Getting ready for Christmas

I know it's just mid-November, but I tell you, Christmas will sneak up on you if you don't start preparing now! I've always wanted to make house-warming gifts made of cookies and chocolate made my me, and of course, in times like these, kind to the pocket-book. I normally love giving my friends a box of Godiva (honestly, who does not love GODIVA??), but you get so little for your precious dollars. Last year, my sisters and I attended a chocolate-making class. In this class (taught by a very inexperienced chocolate-making teacher), the chocoate truffle recipe NEVER worked - we tried it twice. We were also taught - and I use the term taught loosely in this case -how to temper chocolate to create that nice, shiny coating found on some chocolate truffles.

Thanks to Ina Garten's easy Chocolate Truffle recipe, I can finally start giving delectible home-made gifts. When I found this recipe, I called up my sisters, we got together on a Sunday afternoon and made them. Ina Garten suggests using chocolates such as Lindt, but I just used Baker's brand chocolate, and it worked very well. As you may notice from the picture of our truffles, we tried coating some truffles with cocoa powder and other truffles with tempered chocolate. I do not have a formal recipe for tempered chocolate. I just Googled it and watched some videos on Youtube to try to figure it out. If you have never tried making it, give it a go, but I warn you..you need patience. It may not even work out the first time. And if it does work out for you (it kinda worked out for us), then Congrats to you! Anyway, for Ina's recipe, it so easy and delish, and you do not need to temper chocolate to make it.

Almost 30

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I was REALLY excited to try baking a new cake. So, I baked my own birthday cake. My friends asked in voices that sounded like pity "aww..you're baking your own cake?!" Yes, my friends, because its fun, and it gives me a tonne of joy. The recipe is from someone who is now my all-time favorite cook, Ina Garten. If there is a cookbook to buy, it's hers. She has a few cook books, and I am so impressed with all of them. I have two of them so far. As you can see, you can get some, if not all, of her recipes on line from the food network site, but I personally love having a glossy cookbook on hand, without having to run to the computer all the time for reference, or without having so many loose printouts everywhere in the kitchen.

So, now, I present to you Beatty's Chocolate Cake.

The picture you see on my blog is of my interpretation of the cake. It turned out beautifully. The one thing that I did not do that was part of the recipe, was put the disolved instant coffee in the icing. I think I should have. I found the icing to be slightly too sugary. I think that the sugar in the icing would have dissolved a bit - resulting in a smoother icing - had I added the coffee. Suffice to say, I will definitely be making this cake again, and will follow the icing recipe to a "T"! I hope you try it out too..you will not regret it!

Enjoy with Coffee, Tea, or a glass of cold Milk.

The Perfect September Peach Delight!

Alright, I know I said the next recipe I'd post would involve something along the lines of what most of you said you love on an all-time basis..and its still looking like its chocolate. But I had a huge peach in the fridge that just had to be used up somehow. It was quite ripe, and I didn't feel like eating it as is. I also just made a huge batch of yogurt that I wanted to use up. So I created a recipe involving both peach and yogurt. Was it EVER delish! Hubby loved it too! Between the both of us, we finished more than half of it that night. We would have finished it off then, but we wanted to go to bed with some dignity left, so we kept the rest for the next day.

Ingredients

1 large fresh peach, or two smaller ones, sliced ½ inch thick.
1 & ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup yogurt
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ cup brown sugar

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).
• Combine 1 ½ cups flour, ¾ cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Add oil, egg and yogurt. Mix this with flour mixture.
• Meanwhile, melt the 3 tablespoons of butter and brown sugar together under low-med heat until it is bubbly, sprinkle in the cinnamon. Once it is bubbly and fragrant, pour it in a 9-inch round baking pan, and spread in pan to cover. Place peach slices over it, to cover pan. Pour batter on top of that.
• Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done. Cool for about 10 minutes, and then turn over on to dish.
  
  This dessert is perfect after a heavy dinner, or with breakfast. It is light, fruity, and tastes fantastic with coffee or tea.

More Berries

Okay, so it looks like the majority of you are loving chocolate. Big surprise! I actually voted for apple-cinnamon. Its an all-time fave of mine because its a comfort food. And no matter what you put apple & cinnamon in, I find I can enjoy a generous amount without feeling too full..or guilty. Wait!! I just had a thought.. we can enjoy all flavors in one bite: fresh apple pie, a side scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with both warm chocolate and caramel sauces. mmm mmm mmm!

The recipe I am going to share with you today, however, contains a flavor I did not include in the poll: berries. The recipe is called FIELD BERRY PARCELS. I got it from the foodtv.ca website, with the intention of participating in the July cooking club challenge. July was just a tad bit too busy for me to make it, though. But I just couldn't let this one go, so I made it for my sister and brother in-law when they visited last Saturday.

Here is a link to the recipe:

• http://www.foodtv.ca/BLOG/archive/2008/07/02/july-cooking-club-challenge-anna-olson-s-field-berry-parcels.aspx

Here are my changes & tips:

• I didn't buy blackberries, so I used twice the amount of strawberries.
• I used 10% cream for the pistashio sauce instead of 18%. It worked well!
• I didn't put all of the berry sauce back in to the berries. I put only about 2-3 tablespoons because from eveyone else's comments and picutres and from what I saw from my own experience the berries were juicy enough. I used the rest for garnish.

My only critique on this recipe is the parcel package itself. When you twist the phyllo to make the parcel "knot," the knot ends up tasting like a clump of tasteless dough.

I had a bit of berry mixture left - maybe a tablespoon or two. I had a lot of the berry sauce, some phyllo leaves, and pistachio cream left over too. That gave me an idea. I wanted to see what this recipe would taste like if I made another shape out of the dough. I added apple so there would be enough for both hubby I to taste it.

• I cut up an apple into 1/4 inch cubes and added it to the berry mix along with a tablespoon of sauce.
• I followed the phyllo instructions up until just before making the actual "parcel."
• I made an envelope out of the phyllo: I put two heaping tablespoons of the berry-apple mixture in the middle of phyllo. I folded the left and right phyllo edges over it, and then folded the upper and bottom pieces onto it.
• I then brushed some leftover melt butter mixture on top, and dipped it into a plate of crushed pistachio.

It turned out beautifully, and tasted great!

I haven't decided what I am going to make next, but I have a feeling that the trend in the poll responses will have a big influence on my decision. Wink!

A Poll Request

Okay, so I want to have fun with polls while you wait until I make something else.

I would like to know what you’re all-time favorite dessert flavor is! Is it chocolate, vanilla, caramel, or apple-cinnamon?

And for those of you holding your breaths until I make something new, just know that you won’t have to wait too long, as we’ll be having my sister and brother in-law over this Saturday, and I plan to make a delish dessert for them that I’ve never tried before. So stay tuned for the recipe!

And with that, I’ll leave you with a pic of the delicious first-course segment of two-course breakfast on the dock of a bed and breakfast (The Calico Cat) we visited this past weekend in Brockville.

Its Blueberry Season!

So time seems to just fly here when its summer. Its already blueberry season, can you believe it?! Our downtown market is currently stocked with blueberries! So, we bought a basket full of blueberries, ate a whole bunch, and I made some glorious muffins with the rest. This muffin has it all: fruit, bran, flax, and a whole lotta taste! You can eat these almost guilt-free, it contains no significant amounts of saturated fats, if any, because it does not contain any butter. Just watch out for the calories, because it does contain sugar.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup *bran/flax mix
• 1 & 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil or grape seed oil
• 2/3 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups of blueberries
  

*Bran/Flax mixture: What I did was grind whole flax (about 3 tblsp - I just eye-balled it) in a clean, dry, coffee grinder. I emptied it into a bowl. Then I added some All-Bran to the grinder (I just filled close to the top), and grinded it into a powder. It should take seconds to grind flax and bran. You can eye-ball the amount you have to 1 cup, or you can fill a measuring up with mixture to the 1-cup mark. Also, you can use just bran, or just flax, or you can substitute that 1 cup of fibre-omega goodness for flour (naughty, naughty!).

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners. Combine flour, bran/flax mix, sugar, salt and baking powder. Add vegetable oil, eggs, and milk. Mix ingredients well. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups to the very top with batter. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in preheated oven until done. Makes a dozen muffins.

We keep our muffins in the fridge to maintain its freshness.

Enjoy with juice or coffee.

Finally, a Cake!

I will own you!
Thats what I was saying while I fought with my fondant on Saturday. I decided not to buy it pre-made, as I heard that it stinks of chemicals when you open it. Anyway, the cake I made for my parents' 30th anniversary (hooray for them!!) got lots of praises (hooray for me)! One of our guests even gave me props for making it without having air conditioning!

Anyway, here's the link for the fondant recipe I used: http://www.recipezaar.com/255227 .

I didn't use shortening, I used butter. And I certainly didn't need half a cup of grease, I only used half a tablespoon! Also, I tried this recipe in half-batches, so I wouldn't stroke of frustration. I heard of fondant recipies not working out, so I wasn't about to make a whole batch for nothing. Finally, I used my dough hook to start out, and then I kneaded. So much less messy. For my last batch, I tried kneading from start to finish..ugh, what a freaking mess! It still worked though. I ended up with 4 balls of fondant in a ziplock in the fridge. I made them over about 3 days.

Here's a link for the cake recipe I used:
http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=8918 .

Although what I had in my head was fancier version what I actually made - with fondant bows and numbers! - I am still so happy with these results, it was delish, and that my parents loved it!

Pesto for 2

Last night was my first attempt at making pesto. This was after I snubbed the store-bought kind this past weekend because I was oh-so-sure I could make it myself. I'm proud to say it was successful! I used almonds instead of pine nuts since that they were the only nut I have on hand. And I cut a recipe I had in half, since I was running out of parmesan cheese..there was just the two of us eating anyways. This recipe yielded enough for the both of us, and then some to spare.

Ingredients

• 25 almonds toasted in toaster-oven for 5-7 minutes (keep an eye on them, as they can burn in a blink of an eye!!). Let them cool for about 5 min.
• 1 cup fresh basil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

In a mini-chopper, or food processor, blend basil and garlic first. This is just to make sure that the garlic is well incorporated in the end. Add almonds, blend. Slowly, gradually add oil while blending (and this is why a food processor, which we don't have would work better than a chopper, so that you don't have to concentrate on both pressing the button and drizzling the oil through the chopper hole. Plus the mini-chopper holes are so small, oil was pouring off the sides and kind of annoying me!). Once oil is incorporated, you should find yourself with a nice, oily paste. Transfer to a small bowl, and mix in cheese. Tada, Pesto!

To add to pasta, save some of pasta water aside before draining (up to a cup). Add the pesto to the pasta, it will be too sticky to work with at first. Add a drizzle of pasta water to it. Do this gradually, until pesto is covering pasta. You don't have to use all the pasta water you saved. Just enough to help you cover the pasta! We added shrimp too. Hubby was impressed too! Only suggestion he made was to add a bit of lemon zest for tang. He may have a point..

Anyway, stay tuned for my attempt at making a "wedding cake" its for my parents' 30th anniversary. Its going to be a daunting task, since I will be making fondant for the first time. Yikes!! From what I've read on the internet so far, it doesn't sound like the easiest thing to do, and it may not come out. I may go to Chapters and take a look at Martha Stewart's wedding cake book, maybe she has some good suggestions?

Last Night's Supper, This Morning's Breakfast

Last night, hubby and I rented a couple of movies, "Cloverfield" and "Dan in Real Life" (I won't get into detailed critiques of them..let's just say I don't recommend either) and were anxious to make a quick, filling, and delish dinner. I (we?) came up with something I'll call BLD Toss:
"Breakfast-Lunch-Dinner Toss," and it turned out to meet all of our expectations: it was quick, filling, delish, and..the leftovers were used for the next morning's breakfast.

(Prep time: 30 minutes. Cook time: 31 minutes)

Ingredients

• 4 sausages (any kind, we used 2 German, 2 hot Italian)
• 1 onion (we used a red onion from the market)
• 2 green onion
• 5 small-medium potatoes
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 3 tbsp canola or olive oil
• 1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Removie casings from sausages and slice them to about 1/2 inch thick. Thinly slice onions - 1/4 inch thick. Thinly slice potatoes - 1/8th inch thick. Spread sausage, onions and potatoes on to shallow baking dish. Drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix a bit to disperse oil, salt, pepper evenly. Drizzle honey on top, and pop into oven for 30 minutes, and broil for 1 minute to get top browned a bit.

Let cool for about 2 minutes, and dig in!

Recipe feeds 4 people, or if its just 2 of you snuggling up tonight, then save half of recipe for breakfast tomorrow!!

This morning's breakfast:

Ingredients

• 1/2 recipe of last night's dinner
• 1 tbsp oil (olive or canola)
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put oil in to pan, put stove on medium heat. Take leftovers out from fridge, throw it in pan. Stir it around for about 2 minutes, so everything gets warmed up. Meanwhile, beat 4 eggs with milk, then pour into pan with rest of melange. Cook until eggs are of desired consistency.

Enjoy with juice or fresh coffee!

What are Mountains and Molehills in My World?

Hello out there! So, here I go joining the blogging bandwagon.

I am thinking this is going to be mostly a food blog. I want to display the cakes (mountains) and cookies (molehills) that I make! I love baking a tad bit more than cooking as it is much more therapeutic for me. Baking cakes and cookies just happens to be an outlet for me to sort out my thoughts and problems-and relax!- as I create something yummy. Who knows, perhaps I will also share with you what was on my mind at the time I was baking..my personal mountains and molehills..

While you wait for my first sweet blog, check out the brownies I made back in May 2008. At the time, I was trying to find a good recipe for our ripening bananas, when lo and behold.. I found this challenge! It was so exciting to see a picture of mine on the Food Channel's web site!! My version and picture of the recipe is the last one on the page, with the bananas!! Here's the site:

http://www.foodtv.ca/BLOG/archive/2008/06/02/may-cooking-club-challenge-results-part-iii-chocolate-banana-brownies.aspx

If you like chocolate and bananas, try them out!
PS: I am actually not a huge huge fan of bananas myself..