A family visit

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.