Lazy Saturday

When we first got married, we would sleep in and make a big breakfast every Saturday morning, and then just hang out and enjoy being together the rest of the day. It seems like things have gotten pretty busy lately, and we haven't had a proper Saturday morning in a really long time! So this morning, we decided dust of the waffle maker and make waffles! I used the ATK Buttermilk Waffles recipe, which calls for folding egg whites into a thick, lumpy batter, with a little cornmeal added to make nice, crispy waffles.

We paired the waffles with sliced strawberries and peaches, and some whipped cream. Now, I didn't want to make just boring old plain whipped cream, so I threw a bit of vanilla sugar and some Amaretto cream liqueur. Oh my gosh, that was a good idea! Mmmmmm. Perfect Saturday morning.

Bright Spots

This week wasn't a whole lot of fun, but I found a few little cheerful things to brighten things up. I've been craving chips all weekend, but didn't get around to buying any. I finally decided that mozza sticks with my summer marinara sauce would do the trick. They're super easy - get some string cheese and cut each one in half (or, if you don't have string cheese, take regular mozza and cut it down to size. Dredge them all in flour, dip them in egg, and cover them in panko and spices (I used parsley, but anything delicious will do the trick). I put them on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and stuck them in the freezer while the oven was warming up. Depending how long they're in the freezer, 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees does the trick. And voila! Gooey, delicious, cheesy awesomeness.

And while I ate my yummy mozza sticks, I admired my pretty little mini daffodils! Acutally, they're narcissus - or should that be narcissi? Either way, they're so happy! Huzzah for the little bright spots on not-awesome days. :)

Experimental Food: Raspberry-Citrus Chocolate Cake

It was Dad's birthday yesterday, and he asked for something chocolate for dessert. I wanted to go with something lighter - not overly heavy or sweet. Inspired by Pinterest, I decided on a chocolate layer cake with citrus and raspberry accents.

I used the chocolate sheet cake recipe from the ATK Healthy Family Cookbook. It's a pretty basic chiffon-style recipe: melt chocolate, cocoa and some instant coffee with boiling water; whisk in sugar, eggs, vanilla, and oil; sift in flour, baking soda and salt. It was lovely - fluffy and moist, with a really great chocolate flavour.

For the filling, I made a basic pastry cream and mixed in fresh raspberries and tangerine slices. I think this was my favourite part - it was so yummy!

I slathered the whole thing in whipped cream, and then decorated it with fresh raspberries and various citrus: blood oranges, lemons, limes, and tangerines. The juices and oils from the oranges really lent a lot of flavour to the cake, so it had a nice chocolate-orange flavour.

Finally, I served it up with a scoop of homemade raspberry sherbet. I adapted the recipe to use agave syrup, since I was watching the sugar levels in this dessert, so I added extra raspberries and lemon juice to balance the flavour of the syrup. I think if I were to do it again, I would also add a bit more milk.

Raspberry Sherbet
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz
Makes: 1 quart
4 1/2 c. (450 g) raspberries, frozen
2 c. whole milk
3/4 c. blue agave syrup
2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

1) Put the raspberries in a blender or food processor, along with the milk and sugar. Puree until smooth.
2) Strain the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.
3) Stir in the lemon juice.
4) Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

The intense tartness of the sherbet made a nice complement to the fluffy, moist chocolatey goodness of the cake. I would definitely make this again!

Happy birthday, Dad!

Experimental Food: Tart!

I've been really enjoying cookbooks lately, particularly David Lebovitz's recipes. I had so much fun experimenting with pears at Christmas that I decided to keep going and try out the Pear Tart with Brown Butter, Rum, and Pecans from Ready for Dessert. It was a reasonably involved process - I started by putting together the tart shell, which had to chill in the freezer for an hour before baking. The custard base, made by mixing eggs, flour, sugar, salt, brown butter, and toasted pecans, also needed to chill before assembly. Once that was taken care of, I layered brown sugar and rum-soaked pear slices in the pre-baked tart shell and then poured the custard over top before sliding it into the oven.

Once it cooled, I slipped it out of the tart pan, and voila! It looked beautiful!

I decided to make the rich vanilla frozen yogurt from The Perfect Scoop (3 c. greek-style yogurt, 3/4 c. sugar, and vanilla) to accompany the pastry. I opted to use about 1/3 regular greek yogurt and 2/3 fat-free greek yogurt, and it turned out beautifully. I had a few vanilla beans I've been itching to use, so I omitted the extract and scraped a vanilla pod in instead. The flecks were so pretty in the ice cream!

(This stuff is thick! This is how it came out of the machine!)

Derek had a few friends over, so I used them as guinea pigs. I think they liked it!

The yogurt was delicious! I will definitely be making it on a regular basis. The tart was good, but not my favourite, although sometimes things grow on me over time. The pears were lovely, but I think I would have liked a deeper flavour in the crust (maybe brown sugar instead of white?), and perhaps something like a sprinkling of cinnamon for a bit more colour. I had so much fun trying out something new, though, and I can't wait to try out a fresh berry tart in the summer!

Tea and Sauce

Today, my husband met me downtown after work and we went on an adventure! We started at the games store, where Derek spent his Christmas money on a new game that he’s really excited about. Then we meandered up the street and found a TAIWAN TEA SHOP called La Tea Ah! It’s not easy to find good bubble tea here, and the owner made my passion fruit green tea with coconut jellies perfectly. The shop also serves a few dishes, and I’m hoping their beef noodles is just as nice as the tea. It's close enough to work that I should be able to skip over for lunch sometimes, so I'll definitely be frequenting this establishment.

(On a side note, if you look closely at my hat,

you can see where a kid stepped on it on the playground

when I was walking under the jungle gym!)

We spent some time looking in little shops and thrift stores, and then used a groupon for Sauce, a "Canadian fusion" restaurant in downtown Victoria. We'd driven past it lots, but it had never really caught my eye. I'm so glad we took this opportunity, though, because we had so much fun there! We started with the artisan plate, featuring local meats and cheeses, mushrooms and olives, roasted garlic, and red onion jam. The jam surprised me - usually I wouldn't really like that sort of thing, but it was lovely - mellow and sweet. I would love to try it with their phyllo-wrapped baked brie.

For the main courses, Derek ordered the beef short ribs in Thai bbq sauce with a panko-crusted onion ring and fantastic parmesan-garlic smashed potatoes. So delicious! I ordered the sesame tuna steak with bok choy and bean sprouts, served on a bed of coconut jasmine rice. I'm a sucker for perfect bean sprouts, and these were awesome!

In some ways Sauce is kind of like 5th St. Bar and Grill - it uses local ingredients in fresh and creative ways and has a similar feel - but it has its own charm. I think I'd like to go back and try some of the other things on the menu sometime. It seems like a really versatile place, with a $10 lunch menu; delicious, generously-portioned dinner options; a nice selection of appies; an extensive drink menu; and a killer desserts. We didn't get to try any of those sweets, but I really like that they come in two sizes - you can get a small serving if you like! And because it's a bar as well as a restaurant, Sauce stays open until 1:00 am, which is unusual here in Victoria! The service was excellent (the manager held the door open for us as we were leaving!).

On the way home, we stopped for groceries and now I'm dreaming of ways to use passionfruit and persimmon (not necessarily together). A day doesn't get much more perfect than that! Sigh.

Snow Day Indulgence

We have a snow day today! I decided that celebratory cinnamon buns were in order, but I didn't want to wait for a few hours for the dough to rise. I wanted cinnamon buns for breakfast, dang it! I did some quick looking around, and found a quick cinnamon buns recipe in the quickbreads section of my America's Test Kitchen cookbook. They took under an hour from start to finish and only made 8 rolls (a definite bonus if you're stuck at home with just the two of you and the landlords upstairs)!

The recipe called for cloves as well as cinnamon, which added nice colour to the recipe. I think, if I make these again, that I will reduce the sugar amounts for the filling and add pecans and/or raisins or apples.

The finished product! They tasted heavenly with the (VERY liberally applied) cream cheese glaze. We took them upstairs and had a little party with our landlords. Yum!

Winter Warmth

I started blogging again over Christmas and rediscovered how much I really enjoy sharing the little things that make me happy. I decided that I wanted to spend a little more time here, and today feels like a good day for it.

We have SNOW! I hate driving here when there's snow, but it makes everything pretty and so much brighter! For a former prairie girl, that's a big deal during sunless winters here.  Winter skies are always so pretty against the snow! I love walking out in the morning, or home in the evening, to see all of the muted winter colours.

We have frosty lace all over our sidwalk! It's not quite as beautiful as frosty lace on windows, but I still like it.

The roads are pretty scary here when it snows, but the trees are so pretty! Our snow is very wet, and it clings to the trees kind of like hoar frost.

I've been excited about January because spring comes so soon here - sometimes we have blossoms starting to wake up already! I finally saw a few this week, just in time for the poor things to be covered with snow. That's okay - they'll just come out to play a little later.

Warm food always feels so nice during cold weather, so I decided to make soup! I started with a bunch of vegetables from around the house: acorn squash, carrots, celery, leeks, and potatoes, and then added a couple of handfuls of pot barley for good measure.

I cooked them all up in turkey broth from our Christmas turkey, and added some bay leaves, sage, parsley, garlic, a bit of mustard powder, pepper, and salt.

And I ended up with nice, hot, economical lunches for the week! Yum!