Whole Wheat English Muffins

On this glorious spring day, I thought, what better way to celebrate the Royal nuptials then to make English muffins!! These are whole wheat with a honey flavour. They are really great fresh, or toasted with some butter or peanut butter. I also love them topped with scrambled eggs, garlicly sauteed spinach, and goat cheese.

Cheerio!

Whole Wheat English Muffins

~ makes 12 muffins ~

1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees)
1 T active yeast
2 cups whole wheat flour, plus 1/4 cup for kneading
1 cup all purpose flour
1 t salt
1 cup 2% milk
3 T canola oil
2 T honey
1 egg
cornmeal

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Sprinkle yeast over warm water and let sit for ten minutes until frothy.

Combine flours and salt in bowl and set aside.

Warm milk over medium high heat until bubbles just start to form. Add honey and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat.

Combine egg, water, yeast, oil, and half of the flour with the milk mixture. Add remaining flour mixture and stir to combine.

Turn out onto board knead, adding more flour, one tablespoonful at a time, for several minutes, until it is no longer sticky.

Place in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp towel and let rise for at least one hour in a warm part of your kitchen, until it has roughly doubled in size.

When dough has risen, roll onto board which is dusted well with cornmeal, into a ½ inch thickness and cut into 3 inch rounds.

Fry in a skillet, which has been dusted with cornmeal, over medium heat, for 5-7 minutes per side, or until browned.

Bake in oven until sides are set and insides are soft but no longer gooey.

Let cool on a rack.

Split with a fork or with a knife, and enjoy!

This recipe is a combination of a few that I found on the site but is adapted, for the most part, from the website, recipetips.com.

Meatless Mondays ... Hummus !!

I have been observing "Meatless Mondays" for the past little while. The initiative was born in WWI wherein families in America were asked to reduce the amount of meat they ate as a way to aid the food crisis in war torn Europe. The effort returned in WWII and was a success. Around the turn of the 21st century, the program was re-introduced as an effort to reduce American obesity and to reduce carbon emissions which resulted from large scale farming.

I am attempting to incorporate more than one meat free day per week into my diet, for health reasons and for environmental reasons. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely a carnavore. I could not be a vegetarian, and I have no interest in giving up meat entirely. I do, however, know that if we all ate a little bit less meat, there would be a decrease in the strain that large scale farming has on our environment.

Okay, enough preaching already!!

One of the easiest and (in my opinion) tastiest vegetarian/vegan lunches that I prepare on a near weekly basis is homemade hummus. Hummus is a very popular Middle Eastern dip/spread. I think if people knew how much better homemade hummus is, as compared to store bought, they would not hesitate to break out the food processor!

If you are feeling really inspired, you can get dried chickpeas and soak them overnight. Then in the morning, change the water and then bring them to a boil and simmer them for 45-60 minutes, or until tender. If you are not feeling particularly inspired, or if you are short on time, canned chickpeas work just as well!

Chickpea Hummus

2.5 cups cooked or 19 oz can, chickpeas

1-2 T tahini

juice and zest of half of one lemon

1-2 cloves garlic

1-2 T olive oil

salt and pepper

Combine ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and blend until well mixed. If mixture seems to thick, thin with a bit of water, up to one quarter cup.

Serve w/ vegetables and whole wheat pita for dipping!

Blog Makeover!!!

Where have I been you ask? Where has the time gone? I decided to take some time away to refocus and reflect on what I wanted from this blog and what I wanted this blog to become. A lot of changes have occurred in my life over the past months and I wanted to reflect these changes in the blog as well.

Firstly, we purchased a new home!! We closed in late summer, 2010. It is a beautiful Victorian historic home built in 1873. We fell instantly in love with its high ceilings and original features. It needs work, lots of work, which partially explains my M.I.A. status on the blog. We spent many long nights leading up to the Christmas break stripping floors to their original hardwood, painting, sanding and resurfacing multiple surfaces throughout the home. We have just scratched the surface. It is starting to look like a home and I love it more every time we change something new. This will be a labour of love that will last for years to come. I have decided to incorporate some of the changes into a new page on the blog, entitled "home and garden” you can find that link here!

Secondly, I became engaged!! It happened around Christmas this past December! We are planning a wedding in Italy in 2012. I have been spending lots of time looking at beautiful wedding blogs, my favourite being Snippet and Ink. I love Kathryn’s gorgeous daily inspiration boards and her accounts of the real weddings of endlessly cool couples across North America! I will detail our wedding trip and our honeymoon, along with future adventures on my new travel/adventure page “out and about” you can find that link here!

Finally, as you have likely noticed, I have a new blog design!! It is the beautiful work of the lovely Blog Fairy. What a dream come true. I couldn’t have imaged a smoother and easier process. She truly is a magic-maker! If you want more information about her services, find her link here or on the button at the bottom of the blog!

I am looking forward to the new season. We have just started planning our garden for this summer. Our new home came with a small green house so we are going to have some fun starting seeds in years to come. The winter has been holding on but I have faith that warm weather is just around the corner. I can’t wait to start cooking from my own garden again!

Cheers, and Happy Easter Weekend!!

Picnic at the Brick Works '10

I am very excited because I have purchased my tickets for this year's Picnic at the Brick Works. I have gone to this event for the past two years and it is always a fantastic time. The Picnic is a joint venture by Slow Food Toronto and The Evergreen Brickworks. Every year the best chefs in Toronto pair with local farmers, cheese makers, chocolatiers, bakers and butchers, to create a slow food extravaganza!!

Here is a link to more information about the event: Brick Works Picnic Site. You can also purchase tickets online. Get your tickets early as they sell out fast.

Here are some pics from last years event:

Fig and Prosciutto Pizza

This recipe is based on a recipe by Todd English, that I found years ago. It is a family favourite. The flavours are fantastic together. Figs and Prosciutto is one of my favourite couplings, if you can find fresh figs, use them for this recipe as they are glorious, if impossible to find (especially in my neck of the woods!)

With respect to the cheese, I love chevre or gorgonzola equally, so go with what you like.

Fig and Prosciutto Pizza

Pizza dough recipe

Fig Jam

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3 springs Rosemary, chopped fine

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

250 g chevre or gorgonzola

handful of walnuts, chopped

Prosciutto

salt and pepper
cornmeal

Heat pizza stone in bottom of oven, to 500 degrees.
Combine fig jam, vinegar, rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper in a small saucepan over medium heat.
Cook until jam is melted.
Roll out dough. Place dough on a pizza paddle which has been sprinkled liberally with cornmeal.
Cover the bottom of the crust with the fig mixture.
Follow with a sprinkling of walnuts.
Rip apart two pieces of prosciutto and place them over the walnuts.
Dot pizza with as much cheese as you wish.
Place pizza on pizza stone and cook until well browned (about 5-10 minutes).

The Ultimate Burger & Ceasar Salad

I have been on a search this summer, to find the ultimate burger recipe. I think this one is pretty close! I think it is always better to grind your own meat. We used top sirloin. Whatever cut you choose, you must ensure that there is enough fat included, otherwise the burger will be dry and mealy. Most of the research that I have found suggests a 15-20% ratio of fat to meat. If you are using a leaner cut of meat (like turkey), I would suggest adding some bacon to the mix, in order to up the fat ratio, so as to ensure a juicy burger!

I think a good burger needs no other accompaniment than an equally fantastic salad. Growing up in my house, salad almost always meant Caesar salad. This version (my mother's) is very garlicy, so I wouldn't suggest it prior to a first date or even if you have a job interview in the next week. But if you are happily in love (or happily single) and well employed, this salad is well worth the day or two of keeping your distance.

Ultimate Burger

~ makes 6 well sized burgers ~

2 lbs top sirloin beef, ground
1 egg

1/4 cup dry or fresh bread crumbs

1 T Dijon mustard

3 garlic cloves, chopped fine

4 drops liquid smoke

1/4 cup fresh Greek oregano (or rosemary), chopped fine

1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled

salt and ground pepper

fresh kaiser rolls

Combine all ingredients and form into six equal burgers.
Grill to medium.
Serve on kaiser rolls with sauce (recipe below)

Sauce:

1/2 cup mayo

large handful basil leaves, chopped fine

1 T lemon juice

1 T Dijon mustard

1 clove garlic, chopped fine

Combine and serve!

Colleen's Caesar Salad

2 egg yolks

1 T lemon juice

8 shakes worcestershire sauce

2 t anchovy paste

2 T red wine vinegar

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1 T Dijon mustard or 2 t dried mustard

salt and pepper

1/2 - 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 large head romaine lettuce

1/4 red onion, chopped into rings

1 cup croutons

1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, freshly grated

Combine first eight ingredients with a hand blender.

Slowly add olive oil, while blending, until desired consistency is reached (should be very creamy).

Toss dressing with lettuce, onions croutons and cheese.

Orecchiette with Sausage, Kale and Feta

This dish is a classic combination, pasta with a minimal sauce of sausage and bitter greens. The most common combination is orecchiette with sausage and rapini but any bitter green will do. In this version, the the bitterness of the kale is softened by the fat of the pork and Feta. Orecchiette means "little ears" in Italian, they are definitely worth finding, but if you cannot, farfalle or even small shells will deliver a similar result.

I was vising the River's Edge Goat Dairy this past weekend, and they had ground pork from pigs that they had feed on the leftover whey from their cheese making. I was excited to try it so I used it in this recipe. It was fantastic, very mild with a definite sweetness to the meat.

Orecchiette with Sausage, Kale and Feta

1 lb dried orecchiette

2 T extra virgin olive oil

large pinch of chili flakes

3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1.5 lbs ground pork

4 cups kale, chopped

1 cup white wine

salt and pepper

250 g Mediterranean style goat feta cheese

Bring to a boil well salted water, boil pasta according to directions.

Meanwhile, heat 2 T olive oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and chili flakes and continue to cook until the garlic is fragrant.

Place pork into pan in small, even pieces, season well. Let brown well on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add kale to pan, season well and stir-fry until wilted.

Add white wine and reduce by half.

Add pork back into pan and check and adjust seasonings.

Drain pasta, but reserve 1 cup of the cooking water and set aside.

Add pasta to sausage/kale mixture. If sauce is dry, add pasta water and cook until you reach the desired consistency.

Serve sprinkled with feta and more chili flakes.