In Celebration of Not Camping

Yes, this is me at age 11 on a cross-Canada trip with my family, coping with the thought of having breakfast like this in the mountains in Quebec. And you'll notice to the right is the tent trailer we toted around on this trip. Also, please note the plastic tablecloth on the picnic table which was faithfully hauled out, used and wiped down at every meal. That is my mom btw tending to what I imagine is eggs.

I have never warmed to camping or campfire cooking. I don't like to be dirty and I don't like eating out of the trunk of a car - call me fussy. I brought this up b/c it's summer, and it seems like most people force themselves to go camping and I just gotta be me and say what's on my mind.

Also, news - I am trying to eat healthier - so hopefully future posts on here will be not only colourful but delercious (thanks Dane Cook) in the best possible way.

Oh - saw Julie & Julia tonight. Great movie. Definitely something I'd have on the tv while I putz around the house on a Saturday and laugh and cry as I vacuum and throw out the moldy things in the fridge. Here's the link to the famous blog: The Julie/Julia Project. And for your viewing pleasure, here's the lovely official movie site: http://julieandjulia.com/

Yummy Greeky Salad

Thanks Smitten Kitchen for this recipe that you can find here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/06/mediterranean-pepper-salad/#more-3545.

This salad is super fresh and crispy and zingy. Awesome with a little ground white pepper.

Questionable Broccoli Mint Soup

So I found this interesting recipe for Broccoli Mint Soup on a site called Blue Kitchen, and I must have done something wrong. It turned out fine, but too watery, so I must have put too much of the reserve stock in the blender. Otherwise it's quite tasty. Yes, that is what I did. I was only supposed to add half of the reserve water to the blender, but I put the whole amount in. Crap. I'll have to give this another try. It's more like a broccoli smoothie the way it is, which is kind of weird.

Sweet Pea Soup

So in an effort to be healthier and cut down on meat and bread and sweets and caffeine and alcohol - wait, WTF am I doing? I need to have some good alternatives in my pantry, like home-made soups, salads and exotic teas.
I had some veggies on hand and some chicken broth - what more does a gal need?

Take out your biggest saucepan and pour a healthy dollop of oil in it on medium heat. Chop up an onion, I prefer the yellow for soup, and add to the oil. Chop up 3-4 cloves of garlic and add to onions. Let cook for about 5 minutes and in the meantime get out your sad, lonely potato from the bottom of the fridge drawer and a couple long carrots and chop up and add to the onions. Hopefully you'll have some frozen peas on hand too, add 4 cups of those to the pot and 3 cups of either chicken broth or veggie broth and boil. Once it's had a good boil, cover, simmer for 20 minutes. Blend in blender. I like to save jars from tomato sauce and such and use them for soup storing in the fridge.

Just be careful - peas are very high in fibre. I'm just saying, the soup is really good, but just be careful not to overdo it. :)

Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wish I had a picture, but these cookies were DEVOURED.

1 1/4 c. butter
1 1/4 c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. oats
1 1/2 c. coconut
1 (12 oz.) pkg. chocolate chips

Make sure oven is at 350 and bake for 10-11 minutes. I made them quite large, but beware, they spread out quite a bit. They make a chewy cookie, but crispy on the outside. If you have seasalt, use a seasalt grinder. That way you get a nice sweet and salty taste that kicks ass.

Apple Cinnamon Wheat Muffin

Like my iPod Touch? Yes, it's much handier to look at recipes on here instead of risking getting my macbook covered in baking messes. It's like a Baking iPod. Or an iBake. I'm reaching.
So ever since I made the infamous Apple Cinnamon Almond Oatmeal Flax Whole Wheat Muffins last month, I've never been able to re-create them exactly. This is really too bad b/c they received rave reviews from the muffin monster in my home. I must have done something when I first made them that I did not note down when I made them.
Anyway, I've given up trying to redo the original recipe to Aaron's satisfaction. Instead today, I found another one online at Gastronomy612's Weblog. If you're out there, please tell me why you named your blog that. Why 612? What's that about? Anyway, I tried out their recipe with the exception that I didn't have any superfine sugar and I made no crumbly sugar topping. I must say I love the banner photo! So clever.

In case you haven't noticed, I have a considerable blogroll on here. I love it! Every day there is so much variety. Life is full of infinite possibilities, especially when it comes to food and tastebuds.

BTW, APF means all purpose flour. Yes, it was not obvious to me and it took me a good crossword minute to figure it out.

Coconut Almond Apple Oatmeal Cookies

I felt munchy today with 5 over-ripe gala apples on my kitchen table. I found a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies and thought - hmm, sounds good but I have no raisins. What do I have in the cupboard? Coconut....rotting apples....sliced almonds.....

1/2 cup soft butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla

Mix these together well.

Separately, mix together:
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
about 6 hard shakings of the cinnamon spice container
pinch of salt

Add the dry to the wet and then add in:
1.5 cups of oats
1 cup of sliced almonds
1 cup shredded coconut
1 small, semi-rotting apple, diced small

Bake at 350 on parchment paper until looks like cookies are supposed to. So chewy! Aaron gobbled up 3 as soon as he got in the door. Definitely a winner.
I wonder though - what if I substituted the apple for some dried pineapple? These cookies demand a certain level of chewiness that only raisins can provide. Raisins or say some other dried fruit. Hm.

Smitten Kitchen's Moroccan Stew

I can't help it - I'm a hopeless fan of smittenkitchen.com, my favourite cooking blog of all the cooking blogs on my blogroll on the right-hand side. Tonight I thought I'd try her squash and chickpea stew which turned out quite nicely. I did in fact buy saffron threads especially, which cost me $11 per spice bottle, so I look forward to making use of it in the future. I've recently decided to go gluten-free, and silly me - I didn't realize that couscous was partially made of wheat. Oh well. I'm sure the stew would be lovely served over basmati rice instead.

Anyone else have a spicy Moroccan dish for me to try? The spicier the better.

Update on Black Bean Soup

Just to update you on my black bean soup - next time add some kernel corn! It adds that extra little kick and is delish.

Mango Ginger Coconut Muffins

It's -30 in Calgary today and I'm daydreaming about being somewhere exotic - hence the sudden craving for mango. I had some frozen in the freezer, and after I defrosted it, it still tasted fine. I googled 'mango muffins' and found a few, so I based mine on this one from Mostly Eating. Good site, I'll add them to my blogroll, which as far as I can tell is incidentally the most up to date food blogroll out there. If you're not on it, let me know and I'll add you. Mostly Eating has a very nice website template, very classy indeed.

Their recipe called for lime and cream cheese in the icing but I didn't have any lime. Considering my life-long insane love of icing, I thought it would be best not to go there either. These are muffins, not cupcakes, yo. I thought I'd jazz it up by throwing in some coconut.

Here it is:

In a large bowl, mix together 2 cups of flour, 3 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. In another bowl, mix together an egg, 1 1/2 cups of plain yogurt and 4 tablespoons of oil. I like using sunflower oil these days. Mix wet into dry. Chop up 1/4 cup of ginger very fine and add. Chop up about a cup of mango and add as well. Add however much coconut you like. Put in muffin cups and heat at 375 for 2o-25 minutes.
I like to make mini muffins whenever I have batter leftover, as you can see in the first photo. They're like the 2 bite brownies, yum. As I was trying them out, I thought about what else I might have in my fridge that would go well on these. Marmalade would be very nice, but I also have some Fig & Ginger Jam from Stonewall Kitchen which goes nicely. As Marjorie would say in Little Britain, that's your low fat option. Great show. If you haven't seen it and you think you have a sense of humour, check them out.

Blueberry Bran Muffins

I know, another muffin. I can't help it, I love making muffins and I have a partner, Aaron, who lurves good muffins. Really. I find empty muffin cups in the living room in the morning that weren't there when I went to bed the night before. I can't help wanting to make things that he likes. It's like a Grama syndrome I think.

Anyway, the apple oatmeal flax almond muffins have gone over well, so well in fact that I whipped up another dozen yesterday. While I was chopping up the apples I accidentally cut my left thumb pretty badly and had to recruit help from Aaron to finish the rest of the chopping for me. So let that be a reminder to everyone - use the right tool for the job. I was feeling lazy and was using my paring knife to chop up the apples, and that led to the thumb slicing. A big-ass knife is best for chopping action. It still hurts but wasn't bad enough to require a stitch.

Today I found myself itching to make a mess in the kitchen so I was looking in the fridge and lo and behold I forgot I'd bought a container of blueberries the other day. I'd been picking at them, but I really only like blueberries if they're small and tart, otherwise I'm not into them. So I thought, hm, I also bought some Quaker natural wheat bran - there must be some blueberry bran muffins calling my name.

I'm doing an experiment this week of not eating wheat to see if I have a wheat allergy, so I'll have to wait till Aaron gets home to see if these muffins pass inspection. These are an easy muffin. I think total time to make and bake is half an hour.

Get our your big bowl and a whisk, or fork is you don't have a whisk. Whisk an egg, a cup of buttermilk (yes, more buttermilk), and 1/4 cup of oil. You can use canola, sunflower, vegetable, whatever you like. Add 1/2 cup of brown sugar and then 1 and 1/4 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 tsp of salt and whisk well. After this you'll need to switch to a spoon.

Add 2 cups of the bran and 1 and 1/4 cup of flour. Mix well and then plunk in about a cup of fresh blueberries. Put your muffin cups in your muffin tin and bake at 375 for 20 minutes. They sure smell good and look good but we'll have to wait till later for the official judging. :)

Soy Rice Pudding

So I made some basmati rice with dinner tonight, and I had the thought to make some rice pudding - but with soy. I've had the great misfortune to discover that I can't do dairy, which is a great loss to a woman who could eat butter off a spoon, and reveled in the delights of clotted cream.
Alas. I have to settle for soy milk. I've tried Rice Dream but it reminds me of milk straight out of a cow's tit - way too runny and gross. Anyway, I found some recipes for soy rice pudding, and adjusted them of course to make my own.
For 2 people, take a cup of cooked leftover rice, white or basmati or jasmine, and put it in a pot along with 1 and 1/2 cup of soy milk, 1/4 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then put on simmer and add a spoonful of real vanilla and throw in a stick or two of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. Put the timer on for 30 minutes and go do the laundry or watch Oprah.

Once the soy milk is mostly absorbed, turn off the heat and spoon into fancy dishes or mugs or even wine glasses. I like having cinnamon sticks in the mix - I had only one in the pot and greatly enjoyed sucking the rice out of it and licking it. There's nothing like cinnamon, it's so amazing. Anyway, I had a good mugful of it and ate half and pu the rest in the fridge for tomorrow. You can have it hot or cold. I think hot is nice, and would make a nice breakfast treat for those of us who try to avoid wheat as well, but cold is also standard for rice puddings at large. I also enjoy mine cold with a spoonful of jam on top.

Reminds me of a visit to an elderly couple's house in Richland WA. He was a cello bass player for several bands from back in the day, but at the moment I can't remember his name or which bands. His wife was so old school and lovely, and she made us sit at the dining room table and have rice pudding with jam on it and tea. Loved it.

Apple Cinnamon Almond Oatmeal Flax Whole Wheat Muffins

The quest continues to find the perfect, healthy muffin. It's Sunday, and somehow our stash of muffins runs out by today, so I usually end up making muffins sometime on Sundays. I ran out of bananas but had apples, so I went with apple muffins. Looking through my usual collection of recipes, I couldn't find anything very healthy under 'apple muffin', so I naturally made up my own.

So here it is:

Beat 1/2 cup of room temp butter with 1 cup of brown sugar or splenda or whatever you use for sugar. Beat in an egg and a cup of yoghurt. If you don't have yoghurt, you can use buttermilk, or probably regular milk, but yoghurt adds something special, especially if it's the plain variety. Along those lines of thought, I'm reminded of making kringla, a Norwegian cookie, and I wonder if using sour cream, like I do in kringla, would make a nice change from yoghurt in these muffins. Hmm.
Mix in a generous tablespoon of cinnamon, a tsp of salt, a tsp of baking soda and a tsp of baking powder. One it's mixed well, add 1/2 cup of ground flax, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, and then 1 and 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. If you don't have flax or oatmeal, just use 2 cups of whole wheat flour. Chop up two big apples and throw it in the bowl along with two handfuls of chopped almonds. Mix with a wooden spoon and pour into muffin cups and bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until they bounce back when you push on them with your finger. If you feel like being fancy you can sprinkle a little brown sugar on top and then bake them.
The house smells so good! Better than any glade plug-in out there that's for sure. Ahhh. Nothing like a freshly cleaned house prior to other people being in it and ruining its perfection, and good smells in the kitchen, and hot chocolate/mint tea and a good book. I'm reading 'The Reader' by Bernhard Schlink and can't wait to see the movie when I'm done.

Bananor Pancakes

Well, I'm still enjoying my super healthy muffins in case you were wondering. Today I felt like making some banana pancakes, so I did. In case you didn't notice, I have a thing for bananas. And a less-known fact is that I have always been a peanut butter kid. And I have always thought that peanut butter and bananas naturally go together. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I would make banana pancakes and smear peanut butter on top which is how it is photographed above. I love it. How did I do it? Easy-peasy. My recipe makes 3 enormous pancakes, or 4 moderate-sized pancakes, so double or triple as you please. Take a cup of flour, 1 and 1/2 tsp of baking powder, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of buttermilk (which I luckily had on hand from an earlier recipe this week, yay), an egg and 2 ripe bananas. Put it all in a bowl and get your masher out.
Mash away until it's well mushed. Heat up your frying pan, put some butter or oil or whatever you use in the pan, put on low to medium heat and when it's ready, pour your batter in the pan. If you've made regular pancakes a million times, you know when to flip them b/c you get the little bubbles on top. It's a bit different with banana pancakes b/c they have a lumpier consistency. That's why I recommend having the heat down so low. When you pour the batter, try to flatten it out in the pan so it's not as thick. These pancakes fluff up quite thick, so you'll want to keep them thin in the first place. Wait they're brown on the bottom, then flip. When you press down and they spring up a bit, they're done. Enjoy however you like. Some people slice up bananas thinly and put on top of the pancakes. Some people like to sprinkle coconut on theirs. Others like putting butter and syrup on. Go nuts - or bananas.

Red River Bran Oatmeal Mountain Mix Muffins

Phew! What a mouthful! I have this obsession with creating the healthiest, most delicious muffin ever, and that often leads me to mix strange things together. I have odd boxes of hot cereals in my pantry also b/c my mom once told me how her mom's mom Olina would make her kids eat breakfasts on a rotation - one day it was porridge, then red river, then sunnyboy cereal, then cream of wheat, and so on. And if you didn't eat it all at breakfast you got to have it fried up for lunch or supper. What a tough broad.
Red River isn't bad, it's what it is, a healthy, grainy hot cereal full of flaxy goodness. I was wondering how I could incorporate it into the healthiest muffin ever, and found that RR has a website with recipes, and I found this one for Ever-Ready Red River Oat-Bran Muffins. I have naturally altered the recipe somewhat. This recipe makes 2 dozen muffins and when you are mixing it together, looks like a big bowl of gooey oatmeal. Smells great though.
Take 3/4 cups of Red River and 3/4 cups of All Bran Buds and put them in a bowl with 1 and 1/3 cups of boiling water and forget about it. Take another bowl and put 2 and 1/2 cups of your loveliest organic flour (or whatever you have on hand) and add 2 and 1/2 tsp of bakins soda and a dash of salt to the bowl and mix obviously. In your largest mixing bowl in your kitchen, mix together 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 2 eggs and 2 cups of buttermilk - best not straight out of the fridge, mixes better when at room temperature. Mix all that up well with your mixer, then add the bran/red river mixture which by now will look kind of gross, and then add the flour mixture. By now you will need to switch from a mixer to your trusty wooden spoon and turn on your oven to 375.
I decided to get creative so instead of just using boring old raisins or dried cranberries, I picked up some mix from the bulk section at safeway that has a variety of nuts and dried fruit. I took a cup of that and chopped it up on a cutting board and added that and 2 cups of oats to the bowl and mixed up. Plunk it in some muffin cups and stick in your hot oven and set the timer. B/c I live in Calgary at such a high altitude, I usually cut the time down a bit, so for me I set it for 20 minutes and that was perfect.
They smell divine, disgustingly healthy even. Kind of like having your breakfast oatmeal in a muffin. I like them, but I don't think the quest is over yet. I have this idea in my head of what the healthiest muffin ever is, and I think it's a case of knowing it when I taste it. Until next time, thanks for stopping by and do leave a comment if you have something you'd like to say.

Zucchini Pancakes

For my 18th birthday my mom gave me a hard copy of The Fannie Farmer's Cookbook which I promptly put in a cupboard and never looked at for about a decade. All the times I moved in between then and now (gad, that's 17 times in 14 years!) I could never part with it b/c I have a healthy respect for books, and I knew that this was a good one and that some day I would crack the spine. I have been perusing it in the last year and have made a few things from it, and today I decided to give the Zucchini Pancakes a try, making my own alterations. It calls for a pound of grated zucchini, and if you are not from America you tend to get irritated at having to figure out what the conversion is. Honestly, try the metric system people! The rest of the western world uses it. Sigh.
One pound of grated zucchini works out to about 3 cups, or 3 zucchinis. I don't think it's an exact science really.Having never grated zucchini before, I thought it was quite pretty, fluffy. Once you have your grated zucchini, add a small handful of chopped fresh parsley - luckily I had some in my fridge from making the black bean soup earlier this week. Add that, grate in a hunk of cheese of whatever you have in the fridge, and 1/2 cup of flour and salt and pepper. I have white pepper in the most enormous, restaurant-sized grinder which I like to use. It adds a nice zing that black pepper doesn't. Turn on your burner to medium heat and put a dab of butter in the pan. Add 2 eggs and mix all ingredients together with a fork. Once the butter in the pan is hot, drop a hefty spoonful of the mix into the pan, making two pancakes. You will need to flatten them out a bit with your spatula.
Resist the temptation to flip them too soon. They need to want to flip in a cohesive lump, otherwise you might as well be making zucchni hash. Once you've got it done, you'll want to let them sit on a paper towel or fancy napkin as you see. I don't use paper towels, I think they're awfully wasteful, and whenever I can I use one of my many cloth napkins, but this was all I had on hand today.
And serve hot. Either that or save them in between sheets of wax or parchment paper on a plate covered in plastic wrap in the fridge and quickly re-heat them in a pan to have later on. They're very nice, and would probably be really good with a bit of sour cream on the side for dipping.
I think this recipe is pretty healthy, and is probably a good way to get the unbelieving to try zucchini. I don't know what I'd do without it in my fridge now.

Bizarre Restaurants Around the World

Thanks Mental Floss for continuing to entertain me on a daily basis. Today's interesting post is called 8 Strange & Different Restaurants. My favourite is the Le Noir where you eat in the dark and are waited on by blind people. Hm. I'm sure that would be a paradigm-shifting experience.

Black Bean Soup

It's winter, and that means I'm craving soups, hearty soups. I guess I could buy soup, but I prefer to have it sit and simmer on the stove and fill the house with smells. Tonight I realized that I had a craving for black bean soup. Luckily I had a can of black beans in my pantry, but was missing stock and parsley so I had to walk over to my local Iranian food mart with my BF which was no biggie, it was nice to get outside for a bit despite the cold.

My neighbourhood is full of little food marts like this, and every time I go I think to myself that I really ought to buy the bulk of our food there. The produce is fresh and cheap, and there's a variety of food stuffs that I wouldn't normally buy, only b/c it's usually in the 'asian' or 'ethnic' section of an aisle in safeway.

Now this is an easy soup. You need a decent sized saucepan (which is a frying pan but with deeper sides, kind of like a cross between a frying pan and a pot). Put a healthy dob of oil on medium heat - I am using sunflower oil lately, love it for its neutral flavour. Chop up a small onion, about a cup of whatever carrots you have on hand and two small garlic cloves. Let simmer for 5 minutes until softish. Add your strained can of black bean, half a litre of chicken stock, 1/2 cup of sugar (or a handful of sugar cubes if like me you have them and can't seem to use them b/c no one likes white sugar in their coffee anymore), and a spoonful of cumin. Bring it to a boil and let simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes. Make sure you don't have the lid on all the way - I always let a tiny bit of room for the steam to escape so it doesn't boil up again.
Turn off the heat, and with a mug, put soup in your blender and blend until pureed. Then put in either a jug or other pot while you finish blending it all. Once done, return everything to your saucepan and keep warm until it's time for dinner. You can add more beans at the end if you like for an interesting texture.

The recipe says you can garnish it with coriander or parsley. I bought real, fresh parsley from the Irania mart, but I just had a thought - why not garnish with some tortilla chips? Mmmmm....

Egg and Veggie Pie

I know what you're thinking - why not just make a quiche? Well some of us try to avoid dairy, and even though small amounts of cheese and chocolate seem fine, milk makes me queasy. So what to do when you have some leftover puff pastry calling your name? There are a ton of options, but here's what I did:
I rolled out the pastry and put it in a pie pan, grated some monteray jack cheese on the bottom, chopped up some green and red peppers and zucchini and cracked 6 eggs on top. A little salt and white pepper and plopped it in the oven at 350 for 20-25 minutes. My BF warned me that the veggies I chose would release a lot of water when they cooked - in fact his words were 'this is going to fail' - right before I kicked him out of the kitchen with one look. You know that look.
Was it watery? No, but I did have to poke it down with a fork half-way through. You know how eggs like to puff up when they cook, so keep an eye on it. Delish.

Dimply Plum Cake

As a big fan of the Smitten Kitchen website, I check their posts regularly, nay compulsively. This last summer I came across this post for their Dimply Plum Cake, which was very fortuitous considering I had ordered an enormous bag of organic plums from Spud and they weren't going to last forever. It's a lovely recipe and takes all of 10 minutes to whip up tops.

I think mine turned out well, just a bit darker than the one on Smitten Kitchen. I actually made this cake a few times this last summer. I think it's so versatile it could work with pears, cherries, any kind of fruit really. Smells heavenly.