Roasted White Vegetable Soup

January 26, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 18 Comments

I haven’t been able to find the time to write more than one blog post a week lately, for that I apologize. The biggest reason for this is that I’m about to put my condo up for sale and I’ve been running around taking care of last minute things to get the place showing ready. My real estate gave me a list of things to do, she said there wasn’t that much, yet it seems to be taking all my time. I can’t imagine what having a lot to do would be like.

This weekend I removed all the caulking from my bathtub and redid it. Caulking is not as much fun as it sounds. Removing it is long and tedious work, and applying it is a lot harder than the youtube videos make it seem. Thankfully I had a nice bowl of soup waiting for me when I was done with the silicone-ey mess.

I had seen this recipe on Tartlette a year ago and it stayed in the back of my mind all this time. This weekend’s deep freeze seemed like the perfect setting for it. The soup is thick and creamy, even though there is no cream. Roasting the vegetables gives them a great almost caramelized flavour. It was a wonderfully soothing meal.

I also made the polenta croutons she recommends from Lisa’s Kitchen. I generally don’t like polenta, but a corn flavoured crunch really appealed to me. I followed the recipe and used cayenne, but I think these would also be great with rosemary or thyme. The croutons lost their crunchiness after a day, so if you make them, eat them all fast!

Roasted White Vegetable Soup

1 Cauliflower, cut into florets
1 celery root, peeled and cut into pieces
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
2 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper to taste
1 L low sodium vegetable stock

Preheat oven to 400.
Place the vegetables, onion and garlic on a baking sheet. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast vegetables for 40 minutes.
Transfer roasted vegetables to a large soup pot. Cover with stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes.
Using an immersion blender puree soup, or allow to cool and pour into a regular blender to puree (may have to be done in batches)
Serve with polenta croutons.

Enjoy!

Double Ginger Chocolate Cookies

January 21, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 29 Comments

Last week I went over to a friends house for coffee. As usually happens when two single women get together, the conversation eventually turned to men. You’d think at this point in our lives we could manage a conversation without talking about them, but no. Long story short, we don’t get them.

You go out on a date (well she does, I think 95% of the population is un-datable), things go really well, and then a week goes by and he hasn’t called for a second date. Why? What happened?

We pondered the possibilities while eating these Double Ginger and Chocolate Cookies. Serious injury was ruled out because she saw him at the gym. He smiled and waved, so it wasn’t amnesia. The men in Montreal tend to be short, and this guy is 6’2”. My theory is he knows all the women in the city are fighting over him and the other four tall guys, so he doesn’t want to commit.

After eating several cookies and drinking too much coffee, we came up with an action plan. Call him, ask how his weekend was, and see if he mentions date number two. She put the plan in place Sunday night. They had a great conversation, but no second date

At least there were cookies.

I’ll be honest, these were a little too gingery for me. Next time I think I’ll just use the ground ginger. I also think they could use some chocolate chips. The recipe isn’t perfect, but I think with a few more tweaks it could be really good.

Double Ginger Chocolate Cookies

Adapted from the January 2011 issue of Bon Appetit

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup mild-flavored (light) molasses
1 large egg
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger

Preheat oven to 350
In a bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, ground cinnamon.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the molasses, egg and fresh ginger until well combined.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
Using a tablespoon or small ice cream scoop, drop dough onto a cookie sheet about two inches apart.
Bake for 13-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Muffins

January 15, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 29 Comments

I had an incredible headache Thursday morning when I woke up. The kind that makes me want to lie perfectly still because any movement feels like an explosion in my brain. I stayed home from work and just lay in my bed for a few hours. It hurt too much to sleep or read, and the light from my computer or TV just intensified the pain. I let my mind just wander, if I wasn’t in pain it would have been kind of fun.

Eventually the pain lessened so I got up and started to work from home. Unfortunately my remote access wasn’t working. All of the emails in my inbox were from 2009, nothing I sent went through, and I had no access to any of the network drives. Oh well, I tried.

So what’s a girl to do on a Thursday afternoon when the rest of the world is hard at work? Make muffins of course.

These chocolate banana muffins are an attempt at eating healthy. Sort of. They’ve got whole wheat flour and no refined sugar. I probably could have cut back a little on the butter, but I figured I’d go one step at time, you know?

Chocolate Banana Muffins

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup cinnamon chips

Preheat oven to 350. Line a muffin tin with liners.
In a large bowl, stir together the flours, cocoa, baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl, mix the bananas, egg, butter, and milk together.
Create a well in the dry ingredients, pour the wet into the well, then stir until just combined.
Stir in the cinnamon chips.
Pour batter into the lined muffin tin, about 3/4 full. Bake for 27-32 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes in pan, then move to a cooling rack to cool completely (if you can wait that long)

Enjoy!

Curried Carrot and Lentil Soup

January 13, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 20 Comments

I received a comment on my Roasted Tomato post that got me thinking. Tiffany of Como Water wrote that January is 1/12 of my life and I should find a way to enjoy it. I had never thought of it that way. To me winter has always been something I need to survive to get to the good stuff. I decided to try to figure out what it is about the winter that bothers me so much. Basically it comes down to two things; the dark and the cold. It’s pitch black when I wake up in the morning and its pitch black when I leave the office at night. The darkness is depressing and tiring. And then there’s the cold. Yuck. I’m one of those people who thinks a hot humid day is heavenly. The cold makes me, well, cold. And tense. Every time I step outside I can feel all of my muscles contracting, and they stay stuck that way all day.

So what can I do about this? My first solution is to spend some time outside and enjoy what little sunshine there is. I’m thinking walks at lunch could cover this. The second solution is to stay warm. If I’m going to enjoy my walks I need a good coat (can you say Canada Goose?).

And I need nice warm bowl of soup when I get home at night.

My first soup of the month is Curried Carrot and Lentil. It was kind of an experiment as I had no recipe to follow, but I think for the first time a non baking experiment has worked for me. The carrots and red lentils are a great base to the soup, the curry and cayenne and some nice heat, and the coconut milk adds just the right amount of creaminess. I think it’s perfect to come home to on a cold January night.

Curried Carrot and Lentil Soup

coconut oil or olive oil for frying
1 medium onion, diced
3 carrots, sliced
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated (can be substituted with powder)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
3/4 cup lentils
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups coconut milk
plain yogurt for serving

In a large soup pot, sautee the onions and carrots for 3 – 4 minutes until the onions have softened.
Add the mustard seeds, curry, and ginger. Cook, stirring to keep the onion from burning, until the mustard seeds start to pop.
Add the cayenne and lentils, then add the broth and coconut milk. Bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes.
Let cool, then puree with an immersion blender or blender until smooth.
Serve topped with yogurt.

Enjoy!

A Night At Pullman

January 12, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 4 Comments

Friendships are a strange thing. I’ve always had the assumption that if people are friends with me, they should get along with each other too. I guess it’s a reverse of the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” theory. I’ve been proven wrong many times, but I keep holding on to this idea.

This weekend I went to Pullman Wine Bar with some friends. Some of them had met before, others hadn’t, but they are all my friends so I assumed things would go well. In the end, I’d have to say that the group didn’t quite click. One person did most of the talking, and the conversation never really flowed. I guess these things happen.

We did enjoy some nice wines and delicious foods though. My friend Steph and I shared a bottle of white. Steph and I are not exactly wine connoisseurs, so I asked JB to pick a wine for us. We wanted something not too fruity, not to dry, something just right. He picked out a Amphibolite Nature, a Muscadet 2009 from France, that was very nice. We made our way through the bottle quite quickly.

Between the 6 of us we ordered at least half of the menu. My favourite items were the scallop and chorizo sticks with quince and apple, and the pork meatball ragout with mashed potato and beets. The cheddar and bacon gougeres were also very nice, I’ll have to try and make those at home one day. I took pictures of the food, but a point and shoot in a dark bar does not good pictures take.

For dessert I had the apple and honey semifredo. I was expecting a semifredo with both of those flavours, but it was actually a honey semifredo placed on a spoonful of apple sauce. Separately they were just ok, together they were better, but still not spectacular. JB had the red wine figs with almond graham and mascarpone and love it. It was so good he refused to share.

All in all I’d say it was a good night. I got a chance to see friends I rarely see and eat some good food. That’s the beauty of a good restaurant, even if there is nothing to say, you can always just enjoy the food.

Roasted Tomato with Pesto

January 6, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 21 Comments

In general I would say that February is the worst month of the year. It’s cold, it has no holidays (in Quebec), and it’s vegetables taste like nothing. On top of that it has Valentines Day, which for a chronically single person is unpleasant to say the least. It’s the shortest month of the year but it takes sooo long.

To combat my dislike of February, I’m planning on taking 3 of its 4 Friday’s off of work. Instead of dreading it, I’m now looking forward to my 4 day weeks. Unfortunately this has had a side effect. I now feel that January is the worst month of this year. It’s cold, its holiday is over, and its vegetables taste like nothing.

I think the tomato is the worst culprit when it comes to lacking flavour in winter (yes, I know it’s a fruit). In the summer, tomatoes are juicy and flavourful and fun. In the winter they are grainy and weird.

Thankfully, there are steps that can be taken to fix this. Steps like drizzling them in olive oil and popping them in the oven to roast. Roasting tomatoes gives them a nice rich flavour. If I close my eyes when I take a bite I can almost believe it’s July and they came from my parents garden instead of some farm in Peru. Almost.

The recipe is from Ina Garten’s How Easy Is That. It takes roasting tomatoes one step further by using pesto instead of olive oil. I decided to push it a little further by adding goat cheese to the mix. It’s a simple combination that tastes wonderful.

Nutella Brownies

January 3, 2011March 10, 2011 ~ Lynn ~ 42 Comments

I made it 13 hours into 2011 before breaking my new years resolution. And then I had breakfast.

I had resolved to cut back on the sweets. I’m going with the “it’s not my fault” excuse. There were a ton of desserts at our New Years celebration. My cousin picked up an enormous Gateau St. Honoré for my birthday and refused to let me leave without taking the leftovers home with me. A Gateau St Honoré is basically a giant cream puff. This one was filled with pastry cream, chocolate pastry cream, whipped cream, and even had some pieces of chocolate cake in it. I couldn’t let it go to waste. So I had a piece for breakfast. And another later in the day for dessert.

So my New Years resolution starts.. Now!

My contribution to the New Years celebration were Abby Dodge’s Nutella Brownies. If you read a reasonable number of food blogs, you’ve probably come across these already. A few months ago I saw post after post about how incredible these are. The reviews were right, these are awesome. I don’t know why I waited so long to make them.

They are also incredibly easy to make. If you’re not much of a baker this recipe is a great place to start; there are only 4 ingredients and you don’t need to know any baking techniques. If you can mix (or have a mixer) you can make these brownies. I found this recipe at Savory Sweet Life.

Nutella Brownies