A land of carrots…

we were completely floored by an expensive gift given to us by one of our acquaintances for Christmas, so we decided to do something elaborate.

Yes, create their own little winter wonderland.

The gift came from a family of four, so we decided that four little snowmen would do the trick!

Aren’t they too cute!?

Jammy Marshmallow Snowmen:

(per snowman)

1 chocolate cupcake (we put spoonfuls of jam in ours, just as a little surprise for the tongue)
Icing
Coconut
4 large marshmallows
2 chocolate chips
1 smartie
a piece of red sour candy (the long kind you can purchase for 0.25$ a slice at the convenience store).

Level off the top of the chocolate cupcake.

Spread with icing.

Now take three large marshmallows and roll to form one sphere. fix the fourth on top of the larger sphere (you can roll it too to form a more circular shape).

Stick the marshmallow part of the snowman onto the cupcake, and sprinkle snowman base (cupcake with protruding icing) with coconut.

Fix the chocolate chips on the head as eyes, and cut off a strip of the red candy for a scarf. Cut off a smaller triangle-shaped strip of the red candy and roll to form a nose. Fix the Smartie on the middle portion of the snowman as a button.

Adorable, isn’t it!?

…. hope they’ll like it! (they packaged very nicely too!)

Turkey, turkey, everywhere!

We are trying to be creative with the turkey, but we so sick of it already! (and it’s only the 27th … aghhh!) I’m going to palm off as much as I can to Irene, who says she never has turkey at home.

So last night for dinner we had (you guessed it) turkey!, but I tried to make something different by making a turkey casserole with saltine crackers…. It turned out nicely, but I wish I had used less saltines (I did manage however to finish the almost-stale half package we had had open for ages so that’s a success right?)

Since we thought we were becoming carnivores, and I was missing the sight of green things at the table, we decided to start with a cream of spinach soup, and add more of that leafy green stuff in the casserole.

Easy Cream of Spinach: (I used my Magic Bullet–god I love that thing– but you can use a food processor as well).

1/2 cup spinach
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup cream or milk
salt, pepper to taste

Puree and then pour into a pot to heat. Shred in more spinach if desired, and cook until it reaches a boil.

It was delicious, and a relief from all the carnivoring we’d been doing the couple days before.

Following this was, obviously, the turkey casserole

Turkey Casserole:

Filling:
1 cup diced turkey
1/2 cup shredded spinach (by hand)
1/2 cup saltines
cheese, as desired.

Sauce:
1 cup milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
salt, pepper to taste.

Melt butter in saucepan. Add in the flour and combine well. Mix in milk and chicken broth and stir to combine until thickened.

Put the diced turkey at the bottom of the loaf pan, and cover with spinach, cheese and crushed saltine crackers. Pour sauce over top, top with a little bit of cheese, and tent aluminum foil over the loaf pan. Bake at 350 F for 20 min – 30 min.

Enjoy! =)

Merry Christmas!

I am so excited mainly because of Christmas but also because this means that there is merely a week before I get to see him!

Last night was superb. After helping my grandma do some last-minute grocery shopping, we ran back home to stick the turkey in the oven.

We cheated this year by using an already-stuffed Butterball, but I’m not complaining. It was absolutely delicious, moist, etc.

Obviously we rubbed it with butter and spices beforehand though, to make it more delectable =). And added potatoes etc on the side.

It was an altogether lovely dinner.

But obviously we woke up today to huge amounts of turkey

and so for brunch I made these turkey-filled crepes which were actually delicious!

Ingredients:

Crepes (2):
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 egg
salt, pepper to taste

Sauce+ Filling:
1 cup turkey, diced
1 tbsp butter
2 1/2 tbsps flour
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup milk
1/8 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 F

Whisk together ingredients for crepe, heat a pan to medium heat and pour a thin layer onto the pan. Wait until air bubbles form within the crepe before flipping and setting aside.

Heat butter in saucepan, and then stir in flour until combined. Whisk in 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup chicken broth. Take out 1 tbsp of the hot milk broth mixture and combine with the egg yolk in a seperate bowl before pouring back into the saucepan.

Combine 1/2 the sauce with the diced turkey. Stuff crepes with turkey mixture, and place seam-side down into a baking dish.

Thin the remaining sauce with 1/8 cup milk, stir until thickened. Pour over crepes in baking dish, and bake for 15 minutes.

Serve with fresh ground peppercorn.

…We enjoyed them immensely. They were flavoruful, but took quite a long time to prepare. Perfect for a leisurely brunch, not so much for everyday breakfast though.

yum, yum, yum.

zoup!

I was driving down Yonge on my way to Sunday Brunch at the Royal York, when I saw a restaurant of sweetspot.ca fame called “Simply Zoup!”, and it reminded me of Thursday’s delicious exploits!

We all got together and cooked up delicious things. We were making ginger snaps, but the piece de resistance was definitely a potato leek soup made by Scott, recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com

Unfortunately, since Jen is away in South Carolina, I guess pictures will have to come later, but it was amazing! <Edit> Here they are!!!!

Caution: Big pots are necessary, or else you will have to do what we did, and make it in separate batches.

Potato Leek Soup

1 cup butter

2 leeks, sliced

1tbsp cornstarch

4 cups potatoes, peeled + diced (we ran into lots of trouble here since my potato peeler was severely out of commission!)

1 quart chicken broth

2 cups heavy cream

melt butter + cook leeks in a pan with the butter until tender.

stir in cornstarch and potatoes, bring to a boil. Pour in the cream and simmer 30 minutes.

scott also made us a delicious chicken in cream sauce (without cream!) This was accomplished, however, through the use of an unorthodox amount of butter.

Chicken in cream Sauce:

Easy Cream Sauce (improvised from allrecipes.com, from what I can gather).

3/4 cup butter

1 cup milk

2 tbsp flour

Stir until thickened, add salt + pepper to taste.

It was delicious!, and I will upload pictures as soon as Jen comes back with them!

The ginger snaps were also delightful! I obtained the recipe from Ariel, before she went away to Yale, and for this I will always be eternally grateful!

I didn’t manage to get a better picture, but trust me, they are scrumptious!

Ginger Snaps:

Cream together:
3/4 c butter/shortening
1/2 c white sugar
3/4 c brown sugar

Beat into sugar mixture:
1/2 c molasses
1 egg

Sift together and blend with other mixture:
2 c flour
1 Tbs ginger
1/2 tsp cloves (ground)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon

Form small balls (~2cm in diameter) and roll in sugar. Place 2″ apart, bake at 350 F for c. 12 min.

they were scarfed down as soon as they came out of the oven, so we ended up baking several batches with no visible results because we’d eat them as fast as we could bake them!

Here is evidence of them next to Alyssa’s superb dip!

Incidentally, brunch at the Royal York (at Epic) was amazing. We both had the breakfast buffet option, and it was absolutely delicious. A must-try.

The ambience was superb with comfy sink-deeper-why-don’t-you chairs, and lovely atmosphere. The service, excellent with professional waiters etc… and obviously I’m saving the best for last.

The food was incredible. Everything was simple, and well done. Eggs benedict were delicious, the sauteed mushrooms were done in a to-die-for garlic butter reduction, the smoked salmon was quality, the croissant with butter and Hero Swiss preserves was to DIE for. Even the cottage cheese seemed to taste better there!

5 stars, seriously. Gogogogogo!

We’re receiving lots of yummy presents, what with Christmas being well, okay, it’s now Christmas eve, whaddya know, and my personal favorite is this box of Turkish desserts that we received from Peter!

The baklava is SO good, and I feel embarassed because I’m not sure what the other desserts are called but they are so yummy! I must learn how to make these!

Incidentally, I took it upon myself to try and make a chocolate gingerbread cake from Williams Sonoma that I saw as I was peering around the website a couple weeks ago.

I changed it up a little bit though:

Chocolate Ginger Cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 supersize package semisweet chocolate chips
12 Tbs.unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups Splenda (we’re making too many baked goods….)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup Grandma’s molasses
1 cup boiling water

Icing:
1/2 cup milk
1 cup butter
4 cups confectioners sugar (more, as needed).
dash mint extract (if desired, vanilla will do good things as well).
Red food colouring
Green food colouring

Assorted sprinkles, chocolate chips, to decorate.

Preheat to 350. Butter and flour a 9 ” cake pan.

Whisk together dry ingredients to aerate.

Cream together butter + sugar, add in eggs one at a time.

Mix together molasses and hot water. Pour flour mixture and molasses mixture into butter mixture with alternate spoonfuls.

Stir well.

Bake 55-60 minutes, until cake pulls away from sides of the pan.

Combine all ingredients for icing, and add green food colouring or red food colouring to decorate!

Even though it wasn’t christmas yet, after it was decorated, we dove in….

I think the only thing I would do differently (It was delicious and moist and gingery and not-too-sweet) would be to make it into a layer cake next time, with maybe some fresh whipped cream inside.

It was very rich for such a tall cake unto itself. But it did serve up handsomely!

drafting a menu!

it feels like i’m planning cafe again, but on a more intimate and lovely scale.

We were speaking of lots of different dinner options, including spiced peppercorn pork in cream sauce (!), but then we have to be careful for those that can’t eat pork.

Anyways, I think I’m going to try my hand at flourless chocolate cake (from the recipes on the William Sonoma website), which will be exciting!

I went to East today for dinner after delivering a cupcake to my favorite physicist, and was pretty disappointed by the food.

( I think he enjoyed the cupcake!)

I mean, I don’t know why I was so impressed by it before, it must have been the decor that had me fooled. I guess I should have been more suspicious of the fact that they hold an entirely white serving staff in an asian fusion restaurant.

Anyways, I ordered the Thai green curry with chicken, thinking back to the lovely one I had at Real Thailand with Claire a while back, but I was severely disappointed! Instead of just having lovely bamboo shoots with the too-spicy, too-starchy sauce, they also incorporate alien ingredients like… fried tofu! and BROCCOLI!

It was a pretty unorthodox experience.

Needless to say, I was able to stomach about half of it…. Wing however, by some freak force of nature, decided to try and “save me face” by finishing it.

It looked terrible.

Honestly. Who puts broccoli and fried tofu in green curry? Who!?

I know I took this picture in the eating aftermath, but trust me, the presentation was nothing to be proud of either, although the conversation around us was well worth the time we spent there. We saw Shiftless, Jobless, Goldigging Diamond Ring Man with Librarian Glasses Jane, a couple that took two bites out of their salads and professed themselves full, Wing got himself our waitress’ name…

All in all though? Terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

PS! I forgot to mention! The snowbanks are incredible!

it’s frosty outside

I’m looking at this Betty Crocker cookbook my mom’s brought home, and I see these cuter-than-cute cupcakes decorated with slices of marshmallow dipped in coloured sugar. I get really itchy, and I bust out my sack of flour and my bottle of vanilla (pure!-I splurged for it last week) until I realize.

I’m in the midst of the worst snow storm to hit Toronto in 60 years, and I’ve run out of butter. So I put on the expensive Canada Goose jacket my uncle gave me for my birthday, and trudge over to the convenience store for a pat of unsalted.

I tried just one at first, and I was so pleased with the result that I continued!

I think they turned out rather well!

I originally just made them with my red coloured sugar I had saved up for a rainy (or well, snowy) day, but then I decided, well why not try other things. I had a bit of yellow sugar as well, and a package of blue kool-aid that I was never actually going to use. And so!

they package rather nicely too!

They’re actually quite simple.

Ingredients:
vanilla cupcakes
1 pkg large marshmallows
coloured sugar
ribbon, to decorate
frosting

I got lazy and opened up a can of (ironic enough) Betty Crocker icing, and mixed in some of my butter, milk, and added in a dash of mint extract so that it wouldn’t be too sweet (my vanilla cupcakes were already plenty sweet), but you can always go on with your own version of buttercream.

Anyways, if you slice the large marshmallows with a wet knife (keep the knife in a cup of warm water), and then dip it into the coloured sugar, you can create petals and arrange them nicely on top of the frosting.

The ribbon around the cupcake holders was a bit of a pain, but well worth the effort: they came out looking so cute!

I also whipped up a batch of candy cane cookies

which were delightfully minty!

I got the recipe for this from familyfun.com
http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=15060

But simply, you need:

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. peppermint extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Red food coloring (mix a few drops with a tablespoon of water before adding to dough).

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and beat well. Stir in the peppermint and vanilla extracts. Gradually mix in the flour.

2. Divide the dough in half. Color one half with red food coloring and leave the other half plain. Roll out a tablespoon of red dough and a tablespoon of plain until they are each 6 to 8 inches long. Twist them into a candy cane, pinching the ends. Repeat.

3. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not brown.

I was very pleased with the results! Definitely something package-able. I think I’m going to distribute these en masse on Friday, when we break for the holidays.

On Friday, we made a batch of After Eight Cupcakes to sell at a concert.

We used:

chocolate cupcakes with less sugar than usual
1 pkg Betty Crocker French Vanilla Frosting
2 tsp mint extract
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup milk
2 cups icing sugar
4 drops green food colouring
chocolate shavings

I am a sight to behold when I wield my whisk!
I whisked together the Betty Crocker, milk, butter, mint extract, icing sugar, and green food colouring to make an entirely delectable icing mixture, and we proceeded to piece together the after eight cupcakes.

We cut an inverted cone into the cupcake, and filled it with the icing mixture, and then put the cap back on, frosting it to hide any imperfections, and sprinkled the chocolate shavings on top (I simply used some leftover Lindt that I found, and scraped away with a butter knife).

They looked absolutely deeelicious!

Okay, there is a hair in one of them, but we took that one out and ate it ourselves before we sold the rest!

Whew! Lots of baking. I guess that’s what comes with the holidays.

A couple weeks ago, I was suddenly taken by the urge to get into flour and batter and things like that, and then I decided to make gingerbread.

I thought they looked cute, if a bit crude, so imagine my disappointment when someone asked me if they were tofu bits!

Anyways, no matter, they were delicious and that someone (literally) ate their words.

Delicious Gingerbread:
2 small ripe bananas
4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses

Puree the bananas. Combine the dry ingredients. Cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the molasses and banana mixture. Stir in the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat to 375 F and cut out cookies at 1/8 inch thickness.

Bake for 10-15 min on greased cookie sheets.

I was never partial to gingerbread men, so I decided to make gingerbread hearts and gingerbread teddy bears instead!

I made the icing by simply combining icing sugar and a couple tablespoons milk, as well as food colouring. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but other people seemed to enjoy it, so no matter!