Six New Recipes

We are obviously better at cooking and eating than we are at writing and blogging. Here is a quick synopsis of the latest recipes.

Number 34 and 35 were from  “Grilled Cheese Kitchen” by Heidi Gibson and Nate Pollak.
Farmer’s Breakfast Grilled Cheese with potatoes, cheddar cheese, egg and bacon.

 

Mushroom Gruyere Grilled Cheese with potato, leek, mushrooms, Gruyere cheese, and fried in thyme butter. The potato, leek and herb butter are great additions to any grilled sandwich.

Numbers 36 and 37 are from Williams-Sonoma “One Pot of the Day”.

Broccoli, Pesto and Smoked Mozzarella Strata.

Baked Gnocchi with Taleggio, Pancetta and Sage. So simple, so good.

Number 38 is from “Good Food, Good Life” by Curtis Stone.

Potato and Zucchini Enchiladas. These were really good.

Number 39 is Lemon Curd from our own lemons! Lemons from Ontario!

Only 13 more recipes to go and it’s baking season! Yay! We are stocked up on butter and sugar and have a big bake planned for the weekend 🙂

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheryl and Becky

 

Light up the Square

We are just back from Celebration Square for the annual tree lighting ceremony. It’s the first festive event of the season. 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Cheryl and Becky

Harvest Salad With Maple Vinaigrette

This is the first recipe in Jamie Deen’s “Good Food” book. 

Peel and chop a butternut squash, or a couple of sweet potatoes, into cubes, drizzle with oil and season. Bake at 200C/400F for 30 minutes. 

Let it cool. Make the dressing by mixing half a shallot, minced/grated, 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp maple syrup, 1 tsp Dijon mustard and 3 tbsp olive oil. 

When you are ready, mix half the squash, 3 cups mixed greens, 1 cup seedless grapes, halved, 1/2 cup crumbled feta and 1/2 cup chopped pistachios/pecans. Drizzle the maple vinaigrette over the top and mix everything together. 

We used about half of the ingredients and found that the amount of dressing was about right, so you may want to double the quantity of vinaigrette if you make this for four. We had this with meatballs and loved it. So good! This is a winner! We loved the textures and flavours but also loved that there was lots of roast squash leftover to make another meal. 

Enjoy!

Cheryl and Becky 

Cleaning Out the Fridge!

We had food in the fridge, but there didn’t seem to be enough of anything to make a meal. What to do? Look up some new recipes! We had one orange, one avocado, a bit of lettuce, and two and a half apples. Weird, right. First, for recipe 31, we made a salad using a recipe from “Salad Days” by Amy Pennington. It’s supposed to have celery instead of lettuce, which apparently stays crisp all day if you want to pack it for a lunch. Anyway, chop your celery or lettuce, cube an avocado, and cut the peel off the orange and remove the segments from the membranes.  You want to keep the juice that comes off. Mix the juice, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, 1/2 tsp honey, and chili flakes. Stir in the avocado, orange and celery, or lettuce. Season with salt and pepper.

 

So far so good. Then we tried to find something for the apples and came across a “River Cottage Everyday” recipe for an Almond Apple Pudding Cake for recipe 32. It calls for 4 apples, but the varieties it suggest are quite small like Cox’s, so I figured we would be okay with our larger Macintosh’s. Peel, core and slice the apples, not too thin. melt about a tbsp butter in a frying pan, and then add a tbsp sugar. We added some cinnamon. When it is bubbling start adding the apples.  We did our in two batches. Fry them for roughly 5 minutes until they start to brown and are slightly softened. COOL!

These were delicious on their own. Beat 150g/1/2 cup butter with 125g/1/2 cup sugar until fluffy. Add two eggs, one at a time, beating well inbetween. Add 75g self-raising flour, or 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour with a scant 1tsp baking powder. Also add 75g/ just under 1 cup ground almonds. Pour into a prepared 20cm/8 inch springform tin. Place the apples on top, with any juices, and bake at 170C/340F (I think) for 45-50 minutes or when a skewer comes out clean. Serve warm with cream, custard, or ice cream, or cold for a coffee morning.

This was a really moist, delicious cake, and there were leftover cooked apples for waffles 🙂 What a great recipe. We will try this again with peaches or plums, or maybe even grapes. Gosh, we have missed baking!

Apologies for the poor photos. The light this time of year is dismal some days, and I tried using my iPod instead of my iPhone, but the lens was not as good. Thanks for stopping by…

Cheryl and Becky

End of Season Tomatoes

We had a pile of very ripe tomatoes and decided to make a roast tomato sauce as our thirtieth new recipe this year. We got the recipe from a great book called “Small-Batch Preserving” by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. 

They used cilantro which we didn’t have, so we used rosemary and thyme instead. Quarter 10 plum tomatoes. Ours are heirloom tomatoes. Put them in a roasting pan with 10 cloves garlic, peeled, piece hot pepper, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, mustard seeds, salt and pepper. We just used fennel seeds. 

Roast at 180C/350F for 35 minutes. We left them for an hour. 

Blend in a food processor and place in containers to store in the fridge or freezer. Becky added olives to ours and served it with pasta. 

Delish! 

Another simple recipe that is tasty and versatile.  

Cheryl and Becky

Gnocchi with Sage Butter

If someone put a potato and half an egg on a plate and told you it was your dinner, what would you think? A plate of gnocchi is exactly that. How can so little be so good and so filling? We had this recipe on our radar for at least two years. I’m so glad we finally made it; Gnocchi with Sage Butter based on a Gordon Ramsay recipe. 

Cook two medium potatoes. While they are still warm finely grate them. Add an egg and about 1/4 cup of flour. 

Mix and keep adding flour from another 1/2 cup until you have a dough. 

Flatten it to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into squares. Put a thumbprint into each one.  

Dust with more flour and leave to rest for 20 minutes. Add the gnocchi in batches to a pot of boiling water. They will float when they are ready. Fish them out and put aside. Fry them in butter until they start to brown. Add some chopped sage. Divide onto two plates.  Season and add grated Parmesan. 

We both loved the recipe. Just the thing for a cold rainy evening. 

Cheryl and Becky

So Far Behind!

I think we are past the point where we can catch up with everything, so this will be a quick post listing new recipes we have made for this years challenge.

Number 20, sauerkraut

Number 21, Sauerkraut, ham and potato  casserole

Number 22, honey chicken fajitas

Number 23, Shrimp in peanut sauce with zucchini noodles

Number 24, zucchini mushroom lasagne

Number 25, zucchini blossom and ricotta cheese frittata

Number 26, Slow cooker pumpkin and mushroom vegetarian lasagne

Number 27, peach galette

Number 28, S’mores brownies

Phew! I think we are back on track and back into a routine starting this week. We will be catching up with everyone’s blogs during the week.

Cheryl and Becky

 

So much to do!

The last 5-6 weeks have been very busy. We have cooked but I haven’t had time to write up the recipes. We’ve also been on a road trip to Thunder Bay, which was wonderful. 

Sault Ste. Marie

Down a nickel mine, Sudbury 

The Big Nickel, Sudbury 

Roberta Bondar park, Sault Ste. Marie 

Misty morning north of Sault Ste. Marie 

The Big Goose at Wawa

Terry Fox Memorial, Thunder Bay 

Thunder Bay

Lake Superior, Thunder Bay

Kakabeca Falls

Kakabeca Falls

Hope you are all having a great summer!

Cheryl and Becky 

Summer Soup

Our garden is finally producing some food after a very slow start, so we used some of our garden stash to make Squash Blossom Soup from “Pati’s Mexican Table” by Pati Jinich. We call them zucchini and the English call them courgettes, but whatever you call them, in the right conditions the plants can provide large amounts of fresh food. Typically, the flowers rot overnight, but this year we have been able to pick some in good condition. We have never cooked with them before and we probably have never eaten them before, so this recipe is perfect for number 19 of our challenge. 

Chop an onion and fry for 5 minutes. Wash, drain and chop 4 cups zucchini blossom. We had less than a quarter of that. Add to the onion and cook for a couple of minutes. Season. Transfer to a bowl. 

Char and peel a poblano pepper. Remove stem and seeds and cut into strips or chop. Fry in a little butter. Add 2 cups (325g) chopped zucchini and 1 cup corn. 

Now add 2 cups stock, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, purée half the onion and blossom with 125 ml milk. Add to the stock with the remaining onion and blossom. We let ours cool down a little before serving with fresh whole wheat bread. 

We both loved it! Who knew flowers could be so good?

Cheryl and Becky

Slow and Steady

We’re changing pace for the next two recipes. We found this wonderful slow cooker recipe book by Ricardo called “Slower is Better”. We can use our slow cooker in the basement which stops the house heating up. Plug in two or three and you have a complete meal ready when you get home, plus some extra for the freezer. 

First we made Lentil and Mushroom Spaghetti Sauce. Slice 1 onion, chop 1lb mushrooms and 2 cloves of garlic and fry in olive oil. Chop 2 carrots and 2 stalks celery. Put the fried mushroom mixture into the slow cooker with the carrots and celery, 1 cup (210g) brown lentils, 5 cups (1.25 litres) tomato sauce and 1 cup (250 ml) vegetable stock. Season. Turn on low for 6 hours. 

We had this with pasta and it was very good. We were able to preserve the remaining sauce in jars instead of freezing. 

Today Becky was at her new art program, so I decided to make Breakfast Potatoes. Cut up 3 lbs/1.4 kg unpeeled red potatoes into 2 inch chunks and put them in the slow cooker. Pour 3 tbsp melted butter over them. Sprinkle with 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp chili power, 1 tsp dried oregano and 1/2 tsp onion powder. Stir and turn to low for 8 hours. We only had 1 lb potatoes and used garlic powder and paprika. They cooked in about 4 hours so I just switched to ‘warm’ setting. 

We just had to heat up the spaghetti sauce and dinner was ready. 

We enjoyed a hearty meal with very little effort and kept the house cool. There’s a recipe for an omelette to go with the potatoes, which looks really good and there’s also a recipe for scalloped potatoes which is going on our list of recipes to try. 

Becky started an art program 2 days a week and is loving it.  So far she has brought home a beautiful bookmark for me…

…and a planter for her room. 

We hope you are all having a good week. 

Cheryl and Becky