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Monthly Archives: March 2011

Pantry War Update

31 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Jane's Adventures in Dinner in guinness cake, maple syrup pudding

≈ 5 Comments

This is less of an update and more of a sweets report. The baked beans turned out quite nicely but I added about 1/4 cup of sweet chilli sauce at the end to liven the flavour a bit.

I’ve been reading a lot about maple syrup this week and had to go home and make Maple Syrup Pudding. I don’t make this often as I have zero self-control when this pudding comes out of the oven.

It is the type of dessert that each time you go into the kitchen you have a spoonful and then you are on the way to the basement and you have another spoonful. Oh! I need something in the Babes’ room-have another spoonful. About two hours later you realize that you have eaten over half the pan of pudding and there is no longer enough dessert for tonight. Hmmmm…better make another batch and thus the vicious cycle begins again.

Make this at your own peril.

Grandma Gibson’s Maple Syrup Pudding

In a bowl cream together; 2 T. butter and 1/2 cup of white sugar. Add 1 egg and beat. Add 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 cup milk. Pour into a greased 8×8 cake pan.

But wait! Where is the syrup? Don’t worry it’s on the way.

In a pot bring 1 1/2 cup maple syrup, 3/4 cup water ant 2 T. butter to a boil.

Pour over the cake mixture and bake at 350 degrees for around 40 minutes.

Did I mention that this pudding actually performs a magic trick? Well. During the cooking process the cake migrates to the top and the syrup travels to the bottom. WOW!

I would add; serve warm but you’ll likely eat the whole pan while it is screaming hot.

I’m also bringing a cake to a birthday party Friday night and as tonight is a bit of a rush I made it yesterday (don’t worry-I froze it). This is one of my favourite cakes and I got to try out my new snazzy, giant cupcake pan. I’ll be decorating it with chocolate icing, and marshmallows that I will toast with my handy blowtorch.

This is from the Green and Black’s Chocolate Recipes book-special thanks to 100 mile Locavores for reminding me about it.

1) In a bowl combine; 1 bottle of Guinness (the recipe asks for 1 3/4 cups and this is close enough in my books)and 1 cup of cocoa. Beat well. This will take some mixing so don’t be discouraged. You end-up with a mixture that looks a lot like a fabulous chocolate pudding.

2) In another bowl grate 5 oz. of dark chocolate and add to the beer mixture.

3) Ack! In yet another bowl combine 1 3/4 cup of brown sugar and 1 cup of butter. Beat in 4 eggs (one at a time).

4) Good Grief! In a final bowl combine, 1 2/3 cups flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder and 2 tsp baking soda.

5) Go back to you eggs mixture and add (alternating) the flour and the chocolate. You are supposed to do this in about three batches. Honestly, I don’t have the patience, each time I read this in a recipe and just plunk everything in and mix. It always works out.

6) Bake in a greased and flour (or non-stick) 9 inch springform pan or you too can try a fancy giant cupcake pans and bake for almost an hour at 350 degrees (my oven runs hot so I actually go to 330 degrees to prevent burning) or until a skewer comes out clean.

I love hearing from you. Leave a comment-make my day.

The pantry adventures…

29 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by Jane's Adventures in Dinner in baked beans

≈ Leave a comment

The bouchon were beyond fabulous and took almost no time (five minutes-tops!) to make. I thought I was making extra to eat for lunch but they were devoured. Yay!

Now onto all those beans…

From the “Diner, Drive-ins and Dives” fan site. I’ve been looking for this recipe ever since we saw this episode. The Husband loves baked beans and put in a request for this recipe. Fingers crossed that they will be tasty-I have them in the slowcooker now.

Soak a pound of navy beans overnight
Drain the water.
In a pot- cover beans with fresh water- Bring them to boil, with a teaspoon of baking soda, and some salt. then let them roll for 12 mins- make sure you add some pork fat.
Remove from stove, take out beans, leave your liquid.
Add 1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 Tsp.. dry mustard
1/2 tsp pepper
throw in some ketchup for good measure.. not much, just eyeball about 1/4 cup!
and let all ingredients cook until thick..er…
alternate in your crock pot or bean pot the following..
sliced onion
smoked pork rind with lots of meat
the beans you set aside.
Then cover in the pot with liquid- cook FIVE hours on 300…
FEAST AWAY!!

I love hearing from you. Leave a comment-make my day.

Food Challenge this week

28 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by Jane's Adventures in Dinner in baked beans, morning glory muffins, Trifle, tuna bouchon

≈ 2 Comments

Once again I’ve been inspired by the “Mrs.” and I’m going to get our downstairs pantry under control. It looks like I have a mini grocery store down there right now so buying more goods (other than freshies) doesn’t seem to make much sense.

In the pantry I need to address;
1) Around 15 different containers of dried beans. I think we’ll have a few of these but come on…and they don’t go off.
2) Approx. 30 packages of jello. These are all from my father-in-law’s house and I don’t actually like jello enough to have 30 servings of it. Apparently there is more waiting to come. Want some jello? Maybe this can be my first give away on my blog:) I did find a recipe for homemade marshmallows in the Kraft magazine and that might be the ticket! Below also find a great recipe for trifle.
3) 2 cans of pineapple (Morning Glory muffins-recipe below)
4) 3 cans of coconut water?
5) 2 cans of tuna (Why do I keep buying this when I don’t like tuna in a can? See recipe for tuna bouchon below)
6) Six milk crates full of a variety of liquor (no problem there 🙂

We had some great eating this weekend from; fish and chips to fabulous steaks to beef bourginon to…

Homemade Donuts (recipe previously given). We were lucky enough to be invited to great friends for dinner the other night and I offered to make dessert. What to make for a crowd of 15 with a whole bunch of little ones? Donuts. Who doesn’t like fried dough? One day I will even have enough bacon fat saved-up to fry them old school in that tasty goodness. This time I just used canola oil.

This seemed to be the weekend to catch up with people as last night we were able to hangout with some of my work peeps. I wanted something that would feed a crowd but still allow me to actually talk to my guests and not have a tonne of clean-up.

This is what we had:
1) Appetizers; homemade pickles, homemade bread, crackers, goat cheese with rhubarb chutney and chorizo heated in the oven and served with honey mustard.
2) Main: Arugula and blood orange salad, more homemade bread and a big pot of beef bourgignon. This is dead easy. In a heavy pot (if you have a big Le Creuset this is perfect) simply brown five pieces of bacon that have been cut into 1/2 inch pieces. Take bacon out-leave fat. Add 2 lbs. of beef that has been cut into chunks and then dregged in a bit of flour (salt and pepper the flour). When brown add; the reserved bacon, 3 cups of beef stock, 3 cups of button mushrooms, 1 cup of red wine, 1 tsp of dried thyme (or fresh if you have it), baby onions that have been peeled (2 cups), 1 tsp. juniper berries (don’t worry if you don’t have them) and 2 bay leaves. Let bubble away for a minimum of 3 hours.
3) Dessert: I snuck in some of challenge items to make the dessert and whipped together a trifle. This is a weird recipe that I am not sure where I got it but people (ie my husband) will eat it until they are ill.

Have a white cake baked OR get a grocery store pound cake. Cut-up and douse in a bit of sherry. Layer into a bowl and up the sides. Take 2 cups of frozen raspberries and mush them (highly technical cooking term alert!). Add to the cake in the bowl. In another bowl prepare a package of raspberry jello with 1 cup of hot water and 1/2 cup of cold water. Top the raspberries. In a pot, heat 2 cups of milk, add 2 T. of custard powder and 1 T. of sugar (these mix best if you take a bit of the milk out, mix with the custard powder and then add to the rest of the milk). Top the raspberry and jello with custard and add another layer of cake. Chill for a minimum of 1 hour. Top with berries or chocolate shavings or toasted nuts and whipped cream.

This recipe sounds like a disaster but it is fabulous.

Tonight, we’ll be having a big salad and tuna bouchon. I found this recipe while reading Molly’s book (see previous post about inappropriate usage of people’s names after reading their blogs) and it made me want to use canned tuna (bleh-sorry, we always had cats and they ate canned food and that is what is in my head when I open a can of tuna) oh-and visit France again, like right now. How is it that the dreaded canned tuna takes on a more favourable tone when given the French moniker “Bouchon au Thon”?

http://orangette.blogspot.com/2005/03/on-heresy-and-bouchons-au-thon.html

Bouchons au Thon
Adapted from Demarle, Inc., and my host mother

These bouchons—a crustless tuna quiche of sorts, I suppose—are delicious warm or at room temperature, with a green salad and a good baguette.

180 grams canned tuna in water (preferably chunk light), drained
3 Tbs tomato paste
5 Tbs crème fraîche
3 large eggs
1 cup finely grated gruyère cheese
Salt
Pepper
2 Tbs finely chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
ÂĽ cup minced onion

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, and spray 8 wells of a muffin tin with cooking spray (unless, of course, you have a silicone muffin mold, in which case no greasing is necessary). [I’ve also baked the batter in a single 7-inch silicone cake mold, which essentially negates the name “bouchon” but makes for a nice variation.]

In a medium bowl, break up the tuna with a fork, smashing it to a rough paste. Add the tomato paste, crème fraîche, eggs, gruyère, a good pinch of salt, Italian parsley, and onion, and mix well. The batter should be relatively smooth.

Spoon the batter evenly into 8 wells of the muffin tin, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until set and golden around the edges. [If you choose to use a 7-inch mold as mentioned above, the baking time will be longer; bake until the batter looks set and does not jiggle.]

Serves 4 as a light meal with side dishes.

Lastly, tonight will be the night to make the weekly muffins. I didn’t quite get to those yesterday so tonight I’ll do up one of my favourites and even use a can of pineapple from the pantry 🙂 I’m excited about this recipe because my former Morning Glory recipe had an obscene amount of oil in it (tasty but more cake than healthy muffin).

CookingNook.com’s Morning Glory Muffins (I’ll double the batch because 12 muffins WILL NOT LAST US LONG)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 – 14 ounce can crushed pineapple, drained
3/4 cup carrots, finely grated
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Lightly oil or spray 12 muffin cups or line with paper cups.

Stir flour together with baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg in a medium sized bowl with buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Stir in pineapple.

Pour into flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in carrots and raisins. Spoon batter into muffin cups. Bake 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Yield: 12 muffins

I’ll post some of my other ideas later this week as I come-up with them.

I love hearing from you. Leave a comment-make my day.

Second Money Challenge

28 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by Jane's Adventures in Dinner in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

In my quest to reform my spending habits I’m giving myself a series of challenges. I’ve pretty much got the Starbucks monkey off of my back (ONE time out last week so another day added to the end but…considering how I was doing before I’m fairly ok with this) so now it it time for another vice.

I LOVE books. I need them. I crave them. I wait impatiently for the next installment of a book series. I make my students love them…I also spend WAY too much money on them.

I am going to start using the library. I don’t like library books-they have a smell to them. I’ll get over it.

The babes obviously loves the library and I’d like to keep it that way.

This is the no-brainer solution to where we will go next time it is raining and she needs somewhere else to run around.

I’ve acted on this challenge twice so far including CrunchyChickens’ call for a book club based on “Better Off”. I’ve wanted to read this book for awhile. I had the Chapters site open, the book found when…I closed the window and learned how to navigate the library site instead.

The book is now on the way from a location on the other side of the city to a library that is within walking distance of my house (boooooo…me-for not doing this A LONG TIME AGO).

For more about this bookclub go to:
http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/2011/03/better-off-book-club.html

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