More recipe testing for Urban Vegan

Here's some more pictures of recipes I've tested for the upcoming cookbook from urban vegan:

Sorry for the teeny picture. I don't know what's up there. Anyhoo, these are foil roasted beets with horseradish vinaigrette. i'm not usually a horseradish fan, but it's not overpowering and goes well with beets.

This is a tasty hot drink called a Rico Suave-chocolate soy milk kicked up with booze, served in my favorite mug.

Portobello Burritos, filled with mushrooms, beans and all sorts of tasty stuff.

Shiitake on a Shingle. Do you love that name??? A vegan version of the old chipped beef recipe.

John's Marinara Sauce. John makes a mighty fine sauce, let me tell you.

Double Apple Cake, and my fingers.

Tamarind BBQ Sauce. So delicous, and lovely on roasted potatos.

Potatos with 40 Cloves of Garlic. To keep those pesky vampires away.

Sandwich Mousse -a fun meat free sandwich filling.

Homemade Wholegrain Tortillas. Mine tasted better than they look.

Lemon Scented Carrots with Capers and Coriander. A nice zippy dish.

Pear Pepper Chutney. Great with crackers.

The perils of recipe testing: a failure. Raspberry Swirl Poundcake.

But then we rebounded with this fab Red Pepper Sauce which we gobbled down in 2 days.

This Piri Piri Sauce is marinating in my pantry for the next 2 weeks.

Minty Mojitos. Almost as good as my Moms.

Bajan Rum Punch. Can't wait to mix a batch of these in the summer. My first time with bitters too.


Have a loverly weekend! I'll be back on Monday with a Weekend Cookbook Challenge posts that shows the world I don't know how to count.

Weekend Cookbook Challenge 36 - Spring Peas with Lettuce and Mint

This month's Weekend Cookbook Challenge is being hosted by me, but the theme - 5 Ingredients or Less - was chosen by a blog-less long time reader of mine, Lynn. I always thought Lynn seemed like a pretty nice lady, but now I'm not so sure. This 5 ingredient or less thing is harrrrrd! It took me ages, and 6 cookbooks before I found something that fit the bill.

I found the perfect recipe to go with the leftover ham in my Bon Appetit Cookbook - Spring Peas with Lettuce and Mint. I've heard of this sort of dish before - peas and lettuce braised with liquid - and it always intrigued but scared me. Soggy lettuce? Is that supposed to be appealing?

This recipe was different that others that I'd ready in that the lettuce is thinly sliced. I figured somehow that might be better. And it was. This is one mighty tasty dish. There are so many pluses: only a few ingredients (less than 5! What are the odds?), fast, non fat (I used non fat veg broth), and delicious. The lettuce added a really great texture to the peas and mint + peas = excellent.


Spring Peas with Lettuce and Mint
The Bon Appetit Cookbook

4 servings

1/2 cup low salt chicken broth (I used no-fat vegetable broth)
10 oz frozen peas, thawed (I didn't thaw first. Rebel!)
1 cup thinly sliced Romaine Lettuce
3 tb chopped fresh mint

Bring broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add peas and simmer until heated through, about 4 minutes. Stir in lettuce and mint. Season to taste with salt and pepper.


Want to take part in WCC? It's easy! Find a recipe in a cookbook, magazine, on the internet, or wherever you'd like that fits this months theme. Make it, blog about it and send me a link by January 30. My email is iliketocook AT shaw DOT ca.

Holiday Food 08

Before I show you all our foodums we ate on Christmas and New Years, let me show you how spoiled I was again this year! I got these magazines/cookbooks:
plus this Australian Women's Weekly Stew Cookbook. We picked up the Stew cookbook from Costco in November for $5, and I asked Scott to put it in my stocking. On Christmas Day I was so excited to get it, however it took me almost 2 hours before I realized that I had actually picked it out myself. I thought I'd seen it somewhere and somehow Scott read my mind and bought it for me. That poor man, he's stuck with me forever.

You don't know this about me, but I am a sucker for food related infomercials. I'll watch them over and over again. Some I could probably recite word for word. I do, however, draw the line at actually ordering them. So I was pretty excited to open THIS!
My very own Magic Bullet Single Shot! Scott bought me this with the hope that I will make less of a mess in the mornings when I make smoothies. We shall see, sir.

Now if I only had a Shamwow and a Slap Chop, my life would be complete (Vince: "You're gonna love my nuts!" Me: *snicker*)


SO! For our Christmas Dinner this year, we went Italian. (You may remember, or not, 2006 our dinner was Swedish, and 2007 we did French Canadian). We decided on 8 dishes. We ate over at my parents house, and they had the first course ready when we got there: Antipasti.

The top platter has bread, 2 types of cheese, 3 kinds of olives, and asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. The bottom dish has salami, marinated eggplant, and a marinated mixed seafood salad. The seafood salad (jarred, store bought) was the least popular. Tough and just not very good. The cheese and the eggplant were my personal favorites.

An hour or so later we sat down to Insalata Caprese (tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella salad):
And for those in my family who like sardines (that's everyone but me) a marinated sardine dish:
The sardines were beheaded and cooked with vinegar and raisins and pine nuts and other stuff. That's all I can tell you, the recipe came from my parents cookbook. But they all enjoyed it.

After another break we headed into the kitchen to make the next 2 dishes. First up was a dish from the October La Cucina Italiana magazine - beef rolls with pancetta and parmesan. The original recipe called for veal, but I don't eat veal, so we used beef instead.
You pound out some beef, top with a thin slice of pancetta, a sprinkle of fresh parmesan, roll up and use a toothpick or 2 to keep them closed. The rolls are sauteed in olive oil and butter. Then you remove them from the pan and make a sauce with tomatos, wine and more butter. Add the rolls back to re-warm, remove the toothpicks and you are done. Not really pretty, but very yummy.
From the December issue of La Cucina Italiana we made Patate in Tecia, pan fried potatos. They were cooked with pancetta and onion and broth. Not bad, but I'd make some changes if I were to make them again.
After yet another break in the living room we talked about our last 3 courses. We still had a pasta, a pea dish and dessert to go. Everyone was getting full. Because the pea dish had already been started and the dessert was done, we skipped the pasta. An Italian dinner without pasta! What is up with that? Here's the pea and pancetta dish, which I'll tell you more about later. For now I'll just say it was fabulous.
And then after yet another break, we had some dessert, tiramisu. Here's what they looked like after I made them at home Christmas morning. So good.
And then! We went into a food coma.

Thankfully we were revived in time for New Years. Unfortunately, as I have already whined, I got my usual flu between Christmas and New Years. So we scaled back our New Years Eve dinner by a couple of dishes. We had some raw veggies and dip and then our main course. We made 3P Fried Rice (Pork, Pineapple and Pea) and Egg Rolls from Paula Deen.
Hey y'all! I'm Paula Deen's egg rolls!
Here's her recipe - Pork Slaw Egg Rolls, and really, they are very very good. It also makes a crapload, so if there aren't 10 of you, you may want to half the recipe. But, the slaw and pork mix on its own is actually quite good.

And finally!

New Years Day my parents came over for dinner. We made baked ham and used our new favorite baked ham recipe for the second time. And for the second time I did not take pictures. But you don't need to see one of my bad pictures to know this recipe is a winner when you read it. I found this in Move Over, Santa - Ruby's Doin Christmas! by Ruby Ann Boxcar. This is a simple easy and fast ham recipe and so darn tasty.

Vance Pool's Tis The Season Maple Ham
adapted from Move Over, Santa - Ruby's Doin Christmas!

Ruby Ann says: One bite and you'll know why he weighs almost 400 pounds

5 lb precooked smoked ham*
1 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Preheat your oven to 325'. Place the ham skin side up in a large roasting pan. Score the ham in a diamond pattern. Do not add anything else to the pan. Bake the ham uncovered for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, remove the ham from the oven. Pour the maple syrup over the ham. Place back in the oven and bake for 45 more minutes, basting 2 or 3 times.
When the ham is done, remove from the oven. Place the ham on a platter or cutting board and cover with foil. Set aside.
Carefully pour all the drippings into a pan. Add the flour and whisk until blended. Add the water, mustard and worcestershire sauce.
Whisk over medium high heat and bring to a simmer. If the gravy seems too thick, add some more water.
Slice the ham and serve with the gravy on the side.
*If your ham is not precooked, cook as above until the ham is ready by a meat thermometer.

Weekend Cookbook Challenge 35 - Appetizers

Howdy y'all and Happy New Year! I hope 2009 is off to a wonderful start for you. For me, not so much. As usual, I have come down with my annual Between-Christmas-And-New-Years-Cold/Flu. I don't feel super, but I think I feel a little better than I did last night. I managed to lie on the couch and nurse a cider/nyquil combo until my beloved Flames whooped Edmonton's ass and then I staggered off to bed before 10. Happy New Years!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who sent in a dish for this months Weekend Cookbook Challenge. I was afraid that attendance would be low/nonexistent because of the holidays, but I am happy to show off this kick-ass round up that clearly shows otherwise. Let's go!

First up is ME and my third post for the challenge, a fellow bloggers BBQ Corn Pizza. VERY tasty.

My wonderful wonderful friend is back at WCC and I am so happy! Here's Mary from Breadchick and her Spinach Artichoke Crab Dip.



I am happy to see a familiar face back this month with a truly gorgeous dish - Tuna with Sesame Soy and Smoked Salmon Rolls by Deb at Kahakai Kitchen.

This next appetizer looks like so much fun! Cheese Balls from Judy at Judy's Gross Eats.


This next picture almost makes me forget it's snowing outside, it looks so summery! Barefoot Contessa's Tomato & Goat Cheese Tarts from fellow BC blogger Bellini Valli from More Than Burnt Toast.


My next dish is from Michael Smith from Chef at home - Chicken Balls.


Here's a dish I'll have to make sure my Dad sees - Sardine Pate from Sarina at TriniGourmet.


This one wins the prize for longest name - Cat Cora's Smoked Paprika Shredded Pork Crisps with
Orange Fennel Marmalade from Cynthia at Diary of a Glad Housewife. What a mouthful!


Who doesn't love wings? Here's some wings from a book on my wish list (The Silver Spoon) - Silver Spoon Wings from Paula at Cookbook Junkie.


And my favorite of my 3 dishes this month was for sure these Slow Cooker Cranberry Meatballs. So great.


This next dish is so gorgeous - look at this Fiori di Zucca con Ricotta e Pancetta from Natalia at Gatti Fili e Farina.


And perennial WCC contributor Michelle with this fun named dish - Snake Eyes from Michelle at Je Mange la Ville.

Whoooooo! Thanks to everyone! Hopefully I didn't mess anything up and it all makes sense. Scott says I have a fever but I think it's the lack of our usual Champagne and OJ on New Years Day that's got my blood boiling. Damn this coldflu! If I did miss anyone or make a mistake, please email me.

So January brings our 36th challenge - that's right we are heading into the 3rd year of Weekend Cookbook Challenge. I am the host for January, but the challenge has been chosen by a long time reader who does not have her own blog - Lynn. Lynn has chosen the theme - 5 Ingredients or Less. So find a recipe in a cookbook, magazine, on the internet, or wherever you'd like. Make it, blog about it and send me a link by January 30. My email is iliketocook AT shaw DOT ca. If anyone out there would like to suggest a theme for upcoming months, or host a month, send me an email.

Have a great day!

2008 Books

January
Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley. I don't usually make comments on the books I read, but DAMN this book sucked.
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier.
Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter.
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl.

February
It Ain't All About the Cookin' by Paula Deen.
Don't Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes From the World's Greatest Chefs by Kimberly Witherspoon and Andrew Friedman.

March
The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer, James Mason.
Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich.
The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck.
The Town That Forgot How To Breathe by Kevin J Harvey.

April

The China Study
Playing For Pizza by John Grisham.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.
Angels and Demons By Dan Brown.

May

Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs.
Anyone But Him by Sheila O'Flanagan.
The Public Confessions of a Middle Aged Woman by Sue Townsend.
The Divide by Nicholas Evans.
Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.

June

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory.
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult.
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs.

July

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
The Host by Stephanie Meyer.

August

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
Cooking for Mr. Right by Susan Volland.
Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi.
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.
New Moon by Stephanie Meyer (hangs head in shame).

September

Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer.
Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer. (head still hung in shame)
Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States by Pete Jordan.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

October

Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not The Answer by Jen Lancaster
Left Bank by Kate Muir.
i like it like that by Claire Calman.
Ecoholic by Adrai Vasil.
The Chocolate Run by Dorothy Koomson.

November

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult.
The Pilots Wife by Anita Shreve.
The Ruins by Scott Smith.
Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias by Andrew Blechman.
Paradise House by Erica James.
No! I don't want to join a bookclub by Virginia Ironside.

December

Knit Two by Kate Jacobs.
Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert by Grant Stoddard.
Five Men Who Broke My Heart: A Memoir by Susan Shapiro.
Seaweed Under Water by Stanley Evans.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling.
Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl.

2008 Movies

January
Stardust
The Simpsons Movie Noooooo.
The Golden Compass (T)
The Poseidon Adventure
Shut Up & Sing
Straw Dogs I don't get it.
Ratatouille
Bon Cop, Bad Cop
Dreamgirls (R)
The Last Legion No no no no.
Zodiac

February
The Last King of Scotland
Das Boot

March
Little Children
Escape to Canada
The Kite Runner (T)
Singles (R)
Slither
Little Miss Sunshine (R)
The Badge
Death Proof NO.
Grindhouse
Mad Max
One True Thing
I Am Legend
No Country For Old Men
Atonement
Disturbia
Keeping Up With The Steins
Fido (R).
The Darjeeling Limited

April

The World According To Garp (R)
Knocked Up (R)
Night of the Comet You know how you remember movies from your youth as being good, and then you watch them again and it's awful? Yeah.
Surf's Up
Death at a Funeral
Juno WHY wasn't Jennifer Garner nominated for anything??? She was the best part of the movie.
Sweeney Todd
Bend It Like Beckham (R)

May

The Nanny Diaries
White Palace (R)
Speed (R)
Karate Kid (R)
Into The Wild
1408 Ugh. I sat through it because I thought Scott was watching it. He was asleep! He owes me.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Cloverfield Maybe it's my bad eyes, but the movie was so goddamn dark half the time I couldn't see anything.

June

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull THIS is what they came up with after all these years? Christ.
Eagle vs Shark
The Big Tease
Martian Child This and 1408 have made me hate John Cusack.
10,000 BC
Escape to Witch Mountain

July

The Grifters
There Will Be Blood
27 Dresses
Gone Baby Gone
Connie and Carla (R)
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Dark Knight (T)
Fools Gold nonononononononononono
SherryBaby

August

Vantage Point
Be Kind Rewind I really wanted to like this, but not so much.
Across the Universe

September

Sydney White
The Bucket List
Beowulf

October

The Visitor (T)
Sex and the City
Iron Man
Transformers (R)
Rendition
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The Nightmare Before Christmas (R)
Shaun of the Dead (R)

November

Tropic Thunder
Garbage Warrior
Run Fatboy Run
King of California
Notting Hill
Sleepless in Seattle (R)
Breach

December

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (R)
Love Actually (R)
City Slickers (R)
Gia
Grease (R)
Lost Boys: The Tribe
Bad Santa (R)
Trantasia
Bridget Jones's Diary (R)

Weekend Cookbook Challenge 35 - BBQ Corn Pizza

I promised that I would share 3 appetizer recipes for this month's Weekend Cookbook Challenge and here's number 3 - BBQ Corn Pizza. I know! How good does that sound? Still uninspired by anything in my cookbook collection, I again turned to my cache of recipes on del.icio.us. I bookmarked this recipe back in July 2007 so it's high time I gave it a go - BBQ Pizza with Fresh Summer Corn and Sweet Onions from Susan at Food Blogga.

I love pizza, and I really love using BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce from time to time. It doesn't work with all pizza ingredients, but something like a chicken and onion pizza, or Susan's corn and onion pizza are perfect. As it is December I obviously did not use fresh summer corn. But I did have some really nice frozen organic corn in the freezer, and a red onion in the pantry.

The onions and corn are sauteed, then spooned over the bbq sauce spread crust.
Then the pizza's topped with smoked gouda cheese and baked.
My cheese didn't want to melt. But! It still tasted good.
We cut the slices small for finger food. They went fast.
Thanks to Food Blogga for this great recipe! I'm sorry I had to use bottled bbq sauce, I'll be trying your bbq sauce recipe (in the same post) soon. Recipe: BBQ Pizza with Fresh Summer Corn and Sweet Onions.

You've got until December 30 to get me your Appetizer posts for Weekend Cookbook Challenge.
Find an appetizer recipe (from a book, magazine, Internet etc), make it, blog it, and send me a link. My email is iliketocook AT shaw DOT ca.

The Branch That Bears the Bright Holly

Happy Holidays to all.
Thank you for visiting, for your kind words, comments, support and friendship.

Peace and love to you and yours.

Sara

The Seven Days of Christmas Day Seven - Mulitples

Let's recap the first six days of Christmas at iliketocook, shall we?

Day One - Make it Yourself
Day Two - Notebooks
Day Three - a la di stasio cookbook
Day Four - Knives
Days Five and Six - Stuff in Tubes and Glass Jars

And we end the week with Day Seven - Multiples.



Not much explanation here. If one set of measuring cups is good, then two is better. Cause if one is dirty, the other can be used! If one cutting board is in the sink cause it was used for meat, pull out a clean one for the veggies! And so on.

Need a last minute gift for a cooker? Pick up a wooden spoon, a spatula, some measuring spoons and cups and a spatula and wrap them up in a new tea towel. Garnish with a jar of fancy salt or a grocery store gift certificate.

Bread Baking Babes - Yule Wreath

As you can see from the above gorgeous logo (wonderfully made, as are all our logos by Lien) that it's Babe time again. This month we are celebrating the holidays with a Yule Wreath.

Normally this is the sort of recipe that I would take a miss on making. We don't eat a lot of sweets, nor do most of the people in my "tasting group" either. But the First Rule of the Bread Baking Babes is - There Are No Rules. Gee, I hope the Second Rule isn't Don't Tell Anyone The First Rule. Anyhoo, that means that we could take this traditionally sweet treat and make it savory. Cool.

Let's take a look at the recipe from this months host, Lynn:

Yule Wreath

1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 deg. F)
3/4 cup lukewarm milk*
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
3-1/4 to 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Almond Filling (below)**
Glaze (also below)

1-Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, margarine, egg, cardamom, salt and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

2-Turn dough onto lightly floured surface: knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in warm place until double, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

3-Prepare Almond Filling-

Mix together until smooth:
1/2 cup almond paste
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup softened butter

4- Punch down the dough. Roll into rectangle, 15 x 9-inches, on a lightly floured surface. Spread with the filling to within 1/4-inch of the edges. Roll up tightly, beginning at the wide side. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal well. Stretch roll to make even. With sealed edge down, shape into ring on lightly greased cookie sheet. Pinch ends together.

5- With scissors or kitchen shears, make cuts 2/3 of the way through the ring at 1-inch intervals. Turn each section on it's side (90 degree turn), to show off the pretty swirled filling. Cover loosely with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray. Let rise until double, about 40 to 50 minutes.

6- Heat oven to 350 deg. F. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. (If it browns too quickly, cover loosely with aluminum foil.)

7 - Make Glaze-
Mix until smooth:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla
(add additional water 1/2 tsp at a time, if necessary)

8- Spread Glaze over the wreath. You can decorate your wreath with nuts, dried fruit, marzipan fruit, or whatever strikes your fancy.

* The original recipe says to scald and then cool the milk. It's my understanding that with modern, pasteurized milk, this is no longer necessary.

** If almond paste is not available, or if you fall down in the aisle at the grocery store when you see the price, you can make your own. In a food processor finely grind 8 oz blanched almonds. Process in 8 oz powdered sugar. Then knead in 1 egg white. Store in the refrigerator.

Doesn't that sound great?

Here's the changes I made to make mine savory. I reduced the sugar to 2 tb, and I used dried basil instead of cardamom. Obviously I did not use the almond filling or the glaze either. Instead we filled ours with sauteed mushrooms, onions, ham and cheese.

The dough was really nice and soft. Easy to work with and roll out. Once I had it in a sort-of-rectangle shape, I sprinkled the dough (leaving a border around the edges) with the cooked and cooled mushrooms and onions, then the ham, and then the cheese.


We could have baked it just like that and had one helluva pizza.

Then the dough was rolled tightly, formed into a ring, and sealed.


Next came the only difficult part of the recipe. Using kitchen shears or a sharp sharp knife, we had to cut the wreath 2/3's of the way through at 1 inch intervals. Once you have all your cuts made, you have to twist each piece so you can see the filling. And lo, there was much arguing in the iliketocook kitchen that morning. We both thought the other was doing it wrong, but couldn't do any better than the other either.


The wreath has one more rise, and then gets baked until golden brown. Remove from the oven, and admire.


Thank you to Lynn for choosing a fun and changeable recipe for us this month. We loved it! Check out all the Babes wreaths; they're all listed over in the sidebar.