Stuck Working

What a gorgeous day outside and I know this is probably the last day I'll be able to wear shorts this year. Sad.

I am stuck working today but I hope that you take advantage of such a beautiful sunny day. Very well could be the last.

My hubby did pick this up for me for lunch to lift my spirits. It's helping.

How Do You Like them Apples?

It's that time of year where everywhere you turn someone is asking you, "do you want some crab apples? My neighbour left me too many!" Or "Want to come over after work and pick up some apples? My apple tree went crazy this year!" And the question is, what the heck do you do with all of them? I received two grocery bags full of apples and well, I certainly did not want these colourful, crisp, tart apples to go to waste! I started looking for some recipes.

I found a apple crumble and a squash and apple soup to try out.

Let's start with the apple and butternut squash soup.

Making this soup was a perfect excuse to finally use my crock pot. Very excited for all the soups and stews I will be making over the winter.

The soup itself was okay. As M. nicely put it, "feels like I am drinking some hot apple cider with a side of squash." I guess I added too many apples. I didn't think it was that bad. Better not share the recipe until I have made it again and tweaked it. Oh well... 

On to the apple crisp! 

My friend A. came over on the weekend to help me peel and cut up apples so that I can make my first apple crisp.  A vegan one to boot!

I mixed the apples with the following spices; cloves, nutmeg, all spice and cinnamon. The smell was incredible. It hasn't even hit the oven yet!

Our crumble toping.

Here is the crumble coming out of the oven. You can see on the sides all the juices from the apples. Not only was this visually appealing but the smell of cinnamon that fills the kitchen is just heavenly.  Salivating yet?

Final product!

Warm apple crumble with ice cream is a perfect marriage. Delectable. Just as good cold too :)

This is actually a recipe that I found from Post Punk Kitchen's website. Click here for the link. I also copied her recipe below for you to enjoy!

Ingredients

For the filling
4 lbs apples (I use Roma)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple juice or water
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder (cornstarch will work too)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 cup raisin (optional)

For the topping
1 cup quick cooking oats (not instant)
1 cup flour
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup canola oil
3 tablespoon soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F

Peel, core and thinly slice apples. Dissolve the arrowroot in the apple juice or water. Set aside.

Place apples and raisins in the baking dish, add sugars and spices and combine everything well (you may need to use your hands to do this). Pour arrowroot mixture over everything.

To prepare the topping, in a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add oil, soymilk, and vanilla, mix well. Crumble topping over the apples. Bake for 45 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool at least 15 minutes before serving

Happy 5 years, M.!

This is for my husband. Thank you M., for the most wonderful 5 years. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

How did we celebrate this very special anniversary you may ask? Through food of course! With the craziness that our life has been lately, a night in with good food, wine and a movie was music to our ears.

M. and I had decided a long time ago that we will no longer buy each other presents for anniversaries or Christmas' but instead, we will have a mini splurge! A splurge could be anything from going to a restaurant that is usually out of or our budget or a nice bottle of wine or even a night out to the VIP theater! But, for this anniversay, a quiet evening at home sounded perfect but we need supplies.

We started off with a stop at Godiva and we purchased a "around the world" chocolate box. It had flavours from Brazil, Japan, France, Belgium and America. Interesting flavours. My favourite was a honey nougat and my least favourite was a banana flavoured one. Remember that banana cough syrup you took as a child? Yeah, it tasted like that.

We wanted a cheese plate and a nice bottle of wine with our movie so we went to La Grotta Market on Friday night to get supplies.

Before our hunt for cheese, we found some fresh Fettucini pasta that looked too good to pass up. 

M. ended up making Fettucini Alfredo. It was delicious. Nothing beats fresh pasta.

On with the cheese! We picked up 4 cheeses, some crackers, raw almonds and Kalamata olivies. M. picked two cheeses and I picked the other two. He picked a Moroccan spice and spiced Gouda. I picked a sticky toffee cheese and Wensleydale blueberry cheese. I couldn't try the Moroccan spice cheese. I am not a fan of a lot of spice but M. loves it and he even said this cheese was too hot for him. I love the Gouda though and the ones that I picked. They were on the sweeter side but it still went well with the wine.

We also found some panna cotta at the drool worthy bakery counter. I chose the kiwi one to try. It was delicious! Not as creamy as I've had int he past but I loved the kiwi.

We also received a plate of dainties from our neighbours.  Just a little something more to top off the evening. Carb overload.

What a fantastic evening.

Happy... Thursday!

Happy Thursday Everyone!

The weekend is right around the corner and I haven't yet shared about my adventure from last weekend :)

Last Sunday was a busy one for us. We made time to go to ManyFest that was happening downtown. This past summer flew by and I haven't been able to enjoy the food trucks that have been lined up during lunch time only a few blocks away from the office. I told M. that going to ManyFest was our last chance to be part of this new food truck craze and we had to make it count.

Off we went to Broadway/ Osborne area and perused through the trucks. I wanted to try and sample a few things from most of the trucks we were checking out but not all of them were veggie friendly and, if they were, they had nothing, well, that exciting to offer. I was tired of the ol' poutine or fries flavoured with some sort of spice. Also, the line ups were quite long so we had to be strategic with what we wanted to try.

Such a beautiful day.

I decided to go to, Stuff It, which focus on pitas. There weren't any vegetarian options to try pita wise but they did have deep fried pickles with cajun spice that sounded interesting.

Here they are with a side of some dressings. They look like fries don't they? When I think of deep fried pickles, I am expecting thick cut breaded deep fried pickles. When you bite into them you still get that crunch but juicy. Although these were enjoyable to eat, especially when you have a fried food craving, they were a let down since it was more batter than pickle. Also, they took over 20 minutes to get after they took my order.

While I was waiting for the pickles, M. was over at the Red Ember wood fire oven pizza truck ordering us their Caprese pizza.  I have been hearing a lot of talk about this particular food truck all summer so I couldn't wait to dig in. I also love that they focus on local ingredients from the grain to the flour used in the dough to the cheese to top it all off (and everything in between). The pizza we had was three cheese topped with basil. It was delicious. I could have probably eaten another. Great crust!

They also had tasty fun ginger ale pomegranate drink. It was refreshing.

A view of the truck.

There were a couple other trucks that I would have loved to try (such as the Greek Foods Market or samosa truck) but after the pickles and pizza, I couldn't eat another bite!

I will definitely return back next year!  Did anyone else make it out to this festival? 

Well, don't fret. Many of the food trucks can still be found on Broadway including the Red Ember. Check out their website here to see where you can find them.

When I was writing up this post last night, I was starting to get hungry for pizza so I made this little gem.

Spinach, tomato and cheese pizza. Not all local ingredients unfortunately or cooked in a wood fire oven but it was still delicious!

Risotto with Peas

I owe you a risotto recipe! I found a very simple recipe of this Italian classic that I found easy and not time consuming (with prep about 40 minutes).  I made risotto again tonight for dinner using this recipe and it was just as flavourful and creamy as when I made it the first time. 

First, you need some white wine. I used wine from my wedding.

The key ingredient: Arborio rice which I found at Superstore. It's the starch from this type of rice that brings the creaminess to the dish.

My set up. I made vegetable broth to the left and I started making the risotto in the pan on the right.

The oil and rice mixing.

My supervisor. 

I ladled my broth (to be on the warmer than hot side too) in a 2 cup measuring cup so that it was ready to go as you can see on the top right. My risotto is now simmering.

Wine break!

Up close view to the stirring/ simmering process when adding broth to the rice.

Final Product!

Risotto with Peas

(adapted from Thug Kitchen)

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/3 cup chopped shallots or yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup Arborio rice*
• ½ cup white wine
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 4 ½ cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• ½ teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• ¼ cup minced chives
• pepper to taste

Directions:

• Warm up the veggie broth in a medium pot until it gently simmers then turn off the heat.
• In a large skillet or pot with a wide bottom, heat up the 2 tablespoons of oil over a medium heat. Add the shallots and sauté them around until they start to look golden, about 2-3 minutes.
• Add the garlic and rice and sauté until the rice smells toasted and starts looking like it absorbed some of the oil, about 2 more minutes. This helps make your risotto creamy. 
• Add the white wine and salt to the pot and cook until most of the wine has evaporated and you scraped whatever bits of shallot got stuck to the bottom of the pot.
• Now add 2 cups of the warm broth, stir, and lower the heat so that the pot is at a simmer, uncovered. Stir every couple of minutes until most of the broth has absorbed into the rice, about 7-10 minutes. Just stir it every minute or two. Add another 2 cups of warm broth at this point, and do that whole stir and simmer thing again for another 7 minutes or until the rice tastes slightly undercooked and there’s still broth in the pot.
• Add the frozen peas and stir the entire mixture off and on for two minutes until the peas are cooked. Turn off the heat; add the lemon zest, remaining oil, half the chives, and a little pepper. Serve right away and top with the remaining chives.

What a Long Weekend

How was everyone's long weekend? Mine sure felt long. With another 15 hours of over time under my belt, I was exhausted but I managed to make some time to have some fun.

M. and I decided to go to The Grove for dinner on Friday night. We enjoyed some drinks and delicious foods. M. went for the veggie burger and I was craving a pizza. I tried "The Paige". The toppings included caramelized onions, onion salsa, pear and prosciutto and finished with basil. Minus the meat this is what landed in front of me.

I loved it! The pear wasn't too sweet and the onions had great flavours. The crunch from the onion salsa came through and the freshness of the basil tied everything together. This combo works and it is my new favourite! My plan is to recreate this at home.

I ended my meal with sticky toffee pudding for dessert. It wasn't exactly what I expected since when I have ordered this dessert in the past it had a type of caramel sauce and chocolate. This was a plain cake with some kind of syrup and fresh blueberries. They also put flowers on my plate. Why put something on my plate that is not edible? (Trust me. I asked) It was a pretty plate but this fell flat for me.

I also managed to do some cooking. It was more for de-stressing than anything. I decided to make risotto for the first time (maybe not the best decision for a de-stressing recipe search) and even though you need to show great patience it was fun to make and the results were worth it. I found it from Thug Kitchen's blog. A vegan blog that has a lot in-your-face attitude. Probably because of all of the profanity. I get a kick out of it.

Finished product!

I added some frozen peas at the end of the process. This dish was extremely flavourful. It reminded me of the first time I had risotto during my Minneapolis trip last year. I love this recipe. I will share my adapted version soon. The original recipe asks for asparagus which I look forward to trying next time.

 We also enjoyed the last of the summer sun and had a BBQ on Monday. M.'s parents were over and we all enjoyed potatoes, grilled corn, zucchini, broccoli and tofu. It was fantastic comfort food and a great feast to end the weekend.

M.'s mom was also kind enough to bring some dessert from a bakery in T-cona. We enjoyed some tiramisu, baklava and raspberry tartelette.

How was your weekend?