Spaghetti avocado

There always seems to be an avocado or two sitting in the crisper of my fridge, that I don't know what to do with. It sits, patiently, waiting for me to gaze upon it at meal time and think "hey! I know what I'll do with you!", thus fulfilling it's journey in life.

Sadly, that is not always the case, and oftentimes, avocados lay wasted in my fridge or fruit bowl.

I try. I really do. But I always overestimate how much I actually enjoy avocados.

I'm hardly the person to site there and eat an avocado like so many others proclaim they love to do. In fact, I'm hardly one to sit there and eat half of one without starting to feel my gag reflex coming on.

It saddens me. How much I try to love avocados, but they just don't seem to love me back.

I decided tried something new this time around, and actually went out and bought avocados specifically for this occasion. Unlike typical, when I buy avocados and force myself into using them in ways I eventually don't like.

My love of pasta reaches far and wide, and I thought I would incorporate avocados into them. Instead of making an alfredo sauce, which upsets my digestive track oh so terribly, I thought I'd make an avocado sauce instead.

I made a variation on my shrimp alfredo, with a different sauce.

Avocados and tomatoes also go together like bread and butter, so I threw those in the mix too.

I made a simple sauce, of a ripe avocado, juice of a lemon, and some of the reserve pasta water, pureed in my handy food processor to make a nice smooth sauce. It will look and feel a little goopy in the processor, but it'll work out to a nice thick and rich sauce in the end.

Throw in some shrimp, squid rings, and tomatoes to the mix for an avocado filled dinner.

Avocado Sauce 

1 avocado
1 lemon, juiced
salt
1/3 - 1/2 cup reserve pasta water 

1. Add the avocado, lemon juice and salt to the food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Through the feed tube, add pasta water until sauce is desired thickness.
3. Pour over al dente cooked pasta, and serve.

Black bean casserole

I'll admit. Being a vegetarian can be hard. Sometimes, I find myself lacking imagination and motivation to come up with dinner ideas. Those are the days when I'm likely to pop a B12 just to make sure I'm staying on top of things.

Contrary to somewhat popular belief, being a vegetarian doesn't mean that all I eat are vegetables. We need to obtain our protein from some source, typically from beans, eggs, and alternative grains. Luckily for me though, I am not a full fledged vegetarian, but actually am what is called a "pescetarian".

The inclusion of fish and shellfish in my diet is helpful for maintaining my B12 levels, which at one point had dipped to a low enough level for my doctor to ever so not-subtly suggest the addition of vitamin supplements in my diet.

Eating as a vegetarian can be great. It opens up so many other options people don't normally thinking about, like using beans as the main protein of the meal. 

I did just that for dinner a couple weeks ago, with my black bean casserole. Taking a simple beef/fish casserole dish, and making it vegetarian by the replacement of meat products with beans.

I didn't have much in my fridge since it was the end of the week. I grabbed some sticks of celery and carrot, the leftover of my bell pepper and onion, and the remains of my pint of grape tomatoes. I also cooked up some fresh rice for this.

Just dice everything up, mix it all together, and layer it in a casserole dish. Because I'm a cheese-aholic, I always top things with a generous heaping of cheese.

If your casserole is a little low on the vegetable side, or even if it's not, serve it with a side salad and a nice tall glass of cold beer!

Black Bean Casserole 

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 bell pepper, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 jalapeno, finely minced
2 cups rice, cooked
3 cups block cheese, grated 

1. Cook rice. Let cool until warm.
2. Mix beans, vegetables, rice and 1 cup of cheese together in a casserole dish.
3. Top with remaining 2 cups of cheese.
4. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.

Curry lentil soup

I love having my friends over for dinner. Not only are they great company, it gives me an awesome opportunity to try new dishes. They're always polite and say it's good, but I know that they'll also tell me when I shouldn't make something again. =]

A couple weekends ago, I tried out a curry lentil soup. I loosely adapted it from a slow cooker sweet potato soup I gleaned off the Food Network.

I started off with a fine dice of all my ingredients - potatoes, carrots, celery, onion. I grated a thumb size piece of ginger and sprinkled garam masala on top.

Next up, dried lentils! I had a mix of green and brown lentils sitting in my jar, so I used both for variety.

I let them mingle in the crock pot while I got my stock. I used vegetable broth, but feel free to use whatever broth you have on hand - beef, chicken, mushroom, etc.

I stuck the crockpot on high, because I didn't start this until the afternoon. By the time dinner time rolled around, my house was smelling absolutely divine, and the stock has reduced to a dark and delicious hue. I topped it off with some water and let it simmer some more while I made my curry lemon mix.

Top it off with some cilantro, and you have an easy and hearty soup dinner!

Curry Lentil Soup 

4 potatoes, peeled and diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced
3 stalks of celery, chopped into 1 cm pieces
1 onion, diced
3/4 cup lentils, dried
2" ginger, grated
1 tsp + 1 tsp garam masala
salt
8 cup stock (or water)
1 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lemon, juiced
fresh cilantro for serving 

1. Cook potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, lentils, ginger, 1 tsp garam masala, salt, and 6 cup stock on high for 4 hours in a crockpot.
2. After 4 hours, thin soup with remaining stock if desired.
3. In a small saucepan, cook butter, garlic and 1 tsp garam masala until toasted (1 minute). Stir mixture into the soup.
4. Serve with cilantro, lemon wedges and French bread.

Chocolate Tales

A few weeks ago was Chinese New Year. For the event, I always head in to the city to see my aunts and cousins.

In addition to that, this year I went with a cousin to a chocolate workshop, hosted by Chocolate Tales.

We got the chocolate making workshop on a groupon deal, so it was a lucky score for us, especially considering I wasn't really in need of a chocolate making workshop. But just to spend some time with my cousin, we thought a chocolate workshop would be great fun.

We had lunch with my aunt's family on the other side of town, so we only made it just on time to the workshop, which was held on the University's main campus.

It was a 90 minute workshop that introduced us to using chocolate molds, creating chocolate ganache, and decorating chocolates. It was less hands on than I would have liked, because what I really wanted was to work on improving more advanced chocolate working skills. Nonetheless, it was a fun class, and I got to sit in a heavily chocolate scented room for nearly 2 hours. What could be better?

We made lava cakes, and I decorated mine with a super S, for me!

Some of my chocolate decorations, covered with unwanted cocoa powder from the pair we shared our table with.

Delicious!

I hope everyone had a great Chinese New Year.

My other cousin and I, at temple on Chinese New Year day.

Race car and housewarming cake

I'll admit.

I don't work with fondant.

It's really been more of a fear than anything else. I've always found some sort of excuse to get out of using it.

It was unavoidable this time around.

I was making a birthday and housewarming cake, where the request was for race cars. I thought about modeling chocolate and gum paste options as well, but decided that it was high time for me to start using fondant. So I took the plunge.

I've heard from friends before about how fondant rips and cracks when they try to cover cakes with it, so I was worried.

We will get back to that though.

For the cake, I chose to make a 2-tiered chocolate espresso cake with a matching espresso buttercream frosting.

I made a small race track with 2 fondant race cars (and a real Hot Wheels race car), that leads to a fondant house with flanking race car flags

The cars I found especially cute, and loved making them. I dyed some fondant with yellow and red to get 2 different coloured race cars. My friend was over that night too, so she made the yellow one, while I made the red one. Super cute!

vroom vroom!

they've got visors and spoilers too!

To the cake top, I made a windy road that led to a fondant house painted yellow-ish brown, to represent their new home. I tinted the remaining buttercream with some red colour paste, so I could write a message on the cake, and to put a little "J" and "K" on the front plates of the cars, for both of my friends.

Not featured in the photo, are the checkered flags I made that flank the house, and the checkered flag pattern that wraps the bottom of the cake.

I had a blast making this cake, and it marks an end to my fondant boycott!

Chocolate espresso cake 

2 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp espresso powder
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cup milk 

1. To prepare the pans (I used 9" springform pans), butter the bottom, line with parchment, butter the bottom again and the sides, and dust in cocoa powder. Tap out the excess.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, espresso powder).
3. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract, then the eggs one at a time.
4. Add the dry ingredients in 3 additions, the milk in 2 additions, alternating, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Do not overmix.
5. Pour evenly into 2 pans and bake at 350F for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Larger pans will use less time, smaller pans will take more time. 

* Be sure to cool these cakes in the pan for 15 minutes before turning them out to cool to rest of the way.

Espresso buttercream 

1 cup butter, room temperature
 4 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp espresso powder
1 tsp hot water 

1. Beat butter until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add icing sugar, one cup at a time until well combined.
3. Add the vanilla extract, espresso powder, and water mixture. Beat again until smooth, scraping down sides as necessary.

Baked potato - a variation!

I am an avid Pinterest peruser, but I'm not one to go pinning everything and trying out all the recipes.

I have, however, noticed as of late the large amount of repinning of this "new" style of baking a potato.

As a potato lover (I did my M.Sc. on it! =]), I thought I'd give it a try.

It's a really simple process. Just scrub your potatoes clean and slice them almost all the way through, so it's like you have chips, but still all connected at the base.

I just did 2 potatoes as a random test of how well this recipe works.

Drizzle olive oil and seasonings over it and bake it for 45 min at 425F. I used my trusty cold press extra virgin olive oil and regular garlic powder on a greased baking sheet.

45 minutes later, voilà!

It was a cute inventive way to make potatoes more presentable, but I'm not sure how great of a way to bake potatoes.

My potatoes were starting to burn on the ends because of the small "slices", and the ones in the middle were only just barely cooked.

It was also hard to get the pieces to spread apart from each other to get the oil and seasonings in all the crevices, as you can tell from the initial photo.

Creative way to present potatoes, but I'm not sure I would do them again. Or at least not at such a high temperature and possibly with smaller potatoes.

Shrove Tuesday pancakes

I hope everyone had a great Shrove Tuesday and is having a wonderful Ash Wednesday! Normally, I don't bother with making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, but thought I'd give it a whirl this year.

Instead of typical buttermilk pancakes, I thought I'd go with something a little heartier. Makes sense, since I was having pancakes for dinner (clearly not a typical occurrence in my household...).

Before I go on, I will preface this with a warning of why I don't make pancakes and why you probably won't see pancakes featured here in the future. Anyone who knows me, and who eats at my house, will undoubtedly know that I am notoriously not-good at making pancakes. I'm not sure what it is about it, or perhaps the fact that I have an electric stove, that I just can't find the sweet spot and get soft sponge-y pancakes. I've always left it up to others to make sure pancakes actually make it onto people's plates. Usually it's a "fend for yourself" strategy if you're at my house earlier enough for pancakes. There has only been one time (other than this post) that I have managed to get servable pancakes on the table, and for that, I was in no state to be taking photos.

Anywhoo... I opted to go with some cinnamon oat pancakes, that sounded like it would really hit the spot. I found the recipe in one of my old Canadian Living issues, and it looks simple enough.

My friends were over, so I had to make sure the pancakes were foolproof. And they were! So great in fact, that I didn't even have to throw out the obligatory guinea-pig-first-pancake!

Cinnamon Oat Pancakes (adapted from Canadian Living, January 2003) 

1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
salt
1 cup quick cooking oats
1 egg
1 1/2 - 2 cup almond milk
3 tbsp oil 

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, oats).
2. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (egg, 1 1/2 cup milk and oil).
3. Add the wet to the dry, stir until just combined.
4. Cook 1/3 cup of batter at a time on a well oiled medium heat skillet (or flat top griddle). 

* I found that as you let the this sit longer, the oats started to soak up the milk, causing the batter to thicken. Continue to add almond milk as needed to keep the consistency of the batter, up to another 1/2 cup milk.

Macaroni and cheese

I am a huge HUGE fan of macaroni and cheese. There's something oh so comforting about a warm bowl of these delicious cheesy noodles that just calls out to me.

Whenever I make mac n cheese, I always do it from scratch. With a cheesy bechamel sauce that I bake the living daylights out of until it's golden perfection.

However.

In recent times, I have been introduced to the President's Choice white cheddar macaroni and cheese packages, and they have changed my life.

It was before Christmas, when I had a junk food and Wii night, which included said macaroni and cheese packs. I must point out again though, how it was a junk food night, and I wasn't going to spend an hour making my mac n cheese when we were at the grocery store buying things like potato chips, popcorn and dip.

And in all honesty, for those of you who've tried it, you know. Who am I to argue?

To add a bit of variety to it, I added medium egg noodles to the plain macaroni for a bigger pot of pasta. To ensure there was enough cheese to go around, I used more milk in the sauce, and compensated with a generous handful of grated aged yellow cheddar, my trusted cheese of choice.

The result? It wasn't as white cheddar-y as the box, but it was still oh so delicious. It actually is pretty hard to go wrong with mac n cheese.

I topped it off with more grated cheddar and let it slowly melt in. Oh! It's making me hungry right now!

Tom Odell

It's been a while since I've hung out with my cousins, so a couple weekends ago, I took a trip into the city to pay a visit.

We made dinner plans to a vegetarian place in the neighbourhood (courtesy of a Groupon) before heading to a concert.

The diner we ate at is Sadie's, on the corner of Adelaide and Portland. It's a cute little neighbourhood that I quite enjoy but never seems to spend enough time in.

We caught up over dinner before heading around the corner to the Rivoli to see Jane's Party and Tom Odell perform.

Jane's Party was the opening act, and they're an awesome indie rock band. They've got a single release party coming up this month and a CD release party some time in the Spring.

Although Tom Odell was the reason we bought the tickets, I was excited to get to know another cool local band. I got to talk to them after the show, and the lovely boys even saw me off with a free copy of their EP and CD!

Tom Odell's set was short, because he only has the one EP, but he played nicely, and has an impressive vocal range. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to connect with him afterward, but I was having such a good night it wasn't going to put a damper on that.

To hear Tom Odell live, check out a video I posted of his hit song "Another Love".

Espresso semifreddo

I love sweets.

Especially my ice cream.

I suffer through the lactose intolerance to get my dose of frozen heaven.

Recently, I had a surplus of whipping cream, courtesy of the basement tenant, who works at the local dairy plant. What better to make than home made ice cream?

I went all the way back to the launch issue of Donna Hay (a bi-monthly Australian magazine) for the 9-page spread on semifreddos that has an espresso semifreddo.

Semifreddo is Italian for  "half frozen", and it has the texture similar to ice cream, but so much simpler to make. Since I so (un)conveniently lack an ice cream maker, semifreddo is my frozen dessert of choice.

Making semifreddo is easy, you'll need 2 bowls - one to heat the eggs and sugar, another to beat the cream.

In your heatproof bowl over a simmering pot of water, whisk eggs egg yolks and caster sugar together before removing it from the water and beating it some more. Add the espresso to this bowl.

In the other bowl, beat the cream until soft peaks form. I recommend an electric beater for all these steps, as it gets quite tiring.

Fold in the egg mixture and pour into glasses to freeze.

Espresso Semifreddo (adapted from Donna Hay Magazine)

3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup caster sugar**
1/3 cup strong espresso, cooled
1 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
shots of espresso/amaretto, to serve (optional) 

1. In a heatproof bowl, whisk eggs, egg yolks and caster sugar until heated and frothy. Take off heat and beat another 5 minutes until pale and thick. Fold in coffee.
2. In another bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form.
3. Fold in egg mixture until just combined.
4. Pour into glasses or serving container. Cover with foil or saran wrap and freeze for at least 2 hours.
5. Serve with a short of espresso or amaretto. 

** Caster sugar dissolves faster and better, so the chance of a grainy texture after beating is lower. Granulated sugar is absolutely fine to use, but be sure to test the graininess of the egg mixture.

Deviled eggs

I have a confession.

I've never had a deviled egg before. Ever.

I know, right? Jeez..

Since it was a potluck for my birthday, I decided to make deviled eggs. I have potlucks at my house all the time, and I'm usually roped into making the main dish. That's fine and dandy with me (I also made a main at my birthday too), but I really wanted to try my hand at making deviled eggs.

I found a easy recipe for classic deviled eggs on the Food Network and used that as a guideline for mine.

I used my large stockpot to boil 9 eggs. I didn't want to crowd them in my medium saucepan, for fear they would knock and crack, causing egg white spillage. Make as many eggs as you want.

A little trick I learned to boil eggs without them cracking? Put the eggs in the water and then turn the stove on. That way you don't dunk them in while the water is boiling, potentially causing cracking when they're dropped in the water.

Once the water reached a boil, I left it to simmer for a couple minutes before turning the heat off and letting the eggs sit for 15 minutes. Then run them under cold water for a few minutes.

Slice them in half and dump the egg yolks into a bowl with mayonnaise, vinegar, yellow mustard, and some salt.

I fancied them up a bit by piping them with a pastry bag fitted with a Wilton 2D open star decorating tip. Sprinkle a bit of smoked Spanish paprika on them, and voilà!

I was quite happy with how these turned out, especially since I had never even tasted one before. I got pretty good reviews from my friends, and the disappeared before some people had even arrived!

Classic Deviled Eggs (adapted from Food Network)

9 eggs
1/3 cup mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip)
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp yellow mustard
salt
smoked Spanish paprika, for garnish 

1. Boil eggs for 1 minute, let simmer for another minute before removing from heat and letting sit for 15 minutes. Run eggs under cold water until cool enough to touch.
2. Peel eggs under water. Wipe dry with a paper towel and slice in half lengthwise.
3. Remove yolks and place in a bowl with mayonnaise, vinegar, yellow mustard and salt. Mash together until smooth and combined.
4. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a Wilton 2D tip, pipe filling into each egg white half.
5. Sprinkle with paprika and serve on a decorative plate.

My birthday!

I'm still catching up with posts, so I'm writing about my birthday, which was a couple weekends ago.

My friends all know about my love for Hello Kitty, so I was happy (and not surprised at all) to get a few Hello Kitty gifts.

Hello Kitty stand up mirror, Hello Kitty doll, soup cup, coconut chocolate cupcake

Hello Kitty + Hello Kitty mug = TEACUP KITTY!

I had a potluck at my house where there ended up being many more people than I thought coming. Good thing there was still plenty of food to go around.

We were being pretty silly the whole night. My gym buddies came as well, and they're pretty goofy girls. One of them drew mustaches on our fingers, for the overplayed mustache photo.

And lastly, to add to my love for Hello Kitty, my birthday cake with her face plastered all over it! =)