Food. Weekly.

Exciting, new things.

By now, you have all discovered my Achilles heel of blogging. Consisting posting. My bad.  I promise to do better. Scout’s honor. (I was only in girl scouts for a year…not my cup of tea. I remember cookies and cliques. Grade 6 is a hard age. Don’t deny it.)

Before I get to a lovely recipe, I have two important announcements.

One. I dear friend of mine from college, Joey, featured my blog on her amazing food blog! You can find the post here. Also, if you haven’t perused her blog before, it’s so worth it! She’s one of my blog role models. Really, check it out.

Two. I quit my job! The job that has been causing me stress, angst, and bit too much emotional eating is now in the past. I start my new job tomorrow. I was offered a position  back at Providence College, and I happily accepted. Naysayers, I’m ignoring you! It feels like coming home. Less stress and exhaustion equals more baking! Watch for more frequent posts as I get my life back.

Three. Some evenings, all you want a quick and easy recipe. Dinner in 20 minutes or less. Dinner last night came courtesy of my lovely, talented sister-in-law, Lydia.

Ahem. 

“2 cans black beans, rinsed
2 c broth (I used bouillon)
1 c salsa
1 tsp cumin

Combine all ingredients. Do a partial purée so some chunks remain. Heat through. Top with sour cream, cheese, and green onions (if on hand if course - they really add to an already flavorful soup). I don’t even add salt because the cumin and salsa have a nice twang. ”

So good, and so easy. There’s no photo with this one because a. I was too lazy to set up a nice photo. b. Have you ever tried to photography black bean soup? It’s….not that attractive.  The flavor was amazing.

Watch for a new post later this week! 

Whoopie!

I’ll say it here first. I love a good bandwagon. And it seems that the whoopie pie is the lastest foodie bandwagon. Type “whoopie pie” into google and you’ll get pages and pages of recipes. Red velvet whoopie pie. Peanut butter. Cream cheese frosting. Shortening frosting. Dunked. Sprinkled. Dipped. The possibilities are deliciously endless. 

I went for the classic. Chocolate cookie with vanilla cream cheese icing. They were surprisingly fun and easy to make. I stumbled upon this version in an issue of Canadian Living. (Hear that immigration!? I’m as Canadian as you can get!)

Before I get to the recipe, a few minor, but important, notes:

-To ensure a round pie, I used a cookie scoop. Two scoops per cookies.

-Do not be deceived Brothers and Sisters. These cookies will spread out like crazy. Give them lots of space on the pan! It’s better to have to make four pans of cookies than to have deformed, stuck together pies….Like my first pan.

-These whoopie pies were fairly big. A generous serving of dessert. If you’re aiming for something more bite-size, one scoop of cookies dough should do you just fine. Be sure to adjust the baking time if you do make them smaller.


See the recipe after the break

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The “Carrot Cake that ruined us for a whole week”

Yum. I’ve always loved a good slice of carrot cake. I recall asking for carrot cake for my 6th birthday. The slightly spicy flavor, the moist texture, and the creamy icing all come together to make one perfect baked good, in my eyes.

A couple of weeks ago, I made the carrot cake that is featured in my Flour cookbook. One thing that I have learned about this cookbook is that its philosopy seems to be something along the lines of: “Okay, let’s take classic recipe X and enhance it until it the best version of X that ever existed.” At least, that’s the case with this cake. Its got everything I loved about carrot cake blown way out of delicious proportion. Oh baby.

Be warned, this recipe makes a large, rich layer cake. Make it for a dinner party. Do not make it for week it will be just you, your husband and this cake all alone in your basement apartment. Gluttony will ensure. See the title of this blog post for further details.

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Bliss.

The BEST vegan chocolate cake

I’ll be the first to admit it. I lucked out in the in-law department. I love my in-laws. (Hi Monty and Moira!) I love them for many reasons, the main one being that the raised an amazing son. Also, they give really sweet Christmas presents. Like this!

I found this little beauty under the Christmas tree. I have been pouring over the pages since Christmas trying to decide which recipe to try first…and how not to die an early death due to pastry intake. 

So far, I’ve only made one recipe from Flour and it is to die for: Low fat, Vegan Chocolate Cake. I know, that sounds awful, right? No, no. This cake is so moist and chocolately, I would put it up against any other chocolate cake. It’s that good.

       Vegan Low-Fat Chocolate Cake
From: Flour by Joanne Chang with Christie Matheson 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup dutch processed cocoa (I used no name brand cocoa, and it tasted just fine)
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder, or 1 tablespoon instant coffee powder (I went the coffee route)
1 teaspoons of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (I just used table salt)
1 cup water
1/4 cup canola oil (I’m sure any light oil would work)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons unsulfured light or dark molasses
Confectioners sugar for dusting

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 6 inch round cake pan.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, coffee powder, baking soda and salt. In another medium bowl, whisk together the water, oil, vanilla and molasses. Pour the liquid into the flour mixture and mix together with a wooden spoon until the batter is smooth and homogeneous. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed in the middle with a fingertip. (NOTE: I found this baking time to be WAY too long. I almost burnt the cake on the first try. Check the cake after 20 minutes and then every 5 minutes after. I have no idea why the cooking time is so off, but trust me, for a moist cake, watch the oven closely.) Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 1 hour. Then invert the pan onto the rack, lift off the pan, turn the cake right side up, and let cool completely.

4. Just before serving, dust the top with powdered sugar.

5. The cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 days. 

Ta-da. The BEST vegan chocolate cake ever. 

Samosas and some 2011 thoughts

Aaaand I’m back to blogging. I have been savouring every last moment of my Christmas and New Years Holidays. You know how even stuff that you really love doing becomes work when you have to do it? That’s why I took a hiatus from this blog. I promised myself that I was going to do nothing but relax during the break. Why? Because somedays my job sucks the life out of me. 

Do you know what doesn’t suck the life of out me? Cooking really awesome food! Even after working eight stressful hours, I’m so stoked to come home and cook dinner. Granted it sometimes means that we don’t eat dinner until 8:00 at night, but I married a very understanding man.  We make it work.

Also new in our household, Taylor and I are experimenting with weekday vegetarianism. Yup, it’s exactly what it sounds like. 5 days of the week we eat only vegetarian food and on the weekends, we choose whatever we like. (Don’t worry mother, I’m still taking all my vitamins.) This idea was inspired by this video

 I pondered the question that he poses at the beginning of the video. Knowing what I know, why aren’t I vegetarian? I realized that one of my biggest barriers, is that I would need to re-learn how to cook. Meat is base that you can build a meal around. Have chicken? Make pot pie. Have hamburger? Make some juicy burgers. Have beans and some carrots? ….ummm. Exactly.

Long story short, I tried to make a consious effort to seek out some vegetarian recipes. That’s when I found this. Hello Samosas.

Bundles of goodness filled with potatos, peas, tomatoes and spices. The recipe was super easy. And while I realize that these are in no way authentic, they were delicious. I made very few changes to the recipe. I used canned green chiles, skipped a few spices (Superstore’s ethnic food aisle consists of taco shells), and added a lot more potato that was needed. I also didn’t bother with the dipping sauce. We used a mango sauce we had in the fridge already. We had a ton of filling leftover, so tomorrow night these little guys will be making an encore.

Happy New Year!

My Fav-or-ite Foodie Magazine

I know this isn’t a recipe per say, but this is the source for some of favorite recipe finds.

I love Food Network Magazine! It’s so well designed and I’m a sucker for a glossy magazine with well photographed food on the front. It was a birthday gift from husband this past summer. I’ll confess, that I check our post office box daily around the end of each month; waiting, in anticipation for the next issue. I’m. a. nerd.

I find the recipes are geared to exactly my level of cooking and baking. It’s a nice middle ground between Food and Wine Magazine (“Where in forsaken Steinbach, Manitoba do you suggest I buy edible gold leaf!?”) and that Kraft Foods magazine that every soul in Canada receives. (Add salsa to KD? Simply inspired. )  Food Network magazine has very do-able recipes that are still enjoyably challenging. They also have a sweet “mini-cookbook” in each issue that offers 50 different recipes in a given category. ie. burgers, stir fry, holiday drinks.

Next time you pass a magazine stand, be sure to pick up a copy and give it a look-see.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Just when you thought, “Good Grief. All this woman does is make and eat dessert. She must be 300 pounds. If I make all the food that she posts, I will be 300 pounds! I have stop reading!”

Fear not. I present to you the very fresh, very yummy Chicken Noodle Soup. After a long and stressful day at my job last week, I wanted to have a big bowl of comfort. Most comforting food in the world? Kraft dinner. Second most comforting? Chicken soup.

I found this recipe online a few weeks ago. I’m not going lie, I chose this recipe because it only called for one chicken breast, which is exactly what I had left in my freezer.

I made a few modifications -shredding the chicken instead of cubing it, adding peas instead of celery, and the addition of little garlic powder and paprika. I also used WAY less broth than it called for. 10 cups? Seriously? I did just fine with a carton of broth and little added water. I prefer my soups not to be super broth-y, so if you like to have more to slurp, feel free to add more broth.

Mmmm. Hot, fresh bowl of comfort.

P.S. Keen  eyed observers will note a new look to blog. The theme I was using previously had some annoying feature and some even more annoying glitches, thus, the switch to a new look. Hope you like! 

Pumpkin Cheesecake…and another snowstorm.

This past Thursday was American Thanksgiving. My husband and I had big plans to go visit the American side of the family, (that is, my side). But, alas, it was not meant to be. On Wednesday night another blizzard rolled in preventing us from making the trip down on Thursday. To console myself of missing out on family and turkey, I decided to try my hand at a new dessert.

Hello Lover.

Pumpkin Cheesecake-what a dream. I was a little apprehensive about making a cheesecake after hearing terrifying tales of cracked, watery cheesecake. But in the end, it was so easy and soooo good.

My first bit of advice would be to use a springform pan. It really make the experience easier and end result look more attractive. It was the first time I used the pan and it exceeded my expectations. *Shout out to the person who gave us a springform pan for our wedding! Wherever you may be.*

My second bit of advice would be to beat the eggs in one at a time. This ensures a light, fluffy batter which will, hopefully, prevent your cheesecake from “falling” too much after it’s out of the oven.

I used this recipe. Seriously, internet = best cookbook ever.  I used my own homemade pumpkin puree, instead of canned.  I’m sure using canned puree would work just as well. But, for real, making your own pumpkin puree is so easy and makes you feel extra Martha Stewart-y.

The cheesecake was a perfect sweet, but not too sweet. Dense and creamy. The one thing I would do differently is, although, it tasted great, I felt like it was missing something. Next time, I think some toasted nuts or caramel on top would make it feel extra special-which is really what we all want a slice of cheesecake to be.

The moral of this story? Grab a spring form pan and have at it!

Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti…and a snowstorm.

I have an obsession. Food Blogs. I could read food blogs for days. And so, like anyone with an obsession, I did what was only natural. No, I didn’t kidnap my favorite food blogger and then force them to cook for me so no one else could eat their food - I started my own blog! And if you have stumbled upon this page, congratulations. You have found my blog.

Winter has hit hard and fast in southern Manitoba. We got 6 inches of snow last night and the flakes are still coming down. Luckily, I had these little gems to keep me happy with a hot beverage.

White chocolate cranberry biscotti. Mmm. Soooo good. Sometimes when the “baking bug” hits me, I know exactly what I want to make. I had a hankering for something sweet with cranberries. Type a few key words into google, and bingo, I’m on my way to the store.

Such simple ingredients. Sugar. Butter. Eggs. Those are the building blocks of happiness.

I had never made biscotti before, so I was a little apprehensive. How do I get to be that classic biscotti shape? I’m pleased to report that it was shockingly easier. The dough was a perfect consistency to shape and didn’t stick to my hands either. The biscotti formed easy rectangles on the pan and puffed up nicely in the oven. The recipe calls for about 30 minutes of baking, which I followed. In hindsight, I think I probably would have baked it a bit longer. Although the they looked very brown, they weren’t as crunchy as I like my biscotti to be.

I recommend a good, hot drink with one of these babies. Celestial Seasoning Gingerbread Spice tea just showed up at the grocery store this week. Just saying.

Want to make these little beauties? Recipe can be found here.

All photos courtesy of Taylor Summach Photography.