My baby's favourite colour is rainbow (okay, my favourite colour for her is rainbow), so I went with that as a theme for her first birthday (how is she one already!?!?). I know, I know, it's not exactly new anymore, but I wanted to do something cute without spending hours piping little icing rosettes all over a cake. I just don't have time to spend 5 hours making a first birthday cake that she won't even remember. This rainbow cake is a great solution because it takes about 2 minutes more than any normal cake. I used a nice sugary, buttery cake recipe that has gone over well in the past. It freezes well, so I got to make it a couple of days in advance. All I did was put the batter into 5 cereal bowls and coloured each one with different food colours (yellow, orange, red, green, and blue). 
Then I drizzled each colour into the cake pan. 
Unlike marble cake, I don't swirl the colours because I want them to all be visible themselves. 
To finish, I iced the cake with a plain white buttercream icing. I just wanted it to look really plain on the outside so that it would be more of a surprise when it was cut. My daughter stuffed as much of a full piece as possible into her mouth and gobbled it up, so it went over well with the target audience.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Rainbow Cake
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Waffles - Homemade Eggos
I really like waffles. I figure an Eggo waffle on a regular basis is probably not the most healthy choice though, so the other day I decided to make my own buttermilk waffles - tons of them! - and freeze them like homemade Eggos. I guess it may have also had something to do with the fact that I accidentally bought a big thing of buttermilk instead of homo milk. Why are they almost the same!?!? Anyway, this is my favourite waffle recipe, and freezing them and then toasting them in the morning worked out really well. I got the recipe from the Epicurious website:
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Salmon Salad
I still exist! I'm going to go ahead and assume most of our readers have jumped ship under the assumption that we did. I'm still here, still cooking and baking, still eating, just have not been posting thanks to my little one's need for attention and her love of my laptop (I need to keep it hidden or risk losing keys). This is an oldie from the summer, but I wanted to pop something up during nap time so that I can try and get back into blogging. Nothing fancy, just took some leftover BBQ salmon (BBQ'd with butter, lemon and dill) and flaked it on top of spinach and mixed salad greens from my garden. I added some dried cranberries and goat cheese because I like adding those to most salads, and then topped with a quick balsamic dressing. Yay for posting! I hope to keep it up over the next little while again since I have realized a few recipes I use a lot need to be added.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Simple Pork Wrap
Celebration! I have a new computer! My old one crapped out a while ago, and I am finally getting going with my new one, but it will take some time to transfer all my photos and files over. Really it's great though because I have so much spare time to do stuff like that - haha. I have now put that task on my husband's to do list. As seems to be the case all the time now, I have been keeping things simple on the cooking side. The other day I made a pork tenderloin crusted in rosemary, thyme, oregano, and whole grain mustard. I love making little roasts because they leave me with great leftovers for lunches. I made a little variation on an old favourite proscuitto sandwich of mine.
Basically the elements end up being very similar. I used sliced pork instead of proscuitto, a pesto wrap instead of the ciabatta bun, stuck with the apple and sharp cheddar, and added in a mix of spinach and baby kale from my garden. Simple, healthy, and easy to eat with one hand (which is a major bonus for me these days since I can now do most things around my house one handed).
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Restaurant Update
It's not like I am eating out a lot lately, but I thought that it was about time to start updating The Restaurant List slowly but surely since I have not been keeping up with openings and closings. I started today with St. Albert because it is small, manageable, and we live here. There are some new places, some that I just hadn't listed before, and some places have new websites - yay! I'll be trying to update other sections over the next bit, but feel free to leave a note if your fave is not on the list.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Chicken, Fig and Mushroom Wilted Salad
This salad is perhaps the opposite of healthy. It is, however, extremely delicious. Also incredibly easy - made up on the fly, as it was - providing you have some pretty obscure ingredients to hand. Luckily, I had stopped by the Italian Centre on the weekend and noticed fresh figs (which I had not previously tried) and my freezer has goodies like the pan scrapings from a roast goose. Fabulous, and under 10 minutes to make.
Chicken, Fig & Mushroom Salad (serves 1):
100g chicken thigh or breast, cubed
large handful crimini mushrooms, sliced
1/4 onion, sliced
1 fresh fig, quartered
very large handful spinach leaves
1 tbsp goose fat
1/4 cup goose pan scrapings
salt & pepper
The pan scrapings and goose fat meant I did not have to spend any time worrying about flavouring for the meat. To start off, I melted the goose fat in a fry pan and cooked the onion and mushrooms until softened. Those were set aside and the pan scrapings were added to the pan with the chicken until cooked through. The spinach was topped with the mushrooms and onion and those were topped with the chicken. Then I added the fig and some good bread to mop up the drippings, and had a lovely al fresco dinner.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Avocado Pear Salad
A few weeks ago I was over at Court's for a family dinner and forced(!) onto salad duty. Without any pre-planning, we had to work with what she had on hand, and also work around preferences that include no balsamic vinegar and no strong cheese. Surprisingly, this was a hit with everyone. I say surprisingly because Court's husband claims to not like pears or avocado, and my dad claims to not like avocado and cheese.
Avocado Pear Salad:
1 head romaine lettuce
1 avocado, chopped
1 pear, chopped
goat cheese
Sweet Vinaigrette: (my new go-to)
2 tbsp minced onion
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
salt & pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Melting Pot - Bad Pictures, Good Times
I think I have mentioned before that Brooke and I are in a dinner club. Last month, we hit up the Melting Pot fondue restaurant. I have to say that our little group of four had a fantastic time enjoying this very unique dining experience. A few notes to start, I would definitely recommend going as a group of four - a lot of the meals are priced per couple, and a group of four allows you to try two different cook styles, and I would also make sure you have some time to spend out - our dinner took close to three hours, and we felt like we were moving at a pretty good clip.
Seeing as our dinner club is more about experience than budget consciousness, we decided to go with the Big Night Out feature menu. It is a four course meal starting with a cheese fondue, followed by a salad course, then an entree, and finally a dessert. Although each meal is set out in the menu, you are able to change out items from the a la carte menu, and we did so that we got to try more options.
For the first course, we stuck with one of the suggested cheese dips: the Feng Shui, and substituted in one Fiesta. The reviews were mixed from the group. I really liked the Feng Shui, it was very much what one would expect from a traditional cheese fondue. Made with gruyere cheese, white wine, mirin and sake, it was subtle and delicious. I wasn't as taken with the Fiesta. It was cheddar with jalapenos and salsa, and reminded me a bit too much of "nacho" cheese. Our cheese dips were served nice and warm with sides of raw veggies, breads, tortilla chips and granny smith apples. I thought the best pairing was the apple with the Feng Shui. The tartness of the apple paired perfectly with the boozy cheese.
The second course of salad wraps was mostly filler for us. Honestly, with picking all the other dishes, we paid very little attention to the salad course. Really though, how can salad compare with melty cheese or melty chocolate? We were careful not to fill up on the salad, which was not difficult as the salad wraps had some mint in them, and that didn't appeal to any of us.
For our main, we went with the bourguignonne (oil), and the coq au vin (burgundy wine, broth, herbs, mushrooms, garlic). The bourguignonne also cam with a tempura and sesame batters. We had entree plates that were packed with selection. There was ahi tuna, chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, lobster, veggie dumplings, mushrooms, potatoes, and broccoli. As if the food and cook styles didn't offer enough variety, there were sauces as well! The sauces are a bit of challenge to remember, so I may not have each of them 100%. There was a flavoured butter, two different cheesy sauces (one that made for great stuffed mushrooms), a plum sauce, a curry sauce, a teryaki sauce, and one other that I can't recall. Darn it! I knew my memory would fail me.
The bourguignonne was generally the favourite, but it got very hot and therefore it was a bit difficult to cook the chicken and pork through without overdoing the exterior. The coq au vin was also very nice, but without the batters, it didn't rate quite as highly with our group.
Eating this way was tons of fun. We all shared tips on what were the best combos, and the cooking gave us lots of time for visiting in between. The time just flew by.
They saved the best for last. I would definitely go back again just for dessert, and without being as full when it arrived I would be tempted to eat any left overs like soup (I'm classy like that). We totally abandoned the Big Night Out for these choices, and had a very difficult time choosing. In the end we went with one Original (milk chocolate with a swirl of peanut butter), and one Flaming Turtle (milk chocolate, pecans, caramel, and yes, it was flambeed!). We got strawberries, bananas, pineapple, cheesecake, marshmallows, pound cake and brownies for dipping. Just seeing the dipping tray come out was exciting. It's hard to describe how good this all was. I was lusting over the cheesecake dipped in the chocolate and peanut butter fondue for days after. To be truthful, I am lusting after still at this very moment. Yum....
In the end, the bill was a bit pricey (with drinks we were at $60 and higher per person), but to recreate this experience at home would also be pricey and very time intensive. All in all I would say it is worth it for an occasional fun night out. Make sure you go with people that don't mind sharing, and have similar tastes as you so that you can try more. I will be back at some point for sure.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Pulled Pork
Does everyone get a slow cooker when they get married? I think slow cookers are like fondue pots that way. I seem to use mine in fits and spurts, but at the moment it is back in my regular dinner rotation. Why? Pulled pork! I love getting pulled pork sandwiches at pubs and restaurants. When we were down in Palm Springs this past winter it seemed to be the thing to have on every happy hour menu. There's a good reason for that, it's cheap and delicious!
The hardest part about this is just remembering to take a pork shoulder out of the freezer, and putting the slow cooker on the counter so that when you wake up you remember to pop the roast into it. Pork shoulders are fantastically inexpensive and manage to produce a huge amount of meat. The best part is that left over meat makes excellent sandwiches/wraps/quesadillas etc.
I generally do the pork roast in one of two ways. The first is to pop it in as is, turn it once or twice during the day if I have time, and just leave it cooking on low for 8-12 hours.
If I feel a bit more ambitious, I throw the roast in a freezer bag overnight with a rub of about 1/4 cup sea salt, 3/4 cup brown sugar, a couple of tbsp of cumin and one tbsp of chilli powder. Other than tossing stuff in a bag, it is the same as above in terms of preparation.
When the shoulder is all cooked, you just pull it out and use a couple of forks to "shred" it. It pretty much falls apart as soon as you touch it. I do get rid of a little of the outer fat if I see any big chunks, and I take off the skin. Some people might be a bit put off seeing the skin, but the skin and fat are where all the flavour and moisture come from. If you are a bit more adventurous, you can make crackling with the skin (we did this once, but over did it sadly). Cooked pork skin is tasty, but not exactly diet friendly. Also, if I don't do the rub, I will sometimes make a pan gravy from the drippings. If I use the rub, the drippings are a bit too salty to make a usable gravy.
Monday, June 7, 2010
JapaDog - Vancouver
My child is a seven month old jet setter. Already having flown to Palm Springs twice, she got to accompany my husband and I to Vancouver a few weekends ago as well. Airplanes are old news to her. She was great walking around, and that gave us a chance to see a lot more of the city than we expected. With the goal of trying to eat some interesting food while staying child friendly, we followed Anthony Bourdain's lead and hit up the JapaDog stand by our hotel.
Apparently many celebrities have done the same thing - haha!
I went with the Terimayo dog (teriyaki sauce, Japanese mayo and seaweed flakes). It was good. I think some people would find it a bit sweet, but I thought it was quite a lot like a sweet BBQ sauce, which I enjoyed. The seaweed was a bit daunting. I wasn't sure I would be able to eat it without spilling everywhere, but it was good, and not as overpowering as I feared. My husband had the Oroshi dog, and it had tons of radish on it. He found that to be a bit intense, and was feeling it all day afterward.
It is definitely worth a stop next time you are downtown Vancouver and looking for a quick bite. I intend to hit it up again next time we are there and try a different offering.
