I'm back

I haven't been posting in the last little while since my life has become very entrenched in studying for an up coming licencing exam.  Plus, my self esteem hit a bump, although, I am not actually sure what that bump was.  I decided that I need to start looking after myself, especially since I have had this stupid cold for almost 2 weeks and I am running out of energy and I ran out of patience last week.  So I started with my breakfast which is the easiest meal to get better but also one that is fairly easy to not have time for.

I bought some vanilla almond milk last week and thought that I would like to substitute that for milk.  Well it so didn't work in my tea, but it worked really well in my oatmeal.  So I vamped up my oatmeal.   

Morning Kick Start Oatmeal

1/3 cup Old Fashioned Oats

2/3 cup Almond Milk

Sprinkle of Cinnamon

0.5 oz (about 10) Almonds, chopped

1 small box  (14g) Raisins

1 tbsp Unsweetened Coconut

Place all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and cook on high 1 1/2 minutes.  Let stand 1 minutes and then enjoy.

Simple but filling.

Recently, I have been truly interested in anything butternut squash relate,  I have made 3 different lasagnas and tonight concoction is a Roasted Butternut Squash, Red Lentil and Chickpea Curry served on a bed of sauteed Kale.

For this Kale I sauteed it in the bacon drippings from the kids breakfast this morning, delicious.

There is nothing better then roasted butternut squash; I knew I was putting it in the curry so I didn't bother to cut it up and that worked well for this application.

Fairly simple curry but still has a whole bunch of flavour.

Although I looks like a pile of kale, this Kale has that something extra with a bit of bacon fat.

Roasted Butternut Squash, Red Lentils and Chickpea Curry

1 Whole Butternut Squash, halved, seeded and roasted at 350 until tender and some what caramelized

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Butter

1/2 large Onion, diced

3 cloves Garlic

Salt to taste

2 tsp Curry Powder (I used a vegetable curry blend)

1 tsp Garam Masala

1 cup Red Lentils

1 L Chicken or Veggie Stock

1 can Chickpeas

-In a heavy bottom pan, heat butter and oil to medium.  Add onion and cook for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and cook another 2-3 minutes.

-Add the spices and cook until fragrant.

-Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until lentil are cooked soft and the chickpeas have a nice texture, about 20 minutes.

-Serve over sauteed Kale.

And the Lasagna Played On.

I tried out a lasagna recipe last week, I like the idea behind it since it was called Roasted Butternut and Sweet Potato Whole Wheat Lasagna, but I found it really sweet and it was quite greasy, delicious but heavy.  So I did what I normally do when it sounds better then it was, I modified it :)

I changed it up considerably from the original recipe, which is not that unusual for me :)  Firstly I found that the  bottom layer of noodles didn't cook properly since there was no tomato sauce, so I cooked the noodles first rather then us no-boil noodles.  Next I decided that it needed something a bit bitter to balance out the sweetness of the pasta, so I added spinach and finally I found that the whole thing was really heavy and greasy so I changed the cheeses and changed the procedure a bit.  I hope you enjoy it as much a I have.  Especially since I made it big since I was expecting a house full of people to eat it and since they cancelled I have a whole big pan of lasagna to eat.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna

Heavily modified from thisHow Sweet East recipe

9-12 Lasagna Noodles, whole wheat or white

Squash

1 Medium Butternut Squash, peeled and cubed.

1 Medium Yam, peeled and cubed

1 tbsp Butter

Spray Oil (I have a sprayer filled with Olive oil)

1/4 tsp Fresh Grated Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

Spinach and Cheese

1/2 White Onion, finely diced

3 Garlic Cloves, finely diced 

Spray Oil

1/2 tbsp Butter

1/2 tsp Salt 

1/2 tsp Pepper

2 packages Frozen Spinach, thawed and excess water squeezed

500g tub Ricotta

250g tub 2% Cottage Cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan

1/2 cup Mascarpone Cheese ( I added this because I has some left over from the original lasagna I made)

1 bunch Green Onion

1  Eggs

1 1/2 cups Mozzarella

Sage leaves around 20.

-Preheat oven to 350

-Lay squash and yam on a baking sheet and spritz with olive oil, sprinkle with nutmeg, salt and pepper and toss to coat.  

-Roast approximately 50 minutes, tossing every 15 minutes, remove once the squash and yams are soft and a little golden along the edges.

-Remove from oven and let cool.  Once cool mash with a fork

-Preheat a skillet and spritz with a bit of olive oil, and butter.  Saute onions until translucent and then add garlic and stir until fragrant.  Add spinach and cook for approximately 2 minutes.  Put spinach mixture in a bowl and let cool.

-Once cool, stir in remaining cheeses, green onions and egg.  Mix well.

-Cook lasagna noodles according to directions.

-Start Layering a grease/buttered 9"x13" rectangular pan with noodles, top that with 1/3 of the squash mixture, 1/3 of spinach and cheese mixture and top with 1/2 cup Mozzarella. Noodles, 1/3 squash, 1/3 spinach, 1/2 cup mozzarella.  Noodles, 1/3 squash, 1/3 spinach, rest of mozzarella.

-Bake 45 minutes at 350 or until cheese is browned and lasagna is bubbling.

Squeezed the spinach dry-ish and the onion and garlic is ready to dice.

My helper with her new self cut hair.

Onions sauteing.

Cooked spinach, garlic and onions, cooling waiting for the cheeses, green onion and egg.

Mmmm, cheese, in many forms.

Mashed squash and yam, divided into three lumps for easier assembly later.

All the layers have been added and it is ready to bake.  I plan to put it in so I pull out a hot lasagna when everyone arrives.

See all those lovely layers.

Ready for the oven.

Mmmm, delicious.

You can still see the layers.

Brownies from Heaven :)

I grew up having the best brownies in the world.  I didn't know this at the time but with all the brownies out there, my mother made the best.  They are also rather weird.  I have only made them a couple times and the first time that I did make them, I ignored the "Cover when cool and set aside overnight to mature." line in the recipe.  Wow, I was shocked at how bland they tasted and I thought that was the worst thing ever since I remember these being absolutely fabulous brownies.  So the next day when I actually finished making the brownies and adding the fudgey icing and OMG it was the best thing on earth.  I decided to forgo the unsalted butter and just use saltIed butter this time since I remember it required a bit more salt so I had added a bit of crunchy salt on top of the icing to just send it over the top in greatness.

So decided to makes these delicious goodies for Monday's dinner.  I did forget that I only have 9"x9" square pan so the brownies turned out a little thinner that I like them, what I usually do is double the recipe and put it in the 11"x13" pan.  

Brownies

Recipe courtesy of my mum,

Brownies

4 oz Unsweetened Chocolate

1/4 lb (4 oz, 1/2cup) Butter

1 1/4 plus 3 tbsp Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 large Eggs

3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour

Fudgy Frosting

1 1/2 oz Unsweetened Chocolate, melted

1/4 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Evaporated Milk

16 Pecan halves (Optional, really optional since I believe that Brownies should not contain nuts, although these are decorative for the top and are almost tolerated.)

-Preheat oven 350. butter or line 8"x8" square pan

-In a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate, set aside for 5 minutes.

-In a bowl beat together chocolate and sugar 1-2 minutes until the mixture is completely combined.  Add vanilla, and lightly beaten eggs and mix only until combined.

-Add flour and beat until mixture is totally blended and has a shiny velvety look, 1 minute or less.

-Spread batter evenly over the prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes.  Bake until a very thin crust forms on the top and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.  DO NOT OVER BAKE.

-Cool in pan on rack to room temp. COVER WHEN COOL AND SET ASIDE OVERNIGHT TO MATURE *this is very important*

Frosting:

-In a blender combine the melted chocolate, sugar and evaporated milk.  Blend for 3-5 minutes until the mixture is smooth and shiny (the sound of the blender will change when the mixture is ready)

-Frost brownies with a thin layer of icing.  To serve cut into 16-2" pieces and top with pecan, if desired.

I use a bowl over a pot of simmering water instead of an actual double boiler pot.  That way there is only one dish to clean.

Here is all the chocolate and butter melted and cooling

In with the sugar. 

The eggs have been added and the mixture is almost complete, all it needs is the flour.

With only a few crumbs on the toothpick it was ready to take out of the oven at around 20 minutes.

Here is my rather thin brownie.  It is still moist and fudgy but I think I will have to pick up a 8"x8" square pan.  I have also sprinkled the top with Himalayan Pink Salt. 

The Ongoing Adventures with Ginger.

Ginger is one of those ingredients that I like to use sparingly since it has such a strong delicious flavour.  There is one exception to this and that is Ginger Beer.  When we were in the UK for my cousins wedding we came across Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer.  It was the best ginger beer that I had ever tasted and it was alcoholic.  I started having one almost every evening while we were there which is almost unheard of for me, especially at the time since I drank maybe once or twice a month.  

So my husband was having a hankering for Crabbies and we aren't in the UK or apparently Edmonton, which is the only place in Canada that I have seen it.  I would love to get my hands on some but none of my local liquor stores have been able to bring it in, either that or it was too much effort.  Any who, my husband had a hankering and ginger is stupidly cheap in Chinatown so he decided to make his own.  

My husband doesn't do anything half assed, he goes the whole ass.  He didn't just do one batch, he did 4 different batches varying the percentage of white sugar to brown sugar.  He looked at a whole bunch of recipes on line and decided that they didn't ask for enough ginger.  We had done a bunch of batches of ginger concentrate to make ginger ale, so he knew he wanted at lot of ginger in the beer rather then the 1-4 tbsp that most recipes called for.  He ended up using around 400grams of ginger to 2 cups of sugar.

All in all he had 4 batches, 100% white sugar, 100% brown sugar, 50/50 white brown (which is currently my favorite but so far we have tried only 2 of the 4 batches), 25% brown.  

The idea behind this is that this will lead to making bigger batches to put in a keg to then put in the kegerator.  I don't drink beer and that is all that the kegerator has held to date.  Cider is hard to get in the smaller kegs and usually only available to commercial clients (which we are not, although I am sure the we go through more beer then some places, 2 every 2 weeks.)

There are 2 different applications of ginger in this recipe.  First is the ginger which is put through the food processor and then boiled with the water and sugar for 2 hours and then strained.

Here is the chunked ginger ready to go in the bot for boiling.

After it is boiled and strained it is added to the sterilized jugs.  The water is added to thin out the concentrated ginger. 

Then he grates up some ginger to extract the juice from the ginger.

Then the ginger juice is added to the concentrate to add some fresh ginger bite.

Her are the jugs ready for yeast and then it will be time from them to sit and  let the yeast do its thing in the bathtub downstairs, just in case it decides to runneth over :)

After the yeast has does its job, J tasted it and decided it needed more sugar, so he added more sugar and then bottled it into smaller jugs that were sealed and left to carbonize.  

So far we have tasted 2 of the batches and my favorite is the 50/50 blend.

I will post the recipe when we have decided on the perfect ginger beer recipe.