Soup's Up

My kids love soup, that and tacos.  Both are almost guaranteed to be eaten, which is always a bonus.  I am a big fan of quick and easy soup recipes and this one is really easy.  With only a few ingredients that cook rather quickly, this makes an ideal throw it together and let it cook kind of meal.  

On those occasions where you will be cooking outside of your regular kitchen with all you herbs, spices, sauces and extras that make cooking really tasty and sometimes cumbersome to do outside your own kitchen.  I have picked up the ingredients at the store, and made this in other cities in a kitchen that only contained pots, and instant oatmeal.  I also make this at the cottage since only one ingredient really needs refrigeration.

Kale, Sweet Potato and Turkey Sausage Soup
Adapted from Cooking light
This recipe is easy to change up, want more onion or you only have small onions then use them.  It is really forgiving.

1-2 tbsp Olive Oil or Butter
2 large Onions, around 4 cups
1 tsp Salt
1 package Italian Turkey Sausages, mild or spicy, about 6 links, casings removed
1/2 tsp Chili Flakes, (optional)
6 cloves Garlic, minced or thinly sliced
2 large sweet potato, about 8 cups (the yellow, not orange kind)
4 cups chicken stock
5 cups water
1 bunch of Kale, about 1 lb, chopped fairly small
1 can White beans, such as Navy beans, drained and rinced


In a large pot of enamel pot over medium add oil, onion, sausage meat, garlic, 1/2tsp salt and chili flakes if using.  Cut until meat is cooked all the way through.

Add diced sweet potato, saute for 2-3 minutes and then add water and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer for 8 minutes.

Add kale, simmer 10 more minutes.

Add beans and remaining salt if needed.  Simmer 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

1908

Keeping on my theme of Cocktails, I will post one of my favourite cocktails...A 1908.  This cocktail is made at The Empress and is named after the year it was built.  This cocktail is quite easy to make at home.

Empress Tea Vodka

1 Tea at the Empress tea bag for every 160ml of vodka

Steep for 4 hours.  Remove and squeeze tea bags to extract all the vodka tea goodness.

1908 Cocktail

2 parts Empress Tea Vodka

1 part Egg White

1 part Lemon Juice

1 part Simple Syrup

Shake over a lot of ice, strain and serve.

Just add the tea bags to the vodka, cover and wait 4 hours.  No need even to stir.  Then you are left with tea loveliness which is so tasty you will have to make some more soon :)

Cherry Pie Spice Cocktails

This is the recipe that I created when I entered (and won) the Home Bartender Competition at the Art of the Cocktail 2014.  The tea I used is not currently in production from David's Tea but it might come back, I ended up buying a large bag of it since I really liked the cocktail.  This is based on a classic sour recipe: 
2 part alcohol
1 part lemon/lime juice
1 part simple syrup.  

The egg white makes it creamy and adds an almost milky quality to the cocktail and is also quite common in a sour.

Note:You can always create or find something similar if you can't find it.  David's Tea Cherry Snowcone contains(ingredients straight from the box): Hibiscus, rose hip peel, apple, currants, elderberry, sugar crystals(I don't use these), sour cherries, acerola cherries, natural cherry flavouring.

Cherry Pie Spice Vodka

6 dried cherries
300 ml Vodka
-steep for 6 hours, then add

1 1/2" Vanilla bean, scraped.  Add both inside and outsides of the vanilla bean to vodka
5 almonds, Blanched and chopped
3 tbsp Cherry Snowcone (David's tea), removed sweet snow flakes
4 pinches (around 2 tsp) Hybiscus
3" piece of cinnamon stick

-add these to the cherries and vodka, steep another 3 hours.  Then strain, keeping the vodka :)

Orange Pekoe Vodka

2 Orange Pekoe tea bags
320 ml vodka

-steep 3 hours, removed tea bags squeezing the vodka out of the bags.

Simple Syrup

1 part sugar
1 part water

Using volume measurements (so 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water, for example)

-in a small/medium sauce pan add both ingredients and heat until sugar has just dissolved and you can't see any sugar granuals, then remove from heat.  

You can use it right away without cooling it just add more ice to the shaker and only add the ice just before shaking.

Store in fridge.



Now what do I do?.....

Cherry Pie Sour Cocktail
1 part Cherry Pie Spice Vodka
1 part Orange Pekoe Vodka
1 part Egg White (I use the pasteurized egg whites, easier to measure and pasteurized, so YEAH :-)
1 part Lemon Juice, Fresh is best
1 part simple syrup

 -Add all the ingredient in to your shaker, add lots of

ice, shake and strain.  Serve in a Martini glass or French champagne glass.

Note: the volume that you use will depend on your glass size.  I usually make 1 part to be between 20mls and 30mls, for example if I made 1 part to be 25mls the recipe would look like this

25ml Cherry vodka
25ml Orange pekoe vodka
25ml egg white
25ml lemon juice
25ml simple syrup

Shake with lots of ice, strain and serve



This may seem like a lot of steps, but Orange Pekoe tea also makes a nice sour, or even making an Earl Grey Tea vodka.  Experiment and have fun :-)
Enjoy!

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Last November I went, by myself, to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Cinninatti.  We had a great time doing all the fun stuff including a Canadian and Finnish thanksgiving since it was American thanksgiving weekend and really Miti is only half American.  We had roast Lamb, Yorkshire puddings and pumpkin cheesecake.

  
My brother is a big fan of cooking and experimenting with different cuisine and trying to make and or improve on dishes he has had while eating out.  One thing he made for me was a Syrniki.  Syrniki is a quark pancake and is made in Russian, Belorussian, Lithuanian, Polish, and Ukrainian cuisines.

Months later, I had a hankering for these delicious pancakes, and since I didn't have his recipe at the time I made a simpler version that worked for me.  

He did not send me instructions so I made them up as I went along.  I liked the results when I left the mixture over night.  The egg ages a little which changes the texture and how it cooks. It is amazing how these things happen, I had made too much so I left it over night and to make it the next morning and it had a really nice texture.

Stephen's Syrniki recipe

500 gr cottage cheese
2 eggs

raisins
2 tbs sugar
pinch of salt
2-3 tbs flour (usually more)
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tea spoon vanilla sugar

Cottage Cheese Pancakes
My adaptation of Stephen's recipe before I received his recipe.
Serves 1-2 or more depending on the pancake size.

1/2 cup Cottage Cheese, I use 2%.
2 tbsp All-Purpose Flour
1 pinch Salt
1 pinch sugar
1 egg

-Mix all the ingredients in a bowl or cup until well mixed.  Cover and refrigerate over night.

-Preheat skillet or frying pan over medium.  Add a bit of butter.

-Cook pancakes until golden brown.  The pancakes are very delicate since there is very little flour, so make the sized well for you spatula so they will be easier to flip.

-Cook on second side until golden.

-Remove from the pan and enjoy with preserves or coulis.

Birthday Parties and Buttercream

It was Rosie's birthday party over the weekend.  It was a fun bouncy castle party at the local recreation centre, which are the best since it does not require pre and post cleaning as an at home party needs.  The kids ran around for an hour and then snacked, caked and hit each other with balloon swords for another hour, glorious.

I wanted decided to try a different recipe for the chocolate cup cakes with yellow icing that little miss wanted and I decided to that she wanted cupcakes that I could at least make a lovely pretty, pretty princess dress out of them, a la Pinterest. I didn't really have a pan large enough to lay it and I was totally lazy in now wanting to figure something else out.  So it was little smaller and of course, I didn't get any pictures at the party but this was an earlier picture at home.  I did not get a chance to pin the belt down, although I did use double sided tape and take a piece of parchment to the underside of the ribbon so it didn't absorb the butter.  Little miss liked it, so that is good. 

I have a good chocolate cake recipe that I got from a local restaurant.  It is a sponge recipe since it uses oil but unlike all the other cake recipes I have seen this adds boiling water at the end.  The cupcake recipe also is this type of sponge, it has a lovely moist tender crumb.  It is not brownie like it in its density but is more substantial then other cupcake recipes.  I like me with some body to them :)

It has taken me years to figure out why I don't like buttercream icing  and how to fix it.  Buttercream is too sweet for me.  The only way to make it better is to make it less sweet.  With a such a simple set of ingredients the obvious solution would be to change the ratios.  It is such a simple solution I didn't even think of it until now.  So now we all know that to make buttercream less sweet add more butter.

Chocolate Cupcakes
Original recipe from addapinch.com
makes 12, easily multiplied for a larger batch

1 cup AP Flour
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Cocoa
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Espresso Powder
1/2 cup Milk
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1/2 cup Boiling Water

~Preheat oven to 325 and place muffin liners in muffin tray

~In the bowl of a stand mixer (or it can be done by hand or with a hand mixer) add all dry ingredients.  Blend until thoroughly mixed, about 1 minute.

~Add milk, oil, egg and vanilla.  Once oven is up to temperature then add the boiling water and beat on high for another minute.

~Fill muffin liners 3/4 full and bake 12-15 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

~Allow to cool completely before icing.


Best Buttercream Evar
originally from addapinch.com 
makes 4 1/2 cup (I used a double batch to ice 36 cupcakes, with a rosette pattern and very little leftovers)

1 cup Butter, softened
3-4 cups Icing Sugar, sifted
2 tsp Vanilla (I used clear artificial this time, but I usually just use real vanilla)
Pinch salt (if using unsalted butter)
2-3 tbsp Milk, Heavy Cream or Half-and-half)


~Add soft butter to the bowl of a stand mixer (can do this by hand as well) and beat for 4-5 minutes.  This will incorporate air and lighten the colour.  

~Add icing sugar, 1/2 cup at a time and beat well with each addition, 10-20 seconds. 

~Add vanilla and salt (if adding) and mix well.

~Add milk as needed.  If the icing needs to be softer then add more milk, 1 tbsp at a time.  If it is to stiff, then add more sifted icing sugar.

Last Day of Winter Break

For some reason I thought it would be good idea to make Waffles for the kids breakfast on the day before they go back to the school.  Today is the last day of the girls Christmas vacation.  I am looking forward to Tuesday morning.  I have been running a bit frazzled lately, being sick and having the kids fight a bunch of the time.

In 2009, I put together a cookbook for Lady Bird's preschool.  I put a lot of effort into it and I am really proud of what I made.  I still use my copy of the cookbook and I will probably try to put one together for the kids in the future.  I did manage to teach myself how to use Microsoft Publisher and get a really neat cookbook out of the deal :)

This recipe was submitted by Jacqueline.  Delicious!

Spiced Pumpkin Waffles
Makes about 8 waffles
2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 tbsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Fresh Ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
4 Eggs
2 cups Buttermilk
1 cup Pumpkin puree
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Butter, melted
1 tsp Vanilla
Non-stick spray

~Preheat waffle iron
~Whisk flour, bk powder, bk soday, and all the spices.
~In another bowl whisk together all the wet ingredients.
~Add dry to wet and mix until smooth
~Spray preheated iron and pour in some batter.
~Once they are cooked serve with whipped cream and maple syrup.  

~If there are any leftover waffles, cool them and place then in the freezer in a single layer.  Once frozen, place in zip top bag for later.  Then just toast them up and serve.

I Need a Post Vacation, Vacation.

We got back home after a long week in Whistler.  We had a bit of snow, a lot of friends, and a bunch of sickies.  Little man had a fever and was a whiny, whiny boy.  Lady Bird was also a melty kid.  Rosie was the only one who didn't seem too affected by the sick, although she has been super tired and whiny today.  

We left a day early since I was worried about a snow storm that was headed our way and we were in my hubby's car which didn't have winter tires, we didn't have chains, and it is a 2 wheel drive car, and I did not want to chance it.  We arrived late last night; in the process of unpacking the car I had to put the left over food away and discovered a week left alone made the veggie crisper rather disgusting, so I had clean it out at like 10pm at night, yuck!

After spending the day doing laundry and even folding it, again yuck!  Cleaning the kitchen, and again feeling yucky all day.  So after a day like that I didn't want to make anything too taxing especially with Little Man being demanding in his high pitched voice that always seems to be whiny when I have a headache.  He still doesn't get that asking over and over will not get him what he wants.  I am hoping that this stage of language development, developes a bit faster.

Back to tonight's dinner, I made a cabbage soup.  I know that sounds rather boring but it is really tasty.

Cabbage Soup

by me

1 Onion, sliced

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

10-12 Garlic Cloves, finely chopped

5 cups Chicken Stock ( I used Better than Bouillion, otherwise use 4 cups stock and 1 cup water)

2 Mild Hungarian Sausages*, quartered lengthwise and then sliced

4 Potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/2 head of Cabbage

2 splashes Apple Cider Vinegar

Salt and Pepper

~In a large soup pan, heat oil over medium.  Saute onion until translucent, then add garlic and sweat for a minute or so, then add chicken stock, bring to a simmer.

~Add Sausage and potatoes.  Simmer 5 minutes and then add in the cabbage.  Once the potatoes are cooked add a splash or 2 of vinegar and then season as needed.

*Hungarian Sausage is a dry cured sausage, it is quite hard.  If you can't find it, any cured sausage will do and if that fails, you can get a salami from the deli department, you'd need about 2 inches of deli salami.  Pepper, Genoa, or capricollo would all work but fell free to try any of the salami*