Eggplant Caprese Stacks

Where has the time gone.  Seriously, I always have really good intentions about getting a post completed today.  Everyday is "today" and I guess you know the rest of the "good intention" story.  

We're in sunny California and so grateful to be out of the gripping cold that has this firm grip on the north east.  My brother arrived the other day and brought with him what he calls his "new favourite cookbook".  He's determined to cook every recipe in the book.  Maybe we'll see a "Wheat Belly, The Musical" opening on Broadway.  He's already  tried several of the recipes and suggested that we would absolutely love them.  We took the challenge and decided to try one for dinner.

We were pleasantly surprised.  My brother, who is affectionately known as the health nut of our family always has new natural remedies for everything that ails.  When he brought his new favourite we all admitted a little skepticism.  I take it back - this book is the bomb!  Who even knew that ground flax works as efficiently as bread crumbs.  Now I know!!  I would make this recipe again - it's wonderful and we're going to continue with the recipes in the book.

Makes 4 servings

1 eggplant cut into eight 1/2" slices
1/4 cup ground golden flaxseeds
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 tsp Italian Seasoning Mix (see recipe below)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 egg, beaten
4 Tbsp olive oil, divided
2 tomatoes, each cut into four 1/2" thick slices**
16 large fresh basil leaves
8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into 4 equal slices

Lightly grease a baking sheet.

In a shallow bowl or dish, combine the flaxseeds, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, the seasoning mix, and salt.  Place the egg in another shallow bowl or dish.  Dip a slice of the eggplant into the egg until both sides are moistened.  Dredge in the flaxseed mixture to coat.  Place the breaded eggplant on a plate.  Repeat until all the slices have been coated.

In a large skillet over medium heat, heat 2 Tbsp of the oil until hot.  Cook the eggplant, covered, for 8 minutes, turning once, or until browned on both sides and tender when pierced with a fork.  If needed, add 1 Tbsp of the remaining oil during cooking  Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel.

Meanwhile, preheat the broiler.  Place the tomato slices in a single layer on the baking sheet.  Drizzle with the remaining 1 Tbsp oil and sprinkle each with 1/2 Tbsp of the remaining Parmesan.  Broil for 4 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Remove and set aside.

On 4 plates, place the 4 largest eggplant slices.  Top each slice with a broiled Parmesan tomato, 2 basil leaves, and a mozzarella slice.  Top with the remaining eggplant slices, a Parmesan tomato and 2 basil leaves.

Italian Seasoning Mix

2 Tbsp dried basil
2 Tbsp dried oregano
2 Tbsp dried rosemary, crushed
1 Tbsp dried marjoram
1 Tbsp dried garlic powder
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 tsp ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients and store in an air tight container

Tomato Caprese Tarts with Chive Oil

My friend and I were having a bit of a debate, over Facebook, about whether keeping an orderly house  is something that people should prioritize, despite having little ones.  She wrote a long note about how she keeps her place clean and is ready for company at any time.

I quoted part of this poem to my friend:

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Truthfully, we do prioritize keeping the house (fairly) clean.  But, sometimes I wish I didn't care because the evenings and weekends can become one chore after the next.  Also, I was just a bit annoyed with my friend for writing a domestic manifesto about how easy it is to maintain such a lifestyle without acknowledging that she has never had to work for a living and has regular help from nannies.  

My friend also talked about making great meals for her family: "I don’t only buy groceries or make great suppers for company (as I used to) and then eat just okay the rest of the time. But I make a conscious effort to always cook great food for my family, as if company’s always coming over."  

Clearly, if I didn't value great food, I wouldn't be blogging about food for 6 years.  But - I don't always cook great food for my family.  For one, it's not only me that cooks (not to say that R cooks crap food - just that we don't have traditional gender roles in our house).  Sometimes, we just don't have the energy.  Or, sometimes, I just want a bowl of cereal for dinner.  Plus, I kind of like the idea that having guests over is a special occasion that should be marked by extra effort.  

Giz says that the cardinal rule when having guests for dinner is to make a recipe you know well, to be sure that you will be serving something that tastes good.  I pretty much break this rule every time.  

Last weekend, we had guests over and I really wanted to try a recipe from the Savory Pies cookbook of which I got a review copy. 

Tomato Caprese Tarts with Chive Oil

1/2 cup fresh chives, coarsely chopped

1 cup evoo

flour for rolling

2 (14 ounce) packages frozen all-butter puff pastry, thawed in the fridge

3 ounces well-chilled low-moisture mozzarella cheese, coarsely shredded

18 large cherry tomatoes or small Sweet 100s (on the vine, if possible)

Cooking spray

1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water, for egg wash

kosher salt

fresh whole basil leaves, for garnish

aged balsamic vinegar

Bring to a boil a small saucepan half-filled with unsalted water.  Add the chives and blanch for about 10 seconds; they should be very bright green.  Drain in a colander and run cold water over them to stop the cooking.  Pat dry with paper towels.

Put the chives and half the evoo in a blender.  With the machine running, add the remaining olive oil in a slow stream until completely pureed. 

Let the chive oil stand 1 hour and then strain through a fine-mesh sieve lined with a double thickness of damp cheesecloth.  Discard the solids.  

On a lightly floured work surface, use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll 1 package of puff pastry to a 10 x 15-inch rectangle, a scant 1/4 inch thick.  Use a 4-inch cutter to make 6 pastry rounds.  Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.  On a freshly floured work surface, use a freshly floured rolling pin to roll the second package of puff pastry to a 10 X 15-inch rectangle, a scant 1/4 inch thick.  Use a cutter to cut 6 more 4-inch rounds.  Then use a 3-inch cutter to cut out the centers of these rounds, creating rings.  Save the trimmings for another use.

Brush the outside edges of the rounds with egg wash.  Carefully lay the rings on top, aligning the edges.  Use a fork to prick the pastry at half-inch intervals inside the raised border.  Refrigerate until chilled, about 20 minutes.  

Set an over rack in the center position.  Preheat the oven to 425F. 

Divide the mozzarella among the pastry rounds, about 2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) each, keeping it inside the boarders.  Lay 3 tomatoes on top of the mozzarella; it's okay if they touch or overhand a little.  Leave the vine attached or remove it, as you see fit.  Give the tomatoes a spritz of cooking spray (preferably olive oil).  Brush the tart edges with egg wash and sprinkle with a pinch of salt.  

Bake until the pastry is golden and the tomatoes are just beginning to crack and blister, 15-20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature, garnished with lots of fresh basil leaves.  Serve chive oil and balsamic vinegar on the side as a dressing.  

Verdict -- these tarts were really good!  I can see myself serving them over and over again, kind of like this puff pastry recipe.  They're pretty easy to pull together.  My critiques would be that I didn't think that the chive oil added much to the recipe.  I'll probably try pesto on the side next time instead.  Also, I didn't like how the recipe basically suggested setting a bunch of puff pastry aside for another use.  I knew that if I set it aside, it would go to waste.  So I just re-rolled the pastry and made 10 tarts instead of 6.  

On a side note -- I also tried the pizza dough recipe from the book and loved it!  Great flavour and texture.  It's our new "go to" pizza dough recipe.

Vegan Eggplant Lasagna

The other day, I talked about eating more vegetarian meals.  Although there are some meat dishes I really enjoy, for the most part, eating less meat hasn't required too much effort or restraint.   In contrast, becoming vegan would be a completely different story for me.  

The vegan salad I made tasted great -- but I don't think I would survive never having feta cheese in my salad again.  This eggplant lasagna was already really flavourful!  But, I missed having real cheese on top.  Daiya is a great substitute.  But it doesn't melt the way real cheese does.  

Okay -- enough knocking vegan food.  In fact, this dish was actually really good.  I made a vegan eggplant lasagna (no noodles).  Here's what I did:

First I peeled and sliced eggplant into rounds. Then I sprinkled salt on both sides of the eggplant to remove the bitterness.

After letting the eggplant sit for about an hour (maybe longer), I rinsed off the eggplant to remove the salt.

I looked all over the place for a soy-based ricotta or cottage cheese.  I should have started with Google because it turns out that it's really easy to just make a ricotta-like substitute by blending a firm tofu and adding some spices (e.g., oregano, basil, garlic powder).

For the first layer, I spread out a fair amount of crushed tomatoes

Then eggplant

Then more crushed tomatoes

Then I put a layer of cheese

Then, the tofu ricotta and a layer of spinach

sliced mushrooms

and canned San Marzano tomatoes

Next comes the last layer of eggplant

I put the last of my crushed tomatoes on top of the eggplant and finished it off with more Daiya cheese.

I let the lasagne cook at 350 for about an hour (partly to make sure that the eggplant was cooked through, partly because the cheese was slow to brown and partly because we were eating the salad and visiting with friends)

Like I said, the dish tasted good.  It was a bit messy plating it.

____________________________________________________________________

Hopefully you're not pictured out because I also wanted to quickly share the appetizer.  At the end of the garden season last year, we had a bunch of cherry tomatoes to use up.  So, although I could probably just eat them standing over the counter, we decided to preserve them by oven roasting them with garlic and freezing them in ice cube trays.

I took a bunch of the cubes from the freezer and warmed them up,

The entire appetizer was motivated by wanting to try the Apple Cider Vinegar Pearls we recently got.  Gingras makes these caviar-like pearls that are little bursts of apple cider vinegar.



Overall, the appetizer was just okay.  I really like the crackers (I just randomly chose them while shopping).  I think the vinegar pearls didn't add much to the flavour of the tomato, which already have their own acidity.  I suspect they would be better with a cheese or meat topping.  They also didn't visibly stand out very much against the tomatoes. Thankfully, I still have 2 out of the 4 sachets of pearls left.  So, I'll keep experimenting with them.

Bierocks

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

My old friend and realtor extraordinaire in Winnipeg  Chris Krawchenko was showing off his home made Bierocks one day.  I was uber impressed and told him I wanted the recipe.  I didn't even know what a bierock was but they looked rather cool.  I'm always looking to try recipes, especially European recipes in my own small effort to keep some of the simplicity of the "old country" alive and in the kitchen.

My research tells me that bierocks (pronounced beerocks), also known as runza and very similar to the Ukrainian pyrizhky, originate from Germany and Russia and are well known (obviously not to me) as a comfort food of the harvest.  They're savory little pockets of meat, onion and cabbage and apparently the forerunner of the Reuben Sandwich.  Who knew?

1 lb ground beef

1 c. onion, chopped
1/2 green cabbage, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

In a large skillet on medium heat, cook the ground beef and onion until the beef is browned.  Add salt, pepper and worcestershire sauce.  Add the chopped cabbage and continue to cook until the cabbage is soft.  

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You can make your own dough if you like or use a premade pizza dough or do it the easy way.  I opted for the easy way.

The premade dough, although it's probably not the most cost effective way of making large batches, was an excellent choice for me.  I was able to find the dough on sale (my favourite 4 letter word) and it's perferated to a great size and easy to handle.

On approximately 5x5 squares, put a heaping tablespoon of filling in the center.  Bring the corners to the center and pinch all the sides closed.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and line up your bierocks leaving enough space in between for oven expansion.  They'll expand 50% in the oven.

Beat one egg and wash your bierocks before you put them in the oven at 350 F for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Beautiful no?  

The most important thing is that these filled pillows are incredibly delicious.  The combination of the filling with the soft texture of the dough are a totally winning combination.  

The volume of filling in this recipe is enough to make 36-40 bierocks.  You may want to even double the recipe.

Reminder:  Don't forget to enter the Mymemories.com giveaway before October 12th.  Just go to the post before this one to get the details.

Parsley and Mint Meatballs

A while ago I had the pleasure of watching the Three Greek Sisters  create these Greek meatballs.  They just made it look so easy and the aroma while they were cooking was sheer heaven.  The friend I was with and I both agreed that this was a must try recipe and we've now added this recipe to our regular repetoire of "good things".

Follow the recipe to a "T" and you'll never be sorry with these entirely delicious and soft meatballs.  I've never used mint in a meatball recipe before but now I feel like "how can you make them without it".

1 lb. (500 g) ground beef, extra lean
1/2 yellow onion, minced
1/2 cup each fresh parsley and mint, chopped
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 Tbsp yellow mustard
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp oregano, dried
1/2 tsp salt Pepper, as desired

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly with hands. Let mixture sit in refrigerator for at least an hour. Shape meat into bite-sized balls and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Place in a preheated 450 degree oven for 15-20 minutes until brown and cooked through.

I didn't serve Tzatziki sauce but here's a great recipe from Jerry's Thoughts, Musings and Rants and lower fat too.

JC100 Salad Nicoise

Have you been seeing the JC100 (Julia Child 100) banner featured on a number of blogs displaying recipes that have been taken from the Julia Child collections?  Several bloggers are paying homage to this culinary giant and what would have been her 100th birthday this August 15th.  Maybe I'm aging myself here but I remember watching her hosting her t.v. show and making really lousy attempts at mimicking her very distinctive voice.   Let's also not forget that Julia was 6'1" tall and I'm only 5'2".

Each week a new recipe comes into my mailbox encouraging me to stretch myself and laugh at myself as I revisit "the voice".  I still can't get it right but it sure makes me laugh whenever I try.

This week's recipe is Julia's very famous Salad Nicoise.  Great as an appetizer; kind of a French antipasto and exceptional as a whole meal loaded with flavour, texture and good healthy ingredients.  Julia would probably be horrified if she realized I left out the Boston lettuce and the olives but this has always been the way I eat this salad and it's in my top 5 salad category.

Ingredients


3 cups cold, blanched green beans
3 or 4 quartered tomatoes
1 cup vinaigrette (French dressing) with herbs
1 head Boston lettuce, separated, washed, drained and dried
3 cups cold French potato salad
1 cup canned tuna chunks, drained
1/2 cup pitted black olives, preferably the dry Mediterranean type
2-3 hard-boiled eggs, cold, peeled and quartered
6-12 canned anchovy filets, drained
2-3 Tbsp minced, fresh green herbs (I used parsley)

French Dressing (Sauce Vinaigrette)  **

2 Tbsp good wine vinegar or a mixture of wine vinegar and lemon juice (I used white wine vinegar)
1/4 tsp salt
Optional:  1/4 tsp dry mustard
6 Tbsp salad or olive oil
1-2 Tbsp minced green herb such as parsley, chives, tarragon, basil or a pinch of dried herbs

** This recipe doesn't make a full 1/2 cup of vinaigrette - I would double it

Place all ingredients in a closed top jar and shake vigorously for about 30 seconds
Slice cold potatoes and toss with some of the vinaigrette
Toss the lettuce leaves in the salad bowl with 1/4 cup of vinaigrette and place the leaves around the edge of the bowl.
Arrange the potato salad in the bottom of the bowl and build your salad with the other ingredients.
Just before serving, season the beans and tomatoes with several spoonfuls of vinaigrette.  Toss the lettice leaves in the salad bowl with 1/4 cup of vinaigrette 
Pour the remaining dressing over the top.
Voila

Quesadillas & Sweet Potato Chips with Lime

Only a small handful of friends even know that I have a food blog. Usually when I take pictures of food around friends, they just chalk it up to me being strange.  But, when I invited friends for dinner a couple of weekends ago and started taking pictures, they immediately said, "Do you have a food blog?"

Uhhh....what?  I'm just taking pictures...why would you assume that I have a...what are they called....a food blog?

Yeah.  I'm not a good liar.

For this meal, I wanted to be as close to vegan as possible.  I knew that my guests would eat dairy products when out at friends, but I'd really prefer to make my guests feel as comfortable (and unconflicted) as possible when eating at my home.

As an appetizer, I served some melba rounds with preserved bruschetta.  Everyone that I serve this bruschetta to seems to really like it.  Personally, I'm not a big fan.

For the main, I wanted to do something interactive.  I think it sets an informal tone while allowing guests to customize their own meal.  This is particularly useful when you have guests that have food restrictions and are fussy eaters.  Of course, you don't get the 'wow factor' that you might get when you put down nicely plated food or even set out a large dish for a family-style dinner.  But, you can always add in these elements in your side dishes or for the dessert.

For the main, I prepared a mise-en-place of ingredients for quesadillas.  The selection of ingredients included black beans, mushrooms, shallots, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, chipotles in adobo sauce and vegan cheese (Daiya).  

Daiya is a Canadian-based cheese company that is known among vegans as being one of the better options.  It started appearing in Ottawa a couple of years ago.  It melts up well, tastes good and you wouldn't even miss mozzarella if you use it.  

The picture of the quesadilla is a bit shoddy -- due to time constraints.  But, basically, we put one fajita shell on the pan, flipped it after a minute and then added the desired ingredients.  Then, the second fajita goes on top. After a couple of minutes, we carefully flipped the whole thing.  I'd also recommend putting a lid on the pan while it cooks just to get a bit of steam to the cheese.


I think it went over well.  The only issue is that it wouldn't really work if you had a lot of guests because each quesadilla basically requires its own pan and you don't want people eating at different times or eating cold food while they wait for others to finish.

In addition to the quesadillas, I went with Noble Pig's Sweet Potato Chips with Lime.

Easy to make and tasted great!  I thought I might have too much with two pans of thinly sliced sweets potatoes (about 3 large).  But, they shrank down a fair bit and I'm sure if I had made more, they would have been eaten.

My guests brought a nice salad (no picture) and the meal was great!

The dessert was a bit more of an experiment. I thought it would be a calculated experiment to make trifle, which everyone loves, but use soy milk.  But I learned the hard way that soy milk doesn't work with regular instant pudding mixes the same way that milk does.  Apparently animal fat (found in milk) is required for the pudding to actually thicken up.  It probably didn't help the thickening issue that I also bought kosher instant pudding to make sure that it didn't have any gelatine in it.  Next time, I'll buy a vegan instant pudding mix.

In the end, I had to head up the milkshake-like mixture and add a lot of cornstarch (mixed into water).  Even then, it didn't thicken up until it cooled down in the freezer.   Thankfully, it worked out (despite burning some of the vanilla pudding when trying to get it to thicken.  Maybe a bit more of a creme brulee flavour than usual, but still very tasty!

I'll leave you with a photo of a recent knitting project that I completed.  A free pattern of this leaf-patterned baby blanket can be found here (if you're a Ravelry member).  The photo on the left is before blocking and the photo on the right is after blocking.

; \

Maple Grilled Jumbo Shrimp

Dinner parties are generally when we like to wow with an appetizer that intrigues people enough to think about what's coming next. Sometimes one can get a little carried away with the appetizer and find out that it could have been a complete meal in itself.

A friend's birthday party is cause for celebration. This particular friend was turning a big number and we wanted him to feel particularly special on his big day. We picked up some jumbo shrimp. We should have known right? The mere size of these jumbo shrimp could be a full meal. I guess I'm not great at reading the signs.

6 jumbo shrimp
1 8 oz package smoked salmon
1 cup maple syrup



Step 2: Take the individual strips from a small package of smoked salmon and soak them in maple syrup. Use as flavourful a maple syrup as possible.





Step 3: Wrap the shrimp with the soaked smoked salmon



Step 4: Grill shrimp approximately 3-5 minutes per side and serve



Verdict: I initially didn't believe this would be as tasty as it is and that for a second, I was mistaking the smoked salmon for bacon.

Camarones Fritoes with Mexican Cocktail Sauce

After spending the past couple of weeks of 2011 cooking, eating, celebrating, eating, relaxing, eating and of course, eating, I feel like I'm ready to get back on track. A smart person once said to me that we can chose to live life consciously or unconsciously. So no, I'm not going to stop eating, but I'd like to be living my life a little more consciously with more assurance about outcomes. Actually, I think that smart person was Psychgrad.

One of my new efforts this year is being the newest member of the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club. I join a formidable group of fellow bloggers; Jerry of Jerry's Thoughts, Musings and Rants , Val from More Than Burnt Toast , Sandi of Whistlestop Cafe Cooking and Roz of La Bella Vista . Based on the philosophy of Healthy Foods - Cooking Light , each month one of the members selects a theme and each of us participates by selecting a recipe based on the theme. Each blogger selects a course to prepare and submits their choice to the group. If I choose an appetizer, the next blogger must choose a different course until we fill the entire meal. Posting is generally the first Wednesday of each month.

This month's theme is "Dreaming of a Summer Mexican Fiesta". The dreaming part and preparing Mexican dishes is about as close as I'm getting to Mexico especially when it looks more like this here.

The fun is both in the challenge of the theme and also in the blog hop to see what everyone else has done. Happy blog hopping.

My choice for the Fiesta is a shrimp appetizer - Camarones Fritoes with Mexican Cocktail Sauce

Ingredients

Shrimp:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

1 large egg white

1 (5.5-ounce) bag baked potato chips (such as Lay's)

1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cooking spray

Use the coating and crisping technique for different fillets of fish, such as halibut or catfish. It will also work in making chicken fingers. Garnish with lime wedges, if desired.

Sauce:

6 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon hot sauce

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

To prepare shrimp, lightly spoon the flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Place flour in a shallow dish. Combine the buttermilk and egg white in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Place potato chips in a food processor; process until finely ground. Place chip crumbs in a shallow dish.

Sprinkle shrimp evenly with salt and pepper. Working with 1 shrimp at a time, dredge shrimp in flour; dip into buttermilk mixture. Dredge shrimp in crumbs, shaking off excess. Place shrimp on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Lightly spray top of shrimp with cooking spray. Repeat the procedure with remaining shrimp, flour, buttermilk mixture, and crumbs. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until done.

To prepare sauce, combine ketchup and remaining ingredients, stirring well. Serve sauce with shrimp.