Not so Desperate Canadian

Chocolate Frosting with Custard Base

2010-02-10T14:49:00.004-05:00

I've been interested in making this version of chocolate frosting for a while. It is custard based frosting. It turns out light tasting, very good. Although with most buttercream frostings there is a gross amount of butter! Oh well... it's Valentines!

2/3 cup whole milk
3 large egg yolks
1 tbsp plus 1tsp flour
1 + 1/3 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter softened cut into tablespoon pieces
8 oz milk chocolate melted and cooled
2 oz unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled

I only had semi sweet so I used all semi sweet instead.

Heat milk in heavy saucepan over moderate heat until hot. In another heatproof bowl whisk together yolks, flour, only 1/3 cup of the icing sugar, and a pinch of salt. Add the milk to this mixture in a steady stream whisking. Transfer the mixture back to the saucepan and bring to a boil over moderate heat, whisking. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking approx two minutes. You have to be very careful at this stage, you could go too far and end up with lumps, just pull pan off the stove if it is getting too hot, and stir, then put back on, with lowered heat. Once thickened transfer to a bowl and cover the surface of the custard with a buttered round of wax paper and cool approx 45 minutes.

Add vanilla and remaining cup of icing sugar to custard in mixer. Beat with beaters at moderate spread and then increase speed to medium high and beat in butter 2 tbsp at a time until smooth. Add the cooled chocolate and beat until combined.

The flower was made with marshmallow fondant. Basically you melt marshmallows in microwave with a tiny bit of water and knead in icing sugar to a 'playdoh' like consistency.

Bagel O's

2010-02-04T14:32:00.002-05:00

I'm not usually this harsh, but these are disgusting. They missed the mark on this product. I made them for my son one morning, and he wasn't really digging into them, he made a comment about them being hard or something, so I took a bite...and couldn't even swallow it. How can I describe it...well if you are ten years old and you try to make bread for the first time and you get this baseball hard gross dough, that is what this taste like. I would not recommend them at all. If they improved the recipe I would try again because it's a great idea.

Werther's Chocolates

2010-02-04T14:25:00.002-05:00

Bought these new Werthers chocolates. They have different flavours. What's great is the shape of the chocolates is the same as the candy they sell~which makes it a great chocolate to suck on. The chocolate has a slight werthers caramel candy flavour. I would buy them again, they aren't the 'highest' quality chocolate but they don't have a cheap run of the mill chocolate bar taste. I would recommend them.

2010-02-04T14:07:00.004-05:00

Here's some items I made for a bake sale. The cupcakes are made with the recipe that I love from the chocolate blackout cake recipe

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 cup brewed coffee, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Melt butter over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and stir well. Cook 1 minute. Remove from heat and whisk in coffee and buttermilk. Add white sugar and brown sugar and whisk until sugar is dissolved. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk well. Whisk in dry mixture, a little at a time, until fully incorporated; do not overmix.
Divide batter evenly between the prepared cake pans. 325 degrees until a few crumbs stick to tester. Not sure of the time, just keep checking after 12-15min.

The icing was a whipped ganache. It was 1lb of chocolate (I used a mixture of semi-sweet and milk chocolate). Chopped. Bring to just boiling one cup heavy cream. Poor over the chopped chocolate, also add 1/4 cup of corn syrup. Let sit for three minutes, then stir. If any chunks remain then you can reheat a bit to get those to melt. Otherwise put in fridge and stir every 15 minutes until spreading consistency for cupcakes. I wanted more of a whipped ganache, so when it was in fridge for approx one hour, I whipped it. Not sure if it was overwhipped or if it naturally lost it's shine. It was delicious though!! I also used it as the filling between the layers for the blue mini cakes. Topped with cherries from Costco, they are in stock lately and seem to be better quality than the grocery stores.

The blue mini cakes are made with my new square muffin pan from previous post. Triple layered, with the ganache filling. I bought a tiny bag of the pink flowers from Artistic cake on Merivale road. I also bought some tiny eye balls there for a sponge bob theme I will have to do soon! They are a little pricy but well worth the time it takes. I tried to do a cherry tree type theme on the cake~I don't like how the branches turned out...but it would have been easier if it was on a bigger cake I guess.

Devilled Eggs and Quail Eggs

2009-12-23T22:15:00.005-05:00

Ever since I saw the cute little quail eggs at Nicastros years ago I wanted to use them for something. They are so cute and dainty!! This time I purchased them at the new T&T Supermarket on Hunt Club, they are pretty cheap there. I made normal deviled eggs with chicken eggs and then topped them with half a hard boiled quail eggs. The important thing about boiled eggs is to NOT over boil them. If you do, then you get that dark ring around the yolk and the methane smell.

To cook them properly you put the eggs in a medium pot, don't overfill the pot~use two pots if you have to. Fill the water approx 1/2" higher than the level of the eggs. Bring the pot to a boil on high without the lid on, when it reaches a rapid boil, then cover the pot and take the pot off the burner. Put on a timer for 10 minutes (4 min for the quail eggs). When the time is up, run the eggs under cold water until you feel like the eggs have come to a reasonable temperature to stop the cooking process and begin to cool, and then put in the refrigerator.

I have no tips for peeling the eggs, I hate doing it and it is time consuming, if you try to rush you will end up ripping the egg and ruining it. If you have a certain amount of eggs that you have to be finished with, let's say for a container that holds 12 halves, then make one or two extra eggs incase an egg is ruined when you try to peel it.

The quail eggs are dainty and a little finicky to peel, but if you get a good peel going, it sort of comes off in strips.

I'm sure everyone has their own recipe for the filling of the deviled eggs, I just throw some mayo or whipped dressing into the cooked yolks and salt/pepper, paprika, mustard powder (and/or Dijon mustard). If I had shallots I would have put finely diced shallots. Top with some Paprika, don't put too much into the mixture itself (as my hubby did once!) cause it turns the mixture a gross colour.

Chicken Invention

2009-11-25T14:49:00.010-05:00

Using ideas from several different recipes I came up with this tortilla encrusted stuffed chicken! I used the Guiltless Gourmet Nacho chips. These are the only nacho chips we eat now, as the regular nacho chips have 1 gram of fat per chip! I didn't do the coating with 100% chips because I ran out, so I made half of the coating using bread crumbs. Guiltless Gourmet chips are 3 grams of fat for 18 chips.

I used chicken which was skinless bone-in, but the obvious better choice would be skinless boneless. I sealed the seams with tooth picks, but I guess I you could tie up the breasts with butcher's twine.

I had left over bok choy so I used those leaves to stuff the chicken, and cooked bacon, and left over shredded cheese. Here is the recipe:

In food processor process:

2 cups nacho chips

3/4 cup bread crumbs

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

dash of Chili Powder

In a bowl mix

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

Cut a lengthwise slit in the chicken, ensuring not the cut right through the other side and stuff with which ever ingredients you like then close the seam. Dip in the eggs/milk mixture and then dip in the dry ingredients.

Bake 350 degrees until chicken is cooked through...approx 30-40 minutes. Use a meat thermometer to ensure it is cooked throughout if you are unsure. Chicken should read 165 degrees.

Carrot Cake with Candied Carrots

2009-11-20T19:19:00.008-05:00

I've made this recipe as a full size cake before, but for a party this time I thought I'd try out my new square muffin pan. I had to bake three batches since I only have one pan and the cake mix makes a lot!! The recipe is on Martha Stewart website for the carrot cake, it's very tasty. This time I didn't put nuts, but if you toast the nuts like the recipe calls for and then chop them up finely it works out very well even for people who don't normally like nuts in their cake. Usually carrot cakes call for walnuts which I don't like...this one calls for pecans which compliment the cake very well. This is certainly not a DIET cake, with the recipe calling for a cup and a half of oil...even when you put the cake on muffin papers, the cake turns the paper oily..gross but tasty!

I also make her cream cheese icing, it calls for ginger and orange zest grated. I use the finest grate possible and make sure not to grate any of the white underneath the outside of the orange zest otherwise it takes on a bitter taste. I personally don't like items which call for orange zest or lemon usually, but if you use a fine rasp.. it always works out and makes a fine taste instead of harsh and strong and bitter. The recipe for the icing is off the same link above as the cake.

I cut off the tops of the mini cakes and made two layered mini cakes. I also made the candied carrot strips as the recipe calls for. It is quite the process but adds that special something to the final look. I will add the photo of that later. I took the idea of the chocolate blackout cake, and put the tops that were cut off into a food processor and made fine crumbs and pressed onto the sides of the cake.

Layered Mexican Dip in Martini Glass

2009-11-11T17:34:00.006-05:00

Here is a great idea if you were serving layered Mexican dip at a party. I like the idea because once a few people scoop into a normal full sized dish of the layered dip, it starts looking pretty gross, and then no one else wants to eat it! I started with canned refried beans (you could make your own) ~don't you hate how when you open a can of refried beans the initial smell is of canned dog food~or is it just me!! Then some mashed avocado (I normally make guacamole but I figured all the other ingredients in guacamole are already in the other layers of the dip...) . I usually make homemade salsa but bought some from Farm Boy this time, and I was shocked at how much water I drained out of it...here is a pic of how much water came out! The container wasn't large to begin with. When I make salsa at home, I squeeze each tomato out, so that it's not watery salsa. Next layer sour cream and then whatever cheese you'd like. Unfortunately I bought the pre-shredded Taco and Nacho cheese, which wasn't great for this recipe because it is meant to be melted so the pieces are large, I would prefer a finer sized grate.

You can layer it which ever way you like, just don't top it with the avocado/guacamole because it will brown when exposed to air, so it's best to have it in between a layer. Also most people will top with either slices of Jalapeno peppers or slices of olives or perhaps both.

Spinach Ricotta Cannelloni

2009-11-11T16:36:00.008-05:00

Hi, there are various recipes all over the web to make Spinach Ricotta Cannelloni, here are just some tips to share. I actually used manicotti shells instead, not sure that it's a huge difference except for size! I made a meat sauce to line the bottom of the pan with. I use a piping bag to get the mixture into the tubes. I find a great tip is that once the shells are boiled to keep them separate so that they don't get all stuck together, and the best way I find is to put them back into the plastic trays that they came in (not if they are still piping hot though...don't know about the plastic being too safe with hot foods), until you are ready to fill them, also when they are filled if you don't have the sauce/tray ready you can keep them in there. I made a white sauce to top it with before sprinkling the cheese on top, I hadn't done it before but I really like the results. I find if you just put a thin strip of either spaghetti sauce or white sauce down the middle of the shells like most pictures show...then it get the noodles all crunchy once you bake the cheese and I don't like that! I topped with cheese (mixture of parmesan and mozzarella) and baked 350degree oven until top was browned (forgot to take picture!). I know my pictures suck, but that's not my forte!

Cannelloni Filling
2 egg, lightly, beaten
1 package frozen spinach, cooked, drained (squeezed) chopped
1 tub ricotta cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste

1/2 onion cooked till translucent

Basic Béchamel Sauce
1 cup milk
A piece of onion or garlic
1 x bay leaf
1 to 2 Tbsp butter
1 to 2 Tbsp flour
salt and pepper

Basic Béchamel Sauce (I doubled the recipe and added fresh parsley)
Steep the milk with a piece of onion or garlic and a bay leaf for 15 minutes. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook for a minute. Gradually whisk in the milk. Cook, stirring constantly, until thick. Season.
For thick béchamel, use ratio of 2 tablespoons butter + 2 tablespoons flour for 1 cup/250 ml milk

Stuffed Shrimp

2009-10-11T19:35:00.010-04:00

I saw them make this stuffed shrimp on America's Test Kitchen. The taste is outstanding, refreshing. Very highly recommended. The recipe seems to make the stuffing filling too wet, even though I didn't add at least three tablespoons of the wet mixture to the bread crumbs, so next time I would probably add more bread crumbs so the mixture wasn't so wet. I think my shrimp were half the size they asked for, but that's the biggest they had at Costco in frozen section today. Perhaps if you use the size they ask for then the tail would fold neatly back over the stuffing and look better for the presentation.

Ingredients:

4 slices high quality white sandwich bread, torn into pieces

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup bottled clam juice

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

4 scallions, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 t. grated zest and 1 T. fresh lemon juice

1 T. Dijon mustard

1/8 t. cayenne pepper

Salt

1 1/4 pounds colossal shrimp, about 12 per pound, peeled and deveined

Directions:Adjust oven rack to upper middle position and heat oven to 375. Pulse bread in food processor to coarse crumbs. Transfer crumbs to broiler pan bottom and bake until golden and dry, 8 to 10 minute, stirring halfway through cooking time. Remove crumbs from oven and reduce the temperature to 275. Combine toasted breadcrumbs, mayonnaise,clam juice, parsley, scallions, garlic, lemon zest and juice, mustard, cayenne and 1/4 t. salt in large bowl. Pat shrimp dry with paper towels and season with salt. Grease empty broiler pan bottom. butterfly shrimp by using a sharp paring knife to cut along but not through the vein line, then opening up shrimp like a book. Using the tip of the paring knife, cut a 1 inch opening all the way through the center of the shrimp. After the shrimp have been butterflied, and the opening has been cut, flip the shrimp over onto the broiler pan. Divide stuffing mixture among the shrimp, pressing to adhere. Bake until shrimp are opaque, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove shrimp from oven and heat the broiler. Broil shrimp until crumbs are deep golden brown and crisp, 1 to 3 minutes. Serve. Makes 12 or serves 4 to 6

Here is a picture of how the shrimp will curl back over the filling if using bigger shrimp, and perhaps leave shell on the tail....

Kowloon Market Somerset

2009-10-11T18:27:00.006-04:00

Went to Kowloon Market in China Town~Ottawa. We got little cookies, curry pastes, noodles, etc. The funny thing was a bucket of chickens and a sign that read "Semi-Old Chickens".... I did pick up some different flavours of Jello (Knorr brand) that you can't usually find in supermarkets. They had Pina Colada flavour and Honey Dew and Lime flavours ($1.09 ea). You can always find great flavours of Pocky that you won't find in a normal grocery store, like dipped in crushed almonds. Kids love the "Hello Panda" little cookies with chocolate filling. Really looking forward to the new T&T Supermarket opening on Hunt Club.

Team Canada Hockey Cake

2009-03-30T18:15:00.005-04:00

I started with two sheet cakes and tried to shape some arms with some extra cake. I did a thin icing coating over the cake and then laid down some fondant made with marshmallows. I was going to buy the packs of fondant at Michaels' with the different fondant colours...but in order the get black and red they were in different box sets and would have been over $30 plus taxes to get the colours I needed and then would have had a bunch of colours I didnt' even want. I find black and red hard to make...and was low on time, so went for the tubes of icing that you can even get at grocery store, I got mine at Bulk barn. The plastic tubes they come in are very stiff and you'd being making it harder for yourself if you didn't put the icing in normal piping bags. My printer was out of ink, so I pulled up an image of the jersey on the computer screen and literally taped saran wrap across the screen and copied the image with a marker. Then places the saran over top of the smooth fondant (which I had rolled out with a mixture of icing sugar and cornstarch so it didn't stick to table while rolling out). I took a tooth pick and just transferred the image onto the fondant and then was able to see where I was supposed to be piping or drawing. The drawing was done with the edible markers. Wonder what he'll ask for next year!!

Here's a good link to how to make marshmallow fondant on Cake Central

Vodka Crust, French Onion Soup

2009-01-30T14:11:00.008-05:00

So here's the baking the last 24hrs...

First I've been dying to try the 'America's Test kitchen" Vodka pie crust, because I suck at pie crusts.... It's basically a food processor crust which gets extra wet with the vodka, and because the vodka evaporates, it is easier to roll out because it is extra moist without retaining the moisture when the vodka evaporates... if that makes any sense...anyways...here is a cross section of some of the crust (long story but I made another one, that one I forgot to put pie weights and it shrunk down into bottom and got too thick to use...) It's nice and flaky ... .

They don't usually let you see the recipe unless you subscribe to the website, so here's a backdoor way of getting it, someone wrote it in their forums

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/ibb/posts.aspx?postID=215231&postRepeater1-p=6#218552

Also, made the america's test kitchen french onion soup recipe. It's very long to make, and was good, but maybe not worth all the work? Start with the onions, I put a little over two pounds, you slice off both ends, and then cut in half and then make slivers (if that makes any sense). You put in a dutch oven sprayed with cooking oil and some butter dabs in bottom. Throw in a dash of salt to bring out more moisture. Put lid on and 400 degrees for an hour. Then vent the lid a bit and stir the onions, then an hour and a half more. (I got too sick of waiting so I pulled it out and did next step sooner). You will have the sugars caramelizing around edges of pot and that is what you want to make broth dark. I put on stove top and cooked onions down until the bottom gets a sugar coating and starts to brown, I was afraid to let it burn so I always did the next step a little earlier than recommended, but I didn't' want to ruin it after all that work. So you throw in a bit of water, and scrape all the brown off the bottom, and you cook off water again and do that three times, they say that's where the flavour comes from, the brown on the bottom. The last time, put 1/2 chicken broth and 1/2 beef broth, how ever much you want, I think I put 1 cup and half of each, and some sprigs of Thyme, and it could have used more broth, it was a bit too much onions for the amount of broth. Let that simmer for a while. I grilled the french bread with a bit of olive oil then placed on top of the soup in oven safe bowls, and sprinkled more than the recommended amount of cheese! (and I just used Mozzarella, I didn't want to go out and buy Gruyere just for this..). I put under the broiler and browned top and melted cheese. Served with some extra grilled bread. Not sure if it's worth all that work for some soup, but it was very tasty...guess it depends how bad you are craving French Onion Soup. There was some extra stuff they did like deglaze the pot with dry Sherry but I didn't have any so I didn't' use it.

Just found this link for some good information on caramelizing onions...way better than my sad description above!!! http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/007395how_to_caramelize_onions.php

Chicken enchilada with homemade sauce

2009-01-05T18:06:00.019-05:00

Hi, here is how I make homemade enchilada sauce. Not for critiquing (I'm Canadian, I'm no authority on Mexican cooking) ~ just give it a try it's yummy.

First I use a few dried Ancho Chillies. For this recipe I used four large ones. In the end with all the other ingredients it ends up being a good heat, maybe other people would like it hotter~ last time I added a fresh Jalapeno to the recipe and was a bit hotter, so either add more ancho chilies for more heat or add heat another way ~hot sauce or Jalapeno. Soak the Chilies in water until soft and pliable. Remove the hard stem and discard, as well as the seeds inside. (a few seeds will stick to the skin~that is fine).

Dice up a couple white onions, or really whatever onion you have on hand. Mince up a couple cloves of garlic. Dice or slice up some red pepper or which ever colour you have on hand.

Heat up oil in pan or frying pan, add the onions and cook until almost translucent, add the garlic~careful not to burn, throw in the red peppers. Cook down for a few minutes.

I added red peppers I had previously frozen, doesn't matter the size/shape because this will all be blended later. Cut up the now rehydrated ancho chillies and add to the pan. 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1/2 tsp chilli powder, salt, pepper to taste. You could even double these spices if you taste it at the end and needs more.

I added a huge ice chunk of frozen tomatoe chunks I had frozen. You could add 1/2 can of tomatoes. You could also add in chunks of fresh tomatoes. Cook this down for quite a while. I had mine on for almost an hour.

I let the mixture cool down a bit, then (blender broke) I put in food processor to liquify, then put through a strainer to get out the skins/etc.

Then assemble by dipping both sides of a tortilla bread in the sauce then laying out the fillings you would like. I put precooked chicken shredded, medium cheddar, a tiny bit of refried beans, and a bit of salsa. You could eliminate either one of those items, and you could also put rice inside. It's a little messy but roll them up with your hands. Top with cheese and bake 350degrees until cheese is nicely melted and they seem to be heated through.

Most times I make this, I take a bit of the extra enchilada sauce and put it in the rice water to make a sort of 'mexican rice' taste to accompany the enchiladas. I forgot to take picture before they went in the oven, so pulled them out halfway through baking.

Bakesale Bowling

2008-12-12T15:29:00.008-05:00

Here's some cake pops I made for bowling bake sale, idea from Bakerella's website http://bakerella.blogspot.com/ Basically make whatever cake mix you like. I ground up the cake into crumbs in food processor. Mix icing into the crumbs (I used packaged icing)...a bit at a time, you don't want soggy mix, used the kitchen aid mixer and it worked well. I formed it into the proper shape, chilled it, formed it again, then put on chopsticks ( you can get package of them at dollar store). Only thing I might do differently next time is dip the sticks into the coating chocolate before inserting into cake balls ... because without doing that, they were turning around on the stick instead of being stable. I bought different colours of merckens at bulk barn, and melted then in a double boiler. then just dipped the chilled figures into the melted mixture. Only problem is some of the coating cracked, which is fine for a bake sale, but maybe not fine if you wanted to sell them. I think because the figures are chilled, that might be the reason they crack, because maybe the mixture expands a bit underneath the coating when thawing... I also used coating to coat oreos and put different decorations on them like crushed candy canes, and stripes of other colours.

The boxes aren't very Christmas, but I bought them in summer from Michael's Craft Store, It's the Martha Stewart brand of packaging boxes. The cake pops are stuck into foam covered in wrapping paper.

The chocolate cupcakes are using the recipe for the cake in the blackout cake recipe below (in a previous post) and used a unsweetened chocolate icing recipe, (since all I had on hand was unsweetened chocolate).

Icing Recipe

5 squares unsweetened chocolate melted in double boiler and cooled

1/2 cup softened butter

1/3 cup milk

4 cups icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Put all together in mixer and let it do the work!

I tried to make a shelf stable cream cheese vanilla bean icing using the jello no bake cheesecake mix, but the icing tasted grainy...not sure if it was supposed to be dissolved in hot liquid or what, I've never used it before, but It basically tasted gross, so I will not be bringing these... (although hubby disagrees that they taste bad)

Chocolate Blackout Cake

2008-11-28T18:13:00.004-05:00

I saw it made on America's test kitchen. I love the show because they are very precise with all their recipe testing. The smaller cupcake versions didn't look as good as a large cake but whatever. Also the cakes do not seem to rise very much, but they are light and fluffy. I didn't want to pay to get the recipe from Test kitchen website so searched around and found this one which is pretty close if not exactly what they showed..(make sure you have your pop-up blocker on before clicking on the site). http://www.recipezaar.com/Chocolate-Blackout-Cake-327729 a couple of notes on the recipe, when making the pudding (icing), it just says 2-3 minutes after starts boiling or whatever, believe me if you only do that you will have to redo it...you have to boil over medium until it comes together like thickened pudding, otherwise you will have runny icing and have to reboil it.... make sure you have a heatproof spatula or similar to run quickly along the bottom of the pan so that the pudding doesn't' start to burn...make sure it is always being stirred. The recipe doesn't call for the drizzle but I just melted some mercens light chocolate wafers and drizzled. Also I don't have 'dutch processed cocoa' I will look for some next time and see the difference I just didn't have any. Basically it's a chocolate cake with pudding icing and one layer broken into crumbs and pressed into the icing. It is pretty rich so you only need a small piece.

What is it with Lemon Pie?

2008-11-25T19:01:00.002-05:00

I made lemon pie for a family xmas thing, as soon as one person cut into it, it was gone within seconds...literally... I never remember everyone being so crazy over lemon pie before, weird... Guess I will make two or three next time!!

I just buy pie crusts, I know I can make a lot of things but I CANNOT make a crust, I suck bad. I use the 'special extra' instructions on inside of package which say to use egg whites room temperature for extra rise or whatever... For the lemon mixture I tend to try to pick out the yucky white cord thingies, I never used to care but I think someone told me one time that they do, and ever since I can't seem to leave it in, cause I keep thinking how gross if someone is eating the lemon part and comes across the 'umbilical cord' gross....

Where have you been ~ girl?

2008-11-25T18:50:00.005-05:00

I know the posts seem to be far and wide, but I've been collecting a bunch of stuff up...so here it goes!!!

I made these for a school movie night. Candy on a stick...what could be better for kids!!!

Actually they are very cheap to make. I didnt' go for the candy sticks they sell at Bulk barn, because the sticks are too wide to get the candy overtop of them...but I was also worried about skewers and little kids, with the 'pointy' ends so~ once I threaded the candy on, I cut off the sharp tips. Not sure if the kids noticed, but I tried to put 'teeth' candies around a 'hot lips' candy and then two bigfoot candies at the bottom!! The only thing is I noticed kids seem to have a hard time getting candy off the stick... In the back are coated marshmallows, coated with the light mercens (sp?) coating chocolate from bulk barn.... Just warmed chocolate over water bath in double boiler (I just use a stainless steel mixing bowl over a pot of barely simmering water)... and once it was almost melted, I take it off and mix until smooth...then put in a tall heat resistant container like a coffee cup and thread the marshmallows onto skewers and then dip in the chocolate and let extra drip off. I had a styrofoam block beside me, to insert the ends of the skewers to let the chocolate set, without having to let them sit on their sides. I dipped some while still wet in sprinkles..that worked well, but smarties just fell right off unless I just placed them on the top of the marshmallows. I did pipe some melted white chocolate on some for effect, but it honestly tasted gross, not sure if all white chocolate tastes that bad, but it was gross... If it wasn't for a school thing I would have dipped in nuts and stuff...but we all know how that goes at schools. For xmas baking I'm going to use the coating chocolate and dip oreos in and then coat in some sort of nuts, and candy etc.

Ottawa Senators Hockey Rink Cake Birthday

2008-02-27T22:02:00.008-05:00

Done the cake, finally! It is an Ottawa Senators Cake. The nets are royal icing (a bit broke off the side but oh well)!!. Taped wax paper over a measuring cup and made the shape of the nets and let dry then carefully pulled the tape off to release the wax paper and gently peeled off the nets. The ice surface is marshmallow fondant, there's super easy recipe where you melt marshmallows in microwave add flavorings and then basically sift in the icing sugar and it makes like a playdough almost. The walls were the fondant just shaped around water bottles for one day to take shape. The Sens logo was hard, made original shape out of royal icing and then used edible markers to do the logo. (wilton fine tip).

The ads were made with pieces of the fondant dried and then the edible markers.

Spring Rolls Pork

2008-02-11T18:17:00.000-05:00

Here is what was for supper tonight. Spring Rolls with Chinese pork. Precooked the chinese pork, seasoned it with a package of red marinade to make chinese pork (can't remember the name). Last time we made our own spice marinade but it was too strong of Anise I think. I soaked them overnight in marinade. Grilled them inside, because it was way too cold to bbq today!!! Removed each piece when reached internal temperature of 160 approx. Tented meat to redistribute the juices. Prepared the other items. Soak the Vermacelli noodles in warm water, and stir every once in a while, and keep taking small bites to see when cooked through, then drain. The vegetables have to be done in advance.

Shred carrot on box grater on normal large grating side, and then sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar over the shredded carrots, the recipes claim this softens the carrots, who knows!

Then wash dry the lettuce, I've used all different kinds, I think this time red lettuce. If you have chives that would be best 1" long pieces but otherwise just use green onions either thinely sliced or lengthwise. Coriander, best way to wash is to use a HUGE bowl and let them float up at top and aggitate it so the sand falls to the bottom of the bowl, then scoop out leaves at the top and do all over again with clean water until it looks like no more dirt is coming out of them. Dry them off on paper towels. Some times we use bean sprouts, this time we didn't. When the pork is rested, thinely slice. Get a huge bowl of warm water ready to soften the wrappers. The kind I find tastes the best is pictured, some of the other kinds which are manufactured in Thailand have a thicker texture and terrible taste, so I only look for these ones now. To make this easier, you could pick up some precooked red pork at the local chinese grocery store, or china town has plenty of shops which you can buy it in. As for the dipping sauce I'm sure that the authentic way is to make your own, but after working so hard to get these made you'll be glad you bought some. We have tried a couple different kinds and prefer this one. I believe you can buy it at Loblaws.

This other one is alright as a second choice. It is very sweet though and full of sugar which isn't the greatest.

Children like to help soaking the wrappers, just submerge in a bowl large enough to hold and count to 15 or so. Then put down on slightly wet paper towel (unfortunatly the photo shows a dry one which will not work too great!!) Start with the lettuce, it will help if your next item is bean sprouts to not let the sprouts cut through the tender wrapper.

Then a little bit of everything, more of what you like and less of what you don't ~ make sure you don't over pack or it won't wrap!! Then wrap like a little package, pulling up bottom first then pulling in the sides and finishing out the roll. Place on wet paper towel (or kitchen towel) and cover with another wet one to keep moist while you make the other ones. If you were having a fancy party you would put items on the outside which would look cool through the clear wrapper, but just for yourself, then do what is practical. Sorry for the messy cut through but all cutting boards are dirty!!! you get the point!

Buttermilk Cheesecake Apple Pecan

2008-01-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

The baklava below didn't really turn out - the syrup used at the end was kind of runny and the baklava ended up being more wet than I would have liked. I'm sure others didn't notice! but of course I do! Here is a pic of a buttermilk cheesecake with apple topping before I added homemade caramel. It was delicious and definately full of fat. I only used the buttermilk cause I had some left over from a making the 'old fashioned chocolate cake' from America's Test Kitchen. Didn't seem to change the taste too much of the actual cheesecake. The apple slices for decoration were just sliced thin with a potato peeler and alternate colors and dipped in lemon juice to prevent browning after cut.

Christmas Baking

2007-12-25T15:21:00.000-05:00

Extensive baking for Christmas this year...

Baklava

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake (recipe from America's Test Kitchen, you can get the recipe if you sign up for free).. it is an awsome recipe.

Tiny apples pies, saw a show on food network about how they make the Chudleigh's Apple Blossom so I recreated some. Using the pastry rolls you can get in the same aisle with the croissant rolls. Should be pretty good.

http://chudleighs.com/catalog.php?op=view_item&item_id=2&catalogs_id=1&parent_id=0

Cream Puffs yum yum

Babyshower

2007-08-19T17:52:00.000-04:00

Was going for the cupcake fad look instead of a large cake that no one wants to eat!!! The small cake at the top was the recipe from america's test kitchen for old fashion chocolate cake, the fondant was marshmallow with the coloring being from the small green marshmallows. I attempted to hand paint the sides (I'm no artist) so basically I just copied it from another cake that I saw. I can copy stuff pretty good but not do an original design. The baby on top was made for me. The tiers are just boxes and cake boards covered in a nice pink baby shower wrapping paper and bottom has some cheap ribbon from Michaels. It was just way too hot, the decorations were melting right off the cupcakes.

There were white cupcakes with chocolate filling and there were some with pink candy melts inserted in top to add the 'pink' color since they were iced in chocolate icing. Some were poured fondant icing with pink colored coconut on top. There was vanilla bean icing on some lime flavoured cupcakes. There were macaroons coloured pink with chocolate ganache filling, which completely melted in the sun.

The candy table was a bunch of glass serving pieces which I have gathered over the years, and for couple weeks before I bought every pink candy I could find, pink Pockey, pink coloured popcorn, yogos, strawberry flavoured whoppers, strawberry banana marshallow candy, strawberry flavoured dare cookies, some suckers sticks, etc. The takeout containers were $1.50 from Michaels.

Marcarons

2007-07-15T14:23:00.000-04:00

Not your typical Canadian Oatmeal and coconut macaroons. These are the 'France' kind. Made with ground almonds, and beated eggs whites with different variations of flavour and with a filling inside.

The only ones I've had work out so far are these chocolate ones. The plain vanilla ones didn't work out and the lemon ones didn't work out... by not working out I mean they didn't rise up like these chocolate ones and have the nice 'foot' at the bottom edge, they were more running and ended up being thin discs instead...but of course I will keep trying.

For these chocolate ones I used the recipe from David Lebovitz blog http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2005/10/french_chocolat.html

Pirate Ship Cake

2007-03-02T19:28:00.000-05:00

Made this pirate ship cake for my son's sixth birthday.

Cake Babyshower

2007-02-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

Hi, here is the cake I made for babyshower for my sister in law, I tried to do whimsical topsy turvy, but did the angles too sharp, so the top tier, ended up going on reverse...oh well. I didn't have time to put the spokes on the wheels, but would if I did it again. Rolled fondant , some of them are wilton precolored stuff from their package called 'natural' it's supposed to be skin colors, but seriously doesn't really look like actual skin colors.

This and That

2007-01-12T21:49:00.000-05:00

This baby shower baby block cake...got the idea from a Martha Stewart cake, except hers had nine blocks and were smaller blocks, but I had to make mine a bit bigger cause the cookie cutters I was using for top designs were bigger than 2.5" that her cakes were. I used a lemon buttercream icing inside. Not sure if people actually eat the fondant icing, I tried a bit, it was rather tasteless...they say to crumb coat underneath so there isn't really alot of icing underneath to eat if you just take off the fondant...oh well looks nice atleast!!! I find it's easier to be planned with the cakes and cook them in advance, have time to crumb coat etc... not like I used to do before.

So much cooking!!

2006-12-30T17:25:00.000-05:00

Wow, got a lot of cooking stuff for xmas, a flat grill for stovetop with grill marks like the chef on Everyday Italian uses, a huge steamer/wok, Really great sharp knife set, nice metal bowls with rubber bottoms so don't slide all over the counter. The ice cream attachement for kitchen aid. yumyum. Creme brule set.

For xmas desserts I made Eclairs/cream puffs I forgot to take pictures of all desserts for some reason, the pastry cream curdled a bit , I need a plastic spatula that can actually scrape bottom while cooking stuff like that...but I mixed it with some whip cream, and because people are just biting into them and they are dipped in chocolate and drizzled with white chocolate no one seems to notice.

Also made miniature chocolate cups (boughten) with mousse inside, these were sinfully delicious, maybe a bit too chocolatey tasting, I also put some rapberry puree in the cup first before the mousse (only because I forgot to mix it into the mousse). Seemed to work out. Although someone didn't realize the cup was edible and just ate the mousse out.

Made a three brick batch of cheesecake and made four different flavoured miniature in muffin cup sized, one was apple pecan skor bits and people like these ones, the apples were cubed and softened first in a castiron frying pan with butter and brown sugar. The skor bits were stirred into the cheesecake mix, then topped with apples and bits of pecans and skor on top.

The other flavours were chocolate with store bought miniature chocolate cut in half on top of each mini cheesecake. The other flavour was some of the raspberry puree to make the swirly design on top. The last one was vanilla, but only did a few of these.

I made lemon curd mini pies with real lemon juice instead of the boxed lemon pie mix, but no one seemed to like them, so I think as a society we now think lemon pie should taste like boxed pie, and when we get the real thing, no one likes it!! Too tart I guess.

Well, the only pic I seem to have is my steak and mushrooms. (my hubby and I now share one steak as we cut our portion sizes to resonable perportions and he's lost a lot of weight, as for me, not so much, funny how that works, even though we virtually eat the same thing and work out the same....oh well....I'll keep trying

Farmers Market Heirloon Vegies

2006-10-15T15:09:00.000-04:00

Hi, bought some heirloom carrots from the farmer's market, pretty expensive $5 a bunch, ... wanted to try them. Also bought some other vegies cause they are just so much fresher than the grocery store... Bought some honey too from a local farmer, my mom used to make honey. I made some Leek potato soup for supper, hadn't make it before, never actually bought leeks before, u gotta be careful all the dirt inside the layers. I strained the soup after I blended it after cooking all ingredients, but didn't really seem to need straining so I won't do it next time. I added a bit of lemon juice at the end, probably a bit too much...Was pretty good. So the carrot soup and the potato leek soup have turned out pretty well....makes you think how much money the company that makes those small boxes of soup make since it really doesn't take that much to make it.

Here is a pic of the finished product.

Cakes I've made in Past

2006-10-13T19:00:00.000-04:00

Hi, didn't make much today. Yesterday I made pasta shells with Ricotta/spinach/parmesan/sausage filling covered with homemade pasta sauce. The problem was we ordered some meat from 'all natural no antibiotics etc. farm, and the order came with sausages, and they were pretty gross, so the sausages I put in the filling almost ruined the supper, if the rest of the filling didn't taste so good, it would have been ruined.

Anyone else ever order from a farmer their meat order? A farmer who does 'natural raising, etc. .. the hamburger patties never seem to be cooked on the inside for some reason... the one steak was pretty tough, and the t-bone tonight was alright, but I think I will go back to priceclub steaks. Guess I like all the antiobiotics and additives, sad but true....

So anyways, here is a cake that I made for a wedding, we rented the stand from a local cake store, The cake took lots of planning, and a lot of time in advance to make the flowers on top. Also, I never really took a cake decorating course, so something that would take a trained person a couple minutes to do , like ice the cake, would take me forever, and I like it perfect...so that doesn't help either, and the fact that I didn't want to spend the money on store bought icing or cake didn't help either, I did mix in some store bought icing into the homemade icing though.

Post Thanksgiving baking

2006-10-11T19:30:00.000-04:00

So, I had a bag of cranberries with no one wanting cranberry sauce, so I made lowfat muffins (recipes with applesauce instead of oil...you gotta be careful with those recipes that call for like a cup of oil...too much fat...) but of course I had to add some crumble to the top of the muffins for taste, there is butter in that..but oh well. They are pretty tasty...The sugar I used for the muffins was the sugar in a baggie with a used vanilla bean, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

Cranberry Muffins lowfat

1/3 cup apple sauce unsweetened
1 1/3 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup sugar
1tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (skim if poss, I used 2%)
1tsp Vanilla (skipped cause of vanilla sugar)
2 Egg Whites (I just used whole eggs, we don't mind the colestrol~or whatever the problem is :)
1/2 Cup Cranberries fresh or Frozen, (check them over some had tiny stems)

Preheat oven 375 F. Two bowls, one dry one wet. Dry mix flour, oats, sugar, powder/soda/salt. Wet bowl applesauce, milk, vanilla, eggs. Originally recipe said to put the cranberries in with the wet ingredients, but I remember reading that coating with flour will help them suspend in the mix (although the batter is pretty thick on these, don't think they need the help, but whatever, I put them in with the dry instead. Gently combine wet/dry do not overmix, just mix till combined. Pour into non-stick or muffin papers. Bake 18 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned. I used a simple crumb recipe (like for apple crumble) for the tops of the muffins.

Thanksgiving

2006-10-07T19:55:00.000-04:00

So Thanksgiving is over, I was pretty sick going into this week, but slowly drifting out of it, hopefully. Funny thing is we read a report couple weeks ago about how many people are self-diagnosing their illnesses from online info and going into their doctors convinced they have some disease, and I swear I have meningitis (sp?)!!!! God! Hilarious.

So my creations for Thanksgiving were (didn't get pics though~~too sick)... Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with White Chocolate Mousse layer and topped with Vanilla Bean Whip Cream. The only problem with using the vanilla beans, which I noticed using them for the first time, is that when you scrape the vanilla bean to get out the inside, you have to be careful, because not only do the small black seed thingies come but also, some strands of the bean pod, so if you aren't careful, those could be mistaken for hairs in a delicate dessert like ice cream or cheesecake. Also I overwhipped the whip cream, and couldn't remember, I think you are supposed to add a bit more whip cream that isn't whipped and start again and make sure you stop it in time! Well, going to go relax with a heating pad on my still shoulder (menningitis! :)