich

1 banana
3 tbsp shredded sweetened coconut
2 tsp maple syrup
dash of cinnamon
peanut butter (enough to spread over both halves of a cut bagel)
whole wheat bagel

1) Toast the bagel
2) While bagel is toasting, mash the banana in a bowl and add the coconut, syrup and cinnamon
3) Spread peanut butter over the toasted bagel and top with the banana mix

This is the easiest sandwich ever. I'm not the biggest fan of banana but I really did love this sandwich. I made it for supper but it would easily work for breakfast. Or lunch, for that matter.

Apples, No Pie, a la Mode

2010-10-14T07:18:00.002-06:00

I'm just going to get down to the nitty gritty, this dessert was so good I made it twice in the same week. Both times I served it to company. The second time I made it, I accidentally browned the butter in the initial stage, I discarded it and added new butter which was a bit brown from the remnants of my mistake, but it still turned out really good.
This has all the makings of an apple pie (crust less, obviously) but it only takes about 10 minutes from start to finish to prepare.
The type of ice cream for a la mode part is important. If you are going to use vanilla ice cream, find the vanilla ice cream with flecks of real vanilla bean in it. If it doesn't have the vanilla bean in it, you are purchasing an inferior product.

Apples, No Pie, a la Mode
recipe by Rachael Ray

Ingredients:
•3 tablespoons butter

•1 1-inch piece fresh ginger, grated or minced
•3 Golden Delicious apples, quartered, cored and sliced
•2 teaspoons lemon juice
•3 tablespoons brown sugar
•1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (eyeball it)
•1 pint vanilla ice cream
•1 canister whipped cream

Preparation
Heat a skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add the ginger and apples to warm butter, squeeze a little lemon juice over the pan and sauté 4-5 minutes. Add brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to the apples and cook for another two minutes.
Spoon apples into dessert dishes and top with ice cream and whipped cream. Garnish whipped cream with a pinch more cinnamon or nutmeg.

I skipped the whipped cream. For the most part I am not whipped cream's biggest fan. Although, this past weekend my friend M made a whipped cream with spiced rum in it that was to DIE FOR, or DIE HARD for. Anyways, I find that whipped cream and ice cream in the same dish to be too much.
I also used whatever apples I wanted. I believe I used ones with the name pink in their title (I'm a little fuzzy on the exact name), but that was just for the pretty color. I don't think it really matters what apple you use.

Pasta with Leeks, Peas and Prosciutto

2010-10-04T10:43:00.000-06:00

This is one of the easiest pasta dishes I have ever made. The dish is one of those that takes no effort or time, but the results are impressive. The most time consuming part of this was slicing up leeks, and since leeks cooking in butter is the greatest smell ever, it's well worth it.

Pasta with Leeks, Peas and Prosciutto
courtesy of Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients:
coarse salt and ground pepper
12 ounces spaghetti
4 tablespoons butter
2 medium leeks (6 to 8 ounces each), white and light-green parts only, halved lengthwise and cut into 2-inch pieces, well rinsed
1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 ounces (about cup) thinly sliced prosciutto , cut into thin strips
2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) ricotta salata or Parmesan cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler

Directions
1.In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente, according to package instructions. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water; drain pasta, and return to pot.

2.While pasta is cooking, heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium. Add leeks; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add peas; cook, stirring, until warmed through, 2 to 3 minutes.

3.To drained pasta, add leek mixture, remaining 3 tablespoons butter, lemon juice, and prosciutto; season with salt and pepper. Add reserved pasta water a little at a time, tossing, until a thin sauce coats pasta. (You may not need all the water.) Serve, sprinkled with ricotta salata.

I used Parmesan cheese, not the ricotta salata. I like the prosciutto in this, but the next time I make this pasta I might put the prosciutto in the skillet before the leeks to crisp it up a bit. Overall, this was one of my favorite pasta dishes. The lemon works wonders in bringing all the ingredients together, and the dish can be made in under a half hour.

Chipotle Chicken Pizza

2010-10-01T10:10:00.000-06:00

I made a quesidilla a while ago that involved chipotles, chicken, avocado and monterey jack cheese. The quesidilla turned out to be so delicious that I took that concept and turned it into a pizza.

Rebekah's Chipotle Chicken Pizza
Ingredients:
C's Pizza Dough
3 chicken breasts, cut into bite size chunks
2 chipotles in adobo, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium onion, diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup water
1 cup (or so) grated monterey jack cheese
1 avocado, diced
juice from 1 lime

Preheat oven to 425F
1) Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high. Add the chicken, cook until golden brown on all sides, about 3 minutes. Add the onion, saute until soft about 2 minutes. Add garlic, chipotles and tomato paste. Heat for a minute, add the water and stir together. Once the sauce thickens (about 30 seconds) remove from heat.
2) Toss the avocado with the lime juice
3) Roll out the pizza dough. Spread the chicken mixture over the dough and top with the cheese.
4) Bake for about 20-25 minutes, until the crust is golden brown

When I first made this, I topped the pizza with the avocado before I baked the pizza in the oven. When I make this again, I will leave off the avocado until the pizza comes out of the oven. I think 20-25 minutes is too much time for the avocado to be in the oven.

Pumpkin Bars That Are More Like Cake

2010-09-28T14:33:00.000-06:00

On Sunday I had a killer day at the gym. I beat my personal best time for a 5k run on the treadmill, I ran straight for 13 minutes, and then I weighed myself. I have lost 19 lbs since I started going to the gym! I celebrated the 19 lb loss by buying myself a new pair of jeans (the smallest size I have bought in years) and by making this cake, courtesy of Paula Deen. She named the recipe pumpkin bars, but I think it's much more like a cake than a bar.

Pumpkin Bars (or Cake)
Recipe by Paula Deen

Ingredients

Bars:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

I didn't cut them into bars and then iced them. Instead, I removed the cake from the pan in one piece (that was a goal, a corner fell off in the process), and iced it, then cut into squares. Of cake. Also I don't sift anything, which I don't think made a difference in the cake, but the icing was lumpy.
If I made this cake again (which won't be often if I want to fit into my new jeans), I would skip the icing altogether and serve with a bit of Cool Whip. Or ice cream.

Any which way, these were super delicious.

Spiced Carrot Cake

2010-09-21T14:19:00.000-06:00

I have been on a bit of an Everyday Food kick lately. I have over four years' worth of issues piled up and I have started feeling bad about how little use I get out of them. I made this spiced carrot cake the other night and I was thrilled with the results. I could still taste the carrots, but it was very subtle. The glaze kept the cake moist, even over the next couple days. I topped it with a bit of Cool Whip that I had lying around, but it wasn't necessary.

Spiced Carrot Cake
recipe from Everyday Food
serves 8

Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus more for pan
1 cup (spooned and leveled) all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used cinnamon)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/3 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1 cup finely shredded packed (about 2 medium) carrots
Quick Glaze (recipe below)

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush an 8-inch round cake pan with oil. Place a round of waxed or parchment paper in the bottom; brush with oil, and dust with flour, tapping out excess. Set aside.
2.In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, cardamom, and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, whisk eggs, sugars, yogurt, and oil until smooth. Gently mix egg mixture into dry ingredients until moistened; mix in carrots. Transfer batter to prepared pan.
3.Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes (if browning too quickly, tent cake with aluminum foil). Cool in pan, 15 minutes. Turn out of pan, remove paper, and cool completely on a rack, right side up. Apply glaze

Glaze:
In a small bowl, mix 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar and 1 to 2 teaspoons water until a smooth but thick glaze forms (too thin a glaze will be absorbed by the cake). Place a piece of waxed paper under cooling rack for easy cleanup. Spoon glaze back and forth over cake, forming a pattern. Keep cake on cooling rack until glaze is set, 15 to 20 minutes.

Veggie Burgers

2010-09-20T13:45:00.001-06:00

If you ask me, a burger without meat is not really a burger. Even though Everyday Food calls these bad boys a Veggie Burger, I call it a tasty sandwich. The patty is mainly made of bulgur and beans, with a few mix-ins to give it some flavor. The patty is pan fried to give it a crisp outside, and it remains soft in the middle. I really enjoyed them, they had great texture and taste.

Veggie Burgers with Tahini Mayonnaise
from Everyday Food
serves 4

Ingredients:
•1/2 cup medium-grind bulgur
•Coarse salt and ground pepper
•1 can (14 1/2 ounces) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
•1/4 cup plain dried breadcrumbs
•4 scallions, thinly sliced
•1 large egg
•1 large carrot, coarsely grated
•1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
•2 tablespoons tahini (sesame-seed paste)
•3 tablespoons vegetable oil
•4 whole-wheat English muffins, toasted
•Tahini Mayonnaise (see below for recipe)
•Lettuce

Directions
1.In a medium bowl, mix bulgur with 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt and 1 cup boiling water. Cover bowl, and let sit until bulgur is tender (but still slightly chewy), about 30 minutes. Drain in a fine-mesh sieve, pressing to remove liquid.
2.Place beans in a medium bowl; mash with a potato masher until a coarse paste forms. Add breadcrumbs, scallions, egg, carrot, cayenne, tahini, and bulgur. Season with salt and pepper, and mix to combine. Form mixture into 4 patties, each about 1 inch thick.
3.In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-low. Cook patties until browned and firm, 5 to 8 minutes per side. Serve on English muffins with tahini mayonnaise and lettuce.

Tahini Mayonnaise:
Makes about 1/2 cup

1/2 cup light mayonnaise
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon tahini (sesame-seed paste)
Coarse salt and ground pepper

Directions
1.In a small bowl, whisk together light mayonnaise, fresh lemon juice, and tahini; season with coarse salt and ground pepper.

I couldn't find any tahini at the grocery store, so I used sesame oil instead. Because sesame oil is so strongly flavored, I used just under half the amount that the recipes called for.

Overall, these sandwiches were great. They are healthy, tasty, and filling. I loved using English muffins as a bun. I can't wait to make these again!

Greek Quinoa Salad

2010-09-15T13:42:00.000-06:00

I have blogged about my Greek salad before. I have made it as is, or tossed in some pasta to make Greek pasta salad. This time I added cooked quinoa to the mix. Quinoa is pronounced keen-wa, and contrary to popular belief it's a seed, not a grain. Quinoa is an great source of fiber, protein and is also gluten-free. To make it you simmer one part quinoa to two parts water for 15-20 minutes. I used half a cup of uncooked quinoa which resulted in just over a cup of cooked quinoa. If you are adding quinoa to my Greek salad, use a bit more olive oil and lemon juice than what the recipe calls for.

Click here for another quinoa salad that has been posted on this blog.

Appocado Salad

2010-09-13T14:42:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in so long, sometimes life can get in the way of the things we actually want to be doing. I am here, and hope to be posting regularly again.

A couple weeks ago a my friend M took me to a restaurant in Edmonton called Dadeo, which features Cajun and Creole cuisine. I ordered a crab cake po' boy (amazing), and sweet potato fries. My friend ordered "appocado salad" as her side. Appocado is an apple and avocado combination. I tried a bite of hers, and I knew I had to re-create the salad at home.

Appocado Salad (inspired by Dadeo)
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 avocados, peeled and cut into chunks
3 apples (I used blush apples, but any apples that are sweet with a pretty red/pink skin will do), peeled, cored and cut into chunks
1/2 a medium red onion, sliced thinly

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and toss with dressing:

Honey Dijon Vinaigrette
1/4 vegetable oil
juice of one lemon
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp Dijon mustard

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk together

Snickerdoodle Blondies

2010-09-03T09:17:00.000-06:00

I found a recipe for snickerdoodle blondies on FoodGawker, and I had to make them. The picture on the blog I got it from shows a light and fluffy blondie. I made the recipe exactly as directed, and somehow I ended up with a blondie that was pretty dense, and tasted more like gingerbread than a snickerdoodle. However, I happen to really like gingerbread, and so I really liked these.

(also see after the jump for a picture of my second attempt at cinnamon buns)

Snickerdoodle Blondies
originally by The Sweets Life

Ingredients:

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 13 pan. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
2. In a separate mixing bowl, beat butter and brown sugar for 3-5 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla. Beat mixture until smooth.
3. Stir in the flour mixture until fully combined. Using a spatula, spread evenly in pan. In a small bowl, mix 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg. Sprinkle evenly over batter.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool and cut into squares.

The same night I made those I also made cinnamon buns again. I had no problems with the dough rising this time, and I think it was because the milk was warmer when I added the yeast to it. This is how they turned out:

Greek Pasta Salad

2010-08-30T11:27:00.001-06:00

I love Greek salad, and I love pasta. Combine the two, and you have my favorite summer side dish. Feels weird talking about summer right now, as Edmonton has had a bit of a cold snap and the weather is miserable. But, no matter the weather, this Greek pasta salad is delicious.

Rebekah's Greek Pasta Salad
Ingredients
a box of pasta (I used what I had on hand, which was half a box of whole wheat penne, and half a box of tortiglioni, and a small amount of bowties)
1/2 a cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced or cut into thin slices
1/2 pint of grape tomatoes (left whole, halved or quartered)
half a cup (or more) of feta, cut into cubes
juice of one lemon
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp dried oregano

1) Cook the pasta according to directions, drain and set aside to cool
2) Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Add the cooled pasta and mix.
3) Eat, enjoy

Cinnamon Buns

2010-08-25T14:15:00.001-06:00

I love The Pioneer Woman. I have only one small problem, she is generous with the fat and sugar in her recipes. So generous, that sometimes I wonder if she is doing it for shock value. I have her cookbook, and she has a recipe for the most incredible looking cinnamon buns. I tweaked the recipe slightly to lower some of the health concerns I had regarding them, and this is what I came up with:

Cinnamon Buns
adapted from The Pioneer Woman
(her recipe makes 40-50 rolls, and I didn't trust myself not to eat them all, so I quartered her recipe to make 10ish)

Ingredients:
Dough
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups flour (divided) (I used 1 cup whole wheat and 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour)
1/4 tsp heaping baking powder
1/4 tsp scant baking soda
1/4 tbsp salt

1) For the dough, heat the milk, vegetable oil, and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat; do not allow the mixture to boil. Set aside and cool to lukewarm.
2) Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit on the milk for 1 minute. (The milk must be lukewarm, if it's hot it will kill the yeast)
3) Add 2 cups of the flour, stir until just combined, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and set aside in a relatively warm place for 1 hour.
Note: The dough is supposed to rise here. I don't know what I did wrong, but mine didn't rise very much. I ignored this problem and proceeded with making the rolls.
4) Remove the towel and add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup flour. Stir thoroughly to combine.
5) Roll out the dough into a rectangle. I didn't measure mine, I would say it was around 6 x 12 inches.
6) Prepare the filling:
Filling
This part I did freehand. Her recipe calls for 2 cups of melted butter, which for mine would mean 1/4 cup. I thought that would be a lot, so I melted some butter and used only enough to have a thin layer over the rectangle. Then I sprinkled over 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, and then cinnamon. I didn't measure the cinnamon I just sprinkled a good amount so the rectangle was covered, thinly. (You do not want a thick layer of cinnamon)
7) Started from the end furthest from you, roll the rectangle towards you. Use both hands and move slowly to ensure the roll is tight.
8) Cut out the rolls by slicing every 1.5 inches or so. I got about 10 out of mine. (They were not an even size, I am not a technical person)
9) Pour some melted butter into a pie pan or baking dish, and swirl around to coat the dish. Place the rolls in the pan (with the swirly part facing up), leaving space between the rolls.
10) Preheat the oven to 375 F. Cover the pie pan with a towel and let rise for at least 20 minutes before placing in the oven.
Note: Once again, mine didn't rise much. I ignored this problem again and hoped for the best.
11) Remove the towel and place the baking dish in the oven. Bake for 13-17 minutes, until the rolls are golden brown, but not overly brown

12) While the rolls are in the oven, prepare the icing.
Icing
1 cup icing sugar
1/8 cup whole milk
1/8 cup strongly brewed coffee. (I made the icing while the rolls were resting, and had some leftover coffee so I used a pastry brush to brush coffee all over the rolls before they went in the oven. Delicious)
dash of vanilla extract (or the seeds from one vanilla bean)
Mix all the ingredients together.
13) When the rolls are done baking, pull them out of the even and pour the icing over top of them. Try not to drool all over the baked goods. Because I'm an idiot, I chopped up pecans to roll in the filling and forgot to use them, so I sprinkled them on top of the baked rolls covered in icing.

Mine turned out to be pretty small. I think it was because they didn't rise when they should have.

Though small, they were huge in flavor. These tasted HEAVENLY. I will be making them again and again (to my waist's dismay), but are these ever worth it.

Mac n Cheese

2010-08-23T14:22:00.000-06:00

I was on holidays this previous week. Normally I would try to make write a couple posts and set them up to post throughout my holidays, but I am an idiot. I thought I was on holidays this current week, and found out last Saturday that I was actually gone this past week. So it was a mad scramble to get ready to go, and preparing blogs fell to the wayside.
I made individual mac and cheese before I left. The recipe is from Everyday Food.
Everyday Food Southern Mac and Cheese
serves 4

Ingredients
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 tablespoon butter, melted, plus more for ramekins
1/2 pound elbow macaroni
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar (8 ounces)
2 large eggs
1 cup half-and-half
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 slices white sandwich bread, torn

•Set a large pot of salted water to boil. Preheat oven to 350. Butter four 10-ounce ramekins. Cook pasta 3 minutes short of al dente; drain.
•In a large bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups cheddar, eggs, half-and-half, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Add pasta, and stir to combine; divide among ramekins.
•In a food processor, pulse bread and melted butter until coarse crumbs form; season with salt and pepper. Dividing evenly, top pasta mixture with 1/2 cup cheddar, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Place ramekins on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until mac and cheese is golden and bubbling, about 20 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

I changed just a couple things. First, I used skim milk instead of the half and half. Secondly, I tore the bread into small crumbs and mixed them with the melted butter.

These were so good, and I got to use my heart shaped ramekins that I love love love. I recommend this recipe, as I usually do with all Everyday Food ones.

Taco Cups

2010-08-09T13:25:00.001-06:00

I was watching Eat, Shrink and Be Merry the other night. On the show two sisters always compete with a restaurant's signature dish. The restaurant makes it the way they usually do, and the sisters make the recipe over in a healthy way.
The episode I watched was taco salad, and it inspired the following.

Rebekah's Taco Cups
Makes 8 cups, serves 4

Ingredients:
1/2 lb ground beef
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
8 small whole wheat tortillas (the 8 inch kind)
cooking spray (or oil)
Pico de Gallo (recipe below)
2 avocados, diced and tossed with the juice from half a lime

1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Take a muffin pan and spray it with cooking spray. Set the tortillas into the muffin holes in such a way that they form a cup, or bowl. Brush the tortillas with oil, place in the oven and bake for about 5-10 minutes, until the tortillas are golden.
2) Meanwhile, in a skillet brown the ground beef. When brown, add the chili powder and cumin.
3) Divide the ground beef between the tortilla cups. Top with cheese, diced avocado and pico de gallo.

Aren't these cute? They are a very refreshing and tasty supper.
The pico de gallo was adapted from The Pioneer Woman. I used 4 Roma tomatoes, a medium onion, 2 jalapenos, the juice of half a lime and no cilantro. I do not like cilantro.

I brought leftovers into work the next day. The tortilla cups maintained a sort of crisp texture, but I tore them into small pieces, topped with the ground beef and cheese and reheated the dish in the microwave. I topped that with pico de gallo and avocado, that I had packed separately from the other ingredients.

That is some fine china we are rocking at the office.

Calzone

2010-08-05T12:09:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posting that has been going on lately. I am still here, and I am trying to cook when I can. I made calzones the other night. Ever since my friend A made these for me, I have been craving them in a bad way.

Rebekah's Calzones
makes 4
Ingredients:
C's Pizza Dough (I substituted half of the all purpose flour for whole wheat flour)
3 strips of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup ricotta cheese
handful of spinach leaves, chopped into thin ribbons
1 bell pepper, diced (I used half of a red one and half of a yellow one, but any color will work)
half a medium onion, diced
4 or 5 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup of grated cheese (I used cheddar because it's what I had, but mozzarella works too)

To make:
1) Preheat the oven to 350 F
2) Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium high until crisp. Remove from the skillet and let drain on a paper towel
3) Mix all the ingredients, including the crisp bacon but excluding the pizza dough, in a bowl
4) Take the pizza dough and split into 4 even balls.
5) Line a baking sheet with foil, and spray with cooking spray. (Or you can use real oil)
6) Roll out a ball of dough into a circle. Place 1/4 of the filling on half of the circle, leaving about an inch of "crust". Fold the empty half over the filling. Pinch the crusts together and gently fold them up and in. It's the same motion as rolling up the rim to win. Repeat with the remaining dough balls.
7) Place the calzones on the baking sheet and brush with oil. I sprinkled some Italian seasoning on top just for looks.
Serve with marinara sauce, pizza sauce, or dipping sauces purchased from Panago.

These are so delicious! I like the calzones better than the strombolis, but both are fantastic meals.

Baked Chimichangas

2010-07-28T15:56:00.001-06:00

Chimichangas are deep fried burritos. I have made something close to a chimichanga before, only I pan fried them instead of deep frying. Recently I made a new attempt at chimichangas, making them crispy by baking them instead of frying.

Rebekah's Baked Chimichangas

Makes 6-8

Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil

2 or 3 chicken breasts, cut into bite size chunks

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 chipotles in adobo, minced

1 cup of cooked rice

14 oz can of diced tomatoes

1 can of kidney beans

tortillas

oil, for brushing

1) Preheat oven to 350 F

2) Heat the oil over medium high in a large skillet. Brown the chicken in the oil until the chicken is golden on all sides and nearly cooked through. (About 3 minutes)

3) Add the onion and saute for 2 minutes until onion is soft.

4) Add garlic and saute for 1 minute.

5) Add the chipotles, rice, tomatoes and kidney beans. Heat through and remove from heat

6) Place some of the filling in the middle of a tortilla. Fold down the top, fold up the bottom, and fold in the sides. Place on a baking sheet. Repeat until you have made the desired amount of chimichangas, and/or used up all the filling.

7) Brush each with oil. Place sheet in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes until the tortilla is a golden brown color

I served these with sour cream and a chipotle sour cream. To make the chipotle sour cream I minced one chipotle in adobo and mixed it into 3/4 cup of sour cream. These chimichangas were smoky, filling, and fairly spicy. If you don't like heat, I would only add one chipotle to the chicken.

The filling is very versatile. You could swap the chicken for ground beef, or use more beans to make it vegetarian. You could also add cheese, corn, or bell peppers .

Breakfast Bakes

2010-07-24T17:19:00.000-06:00

I had half a loaf of french bread leftover from dinner one night. The next day I wanted to use up the bread, but as it was a day old and slightly stale, slicing it up and serving it alongside dinner wasn't an option. I had an intense craving for french toast, and while I was searching for recipes I found one that inspired a french toast bake. Read after the jump for the recipe for the french toast bake, as well as a savoury breakfast bake.

Rebekah's French Toast Bake

(recipe inspired by The Pioneer Woman)

serves 4

The recipe from The Pioneer Woman is completely indulgent. I would bet a million dollars that it is delicious, but I wanted to make something a little kinder to my waistline and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients:

half a loaf of french bread, preferably over a day old, cut into 1 inch chunks

2 cups of milk (I used skim)

3 eggs

1 vanilla bean (or 1 tbsp vanilla extract)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup oats

1 tsp cinnamon

To prepare:

1) preheat oven to 350 F

2) butter or oil (I used cooking spray) a shallow baking dish (I think mine is 8 x 8), and place the bread in it.

3) in a bowl whisk together the milk and eggs. If using extract add that too. If using a vanilla bean, cut the bean in half and scrape out all the little seeds and add the seeds to the mixture.

4) Pour the mix over the bread. Make sure all the bread chunks are coated in the milk/egg mix, any that are dry can be gently pressed into the mix.

5) In another bowl mix the sugar, oats and cinnamon. Evenly distribute the sugar mix over top the bread.

6) Place the baking dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, until the top of the bake is golden and toasted.

This was so delicious. I can't wait to make it again, it will be a regular on my breakfast, or breakfast for dinner, table. Since the french toast bake was such a success, I took the same principle to make the following savoury breakfast bake.

Rebekah's Savoury Breakfast Bake

Ingredients:

half a french loaf, preferably over a day old, cut into 1 inch chunks

2 cups milk (I used skim)

3 eggs

pinch of salt and pepper

3 strips bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces

half of a medium onion, diced

1/2 cup Special K

To prepare:

1) Preheat the oven to 350 F

2) Butter or oil a shallow baking dish (mine was 8 x 8 I think), and place the bread in it

3) In a bowl mix the eggs, milk, salt and pepper

4) Brown the bacon in a small skillet until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan and place on a paper towel. Drain most of the bacon fat from the skillet, and add the onion to the skillet. Saute the onion until soft, about 2 minutes.

5) Add the onions and bacon to the egg mixture. Pour the mixture over the bread, make sure each cube of bread is wet. Gently press any dry pieces into the mix.

6) Top with the Special K (or corn flakes). I put the topping on to give the bake a bit of a crunch.

7) Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, until the top is golden and the bread is crunchy.

The end result was good and tasty, but the french toast bake was a clear winner.

The options for the bake are numerous, using a base of stale bread cubes, and the egg and milk mix. Add diced bell peppers, onion, and ham to the mix and top the bake with Cheddar. Or add chopped tomatoes, onion, and garlic topped with mozzarella cheese (add fresh basil to it once it's out of the onion). The options are endless. (And it's a good way to mask the taste of gluten free bread, if that's what you eat)

Stromboli

2010-07-21T10:52:00.001-06:00

It's very rare for me to eat something that is so good, I have to make it the next day as well. My friend A made us calzones one night, that were so delicious I was inspired to make them for dinner the next night. Calzones are a delicious pizza type product, but with no sauce on the inside. Strombolis have sauce in them, and a lot of people mistakenly refer to strombolis as calzones.

A's calzone had a filling of spinach, green pepper, red pepper, green onion, mushrooms, ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. I wanted to make them exactly the same, only my grocery store was out of ricotta, so I changed my plans and made strombolis instead.

The picture above is not a stromboli, obviously. After the jump I have included pictures of the stromboli, and the recipe for the spinach salad pictured at the top of the post.

Rebekah's Stromboli
makes 4
Ingredients:
C's Pizza Dough (substituting half of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour)
pizza sauce (home made or store bought, I used store bought for mine)

red bell pepper, diced

orange bell pepper, diced

1 medium onion, diced

handful of mushrooms, sliced

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

oil for brushing

Preheat oven to 425 F

1) Separate C's pizza dough into four, and roll out into rounds (like mini pizzas)
2) Spread sauce around each of the rounds, leaving about an inch crust around the outside (the amount of sauce is up to your preference)
3) Divide the veggies evenly between the 4 rounds. You can use any veggies you like, mine are just a suggestion

4) Divide the cheese evenly amongst the rounds

5) Fold one half over the other half. You should now have four half moon shapes. To get the edges to stick together pinch the crust with your fingers and gently fold the crust up and then press down.
6) Place the strombolis on an oiled baking sheet, and brush the tops of them with oil. Use a knife to cut about 3 slits in the top of each to allow steam to escape. Place the sheet in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until the strombolis are a golden brown.

Very delicious!

The strawberry spinach salad at the top was made by taking spinach leaves and topping them with sliced strawberries, sliced red onion, and slivered almonds. The red onion pairs wonderfully with the strawberries, and the salad is very very tasty. I was going to be lazy and top it with a store bought raspberry vinaigrette, but I forgot to buy it so I made my own. And was I ever glad I did!

Raspberry Vinaigrette (recipe came from HERE)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1/3 cup fresh raspberries

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup olive oil

Blend all the ingredients together until smooth.

The dressing will be a very opaque shade of pink, but don't let that deter you from making it. The dressing is sweet and tangy and compliments the salad very well.

Pulled Pork

2010-07-15T09:00:00.002-06:00

I love love love cooking things in my slow cooker, or "the wife". Sometimes I can get stuck at work late, and it's nice knowing that I have supper waiting for me when I get home.

I have never made pulled pork before, I think this may be the first time I have used pork in my slow cooker. I found the recipe on Iowa Girl Eats. I used her basic recipe, but changed a couple things. (also click the "read more" for a faux ice cream recipe)

Pulled Pork adapted from Iowa Girl Eats

1) Pour 1/2 cup BBQ sauce and 1/2 cup of Coke Zero in the bottom of the slow cooker
2) Place a pork shoulder in the crock pot. IGE cut hers into big chunks before putting hers in, but I left mine whole.
3) Season the shoulder generously with garlic salt.
4) Pour in enough Coke Zero to nearly cover the shoulder, In total I used about 1 litre of Coke Zero.
5) Set the slow cooker on low, and let cook for at least 8 hours.
6) Remove pork and discard the sauce.
7) using a fork, shred the pork
8) In a saucepan heat 1/4 cup of the same BBQ sauce and 1/2 cup or so of Coke Zero. Let boil for a few minutes, then pour over the shredded pork
9) Toast as many buns as you like. Place some shredded pork onto each bun, and drizzle with some more BBQ sauce if you like.
Depending on the size of the shoulder, you should be able to get at least 6 or 7 servings from the meat. Mine will get that, and I used a fairly small shoulder.

Overall I thought this was pretty good. The meat was super tender and delicious. I had tried a different whole wheat bun than usual though, and it wasn't as good as the ones I usually get. I served this with canned brown beans. (It may not be gourmet, but I like them!)

For dessert I made a faux ice cream. I got the idea from (never home) maker.
To make this healthy "ice cream":
1) Peel and cut 2 bananas into chunks. Freeze the chunks overnight
2) Place the frozen banana chunks into a blender or food processor
3) Add 2 tbsp of peanut butter, and 1 tbsp of cocoa powder. Process until smooth

I don't like bananas very much, but this was really tasty. The cocoa powder adds a great chocolate taste, without adding calories (well it adds 10, but that's close to nothing!), and the consistency is very similar to ice cream. It was guilt free, and also was more filling than regular ice cream.

Delicious!

Simple Pizza

2010-07-12T08:40:00.001-06:00

10 Awesome Things, Part 2

6) Being Tweeted

In Part 1 of my list I included The Bitten Word, as one of the awesome things. On Thursday I noticed that Clay and Zach commented on my post! Which was crazy exciting in itself. Then I checked my stats as I always do. Usually the locations of my readers are in Edmonton or Calgary, and on Thursday it was all places in the States, which was really unusual so I checked the referring website which was Twitter. Since I am such a genius, I figured the two might be related and I checked The Bitten Word's Twitter and saw:

Since I am not an Internet genius I can't figure out how to zoom into this, but the second Tweet says "Does this mean that Bruce Willis is now our #1 enemy? Yes, I think it does" and right beside that is a link to my blog. This may be embarrassing to admit, but I was more excited than a 13 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert.

7) Avocados. I have been eating avocados like crazy lately. I have put avocado on top of burgers, in wraps, guacamole, and tossing into salads.

This salad is made with carrot, celery, red pepper, avocado (tossed in lime juice), spinach leaves and dressed with Everyday Food's Shallot Vinaigrette.

8) Holidays

I am taking holidays this week, and I am heading out of town (I DON'T LIVE ALONE, SO MY PLACE WILL NOT BE EMPTY). I'm going to Jasper, Alberta for a couple days and I really cannot wait to be there!

9) (never home) maker.

My friend sent me a link to this blog, and I love it. They talk a lot about running, which is something I have gotten into lately. (call me crazy) They also have lots of really tasty looking recipes. They are vegetarians, however, so there isn't any meat. sadface. Aside from being meatless, I do love this blog.

10) Pizza

One of my all time favorite foods is pizza. I have been making it at home a lot, and the other night I made this one...

Rebekah's Simple Pizza (pictured at the top of the post)

1) I made C's Pizza Dough, this time without using some whole wheat flour

2) I topped the pizza with the basil oil I made a while ago (in the food processor I mixed 1.5 cups of fresh basil and 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil, and then strained it), 2 sliced Roma tomatoes, and pearl bocconcini.

3) I grated some fresh Parmesan cheese on top, and then placed it in a 425 F oven for about 25 minutes (until the cheese had melted, and the crust was a golden brown)

4) After the pizza came out of the oven, I topped it with fresh basil that I cut into ribbons

Guacamole Turkey Burgers

2010-07-08T16:31:00.001-06:00

When I was younger, there was no way I would ever put green mushy dip into my mouth and attempt to swallow and digest said mush. Little did I know, that avocados are one of the greatest things around. My friend C made guacamole for me once (well, for an entire party, but I was there) and I tried it, and it was to die for.
I have wrote about the guacamole here. If you haven't made it, you are missing out in a big way. Hands down the best guacamole ever.

I was craving guacamole the other day, but I wanted to do something more than just eat it with tortilla chips. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I do it all the time, but I was kind of bored of it.

Rebekah's Guacamole Turkey Burgers
Ingredients:
Guacamole
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup of crushed tortilla chips
1 egg
roughly a tbsp of either chili powder, or tex mex powder
tbsp oil
4 buns of some sort

To make:
1) prepare the guacamole and refrigerate. I find it tastes best after it's had a half hour to mingle
2) Mix the turkey, chip crumbs and egg together. Add the spice. I used tex mex, but chili powder would work. If you're feeling really crazy add one minced chipotle in adobo sauce. Separate the mix into four equal portions and flatten into patties
3) Preheat the oven to 350 F
4) In a large skillet over medium high, heat the oil. Add the patties and cook for roughly 4 minutes on each side. Mine were thick and were browning too fast so I stuck them in the oven to bake the rest of the way through. Cooking time may vary, in the end they are cooked when the juices no longer run pink
5) Toast the buns in the oven. I used whole wheat kaiser, but any bun that holds a burger is good
6) Remove buns from oven, place a patty on each one. Top them with a generous amount of guacamole.

Delicious!

Outside the Plate

2010-07-07T14:10:00.000-06:00

I started this blog because I love to write, and I love to cook. I thought this would be a great way to combine the two, and I was right. I love cooking different things for the sake of writing about them, and I absolutely love getting feedback from people. (Speaking of, about 5 of my last posts have been commentless, c'mon people)
However, my food posts are almost always littered with my thoughts, opinions and random nonsense. I really want YMANL to be food focused, but I still want to write about random everythings. I have started a new blog, Outside the Plate. This will cover everything that isn't about food, so I can keep the focus on this one about food.

Rebekah

Stuffed Peppers

2010-07-06T13:16:00.001-06:00

10 Awesome Things (Part 1)

1) The Expendables. The Expendables is a movie that is coming out in August. I can't tell you anything about the plot, because I do not know what it's going to be about. I do know that it's my movie dreams come true because the following people are in it:

Yes, that is correct. Jason Statham and Bruce Willis in the SAME MOVIE.

2) The Bitten Word. I have a mass amount of cookbooks and cooking magazines in my house. I do use them a lot, but not nearly enough considering the amount of money that I have spent on them. Facing the same issue, the writers of The Bitten Word made a resolution to use recipes from their collection of food magazines and started this blog. Their pictures are beautiful and they feature a lot of recipes from Everyday Food, one of my personal favorites.

3) TV on DVD. I love being able to sit and watch a season of a TV show in my own time, and not schedule my life around when it airs on television. I also love when an episode ends in a cliff hanger, and I just have to hit play to see what happens, and not wait an entire week.

4) Farmer's Market Saturdays. I can't describe how much I love going through the farmer's market. It's a really lovely way to spend a Saturday morning.

5) Lululemon! I have been spending mad amounts of time at the gym lately, so I am practically living in Lululemon. I only wish it was acceptable to wear it everywhere else, they are so comfortable! My newest purchase was these pants:

And to make it even more awesome, I got them on sale for only $39!

I picked up bell peppers on my most recent trip to the farmer's market, and wasn't sure what I would do with them, until I remembered that the roommate sister loves stuffed peppers. Fillings for stuffed peppers can vary, and I went with a spicy chili filling.

Rebekah's Chili Stuffed Bell Peppers (pictured at top of post)
serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 cup uncooked white rice

2 cups beef broth (reduced sodium preferably)
1 tbsp canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 lb ground beef
14 oz can chopped tomatoes (even better if it's the chili kind)
14 oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 chipotle in adobo sauce, minced
1 tsp (give or take) cumin
chili powder (use however much you like, I used just under a tbsp)
4 bell peppers

1) Cook the rice according to package directions, using beef broth instead of water
2) Meanwhile, in a large skillet heat the oil on medium high. Add the onion and saute for two minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another minute.
3) Add the ground beef and brown. I used extra lean ground beef that I know doesn't have a lot of fat so I cooked the onion and garlic first. You could cook the ground beef first, drain off the fat, and then add the onion and garlic if you like.
4) Add the tomatoes, chipotle, kidney beans, cumin and chili powder.

5) Once the rice has cooked, add the rice to the meat mixture. Remove from heat

6) Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut the bell peppers in half, remove the seeds, ribs and stems.

7) Place the pepper halves on a baking sheet, insides facing up. Scoop the meat mixture evenly into the peppers.

8) Bake in the oven until the peppers are the desired doneness. I like mine warmed through, but not tender so mine were only in for about 10-15 minutes.

I served these with cornmeal muffins. The recipe was off the back of the bag of Purity cornmeal.

Ingredients

175 ml. Purity cornmeal (3/4 cup)
300 ml. Milk (1 1/4 cups)
250 ml. All purpose flour (1 cup)
75 ml. Granulated sugar (1/3 cup)
15 ml Baking powder (1 tablespoon)
2 ml. Salt (1/2 teaspoon)
1 Egg
50 ml. Vegetable oil (1/4 cup)

Preparation

Combine cornmeal and milk. Let stand 10 minutes. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add egg and oil to cornmeal mixture. Mix well. Add to dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 400F or 200C for 15 to 20 minutes.

The roommate sister made the muffins, but before they went into the oven I sprinkled some paprika on top just for color.

Pancakes

2010-06-30T11:33:00.005-06:00

Throughout the week my breakfast consists mainly of cereal. I love cereal, but when the weekend rolls around I love to make more substantial breakfasts like bacon and eggs or pancakes.
I once made these pancakes for D, when she got stranded in Edmonton for a week. It was right around the time that egg nog was available in the grocery store, and I thought it would be Christmassy to make the pancakes with egg nog.
Problem. Egg nog is way thicker than milk, so the batter didn't actually pour, it kind of just glopped. The outside of the pancakes were dark, and the insides were raw. I tried to convince her that I have successfully made pancakes before, and it was the egg nog that tripped me up, but I don't know if she believed me.
The pancake recipe comes from Everyday Food. I put E in charge of making them this past weekend, as we had company and I didn't want another one of my guests to think I don't know how to make pancakes. (Sure, she can make a mean beef bourguignon, but pancakes allude her?)

To top it off I made a berry sauce. I used about a cup and a half of fresh berries (blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries). I put the berries in a saucepan and sprinkled them with about a tbsp of sugar. I put them on the stove over medium heat. The berries end up breaking down and releasing all their juices, which turns into a pretty tasty sauce as is. This was not enough for me, and I added a generous splash of rum to the mix. I let it bubble away for about 5-7 minutes before removing from the heat. (If you prefer your berry sauce rumless, you could add orange juice for flavor)

Isn't my mini gravy boat the cutest thing you have ever seen?
Since pancakes with berries would be incomplete without whipped cream, I took some Cool Whip, mixed in a dash of cinnamon and a splash of vanilla, and served that alongside the pancakes.

Avocado Wraps

2010-06-24T10:39:00.004-06:00

It's been the hottest week I have seen in a while, and for two nights this week I was making soup. Call me crazy. By last night I was ready to make a meal that required little to no cooking, and wouldn't be hot when consumed.

For the past week and a half I have been craving avocado. I make a mean guacamole (thanks to C), but I was wanting something different. Original Joe's makes a turkey club wrap that inspired the wrap I made last night.

Rebekah's Avocado Chicken Wraps

1) I started out by taking a chicken breast and cutting it into bite sized cubes. I added just under a tbsp of extra virgin olive oil to a skillet, and heated it over med-high. Once the oil was hot, I added the chicken cubes to the skillet. When the chicken was starting to brown, I topped it with a Tex-Mex seasoning. When the chicken was cooked, I took it off the heat. The whole process took maybe 5 minutes.

2) I cut an avocado in half, removed the pit, and scooped the "meat" out of the shell. Then I sliced each half into thin slices, and immediately squeezed lime juice over top. From an actual lime. This was to prevent the avocado from browning, and also because I feel avocado and lime go hand in hand. I can't have avocado without it being covered in lime juice.

3) I took a Roma tomato, cut it in half and discarded the juice and seeds. Then I diced what remained.

4) I cut a red onion into thin slivers. In the picture the red onion is missing, because I forgot to put it in the wrap before eating. Idiot.

5) I used my microwave to cook 4 slices of bacon until crisp. If you make this wrap (which I strongly suggest), you can crisp up bacon any way you wish.

6) I placed a tortilla on a plate, topped it with half the chicken, 2 slices of bacon, and half of the avocado and tomato. I should have also thrown on some onion, but as stated before, I forgot that step.

DELICIOUS. I could eat these all week long.

To go with it I made a quinoa salad that I found on FoodGawker. Quinoa is a seed, often referred to as a grain. Quinoa is really high in protein, is good for your heart, and is also gluten free. The seeds are slightly bigger than couscous, but are still pretty tiny.

The salad consists of quinoa, radish, cucumber and avocado. Like I said, I have been craving avocado in a big way lately. It's dressed with a dressing made from lime juice, olive oil, cumin and seasoning.

I really liked this salad. It was really easy to make, the cooking of the quinoa only took 15 minutes. A really refreshing break from eating soups during the hot weather we have been enjoying here.

Tomato Soup Take 2

2010-06-22T11:48:00.003-06:00

I realize that this post may make it seem like I am not in possession of a heart. I want to make it clear that even though I am poking fun at someone, I mean it lightheartedly.

Currently I am referring to my apartment as the infirmary. My sister R, who lives with me, has contracted some sort of plague. She has seen three different doctors, who have all diagnosed her. Unfortunately they all have different opinions as to what plague she has. (Personally, if it was me I would be demanding to see Dr. Gregory House)

Right now she can only eat things that are easy on a sore throat, like ice cream and soup. Being the wonderful sister and nurse that I am, I told her I would make her soup on Monday night for supper. What I didn't check, before idiotically promising to make her soup, was the weather forecast.

It was 28 C in Edmonton yesterday, or around 85 F. My office was so hot that one could cook an egg on my desk. Realizing that my apartment would be a similar temperature, I called R in the afternoon and instructed her that if she wanted soup (WHY????), that she needed to turn on the air conditioner.

I got home, and the infirmary was moderately cool. It was comfortable enough that I could make the soup, but still warm enough that I would have preferred making the soup in my ginch.

Now R, where was she when I was slaving over a hot stove, in 28 degree weather? On the couch, buried under a mass pile of blankets. At one point I looked over, and she had a blanket wrapped around her face. She looked like a man who had gone to the barber for a shave and had the hot towel wrapped around his head.

My first instinct was to take a picture with my Blackberry and send it to my sister E. As much as I would love to post the real picture up here, I think R might be upset, and I'm not totally cruel. So I used my awesome skills in Paint to give you the idea of what the invalid looked like.

It was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time. Those of you who think I am an awful person, keep in mind at the time I was making HOT SOUP for the invalid as I was cooking myself. I really do feel bad for her that she feels so awful, and I don't think it's hilarious that she's sick, just the head wrapping was funny to me.

I made her tomato soup. I thought about making the tomato soup that I posted about back in February, then I decided to try a different one for the sake of my blog. The inspiration came from here, but I adapted it a bit, so I will write out my recipe below.

Rebekah's Tomato Soup, loosely based from Ezra Pound Cake (serves 4-5)

Ingredients

- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus more for garnish, optional)

- one onion

- two cloves garlic

- one 28 oz can San Marzano whole tomatoes

- 1/2 tsp red chili flakes

- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf

- 1 cup of chicken stock

- 1.5 slices of white french bread

- 1.5 cups cooked macaroni (optional)

Note: I made this soup with the intention of pureeing it at the end. If you do not want to puree it, then use an onion that has been diced, and mince the garlic cloves. Use a potato masher or spoon to break up the whole tomatoes.

1) In a large pot heat the oil over medium high. Slice the onion into thin strips and add to the pot. Once the onions have softened (about two minutes), add two cloves of garlic that have been sliced. Saute for another minute.

2) Add the chili flakes, thyme, bay leaf, tomatoes, and chicken stock. It is important to use a good quality of canned tomato, since it is the main ingredient of the soup. If you can't find San Marzano, use canned tomatoes that have been imported from Italy.

3) Rip the bread into chunks and add it to the pot. My soup was looking really thick at this point so I added about a half cup of water.

4) Bring to a boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer for about thirty minutes.

5) Remove the bay leaf, and puree the soup using a hand immersion blender. Or a regular blender if you don't have a hand immersion one.

6) Stir in the cooked macaroni, if using

7) Ladle into bowls, and drizzle extra virgin olive oil on top, if using

After my trip to the farmer's market two weeks ago, I was left with a lot of fresh basil. I thought about making pesto, but I made a simple basil oil instead. I made it by adding about 1.5 cups of fresh basil, and 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil to a food processor. I pureed it, let it sit for an hour, then strained the oil into a bowl. This is will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.

Instead of using plain evoo for the tomato soup, I used a tbsp of my basil oil to saute the onion and garlic. I also used the basil oil for the drizzle garnish.

The effect was amazing. The soup had a really fresh hint of basil. If you make the soup and don't want to make the basil oil, you can add the basil flavor by adding some fresh basil just before serving.

I liked this soup better than the one I previously blogged about. The macaroni isn't necessary, but ever since I was a kid I have always had tomato soup with macaroni in it, so I add it.

I used french bread for the soup. The bread gives the soup a certain thickness and texture, that it isn't getting from a fatty cream addition. Since the soup only called for a slice and a half, I had almost a whole loaf left. I sliced the remainder and laid the slices on a baking sheet. I brushed each slice with a bit of the basil oil and grated Parmesan cheese on top. I put this under the broiler for a couple minutes until the bread was golden, and the cheese had melted. A very nice accompaniment for the soup.

Greek Salad and Pitza

2010-06-18T08:08:00.003-06:00

One of the great things about the Farmer's Market is the samples. If there is something I love more than food, it is free food. I could have spent about an hour at the Happy Camel stand, doing some sampling. The Happy Camel is a Mediterranean pita bakery and deli in Edmonton. I had tried the greatest feta dip while I was there, but I figured that I would pick some up later at their store. This turned out to be a mistake, since the store didn't have any while I was there.

I did, however, get some hummus since they have one of the greatest ones I have tasted. I also picked up a package of their Sesame Za'atar (or flatbread), to make pita pizzas, or pitzas.

My original plan for the pitzas was to have the feta spread as the "sauce". Since I didn't get any I skipped having a sauce altogether, and just made them as follows:

Rebekah's Pitzas

(Serves 4)

1) Take two chicken breasts and dice them. Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet, add the chicken, and cook until browned, about two minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and a tsp of dried oregano. Remove from heat.

2) I took four pitas and divided the chicken on top them. I topped each with a handful of sliced grape tomatoes, some feta that I had cubed, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. I placed them in the oven at 350 F for roughly five minutes until the parm cheese had melted.

3) Once I removed them from the oven I sprinkled some slivered fresh basil on top.

They were very tasty, though I still would have preferred to have the feta spread on them as well.

To go with the pitzas I made a Greek salad. While some Greek salads contain olives, mine does not because I am not a big fan of olives.

Rebekah's Greek Salad

1) In a bowl combine:

half of an English cucumber, diced

half of a red onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, also diced

about half a cup of feta that has been cubed (though feel free to add more, feta never hurt anybody

half of a pint of grape tomatoes. I sliced mine, but you can leave them whole or halved

the juice of 1 lemon

about 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

about 1 tbsp of dried oregano

2) Stir together, and let sit in the fridge for a half hour before serving

To drink, I made a flavored club soda. In a glass I placed a sliced lime, a handful of fresh mint leaves, and some raspberries. I filled the glass with club soda. Really easy, and tastes really fresh.

Gnocchi Fail

2010-06-15T08:48:00.005-06:00

This past weekend I had one of the greatest Saturdays I have had in a long time. The weather in Edmonton has been miserable lately. It's been grey, cloudy and rainy. Then on Friday, it all cleared up and it was bright, sunny and beautiful. I am using my awesome skills in Paint to really show you.

Wow, I am so talented.

I got a message late last week from my friend M, who was wondering if I would want to go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. I was ecstatic, I love the Farmer's Market! So Saturday we drove down to Whyte Ave to go to the market, and after that we enjoyed lunch on a patio. Did I mention it was 26 C outside? We spent all of the day on Saturday outside, and it was absolutely fabulous. Aside from the sunburn I acquired on my arm. Small price to pay though!

Yesterday I was trying to decide what to do with my goods I purchased from the Farmer's Market. I had the great idea to make gnocchi. When we had lunch, M ordered gnocchi and I tried it for the first time in my life, and wanted to have it again.

Since I was making the sauce to go on top, I thought I would be lazy and just buy packaged gnocchi. I have heard horrible things about gnocchi that is packaged to sit on a shelf, so I looked for frozen or fresh gnocchi and couldn't find any.

I made the decision to just make the gnocchi myself, rather than to buy the kind on the shelf. The ingredients for a basic gnocchi are flour, potatoes, and an egg. You cook the potatoes, allow them to cool, and push them through a food mill or potato ricer. Then you add flour and an egg. Problem, I was out of eggs. I googled egg less gnocchi, and found a recipe that included just flour and potatoes. I made the dough, and cut the gnocchi and went to boil them.

After pulling them out of the water, instead of ending up with a delicious little potato dumpling, I got a mass pile of wet potato and flour. It was so gross.

At this point the roasted tomato sauce was almost finished. I had taken 5 Roma tomatoes (from the market, they were so red and so fresh), and cut them in half. I also took a medium Spanish onion, and sliced it very thinly. In a shallow baking dish I lined the onions on the bottom and tossed them with extra virgin olive oil. I placed the tomato halves on top (insides facing up), and scattered garlic cloves around them. I left the garlic in the peel, could not be easier! I drizzled a bit more oil on top and seasoned with salt and pepper. This went into a 350 F oven, for roughly 45 minutes to an hour.

Upon removal from the oven, I allowed the dish to cool a bit, then I emptied the contents into my blender. (First squish the garlic cloves out of the peel, and discard the peels) I blended it until smooth, though if your prefer a chunky sauce, you can either mash it, or only blend it a little.

So I had a disgusting glob of wet mashed potatoes, and a sauce that smelled like Italian heaven. Luckily I keep a disgusting amount of dried pasta on hand and quickly put some in a pot to boil. Once the pasta was cooked, I poured the sauce on top and added some fresh basil. The basil from the Farmer's Market is a magical thing. A bag will cost roughly $4, and you get a bag full of fresh and beautiful basil. Not a tetra pack of brown basil that costs $2. 99 at the grocery store.

I topped the pasta with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

The sauce tasted so fresh. There is really nothing that compares to produce and herbs that are bought at a farmer's market.

I had also bought a bag of mint from the Farmer's Market, and I made a POM Mock-ito to go with supper. I sliced a lime and placed the slices in a glass. To that I added a handful of fresh mint, and about 3/4 cup of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. I topped it off with club soda.

Mmm this was good!

Clam Chowder

2010-06-10T10:42:00.004-06:00

I have been to Disneyland and Disneyworld several times. The first time was when I was fourteen, and since then I have been to each a handful of times. I remember one time being in Disneyland with my dad, sister E, Tante, and my cousin E. The four of us, excluding my dad, ended up talking in fake British accents for most of the trip. Until my dad got very frustrated and snapped at some point and told us all he had enough.

This was the same trip in which we did not load onto the Matterhorn properly. My sister and cousin are the two skinniest people I have ever met, and we put them in one seat. And my aunt and I ended up squishing into a seat together, and it was most uncomfortable. (But we made good timing jah?)

So you get an idea of what the bobsleds look like.

There was another time that I went with Tante, my cousin E, and my friend D. It was the time we had the best burger I have ever ate. I actually talk about this burger so much, that one of my sisters can tell the story word for word. We woke up at about 3 am to catch our flight. At that time there is nothing open in the airport, so our only chance to get food was on the plane and they only gave us a muffin. By the time we got into the hotel, and to the parks it was 1 pm, and since 3 am we had only ate a muffin. So the first place we went was the Taste Pilot's Grill. We all got a burger and waffle fries, and there was total silence at our table as the four of us demolished these burgers. (I would give my right arm for one of these right about now)

One of my favorite things to do in Disneyland is at the California Adventure park. They have a tortilla factory and a sourdough bread factory there. You take a tour in each factory, and at the end of both tours they hand out fresh samples. So delicious.

Also delicious, is the clam chowder at the Pacific Wharf Cafe. It is served in a sourdough bread bowl, and it is the greatest clam chowder I have ever ate.

I made clam chowder last night for dinner. Edmonton can't seem to get rid of the chilly, rainy weather we have been having, and it just seemed like a good afternoon for chowder. I made it loosely based on this Cooking Light's recipe.

The first problem with this recipe is it's supposed to serve 12 people. And there is only 2 slices of bacon in it! I made mine with the following:

-3 slices bacon

-1 medium onion, chopped

-2 stalks celery (practically minced, so there wasn't large chunks of it)

-1 clove garlic, minced

-1 tsp dried thyme

-1 bay leaf

-2 baking potatoes, peeled and diced

-1 bottle of clam juice

-2 cans of baby clams

-1/4 cup flour

-1.5 cups of skim milk

The recipe also called for crisping the bacon and removing it from the pot, to add to the bowls of soup upon serving. I minced the bacon into small pieces, and once crisped, I added the onion and celery to the pan, keeping the bacon in there for the entire cooking process.

Clam chowder is usually made with a lot of cream. The flour and skim milk mix thickened the soup extremely well. I didn't miss the cream, and the finished result was thick, not watery. I really liked it. I have made chowder before, using the cream and way more bacon than just 3 slices, and I found it plain and bland. This was really good.

Sandwiches

2010-06-08T11:35:00.002-06:00

A couple weeks ago I mentioned how much I love Frank's Buffalo Wing Sauce, when I made buffalo chicken wraps. I used the sauce the other night to make Buffalo Chicken Burgers. If you love buffalo wings in any way, you must buy this sauce, and make these burgers.

Rebekah's Buffalo Chicken Burgers:

1) Take a lb of ground chicken, an egg, and a 1/2 cup of panko breadcrumbs and mix together in a large bowl. You could also add a bit of diced onion, or some seasoning (I used about a tbsp of Clubhouse's Tex Mex seasoning) if you like.

2) Split the mixture evenly into four. Flatten into round patties.

3) Heat a small amount of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium high. Add the patties, cook for roughly four minutes on each side. Before removing them from the skillet, cut into the middle of the patty to make sure the chicken is cooked through. (The meat should be white, and the juices should be clear!)
If you notice the chicken is browning too much you can turn down the heat, or slide the skillet into the oven and finish it off by baking at 350 F. Make sure your skillet is oven proof, of course.

4) When the chicken is finished, add 1/2 cup of Frank's Buffalo Wing Sauce to the skillet, and turn the patties over so they are completely coated in deliciousness.

5) Place the patty on the bun of your choice. I used whole wheat, and I had toasted it in the oven while the burgers were cooking.

The burgers can be topped with lettuce, or blue cheese, but I chose to just spread some ranch dressing on the bun. (I used Renee's Buttermilk Ranch, the half fat version). I served the burgers with carrot and celery sticks. Delicious and healthy!

A while back I made the following sloppy joe, and I got the recipe off of sparkrecipes. Sparkrecipes is a database of healthy recipes, and they have quite the amount. I had a craving for sloppy joes and when you search their website for sloppy joes the top recipe is Diet Coke Sloppy Joes. The main ingredients are ground beef, Diet Coke, reduced sugar ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, white vinegar and mustard powder. To make the ground beef is browned in a skillet, then the rest of the ingredients are added and cooked together for 30 minutes.

I used Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke, and regular ketchup instead of the reduced sugar variety. I will make these again, because they were quite good, but I would add some chopped onion to it. And maybe some garlic. Even though it was good, it was kind of plain.

I served the sloppy joe with a spinach salad. I just piled raw spinach leaves on the plate and topped it with Everyday Food's Shallot Vinaigrette. It is one of my all time favorite homemade salad dressings.

Stir Fries/Frys?

2010-06-04T11:15:00.006-06:00

Today is Friday, and not only is it Friday, but it's also my friend K's birthday! If there's something I love more than Friday, it is birthdays. And if there's something I love more than birthdays, it's eye candy. Today I combined them:

Nice. Although it kind of looks like he went swimming in the Gulf that BP is ruining.

Recently I have made two similar dishes from Everyday Food. First up is Sweet and Sour Pork. The basic ingredients are pork tenderloin, canned pineapple, bell peppers, broccoli, green onions, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. I know some of you are like "WHAT? Rebek you hate broccoli!" It's true, I do. So instead of broccoli, I used sugar snap peas.

According to my sister roommate, she said that this sweet and sour sauce was better than some of the ones she tried in China. I can't confirm if this is true, but it was really good. (The picture of this dish is at the top of the post).

Next up, Stir-Fried Honey Ginger Chicken. The ingredients for this stir fry are chicken breasts, bell peppers, garlic, and ginger. The sauce is made with honey, soy sauce and rice vinegar. There is a lot of ginger in this stir fry, and I am not crazy about ginger. I like it in small doses, but I made the stir fry according to recipe, and it was delicious.

Both of these were really quick to put together. When making any stir fry, it's important to assemble the ingredients before starting the cooking process. Food doesn't take long to cook this way, and you don't want to be stuck chopping up an ingredient while another burns in the pan.

Overall, both of these were great, though that isn't a surprise because Everyday Food has yet to disappoint me.

Manicotti

2010-06-01T10:40:00.006-06:00

I am still hitting the gym on a regular basis. Now, I am not one of those people who is all "the gym is soooo fun! I LOVE working out". The gym is not fun, it's grueling, tough and sometimes painful. It's because of that, that I drive not to the gym that is seven minutes from my house, but to the one that is thirty minutes away.

I know you are thinking, how does that make sense? You see the gym by my house is set up like this:

Meaning that if I am on a cardio machine, all the eye candy is BEHIND me. And if I'm going to suffer at the gym, I might as well have something to look at right? So I go to the gym set up like this:

This way if I am on a cardio machine, I can slyly look over and see all the eye candy using the weights. Both diagrams were made in Paint, using my awesome Paint skills.

Now the problem with the gym, is it's hard to look attractive. I was born with very fair skin, and after about five minutes on the treadmill my face goes from being the color of carefully applied foundation and blush to the color of a hothouse tomato in season. My favorite color for everything but skin. Then we have my hair. I can either pull it into a ponytail and secure my bangs back with a headband, or leave some of it down with my bangs pulled back. Problem. I hate my hair in a ponytail, I think it makes me look like a boy. If I leave some of it down, it looks good for all of ten minutes. After that, it starts to get sweaty and clings to my neck, making it look like I'm being choked by seaweed. This is not a good look for me, and I have resigned myself to the fact I will probably not be getting hit on at the gym.

As you can see, there is pasta in this post. I realize this three pasta entries in a row. I haven't been on a pasta binge, but it's just the way that the posts have worked out. I have a backlog of food to talk about, and today I feel like writing about the manicotti.

I served the manicotti with a spinach salad. Of all the salad greens in the world, I would have to say that spinach is my favorite.

Rebekah's Spinach Salad (serves 4)

1) in a dry skillet on medium heat, toast 1/3 cup of pine nuts. The pine nuts are toasted when they turn a golden color, and smell nutty.

2) Divide roughly 4 cups of spinach leaves into four bowls.

3) Thinly slice 2 shallots, and divide between the four bowls

4) Divide the pine nuts between the four bowls

5) In a bowl combine 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, and 1 minced clove of garlic. Whisk until combined. Drizzle dressing over salad.

Mmm, I love balsamic vinegar!

Rebekah's Manicotti (Serves 4)

1) Put a large pot of water on to boil. Once it's boiled, add some salt, and 8 manicotti shells.

2) Meanwhile, make the filling. Combine an egg with a cup of ricotta cheese and roughly half a cup of grated mozzarella cheese. This is the basic filling. To the one I made in the picture I added some pepper, red chili flakes, and thin strips of spinach leaves. I have previously made manicotti with chopped sun dried tomatoes and canned artichokes (amazing), or you could add grated carrot, onion, and broccoli that has been cut into small pieces. Sky's the limit.

3) Take a jar of spaghetti sauce and place into a saucepan. Add some water to the jar, shake it up, and add it to the sauce. Heat the sauce until it just starts to boil, then remove from the heat.

4) When the manicotti has softened, but is not yet cooked to al dente, pull them out of the water. To make them cool enough to handle I run them under some cold water (which I realize rinses the starch off of them, and I would never recommend rinsing pasta, but for this sometimes you just have to deal with it)

5) Spoon the filling into a piping bag. Or if you don't have one, a plastic freezer bag. I do not recommend using a sandwich bag as they aren't sturdy enough. Cut a corner off the bag, and use it to pipe the filling into the noodles. Like this:

6) Take a cup of the sauce and pour it into a baking dish large enough to hold the manicotti. Shake the dish so the sauce covers the bottom. Layer the manicotti in a single row on top of the sauce. Pour the remaining sauce over the manicotti and top with another half cup of mozzarella cheese.

7) Place in an oven that has been preheated for 350 F for 30 minutes, covered. After 30 minutes remove the lid, and let bake for another 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven.

Carbonara under 500

2010-05-30T20:07:00.003-06:00

I am having the most fantastic day. I was headed for church this morning and I was taking my sweet time getting ready, and I was running late. Too late to grab a coffee. Magically, by the time I got close to the church I had time to spare to go to the Starbucks across the street. When I pulled up to the window I went to pass the Starbucks boy my debit card and he said "Don't worry about it, coffee is free for ridiculously good looking people". Ha! In actuality it was free since the car in front of me placed an order that took FOREVER and I was waiting for a very long time. Patiently. (another joke, I was not very patient) After church there was a barbecue, and if there's something I love, it's free food. I went the the gym from there, and my favorite eye candy was also working out. I also went to yoga today and not once did we have to do child's pose, which is my least favorite.

However, Sunday night is fast coming to a close, and it means that Monday morning is coming fast. I do not like Monday mornings...

A while back I made a spaghetti carbonara using a recipe by Nigella Lawson. While delicious, it's completely indulgent. (And if you didn't make it the first time you read about it on my blog, what the heck are you waiting for? It's really fantastic)

Since it is indulgent, I have to consider it as a luxury. And luxurious, it is. The sauce is made from pancetta, cream and cheese. When watching one's waist and heart, the indulgences must be few and far between. I love carbonara though, and when I saw a recipe for a healthier version of it, I had to make it. The recipe comes from Cook Smart for a Healthy Heart. I made it without the roasted tomato salad, those of you who clicked the recipe link.

The recipe replaces pancetta or bacon with proscuitto which is dry fried (without the aid of oil) until crisp. They also replace heavy cream with reduced fat cream, though I went so far as to replace the cream with skim milk. The sauce is given texture with the aid of some ricotta cheese, which I love. One of my most favorite carbonaras comes from a restaurant called Chianti's, where you can order it dry (not creamy and saucy) and I think it's so good this way, and the ricotta in the recipe is reminiscent of that.

Since the sauce is light, I didn't use whole wheat, I used Catelli Smart spaghetti instead. And even with proscuitto, eggs, cheese and pasta a hearty sized serving comes in at 471 calories. Amazing.

Though it isn't nearly as good as Nigella's version, I did find it incredibly good and a decent substitution.

Pizza Pasta Bake

2010-05-26T11:25:00.004-06:00

My youngest sister, R, moved in this weekend. The first few days haven't been too bad, though it will be an adjustment. I have lived on my own for about 4 or 5 years now, and have gotten used to doing whatever I want (like playing the radio when I get ready for work at the ridiculous hour of 6 am).

On Saturday I had made us pizza. I used C's pizza dough, using half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. I topped the pizza with store bought sauce, pepperoni, red bell pepper (I wanted green but the green bell peppers were pretty icky at the store) , onion, mushrooms, and some mozzarella cheese.

The pizza was great, but the problem is I am left with half an onion, half a red bell pepper, pepperoni, mushrooms, sauce and cheese. I don't want to waste the leftovers, but I also don't want to have pizza two nights in a row.

So I made a pizza pasta bake. Which also gave me a chance to use my 3.5 quart KitchenAid dutch oven.

I made nearly the entire bake in the dutch oven, which included stirring the pasta and sauce together, which is why the sides are so messy. Sorry.

The pasta bake came from my head, so the recipe is mine. This was made to use up leftovers, so the amounts are "half of this" or "roughly this". The pasta bake will serve four or five.

Rebekah's Pizza Pasta Bake

1) Set a pot of water to boil and cook a box of whole wheat penne according to instructions. (It's ok to under cook a bit, as it will finish cooking in the oven)

2) Meanwhile, in a dutch oven, heat a small amount of extra virgin olive oil. Add half of a minced onion. Saute for a couple minutes, add roughly four or five sliced mushrooms.

3) For this step I used pizza pepperoni (which I can only find at Safeway sadly). I took about 10 slices and cut them into four like so:

Yes. I did this in Paint. Why? Because my skills in Paint are awesome.

Add the cut pepperoni slices to the mushrooms and onions, after the mushrooms have cooked down (about two minutes), heat the pepperoni slices for a minute.

4) If you had made pizza the night before this is when you could add the leftover pizza sauce. Mine equaled out to about a cup of sauce. You could also add a jar of any kind of red pasta sauce.

5) Add half of a red pepper, minced. (or chopped if you don't mind large pieces of soft red pepper)

6) Add the cooked pasta. Stir together, and add about a tbsp of grated mozza cheese. I did this to sort of bind the pasta and sauce. Top with more cheese. I had used a little over half a cup of cheese in total.

7) Bake at 350 F for about 30 minutes until the cheese is melted, and golden.

This was a great way to use up the leftovers, and it doesn't taste like pizza leftovers.

Steak Sandwich

2010-05-21T12:16:00.005-06:00

I was talking to an idiot the other day. How did I know he was an idiot? He said "I don't eat red meat very much, and when I do it has to be well done. Like burnt well done" This never ceases to amaze me. How can you take something as beautiful as a steak, and do something so terrible like overcook it? You might as well eat shoe leather. I feel very strongly about this, and those of you who know me, know that I have a hard time keeping my opinions to myself. Especially when someone does something terrible like order a steak well done. There is nothing "well done" about it.

The other day I made a steak sandwich. And it was beautiful. The following recipe made enough for 2 sandwiches.

Rebekah's Steak Sandwich

1) I took a New York strip (my favorite) rubbed it with olive oil, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I placed it in a skillet over medium high for 3 minutes on each side.

2) Remove the steak from the pan and place it under foil. Add half a sliced onion to the skillet with a small amount of extra virgin olive oil, lower heat to medium.

3) When the onions have been on for a minute or two add some sliced mushrooms. (I used 4)

4) When the onions and mushrooms are slightly browned (2 or 3 minutes), remove from heat and sprinkle with a bit of dried thyme.

5) Slice the steak thinly removing the fatty pieces. The steak should be medium rare. If you desire to cook it more, do not waste your money on a New York strip. Buy some cheaper steak to ruin.

6) Take the bun of your choice (I used multi grain ciabatta rolls) split it open and toast under the broiler until golden brown.

7) Mix together horseradish and Dijon mustard. I used roughly a tbsp of horseradish, and roughly 4 tbsp of Dijon mustard. Spread as much as you desire on the toasted bun.

8) Place about half of the steak meat on the bun, and top with about half of the onion and mushroom mix.

DELICIOUS! No joke, this sandwich was pretty awesome.

You must make this!

To go with it I debated a few things. I thought about sweet potato fries, but anytime I make something like fries in the oven that are crisp when they come out, they are always squishy when I heat them up the next day.

Then I remembered a dish that my aunt makes. And I love it. So here it is, and this should serve roughly 4 people.

Tante's Beans:

1) In a sauce pot (sort of large), fry up 2 slices of chopped bacon. You do not want them to be crisp, once they start to turn brown add half a cup of chopped onion to the pot.

2) After about a minute add a can of pineapple tidbits. (I drained the pineapple first, but you can do what you like)

3) Add a can of rinsed kidney beans, and a can of brown beans (I used the Heinz maple kind)

4) Add 1 tsp of mustard (I used mustard powder), 2 tbsp chili sauce (I didn't have any so I used ketchup) and a tbsp of brown sugar. Since the beans and ketchup were sweet enough I added molasses instead. Call me crazy.

Lower heat, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes.

I love love love love love these! They are sooooo good! I would recommend that you stir the pot every few minutes. I just let mine simmer and then after a half hour I went to check it, and a layer had burnt to the sides. I managed to salvage a fair bit, but if you don't stir it, you will end up with something like this:

Not good.

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

2010-05-18T09:03:00.005-06:00

I love buffalo sauce. If I had my choice any time I had wings, I would always order the buffalo style. Usually though, I am having wings with anti-buffalo flavor people and have to settle on one that we both like.

One of my biggest pet peeves about recipes with buffalo sauce, they feel that taking any hot sauce and adding some butter results in the same flavor as buffalo wings that you would order in a pub or restaurant. It doesn't. It still tastes exactly like whatever sauce you used. Only a bit richer. This made me a bit frustrated, as I tended to avoid recipes that I would have loved to try. Then one day I was at the grocery store and saw:

There is no need to add butter, and it tastes exactly like how a buffalo wing should taste! Although in the image above, the seal looks weird to me. Like someone used Paint to make it look like there is a seal. Am I wrong? (It wasn't me, obviously, since my skills in Paint are awesome, and no one would be able to tell it was fake)

I received my new Everyday Food in the mail the other day, and they had a section of sandwiches and wraps recipes. There are no links to the actual recipe, and I tweaked some things around, but the following is an adaptation from the recipe in EF for Buffalo Chicken Wraps.

I had planned on using actual chicken breasts, like in the recipe. I order chicken breasts through work, and I just got a new box on Monday (when I was making the wraps), but I left it at work. Of course. So I bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded the meat. Since I was only making two wraps, I reserved half the meat for later this week.

The half for the wraps I placed in a sauce pan, drizzled some of Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce on top, and heated it over medium just to warm the chicken and sauce.

The original recipe made a blue cheese dip by combining crumbled blue cheese and plain yogurt. I had some sour cream on hand instead. I crumbled the blue cheese, and put it on my food processor with about 4 tbsp of sour cream.

I own one of those mini food processors, and it is my favorite thing. I use it all the time, since it is small and doesn't take up a lot of room in the dishwasher. I think everyone should own one.

I spread some of the blue cheese mix on a tortilla, and then topped it with some of the chicken mix, some sliced celery, carrot ribbons and shredded iceberg lettuce. (Luckily this time I bought the inorganic and it wasn't brown)

To make carrot ribbons, use your vegetable peeler as if you are going to peel the carrot, only just keep going until there is no carrot left.

These were really good. I think what I would do next time is make sure I used chicken breasts that were cut into chunks and then cooked in a pan. Rotisserie chicken was good in a pinch, but I think it would be better the other way.

I am also not the biggest blue cheese fan, I find it to be very overpowering so next time I might use a ranch dressing instead. Overall though, I really thought this was a great summertime supper.

Lettuce Wraps, Take 2

2010-05-14T11:34:00.003-06:00

I found a recipe for chicken and cashew lettuce wraps. Cashews are possibly one of my favorite things. I used to think that a stir fry isn't complete without peanuts, but peanuts don't even compare to the deliciousness of cashews.

The wraps were easy enough to make. The recipe called for using an onion, but I used green onion instead. The sauce on the chicken is made with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar, and I think that green onions really compliment those flavors. Not too mention, green onions taste great.

I also served them with matchstick carrots, as the wraps themselves seemed to be lacking in the vegetable department.

My biggest problem with this recipe was the lettuce. Sobeys had moved things around and the iceberg lettuce wasn't where it usually is. I finally found some that looked decent, but once at the till I figured out that I had accidentally grabbed the organic lettuce. I have no problem if people want to eat organic, but I don't really buy into it. Especially since it costs a RIDICULOUS amount of money. $2.49 for a head of lettuce? Get real.

I brought the stupid thing home anyways, and when I started to take it apart I realized close to every leaf was covered in brown spots. Oh, how appetizing. I managed to salvage some of it, but overall most of it went into the trash.

I'll take my chances with the inorganic from now on, I haven't ever bought a head of lettuce that was covered in so much brown.

Besides the disappointing lettuce, the wraps were really good. I recommend adding some more veggies like julienned bell peppers, or matchstick carrots to them. If you use green onion, keep some of it aside to sprinkle on top in their raw form.

Bean "Burgers"

2010-05-11T09:38:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I can hear myself talking, and in my head I am screaming "shut up already!", but the words keep pouring out. I have become the person I have always dreaded being. The person who talks about the amount of calories food has, and talks about going to the gym all the time.

Before, if I ever heard someone say "do you KNOW how many calories cheese has?", I would roll my eyes and loathe them. And now I am "that guy".

This time last year, if someone said to me "what did you do last night?" My answer would have most likely been "watched TV while sitting on my giant behind". Now my answer is "I went to the gym" or "I went to yoga". I think it's funny how things change. On my wish list at this point last year were these:

Now I would love to get my hands, uh...feet, in these:

I haven't had a complete lobotomy though. Even though there's a gym right by my house, I prefer to travel to the one that is further away because the cardio machines are set up so you can see the eye candy if you're working out on one of them. Might as well enjoy the sights while working out, right?

The other night I was flipping through a Cooking Light cookbook, and I saw a picture of a burger and it looked delicious. However, I cannot actually call it a burger. A burger, to me, contains meat. This one did not, so I will refer to it as a sandwich. When I pointed it out to C, she said that the Southwest Pinto Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayo did not look delicious. I disagreed, and made them, and frankly, they were very very good.

The patties are made with pinto beans, bread crumbs, jalapeno, onion, corn, cilantro, hot sauce, cumin, egg, salt and pepper. I used white kidney beans instead of pinto beans, and panko bread crumbs instead of regular breadcrumbs. My grocery store didn't have any jalapenos that looked healthy, so I used a habanero pepper instead. If you go that route, be careful as habaneros are very hot. I omitted the cilantro, since I am not a big fan of it. Lastly I used about a 1/2 cup of frozen corn that I thawed, instead of the canned corn.

The patties are pan fried in a small amount of oil, placed on toasted whole wheat buns, and topped with romaine lettuce and chipotle mayo. Chipotle mayo being mayo that is mixed with some chipotle in adobo sauce.

These were really good. Mine were a bit spicy, but I like it that way. I didn't even mind the corn, and ordinarily I hate having corn mixed in anything. The only problem I had with the patties is that they didn't bind together well, and fell apart easily in the pan. However, it was a small annoyance and I do plan on making these again.

For dessert I took a pineapple and cut off the peel, top and bottom, and sliced it into rounds. I placed the rounds on a baking sheet and topped each one with a small amount of brown sugar. I baked them at 350 F for about 15 minutes. I topped the rounds with sweetened coconut that I had toasted. (The coconut is toasted by placing it in a dry skillet over low heat until it is golden brown). Also very delicious!

Rebekah's Curry

2010-05-05T12:59:00.005-06:00

On Monday night, after my terribly long day at work, I wanted nothing more than to just crawl into bed and sleep for the entire night. However, I knew that I would end up waking up a few hours later and unable to sleep for the rest of the night and I would feel worse the next day.

The weather was sort of chilly, so I thought I would make something warm and spicy. I made a curry, without using a recipe, so this recipe is my own.

Rebekah's Curry

If serving this with brown rice, put the rice on to boil before starting to assemble the curry. If using white rice, start making the rice after the curry has been assembled.

The following serves 4-5

1) Cut up two chicken breasts into bite size chunks. Heat just enough oil in a pan to cover the pan, on medium high. Add the chicken to the pan and brown on all sides (roughly 2 minutes)

2) Add an onion that has been cut into thin strips. Saute until the onion is soft and brown (roughly 2 minutes)

3) Add 4 tbsp of Patak's Madras Curry Paste. Stir to cover the chicken.

4) Add a can of coconut milk. Stir to melt the thick cream that forms at the top of the can.

5) Add a can of chopped tomatoes and a chopped bell pepper.

6) Bring to a boil, lower heat, and cover.

I simmered mine until the rice was ready, for close to 40 minutes, and it was delicious. It would probably still be delicious even if it only had simmered for 20 minutes. The only thing I would have changed from the above recipe, is I would have added the bell pepper close to the end, instead of letting it get so soft from being in there so long.

If you wanted you could also add diced carrots, or some frozen peas. (Add the carrots with the curry paste, add the peas 5 minutes before taking it off the heat). I also wanted to top it with some cashews, but I forgot to get some at the store. It wasn't too spicy, so if you wanted more bite to it, add a sliced chili.

Overall though, this dish was great.

NOTE: This curry is gluten free. I double checked all the ingredients.

Pasta Salad

2010-05-03T12:38:00.004-06:00

Monday mornings are a terrible time for me. To make things easier Monday morning, I usually try to go to sleep earlier on Sunday night. Last night I turned my light off at 10:30 pm (or, as I prefer, 22:30). At 1 am I was still lying in bed wide awake. I fell asleep shortly after that, only to wake up every half hour. I have no idea why this happened, I didn't have any caffeine in the afternoon, and I was pretty tired when I went to bed. Today has been a very rough day. I just keep looking at the clock and wishing it was time for me to go to sleep for the night.

In the meantime, I promised K I would write a blog post today. The recipe can be found here. Because I was eating it for dinner, and planning on having some leftovers, I didn't mix everything altogether, I kept the noodles, dressing and baby greens in separate containers.

I made the noodles by cooking up some Catelli Smart linguine. You could also use whole wheat spaghetti or soba noodles. I used the Catelli Smart ones because that is what I had on hand. Once the noodles are cooked, they are drained and run under cold water to cool them down.

I tossed them with 1 tbsp sesame oil, the zest from a lime and an orange, chopped cucumber, carrots, green onion, and red bell pepper.

I placed some mixed baby greens on a plate, topped them with the noodles, and drizzled the dressing over top. The ingredients for the dressing included peanut butter, lime juice, orange juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and red chili flakes. The original recipe called for adding 1/2 cup of oil, but I omitted it because I didn't see a point to the oil.

The recipe was pretty quick to put together. The hardest part was chopping up the produce. The sauce was tangier than what I expected though. I think next time I would only use the juice from half of an orange, and use less rice vinegar. I also used chunky peanut butter, which added some extra crunch to the salad.

Overall I enjoyed it, and it didn't really feel like I was eating salad for dinner. It would be a great recipe on a hot day since the pasta is eaten cold.

Chipotle Chicken & Rice

2010-04-30T15:14:00.003-06:00

I have been amazing myself lately. This is a loaded sentence. It can mean one of two things, I either did something so stupid that I was amazed at how stupid I can be, or that I did something really awesome. For instance, one time I where I was amazed in a negative way, happened a couple years back. I was living with my friend D, and our culinary skills consisted of boxed dinners (like KD) or calling Tante and begging her to feed us. One day I noticed that our oven was on. I couldn't remember the last time I had used the oven, so I asked D when was the last time we had used the oven and she couldn't remember either. No joke, our oven had been on for days, possibly well over a week. We also never remembered to lock the balcony door, or to bring house keys with us wherever we went, so there was a few times that getting inside the apartment involved climbing up the balcony. Amazing right?

Lately though, I have been amazed in a good way. I have been hitting the gym like a fiend, and I have noticed that my endurance is getting better. I am nowhere close to being in shape, and before it wouldn't take much to completely wind me, but now I have noticed that I can give it my all for a much longer period of time. And that feels pretty awesome.

Why am I telling you all this, even though most of you (all of you?) couldn't care? It's a way to keep myself motivated. Also, I am pretty proud of myself for sticking with it, but also seeing improvement in my endurance, and as a result my overall health. SO DEAL WITH IT!

The other night I made Everyday Food's Chipotle Chicken an d Rice. As per usual I changed a few things. EF's ingredients are: vegetable oil, chicken thighs, red onion, garlic, cumin, chipotles in adobo, large tomatoes, and long grain white rice.

The vegetable oil is for browning the chicken thighs, and I swapped it for a more heart healthy olive oil. I do not like reheating red onions in leftovers so I used a Spanish onion. I added an extra chipotle because I like things spicy. I also used a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes (drained) instead of fresh tomatoes, not only to make things easier, but I find the canned tomatoes still have better taste than fresh ones this time of year. I also swapped the white rice for brown rice.

Because brown rice takes longer to cook, I added it right away instead of halfway through the cooking time.

I really love this recipe. The chicken and rice are spicy, filling, and the chipotles add a great smoky flavor. The next day for supper I made a sort of quesidilla with the leftovers. I took the chicken out and shredded it, then added it back to the rice. I cut a whole wheat pita pocket in half (the grocery store was out of whole wheat tortillas) so I had two circles, not two half moons. I brushed olive oil on one side of each (the bottom), topped one with the chicken and rice mix, added a bit of partly skimmed mozza cheese (it was in the fridge, I would have preferred a cheese like Monterrey jack), and then topped it with the other half of the pita. I place it in a skillet for about 45 seconds on each side until the tortilla was slightly crisp and the filling was warm.

I do not have a picture of this, because none of them looked appetizing. They tasted good though.

I served each meal with a spinach salad. I love fresh spinach in its raw form. I have never been big on frozen spinach, but baby spinach leaves are my favorite for a salad. I top it with chopped carrot, celery, bell pepper, and green onion.

The dressing was made by mixing a pinch of salt and pepper, a tsp of dry mustard, a tsp of honey, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, and about half of a 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. Delicious, if I do say so myself.

Magical Steak

2010-04-28T11:06:00.004-06:00

I had C over for dinner the other night. Back when we made our seafood feast, we had intended to make crab won tons, but we ran out of time and stomach space. We nixed the crab won tons, and put the crab meat in the freezer to use another day. So the other night I decided to make them to go along with an Asian flavoured steak.

I made the filling, which was a simple mix of green onion, cream cheese, ginger and crab meat. I had taken the won ton wrappers out of the freezer the night before and placed them in my fridge. I set up my won ton building station and went to pull off the first won ton sheet from the pile. It didn't budge. I picked up the pile and tried to separate any of the wrappers. They wouldn't come apart. I'm getting frustrated with these, and finally C says "that looks like puff pastry". Then it hit me, the last time I used puff pastry, I only needed half the pack and I had frozen the rest in a freezer bag. Sure enough, I was trying to tear apart puff pastry. (In my defense they look similar in their frozen state)

We quickly ran out to the store to pick up won ton wrappers. Luckily, T&T Supermarket stocks refrigerated ones that wouldn't need to thaw overnight.

Once the won tons were assembled, they are fried for a small amount of time (I used canola oil) until golden brown and crisp. I served them alongside VH Thai Market Sweet Thai Chili Sauce. The recipe for the won tons can be found here.

I really liked these. The filling was super quick and easy to make. The sauce was perfect with them. And if you make more than what you plan to eat that night, place them (raw, not fried!) on a baking sheet in the freezer, until frozen and then place them in a freezer bag until you want to cook them. I know this isn't a healthy dish, but everything in moderation right?

The steak is one of my all time favorite steak recipes. C's mom served this once, and I could have eat about 10 lbs worth of it. It's an Asian style marinade, and I placed the steak in the marinade overnight in my fridge. This will turn the steak from bright red, to an unappealing grayish brown color, but it is so so so worth it.

When C's mom made this, the steak was magical. I am not exaggerating. I don't have a BBQ, so I cooked it on my stove top grill pan. The end result wasn't as good as the one I first had, and I think it was because it wasn't done on a BBQ. However, it was still pretty good. Not too mention flank steak is a pretty cheap cut of meat, that tastes best if it has been marinating in something overnight.

The steak is topped with gomashio (according to the recipe title) or gomasio (how it is spelled according to Google). Which is a mix of toasted sesame seeds and sea salt that have been partially ground in a mortar and pestle.

The recipe can be found here. I changed a couple things, like marinating it overnight instead of 3 or 4 hours, and instead of sambal oelek, I used Sriracha sauce. I didn't make the asparagus in the recipe either.

To round off the meal I served it with a Dole Salad Kit. Specifically, the Asian Island Crunch one. Usually I will make my own salad and dressing, but I was feeling lazy and overall I have enjoyed the salad kits that Dole makes. The dressings are tasty, and they include great toppings for the salad, like the Asian one comes with dried pineapple chunks.

Tasty!

Sriracha Chicken Wraps

2010-04-22T11:31:00.006-06:00

There's a new show on the Food Network called Bitchin' Kitchen. The host of the show is an Italian girl named Nadia G.

There are a few things I love about this show. I love the vintage style clothing she wears sometimes, and I love love love the set. I can't find a picture of it, but imagine a lot of pink, black, red, and chaos. The thing I hate most about this show, is how much Nadia G is trying so hard to come across as a hardcore Italian chick. I have no problem with Italians, frankly, I would love to have an Italian mother in law one day who will feed me all the time. Just something about Nadia G irks me. This doesn't stop me from watching though, once the show is on I can't stop. She makes delicious looking food, and throws in helpful information about ingredients all the time. I just get the impression she is trying to hard. I mean, you don't see THIS GUY

trying too hard to prove his Italian heritage. (Why yes, that is "The Situation". Jersey Shore FTW)

Last night I made Sriracha Chicken Wraps, not Italian by any means, the intro had nothing to do with the featured meal. Sriracha is a Thai hot sauce made from chilies and garlic. Those of you who do not recognize the name, you may recognize the bottle:

The greatest thing about Sriracha is it packs a lot of heat in a small amount of sauce. I prefer it to some other hot sauces that add a tangy and distinctive flavor, because Sriracha just adds heat without warping the taste of your dish. Also a pretty large bottle of it costs about $2.99. Ridiculously cheap.

The recipe for the chicken wraps can be found here, but I will give you a basic rundown of how they are made.

To make the strips, pieces of chicken are marinated in a mix of Sriracha, soy sauce, green onion, sugar, ginger and garlic. After four hours they are removed from the marinade and coated in a mix of panko bread crumbs and toasted sesame seeds. The best way to coat anything is to use one hand to carry the "wet" item and place it in the dry coating, and the other hand to scoop the dry coating on top of the item and removing it from the coating. If you place your wet hand in the dry coating you will end up with a clumpy mess on your fingers. Gross.

The coated chicken pieces are placed in a hot oven to BAKE, not FRY!

The chicken pieces themselves were so tasty, and due to time constrictions, mine had only marinated for two hours, I can't imagine how great they would be after four or more hours. They had a great spicy kick to them, and I love panko as a crisp coating for chicken.

To make the wraps, assemble a variety of vegetables and lettuce. I wanted to use butter lettuce, but my grocery store was out. I used a plain green leaf lettuce instead (though I would use iceberg over green leaf the next time). The veggies I used were thinly sliced radishes, cucumbers, red bell pepper, and matchstick carrots. I would have also liked to have some thinly sliced green onions, but I didn't have any that didn't go into the marinade.

Think of the chicken wrap like a taco. Use the lettuce for the "tortilla", the chicken as the meat and the sliced veggies for the...well, sliced veggies. And as no taco would be complete without some sauce, the wraps should have some too.

The sauce for the wraps is made from soy sauce, Sriracha sauce, olive oil, sugar, lime juice, sesame oil and dry ginger. Pretty simple, and pretty spicy.

I loved these wraps. I will be making them time and time again. The marinade is quick to throw together, as is the sauce. The veggies didn't take a long time at all to prepare, and nowadays it's pretty easy to cheat and buy pre-cut veggies.

The best part is that these are very healthy (at least by my standards), and taste pretty awesome. Even though the wraps could be deconstructed into a chicken salad, they didn't feel like I was eating a salad for supper. The chicken was very crisp, without having been fried. Delicious. I loved these.

Puttanesca

2010-04-21T12:05:00.004-06:00

Whenever I hear the word puttanesca, I think of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Particularly the first book, The Bad Beginning. The series is about three orphans who go through a series of unfortunate events. In the first book they are sent to live with someone who is really awful to them, and in one part when he makes them make dinner for his awful friends, the orphans make spaghetti puttanesca. Which struck me as funny because puttanesca is a sauce made with tomatoes, capers, kalamata olives, garlic and anchovy, all things kids would likely not eat. I mean for the past few years even I have recoiled at the thought of eating any of it. I'm really picky when it comes to tomatoes. For some reason I thought capers had something to do with fish eggs, though in recent years I found out that they are actually the pickled flower buds belonging to a Mediterranean plant. Olives are something I have avoided since I tried a bite of one that was a garnish to some calamari, and it was an awful experience.

Recently though, I am willing myself to try new things. Last night I made spaghetti puttanesca, recipe courtesy of Everyday Food. I left out the anchovy, not on purpose, I had forgotten to pick some up at the grocery store. Had I remembered I would have used anchovy paste though, not actual anchovies. I pureed the tomatoes in my mini food processor before adding them to the pot, as I am not a fan of tomato chunks in sauces. I didn't add any salt, and I am surprised that EF does. The olives and capers are both pretty salty, and the dish had a salty taste without adding extra salt.

I enjoyed this. I used fettuccine noodles, the Catelli Smart brand. Catelli Smart claims to be a white pasta with the fibre benefits of whole wheat pasta. I would have used whole wheat pasta but I didn't know how strong the sauce would be and I find that the whole wheat taste can sometimes overpower a light pasta sauce. (For future reference I think whole wheat pasta would be fine with this sauce)

I wouldn't say I loved it, but it would be something I make again. It was a very simple recipe that took very little time and effort to assemble.

Chili/Soup

2010-04-19T13:07:00.004-06:00

On a particularly chilly day last week, my mom mentioned that she had made hamburger soup. Hamburger soup is something she would make quite often for us when we were younger. The soup is easy to put together and also falls under my definition of healthy.

Hamburger soup:

1) Brown half of a package of ground beef in a large sauce pan or Dutch oven on med-hi.

2) Add half of an onion, chopped or thinly sliced, and 3 carrots that have been thinly sliced. Cook for about 2 minutes

3) Add a peeled and diced potato

4) Add a 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes (I used chopped tomatoes with Italian seasonings)

5) Add a bay leaf, and a Tbsp of dried oregano

6) Add enough beef broth to cover. About 1.5 cups

Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, roughly 30-40 minutes

This made enough for 4 servings. You could also add some diced celery at the same time as the onion and carrots, I had forgotten to pick some up though.

The next night I made a chili. It's a recipe from Ellie Krieger, who has a show on the American Food Network called Healthy Appetite. I like her philosophy about food, which is basically that no food is off limits, but some foods can be eaten everyday, and some should only be eaten every once in a while.

I only made half of the recipe (using my leftover half onion, and half a package of ground beef from the night before). I left out the red bell pepper, because I had forgotten to pick one up. I also used 3 chipotles in adobo (which made it quite spicy so only do that if you like things spicy). Also in her recipe, Ellie adds 2 cups of water to the chili, which I left out.

I'm glad I left out the 2 cups of water, because I feel that the chili was thin enough. I have never used carrots in a chili before, and I don't mind them as an addition. You can serve it as is, or topped with some grated low fat cheddar and tortilla chips. (As seen in the top picture of this post)

This weekend I had some friends come up from Calgary. On Saturday night we had "make your own" pizza night, and Sunday morning I made Eggs Benedict. The pizza left me with chopped onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper and sliced mushrooms for leftovers. The Eggs Benedict left me with back bacon. To use it all up, last night I made fried rice.

I heated up about 1 tbsp of safflower oil in a large pan, and sauteed the veggies (leftover from pizza night, and a half cup of frozen peas) for about 4 or 5 minutes. I took the veggies out of the pan, added another tbsp of oil and then 1.5 cups of cooked, cold jasmine rice. The rice has to be cold in order for it to fry. Once the rice was glossy (about 2 minutes), I added the veggies back to the rice, and tossed in some chopped back bacon. Then I added a sauce made from combining 1 tbsp of soy sauce, mirin, honey, Chinese cooking wine, rice vinegar, and a tsp of Sriracha sauce.

I think fried rice is the way to go to get rid of leftovers. Just about any veggie or meat will work in it.

Fajitas

2010-04-14T12:51:00.004-06:00

I don't know what is wrong with me, but I have had a lot of motivation recently to work out. Yesterday morning I even rolled out of bed at 5:30 am, got dressed and went for a jog. Sure, what actually happened was more like a brisk walk with bursts of jogging, but I at least was moving. I plan to jog, or "jog", before work a few times a week to build up more endurance.

Then I got the crazy idea to go to the gym after work. My gym had been bought by another company a few months ago, and my scan card still said the old name. I very sheepishly handed my card to the desk girl and said "I haven't been here in a while" NO JUDGEMENT.

Anyways, I am really excited that I have the motivation to work hard at getting into shape, and have been trying to cut down on the less healthy foods I eat.

Monday night I made fajitas. I had intended on using skirt or flank steak, but when I was at the grocery store a really beautiful New York striploin caught my eye and I couldn't say no. I used the spice rub that was in this Everyday Food recipe. (I still do not have brown sugar at home, so I omitted it). I used a very small amount of olive oil to coat both sides of the steak, and rubbed in the spice rub. I used a non stick spray on my skillet and cooked the steak 3 minutes per side on medium high heat (for medium rare). I took the steak out of the skillet, and placed it on a plate under foil, to rest for 5 minutes. LET YOUR MEAT REST, PEOPLE! I have said it before, if you let your meat rest for 5 minutes after cooking, it will taste so much better!

In the same skillet I poured a very small amount of olive oil, and added an onion that I had peeled, halved, and sliced thinly. Once the onion had sauteed for about two minutes, I added a sliced red bell pepper and sauteed until just warmed through. When I am eating fajitas I like the peppers and onions to still have a crunch to them. If you like yours overcooked and limp, keep cooking them until they become that way.

I sliced the steak thinly, and removed the excess fat. I took a whole wheat tortilla and topped it with 1/4 of the meat, 1/4 of the red bell pepper (capsicum) and onion mix, some salsa and a sprinkling of low fat cheddar cheese. I ate two of these for dinner, and two for lunch the next day.

They were delicious. The meat was spicy and tasted 100 times better than using a store bought fajita seasoning.

Gluten Free Pasta

2010-04-09T11:16:00.004-06:00

My friend K is one of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. The thing I love most about her (and slightly hate at times) is that she is always honest. She will never tell you what you want to hear, she will tell you what you need to hear. I also consider her my blog's biggest fan, in fact this is what she wrote about it (and me) on Facebook.
"Okay, so my best girl Rebek has a blog, for those of you who have never read it you need to. She is amazing, funny, loves cooking and is pretty stinking hot to boot!" All true. Except on a Saturday night when I am home by myself.
Recently K found out she was gluten intolerant. One of the biggest misconceptions I had about gluten intolerance was that it should be easy to stay away from gluten. I mean, really, all you can't have is bread.
Wrong. Gluten is in EVERYTHING. K has to check the labels of everything that she buys. Gluten is found in soy sauce for heaven's sake!
Because K is such a huge supporter of mine (and goes around pimping my blog all the time) I thought I would do a week of gluten free recipes. I really thought this would be simple, but upon realizing how hard it would be I gave up. (Sorry K). When I mentioned this to her, she decided that she would help me out by posting her gluten free recipes on Facebook.
The pasta above is the first recipe that she posted and the link can be found here.
I could have cheated and used a pasta that I had at home, but I decided to go all out and use a gluten free pasta. There was no difference in taste or texture, just the price. Frankly I think it's ridiculous that gluten free product is so expensive, the people who need it can't eat delicious gluten and that is punishment in itself, why add salt to an open wound by overcharging them?
The recipe called for sun dried tomatoes, and I used jarred sun dried tomatoes in oil. The recipe also includes some 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, and I used 1 tbsp of olive oil, and 1 tbsp of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes.
I am always really unhappy with the basil at the grocery store. It costs roughly $2 for a small pack, and most of the time it is wilted. This reminds me that it's almost farmer's market season, and I can't wait to get my hands on some decent fresh basil. In the meantime, Sobeys has come out with refrigerated seasoning pastes. They come in different flavors, and so far I have bought the red chili, and the basil ones. I used the basil paste instead of the fresh basil that the recipe called for.

Overall I really enjoyed the pasta. It would be a great meal in the summer, since it doesn't require turning on the oven, just turning a pot of water on to boil. I didn't use the same amount of olives since I have a slight aversion to them, but I didn't mind the small amount that I used.
K had to say this about the pasta, "I was a little nervous about this one, I had never tried sun dried tomatoes before and was not sure that I would like them, however it was very very good, I froze the rest for lunches, and I am sure it will be even better once I re-heat and all the feta melts into yummy melty goodness!"