Just pictures...no time to write!

Homemade Mac & Cheese with Panko topping


Clear the Fridge Vegetable Soup with Orzo

Electric Yellow Lemon Tart

Dog-bone Shortbread

Store-bought cupcakes! From a cake bakery (cakery?) in town...

I made a bunch of meals over the past few months and never had the chance to blog about them...in fact, most of the recipes I can't even find now but I just emptied my flash card and thought I would share a few of the things I found there!

Pea & Basil Soup

Things have been really busy lately but I made this soup the other night and had to share! Love the vibrant green colour...would be great to serve at an Easter brunch once Spring arrives.

(This photo is from the Food Network site but my soup was much brighter!)

Ingredients & Recipe:

Recipe and photograph courtesy Giada De Laurentiis

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 pounds (about 4 1/2 cups) frozen peas
3/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2 cups chicken broth, divided (I used veggie broth)
2 cups cream
4 to 6 very thin slices fresh mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup diced roasted red bell peppers (jarred is fine)

Place a soup pot over medium heat. Add the olive oil, butter, onions, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the peas and basil, and heat until the peas are thawed.

Place the pea mixture in a blender. Add 1 cup of the chicken broth and pulse until pureed, adding more broth, if necessary, to puree. Return the pureed mixture to the pot. Stir in the remaining chicken broth and cream. Return the pan to medium heat and cook until hot, but not boiling.

To serve, place the soup in bowls. Float a thin slice of fresh mozzarella cheese on top of each soup and sprinkle with the diced roasted red bell peppers. Serve immediately.
Enjoy with fresh bread!

Easiest, most delicious cheese dip ever!

Before I forget, I want to post this cheese dip recipe for you as it comes in very handy over the holidays! I have no photos of this as it goes in as many minutes as it takes to make! Just trust me - it's delicious!

I've been making this for about 5 years now. The original recipe is from What's Cooking magazine by Kraft Canada.

Ingredients: please note, all measurements are approximate as I lost the recipe itself years ago and this is how I make it now...by memory!

• 1 1/2 blocks of Philadelphia cream cheese, softened (light or regular)
• approx. 1/2 cup of good grated parmesan cheese
• approx. 1-2 tbsps of store bought pesto
• approx. 1/4 cup of julienne red peppers (from a jar so they are nice and soft)
• appr0x. 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

In a mixer or food processor, mix the cream cheese and parmesan until well blended and smooth. Place in a shallow dish (oven proof) so you have about 3/4" of the mixture spread evenly in the bottom. Cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes or until the mixture is no longer soft. Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Take a spatula and spread the pesto layer evenly, add your julienne peppers evenly across the pesto, now sprinkle the mozzarella over top. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown on the top (broil if required for a couple minutes). Serve with sliced baguette or crackers.

Enjoy! And thank me later:)

Christmas Cookies!

Ginger on the left, Sugar on the right

Let me start by telling you I am not a baker, yet for some reason last night, I had the urge to make cookies...and they turned out very well! My husband started out with a big sigh asking why I wasnt making chocolate chip cookies. He later recanted when he tasted the first of these! Two very easy recipes below for any of you non-bakers out there - Merry Christmas!

This afternoon I will be taking over a treat (these cookies) to our neighbours as a little Christmas gift! In good 'Martha' fashion, I have included the recipes with their cards.

Ginger Cookies (recipe from a person I "know" online - Thanks LHC!)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses (I used Lyle's Golden Syrup instead - yum!)
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves (I omitted these b/c I had none in the house)
Sugar

Directions:

Cream butter, 1 cup sugar, egg and molasses until well blended. Stir in flour, ginger, baking soda and cinnamon. Shape dough into 1 1/2" balls.
Roll balls in sugar. Place balls on un-greased cookie sheet (put parchment paper down to prevent burning on the bottoms). Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes or until lightly browned and still puffed. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes; remove to plate with wax paper to finish cooling.

IF YOU WANT THEM CRUNCHY: Store on a plate covered with aluminum foil.

TO KEEP THEM CHEWY: After ten minutes of cooling, put them in a tupperware/gladware container lined with wax paper and keep the lid on. After a couple of days, if they get hard, put a piece of bread in with them. The cookies will retain the moisture from the bread and stay chewy.

Sugar Cookies (recipe from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

My Best Veggie Lasagna Ever!

Now that I'm back in the kitchen I have been making some real comfort food. One of my favorites is vegetarian lasagna. Lately, we had been eating the boxed kind (yuck) because I hadn't been cooking but last night I whipped up a huge, fresh lasagna and it was divine! I threw this together in 1 hour. It is the perfect recipe if you are having anyone visit over the holiday season and need something that will suit everyone's taste and your budget.

Ingredients & Preparation: ("Recipe" is my own, but I just go by taste and experience)
Serves approx. 10 people

For the tomato sauce:

(you can use this one of this one if you prepare it ahead of time - http://betterthantakeout.blogspot.com/2008/08/basic-homemade-tomato-sauce.html)

• 1/2 large yellow onion, diced
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1-2 tsps herbs of your choice
• 1 large can of diced tomatoes
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• olive oil

Dice the onion. Saute in heavy bottom pot with olive oil until soft - about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute or so. Be careful not to burn garlic. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste. Stir until mixed through. Add herbs and stir. Let this heat on medium until you are ready to build your lasagna. Cook at least 15 minutes to incorporate flavours.

For the Lasagna:

• 2 packages of fresh lasagna sheets, approx. 12 sheets that are 9 x 6 inches (or make your own)
• 1 container of ricotta
  
• 1 container of cottage cheese
• 1 egg
• approx. 2 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped
  
• salt & pepper to taste
• mozzarella or mixed cheeses, grated (approx. 340 grams)

The first thing you want to do is make the sauce. After you have done that, whiz your ricotta and cottage cheese up in a food processor until smooth. Add one egg and salt/pepper to taste. Whiz again to blend. Chop the spinach up. Grate your cheese. Pre-heat over to 350 degrees.

Now take a large rectangular pan and start to layer your lasagna. Add some of the sauce at the bottom to avoid sticking. Then add 2 sheets of pasta (if your pan is the same size as mine then the sheets should fit perfectly, 2 side by side). Top with ricotta mixture so it covers the pasta and then add some of the spinach. Next layer is tomato sauce and a little mozzarella cheese. Make sure to reserve quite a lot of the cheese for the top layer. Continue with the layering alternating between ricotta/spinach and tomato sauce/cheese. The final layer will be the remainder of the tomato sauce and the rest of the cheese. You should have 6 layers.

Cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 mins. remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes. Let sit for about 5 minutes - then cut and serve! Best with Italian or French bread and a green salad.

Note: You will see in my photo I used parchment paper in my pan to reduce clean up. Don't do this. Big mistake on my part! It didn't ruin the meal at all but scooping out the lasagna = scooping up some bits of paper too.

Bun in the Oven

Well, first I must apologize for being the worst food blogger ever. I do have a good excuse though. For the past few months, food has not been my friend - at all. The mere thought of picking up a recipe made me feel sick so instead of blogging about my boxed mac & cheese or white rice dinners, I decided to keep quiet.

The truth is we are expecting our first baby (yay!) and I have only managed to get back in the kitchen in the past week or so. Now my issues are forgetting crucial parts of the recipe or preparing certain ingredients and leaving them on the counter without ever adding them to the meal! It's also much harder to be creative in the kitchen when suffering from "baby brain". Luckily my sister-in-law gave me an amazing cookbook (ReBar Modern Food Cookbook - www.rebarmodernfood.com) the last time she visited and it has provided me with some inspiration! Thanks B!

This week I have ventured to make Vegetarian Enchiladas (at the request of my poor husband who has been starving for months) and Soba Noodles with shrimp & broccoli. With the holidays just around the corner I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of things.

So, many thanks to those of you who are still reading my blog even though I am such a slacker:)

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Laugh all you like, but until last week, I'd never made a carrot cake. It's one of my favorite desserts to eat so why have I never baked one before? No one knows. Thanks to Amber's Delectable Delights (http://amberskitchen.blogspot.com) for answering my online call for a great recipe. I have copied the recipe below just as Amber sent it to me. It is originally from Baking Illustrated by Cooks Illustrated.

If you need some sort of orange dessert for the fall/Halloween season coming, this would be ideal! Add some scary bugs made out of jube jubes and licorice string on top for some spooky flair! ;)

Ingredients & Preparation (recipe from Amber's Delectable Delights & original from Baking Illustrated). If you like nuts in your cake, stir in 1 1/2 cups of toasted chopped pecans or walnuts into the batter, along with the carrots. Raisins are also a good addition. 1 cup can be added with the carrots. If you add both nuts & raisins, your cake will need an extra 10-12 minutes in the oven. Below are instructions for using a hand-held or standing mixer.

• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (12 1/2 ounces)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (I didn't have cloves so they were not used in my version)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 pound medium carrots (6 to 7 carrots), peeled (I used organic)
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (10 1/2 ounces)
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil , safflower oil, or canola oil

Cream Cheese Icing

• 8 ounces cream cheese , softened but still cool
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter softened, but still cool
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
  

Directions

1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 13 by 9-inch baking pan (or 2, 9" round cake pans) with nonstick cooking spray. Line bottom of pan with parchment and spray parchment.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in large bowl; set aside.

3. In food processor fitted with large shredding disk, shred carrots (you should have about 3 cups); transfer carrots to bowl and set aside. Wipe out food processor workbowl and fit with metal blade. Process granulated and brown sugars and eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds. With machine running, add oil through feed tube in steady stream. Process until mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 seconds longer. Scrape mixture into medium bowl. Stir in carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain. Pour into prepared pan and bake until toothpick or skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking time. Cool cake to room temperature in pan on wire rack, about 2 hours.

4. For the frosting: When cake is cool, process cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla in clean food processor workbowl until combined, about 5 seconds, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula as needed. Add confectioners' sugar and process until smooth, about 10 seconds.

5. Run paring knife around edge of cake to loosen from pan. Invert cake onto wire rack, peel off parchment, then invert again onto serving platter. Using icing spatula, spread frosting evenly over surface of cake. Cut into squares and serve. (Cover leftovers and refrigerate for up to 3 days.)

Elk you say?

Well, me and the husb have not been eating meat for the past few months. I did promise way back if we ever found someone selling pastured, antibiotic/hormone free meat where we could meet and talk with the farmer and the animal was not killed in a commercial slaughter house we could buy some. Well, the husb's prayers were answered. He got himself some spicy elk sausage the other day at the Brickwork's Farmer's Market in Toronto. The animal is killed in a local, Mennonite abattoir and the meat is also processed/flavoured there as well...

Here is a snippet from the farm's website about what they do:

"At Glen Ewen Springs, we strive as a family owned farm to provide a safe and natural setting for our Red Deer & Canadian Elk to live. We pride ourselves on providing a naturally raised animal and using no hormones, steroids, pesticides, herbicides or growth enhancers. Our feeding program includes seasonal pasture, alfalfa forage, natural grains and minerals. Our venison products are also antibiotic free."

So, while I am not big on the idea of eating any meat at all the husb was happy to have some animal protein back in his life for at least that one day. No need for the recipe as it is a straight forward pasta. If you ever get your hands on some elk sausage try and be more creative than I was with this dish! I did add some amazing organic King oyster mushrooms, also from the Brickwork's Farmer's Market, which were divine.

Rudolph is a Reindeer, right? Just checking.