Hinna's Kitchen Adventures

Pear and Ginger Smoothie

2012-01-31T09:25:00.002-05:00

We're almost into February and there's hardly any snow on the ground! What is wrong with this picture? Where are the scarves, mitts, shovels, heaps of snow, slush and salt machines? One of the benefits, (I thought), of being in TO in the winter while hubby is travelling on business would be that I get to have my snow fix. But it seems like God has other plans! The weather is completely wonky- freezing one day with wind chills in the double digits, the next day it's a balmy 5 degrees Celsius. No wonder people are getting sick!

To help me get through this very weird patch of winter weather we're experiencing, I decided to make a pear and ginger smoothie, courtesy of Guilty Kitchen. I tweaked the recipe just a tad to suit my needs.

Pear and Ginger Smoothie

1 Bosc pear, peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces
juice of 1/4 a lime
a tiny nob of fresh ginger, peeled and grated (you know those tiny nobs that grow off the body of ginger? well that's what I used)
2 tbsp honey flavoured 0% Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup 2% milk

Put all ingredients into a blender and mix until smooth.

Cinnamon-Sugar Palmiers

2012-01-13T20:17:00.000-05:00

For years, I've been eating palmiers, (sometimes referred to as elephant ears, french hearts, or glasses). My grandmother and grandfather were fans of the cookies/pastries and we always used to have them readily available in the kitchen. They were great on their own, or could be dunked into a cup of chai or hot chocolate.

I never thought I'd try my hand at making palmiers, because they looked so complicated with all of their beautiful, swirly layers. However, I have Martha Stewart to thank for making, what seemed like a daunting task, so simple and effortless. Martha came onto the Today show in December and showed how to make some holiday sweets. Once I saw her show Al Roker how to make the palmiers, I knew I had to go and make them myself.

I tweaked the recipe to reduce the amount of sugar from 1 cup to 1/4 cup and I cut out the chocolate. Also, the only difference that I noted between regular palmiers and Martha's palmiers is that regular palmiers are rolled so that the pastry rolls meet each other, while Martha's rolls the pastry so that they form an "S" shape.

Cinnamon-Sugar Palmiers

1 package pre-rolled puff pastry

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

Unwrap one sheet of pre-rolled puff pastry and loosen pastry from paper. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture onto half of the puff pastry.

Begin to fold the dough towards the centre in small increments until you reach the halfway point (no more sugar).

Gently flip the dough over and repeat the same process again- sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over the pastry and being to roll the dough to the rolled half (it's okay if one roll is bigger than the other). Repeat same process with second puff pastry sheet.

Wrap the dough rolls in plastic wrap and chill for 20-30 minutes in the fridge. Cut the ends off until you are left with even edges. Cut the dough lengthwise int 1/2" or 1" pieces and lay them 2" apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

Bake cookies until underside is a deep golden brown colour. Using a metal spatula, flip cookies over and bake for another 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to cooling rack. Store in an airtight container for 1-2 days.

Happy New Year! Plus some Lemon Pepper Chicken

2012-01-05T18:51:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!

When I look back, it seems as though 2011 went by in a flash. I can think back to some key things that I did, saw, and participated in and I hope to do some of those things again in 2012. Here's to hoping for a safe and healthy 2012 filled with lots of adventure, lots of learning, and lots of time spent with those whom I love.

This recipe that I'm going to share with you tonight has been a long time coming. I've made it several times (great reviews from family members!) and have been wanting to share it with you for a really long time. The reason for it not appearing sooner? Well, I've been lazy. :o)

I was inspired by a Barefoot Contessa episode where Ina Garten made lemon-pepper chicken breasts. I took some of her ideas, changed them around a bit and came up with my own version using a whole chicken. This is super simple and is great on a weeknight (it only takes about 1.5 hours to bake if the chicken has been prepared beforehand) or the weekend. What I do is buy one or two whole chickens and clean them up, then marinate them with the ingredients in the recipe. I then wrap them up in freezer bags and put them in the freezer for a day when I don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen. Add the chicken to a roasting pan filled with vegetables or small potatoes and bake for 1.5-2 hours and you have a healthy meal on your hands.

Lemon-Pepper Chicken

1 whole skinless chicken, cleaned, washed and pat dried with paper towel

juice of 2 lemons

zest of 2 lemons

4 lemon halves (use the left over lemons)

2 tbsp + 1 pinch dried dill

2 jalapeno peppers, sliced lengthwise with seeds intact

2 tbsp freshly minced garlic

2 tbsp freshly minced ginger

2 tbsp + 1/2 tsp salt

Place the chicken on a flat surface and take the minced ginger and garlic and rub them all over and inside the chicken. Take care to get in between the joints. Take 1/2 tsp salt and a pinch of dried dill and rub them on the inside of the chicken. Take 1 tbsp of salt and rub it over one side of the chicken and repeat on the other side. Pour juice of two lemons over both sides of the chicken. Take the remaining dill and spread it evenly over both sides of the chicken. Take the 4 lemon halves and jalapeno peppers and stuff them into the chicken's cavity. Sprinkle lemon zest over the top of the chicken (breast-side down). At this point you can stick the chicken and any juices into a freezer bag and put into the freezer. If you want to roast it the same day, let it marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Roasting chicken

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place marinated or thawed chicken, and any juices in a roasting pan. If any lemons escaped, stick them back into chicken cavity. Cover roasting pan with lid and place in the lower half of oven. Check chicken after 30 minutes. If chicken juices and lemon juices have been released, begin to baste chicken with them. Repeat every 30-40 minutes until chicken is done (about 1.5 hours although I usually check by poking at the leg joints to see if everything is cooked). Remove chicken from oven and set aside for 5-10 minutes. Remove lid and baste chicken with juices again before cutting it into pieces. Repeat basting again before serving.

How to: Brown Onions

2011-12-14T20:20:00.001-05:00

Carrots, onions and celery are the base if you want to make soup. Browned onions are the base if you want to make a curry. Some people brown the onions just before they start to make their curry, others (like myself) tend to make a large amount of the base beforehand and freeze it in small packs. I'm always looking to save time in the kitchen and by having the onions pre-cooked shaves 20 minutes off of my cooking time. Also, by making the onions in big batches beforehand, I reduce the amount of onion stink in the house..BONUS!

I remember as a kid, my mom would gather the troops, meaning me, my sister, and my grandmother, and we would sit at the kitchen table and peel and chop 50 lbs of onions. My dad would then hook up the gas stove in the garage and my mom would cook the onions in a HUGE pot over the fire. Once the onions reached the right texture and colour, the onions were cooled, blended in the food processor and then put into neat packs and stocked in the freezer. Those onions would usually last about 3 months and then we'd have to start the whole process over again.

Now I'm not crazy to handle 50 lbs of onions all by myself! I stick with 6 lbs-10 lbs at a time, use 2.5 hours making/watching/stirring the onions and then the rest of the day is spent airing out my home!

Browned Onions

Browned onions

6 lbs yellow onions, peeled and chopped
1 cup olive oil ( I know that sounds like a lot, but I generally don't add anymore oil to my dishes because the onions have enough to help with the cooking process)

6 lbs of onions BEFORE cooking

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large roasting pan, mix together the onions and oil. Cover the roasting pan and place it on the lower rack of the oven. Every 20-30 minutes give the onions a good stir. After about 2-2.5 hours, the onions should be a rich brown colour and the quantity reduced by half.

Cool the onions down for 20 minutes. In a food processor, blend the onions to a somewhat chunky paste. Scoop out the paste into small freezer friendly dishes to stock in your freezer.

When you're going to make your curry, you'll want to take out a dish of browned onions 5-6 hours in advance and let it defrost on the counter.

My Measurement notes: 1-2 heaping tablespoons onion paste = 1 uncooked onion

'Tis the season to get sick

2011-12-10T14:21:00.000-05:00

With the stresses of daily life and the change in weather, people are starting to fall sick with the cold and flu. I've been stuck with this "light" cold for a while now. It started off as a runny nose and some sneezing and then slowly progressed into a thick feeling in the throat. For a few days I had a raspy, hoarse voice and then it went away, but I have a feeling that it is on its way back for another visit.

My mom gave me a recipe that was passed along to her by an aunt of mine. It's a mixture of hot water with fresh lemon, honey and cinnamon. It's supposed to help boost your immune system and combat colds (**do remember that if you are sick, you should go and visit your doctor and seek his/her advice**). Because I was so miserable, I thought I'd give it a whirl and I think it's what gave me my voice back.

I played around with the ingredient proportions until I found something I liked. You can change the proportions very easily if you want a stronger or milder flavour.

Hot Lemon Water with Cinnamon and Honey

1 cup boiling hot water
1/2 or 1 slice of fresh lemon
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp honey

Boil water as you would for tea. Put the lemon, cinnamon and honey in a heat-proof cup. Pour hot water into the cup and give it a stir. Snuggle up in bead with a good book and drink away!

A note: If I make a second cup for myself, I use the same lemon slice and just add the cinnamon and honey.

Eid Treats # 2: Coconut Macaroons

2011-11-29T10:18:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you, but I have some recipes that cannot be shared here on the blog. They are so top secret, that only a few pairs of eyes have ever witnessed their birth in my kitchen. People have asked me for the recipes and I have to politely decline. It's not that I purposely want to be mean; it's just that some of them are my special signature desserts and I want to keep them close. If I passed out the recipes to every person on the street, that "special-ness" would dissipate.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. Many friends and family that I know like to keep one or two recipes secret. There are even bloggers out there who openly admit that they will not share everything with their readers. One such blogger is Gesine from Confections of a (Closet) Master Baker. I came across her blog after reading her book "My Life From Scratch." Gesine works magic in her kitchen and spices up her blog entries with snarky, in your face commentary that will keep you on your toes and coming back for more.

Getting back to recipe protection, Gesine made a name for herself by baking up delicious French Macarons. On her blog, she notes that a guy named Gary e-mailed her and asked her for the recipe. Did he HONESTLY think she would give him the recipe that gave her her livelihood? DUH! Instead, she gave him a coconut macaroon recipe to try. I ran with it and tweaked it ever so slightly (instead of vanilla extract, I used vanilla bean paste so there were millions of tiny vanilla bean specks running throughout the macaroons). The next time I make these babies, I'd probably cut down on the sugar or used unsweetened coconut and let them brown up just a tad more.

Coconut Macaroons

Scooped macaroons ready to go into the oven

4 egg whites
3 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Combine all ingredients into a heatproof glass or metal bowl and set atop a pot of simmering water (about 1-2 inches of water in the pot).

Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not come into contact with the simmer water. Stir the mixture occasionally, ensuring to scrape the bottom of the bowl, to prevent ingredients from burning.

After approximately 10 minutes, the mixture should be hot and slightly thickened.
With a medium or large cookie scoop, drop batter onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes until edges are golden brown.

Cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, than remove using a offset spatula to a cooling rack.

**UPDATE DECEMBER 6, 2011

I asked Gesine the best way to store the macaroons so they don't dry out. They last for one day outside, but if you find yourself not eating all of them at once, put them in the freezer. When you are ready to eat them, thaw them out and warm them in the oven. The macaroons will last for a little bit less than a month if stored properly in the freezer.
-

Dried Fruit

2011-11-16T19:26:00.001-05:00

This Eid went by in a blur. We flew in to TO, blinked our eyes, and bam it was over! Seriously, as soon as we got off the plane, it was like we hit the ground running. Every single day there were things to bake, gifts to buy, home to clean, clothes to iron, people to call, and appointments to go to. It almost felt like we didn't have a chance to sleep, eat, or breathe. I still don't know how I managed to get to the gym to work out.

And because everything was a blur, I didn't get an opportunity to blog about the treats I made until now.

First, I must inform you that the pictures in the next few posts were taken from my iPod and tweaked using Instagram. I left my camera back in LA and had to make due with some grainy shots. Oh well....

This first treat is so easy to make, you can do it blind folded (but you really don't want to do that because you might burn yourself and/or the chocolate).

Dark Chocolate Dipped Dried Apricots

20-30 dried apricots

1 bar Lindt Excellence Madagascar65% Dark Chocolate, broken into small pieces

1/2 cup sliced almonds, crushed intosmall pieces

Line a baking sheet with parchmentand set aside. Place the crushed almonds in a bowl and set aside.

First, get a large pot and fill it with 1 to 2 inches of water and place it over low-medium heat until the water begins to simmer. Take a glass or stainless steel bowl that has a diameter larger than the pot and place it on top. Make sure the bowl doesn't touch the simmering water. Place most of the chocolate (three-quarters worth) in the bowl and let it melt, while stirring occasionally. Once the chocolate has melted, remove from heat and stir in the remaining chocolate until melted.

Take the dried apricots and dip them half-way into the melted dark chocolate. Then roll the apricots in the crushed almonds and place them on the parchment-lined baking sheet.

Once the chocolate has set, about20-30 minutes, place the apricot pieces into cellophane bags and tie withribbon if you want to give them as a gift, or place them in an air tightcontainer.

Apple Pie Pockets

2011-11-09T18:49:00.000-05:00

YOU Can't Reach For Anything NEW If YOUR Hands Are Still Full of Yesterday's JUNK. ~ Louise Smith

If you're just tuning into my blog, or are getting to know me personally, there is one thing you should know about me. I am an obsessive quote collector. I always travel with some paper and a pen just in case I come across a quote that I want to add to my collection. I pin quotes on my Pinterest board, clip them from magazines, calendars, books, and newspapers, tag and share them on Facebook, and write them down in my very own quote book. I started that quote book after my father passed away in December 2009 after discovering quote clippings in his wallet.

Quotes, whether they be one sentence or an entire paragraph, speak volumes and have the power to shift your mood. Sometimes those words running across the page give you advice that no friend or parent could give. They shed light on difficult situations, help you gain perspective, and analyse things from a different point of view. Simply put, I love quotes. And the fact that my father collected quotes too makes me feel connected to him even more.

~*~*~*~

Growing up, my mom and I would go grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. As soon as the store would open, we would get what we needed and be home before the weekend shopping rush would start. Sometimes, my dad would come along, or would get some things from the store the night before. And almost always he would buy danishes, donuts or apple pie for us to enjoy. Now whenever I see danishes, apple pie, or coconut covered donuts, I remember him.

In October, Loblaws was selling PC's apple-shaped pocket pie maker, and because apple pie is near and dear to me, I picked one up and all the ingredients listed on the box to make these cuties.

Apple Pie Pockets

3 Gala Apples, cored, peeled and chopped into chunks (The original recipe called for Granny Smith, but I don't like Granny Smith so I used Gala instead)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 package of butter puff pastry sheets, thawed but cold
1 egg, beaten

In a pot, stir together apples, sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Let the mixture stand for 10-15 minutes or until some juice has been released. Bring to a simmer over low-medium heat and cook for 10 minutes or until apples are tender and juices are thickened. Chill for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Unroll one sheet of puff pastry onto a lightly floured surface. Using the apple pocket pie maker, cut four apple shapes using one side of the pie maker. Repeat with other side of closed apple pocket maker and additional sheet of pastry. There will be 8 pieces- 4 bottoms and 4 tops with the vent.

Open apple pocket pie maker and dust slightly with flour. Gently press in one of the dough cut outs. Fill centre with 1/4 cup of cooled filling. Brush edges of dough lightly with beaten egg. Lay vented dough cut out over top, lining up edges; press mold shut to seal edges. Lay finished pocket onto prepared baking sheet, vented side up. Repeat for each pocket. Brush tops of pockets lightly with beaten egg. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the pocket is evenly golden and crisp.

**Some notes:

If you don't have the pocket maker, you can create free-form shapes with puff pastry and stuff it with the apple filling.
If you don't want to make all of the pie pockets, DO NOT brush the tops of the pies with the egg. Instead, layer the pies between waxed paper, put them in freezer bags and stick them into the freezer for a later date. I wouldn't keep them in the freezer for more than one month.

Palak (spinach)

2011-11-01T13:15:00.000-04:00

I love palak! It's really healthy and can be made in so many different ways. This recipe is actually for Palak Paneer, but because I don't usually have Paneer (soft Indian cheese) in my fridge, I excluded it from this dish.

Palak Paneer without the Paneer

4 packets chopped frozen spinach, thawed in wrappers

5 Roma tomatoes, washed and diced

6 green chilies, washed and chopped

1 onion, diced

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp fresh garlic, minced

2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and minced

1 1/2 tsp garam masala

1 tbsp dried Kasur Methi (fenugreek leaves)

6 tbsp 2% milk

cayenne pepper to taste

salt to taste

water (optional)

Place thawed spinach in a mesh sieve or small-hole colander to drain out excess liquid.

In a large pot or sauce pan, cook diced onion in olive oil over medium-low heat until golden-to-dark-brown. Be careful not to burn onions. Add minced garlic, ginger, chilies and cook for 1-2 minutes. Do not leave the stove! Stirring is very important here because minced garlic has a tendency to burn. Once the garlic has taken on a slightly pink hue, toss in the tomatoes and fry them until some liquid is released. Add in thawed spinach and the dried fenugreek leaves and cook for a few minutes while stirring frequently. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste ( tip: start off with 1/2 tsp each and increase the amount as the spinach cooks down). If you find the spinach is sticking, add 1-2 tsp of water. Stir in the garam masala powder and milk and turn the heat to low, cover the pot with its lid and let the spinach steam. At this point, it's all about taste and texture and that means taking a spoon and taste-testing to see if the spinach is cooked through and has all the flavours.

Once the spinach is cooked, it'll look like one big chunky mess. Let it cool slightly and then scoop it out into a food processor. Spin it around in there until most of the ingredients have been pulverized. The result should be smooth yet slightly chunky, greeny goodness. Serve with hot, buttery naan!

Low Fat Mini Pumpkin Muffins with Pepitas

2011-10-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

Recently, I had another "first-time" food experience. This time it was with pumpkin. Back in the day, and I'm talking way back in elementary school...grade 5 to be precise, was the last time I had had any experience with pumpkins. It was in Mr. McFarlene's class and we were carving pumpkins for Halloween. Now, we didn't really celebrate Halloween, but because this was a class activity, my parents let me drag a pumpkin to school and carve it with my classmates. I remember sticking my hand inside my pumpkin and feeling all of the gushy, thready goo, and giggling/cringing as I scooped out the seeds and flesh until the insides were smooth. I was no artist, so I drew out a very simple Jack O' Lantern design- a face with a very toothy grin. After school, I dragged the pumpkin back home and planted it on the front porch. When my dad came home that night, we lit a candle and put it inside the pumpkin and had that stupid grin shine up on the wall. Ahh...life was so simple back then......

Flash forward a "few" years (ahem..) and pumpkin has re-entered my life yet again. This time in the form of a can. I thought I would have to cut, clean out, and cook a pumpkin to make this, but luckily this recipe from Gina's Skinny Recipes called for good ol' canned pumpkin puree. The first time I tried this recipe, I followed it to a T. Unfortunately, I found the taste to be very OVERWHELMING because of the amount of pumpkin pie spice used. The second time I made them, I cut the pumpkin pie spice in half and found the flavour to be much more appetizing. If you like your pumpkin baked goods to be very spicy, go right ahead and use the original measurements. But if you want a more delicate taste, use the measurements from below.

Low Fat Mini Pumpkin Muffins with Pepitas

1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree
1 1/4 cups Nutri-Blend flour (same as white whole wheat flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
2 large egg whites
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp pepitas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray mini muffin tins with some oil.

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, pumpkin spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl beat together egg whites, pumpkin puree and vanilla at medium speed until thick.
Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until wet and dry ingredients are just combined.
Scoop out batter into mini muffin tins using an ice cream scoop. Sprinkle pepitas on tops of muffins and bake on the centre rack for 8-10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove muffins and place on cooking rack.

A first for moi: the S'More

2011-10-20T21:26:00.001-04:00

When my parents immigrated to Canada over 40 years ago, they came with the clothes on their backs, a little pocket money, and plenty of hopes and dreams. They worked hard, and raised and educated three kids all the while discovering and creating a unique cultural identity- a Canadian Pakistani Muslim identity. They meshed together bits and pieces from Canadian and Pakistani societies that would enable them to create this identity, this culture without compromising on their religious values. Essentially they took parts of Canadian and Pakistani cultures that would compliment Islamic culture and belief and created a wonderful cohesive mix.

Now in terms of food, Pakistani cuisine won hands down. It took my mom several years before she started experimenting with ingredients and recipes that didn't stem from the sub-continent. She's an awesome cook and I think I get my "let's try something new, or let's combine these different flavours together and see what happens.." thought process from her. Still, there are some "exotic" fruits and veggies that haven't made their way into her tummy or kitchen, but they have in mine. Spaghetti squash, rhubarb muffins (thanks Linds!), kale, star fruit, baby buk choy, anchovies, pumpkin, calamari, lobster, chives..really the list is endless. Some of you may be scratching your heads and thinking...Hinna, these ain't exotic. Trust me...in a home of Pakistani heritage..these ARE exotic! lol

This blended culture that we grew up with also shaped the types of familial activities that we would enjoy. We swam, skated, played soccer and street hockey, rode our bikes, roller bladed, skied and skipped. But, we never went camping, or had a clue about what a cottage was until later on in life. I am proud to say that we have been to a cottage and do know what it's used for! :p I'm not sure if I'm up for camping, but I am excited to say that I finally tasted the quintessential camping treat.....the S'MORE! Taking inspiration from Ina Garten's adult s'more, I was able to recreate this treat in my kitchen with my gas stove!

S'Mores

1 package of cookies that have one side coated with plain chocolate

1 small package of halal marshmallows

long wooden skewers

Turn on your gas stove burner onto low. Lower a skewered marshmallow close to the flame until the marshmallow begins to melt and turn brown. Try to keep the marshmallow from burning or carrying a flame. Place the melted marshmallow onto the chocolate side of one cookie. Create a sandwich by squishing down another cookie, chocolate side down. Follow the same process and make as many s'mores as your heart desires!

Red Pepper Quinoa Cakes

2011-10-10T09:35:00.000-04:00

This has probably been the warmest Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend I can remember. Everyone had a chance to get rid of their sweaters and jackets, roll up their shirt sleeves and bask in the warm glow of the sun.

It's supposed to warm up even more today, so it looks like I'll be wearing sandals when I head out. :o)

I recently purchased some organic quinoa and quinoa flour for some recipes, but silly me, I forgot my quinoa cookbook back in LA. After searching for a bit on the Internet, I came across this recipe from the Cooking Quinoa site. The first time I made the cakes, the only ingredient I changed was the organic corn- I used diced red pepper. The second time I made the cakes, I added more spices because I found that the original recipe didn't have enough flavour.

Red Pepper Quinoa Cakes

2 cups cooked organic mixed quinoa (you can use yellow quinoa if you can't find one that is mixed)

1 red pepper, finely chopped by hand or in a food processor

3 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

1 tbsp fresh chives, chopped

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

2 shallots, finely chopped by hand or in a food processor

2 tbsp whole wheat flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp chili flakes

1/2 tsp paprika

t tbsp olive oil

tsp balsamic vinegar

1 shallot, chopped

1 tsp freshly minced garlic

In a medium-sized bowl, combine cooked quinoa, chopped red pepper, 2 tbsp parsley, chives, breadcrumbs, shallots, and flour. Mix until combined and add eggs, sea salt, and spices. Form the mixture into small patties. Heat a skilled to medium-low. Add the olive oil to the heated pan and cook patties 5 to 7 minutes per side. Drain on paper towel and repeat with remaining patties.

In a small bowl, combine tomatoes, vinegar, shallot, garlic and parsley. Mix well. Serve on the side with the quinoa cakes.

A breakfast time saver!

2011-10-05T11:23:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but I'm finding that I don't have enough hours in the day to get things done. It seems like I blink my eyes and three hours have gone by! There is so much to get done: I have a stack of books to get through, some unit plan designing to complete, prayers to read, and online classes to attend. Not to mention the daily household chores that must get done after work and daily trips to the gym.

I know if I manage my time a bit better ( I blame it on no longer having a steady work routine!!), I would be able to complete many of these tasks. From the minute that I wake up to the time I go to bed, I have to make sure I am not wasting any time. I'm hoping to start off with a simple breakfast routine on days that I know I will be extremely busy. I whipped up a really simple breakfast parfait this morning to kick start my day. Since there is a lot of protein in the Greek yogurt, I felt full and satisfied. If you think this isn't enough for you eat a boiled egg on the side.

Breakfast Parfait

2 scoops PC 0% Honey Greek Yogurt
1 large stem of Seedless Organic Coronation Grapes
3 tbsp PC Blue Menu Raisin & Almond Granola

Place a scoop of yogurt in the bottom of a wide-rimmed glass. Layer on some grapes and 1 tbsp of granola. Create a second layer of yogurt, grapes and granola.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

2011-10-04T18:41:00.000-04:00

I've always been a fan of Martha Stewart. I don't know exactly when I fell in love with her shows on The Food Network, maybe my last year in high school? Anyhow, I loved her so much that I would plan my schedule around her show and on the off chance that I wasn't at home, I would tape the show to watch at a later time. I was such the die hard fan, that when I got married, I made sure that R got the cable package that had the The Food Network in its list of channels. And when Martha Stewart transitioned into the daytime talk show/craft show/food show scene, I, like many of her fans, made the transition with her. I watched her for several more years until she annoyingly moved her show to a specialty channel and that's when I got cut off. :o(

So now instead of watching her and writing down her recipes, I go to her books for inspiration. One that I keep handy is Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. It is filled with 175 wonderful cupcake recipes for all sorts of occasions. What's also great is that just by switching the baking pan, these cupcake recipes can easily become cake recipes.

One of my go-to recipes in the book is the Brown Sugar Pound Cake. It's got the texture of the classic pound cake but with a nutty, caramel-like taste. It's a very simple recipe to follow and can be made the night before a party or the day of. I baked this cake the night before a sisters-only event with Shaykh Yahya Rhodus at the Seeker's Hub two weeks back and if I do so say so myself, it was mighty tasty! Instead of using all purpose flour, I used cake flour and this simple change made the cake very light. If you want to stick with the original recipe, substitute in the all purpose flour for the cake flour.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

3 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups light-brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and line 2 8`` or 9`` cake pans with parchment paper or butter 1 Bundt pan.

In a bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

In another bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well incorporated. Add flour in three batches, alternating between 2 additions of buttermilk, beating until combined after each.

Divide the batter evenly between to two lined cake pans and bake with the rack in the centre of the oven until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before transferring cakes to a cooling rack.

Gifts and Cookies

2011-09-20T15:57:00.000-04:00

Back in high school and university, I used to spend a lot of time customizing gifts for my friends and family. I would carefully plan out the gifts by creating detailed shopping lists that listed gift ideas and wrapping for each individual. Yes, I spent more time planning gifts than studying...my Managerial Accounting mark can attest to this!! heh.

Sadly, I no longer spend that much time on picking out the perfect gift. Nowadays, I have to bounce ideas off of other people, give cash, or resort to gift cards. This Eid I really struggled to find things for family members and ended up getting some gift cards. I did however, try to add a personal touch by adding a homemade cookie mix to the gifts. This idea stemmed from Bakerella's post on Mixing things up!

This is probably the simplest gift you can make. It's not too expensive and you can customize it by using different coloured Smarties or M & M's, or using different nuts. Get a mason jar and slap on two printable labels- one for the name and the other for directions and voila! You have a great hostess or holiday gift.

*Note that the label in the picture has wrinkles in it...to avoid this, use smaller labels

Chocolate Oatmeal Cowboy Cookies

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and levelled

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup Smarties (you can use M & M's if you are celebrating a holiday)
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3-1/2 cup chopped pecans

Before you start the layers, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl together.

The layers will be as follows:

1.The flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt mixture. .

2.The oats.

3.The Smarties.

4.The chocolate chips.

5.The brown sugar.

6.The white sugar.

7.The chopped pecans

Pack each layer down tightly so that you can fit all of the ingredients in. If a plastic seal is missing from the mouth of the jar, take a small piece of plastic wrap and cover it up, before closing the lid.

Using printable labels, you can print out two labels- one label for the cookie name, and the other for the instructions. I put the name of the cookie at the front of the jar, and put the instructions on the back. Here are the instructions I used on the label:

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir dry ingredients in a large bowl and add:

1/2 cup butter, (almost melted), 1 slightly beaten egg & 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine thoroughly. Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls & bake on a lined cookie sheet for 10 minutes.

If you want to make the cookies for yourself, the recipe is as follows:

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and levelled

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a large glass bowl. Add in the wet ingredients and mix well. Roll the dough into small balls, and place them, evenly spaced, on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are golden. Cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to cooling rack.

Eid bits and bobs and amazing sugar cookies!

2011-09-02T11:40:00.003-04:00

Eid Mubarak to those who were celebrating or are still celebrating (like moi) this week! Having Eid on a week day ensures two things: a day off from work and loads of parties on the weekends.

Our Eid week celebrations started on Monday night with a chaand raat party at my mom's home. A chaand raat party literally means a moon night party- it usually takes place on the 29th night of Ramadan as this is the night that groups of leaders from the Muslim community gather around and try to locate and/or find out if anyone has spotted the moon. If a moon is spotted, the Islamic month of Ramadan will be complete and the next day will be Eid. Our chaand raat party consisted of breaking our fast, eating delicious food, having wonderful conversation, keeping tabs on moon sightings, and of course mehndi/henna application. A chaand raat party wouldn't be a chaand raat party without some mehndi!

Our Eid celebrations on Wednesday started off with congregational Eid prayers at a local community spot. Then we headed home to snack on some sweet treats. The rest of the day was filled with gift-giving, spending time with family and visitors, visiting family and friends, eating, and the oh-so-important Eid nap! Round two of Eid celebrations are starting up again and will continue well into the weekend. Thank goodness it's a long weekend...we'll have Monday to recover from all of the food that will have been consumed!

I'm sure some of you will be heading out and visiting people this weekend and since you probably don't want to go empty-handed, I suggest you try making these sugar cookies. They are soft, not too sweet and very forgiving. You can use different cookie cutters to cut out the cookies, or roll the dough into a log and cut off cookie coins with a sharp knife. Do what your heart (and tummy!) desires.

Sugar Cookies

1-½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
2 egg yolks, room temperature
4 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond extract
4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until well combined. Add in the 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks and mix until combined. Mix in vanilla and almond extracts. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until combined, making sure not to over-mix the dough.

To make a small quantity of cookies, halve the dough and shape them into discs. Wrap them up with plastic wrap and stick one disc in the fridge and the other in the freezer. Otherwise, put all the dough onto some plastic wrap and form it into a disc before placing in fridge for 2-3 hours. One hour before baking, turn the oven heat onto 350 degrees. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/4-1-8 inch thickness. Dip a cookie cutter into some flour and begin to cut out cookies. If the dough becomes warm as you work, wrap it up and stick it into the freezer for 15-20 minutes (continue this method if the dough continues to warm up). Place the cookies on parchment-lined, cold cookie sheets and bake for 6-8 minutes or until the cookies have golden edges. Between cookie batches, let cookie sheets cool completely before reusing.
Cool cookies completely on cooling racks before icing.

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp milk (use less milk if you want a thicker icing)
1 drop fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp light corn syrup

In a small bowl, whisk together all ingredients. Using the tinges of a fork, drizzle the icing over cooled cookies. Let icing set before layering cookies on a tray otherwise the cookies will stick together. (I learned that the hard way!)

Ramadan # 7 Lemony Fruit Salad Ice Pops

2011-08-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

Today marks the last Friday and the 27th night of Ramadan. I feel like I'm about to say good by to a close friend who is leaving in a few days time and will not return for another year. And who knows what will happen in a year's time...who will be here and who will have departed. :o( Let's all try to make the best of the time we have left with this blessed month.

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The summer is winding down and school will be beginning (or has already started in some places) very shortly. It would be around this time that I, along with my teacher friends, would be opening up boxes and setting up our classrooms for another school year. This would also be the time for last minute weekend getaways, parties, trips to the CNE and of course eating lots of ice cream and popsicles!

I have been noticing that some food trends from the 80s and 90s are making a come back, one of them being making homemade popsicles with plastic molds. I remember when we were selling my parents' home, my mom and I had come across some plastic popsicle molds in one of the boxes and we decided to donate them- now I wish I had kept them because it would have saved me from spending $15 bucks on new molds. Oh well....

This recipe (from the Everyday Food Special Issue) I'm going to share with you is full of sweet and delicious seasonal fruit and tangy lemonade. I cut the recipe in half from 8 popsicles to 4.

Lemony Fruit Salad Ice Pops

1 ripe peach, washed and cut into 1/2-inch slices
1 golden kiwi, washed, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
1/4 cup of blueberries, washed
1 frozen lemonade concentrate (the recipe used apple juice)

Follow the instructions on the frozen lemonade concentrate to make lemonade. Arrange some fruit into 4 3-ounce ice-pop molds, making sure that the pieces fit snugly. Pour enough lemonade into the molds to just cover the fruit. Insert the ice-pop sticks and freeze for at least 6 hours. To release the pops, run hot water over the frozen molds until it releases.

Ramadan # 6 Pizza, let me count the ways how I love thee!

2011-08-22T16:04:00.000-04:00

O Lord, I seek Your forgiveness for every sin that I reproached or condemned one of Your creation for committing but then myself plunged into and brazenly committed before You.

I cannot believe we are into the final 10 days of Ramadan! Where did the month go? Is it just me, or is time slipping by WAY TOO FAST!? It seems like last week summer started, and then Ramadan came and now both are leaving us very shortly. *sigh*

To mark the last 10 days of Ramadan, Muslims are spending their days and nights in prayer, reflection, and remembrance of God. Since, many of us are staying out of the kitchen to focus on these activities, I wanted to share with you a simple recipe that won't take up too much of your time. Put aside the stews and curries, and bring on the pizza!

To put it simply, I love pizza! And I love making it at home! Depending on my mood, I get to experiment with different combinations of meats, spices, cheeses and vegetables that tantalize my taste buds. Ahh...my mouth is watering just thinking about that doughy goodness!

This recipe calls for freshly mixed pizza dough that should (if you want to read about my inability to find pizza dough in Pasadena, click here!) be available in your grocery store's bakery. None of that pre-baked, cardboard-like pizza crust, okay?!

The base of my pizza is a meat sauce. I either cook lean ground beef on the stove or use my dum keema recipe, and add a canned tomato sauce. I usually use Hunt's roasted red pepper or garlic tomato sauce. I add some more spices- salt, chili flakes and sometimes some ground coriander.

The rest of the toppings consist of a variety of vegetables, sun dried tomatoes, jarred olives and hot peppers, and cheese!

Whole Wheat Pizza

1 pre-mixed whole wheat pizza dough, or you can make your own if you wish
1 large Hot House tomato, washed and sliced into circles
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and sliced
10 cremini mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 green pepper, washed and sliced into strips
1 red pepper, washed and cut into strips
handful of sliced and pitted green olives
handful of hot peppers
a few pieces of sun dried tomatoes, drained of oil
1 to 1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
prepared meat sauce
1 tsp of corn meal
1 tbsp olive oil

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Follow the pre-mixed pizza dough thawing instructions as some require the dough to come up to room temperature in the bag before using.

Spread oil over a round pizza tray and sprinkle it with corn meal. Stretch the pizza dough over the tray, making sure that it is stretched evenly and the crust is even all the way around. Layer on the meat sauce and then add the vegetables. Sprinkle the shredded cheese on top of the pizza and place the tray into the centre of the oven for 20-30 minutes or until the bottom of the pizza is cooked. I also like to check the centre of the pizza as sometimes it can become soggy. If you find that this is happening, leave it in for another 5-10 minutes.

Ramadan # 5 Dum Keema (Steamed Ground Beef)

2011-08-15T15:12:00.002-04:00

Oh Allah, please accept our fasts, prayers, and acts of charity during this blessed month.

Today is the 15th fast of Ramadan- the halfway point. I cannot believe how quickly this month is flying by. The days are long and at times challenging, but well worth it. The physical and spiritual detoxification that is occurring is necessary to remove the build up of toxins from our bodies and hearts. It is my hope that this detox doesn't end with Ramadan, but continues throughout the year in some way.

Creating meals for your families while fasting can be a challenge because you can't taste anything to check for spice and flavour. As a result, I have started cooking after iftar (after I break my fast at sunset). I don't want to be slaving over the stove for a long time because I need to go to the mosque to pray taraweeh, so I like to make meals or parts of meals that are easy and quick to prepare.

Dum keema is very versatile. It can be eaten by itself, put into sandwiches, tacos, pasta dishes or on pizza. It is very easy to prepare and uses ingredients that you probably already have at home or can easily purchase at your grocery store.

Dum Keema

3 heaping tbsp chicken tikka masala spice

pinch of salt

1 cup low fat, organic yogurt

1 heaping tbsp each, freshly minced ginger and garlic

6 tbsp fried onions (these onions come prepackaged and are available at Indian grocery stores and the Indian section at No Frills or Loblaws)

2 lb lean ground beef, washed in a mesh sieve and drained

red chili flakes (optional)

diced tomatoes and fried onions for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium-large bowl, mix together chicken tikka masala, yogurt, salt, garlic, ginger, and fried onions. Add in the ground beef and using your hand (or a spoon if you don't want to touch the meat), thoroughly mix together the yogurt-based masala and meat. Once mixed, pat the meat down into a roasting pan (the pan should have a lid) into a thin layer. Place the pan with the lid on, into the oven. Let the meat "steam" for 15-20 minutes before taking the lid off to stir the meat. You will notice the meat will break into big chunks, using a wooden spoon, break these chunks into small pieces. Replace the lid and let the meat cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the meat juices have disappeared.

Place the dum keema into a glass dish and garnish with some friend onions, red chili flakes and diced tomatoes.

Ramadan # 4 Green and Gold Kiwifruit Salsa

2011-08-11T13:33:00.018-04:00

O Allah, I seek your forgiveness for every sin that my soul made seem to me trivial and small, and continued to make seem insignificant, until it finally entangled me in it.

While entering the grocery store last week, I came across a stand displaying gold kiwifruit. What attracted me to the stand wasn't the actual fruit, but the freebies sticking out of a pocket below! Inside the pocket were these plastic wrapped green spoons/knives with the words "Cut and scoop" on them. After closer examination, I discovered that the green spoons/knives were for the kiwifruit. Normally I use a regular knife to peel my kiwifruit and eat it. But this spoon/knife was taking me in another direction. The knife side is used to cut the kiwifruit in half and the spoon side is used to spoon out the kiwifruit so that you are left with a kiwi skin cup. Pretty neat eh?

Anyhow, I stuck a couple of those spoon-knife packets into my purse and continued to explore the stand. I pulled off a recipe card (from Zespri Kiwifruit) for green and gold kiwifruit salsa. I was hesitant in trying the recipe out because I had never before tried gold kiwifruit. After a few minutes of deliberation, I decided to go ahead and try it out. I picked up all of the necessary ingredients, did the rest of my shopping and came home.

I didn't make the salsa right away because the kiwis weren't that ripe. It actually worked out for me because I had to make an unexpected trip back home, so the kiwis had a few days to ripen on my kitchen counter.

Some info on kiwifruit (came off the back of the recipe card): -

-Kiwifruit are ripe when they give in to slight pressure.
-Gold kiwifruit will last 3-7 days at room temperature and 12-14 days in the fridge.
-Green kiwifruit will last 3-7 days at room temperature and 24-28 days in the fridge.
-2 kiwifruit have less than 100 calories, more than 230% of your daily Vitamin C and 16% of your daily fiber.
-Kiwifruit also have calcium, iron, Vitamin E, zinc, folate, antioxidants, magnesium, and potassium.

Yesterday afternoon I made the salsa (with some minor alterations to the original recipe) and after R and I broke our fasts, we tried it with corn chips and I have to tell you it ROCKS!!!! Slightly sweet yet tart and oh so yummy!

Some notes: I used the spoon and knife utensil to create kiwi cups and it isn't as easy as it looks. After I made a few cups, I went back to using my knife. I think I would only use the spoon and knife utensil if I wanted to serve the salsa in the cups.

Green and Gold Kiwifruit Salsa

3 Gold kiwifruit (Original recipe said 4)

3 Green kiwifruit (Original recipe said 4)

1/2 large red onion, peeled and finely diced (Original recipe said 1 cup of diced red onion. I cut up the halves and put them into a food processor to save myself time and tears)

2 tbsp fresh cilantro/coriander, washed and chopped

1 tbsp fresh mint, washed and julienned

juice of 3 small key limes (Original recipe said 1 tbsp fresh lime juice)

1 tbsp ground cumin

Slice kiwifruit into halves and peel or spoon out the fruit onto a cutting board. Dice kiwifruit into small cubes.

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix gently. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving so the flavours can blend together. Serve with chips or as a side to chicken or fish (or in fish tacos!).

Ramadan # 3 Spinach and Almond Pesto with Fresh Mozzarella and Garlic Shrimp

2011-08-10T15:56:00.002-04:00

O Allah, I seek your forgiveness for every sin that leaves grief in its wake, that causes remorse, that holds back sustenance, and that prevents acceptance of [my] prayers.

I really enjoy creating pasta-based concoctions in my kitchen. I usually stick with one type of pasta in my dishes, but lately I've been mixing different flour-based or vegetable-based pastas, trying to find combinations that work and that my family will eat. One combination that I like is an equal blend of white and whole wheat pastas because you get the heartiness of the whole wheat pasta without having the dish become too heavy and dense.

A while back, I came across a blog post on pesto. The recipe was surprisingly easy and didn't require Parmesan cheese (it's hard to find Parmesan cheese without rennet in it). I tagged this recipe under "Recipes to Try ASAP" and let it be. A couple of weeks ago, I came back to this recipe and thought I would test it out. I changed the recipe by using almonds instead of walnuts, mixing up the pasta and adding fresh mozzarella and shrimp.

Spinach and Almond Pesto with Fresh Mozzarella and Garlic Shrimp

2 big handfuls of fresh baby spinach, stems removed and washed and dried
1/4 cup of almonds, skin removed
4 tbsp freshly minced garlic,
10 basil leaves, washed
4 tbsp olive oil
6 small fresh mozzarella balls, drained of liquid and sliced into quarters
15-20 frozen raw peeled and deveined shrimp, thawed and washed
1.5 cups dry whole wheat rotini pasta
1.5 cups dry white rotini pasta
salt and pepper to taste

In a food process, mix together spinach, almonds, 3 tbsp garlic, 8 basil leaves, 2 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper until a gritty-like texture is formed. Taste for salt and pepper. If a stronger flavour is desired, add more spinach, basil and almonds and give the mixture a spin in the processor.

In a frying pan, add the remaining olive oil, 1 tbsp of garlic and the 2 basil leaves (torn up into small pieces). Saute on low-medium heat for 1 minute. Add in the shrimp and cook until the shrimp have curled in a bit and are pink all the way through. Season with some salt and pepper before removing from heat.

Cook the dry whole wheat and white pastas (SEPARATELY) according to box instructions. Strain the water and mix the pasta in a large bowl with the pesto. Gently mix in the mozzarella quarters and shrimp. Taste the pasta for seasoning and add salt and pepper if necessary. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil on top. Serve immediately or refrigerate for a later time.

Ramadan # 2: Stuffed Puff Pastry

2011-08-04T17:52:00.005-04:00

O Allah I seek Your forgiveness for every sin that kills the heart, and incites anxiety, and preoccupies the mind, and pleases Satan, and angers the All-Merciful

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I truly believe that the grocery stores here in Pasadena are conspiring against me. I have been looking high and low for freshly mixed bakery pizza dough since we followed R's work assignment from TO to Fairfax to LA and to date I HAVEN'T found any!!! It is in my humble opinion that when the grocery store clerks see me coming, they run quickly to the bakery section and remove the bagged pizza dough...lol. I've searched Ralph's, Fresh and Easy, and Target, but I have always come back empty handed.

Why don't you just make your own you ask? Well, there are a few things that intimidate me and working with yeast is one of them. I've heard, or rather read, horror stories that involve yeast and I'm not sure if I want to have one of my own. Isn't yeast temperamental? It can't be old, has to be mixed with water at the correct temperature etc. That's why I like using the freshly mixed pizza dough that's available at home in Toronto at Loblaws or Supercentre. The bakers mix it fresh in-house every few days and it isn't chock full of preservatives. They also have the option of white or whole wheat dough which is nice.

This Ramadan, I wanted to stay away from the samosas and make something different for iftar (the small snack(s) that is eaten to break the fast). I was thinking of small pizza pockets, but BECAUSE I couldn't find the dough anywhere, I opted for puff pastry. Pizza is a great meal and has the potential of being healthy if you select good ingredients. You can cover most, if not all of the food groups based on what you choose. For me, I love having lean ground beef, tomatoes, onions, olives, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, and mushrooms on my pizza. I do like to add pineapple, but because most of my family don't like having the sweet and savory flavour, it's usually omitted from the pizza.

Since I wanted to make individual portions, I used pre-cut, 5"x5" puff pastry squares for the crust. For the filling I used dum keema (steamed ground beef-I'll post this recipe later), hot salsa, sliced tomatoes, low-fat shredded cheese, olives and onions. I also made a vegetarian pizza pocket, using methi palak (cooked spinach with fenugreek).

People say that when you're making crepes, the first one is always bad, well I had a similar experience while trying to fold over my first pizza pocket. I didn't know how to fold it and keep the filing inside, so I ended up having a really bad looking pocket with pieces of filling stuck to the edges. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I had a Martha Stewart moment and tried using the tines of a fork. Success! I now had a completely sealed pocket that looked pretty.

Puff Pastry Pizza Pocket

(try saying that 5 times in a row!)

1 pack of pre-cut 5"x5" puff pastry squares, thawed as per package instructions
1 cup cooked dum keema (ground beef) or any cooked ground beef/chicken/turkey or 1 cup of cooked spinach if you want to make vegetarian pizza pockets
1 cup shredded, low fat cheddar cheese
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 jar of hot salsa
a handful of sliced olives, drained
a handful of sliced yellow grape tomatoes, washed and dried
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp cold water

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.**

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Place a sheet of parchment paper on your counter. This will be your work surface. Lay one puff pastry square on the parchment. Place 1 tsp of salsa on the pastry and spread it out. Lay on 1 tablespoon of keema in the centre of your puff pastry square. Layer some cheese, a few slices of onion, olives and tomato slices on top of the keema. Sprinkle the filling with cheese. Bring one corner of the puff pastry square and match it up with the corner diagonally across from it so that the square becomes a triangle. Using the tines of a fork, press down gently to seal the puff pastry. Using a spatula, carefully lift the pizza pocket and place it onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet. Continue the same process until you have made all of your pizza pockets.

In a small bowl, beat 1 egg and 1 tsp of water together. Using a pastry brush, brush the top and sides of the pizza pockets with the egg wash. This will create a nice golden colour on your pizza pockets.

Put the cookie sheet into the 350 degree oven until the pastry is puffed up and golden brown. Serve with ketchup or green chutney.

** If you don't want to make the pizza pockets right away, you can freeze them in a freezer bag layered between wax paper. Skip the egg wash until you are ready to bake them.

Ramadan # 1: The Homemade Latte

2011-08-02T14:46:00.002-04:00

O Allah, I seek Your forgiveness for every sin that turns away from me Your mercy, or causes Your vengeance to befall me or deprives me of your generosity, or takes away from me Your blessings.

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So Ramadan has just begun and for the first few days it can be a challenge to wake up before sun rise, eat your suhoor (early breakfast) and go on with your day. Some of you probably like to pick up a coffee or latte on your way to work or school, but that will have to be nixed for this month, or longer if you want to use Ramadan to help you get rid of your caffeine addiction! For those of you who just can't give up the coffee how about making your own "latte" at home to enjoy before you start your day's fast? You'll still get your caffeine kick and keep some money in your wallet.

My husband usually likes to have some caffeine in his system to help get his day started. Usually he would swing by Starbucks (in the US) to pick up a vanilla latte or a double-double from Tim Horton's (in Canada) on his way to work. However, for the past few weeks, I've been making these homemade lattes for him instead. Now there will be no use of a coffee machine because, well we don't have one. This latte is made with the Starbucks Via packs. At first I would eye-ball the amounts of water, milk and instant espresso powder I used, but when my husband asked me how I made it, I knew I had to actually measure out the ingredients for future reference.

Homemade Latte

1 cup filtered water
1 Starbucks Columbia Via pack
1/4 tsp instant espresso powder
1 1/4 cup 2% organic milk (I added the extra 1/4 cup because the latte goes into a travel mug. You can get rid of it if you want)
2 1/2 tsp sugar (adjust the sugar to your taste)

In a small steel pot or sauce pan with a high rim, add your water and heat it up to a simmer over low-medium heat. Once the water begins to simmer add in the Starbucks Via pack and stir the mixture with a spoon. Add the instant espresso powder and sugar. Bring the heat up to a medium and add in the milk. Start whisking the mixture as it begins to boil. Continue whisking until enough froth has been created. Remove from heat and pour into a large coffee mug or latte bowl and enjoy.

Ramadan

2011-07-26T23:55:00.004-04:00

Ramadan, the month of fasting, is just a few short days away. The time has come for Muslims to return to God and begin the process of cleansing the mind, body, and soul. It is a time where the worldly desires are put away and the focus becomes strengthening the spiritual ties to God through many acts of worship including, prayer, acts of charity, guarding one's character, and the abstinence from food and drink.

Ramadan is the time to turn to God and seek forgiveness of past and present sins, mend strained relationships, and forgive those who have transgressed against you. It is also a time to thank God for the many blessings that have been bestowed upon you and your family.

Right now is a good time to prepare yourself for the physical and spiritual cleansing that is about to start. Here are a few links that can help you refresh your memory on the importance of Ramadan and its guidelines:

What is Ramadan by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) (video)

Ramadan Practice Exercises by Imam Afroz Ali

The Complete Guide to Fasting by Ustadha Naielah Ackbarali

Imam Tahir Anwar's 5 Simple Ways to Prepare for Ramadan

Imam Zaid Shakir on a Green Ramadan (video)

A great dua (supplication) by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani (Although this prayer was for a special night during Sha'ban, I think it's great for Ramadan too!)

It is also vital that children are educated on the importance of Ramadan.There are many child-friendly resources available on the Internet and in print that can help kids understand what Ramadan is about and why certain acts of worship happen during this blessed month. A great way to help kids, and even adults for that matter, celebrate Ramadan is to decorate your home. Children can create posters or paintings with Ramadan greetings, banners can be made that can be put around the house etc. Here are two articles by Hina Khan-Mukhtar that talk about getting your home and your family ready for this spiritual time:

Readying the Ruh for Ramadan

Ramadan Advice: Creating Ramadan Traditions

Here are some ways my family and I would spruce up the house during Ramadan. In my parents' home, we would string green twinkly lights along the windows in the family, living, and dining rooms. We would also put out some fancy candles and candle holders and light them up at night. I have also done this in Ramadan pasts at my own home. This year, I've put up a small Ramadan banner that came with my Ramadan calendar from Barakah Life and I've also made some velum luminaries that will light up a dark corner of the family room. I may also add some twinkly lights just for old time's sake.

I will be posting a few recipes during the month of Ramadan. They will be really simple to replicate and will be a great addition to your Ramadan table.

Ramadan Mubarak!

How To: Marinate a Whole Chicken with a Dry Rub

2011-07-20T13:51:00.005-04:00

There are some kitchen basics that everyone should know how to do. So, for my first "How-To" blog post, I'm going to show you how to marinate a whole chicken with a dry rub.

I never had any experience cooking with a whole chicken until a friend of mine shared her Sprite-can chicken recipe. After talking to her about the marinade and the whole process, I went to my local halal meat store and picked up a whole chicken and attempted to make my own soda can chicken. Success!

Before I continue, I want to let everyone know that when you go to a halal butcher shop, the meat is generally not pre-packaged into neat, plastic-wrapped portions that you see at the grocery store. Instead, you have a display case full of different kinds of meat- chicken, beef, veal, lamb, goat- and various parts of animals- legs, side cuts, ribs, ground meats, steaks, trodders, organs etc. You pick the pieces of meat you want, get it cut the way you want and then bring it home to prep it- clean off extra fat and gunk, wash it, and away you go. So knowing that, when I tell you that my mom taught me how to clean meat when I was a teen shouldn't seem odd. One time, she handed me a rubber glove, a whole chicken that she got from the halal meat store, and made me stick my hand up the backside of the chicken to take out the heart, lungs and any other stuff that shouldn't be there before we cooked it. From that day on, I felt somewhat traumatized and to this day I tell her she scarred me by making me shove my hand up a chicken's butt. hehe Between you and me though, I'm kind of glad she gave me that experience because now when I work with a whole chicken, it's no longer a daunting task and I can take care of it in a minute or so.

Dry Rub Marinade for a Whole Chicken

2 heaping tbsp chicken tikka masala (if you want to avoid a lot of spice, substitute the chicken tikka masala for another blended chicken spice)
2 tsp freshly ground coriander
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp each freshly minced ginger and garlic
2 key limes (you can use lemon or lime wedges if you can't find key limes)

Rinse the inside and outside of your whole chicken thoroughly. Lay it down on paper towels and pat-dry the chicken with more paper towel.

In a small bowl, mix together the chicken tikka masala, ground coriander, paprika and salt. Set aside.
Take the minced garlic and ginger and rub them into the chicken-inside and out. Make sure you get in between the legs and wings. Take your rub, a tsp at a time, and begin to rub it into the chicken skin, once again making sure to get into every nook and cranny. Repeat the process until you have used up the entire rub.

Take the two key limes, and place them inside the chicken cavity. When you roast the chicken, they will explode and release all of their flavour.

If you are going to roast the chicken later in the day, put the chicken inside a roasting pan and put it in the fridge for a few hours. If you want to make the chicken at a later date, but the entire chicken into a freezer bag and stick it into the freezer.

New templates

2011-07-17T14:20:00.000-04:00

For the next few days I will be testing out new templates, so the layout of the blog may be off. Thank you for your patience.

So excited!

2011-07-16T15:33:00.001-04:00

It's finally here! The last installment of the Harry Potter movie series. It has been a long journey for Harry Potter and the millions of fans out there. I became a fan back in 1999 when I was drawn to a display of books in front of the cashier at the Indigo book store at Scarborough Town Centre. Unbeknownst to me, I picked up a book that ended up launching a global reading revolution. Although the book seemed to be recommended for kids, the blurb at the back of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone drew me, a first-year university student, in and I quickly passed it to my older sister, who read the back of the book, and then proceeded to line up and buy it. And so our love for "the boy who lived" began and has continued for the past 12 years.

My sister and I eagerly waited for the new books in the series to be released and watched the first two movies in the series together. Shortly thereafter, we both got married and life moved on. At that point, I carried my love for Harry Potter into my new life and began going to midnight book release parties and movie releases with my two sister-in-laws Z and S. And sometimes my husband and brother-in-law would come and join in the fun!
My husband hasn't watched all the movies, so before going to the movie yesterday, I had him read a summary of all the movies on Wikipedia, and we watched the first part of The Deathly Hallows in 30 minutes- I had to forward through some parts- just so that he would understand the second part!

I wish the recipe I'm going to share with you is one related to Harry Potter, but instead it's my lemon poppy seed disaster of a cake that I managed to salvage.

When I went back to TO in June, my close friends and I scheduled our monthly meet up at Shiva's house. Right away I said I would make dessert because this gave me the opportunity to test out a few recipes on my friends. Normally when I make a dessert-style dish, I end up with so many left overs because my husband and in-laws enjoy more savory things then sweet. This girls' night guaranteed me no left overs!

The first recipe I made was the Double Chocolate Cupcakes and the second was Sprinkles of Parsley's Lemon Poppy Seed Cake. The two changes from the original recipe that I made were that I used cake flour instead of all purpose flour because I wanted a lighter texture to the cake and I added more lemon juice to the icing. The mistake I made was using the same all purpose flour measurements for the cake flour when in reality one cup of all purpose is equivalent to 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour. Another mistake I made while making this cake was not greasing and flouring the bunt pan enough. I only realized this when I was trying to release the cake from the pan and half of the cake got stuck while the rest came out, resulting in a horribly broken up cake. The way I managed to present this cake was to slice it in half width-wise and serve the "half-slices" on muffin tin liners.

Lemony Poppy Seed Cake

Cake:
3 cups cake flour (So that you don't repeat the same mistake I made, add 6 tbsp to this, so it'll be 3 cups and 6 tbsp cake flour)
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup buttermilk
4 large eggs (I used vegetarian feed, hormone-free eggs)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fresh baking soda

1/2 tsp salt
grated lemon peel from 2 large lemons, make sure you wash and dry the lemons prior to using

Lemony Icing:
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
juice of two lemons

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Mix together all of the ingredients in a large glass bowl using a hand mixer. Mix on medium speed until the dry and wet ingredients are combined to create a smooth batter. Butter and flour your bunt or cake pan liberally. Pour in your batter and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 1 hour or so.

Remove the cake from the oven when it's ready and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Use a small knife and run it around the edges of the pan, say a quick prayer and flip the cake over onto a cooling rack. Hopefully, the cake will release and you will have a beautiful dessert.

Stir together the icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Taste the icing to make sure it's not too tart, add more icing sugar if necessary. Drizzle over a cooled cake, and slice and serve with a cup of coffee.

Red and White

2011-07-11T16:35:00.008-04:00

Before I start blogging about my lemon poppy seed cake disaster, I thought it would be wise to wrap up my Canada Day posts. Since Canada Day fell on a Friday, we had a 3-day long weekend that proved to be jam packed with things to do. It started off with me prepping for the roasted steak lunch with vegetable and pasta sides for my in-laws. A couple of weeks prior I had gotten some flank steaks and marinated them in some masala, and minced ginger and garlic, before sticking them into the freezer for a rainy day. That so called rainy day turned out to be a sunny Canada Day! I thought I would make some fancy dessert, but didn't have time, what with my husband flying in from a business trip, the sides to make for lunch, and a commitment to make dessert for my mom's barbecue. So I opted for something that would be simple yet would fit the colour scheme of the day. I decided to mix fresh Ontario strawberries with California raspberries on a white dish that one of my students had given me and sprinkle them with powdered sugar!

Strawberry and Raspberry Medley

1 pint Ontario strawberries, washed

1 pint raspberries, washed

1 tbsp powdered sugar

2-3 mint leaves (optional)

Wash and drain the strawberries and raspberries. First, layer the strawberries on the bottom of a white dish and then place the raspberries around the strawberries and in the crevices. Put the powdered sugar in a small sieve and begin to "dust" the sugar over the berries**. Tuck in a few mint leaves for garnish. Serve plain or with a scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt.

** Make sure your berries are dry before dusting them with powered sugar. I hadn't drained all the water off the berries when I sprinkled them with the sugar, and so the sugar was sucked into the berries...that's why my berries look naked.

Double Chocolate Chip Cupcakes!

2011-07-08T20:53:00.007-04:00

Lately I've been feeling like there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. The weekends are a blur, and the weekdays are packed with gym classes, family stuff, appointments, meeting friends, and everyday errands. I've also been taking an online Qur'an class that involves listening to two lessons a week, doing homework and then partaking in a live session with a TA. And just because I wasn't busy enough I went to a two-day board workshop on reading assessment!

I have also found myself connecting with the arts and crafts scene online. There is this really cool iPod app called CraftGawker that tracks interesting craft projects people have created. It gives you a new selection of projects everyday and you can "heart" them and go to the artist's blog to learn more about the project. I have already added 150 projects to my favourites in the hopes that one day I will be able to sit down and make them. I did start a few Ramadan and Eid projects, but I'll save that for another post.

And now for this wonderful recipe from My Baking Addiction. Jamie has a plethora of interesting recipes and I have more than one recipe from the site tagged as a future kitchen adventure. I decided to try out this recipe on my UNO friends as we were gathering at Shiva's house for our meet-up. There was a lemon poppy seed cake in the mix, but that definitely is another story because it involves a cake falling apart and me trying to come up with a creative way to salvage it!

Although the recipe gives you exact measurements for the frosting, I decided to be more free-flowing with the confectioners' sugar measurements and just kept tasting the icing until it was "just right." I made these cupcakes a second time for Canada Day and instead of using the cream cheese frosting, I used melted chocolate. Pictures and the alternative icing ingredients are below.

Double Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 cup of cake flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks), unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup 1% sour cream

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips. (Dark or white chocolate chips would also work well here)

a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips for decoration (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup regular-sized muffin tin with liners. In a bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until the consistency is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla. Mix in the flour in two batches, alternating between the flour and sour cream. Begin with the flour and end with the flour. Fold in the chocolate chips. Since I wanted my muffins to roughly be the same size, I used a 1 1/8" ice cream scoop to fill my cupcakes-each muffin had exactly 3 scoops of batter. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to completely cool.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz of cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

3 oz bitter sweet chocolate, melted and slightly cooled ( I melted the chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave. I set it on high for 30 seconds and repeated this until the chocolate was melted.)

confectioners sugar to taste, sifted.

In a bowl, cream the butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add in the vanilla and salt and mix well. Pour in the melted chocolate and gradually begin to add the confectioners' a little at a time until you reach your desired sweetness. Once your icing is ready, spread over the cooled cupcakes using an offset spatula. Top each cupcake with a semi-sweet chocolate chip.

**Alternative icing

I made another batch of these cupcakes for a US and Canadian family reunion barbeque at my mom's during the Canada Day long weekend. Since the cupcakes were going to be devoured mostly by kids under the age of 12, I thought it would be best to swap the cream cheese frosting for plain melted chocolate. Following the same procedure from above, I melted 15 milk chocolate wafers in the microwave. Once the melted chocolate was slightly cooled, I spooned it over the tops of the cupcakes and added a toothpick Canadian flag as decorations

Refreshing Mint Tea to Beat the Heat!

2011-06-28T14:16:00.006-04:00

I don't like the heat. I'm one of those crazies out there that loves SNOW and RAIN and ICE! I do like the sun, but only in the spring or fall. One of the reasons why I don't like the heat is because summer = air conditioning season. I have a love-hate relationship with the A/C. I love it after spending an entire day teaching in a hot and sticky classroom. It's also great when the humidity is so bad that my hair underneath my hijab is calling for mercy. But I hate it when I have to wear a sweater inside because the A/C is on full and the room feels like it's 10 degrees Celsius. Or when my joints start to hurt because of the freakishly cold air. Or when I sweat like crazy after going from an air conditioned place into the sweltering heat. See..love and hate!

In my home, I usually have all the windows open so there is good cross-ventilation and sometimes a fan that's on rotation. I really only turn the A/C on when there is no breeze outside and when the thermostat inside my home reads 30 degrees Celsius.

I was searching for some interesting recipes and came across one on Dawnaara that is supposed to help you naturally beat the heat without any A/C. I made a huge jug full of this Sun Mint Green Tea and it was amazing!! There is a lot of mint in this recipe- 2 cups to be exact- and according to Chinese medicine mint is spicy and cooling at the same time. Mint helps push sweat out of the surface of the skin and this helps cool you down. Make a jug of this and keep it in your fridge for those hot, sticky summer days!

Sun Mint Green Tea

2 cups of fresh mint leaves, thoroughly washed

1 tbsp of loose Japanese Cherry Blossom green tea leaves (you can use any kind of loose leaf green tea)

2 litres of spring water

sugar (optional)

In a large glass jug toss in the mint leaves, green tea leaves and spring water. With a wooden spoon, stir the mixture while at the same time bruising the mint leaves. This will help the leaves release their flavour.

Cover the top of your jug with its lid or a piece of plastic wrap and place the jug in a sunny spot for a few hours and then put into the fridge to chill. Once refrigerated, strain out the mint and green tea leaves and pour yourself a glass of sun mint green tea. You can add sugar to your tea if you like.

Reflections and Cashew Cookie Revamp

2011-06-22T22:33:00.007-04:00

My father passed away at the end of 2009. His death was a shock to my system and for a really long time I couldn't wrap my head around it. From the moment I got the phone call, I began to relive some of the moments I shared with him, all the while trying not to break down and cry.

My father had a thirst for knowledge. He read books on tax law, general business and accounting procedures to stay up to date in his profession. To increase his vocabulary, he would read pages from the dictionary and always carried a pocket-sized dictionary and thesaurus in his briefcase. He would read magazines and the newspaper from front to back and would make note of articles on current events that he wanted us kids to read. He would even take the time to point out and clip newspaper articles that were relevant to our professions: health care for my sister, business and taxes for my brother, and education for me. My dad knew I was fond of cute animals and the like, so whenever he saw something like that in the paper, he would be sure to save it for me.

A few days after the funeral, we began to sort through the paper work in my dad's office. We came across a few things that really surprised me. In my father's wallet were little pieces of paper with inspiring quotes and prayers that he had collected over the years from cards and newspapers. It was only after he left this world, that I realized I shared this passion of quote and poetry collecting with my father!

Throughout high school I would decorate my school agenda with poems and quotes that resonated with me. For those five years (back then high school in Ontario was from grade 9-13), anytime I, or my friends were bored or needed some inspiration, we flipped through my agenda. I wish I had known back then, what I know now about my father and his quote clipping habits. Maybe we could have traded a few quotes with each other.

The recipe that I'm going to share with you is something I know my father would have loved eating since he was fond of nuts! This cookie is a revamped version of my cashew butter cookies that I made a while back.

Cashew Cookie Revamp

1 16 ounce jar of natural cashew butter with the natural oils

2 tsp baking powder
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp cocoa powder
Dash of instant espresso powder
Whole cashews or any nut for decorating (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix in all of the ingredients in the order presented above, except the whole cashews. Using a small cookie scoop (1 1/8"), scoop out the cookie dough and place it on a parchment-lined cookie sheet a few inches apart. Place a whole cashew on top of the cookie and press down gently. In my picture, you can see there are a few almonds on top....I started using almonds until I realized that I had cashews in the fridge!

Bake for exactly 10 minutes (use a timer!) and remove and cool for at least 10 minutes. DO NOT TOUCH them until at least 10 minutes are up, otherwise they will fall apart.

Cold Quinoa Salad

2011-06-09T16:44:00.022-04:00

Slowly but steadily, quinoa is making its way onto my kitchen table more and more these days. It's not a daily staple because right now my husband won't touch it. And I don't think it will take over the staple white basmati rice that we eat. I can't imagine a quinoa biriyani or a chicken fried quinoa. Just even saying it (or typing it) feels weird. Nonetheless, I think quinoa has its place in cold and warm salads, porridge, and some baked goods.

I haven't had any experience baking with quinoa flour as yet, but I have been inspired by some of the recipes in the Quinoa 365 cookbook that is sitting on my shelf. One of these days I WILL get to it and bake with quinoa flour and share my success and/or failure with you.

This quinoa salad was inspired from 101 Cookbooks blogger Heidi Swanson's Quinoa with Currants, Dill and Zucchini recipe that made its way into my inbox a few weeks ago. As soon as I saw her beautiful pictures, I knew I had to make a version of it right then and there.

I improvised her recipe by using red quinoa instead of white, swapped the dill for coriander, used green zucchinis instead of yellow, added kalonji or black onion seeds instead of the sesame seeds, and removed the currants completely.

Cold Quinoa Salad

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 bunch green onions, chopped

3/4 teaspoons table salt

1 cup red quinoa, well rinsed and drained

2 cups water

3 key limes

2 small green zucchini,washed and grated on a grater

2 tablespoons kalonji or black onion seeds

half-bunch of coriander, washed thoroughly and drained

Heat up the olive oil in a medium-large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add in 2/3 of the green onions and cook until the onions have softened a bit. Add in the quinoa, and salt and "toast" the quinoa kernels. Add in the water and bring the mixture to a boil, while stirring occasionally. Let the mixture boil for a minute or so before turning the heat down to a simmer. Cover the pan and cook the quinoa until all of the water has been absorbed. This can take from 12-15 minutes.

While the quinoa is cooking, grate the zucchini, zest and juice the key limes and set aside. When the quinoa is cooked, remove from heat and add in the zucchini, lime zest and juice, the black onion seeds and coriander. Scoop out the quinoa salad into a serving bowl and sprinkle the rest of the green onions, a few coriander leaves and some black onion seeds on top. You can serve it immediately or put into the fridge to cool before serving.

A family visit

2011-05-26T20:24:00.004-04:00

Bonjour!

After working for a few months at home in Toronto, I decided to take a break and fly down to LA. I haven't been back here in a while, so it feels good being here and sitting on my couch. Yes, I said my couch. For those of you who know me personally, you know what I'm talking about. For the rest of you, don't worry about it! heh

As soon as I got here, I started to clean and organize things that my husband couldn't get to because of his hectic work schedule. It was important that I tackle things as soon as I landed because my family was finally coming down for a visit during the Victoria Day long weekend. It's taken them a while to organize a trip down, so I wanted to make everything perfect for them.

After a few days of cleaning and cooking, I was ready to have them here for a wonderful vacation that everyone needed. I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy that they were finally here. Sad that my father, who had unexpectedly passed away in December 2009, was not here with us. Alas, God is the Best of Planners and this is what was meant to be.

One of the dishes I prepared was curried zucchini. This recipe is a no-fuss recipe that allows you to complete other tasks as it cooks on the stove top. Prepare all of the ingredients before you start cooking and I guarantee that it will probably be one of the easiest things you've ever cooked!

Zucchini Curry

8 thin zucchinis, washed and cut into coins

1/2 cup diced onions

3 heaping tbsps minced garlic

1/4 tsp turmeric

6 Roma tomatoes, washed and diced

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp lemon juice

salt and red chili powder to taste

coriander leaves for garnish (optional)

In a medium sized pot, warm up the olive oil over medium-high heat and begin to brown the diced onions. Once the onions have changed to a pinky-brown colour (about 15 minutes or so), add in the garlic. Cook the onions and garlic until the garlic has a slight golden colour, then add in the turmeric and tomatoes.

Cook the tomatoes for 3-5 minutes and then add in the zucchini coins. The tomatoes will continue to break down and release their juices which will help cook the zucchini. Once you notice the mixture starting to come up to a boil, add the salt and red chili to taste. Stir for a few minutes and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover the pot and let the zucchini cook down. Stir it occasionally until the zucchini is softened, and the tomatoes and liquid have reduced down. Before removing from the heat, add in the lemon juice and adjust the curry for salt and red chili.

Put the curry into a dish and garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with naan or white rice.

Blueberry Explosion Muffins

2011-05-01T19:54:00.004-04:00

I have come to the conclusion, and have had it verified by several people, that teachers are pack rats. We find things that could spark interest in the classroom and have the potential to help us create exciting and invigorating lessons. So what do we do with them? We keep them, tuck them away into a bin or box and have them collect dust until that eventful day, which sometimes never arrives. And if by chance we open that box and find those precious things so many months (or years) later we don't have it in us to toss them into the garbage because we end up suffering a "What if I need it later.." moment. This leads us to dusting the items off and making a mental note of their presence, closing up the bin and then repeating the cycle again and again and again.

Well I've decided to take the plunge! I have slowly, but steadily been looking at my teaching resources and purging myself (and my apartment) of outdated and no longer "cool and interesting" stuff. At the same time, I have been transferring paper copies of units and resources that are worthwhile to keep to digital copies. I am literally spending hours at my desk going through the painful transfer process. I am only scanning about 10% of my resources because I want to be able to manipulate documents at a later date. I am HOPING that by the end of it, I will have 2-3 jump drives with CD backups of my documents and just a few bins of books.

To help me keep my energies up, I decided to bake some mouth watering blueberry muffins. I LOVE how these turned out. The blueberries stain your fingertips as you unwrap the muffin and then burst in your mouth to release their sweet and tart juices.

The original recipe on Gina's Skinny Recipes calls for the use of whole wheat pastry flour, but also gives you the options of using a blend of whole wheat flour and white flour. I just used Robin Hood's Nutri-Blend flour, unsifted. In the US, the Nutri-Blend equivalent would be white whole wheat flour. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of blueberries. Now this works fine in regular muffin tins, but I would cut it down to 1 1/4 cups if I was making these in mini muffin tins.

Blueberry Explosion Muffins

1 cup of unsweetened applesauce

2 cups of Robin Hood's Nutri-Blend flour

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 large egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. The original recipe calls for 325 degrees, but over the years I have found that my oven works best at 350 degrees.

Mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, mix the beaten egg, melted butter, vanilla, and applesauce. Add to the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is just blended. Gently fold in the blueberries with the spoon.

Using two spoons, divide the batter in paper-lined muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the muffin comes out crumb-free. Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack and allow the muffins to cool for at least 10 minutes.

A beverage for breakfast

2011-04-30T19:12:00.004-04:00

As you can tell from my blog, I hardly focus my energies on coming up with drink blends to write about as I usually pay more attention to appetizing and filling recipes. However, I think my two recent (if you call a few months ago recent) purchases of magazines that talked about healthy juicing inspired me to dust off my Magic Bullet and trying to create something tasty and refreshing.

There aren't any special ingredients in this drink, just whatever was available in my fridge at the time. The berries I used are strawberries, but I think any kind of berry would do fine in the drink. And I think a nice sprig of mint would be a nice finishing touch if you were going to serve it to people.

Breakfast Juice Blend

7-10 strawberries, stems removed, washed and cut into halves

1 small ripe banana

1/4 cup of orange juice

In a blender, blend together all three ingredients until you have reached a smooth consistency. Pour into a chilled glass and enjoy!

April Update and Cheddar Herb Mini Muffins

2011-04-14T10:28:00.006-04:00

I'm guilty as charged. I promised in March I would blog more frequently, but that never happened for several reasons. I had flown out to LA for about a week with a vision in my head. I would create something new in my SoCal kitchen as I watched the palm trees sway right outside my window, but that never happened. I ended up catching a virus on the plane ride to LA. I started to feel run down and had the chills the whole time I was down there. By the time I flew back to TO (El Toro) a week later, the virus showed its ugly head and after a visit to the doctor's office, I learned that I had viral bronchitis. I needed to recover fast because I was traveling with my family shortly thereafter on a trip with the Sacred Caravan. I was pretty much over the virus when we travelled to Saudi Arabia and was lucky not to get sick on the trip. However, it seemed like it was destiny for me to get sick on the flight back home, which led me to be out of commission for a bit. So now that I've fully recovered from EVERYTHING, I'm back to blogging with the hope that April will be a better month.

This recipe that I'm going to share with you today came out of one of the December 2010 issues of the Toronto Star. This recipe originates from Good Food For All, a fundraising cookbook for The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto. I've made this recipe twice so far. The first time I followed the recipe step by step. The muffins turned out okay, but I felt that they needed some salt (the original recipe calls for 1 tbsp of sugar and no salt). The second time I made them, I added 1 tsp of salt and got rid of the sugar entirely, and swapped the 1 cup of white flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour for 2 cups of nutri-blend flour and was satisfied with the results. Also, instead of making the muffins in the regular sized muffin tray, I used a mini muffin tin to help with portion control.

Cheddar Herb Mini Muffins

2 cups of Robin Hood's Nutri-Blend Flour (It is a combination of unbleached flour and ground wheat bran. If you're in the US, you can use white wholewheat flour or stick with the 1 cup of all purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour)

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp dried oregano (dried sage, basil, or thyme can replace the oregano)

1/2 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 1/4 cup buttermilk, shaken

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the nutri-blend flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, oregano, parsley and cheese. Stir well.

In another bowl, crack the egg and whisk in the buttermilk and oil. Stream into the bowl with the flour mixture, mixing gently as you pour. Stir just until moistened. Scoop the batter in using a 1 1/8" ice cream scoop or a table spoon into a greased mini muffin pan.

Bake in the oven for 7-8 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Remove the muffin tray from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then transfer the muffins to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Beware, once these little muffins come out of the oven, you won't be able to resist them!

M.I.A.

2011-03-11T10:16:00.003-05:00

I've been missing from my blog for about a month now. And I had a sorry showing in the month of February. All I can say is that I have been very busy and to be honest, a bit unmotivated in the kitchen department. I purchased a few magazines and cookbooks that drew my interest, but I haven't pushed myself to go through them and tag the recipes I want to try. I can't figure out why I am not as motivated as I used to be. I don't think it's the gloomy weather; grey wet days don't bother me. I was also in California and I felt the same way there as well. Is there such a thing as a cooking slump? If there is, I think I'm in one right now. Perhaps it's similar to writer's block. But I think in my case, I might have an imaginary cutting board blocking me from culinary greatness!

In an attempt to redeem myself, I recently made a hearty vegetable stir-fry with buckwheat noodles. It looked very earthy and tasted great. This recipe is more free flowing than others because I started tossing random ingredients in as I cooked. Anything can be added or taken away, the choice is yours to make.

In the recipe I used 3 bunches of buckwheat noodles. In the package of buckwheat noodles I bought, there are ready-made portions of dry noodles. If the noodles you use doesn't come like that, just estimate how much you want to use.

Vegetable Stir Fry with Buckwheat Noodles

1 bunch of kale, centre vein removed from leaves and chopped

1 red pepper, sliced into strips

1 green pepper, sliced into strips

12 brussel sprouts, chopped into small pieces

1 cup of broccoli florets

12 cremini mushrooms, washed and sliced

2 scallions, diced

3 bunches of buckwheat noodles

3 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp minced ginger

1/4 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

olive oil

red chili flakes, salt and pepper to taste

Fill a medium to large pot with water and set to boil on the stove. Once the water is boiling, add the noodles and cook as per package instructions. Once cooked, drain and set aside.

In a warm wok, add a little bit of olive oil and 1 tsp of garlic. Stir the garlic until slightly golden and then add the chopped kale. Continuously stir the kale until it shrinks in size and is cooked through. Place the kale in a medium sized glass dish and move onto the rest of the vegetables. Add a little oil to the wok (if necessary) and add in the scallions, red pepper, and green pepper. Stir fry for 2 minutes, and then add in 1 tsp of garlic, the ginger, the fish sauce and 1/2 tsp of the sesame oil. Continue to stir fry the vegetables until they are softened. Before removing from the vegetables, add some chili flakes, salt and pepper to taste. Add the vegetables to the kale and move onto the next batch of vegetables. Add some oil and the remaining garlic to the wok and add in the remaining vegetables. Continue to fry until the brussel sprouts, mushrooms, and broccoli are softened. Add the rest of the sesame oil and salt, pepper and chili flakes to taste. Remove from the wok and mix in with the rest of the vegetables.

Add in the noodles, mix and taste for seasoning. Make adjustments as necessary. Serve hot with soy sauce or sweet and sour chili sauce.

Candied Ginger and Chocolate Shortbread

2011-02-04T07:42:00.029-05:00

I first spied this recipe back in December in the Toronto Star's annual Advent calendar cookie recipe. I tested it out, ate most of the cookies and then felt the need to share it on my blog, but I never got around to it. It is now two months later (I can't believe it's February already!) and I finally got the my act together and will be sharing the recipe.

Now usually people eat a lot of shortbread during the holidays, but I say throw that idea out the window and enjoy it year round. In fact, this cookie is so simple that I will probably make it very often- on snow days, long weekends, or even for dessert when I have guests over. I must warn you though, these cookies are HIGHLY addictive and you will definitely have to hide the cookie tin from yourself if you want to keep your waistline in check!

Candied Ginger and Chocolate Shortbread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup corn starch, sifted

1/8 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cups dark chocolate chips

1/4 cup candied ginger, finely chopped

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup icing sugar

In a bowl, mix together the flour, corn starch, salt, dark chocolate and ginger.

In a separate bowl, using a mixer on low, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add in the flour mixture with a spoon until just combined.

Pat down the dough into a block. Cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment. Gently smooth out the dough with your fingers. Cut off tiny squares or rectangles and place them on the baking sheet.

Bake the cookies in a preheated 325 degrees oven until the edges are a light golden brown, 15-18 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Buttons

2011-01-21T19:51:00.003-05:00

During my last foray down in LA county, I was spending a lot of time tagging recipes to try out at a later date. I originally had an organization system under my Favourites tab, but I must sadly report that it no longer works and now my Favourites is just one big heaping collection of everything under the sun. If you have any recommendations on how to organize tagged recipes, please please tell me!!

During my tagging expedition I was exploring Food Buzz and found that one of my Food Buzz friends' chocolate chip cookie recipe was featured on Food Buzz's Top 9 recipes of the day. Sprinkle of Parsley's pictures and a quick poll on Facebook led me into the kitchen to try and make these beauties.

Luckily I had everything on hand otherwise I would have to walk on over to my neighbourhood Ralph's. I did make a few simple changes to the ingredients and I didn't flatten them out prior to baking which resulted in a cute button-like cookie.

One thing I have realized with the adaptations is that you don't necessarily get the same ingredients that I used in the US here in Canada. I wanted to make these again now that I'm here in Toronto again, but I couldn't find the white wholewheat flour. After visiting 3 different groccery stores, I realized that the white wholewheat flour equivalent is Robin Hood's NutriBlend Flour.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Buttons

2 cups white wholewheat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp instant espresso powder

3/4 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 1/4 cup of 60% dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Sift the flour (if you're using the nutriblend flour, don't sift it, just run your spoon through it to get rid of any clumps), baking soda and salt into a medium sized bowl. Melt the butter and then combine it with the brown and white sugars. The original recipe called for the creaming of the sugars and butter using a mixer, but I used a wooden spoon and it worked just fine. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract to the mixture and stir until the ingredients are all combined and you have a creamy texture. Slowly add in the flour mixture in a few batches so you have more control. This goes for hand mixing or using an electric mixer. Mix until ingredients are just combined. Add in the chocolate chips until they are evenly distributed.

Using a small ice cream/cookie scoop, scoop out the dough and drop it onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. In LA I have some disposable foil cookie sheets (I reuse them over and over again) and what I like about these is that they have pre-made cookie shapes on the trays so you can evenly space out the cookies without having to eye-ball it. And because the parchment is semi-transparent, you can see the individualized spots pretty easily. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly golden. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before you gently transfer them to a cooling rack.

Chicken Tacos

2011-01-11T19:12:00.003-05:00

Pasadena City Hall

Today I decided to take it easy and take a long walk around the Playhouse District and Old Town Pasadena. I love walking around these neighbourhoods because you never know when you will come across a cobble stoned path leading you to an interesting restaurant or a tranquil water garden in a old church courtyard.

I ended up walking down Union Street and came across the Pacific Asia Museum. I didn't get a chance to go inside, but now that I know where it's located, it's on my list of things to do when I take another walking tour of this neighbourhood. Pasadena is a beautiful city and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to spend some time here.

To have an easy and relaxing day it is important not to spend too much time slaving over a hot stove. This taco recipe is a very simple meal that only requires about 30 minutes of your time. While you cook the chicken stuffing on the stove, you can prep the other ingredients. This meal is great to serve in an assembly line style as it allows everyone to individualize their tacos. The chicken recipe I used is from a previous post with one small change. The original recipe asks you to add tomatoes, in this case I did not add the tomatoes because I didn't want to have a saucy chicken stuffing for my tacos.

Chicken Fajita Tacos

Chicken Fajita recipe - don't add the tomatoes

1 small yellow onion, finely diced

2 Roma tomatoes, washed and diced

1/2- 1 cup of Romaine lettuce, washed and and cut into small pieces

1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese, finely grated on a box grater

pickled jalapeno slices, drained (optional)

taco sauce (optional)

1 box of hard corn tacos

Cook the chicken according to the recipe linked above. While the chicken is cooking, prepare the other ingredients. When the chicken mixture is cooked, cook slightly in the pan and assemble all of the other ingredients in small bowls.

Warm the taco shells in a toaster or in a microwave for 20-30 seconds.

Create an assembly line starting off with the chicken and then the onions and tomatoes. Add the jalapeno slices and lettuce. Top the tacos with cheese and taco sauce and get ready to enjoy.

Cornmeal tart

2011-01-10T20:07:00.004-05:00

The past few weeks have been a world wind of activity which have resulted in me neglecting my poor blog. I've been creating/making/baking behind the scenes and hope to share some recipes with you in the next few days and weeks to come.

I was in LA for some time in December, but then returned back to Canada to spend the winter break attending the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Conference and visiting family and friends. My family and I usually attend the conference to listen to Islamic scholars from around the world speak on a variety of topics and gain what you would call some "spiritual food" for the soul. This conference was especially uplifting because it occurred around the 1 year mark of my father's passing. The past few years have been challenging for me and I finally feel that I have gained insight into the challenges and am now at peace in my life. Attending these sorts of conferences and lectures have made this possible for me.

One of the promises I made to myself after my dad passed away was to try to stick to a healthy lifestyle. I increased my level of physical activity from 3 days to 6 days a week and cut out a lot of the high fat, high carb foods that I ate. It was at that point that I started this blog with the hopes of tracking the healthier foods that I made and sharing it with others. Here is a recipe that I think fits the bill.

This recipe comes from the Post Science website under their ThinkFood cookbook project. This is the first time I've ever used cornmeal. At first I was a bit apprehensive because I wasn't sure if I would like the flavour, but I found it to be neutral in taste and a great backdrop to other flavours.

Caramelized Onion and Spinach Cornmeal Tart

Crust
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cold water
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 tsp fine-grain sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Filling
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
6 oz fat free cream cheese, softened
2 large eggs
1/3 cup 1 % milk
red chili flakes, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, cayenne pepper and salt together. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while mixing with a fork. Slowly add in the 1/2 cup of cold water, stirring continuously until absorbed. With your hands, work the dough until it comes together in a ball. Dust a surface with cornmeal and place the ball of dough onto it and roll out into a large circle, large enough to line a 9" tart pan. Press the dough into the pan and remove the dough from the edges. Put the tart shell on a baking sheet and refrigerate while the filling is prepared.

In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the sliced onion and cook the onions until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Add the garlic and chopped spinach leaves. Cook down the spinach and add the red chili flakes, salt and pepper to taste.

In a food processor, mix together the cream cheese, eggs and milk.

Spread the onion-spinach mixture over the bottom of the tart and pour the milk and cream cheese mixture on top. Sprinkle the top of the tart with red chili flakes. Bake until the egg is set and the top is a light golden brown colour. Remove from heat and let the tart set for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Easy Peasy Shrimp Salan (Curry)

2010-12-15T12:19:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week I had discovered some kosher fresh mozzarella balls at the store and thought they would be interesting to work into a pasta dish. I didn't have any meat ready or seafood on hand, so I ended up making a vegetarian pasta with Smart Health spaghetti, fresh basil, sliced tomatoes, the fresh cheese with the sauce it came with and salt and pepper. My husband, ever the carnivore, thought it tasted good, but would taste even better with shrimp or shredded chicken. Yesterday, I went to the grocery store to pick up some shrimp to make the pasta again, but I forgot to get the cheese. Instead of making the pasta, I ended up throwing some ingredients together in a pot and came up with this easy shrimp salan/curry. It involves a small list of simple ingredients and about 20-30 minutes of cooking time. What you are left with is a curry that you can eat with pita or over rice.

Shrimp Salan

20-30 raw white shrimp, thawed, deveined and shell removed
3 tsp minced garlic, reserve 1 tsp to the side
1/4 tsp salt
4 Roma tomatoes, cut into half and then chopped
2 small onions, diced
1/4 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup of water
1 tsp chopped coriander
cayenne chili powder and salt to taste

In a medium pot add the oil and onions. Soften the onions over medium heat until transparent. While the onions are cooking, prepare the shrimp and marinate in the reserved garlic and and 1/4 tsp salt and set aside. Once the onions are ready, add in the minced garlic and chopped tomatoes. Cook this mixture until the tomatoes begin to break down. Add in the turmeric, salt, chili powder and water. Continue to cook the onions and tomatoes over medium heat. Taste the curry base for salt and heat. Add more salt and chili powder as necessary.

Once the mixture resembles the picture to the right, add the shrimp.

Watch over the pot and stir occasionally. The shrimp will start to curl and turn pink. Once all of the shrimp have turned pink (2-3 minutes), taste the mixture, adjust for spices and stir in the chopped coriander. Remove from heat immediately. Serve with pita or rice.

Slaw it up

2010-12-09T20:24:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you, but lately I've been getting tired of the typical dinner salad with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and bottled dressing. To get some inspiration, I headed to the produce section of the grocery store after my gym class and came out with carrot slaw, broccoli slaw, cherry tomatoes and pomegranates. What resulted was a colourful salad filled with crunch and tang.

Broccoli Carrot Slaw Salad

1/2 bag of broccoli slaw, washed and drained
1/2 bag of carrot slaw, washed and drained
10-15 cherry tomatoes, washed, drained and halved
seeds from 2 pomegranates
juice of 4 key limes
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1- 2 tsp dried oregano

In a medium bowl, mix in the broccoli slaw, carrot slaw, cherry tomatoes and pomegranate seeds. Set aside. In a small bowl, juice 4 key limes and mix in the olive oil and oregano. Pour over the slaw salad and mix gently.

Enjoy!

My mom's Hajj send off

2010-12-08T13:49:00.001-05:00

Last month, my mom, accompanied by my aunt and cousin, went for Hajj, the once-in-a-lifetime obligatory pilgrimage that every Muslim must make to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Prior to her leaving, I decided to have a small, all-female gathering at my place so she could meet some people before leaving and for those same people to give her well wishes before embarking on this spiritual journey. The dinner portion of the evening turned out to be a pot luck set up in a buffet style. Dessert was all mine. I decided to stray away from some of the more healthier desserts out there and tried two recipes that caught my eye. For plating, I used a three-tier display tree that my mom had given me way back when.

The first one I'm going to share is a sour cream chocolate cake with minimal adaptation. This recipe I got from Lynn's Kitchen.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour ( You could also use a nutri-blend flour to get more health benefits)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-inch-round cake pan with parchment paper. Butter the sides of the pan lightly. In a medium bowl, stir together cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt.
In another bowl, use a hand mixer to cream butter and sugar together until light and airy. Add eggs in one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla and reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture in two batches, alternating between the sour cream. Make sure you start and end with the flour. Pour mixture into the pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the toothpick test comes clean.
Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cook completely on a cooling rack.

To ice the cake, I melted 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips with a pat of butter over a double boiler. Once melted, use an off-set spatula to spread over the cooled cake. Once the icing has set, cut into small pieces.

The second dessert item was blackberry jam bars from Elissa at 17 and Baking. Some of the adaptations I did were cutting down the sugar from 2 cups to 1 1/2 cups, reducing the sugar in my drizzle and using milk for my drizzle.

Blackberry Jam Bars

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
4 eggs
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup seedless blackberry jam**

Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons 1% milk
1 teaspoon pure almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a half rimmed sheet with butter.
Using a hand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Add in vanilla and almond extract. Slowly add flour and salt, and mix until just incorporated. Do not over mix!

Using an offset spatula, spread the batter into the pan. The batter will spread when baking so do not fret if the pan corners are free of batter. Drop teaspoonfuls of jam over the top of the batter. Try to distribute the drops of jam evenly. Bake for 20 minutes or until the edges start to turn golden brown.

Cook in the pan and the cut into small pieces using a pizza roller. Mix the icing ingredients together and lightly drizzle over the bars using the tines of a fork.

**In this recipe, seedless blackberry jam is required. I searched high and low for such jam, but couldn't find it. What I ended up doing was warming up blackberry jam (with seeds) in a small pot on the stove and then straining it/ pushing it with a spoon through a fine metal sieve.

My Kind of Pizza!

2010-12-01T14:09:00.002-05:00

I've finally got wireless Internet access in my home in Canada! As strange as it seems, I am oh so excited...let me explain. Usually I have my laptop stationed in our home office and that's where I surf the net, watch tv shows I've missed and blog. However, whenever my husband comes into town, he sets up his work laptop and I unplug my laptop and it stays unplugged for several days. His work laptop is off limits so that means no Facebook, no watching tv shows or blogging...it's so painful being cut off like that- cut off like cold turkey. I wasn't coping well, so I went and got everything I needed to create a wireless zone and now I'm the happiest hijabi blogger on the block!

This recipe that I'm going to share with you is a mish mash of flavours- Chinese and Italian with a twist from moi. Adapting the ingredients can easily be done because it's a very simple recipe. For this pizza recipe, I used freshly made, store bought, whole wheat dough. You can make the dough at home if you wish- if you do, please share the recipe with me!!

Whole Wheat Chinese Eggplant and Baby Bok Choy Pizza

1 store bought uncooked whole wheat pizza dough (not the already bake one- I find those to taste like cardboard)
1 can of pizza sauce (I only used half the can on this pizza)
1 Chinese eggplant, washed and sliced
4 baby bok choy, washed and cut into small pieces
1 cup of vegetarian marble cheese (mozzarella and cheddar), shredded
salt and pepper to taste
5 asparagus stalks, washed (optional decoration)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Lightly grease the pizza sheet or pizza stone with some olive oil. Place the dough in the centre of the tray and being to pull and stretch it so that it covers the base of the tray. It may start to pull back, but continue pulling it back in place and eventually it will hold.

Spread the pizza sauce over the dough and begin to lay down the Chinese eggplant coins and baby bok choy. Sprinkle the salt and pepper on top of the vegetables and then layer the cheese over top. Just for kicks, I created a star like pattern on top of the pizza with leftover asparagus stalks I had in my fridge. You can omit that if you like. Put in the oven until the pizza bottom has a nice crust and the dough is cooked at the centre of the pizza.

Eid Tins

2010-11-17T10:00:00.003-05:00

Eid celebrations consist of going for a congregational prayer, receiving guests at your home, and of course, house hopping to and from people's homes. Whenever my family and I would "house-hop," we would take a hostess gift of either sweets or flowers. For this Eid, I decided to make Eid Tins filled with dark chocolate almond cranberry bark.

This recipe is a variation of the one in Kraft Foods "What's Cooking" magazine.

Dark Chocolate Almond Cranberry Bark

18oz 70% dark chocolate, chopped into medium sized pieces
6 oz white chocolate, chopped into medium sized pieces
1 cup - 1.5 cups of chopped almonds, skin on**
1/3 cup of dried cranberries **

In two separate double boilers, melt both the white and dark chocolates over low heat. Stir occasionally to assist in the melting process. In the meantime, chop up the almonds. Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the almonds into the dark chocolate and the dried cranberries into the white chocolate. First spoon out the dark chocolate mixture onto a large, parchment lined baking tray and smooth out with an offset spatula. Next, pour the white chocolate cranberry mixture over the dark chocolate. Using the offset spatula, start creating wave pattens in the chocolate so you get a marble-like look. Refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours or until firm and then use a sharp knife to break into small pieces. Line small cookie tins with wax paper and fill them up with the bark.

** rough estimates

On this Eid...

2010-11-17T09:35:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, I'd like to wish everyone an Eid Mubarak or Happy Eid. May it be filled with joy, spirituality and remembrance of God the Almighty. As I prepared for today, I remembered Eids of the past- shopping for Eid presents for my family and friends, watching my mom and grandmother make traditional sweets for us and guests to eat, getting mehndi (henna) on my hands, stringing green twinkly lights around the windows and banisters of our home and of course, getting Eidi money from my grandparents and parents.
This Eid, and the one prior, has been a somber time because of the recent passing of my father. It will be one year since his passing in December- where does time go? May his soul be showered with God's Mercy and be at peace.

Sandwiches for a Road Trip

2010-10-28T16:08:00.096-04:00

I know I've been neglecting my blog for the past few weeks, but I have a good reason for it- I didn't have time. I recently flew back to Canada and it's been go go go since I got off the plane. I've been spending my days seeing family, catching up with good friends, supply teaching at my old school and a few new ones, reading, picking up an old knitting project and going to the gym 5 to 6 days a week. See...I have a good excuse!

Anyhow, lets backtrack to a few weeks ago. My husband and I were finally able to make our way up part of the Pacific Coast Highway, otherwise known as PCH. Along the way, we stopped to explore places people had recommended to us. Our first stop was Solvang, a quaint Danish town about 1.5 hours north of Los Angeles. As we exited off the highway, our surroundings had transformed and it was as if we drove right into a fairy tale. The cottage-like structures and cobble stone paths reminded us of stories that we had read as kids.

We visited Paula's Pancake House for breakfast and then continued to walk through the streets, exploring hidden squares, fountains and windmills. Solvang's streets are lined with bakeries, antique shops, restaurants, book stores and gift shops. Really, there is something for everyone.

Once you have explored Solvang to your heart's content, there are surrounding towns in the area that you can visit. There is one town that has a lavender farm. We never had a chance to explore it, but next time it will be on my list of things to see.

After our walking tour of Solvang, we headed down south to Santa Barbara. Because we got there in the afternoon, we only explored one tiny pocket of downtown Santa Barbara.

According to our research, Leadbetter Beach was one of the better beaches to visit and since it was my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, we decided it was the place we wanted to check out. I have to say, I love the beach! I could sit there, fully clothed (hehe!) for hours. We watched the waves for a while and then ventured out into the water, only to run back onto the beach when big waves rolled in. We walked along the cliffs to a quieter part of the beach where the only sounds to be heard were of the waves crashing on the beach. It was calming. It was peaceful.

Along the other side of the beach we hung out at the Santa Barbara Harbor & Seafood Festival. There were crab stands, oysters on the half shell, clam chowder, live lobster cooked to your specifications and so much more. We decided to try some lobster bisque. It was creamy and chunky and full of flavour. I think one of these days I'm going to have to try making clam chowder and lobster bisque at home.

Now when it comes to a road trip, it is important to have the all the necessary food items: drinks, water, sandwiches, fruit and some snacks. A good road trip sandwich is this roasted chicken breast sandwich with tangy, crunchy cornichon.

Roasted Tandoori Chicken Breast Sandwich

5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, washed and butterflied
1.5 cups of 2% plain yogurt
1 tbsp of minced garlic
1 tbsp of minced ginger
3-4 tbsp tandoori spices ( you can pick up a packet of blended spices from any Pakistani or Indian grocery store or you could create a blend by mixing salt, red chili, ground coriander, turmeric, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, garlic and ginger powders, and ground cumin.)
6 whole cherry or grape tomatoes, washed
salt and pepper to taste
red chili powder to taste (optional)
1 tbsp light mayonnaise
5-6 large red leaf lettuce leaves, washed
5-6 baby cornichon, sliced
slices of whole grain bread
1-2 tbsp sweet and sour chili sauce

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine the first 8 ingredients. Let the chicken breasts marinate for 1-2 hours in the fridge. At this point, you can bake off all of the pieces of chicken or you can bake a couple and freeze the rest. You can roast the chicken breasts either on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a roasting pan. I used a baking sheet lined with parchment paper because I found it easier to flip the chicken pieces over as they baked. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the chicken breasts have cooked through.

Toast bread slices once the chicken has come out of the oven. Once they're out of the toaster, wash and pat dry the red lettuce leaves and then smear some mayonnaise onto the toast. Take two slices of toast, mayo side up and begin to layer a few lettuce leaves on the bread. Then add your roasted chicken breasts. Next, spoon a little of the sweet and sour chili sauce on the chicken breast. Add the sliced baby cornichon and top it off with the other piece of toast.

For the love of bananas!

2010-10-05T02:21:00.002-04:00

I love bananas! Mixed in with crunchy flakes and cool milk, bananas are a perfect companion to my morning cereal. They are also great on their own and prove to be a refreshing snack if eaten cold.

We were going to go on a short trip to Santa Barbara a while back, so I picked up a few ripe bananas to take along with us. The trip got delayed and the bananas quickly began to show their brown spots. I couldn't consume all of them in one shot, so I decided to try another banana bread recipe that I found on Gina's site. I didn't want to bake two loaves, so I cut the recipe in half. The bananas I had were far from being over ripe. They had brown spots on them, but were still firm so when I mashed them, I had little chunks of banana. The banana chunks baked in the cake created tiny, moist pockets of sweetness that I just love.

Banana Walnut Bread

I couldn't resist eating a slice before taking this picture.

4 ripe bananas (not over ripe), mashed
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup natural cane sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a loaf pan with parchment or grease the pan with butter.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl mix melted butter and sugar. Add eggs, mashed banana, apple sauce and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until just combined. Fold in chopped walnuts. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes and run a knife around the edges of the pan. Cool for another 10 minutes before enjoying.

A Refreshing Salad

2010-10-02T15:39:00.002-04:00

I came across an old post by Heidi at 101Cookbooks where she talked about a trip to Mexico. This trip inspired her to create a lime and peanut salad. The salad sounded mouth watering and led me in a direction to create an adapted version of her salad. This salad has the tang of fresh lemon juice, the spice of a serrato chili and the creamy texture of a ripe avocado.

Broccoli Slaw Salad

half a bag of broccoli slaw, washed and drained

1 ripe avocado, peeled and cut into small cubes

2 ripe Roma tomatoes, washed and sliced

1/2 a serrato chili, finely diced

1/3 cup cilantro/coriander, washed thoroughly and roughly chopped (you can use parsley instead)

juice of one small lemon

1-2 tbsp olive oil

pinch of cumin

salt and pepper to taste

In a medium sized bowl, add the serrato chili and cilantro. Add the broccoli slaw and give a good stir so that they are combined. Add in the tomatoes and avocado. Stir gently. Pour in the lemon juice and olive oil and add the cumin, salt and pepper. Mix so that everything is coated, especially the avocado.

Some thoughts: If you want you could add in diced English cucumber, slivered almonds and bean sprouts.

Cravings of Chocolate Equals a Brownie Recipe Fit for A Swirly Scoop of Pinkberry

2010-09-28T13:42:00.001-04:00

I've begun to notice that the days I am fasting is when I crave chocolate the most. It's this urge that won't go away until I've had some chocolately goodness. I missed two fasts during Ramadan because of traveling, so now I have to make them up. I started today and honestly the chocolate cravings were crazy. I just knew that once I broke my fast I would have to have a chocolate fix. So I went through my "Chocolate" section under My Favourites and came across Two Peas and Their Pod's Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies recipe. Bingo! I didn't have all of the ingredients the recipe called for, so I decided to adapt it to what I had on hand. The end result was a fudgey brownie with a smokey, dark chocolately taste. Yumm! Instead of consuming the brownies on their own, I believe because of the texture and flavour, the brownies would be better as a topping for ice cream or frozen yogurt. And since I got my husband to pick up some of Pinkberry's Original swirly goodness, I had to test my theory. Yup....it was a perfect pairing!

Brownie Topping

3/4 cup white whole wheat flour, sifted

3/4 cup natural cane sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp instant espresso powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup organic almond butter, room temperature
1 tbsp crushed walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9" pie plate with parchment paper. You should cut the parchment paper to fit the bottom of the plate.

In a bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Add in the sugar and espresso powder and mix to combine dry ingredients. In another bowl, mix the eggs, vanilla extract and oil until blended.

Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and lightly mix together until just blended. Add in the almond butter and crushed walnuts. Stir until combined. Using a spatula, evenly spread the brownie mixture in the pie plate until it reaches the sides of the plate.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out almost clean. I found that my brownies were ready in 10 minutes, so be careful and watch those brownies.

Cool and serve on top of ice cream or frozen yogurt.

A trip to Little India and Gobi (Cauliflower Curry)

2010-09-27T15:05:00.003-04:00

This past weekend, my husband and I decided to check out the Little India of LA. It's not as big as the Little India on Gerrard Street in Toronto, but the lack of "dinginess" was very appealing to me. Now I consider myself a Canadian through and through, however there's nothing like going to an area where your community congregates to; the sights, sounds and smells make you feel like you've just come home.

We walked around the entire neighbourhood and discovered Saffron Spot, a drinks and snack stop tucked away in a corner. It's decor reminded me of Demetris. The bright pops of colour on the walls and the ice cream and falooda display cases. We didn't end up getting anything, but because the menu had ice cream flavours like Badam Pista, Fig Walnut, Kulfi Kreme, Lychee, Masala Tea, and Saffron Silk and various kinds of falooda, we knew we'd definitely come back. After making our way back onto the main street, we checked out a few movie stores, some interesting eating places and a grocery store that, from now on, will supply my needs for spices, dals, rice, flour and fresh vegetables. We were pretty giddy when we walked into Pioneer (it's the Iqbal's of LA). The quality and freshness of the produce and spices was easy to spot. Also, the fact that they had everything you could possibly need to make South Asian cuisine was amazing. I have had trouble locating certain spices and vegetables, but thanks to Pioneer, that is no longer the case!
We ended our tour with a stop to Ambala's, a desi mitae shop. It has nothing on Brar's in Mississauga or Al-Karam in Scarborough, but it will have to do.

Speaking of fresh vegetables, the recipe I'm going to share is a Gobi (Cauliflower Curry) salan.

Gobi

1 head of cauliflower, cut into tiny florets
1/2 tsp of garlic, minced
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped and browned
1/3 tsp hyde (turmeric) powder
1/4 tsp ghara mirch (red chili powder), adjust as necessary
1/4 tsp salt, adjust as necessary
1 tomato, diced
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 serrano chili, cut into small pieces
3 tbsp fresh kotmeer (cilantro), washed and chopped

In a stainless steel pot, add minced garlic and oil. Slightly brown the garlic and then add the browned onions. Cook the garlic and onions for a minute or two and then add the hyde (turmeric), ghara mirch (red chili powder), and salt. Add in the chopped cauliflower florets and continue to cook for 5-10 minutes on medium heat. Stir frequently. When the cauliflower is tender, add the chopped tomato and serrano chili and cover the pot. Let the flavours meld for a few minutes. At this point check the flavour of the cauliflower- add more salt and ghara mirch if necessary. Add the lemon juice and put the lid on again. Turn the heat down so the cauliflower is cooking on a low simmer. When the cauliflower is just about cooked through, add the chopped kotmeer (cilantro) and stir into the cauliflower. Check the spice level one more time, add spices if necessary. Turn off the heat and keep the cauliflower covered, the kotmeer will steam in the residual heat.

Serve with warm rotis.

A great appetizer: pin wheels

2010-09-24T17:33:00.003-04:00

I'm still exploring the various ways I can use puff pastry. I know it isn't exactly healthy (think of all of those buttery layers of pastry...yum!), but it is a pretty handy thing to have lying around in the freezer. If guests are coming around you can quickly whip up a few snacks with stuff in your fridge and a sheet of puff pastry.

I've always loved the way pin wheel sandwiches look because you can see all of the different layers of food. I've never tried making a pin wheel sandwich, but recently I made some pin wheel snacks using puff pastry. The recipe was on the back of the box and the picture of this perfect pin wheel was too hard to resist.

Now before I actually show you the pictures of my finished product, I wanted to tell you about a couple of mistakes that I did while making these. If you keep these in mind, I promise you pin wheel perfection!

1. Make sure you finely dice your stuffing. If you are using big chunks of meat or fruit, they will ooze out while baking.
2. Put a small amount of stuffing half way up the puff pastry sheet. If you fill it up too much and to the edge, leakage will occur.
3. Ensure that you have a sharp knife so that you can cut through the puff pastry log with ease.

Spinach and Chicken Pin Wheels

1 puff pastry sheet
1 egg
1 tbsp water
1/4 cup of mozzarella and cheddar cheese mixture
1/2 cup of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained of excess liquid
1/4 cup of cooked chicken, shredded
2 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
Thaw pastry sheet at room temperature for 20-25 minutes or until easy to handle. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Stir egg and water in a small bowl. Combine cheese, spinach, chicken, chili and salt in a bowl.
Unfold pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. Top with cheese, chicken and spinach mixture. Starting at the short side closest to you, roll up pastry like a jelly roll. Cut into small slices. Place slices cut-side down on the baking sheet. Brush with egg mixture.
Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

The beginnings of a cookie extravaganza

2010-09-21T17:47:00.003-04:00

As a kid, my mom and I would watch Sesame Street together while my sister and brother would be at school. My favourite character was the big, blue, cookie-crazed Cookie Monster. His inability to resist a plate of cookies is quite hilarious and reminds me a bit of myself. If there are cookies near me- on a plate, or on the shelf, they call out to me. I'm not joking! I can hear them call me over to take a bite into their sweet bodies and savour the feeling of having a mouth full of cookie goodness. My brain tells me to resist the temptation and be strong, but my tummy takes over and that's when I believe it is my duty, as a fan of Cookie Monster, to enjoy the cookies that are around me. It is only after the fact, that I start to feel guilty about my sweet consumption and think about how I'm going to burn off those extra calories. As Ina Garten says, "You can be miserable before you have a cookie and you can be miserable after you eat a cookie but you can't be miserable while you are eating a cookie."

Hmm. I know I can't give up cookies, or chocolate, or cookies that contain chocolate (yum!), so the next best thing that I can think of is to start making my own cookies. The good thing about this is that there won't be any preservatives or artificial ingredients in my cookies. They will only contain fresh, wholesome natural ingredients. I think this another way achieving a healthier lifestyle...(yea...right...sure...who am I kidding?).

This cookie recipe that I'm sharing with you today is a twist on my Cardamom Shorties recipe. A swap of ingredients and a change in measurements gave me these wonderful Cashew Cardamom Shorties.

Cashew Cardamom Shortbread Cookies

1 tsp cardamom powder, finely ground

1/4 cup cashew meal, freshly ground (to make cashew meal, take some raw or roasted cashews and grind them up in a food processor. Stop grinding when the cashews are finely ground- just before you make cashew butter)

1 2/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp instant espresso powder
3/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/4 cup of brown cane sugar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Mix together the flour, cashew meal, espresso powder and cardamom powder.

In large bowl using rubber spatula, beat butter, sugar, vanilla and salt until well blended. Pour into flour mixture and stir until combined. Using your hands, create small balls out of the cookie dough, about the size of a small meatball and then press down gently so a round cookie forms into a coin shape.

Bake until the edges of the cookie are lightly golden. Cool completely on the cookie sheets.

A way to handle leftovers

2010-09-17T15:17:00.010-04:00

I always misjudge how much food will be consumed during Ramadan and Eid. It's never too little, but always too much. I think it has to do with the fact that I was making food decisions while I was fasting. You know, they always say never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. This rule also applies when you're fasting. Your tummy is telling you that it wants all of these rich goodies and savoury treats to eat after iftar. However, when that time does come, there is no space or desire to eat all of that stuff. Instead, you are left with an overflowing fridge.

What to do?

I can't whip up a casserole, because well people of South Asian heritage don't eat casseroles. In fact, many of us don't know what a casserole is. The only way I learned about it was from a friend of mine at work. I still have a good laugh when I think back to that conversation. We were talking about leftovers and she asked me what I did with them...my reply was that I ate them..as is. As the discussion continued, some of my students and fellow teachers of South Asian heritage came into the conversation. We concluded that people of South Asian heritage don't make casseroles (most of the people we talked to didn't know what they were!). We make curries, and stews that involve several steps, and most of the cooking does take place on the stove top.

So, to address my problem of the overflowing fridge, I took to the Food Network for inspiration and came up with some flaky, delectable treats that traveled with me on a 5 and a half hour flight down south.

Stuffed Puff Pastry

1 package of puff pastry ( I like the ones that are already rolled into sheets), thawed according to package instructions
1 cup of shredded roasted chicken (I love this because you can roast up chicken with any blend of herbs and spices you desire and change the way these puff pastry treats taste),
2 or 3 scallions, finely chopped
1/2 cup of shredded vegetarian cheese
10-12 cherry tomatoes, washed and cut into slices

**Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

**On a cookie sheet lined with parchment, lay down a sheet of puff pastry. Using a knife, cut the puff pastry sheet into squares or rectangles.

My puff pastries in different shapes before heading to the oven

For plain chicken puffs:
Take a tablespoon of the shredded chicken and place it in the centre of the puff pastry. Take another sheet and put it on top of it and press down the sides so the filling doesn't leak out.

For cheese, onion and tomato puffs
Combine the three ingredients and place a spoonful of it on one end of the puff pastry. Start rolling the puff pastry into a roll by rolling the side with the stuffing away from you.

For a combined puff: Mix all of the ingredients together and fill in puff pastry.

For this batch of puff pastries, I did not brush them with an egg wash (egg mixed with water), but you can choose to do so if you wish. If you want to save these for another day, place the unbaked and unwashed puffs into a freezer Ziploc bag (don't forget to put a piece of wax paper between layers!) and put into the freezer.
If you want to enjoy them right away, bake until lightly golden brown. Serve with chutney or chili sauce.

**I made these puff pastry treats in my toaster-oven, but they can also be made in a regular oven.
** You can create the puff pastries in any shape you desire. Be creative!

A rustic, yet delectible cookie

2010-09-04T21:26:00.003-04:00

Eid is just around the corner and I know people are starting to think about what they are going to make. Eid is a day to celebrate with family, exchange gifts and eat lots of great treats. Also, in between the house hopping, is the oh so important Eid nap where your tummy prepares itself for the next round of eating.
When I was growing up, my mom and grandmother would always make a traditional Sindhi sweet dish called keer karkoon. It comprises of full fat milk flavoured with cardamom pods and sugar, slowly cooked over the stove for a few hours. When the milk turns a pinky colour, the rehydrated dried dates are added to it and cooked together. Unfortunately I have not had any experience of making this dish- mom, it's time for a cooking lesson!

Since there will be no keer karkoon cooking in my kitchen for Eid, I have decided to bake some cookies instead. The cookie recipe is from Heidi Swanson's site 101 Cookbooks. Heidi's site is the first food blog I followed. It's full of mouth-watering recipes that use a variety of healthy ingredients to tantalize your taste buds. Do check it out when you have a moment.

Now let's get to this cookie recipe. It is rustic, hearty and oh so delicious! It's a combination of old fashioned rolled oats, wheat germ, whole wheat flour, and bitter sweet chocolate. Just thinking about them is making my mouth water! Heidi's recipe calls for the use of 2 cups of sugar. I found that to be a bit much, so I cut it in half. I also decided to add a bit of cocoa powder for more chocolaty goodness. The original recipe was to make these cookies over sized to make ice cream sandwiches, but I decided to make them a lot smaller and used a small ice cream scoop to shape them.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 3/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup wheat germ

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsps baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup coconut/palm sugar

2 tsps cocoa powder

2 large eggs

2 tsps vanilla extract

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. I baked these cookies on the top rack because my oven distributes the heat unevenly. Use your judgement when placing the oven racks.

In a bowl combine the oats, flour, wheat bran, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder. Mix well.

In another bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter until light and fluffy. Beat in sugar for 3 minutes. Add in the eggs one at a time and then add the vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the mixture and combine until everything just comes together.

You do not want to over mix the batter. Toss in the chocolate chips and mix well.

Use a mini ice cream scoop to scoop out the batter in round balls and place them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Make sure to leave space in between the cookies. Once on the sheet, gently pat down the tops of each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes and cool on a cookie sheet.

Blog photos

2010-09-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

Slowly, but surely I find myself improving my photo-taking skills. I'm figuring out the different settings on my point-and-shoot digital camera and am not relying on the user manual as much. However, there are some days where I think I've gotten a great shot, and only learn later that it totally sucks. I have trouble with angles, and shadows. I'm also struggling with the use of flash. Let me know if you have any tips on how I can improve on these areas.

Here are some shots (unrelated to food) that have turned out to be pretty successful.Or at lease I think so!

At the Grand Canyon

Santa Monica Pier

The sky above my balcony in Mississauga

My Timmies and novel of the moment

A rose and spider at the Niagara Falls Rose Garden (Canadian side of course!)

A bite of sweetness to tide you over

2010-08-31T05:11:00.003-04:00

As the days of fasting continue, I find myself having chocolate cravings- Snickers, Twix, Crunchie. Oh so yummy, but oh so bad for the waistline. I've been holding back, but last night was just too unbearable. I had to have a chocolate fix right then and there. I quickly scoured my kitchen cupboards to find something and I came across a bar of Lindt's 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate bar. Perfect! I also came across a box of Baker's Secret Semi Sweet baking chocolate. Even better! I wanted to have some texture to my chocolate fix, so I threw together a dash of this, a handfull of that and came up with bite sized crunchy chocolately goodness.

Crunch Chocolatey Bites

1 Weetabix biscuit, crushed

2 Tbsp unsweetened coconut flakes

2 tsp almond slivers

4 squares of Lindt's 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate bar (should be about an ounce)

2 ounces of semi-sweet baking chocolate

Crush the Weetabix biscuit in a bowl and mix in the coconut flakes and almond slivers. Set aside. On the stove, create a double boiler- put a small pot on the stove with some (don't fill it up all the way because you do not want the water to touch the chocolate) water and let it simmer. In a small steel bowl, break the chocolate into pieces and place on top of the small pot. Stir until the chocolate has melted. Pour the melted chocolate into the Weetabix, coconut and almond mixture. Stir well. Using a round 1/4 tsp measuring spoon, scoop out the mixture onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Set aside to firm up. Once firm to the touch, put the tray in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Sisters Who Blog Magazine

2010-08-18T09:00:00.001-04:00

I forgot to mention in my two previous posts that I'm doing a Ramadan series for Sisterswhoblog Magazine. It's a great site to check out. You can connect with sisters from around the world, do a little shopping and reading interesting stuff. Do stop by and check it out.

Lebanese Tabbouleh with a twist

2010-08-18T08:45:00.003-04:00

Slowly but surely all of us are getting used to the Ramadan routine. This year, the fast day is longer and the time between iftar and suhoor is much shorter. I don't know about you, but I find myself feeling very full when I wake up to eat my suhoor because it's only been like 4-5 hours since iftar and dinner. Keeping this in mind, I thought I would take a recipe Nutrition Unplugged posted and change it up a bit. It's a light dish that's chock full of healthy benefits. Feast your eyes on a a not so traditional Lebanese Tabbouleh. Instead of bulgur, I've used red quinoa. Quinoa is a seed that is protein rich and contains all 9 amino acids that our bodies need. Try this for iftar or as a side with your dinner, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Lebanese Tabbouleh with a Twist

1/2 cup of cooked red quinoa (see note below)
juice of 3 limes
1 bunch of parsley, washed thoroughly and diced finely
handful of mint leaves, washed and diced finely
2 medium tomatoes, diced into cubes
3 scallions (green onions), sliced thinly
1 Tbsp good olive oil
salt to taste

Quinoa note: Take a 1/4 measuring cup and pour in dry quinoa until the cup is just half full and give it a good rinse. Put it into a pot with 1/2 cup of water. Boil and then reduce heat to a low simmer until quinoa is cooked. Cool before adding to the rest of the ingredients.

Another Quinoa note: If you can't find red quinoa, switch it up with any other variety.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.

A simple suhoor/sehri (early breakfast) for Ramadan

2010-08-14T08:14:00.004-04:00

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims worldwide wake up before sunrise to eat their suhoor/sehri/early breakfast. Depending on the region of the world, this meal can be comprised of porridge, curries, eggs, sandwiches, rotis (plain or stuffed), juices, tea, milk, water, or in my case, plain old cereal out of a box. I find that if I eat too much in the morning, it does not agree with me the entire day, so my routine since childhood has been to eat cereal for sehri. This Ramadan, however, I have decided to try something different- fresh muesli (pronounced moose-ley), cereal that doesn't come out of a box! Muesli is a Swiss breakfast cereal made up of uncooked rolled oats, either soaked in water or juice, fruit and nuts. It was created in the 1900s by a Swiss physician and was given to his patients who were on a diet of fruit and vegetables.

My recipe includes fruit yogurt and 1% milk. If you want to try something light, yet filling, try some muesli!

Muesli

1/2 cup of raw slivered or sliced almonds

1 cup of 1% milk

2 small strawberry fruit yogurt cups, Balkan style

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

a drizzle of honey

1 cup of mixed berries, fresh or frozen ( I used frozen black berries, blue berries and strawberries)

Toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium-high heat, until golden in colour.

In a bowl, mix together milk, yogurt, oats, honey and fruit. Stir in the almonds.

Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight. The muesli will keep for 3 days

Ramadan

2010-08-10T14:49:00.000-04:00

God Willing, Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting will begin in the next day or two. Many people believe that abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset is what this month is all about. But there is much more to this holy month than that. It is a time to reflect on one's relationship with God and how one can achieve closeness to the Creator. It is also a time to gain patience, perfect good manners, practice charity (not only monetary), and improve one's character.

During this month, I might not be as active on the blog. For one, I can't taste anything during the daylight hours so I won't be cooking that much. Also, I will be busy trying to achieve all the things listed above.

Take care readers,

Ramadan Mubarak!

A healthy cake that I can eat on a regular basis!

2010-08-09T11:28:00.004-04:00

I'm really excited about this cake. It's a healthy, hearty and absolutely delicious quinoa and carrot loaf cake! The combination of ingredients is quite unique and may put people off from making it, but I do recommend trying it out once. If you like it, keep making it. If not, move along. I tweaked Bakeaholic's recipe to suit my needs. The only one thing I regret tweaking is the amount of sugar. I cut the amount of sugar from 1/3 cup to 1/4 cup and I found that there was some sweetness missing. If you don't want the cake to be sweet, use 1/4 cup of sugar. Otherwise, stick with 1/3 cup of the sweet stuff.

Quinoa Carrot Loaf Cake

2 cups of whole wheat flour
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup cooked red quinoa **(see note below)
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup low fat, plain yogurt
2 eggs
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp unsweetened apple sauce (instead of oil)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Quinoa note: Take 1/4 cup of dry quinoa and give it a good rinse. Put it into a pot with 1/2 cup of water. Boil and then reduce heat to a low simmer until quinoa is cooked. Cool before adding to wet ingredients.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. In another bowl, combine eggs, shredded carrots, yogurt, apple sauce, vanilla and cooked quinoa. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Pour mixture into a parchment paper lined loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes. Double check using the toothpick method.

Cool completely on a wire rack.

A fruit blend enjoyed on my balcony

2010-08-05T15:53:00.003-04:00

What do you do when you have fruit that's over ripe and turning brown? Make a fruity juice blend. If you have a Magic Bullet or a blender, you can whip this up in no time! I dressed it up by pouring it into a lead crystal goblet and used a sprig of mint for garnish.

A Simple Fruit Blend

1/2 glass of mango juice

1 over ripe, very mushy banana

4 sprigs of current berries

splash of 1% milk

Throw in all of the ingredients above into your Magic Bullet or blender and whip it together. Pour over ice in a glass and add a sprig of mint for garnish.

Tri-Pepper Beef

2010-08-05T15:30:00.004-04:00

There are some days where you just want to make something simple to eat but not have to slave over the stove all day, especially when it's summer. This is a very quick and easy recipe that I'm sure you'll enjoy. You can serve it with naan, roti, roll it into a wrap or eat it on its own.

Tri-Pepper Beef

1lb beef, cut into strips

handful of chives

1 red pepper, seeded and sliced
1 yellow pepper, seeded and sliced
1 cubano pepper, seeded and sliced
2 Tbsp fresh minced garlic
1 tsp paprika
red chili powder to taste
1 Tbsp ground coriander
salt to taste
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup of water

Wash the beef strips and drain away the water. In a bowl, combine beef, chives, tri-peppers, paprika and garlic. Mix well and refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.

Heat up a wok and pour in the olive oil. Add in the meat mixture and begin to stir-fry. As the meat begins to cook, add in the salt, coriander and red chili powder to taste. Continue to stir-fry. To tenderize the meat, reduce the heat to medium-low, add a few tablespoons of water and cover the wok. Continue to cook this way until the meat is tender.

What started off as a cookie recipe...

2010-08-03T16:57:00.001-04:00

So I got inspired by a cookie recipe my cousin had posted up on Facebook. It was Alton Brown's The Chewy cookie recipe. I had some ideas on how to tweak the recipe and what resulted was a really nice chocolate cake- yes cake, not cookie recipe!

Chocolate Cake

1/3 cup of butter, melted
1 1/4 cups of almond flour or almond meal
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1 egg
2 tbsp 2% milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.
Combine all ingredients and put into an 8.5" tart pan. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy on its own or with a scoop of frozen yogurt.

A Summery Salsa

2010-08-01T10:28:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I flew back home to Toronto from LA to spend some time with family and friends and get my Umrah visa. God-Willing, my family and I will be going for Umrah during the 2nd half of Ramadan. Since I've been back, I've been going to my old gym 5 days a week to continue my exercise routine. My gym, Goodlife, is on the top floor of a grocery store, and because of that, I usually find myself browsing through the produce and Joe Fresh sections on a regular basis. Recently I discovered some organic berries and peaches there! I've recently made the transition from non-organic berries and peaches to their organic counterparts because I've read that because these fruits are very delicate and are eaten with their skins, the non-organic variety have the highest pesticide contamination. So..I was really excited to grab these peaches and take them home with me!
The peaches were juicy and delicious and I wanted to eat them all by themselves, but then I came across a post from Gina about an avocado and mango salsa. Luckily I had both of those ingredients in my fridge and when I saw those glorious peaches sitting on my counter, I knew I had to add them into this recipe!
This recipe is refreshing and can be eaten on it's own or with chips or Mebla toast rounds. Yum Yum!

Mango, Peach and Avocado Salsa

1 Pakistani mango, peeled and diced
1 ripe avocado, peeled and cubed
1 medium-to-large size organic peach, diced with peel on
1/2 Hot House tomato (should be on the large side), diced
1/4 cup of corriander/cilantro leaves, washed well and roughly chopped
1/2 lime, squeeze out the juice
1/2 medium sized onion, diced
salt and pepper to taste

After preparing the fruit, combine all ingredients. Refridgerate before serving.

Who cares if it's the summer? Let's make a cinnamon loaded apple crisp!

2010-07-30T13:12:00.002-04:00

Apples and cinnamon is a classic combination. Usually it appears once the leaves change colour and the weather is crisp and cool. Imagine sitting by the window, watching the grey clouds swirl around while enjoying a warm apple pie or apple crisp with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water and crave something with apples and cinnamon. It's probably my second favourite dessert out there, after anything chocolatey that is! Sadly, I don't eat apple pies and crisps that often because even though they are loaded with apples, they aren't completely healthy.

To my delight, Gina posted a wonderful recipe for a healthier apple crisp dessert. I wanted to try it badly and fortunately we had friends coming over so I had the perfect opportunity to make it! It was a hit!

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

5 medium apples, peeled and diced
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 lemon, juiced
3 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup agave nectar
-------------------
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats (not instant!)
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup (half stick) butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the apples, cinnamon, lemon juice and agave nectar until well coated. Toss this mixture with corn starch and put into a lightly greased glass pie plate. For the topping, combine the rolled oats, WW flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. Spread the topping evenly over the pie plate, making sure that all the apples are covered. Bake, uncovered, until the topping is a golden brown colour and the fruit inside is tender. Depending on your oven, this could be 30-40 minutes.

Serve right away or leave to cool on the kitchen counter. When you are ready to enjoy it, warm it up in the oven for 10 minutes at 150 degrees. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Chicken Fajita Desi Style

2010-07-24T21:56:00.001-04:00

I'm one of those people who struggles with what to make for dinner. I spend a lot of time staring into the fridge and freezer, asking myself "What am I going to make today?" Sometimes the question is answered pretty quickly, other times I draw a blank. When I draw a blank, I either decide NOT to make anything and eat leftovers, or I throw random things into the pan, hoping that it will come together in the end. This recipe is a result of this random combination of ingredients. Thank God it tasted good!

Chicken Fajita Desi Style

1 lb boneless chicken thighs, fat removed and cubed
3-4 sprigs of parsley, washed and chopped
1- 2 tbsp fajita spice blend
Stop-light peppers (1 green, 1 red and 1 yellow pepper), sliced
1 onion, sliced
4 Roma tomatoes, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp ground corriander
red chili powder (or flakes) to taste
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Take the first 5 ingredients and combine. Let the mixture marinate for an hour or two in the fridge.

Add the olive oil to a fry pan and add the chicken mixture. Add tomatoes and garlic and stir frequently. When the chicken is starting to brown on the outside, add the ground corriander, salt and red chili powder. Continue to stir-fry until chicken is almost cooked through. Cover with a lid, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Make sure you do not dry out the chicken- you want the tomatoe juices as your sauce.

Serve with plain white Basmati rice or with a pita.

Garlicky Chicken and Noodles in a Peanut Sauce

2010-07-13T17:41:00.000-04:00

This is another recipe that I sort of threw together after looking at what I had in the cupboards and fridge. At first I thought I would just mix the chicken and noodles together, but at the last minute I felt I needed to create a sauce, so that's where the peanut butter came into the mix.

Garlicky Chicken and Noodles in a Peanut Sauce

1lb of boneless chicken thighs, cut into small pieces (if you don't want to clean the fat off the boneless thighs, use chicken breast)
5 cloves of garlic, diced
chili flakes
salt
pepper
1/2 cup of unsweetened peanut butter
1/2 pound of spaghetti noodles
3tsp olive oil

Mix the chicken pieces with diced garlic and let marinate for 30 minutes. Heat up olive oil in a fry pan and add chicken pieces and begin to stir fry until chicken is brown. Add chili flakes, salt and pepper to taste. When chicken is just about cooked, add peanut butter and lower heat to a simmer. Stir occasionally.

In the meanwhile, cook spaghetti according to box instructions. Drain noodles and add to fry pan. Stir until noodles are combined with chicken and peanut sauce.

Roasted Soda-Can Chicken

2010-07-07T23:31:00.004-04:00

Yes, you read the title correctly- Roasted Soda-Can Chicken. Hard to believe? Trust me...you need a soda can for this recipe! I came across this recipe after a friend of mine posted it up on her Facebook page. I couldn't believe my eyes- there was a pop can sticking out of her roasted chicken! After asking a few questions, she gave me the link to the recipe from where she drew her inspiration. Instead of using the rub mixture the recipe suggested, my friend 'J' used Lahori Charga Masala spices. If you don't know what that is, it's a prepared blend of Indian spices that is readily available in Indian food stores across North America. If you can't find it, create a blend of the following ground spices: red chili, coriander, salt, turmeric, cumin seeds, dried garlic powder, dried ginger powder, black pepper, cinnamon, clove, cardamoms, mace and cubebs. By taking inspiration from both sources, I came up with this:

Roasted Soda-Can Chicken

Chicken

1 whole chicken, skin off

1 packet of Lahori Charga Masala spice blend

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced

Juice of 2 lemons, put lemon halves aside

1 12oz Sprite can

Vegetables

1 zucchini, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

2 tbsp olive oil

salt

pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Remove the giblets and rinse chicken inside and out with water.

Mix together the packet of spices, garlic, ginger and lemon juice to create the marinade. Rub the marinade over the entire chicken, including the cavity. Make sure to get it into all the crevices of the chicken. Push the neck of the chicken to the side and stuff the opening with lemon halves. Stuff the cavity with the remaining lemon halves. Cover and refrigerate for 12 hours. Or, if you want to make it later on in the week, you can stick it into a Ziploc freezer bag and freeze it until you want to make it.

After the chicken has marinated, place the open soda can on a heat-proof glass dish. Remove the lemons from the cavity and set the chicken upright on the can, inserting it into the cavity of the chicken.

Mix the vegetables with olive oil and salt and pepper and place around the chicken. Place lemon halves on top of the vegetables.

Roast the chicken in the preheated oven for 2 hours, Remove the chicken from the oven, discard the soda can, and cover chicken with a doubled sheet of aluminum foil to rest in a warm area for 10 minutes before slicing.

A big fan of scones

2010-07-07T22:50:00.001-04:00

I have become a big fan of scones after making this recipe. The neat thing about a scone recipe is that you can mix in a variety of ingredients- herbs, spices or cheese make savory scones that can be served with a bowl of soup or a batch of sweet scones filled with chocolate chips or fruit. Gina's recipe used strawberries, sugar and a mix of all purpose and wholewheat flours. I, on the other hand, used frozen blueberries, agave nectar and only wholewheat flour. Also, because I didn't have butter milk, I "made" some butter milk by mixing some white vinegar into 2% milk.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Scones

1 cup frozen blueberries
2 cups white whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp agave nectar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 (half stick) cup frozen butter
3/4 cups 2% milk mixed with 2 tsp of white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 400°.

In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients together. Make sure to mix the salt and baking powder in evenly.
Using the large holes of a cheese grater, grate the frozen butter into the flour. Mix in flour with hands or a pastry cutter.

In another bowl, mix milk, agave nectar and vanilla. Using a fork, mix wet ingredients with dry ingredients until JUST combined. Do not overwork the dough or you will have very tough scones. Gently fold in blueberries
Using a spoon, drop equal amounts of dough onto a parchment covered cookie sheet. Do not pat down scones. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-18 minutes, or until the scones become a golden brown colour. Remove and cool before eating- that is if you can resist such a delightful treat!

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

2010-07-07T18:23:00.001-04:00

I love eating chips and salsa. The combination of the crispy chips and the tangy salsa make for a great snack, or even a light meal. The salsa that I usually use is the red or green tomato salsa from the snack aisle in the grocery store. So when I came across this recipe on the back of a can, I thought I would try it out and see what it would taste like.

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

1 15oz can of black beans
1 12oz can of whole kernal corn
1 medium tomato, diced
1 small onion (red or white), diced
juice from 1 lemon
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced
1 tsp ground cumin powder

Drain and rinse beans and corn.
Combine in a bowl with tomatoes, onion and jalapeno peppers.
Mix lemon juice and cumin powder together and pour over other ingredients. Mix gently.
Serve with chips.

Who Invented Quiche?

2010-06-26T14:39:00.002-04:00

The French? The English? Actually it was the Germans. Quiche originates from the German ruled, medieval kingdom of Lothringen. It comes from the German word 'Kuchen' which means cake and is equivalent to an open pie. Although there are now many variations to quiche, it normally has a pastry crust and is filled with a delicious egg and cream custard and meat or vegetables. It's easy peasy and a great way to use up leftovers. Eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner..heck, why not all three?

My quiche recipe is a tweaked version of Karina's recipe at Gluten-Free Goddess.

Crustless Roasted Vegetable Quiche with Dill

2 cups roasted vegetables- zucchini, garlic, sweet potato, and green peppers (you can use whatever vegetable you want)
1/4 cup of shredded cheese
4 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup half and half cream + 1/4 cup of 2% or 1% milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of cayenne pepper or more to taste
3-4 Tbsp fresh dill, chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9-inch glass pie plate. If you look in my picture, I used a round 8-inch cake pan because I didn't have a pie plate. You can also see parchment paper sticking out of the quiche- do this only if you have to! Otherwise, stick to the 9-inch glass pie plate.

Scatter fresh vegetables on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and roast vegetables to your liking.

Layer the roasted vegetables in the bottom of the pie plate.

Beat eggs with cream and milk and add spices. Mix in cheese and pour over roasted vegetables, making sure the liquid covers all of the vegetables. If you find that your liquid doesn't cover all of the vegetables, you can pour in a little milk.

Sprinkle dill on top of milk mixture and bake for 30 minutes, or until the centre of the quiche is set, with the top and edges a light golden brown colour.

When you're missing an ingredient

2010-06-23T22:05:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I'm in the middle of cooking or baking and I find that I'm out of a certain ingredient. Usually there's something in the oven, or on the stove which won't allow me to run out and get the ingredient from the store. What to do? Well you have to substitute. I found a link ( DianasDesserts.com-Ingredient Substitutions ) that lists a variety of substitutions for ingredients that looks to be very useful and I think will become a link on my blog and a permanent fixture on my fridge.

If you come across any other resources for ingredient substitutions, please leave a comment!

Cashew Chip Cookies

2010-06-23T21:43:00.002-04:00

I've been having chocolate cravings for a few days now and I wanted to find something to satisfy my cravings and be somewhat on the healthy side. I came across this cashew butter chip cookies on Stephanie's Hope for Healing food blog and thought I would give them a try.
Cashew butter isn't readily available in your everyday grocery store. It can be found at Whole Foods, Planet Organic or other natural health and food stores. Before I give you the recipe, here are some fancy facts about cashews:

Cashew nuts are actually seeds that adhere to the bottom of the cashew apple, the fruit of the cashew tree, which is native to the coastal areas of northeastern Brazil.
They are a very good source of monounsaturated fats and copper, and a good source of magnesium and phosphorus.
Cashews have a lower fat content than most other nuts, approximately 75% of their fat is unsaturated fatty acids, plus about 75% of this unsaturated fatty acid content is oleic acid, the same heart-healthy monounsaturated fat found in olive oil. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=98

Variations from Stephanie's recipe:

-I cut down the sugar from 1 1/2 cups to 1 1/4 cups

-Instead of sucanat, I used fair trade natural cane sugar

-In half of the cookie batter, I added a dash of instant espresso powder

-I used just a sprinkle of large dark chocolate chips, it turns out that every cookie has 1 or 2 chocolate chips in it.

Cashew Chip Cookies (makes 3 dozen)

(The cookies on the left are the variation, flatter and with instant espresso powder, the ones on the right are fatter and without any add-ins)

1 16 ounce jar of natural cashew butter with the natural oils

2 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cup of fair trade natural cane sugar

Dark chocolate chips (as much as you desire)

Dash of instant espresso powder (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix in all of the ingredients in the order presented above. The batter is sticky and you will need the liquid from the eggs to help you mix in the ingredients. Using your fingers, scoop out a little bit of the dough and roll between the palms of your hand. Make the cookie balls on the small-medium size to have cookies looking like the picture, above right. If you want a flatter cookie, flatten the cookie ball between your palms.

Place cookie balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper a few inches apart. My cookie sheet has individual cookie rounds made on it, so I use that to help gauge the distance between each cookie. When you bake the cookies, you will see cracks form, that's normal. Bake for exactly 12 minutes (use a timer!) and remove and cool for at least 10 minutes. DO NOT TOUCH them until at least 10 minutes are up, otherwise they will fall apart.

If you want to add a finishing touch, you could cool the cookie completely and then drizzle melted chocolate on top of them.

Baked Yum Yum

2010-06-22T11:19:00.001-04:00

It all started with a click of a button. That's how almost all of these posts came to be..... let me explain.
Last year I started following Heidi Swanson's recipe journal 101 Cookbooks. Not all the recipes interested me, but her love of food, photography and travel had me hooked. Normally I would read her post and/or try out one of her recipes, without paying much attention to the comments that people were leaving for her. It was only a few months ago that I actually started scrolling to the bottom of the screen to read them. Some people sang praises for the recipes, others vowed to try them out, all the while leaving links to their own websites. So as I said at the beginning, it all started with a click of a button. I clicked on a couple of links and now here I am on a food trekking adventure, destination unknown. Thus far on my journey, I have filled my Favourites with blogs I want to explore and recipes I want to try. Three blogs that I have added to my must read list are: Cupcake Bakeshop, Elana's Pantry and Gina's WW Recipes.

This Baked Yum Yum recipe hails from Gina's blog. With a few twists of my own, I present to you a delicious way to eat zucchini. Gina's recipe calls for 3 zucchini, an egg white, and Pecorino Romano cheese. I used 1 zucchini (and that's because I didn't make enough bread crumbs), 1 egg, and shredded Tex Mex cheese. I also ended up changing the marinara sauce because I didn't have some of the ingredients on hand at the time.

Breaded Zucchini Sticks

1 medium zucchini sliced into sticks
1 large egg
whole wheat bread crumbs made from the thin sliced edge of a whole wheat bread loaf
2 tbsp grated Tex Mex cheese
1/2 tsp olive oil for drizzling
salt
black pepper
chili pepper

Homemade WW Bread Crumbs

1 end slice from a loaf of whole wheat bread
salt
black pepper
garlic powder
chili pepper

Quick Marinara Sauce (1/2 cup)

3/4 tsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed

1/3 cup of diced tomatoes (from a 28 oz can diced tomatoes, the amount I used is on the right)

1 small dried bay leaf
small splash of water
Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add small splash of water to keep the oil from burning. Add garlic and saute until golden, being careful not to burn. Add crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper and bay leaf. Stir and reduce heat to low. Cover and let simmer about 20 minutes.

In a small bowl, beat egg and season with chili pepper, salt and pepper. In a ziplock bag, place breadcrumbs, garlic powder and cheese and shake well. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
Dip zucchini sticks into eggs then into bread crumb and cheese mixture, a few at a time and shake to coat. Place the breaded zucchini in a single layer and spray more cooking spray on top. Bake at 350° for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.

Something to whip up when you're bored

2010-06-17T17:34:00.004-04:00

Not working full time has left me with a lot of free-time on my hands, free-time that I'm trying to fill with working out, knitting and experimenting in the kitchen. After spending some time browsing the net yesterday, I found a cookie recipe that I wanted to try. It came from Thinkfood, a cookbook that features 50 original, brain-healthy recipes, each created by a different food blogger.

I had to make a few changes, or rather adaptations to the recipe. I used white whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat because that is what I had on hand and swapped the canola oil for olive oil. I also didn't have flaxseed meal (the regular grocery store here in Pasadena doesn't have a healthy/organic food section), so I just took it out. One thing I noticed is that the dark chocolate chips make the cookies sweet, so the next time I make these, I'll probably omit the agave nectar and sub in another 1/4 cup of milk.

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup regular milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well until batter is blended evenly. Use a tablespoon to portion cookies on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, approximately 1-2 inches apart. Bake cookies for 12-15 minutes. Remove cookies from baking sheet and allow to cool on wire rack.