Oven Roasted Vegetables

Dressing
1/4 c. Olive oil
2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegarette
1/2 tsp Thyme, dried
1/2 tsp Rosemary, dried
1 tsp Basil, dried
4-5 cloves Garlic, minced
Salt & Pepper to taste

Vegetables
4 Potatoes, cubed with skin on
1/2 Onion, sliced
2 Sweet bell peppers, cubed
1 Zucchini, cut into bite-size
8-10 White mushrooms
Handful of snowpeas

Preheat the oven to 450˚F.

Combine the dressing ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Mix together the pepper, zucchini, mushrooms and snowpeas. Toss them in the dressing until coated. Transfer the vegetables to another bowl and set aside.


Toss the potatoes an onions with the remaining dressing.

Spray the bottle of a roasting pan with oil.

Spread the potatoes and onions evenly on the roasting pan.



Bake for 10 min and flip them potatoes.

Add the rest of the vegetables. Toss to mix.

Bake for 10 min and flip the veggies once. Bake again for another 10 min.



My comment:

Summer is a great time to include fresh vegetables to your diet. You can get delicious vegetables at your local grocery store for really decent price. For this reason, sometimes I go overboard with buying the vegetables but I don't actually eat them fast enough. I always have these great ideas on how I want to prepare the vegetables and never actually execute the ideas. Thus I always end up with loads of veggies on the verge of rotting in my fridge.

What is wonderful about this recipe is its versatility and it is so easy to do. I got the idea from All Recipes and then did my own thing based on what I have available at home. The dressing turned out absolutely delicious and the vegetables were cooked perfectly.

I cooked these veggies slightly different from the method I stated above. We made oven-baked porkchops for dinner tonight and we didn't have enough room to fit everything. So I cooked the potatoes and onions first, removed them from the oven and set aside. When the porkchops were almost done, I roasted the rest of the veggies for 10 min and then added the cooked potatoes to the roasting pan for the last 10 min to reheat the potatoes. This worked out really well and we had a wonderfully delicious dinner.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Pie

1/2 pkg (4 oz. ; 125 g) Cream cheese (light), softened to room temperature
1/2 container (500 mL) Whipped topping (light), thawed in fridge until soft
1/4 c. Sugar
1/2 pint Fresh raspberries
1/8 c. Oreo baking crumbs
1/8 c. Butter, melted

Alternative: Instead of fresh raspberries, use 1 can (400 mL) crushed pineapple and press the pineapples into the strainer to squeeze out as much juice as possible.

Combine the oreo crumbs with the butter. Press it onto the bottom of a 9" pie plate.

In a large bowl, mix together the cream cheese and the sugar until smooth using a electric mixer.

Blend in the whipped topping until smooth.

Mash the raspberries with a fork and fold into the cream cheese mixture.

Pour the mixture onto the oreo pie crust and refrigerate until set.



My comment:

This was a super easy no-bake cheesecake recipe with super tasting results. The cream cheese filling is smooth and creamy. It is lightly sweetened and the fresh fruity taste of the raspberries complimented the cream cheese perfectly. The raspberries juice gave the pie a beautiful pink colour. And of course, the oreo pie crust was just the best!!

I must be honest and tell you that I did not come up with this recipe all by myself. I had a slice of pineapple cream cheese pie at a BBQ and it was so good that I couldn't stop thinking about it when I got home. I adapted this Cream Cheese Pineapple Pie recipe with fresh raspberries because my Hubby doesn't like pineapple and I also used oreo crumbs instead of graham cracker crumbs.

Noticed that this recipe only uses half of the cream cheese and whipped topping. When I whipped up the cream cheese mixture the first time, I realized I was in trouble because I had way too much of it and I couldn't possibly fit it all into my pie plate. So I divided the cream cheese mixture in half, used half of it for the raspberries and the other half for the pineapple. My pineapple cream cheese pie was awesome awesome awesome!! Just as good as the one I had at the BBQ. :)

I made one little mistake with this recipe: I didn't pre-thaw the whipped topping because I didn't read the instructions on the container. But I was impatient and I blended it into the creamcheese while it was still mostly frozen. It took a bit more time to do but it worked alright.

If you want to impress your friends at a potluck party, this recipe is a Must! It doesn't take long to do and it tastes superb. You can make them into mini-pies for dinner parties using little ramekins instead of a big pie plate.

Vegetable Couscous

1 c. Israeli couscous
1 c. Chicken stock, low sodium
1 c. Water
4 c. Vegetables, chopped
1 clove Garlic, chopped

1 tsp Basil, dried
2 tbsp Olive oil
Sesame oil
Salt & Pepper to taste


Rinse the couscous with water.

Bring the chicken stock and water to a boil in a sauce pan. Stir in the couscous. Reduce to low heat and simmer for about 10 min, covered.

When the couscous are soft, fluff with a fork. You may drain the excess liquid with a strainer.

Prepare approximately 4 cups of vegetables, chopped the way you like. I used mushrooms, asparagus, green onion, white onion and sweet peppers.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Add garlic and white onions and cook for about 1 minute until fragrant.

Stir in the basil and the rest of the vegetables (except for the green onion) and cook until they begin to soften. (Cooking time depends on whether you like your veggies soft or crunchy.)

If you are using green onion, add them to the rest of the vegetables and cook for a few more minutes.

Stir in the cooked couscous and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a little bit of sesame oil before serving.


My comments:

I fell in love with Israeli couscous the first time I had it as a side dish at a fancy local restaurant. It was prepared with veal juice and oh boy, I'm drooling just thinking about it. I don't have any veal juice at home but I did have tons of vegetables that were going to go bad if I didn't do something about it. So I whipped up this simple vegetable couscous recipe and it was delicious, not to mention very healthy.

Israeli couscous actually tastes more like a pasta than the regular couscous. The package instruction said to "fluff" with a fork once the liquid is absorbed but it doesn't really "fluff". I found it helps to have a bit of oil (olive or sesame) to keep the couscous from sticking together too much. One important thing to remember when preparing couscous (regular or Israeli) is to use low sodium chicken stock. Once the stock is reduced and absorbed, the salt concentration increases and you end up with a very salty dish. So it is wise to start with a low sodium stock and add more salt as needed.

Marble Banana Bundt Cake

Banana Bread
1.5-2 c. Ripe banana, mashed (approximately 2-3 large bananas)
1 c. Sour cream, fat free
½ c. Vegetable oil
1 c. Brown sugar (do not pack down)
2 Eggs, room temperature
2 tsp Vanilla
3 c. All purpose flour
2 tsp Baking powder
2 tsp Baking soda
1.5 tsp Cinnamon
¼ tsp Salt

Chocolate Sauce
2 c. Unsweeten dark chocolate wafers
3 tbsp Butter
½ tsp Vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Butter bundt pan if not using silicone mold.

Combine banana and sour cream. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil and brown sugar. Beat in one egg at a time. Then stir in the vanilla and the banana mixture.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Slowly stir into the banana mixture.

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate wafers with the butter. Add vanilla.

Put 1/3 of the banana bread batter in the bundt pan and then add ½ of the chocolate sauce on top of the batter. Careful not to get chocolate on the side of the pan. Repeat with more batter, chocolate sauce and finally finish with batter on top.


Swirl a knife through the batter to create the marble effect.

Bake at 350˚F for 50 min or until the skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Rotate the cake 180˚ half way through baking.


Cool on rack before removing banana bundt cake from the mold.


Serving suggestions:

• For breakfast, reheat in toaster oven and spread a little bit of butter.
• For snack, eat as it is.
• For dessert, reheat in toaster oven and couple with vanilla ice-cream.

My comments:

Mmm Mmmm... This was super-duper yummilicious!! I took my basic banana bread recipe, adjust the amount of ingredients, added a chocolate sauce and voila! the perfect marble bundt cake. If you like your banana bread sweeter, try adding a little more brown sugar in the cake recipe; you can also sweeten the chocolate sauce by melting the chocolate with a bit of sugar.

This cake would also do well with a bit of walnut bits. Simple toast the walnut pieces on a baking sheet for about 8 min and then stir into your banana bread batter (before layering with the chocolate sauce).

Spinach Mushroom Swiss Pancakes

Crepes
3/4 c. All purpose flour
1 c. Milk
1 Egg
Sprinkle of salt

1 tsp Butter
1 tsp Olive oil

Filling
5-6 White mushrooms, sliced
1/2 Red onion, sliced
2 c. Baby spinach, wilted
Swiss cheese
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onions for a few minutes with small amount of olive oil. Then add in the mushroom and cook until the liquids (sweat from the mushroom) are gone. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Using the same frying pan, heat the baby spinach until just wilted. Set aside.

Whisk together the flour and milk until smooth. Add egg. Set aside for 1 minute.

Melt together the butter and olive oil in the microwave for about 20 seconds.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan. To test the temperature, sprinkle some water on the pan and it should sizzle.

Reduce the heat to medium. Lightly coat the surface of the pan with the oil mixture using a silicone brush.

Pour 1/4 cup of crepe batter onto the pan and swirl quickly to spread the batter as much as possible. Cook for 1 minute. The bottom should be golden and the edges should start to curl.

Flip the crepe over quickly and cook for another 30 sec.

Set the crepe aside and repeat with the rest of the batter.

When the crepes are almost done, quickly reheat the vegetables in the microwave.

To assemble the pancake, place the mushroom/onion mixture and baby spinach to the center of the crepe. Add in 1-2 slices of swiss cheese (use as much as you want). Roll up the crepe and transfer to a baking sheet.

Preheat oven to 400˚F. Bake the pancakes for 5 min.

Serve immediately.


My comments:

I got this idea from Julia, author of A Slice of Cherry Pie. It is a perfect addition to my recipe collection because you can have an infinite number of variations with these pancakes, ie. fill it with whatever you want!! I had tons of vegetables left and so I made mine vegetarian. I thought the swiss cheese went very nicely with the spinach, which has a very strong flavour. My pancakes were not very big but oh boy, were they ever filling!! These pancakes made a great lunch and everyone in my house loved it.

If you are looking for a sweet brunch, you can omit the salt from the crepe recipe and replace it with 1 tbsp of white sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Then, filling it with your favourite fruit and serve with maple syrup or whipped cream or both!! You can also fill the crepes with your favourite ice-cream and turn it into a dessert everyone will love.

Ham and Cheese Breakfast Muffins

4 Eggs
3/4 c. Milk
1 tbsp Honey Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
5 c. Bread (approx. 5 slices)
1 c. Cheese, shredded (eg. Mozzarella, Cheddar, Swiss...anything you like)
1/2 c. Ham, cubed
1/2 Onion, medium size, diced
12 Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Butter the muffin pan or use a silicone muffin mold or liner.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, mustard, salt and pepper.

Stir in the bread, cheese, onion and ham in to the egg mixture until evenly coated.

Spoon into muffin pan and drizzle in any leftover liquid.

Place 1-2 halves of the cherry tomatoes on each muffin.

Bake for approximately 25 min. The muffins should be golden on top and the toothpicked inserted in the center should come out clean.

Cool on rack for 10 min before serving.




My comments:

I received a Got Milk calendar for free in the mail. There are tons of recipes that looks delicious and probably easy to do. Most of the recipes use ingredients that can be easily be found around the house on any given day.

I had some cottage pork roll leftover from dinner the night before and tons of mozzarella cheese in the fridge. So I thought I'd give this breakfast muffin recipe a go. The muffins were pretty easy to make and it used up a lot of my old bread that will probably be thrown out in a few days anyway. I also threw in some fresh onions and Dijon mustard. These muffins were tastey and healthy too!

In the future, I think I'll use a stronger cheese, such as cheddar, to bring out the cheese flavour a bit more. Also, I think sprinkles of basils (or your favourite herb) would make a very savoury addition as well.

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

1 Pork tenderloin
6-8 slices Bacon
2 tbsp Olive oil
1 clove Garlic, minced
1 tbsp Onion, minced
1 tsp Basil, dried
1 tsp Oregano, dried
1/2 tsp Rosemary, dried

Mix together the olive oil, garlic, onion and the herbs. Set aside.

In a casserole dish, line the bacon slices side by side to approximately the length of the pork tenderloin.

Place the tenderloin on the bacon slices and rub half of the herb mixture onto the meat. Carefully flip the tenderloin over and rub on the rest of the herb mixture.

Wrap up the tenderloin with the bacon and secure with toothpicks. Marinade in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake the tenderloin for 45 minutes. (Longer or shorter may be required, depending on the size of your tenderloin.)

Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes before slicing into medallions.



My comments:

This is one of those recipes that looks and sound fancy when in fact it is super simple to do. The only difficult part is finding the correct bake time if you don't have a meat thermometer. If you have a meat thermometer, bake the meat until it reads 155°F or 70°C. Otherwise, 45 minutes should be good for a medium size tenderloin. Avoid overcooking it because the tenderloin will become tough and dry.

I served the pork medallions with a curried rice salad and steamed baby bok choy.

Heart Attack Double Chocolate Skor Cookies

2 1/4 c. Flour
2/3 c. Cocoa powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt

1 1/3 c. Butter, unsalted, softened
1/3 c. Brown Sugar
1/3 c. White Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
2 eggs

1 c. White chocolate chips
1 c. Skor toffee bits (Chipits)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Stir in the vanilla. Then, add one egg at a time. The mixture will be lumpy but that's okay.

Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir until the dough is evenly mixed.

Stir in the chocolate chips and skor toffee bits.

Drop the dough by tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet, placing them 2 inches apart.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. (My oven produced very soft cookies with baking time of 8 min.)


Too much cookie dough?

• This cookie dough freezes really well. Simply double wrap the unused dough in plastic wrap, place it in a ziplock bag and with a label indicating the type of cookies and the date prepared. Pop the whole thing in the freezer and can be stored for several months.
• Thaw the cookie dough in the refridgerator overnight and bake as normal.
  

My comments:

I swiped (and slightly tweaked) this cookie recipe from Creamsicle on ChickAdvisor. These cookies were uber chocolatey, uber soft and uber delicious. There is nothing healthy about this recipe but believe me, it is worth temporarily giving up your diet for. Besides, this recipe actually makes quite a lot of cookies. So use the butter guiltlessly but only bake what you can eat and freeze the rest. The cookies are best when they are fresh out of the oven anyway.

I made 3 variations of this cookie recipe because there are 3 of us in this house and we all liked something different. I personally taste-tested all 3 versions and I've ranked them by their yumminess:

1. Double chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips and skor toffee bits
2. Chocolate chip cookie with skor toffee bits
3. White chocolate chip cookie with pinenuts

Eggnog Pound Cake

Cake:
2 tbsp Dark rum
1 c. Butter, unsalted, room temperature
2 c. Sugar
3 Eggs, room temperature
3 c. Flour
2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1 c. Eggnog
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tbsp Orange zest

Glaze:
3 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp Dark rum
3/4 c. Sugar

Preheat the oven to 325°F. (Butter the bundt pan if it is not a silicone mold.)

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy, 30-45 seconds.

Add sugar and beat until fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Stir together with a fork.

Combine the eggnog, vanilla extract and dark rum.

At low speed, add the dry ingredients and the eggnog to the butter mixture in 4 additions, alternating between wet and dry, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Fold in the orange zest.

Pour the batter into bundt pan. Bake 60-70 minutes, turning the cake 180° half way through. Insert a skewer into the thickest part of the cake and it is done if it comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes.

For the glaze, stir together the orange juice, sugar and the rum in a bowl.

Place a cooling rack on a cookie sheet (to catch the glaze dripping from the cake). Invert the cake onto the rack and brush the glaze onto the surface of the cake. The cake should be completely cooled before serving.



My comments:

As always, Elise's recipe never fails to impress me. I pretty much followed her recipe to the dot and the pound cake turned out fabulous. I had to omit the currants/cranberries because my hubby doesn't like them. But I combined the dark rum with the eggnog because...well, hey, why not? :) Her recipe said the cake serves 20 people, but between my mom, hubby and I, we inhaled the cake by ourselves in 3 short days. A week later, my hubby asked me when I'm going to make the cake again. This recipe was that good.

I usually like to reduce the sugar content in any baking recipes I find. But I found the amount of sugar in this pound cake was perfect, especially with the glaze. I think the best part about this cake was the glaze. It smelled awesome and it tasted awesome. Let me put it this way: my hubby and I couldn't stop dipping our fingers into the glaze while we waited for the cake to bake. Thank goodness no one was eating this cake but us.


I don't own a bundt pan but it's high time I do. I decided to invest in a silicone baking pan because they are fantastic. Nothing sticks to it. The cake slipped out as soon as I inverted the pan. I have a silicone mini-muffin pan and it is the best thing ever!! No more scraping the side of the pan, no more greasing and no more papercups!! I love it. I don't recommend you throwing out all your baking pans and replace the entire set with silicone ones, but this would be nice to include on your Christmas gift list next year.

Spicy Salad Dressing

1.5 c. Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c. Wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Ground pepper
2 tbsp Tomato paste
2 tbsp Chinese garlic chili sauce
1/2 c. Parmesan or Romano cheese
1/2 tsp Oregano, dried
1 Sweet pepper, sliced
1/2 Onion, medium size, sliced


Put all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. Puree to desired consistency.

Salad dressing can be stored in the fridge for up to 1 month.

Serve with your favourite salad. (This dressing has a thicker consistency when it's cold. If you want it to be more liquidy, warm the dressing up to room temperature before serving.)


My comments:

This is my favourite salad dressing. It's healthy because there are no preservative. It's tastey because it uses all fresh ingredients. You can adjust the amount of spices to your own taste and it keeps very well in the fridge. I shared this recipe with a few of my friends and they all love it.


The original recipe on Epicurious called for green peppers but I found the dressing tastes better with a sweet pepper. I've tried the red, orange and yellow peppers and each type of pepper gives the dressing just a slightly different tastes. Sometimes depending on what's on sale, I'll even mix and match the sweet peppers.

I love the Chinese garlic chili sauce whether I'm cooking Chinese, Indian, Thai or even Italian. You can buy it in Chinatown and maybe even a large franchised grocery store (eg. Loblaw). If you don't have Chinese garlic chili sauce, you can use 1 clove of garlic, minced, plus desired amount of hot sauce. Alternatively, you can omit the hot sauce completely if you don't like spicy food.

Lazy Raspberry Coulis

1/2 c. Fresh raspberries
2-3 tsp Sugar
Juice from 1/4 of a lemon

Mash the raspberries with a fork. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste.

This raspberry coulis is delicious with a slice of citrus pound cake. It can be stored for 3 days in the refrigerator.


My comments:

Raspberries were on sale this week and I bought 3 half-pint boxes. Unfortunately, the quality of these berries were poor and I already had to throw away one box because of mold. I needed to use up my raspberries very quickly or the rest of them will go to waste as well. Since I was making a pound cake for dessert anyway, I thought a raspberry sauce would go very nicely it!

I found this raspberry coulis recipe on Epicurious. I was only making a small amount of sauce so I couldn't use my blender. I don't own a small handheld one nor do I have any sieve at home. Therefore, I decided to skip to purée part and make a "chunky" version of it. Also, I had just washed all the bakeware I used for the pound cake and I didn't feel like dirtying my measuring spoons again. So I skipped all the ingredient measurement part as well and added the sugar and lemon juice to taste. I must say, my chunky raspberry coulis turned out rather well and it complemented my pound cake perfectly. Yuuummmyyyy!! This raspberry coulis was so easy to make and so tasty, I'd definitely make this again in the future!!

NOTE: If you want a more precise method or if you want to use frozen berries, be sure to check out the original recipe.