Red Pepper Quinoa Cakes

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!

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

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

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

1/4 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

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!

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

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!

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.