Saturday, October 24, 2009

Snacks

Almond butter (roasted almonds) and banana is what I eat as a snack/dessert/dinner at home (because almond butter is cheaper when your parents pay for it) - although I did find a cheaper version of it at Whole Foods the other day.

Peanut butter and chocolate (chips) - I sometimes survive on this. If it's dark chocolate, it's almost good for me.

What's your favourite snack?

Pear Dessert

Nicole made this over October Break with a few friends and it sounds delicious!

"This recipe would probably work with other fruits like apples or peaches, but pears were what we had on hand on night at the beginning of October break when some friends and I made dinner and dessert together. My measurements are just guesses, because I rarely measure when I cook anyway, and the whole meal that night was sort of spur-of-the-moment.


Ingredients:
  • Canned pears (the ones I used had been canned by a friend’s grandma, but store-bought will probably work too, as long as there is some juice in with the fruit)
    • Optional (if you’re using fresh fruit or there’s not any or not enough juice in the canned fruit): ¼ cup or so of pear juice (pear juice is often the base for juice drinks and the only part of it that constitutes “natural fruit juice,” even if it’s not supposed to be pear-flavored; if you can’t find it, water will probably work just fine)
  • Brown sugar
  • Ground cinnamon
  • Ground nutmeg
  • Optional: maple syrup
  • Ice cream (butter pecan or vanilla bean are both great choices)
Directions:
  1. If you’re using fresh fruit, chop it into small cubes before you start cooking. If you’re using canned fruit, you could chop it up ahead of time, but it will likely be soft enough to just chop it up as you cook it with your spoon or whatever you’re using to stir.
  2. Pour some of the canning juice (or pear juice or water) into a medium-sized skillet. Add probably ½ - 1 tablespoon brown sugar (I don’t really measure when I cook; you’re making a simple thin syrup, so add enough that you get a nice brown liquid that’s just shy of being viscous). Heat over medium-high heat and stir until all of the brown sugar is dissolved. You could also add a splash of maple syrup at this point if it suits your fancy. If it comes to a boil, reduce the heat just a little.
  3. Add your fruit to the syrup. Make sure it’s chopped into less than 1-inch cubes (more surface area = faster cooking time and more space to soak up the syrup). Stir to coat.
  4. Add a dash each of ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg, and a little more brown sugar. Stir.
  5. Cook the whole thing for about two minutes (longer if you started with fresh fruit, since you’ll probably need to soften it). Pour over a couple scoops of ice cream and serve immediately for optimum enjoyment.
Notes:

I recommend cleaning your skillet or pan pretty quickly, or at least putting it in your sink with a little bit of soapy water to set so that the syrup doesn't harden into a caramel and become really difficult to clean up later."

Submitted by niclark

Chocolate Babies + 1

I just found this recipe, and altered it a little bit to fit the stuff I had at home. You can hardly taste the walnuts, if that's your concern.

Ingredients:
  • 1 cup walnuts
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • a little bit of water
  • raisins
  • 3-4tbsp cocoa
Directions:
  1. Put all things in a blender and chop/grind until a consistency that will easily be rolled into balls (if it's too dry/crumbly, add a little water and chop/grind again)
  2. Roll into balls
These remind me of these chocolate balls my friends and I used to make all the time:

"Neger/Chokladbollar"

Ingredients:
  • 3/8 cup butter
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 2/3 cups oats
  • 2 tbsp cocoa
  • 3 tbsp strong cold coffee
  • coconut flakes
Directions:
  • Mix everything together but the coconut flakes
  • Roll into small balls
  • Pour the coconut flakes on a plate and roll the balls in the flakes
  • Refrigerate for a while

Peas and Degrassi

What's better than turning on the TV on a gloomy Saturday and find out Degrassi is on? Well, watching Degrassi and mixing odd things together to eat.

Hummus + Tomato Sauce Peas:
  • Frozen peas
  • Tomato sauce
  • Hummus (preferably a kind with some roasted vegetables or something)
  • Optional: sausage
  • Things to eat with it: Pasta, Rice
Directions:
  1. In a small saucepan, heat up the tomato sauce, the peas and a big dollop of hummus, and optional sausage.
  2. Done!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Lentils

This is some easy stuff.

Ingredients:
  • 1/2 pound of dry lentils
  • olive oil
  • 1 celery stalk, chopped
  • minced garlic
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 bouillon cube
  • circa 4 cups of water
  • optional: spinach
Directions:
  1. Rinse lentils.
  2. Fry the onion, garlic and celery in the olive oil in a medium saucepan (low-medium heat)
  3. One the onion is transparent, and tender, stir in the optional spinach.
  4. Pour in the rest of the ingredients and stir.
  5. Turn up the heat to medium-high, and continue stirring until it boils.
  6. Reduce heat and simmer until lentils are soft (probably ½-1 hour).
  7. That's it!
You could potentially stir in rice if you want with the lentils.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Brian's Pasta Sauce

The other day my housemate made a delicious pasta sauce that I am going to try to imitate from what he told me.

Ingredients:
  • Steak in strips (mixed with salt and pepper)
  • Newman's Own Tomato Sauce
  • Mushrooms
  • Onions
  • Salt, pepper
  • Oil
Directions:
  1. Fry the onions on low to medium heat in a pan in the oil.
  2. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.
  3. Add the steak and cook until desired consistency.
  4. Finally add the tomato sauce and cook until done!
  5. Enjoy with pasta!

Vegetable Soup with Beer

Vegetable soup is so delicious, and easy to make. Especially with Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix.

Ingredients:
  • 1 can of vegetable broth or 2 cups worth
  • 1/2-1 cup of Bob's Vegi Soup Mix (or your own mixture of lentils, pasta, beans, etc.)
  • 6oz. beer (1/2 can)
  • Some suggestions:
    • Broccoli, carrots, onions, tomatoes, anything you have
    • Mackerel
  • Turmeric, salt, pepper, soy sauce, curry
Directions:
  1. Pour in the vegetable broth in a medium saucepan. Start cooking with chopped onions if you have some.
  2. Pour in the beer, and make sure that it cooks as to get rid of the alcohol.
  3. Mix in the vegi soup mix, or own mixture
  4. Cook with any other vegetables, ham, or fish
  5. Spice it up!
  6. Let simmer together until everything's soft, and cook until preferred consistency.

Sometimes we just mess up. And then we correct it.

the other day I wanted to make a chocolate-y, delicious, fudge chocolate cake. There was a recipe on the back of the Stop and Shop All Purpose Flour for a "Quick and easy fudge cake". Unfortunately, we had almost none of the ingredients. Especially no sugar, milk, nor butter to use.
I frantically found different kinds of sugary things:
  • imitation maple syrup
  • Swiss Miss, honey
  • tonic water (don't ask...)
...and proceeded to add these things into the mixture. And for milk and butter, I kind of just substituted a little bit of oil, some peanut butter, cream, greek yogurt... etc. At last minute I added some roasted peanuts (salty ones - MISTAKE AGAIN), and sweetened coconut flakes.

What happened? It came out as chocolate bread. Not only had I added a billion different things, but it was not nearly sweet enough. Luckily I had some whipped cream to sweeten the deal. It was really disappointing.

Now, yesterday I was kind of upset by this and so I decided that I needed to make something out of this untouched chocolate bread cake thing. Oh, I guess I should add that I went and got some sugar yesterday. *Drum Roll*

Chocolate bread pudding:
  1. Grease a pan, put the oven on 350.
  2. Put some of the bread in the pan
  3. Mix a mixture of cream, butter, SUGAR, vanilla, eggs, cinnamon, coconut and whatnot.
  4. Pour mixture over the bread.
  5. Put some more bread on top.
  6. Mix eggs, coconut, some cream, and sugar together.
  7. Pour over the top layer. Sprinkle with a mixture of water and sugar to get a nice sugary crust.
  8. Put in the oven until golden brown on top.
It worked! Yes! Sweetness accomplished.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Midterms are crazy so I made you some quinoa bread

I'm sorry for my lack of blogging, but when you've only had time to survive off of chocolate and peanut butter, and things I've made in bulk beforehand... then there's not much cooking I can blog about.
Perhaps this recipe for Quinoa bread (adapted from one of my favourite blogger's recipes CLICK) will make up for it?

I changed a few things that are probably more applicable to college students who do not have things like arrowroot or buckwheat flour available.

Note: You need to soak the quinoa over night.
Another note: I do not have spirulina as called for in the original recipe, and my bread turned out kind of bland because I didn't add any spices to it. If you like it bland, then do not add spices to it. It tastes kind of like corn bread.

Ingredients:
  • 1 cup quinoa
  • 3/4 cups milk
  • 1 cup wholewheat flour
  • 2 cups of water
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 Tbs honey or agave
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • optional: spices, salt, cinnamon, herbs, matcha, green machine powder
  1. Soak the 1 cup of quinoa in 2 cups of water over night
  2. Rinse quinoa the next day and get rid of as much water as possible
  3. Mix milk, quinoa, eggs, honey/agave
  4. Pour in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, spices, matcha, green machine powder
  5. Combine together and put in a greased and flour-ed loaf pan
  6. Bake for about 45-50 minutes
  7. Yum!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Apple and Bean Stew?

This is easy, and delicious. Especially if you like apples in your curry, and if you like curry and beans. (Did you know that the curry powder you have in your spice rack is actually a mixture of different spices? Yep. Check the ingredient list out. So if you feel adventurous, mix some spices together and make your own personal curry! Once upon a time, when ACDC had a huge assortment of spices by the stir-fry, I was able to do just that. )

Let's get to it.

Ingredients:
  • Curry powder, spices, garlic powder, cayenne pepper... etc.
  • Oil
  • An onion, chopped
  • Minced garlic (optional)
  • 1 or 2 can of beans
  • Vegetable or chicken broth (optional)
  • Lemon juice (optional)
  • 2 apples
  • Carrots, peas, squash, anything you think would taste good
  • Ham (optional)
  • Coconut milk (a dash, also optional)
Directions:
  1. Fry the chopped onion and optional garlic in some oil in a saucepan. Blend in the spices, and fry the onion until it's soft, or transparent.
  2. Mix in the beans (if you want you don't have to drain them - use the beanliquid instead of broth), apples, other vegetables, and lemon juice if you feel so inclined.
  3. Stir, and cook without cover until the consistency you'd like to have. Add more spices if you deem it fit. Put in some coconut milk or cream if you want a creamier curry/stew.
  4. Cook until apples are soft.
  5. Serve with rice.
Submitted by vefehrm

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Matzo Ball Soup

Submitted by Sonia (who also supplied us a recipe of her delicious Honey Apple Bread!)

"This one is matzoh ball soup! It's not quite traditional: if you make it the proper Jewish grandma way, you'll cook the balls in water and then leave them in the soup overnight and then reheat the soup the next day. College life is just too unpredictable for that, so I've altered the recipe accordingly."

BALLS:
Ingredients:
  • 3/4c. matzoh meal3tbsp veggie oil
  • 3eggs
  • 3tbsp chicken broth
  • Dash o' salt
SOUP:
  • 2q. chicken broth
  • 3/4c. baby carrots, chopped (frozen is fine)
  • 1/2 diced red onion
  • maybe 1/2-3/4c. peas (frozen is fine)
  • Other veggies if you have them lying around (celery is good)
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • Dash o' black pepper

  1. Combine soup ingredients in a big stock pot and leave to simmer while you make the balls. This will encourage the carrots, onions, etc. to get squishy and release their delicious nutrients to the soup broth.
  2. Combine all the ball ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix 'em up. Get a BIG plate (maybe two) and form 1in-diameter balls of dough. Place these on the plate, not touching, cover with plastic wrap or some such, and stick the whole shebang in the fridge for 15 minutes.
  3. Once 15 minutes have passed, take 'em out, roll 'em up really round and nice and plop them in the soup. They will expand, so if you don't have much extra space in your stock pot, you might want to boil 'em in a pot of water for 5-10 minutes to see how big they get. You should boil the balls for about 25 minutes total, whether this is only in the soup or split up between being boiled in a pot of water and the soup.

Voila! Jewish penicillin.