~ Two Great Recipes ~

This weekend was a great one in the kitchen for me.  This is a huge deal, because I’ve been sick.  Before I was sick, my kids took turns being sick.  And on top of all of this, I am 27 weeks pregnant.  My belly is huge, and it’s getting harder to reach the stove.  Nevermind combatting the exhaustion of the 3rd trimester…  Needless to state: things have been light and easy in the kitchen these past 4 weeks.

Yesterday I felt ready to take on the kitchen and get to a few projects that I’ve been wanting to do for a while.  Neither of the recipes I made yesterday are my own; although I do consider the empire cookies my signature cookie.  Even though these recipes are not mine, I want to share them with you.  Because MAN.  They are so good.

1) Empire Cookies Dear Reader, have you ever had an empire cookie?  They are simply delicious.  Found very commonly at English high tea tables, these are 2 buttery sugar cookies with seedless raspberry jam sandwiched between them.  They are then iced and topped with a piece of candied cherry.  I started making them years ago, when I was doing this fundraiser project I called “Baking for the Cure” to raise money for The Weekend to End Breast Cancer.  Every week I would bake up a different treat, bring them to my office and sell them to my colleagues.  It was a lot of fun, and these cookies always sold out almost immediately.  Without further adieu, here is the recipe that I use:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/empire-cookies/detail.aspx

2) Baked French Toast Casserole a few years ago I decided that it would be a lot smarter to find an overnight casserole that would be a decadent treat for Christmas morning, not requiring too much attention in the morning to make.  The idea was that it would allow me to relax and enjoy the excitement of Santa with my kids.  I did some searching and eventually found this recipe for baked French toast.  And oh, mother of God it is good.  And easy!  I have made it following the recipe to the letter.  I myself am a BIG fan of cinnamon, and for me, there just wasn’t enough.  The next time I made it I upped the cinnamon to 2 tsp’s, but made no other changes.  When I prepared it for this morning’s breakfast, I did not use Italian bread but rather cinnamon bread that we had in the fridge.  It was PERFECT.  I think this is the bread that I will use all the time from here on out.  Because the bread was cinnamon, I left my addition of spice to 1tsp this time.  And, I used 2 empire apples, 1 granny smith apple and 1 d’anjou pear.  It was so good.  My point?  You can play around with this recipe a bit and it will still be divine.  If you are using pre-sliced bread, make certain you do 2 layers of bread at least.  The texture comes out like that of bread pudding, and it does not need any syrup.  And so here is the recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/apple-french-toast-casserole-31167

So there you go.  I hope you too have had a weekend full of delicious food and relaxing times with the people you love.

Enjoy!

Pancakes!

Yesterday – as some of you might know – was Pancake Day.  The Christians call it Shrove Tuesday, people from New Orleans call it Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday.  I call it an excuse to have pancakes for dinner, with people you  love.  It has become a tradition for us to host a Pancake Supper on Shrove Tuesday.  Every year we wind up with 8-10 children and their parents for supper, and we cook up a mess of this delicious breakfast treat.

This year was no exception.

What was different is that it is the last year we will have a Pancake Dinner like this.  Why?  Well, because our impending move to Ajax (28 days and counting!) will make it difficult for our friends to come to our house – on a weeknight – for our feast.  So we made sure to do it up right.  We had 6 lbs of peameal bacon, 2 lbs of sausage, 3 dozen eggs and 5 batches of pancakes.  And a litre of maple syrup too, just to make the experience perfect.

If I do say so myself, our pancakes are among the best you will ever eat.  I cannot claim ownership of the recipe, though it has been our go-to breakfast treat for about 10 years now.  You see, when Mitchell and I got married (10 years ago this coming May) we honeymooned at a bed & breakfast on Bowen Island in BC.  The B&B was on a working vineyard on the island, and was so lovely it was painful to see.  They served us these pancakes, and as a wedding gift gave us the recipe.  We have been using it ever since, and I can’t imagine a time when we’ll discover a better one.  I’m going to post this recipe now, as The Vineyard on Bowen Island is no longer in operation, and I want to share a piece of our journey with you.  Here it is:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (level not heaping)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
3 Tablespoons melted butter or margarine
1/8 tsp vanilla

Method

1. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt & sugar.  Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, egg, melted butter or margarine and vanilla.
3. Add the wet to the dry, and cook them on a warm griddle (or frying pan) that’s been lightly greased with cooking spray or butter or margarine.

Additions

• For fruit pancakes, add in 1/2 cup of fruit (like blueberries or strawberries) to the batter before cooking.
• Connor loves it when we add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to the batter.  And really, who can blame him??
• I love to mash up a ripe banana and add it to the batter.  The mashed up banana gets are caramelized in the cooking process, and wow..  it’s delicious!  Also amazing?  Adding chocolate to the banana pancakes…
• My other favourite alteration to this recipe is apple cinnamon.  Cut up 1/2 an apple into match sticks, and add that to the batter along with 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.  YUM!!

Very rarely to we have leftover pancakes. But when we do, we put them in the fridge and have them as a snack with peanut butter spread on them.  It’s like peanut butter on bread, but instead of bread you use a pancake.  OMG do I ever love cold pancakes – of any flavour – and peanut butter.

This recipe makes about 10 pancakes; it’s enough for my family of four for breakfast.  Now, if you add in the banana, you’ll get about 14 pancakes out of it.  All in all, a fine mess of food.  Enjoy!

Red River Cereal ~ An Update

Hello Dear Reader, I have missed you.  We have just put our house up for sale (yesterday!) and I have been working like a dog to get this old girl all dolled up.  I don’t think I slept for about 4 days…  GOD we have a lot of stuff.  But she’s ready now, and I find that I have a few minutes to share with you again.  So I thought I would start by updating you on my Quest for delicious Red River cereal recipes.  I have tried a few different things in the last week or so, and by far this is my favourite.  Here’s what I do:

Ingredients

1/4 c red river cereal
1 c water
1/4 c raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
2 pinches salt
1 tsp honey (small spoon from your kitchen drawer, not a measured teaspoon)

Method

1. In a small pot combine all ingredients.  Leave the pot uncovered and bring to a boil.  Allow to boil for 5 minutes, stirring 3 or 4 times.
2. Cover and reduce heat to low.  Continue to cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Pour into your dish and enjoy.

This is a single adult serving or 2-3 servings for kids. You can easily increase the recipe to make more though.  Also, the recipe on the box suggests that the cooking time over low is really an individual thing.  If you like your cereal thinner, leave it on less time.  If you like it thicker, give it more time.  I played around with the timing and found that – for me – 15 minutes is perfect.  I love the creamy heartiness of this breakfast; and it truly has made a difference to my food intake through the day.  And really, I LOVE that!!

Red River Cereal

So, I’m trying something new.  Not because it’s a new year, and not because I’m resolved to loose weight.  More because, I was cleaning the cereal cupboard (who am I kidding?  The top of the fridge) and I found an unopened box of Red River cereal.  I bought it thinking that Sam, my youngest, might like it when he was starting solid foods.  But I didn’t make it.  I didn’t even open the box.  So when I found it on Sunday I thought to myself, “Self, we oughta try this stuff.”

Yesterday I followed the instruction on the box (1/4 c dry cereal, 1 c water, pinch of salt) and I added in 1/4 c raisins and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.  It was…  okay.  It was not bad at all, but it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi.  A few friends made some suggestions as to how it could be made, and this morning I tried something a little different.  Again, I started with the basics on the side of the box and then added in 1/2 an apple cut into straws, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tsp brown sugar.  Oh, and I doubled the salt from 1 pinch to 2.  And… it’s better.  But still missing…

OMG – guys, you know what it’s missing?  It’s missing that processed, instant, hardly any nutrients left, flavour.  huh…  I guess I am a junk food junkie after all…

Dear Reader, I appologize for what happened in the above paragraph.  I am eating my first few bites as I write this entry, and so what you are getting is precisely what’s on my mind.  The cereal tastes genuine.  It tastes like whole food that is nutritious and actually quite tasty all by itself.  I will keep on making Red River cereal.  Because, now that I think about it,  I was less hungry through the day yesterday.  And yes, in part that might be that we were back to routines around school, it could be too that we’re rushing madly to get the house ready to go on the market.  Or, it could be that I started my day with Red River.  Didn’t we always hear that breakfast was the most important meal of the day?  Maybe there’s something to that addage…

Do you have a favourite way to eat your Red River?  Tell us about it!  I’d love some more ideas on how to make it.