Today I woke up at 6 am... ok 6:20 (yeah, I slept in a bit.  What!) and it was still pitch black outside.   I left to bike to work at 6:50 am and, Yup, it was still dark.  Not pitch black.  Not dead of night black but dark.  I needed bike lights.  In fact, it wasn't until well after 7 am that it began to lighten up a bit.
It's coming people.  The long dark of Winter.  This is a hard time for me.  D actually uses a light box from now and takes generous amounts of Vit D to deal with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).  When you grow up in the West Indies there are no time changes, no times of the year when it's dark more than it's light.  The Sunrise/Sunset is pretty much the same all year round.  Heaven!  Not here though and it's a lot to grapple with.  Seasons are beautiful, for sure.  They are not easy though.


I did however, manage to get myself to a breakfast meeting that I'm pretty happy about.  Over the last year, I've begun to help out at school with our Eco Club.  We have been working away at our little corner of the planet to raise awareness and make our corner a more sustainable place.  Last year we got some funds from TD Friends of the Environment Fund to get a Vermi-Composter for one of our classrooms.  TD FEF, in turn, invited us to this breakfast which was attended by fund recipients and donors alike.  We heard about upcoming initiatives and got to give our input about where we think funds  should be allocated.  It's kind of heartening to feel surrounded by other people who care about something  as passionately and deeply.  It's easy for us to feel like we are working alone, to get isolated and depressed about it.  Today I walked away feeling like I'm not alone, like there is always hope and like I could maybe get some more money ;-)
Thanks to TD for caring and to our little SMCS Eco Club and Mme LoCurto for keeping the flag held high.

This, as you might have guessed by now, has nothing to do with the Risotto.  You gotta trust me though, the Risotto was good.  I made it with homemade chicken stock and the chicken that I used in the risotto was all chicken that came off of the 4 chicken carcasses that I used in the stock.  Yeah, I'm pretty proud of how resourceful that was... for sure!


Chicken Risotto with Shitake and Leek
serves 5 - 6

6 - 7 cups chicken broth, heated
3 cups diced or shredded chicken
2 cups Shitake Mushrooms, halved
1 medium leek, sliced thin
1 cup peas (frozen or fresh)
2 cups Risotto Rice
3 - 4 tbsp butter
salt to taste
1/2 - 3/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup cream

Keep the chicken broth heated in a medium sized pot.
Heat a larger pot and add in the butter and leek.  Sauté for a few minutes.  Add in the Shitake mushrooms and heat for about 4 minutes or until things are wilting just a bit.  Add in the rice and mix in the butter/veggie mixture for a couple of minutes, until the rice is coated with butter.


Begin to slowly add ladles of the broth.  Stirring in between each ladle full.  Once the liquid simmers down a bit add in another ladle full.  Once you get close to the end of the broth (check the rice as you are going to see if it's done or not) add in the chicken and peas.


Let that heat with the last few ladles of broth.  Add in the parmesan cheese and cream.  Add salt to taste.

Beautiful day today.   Perfect Toronto Fall Day.  Weather: Sunny and 16 degrees C, trees: changing colour beautifully... great day for a run...
Today I ran the Toronto Half-Marathon.  My time was 2:03 (2 hours, 3 minutes).  Yeah, that's ok - next year will be even better.  I came home afterwards, had a good rest (watching my Sunday afternoon Bollywood *sigh* - with Salman Khan!) and then got to it and made these babies.


Let me back up just a little bit.  Yesterday was a bit of a run-around because the race people decided to change the chip at the last minute.  The chip is this bit that goes on your running shoe which clocks your time across the finish line and gives the final run time.  If you want to qualify for anything (like Boston or New York) then you gotta get a qualifying time.  Well, I noticed that my kit bag had no chip in it so I dragged the kids down to the Exhibition grounds to the Marathon Expo to find out what was what.  The marathon people had changed things at the last minute and not updated their website so I had everything that I needed and in the end it was all good.  However, by the time we got home we were exhausted


AND the lovely lemon slice that I'd bought earlier at the bakery was crushed in my bag.  :-(  Didn't let it stop me from eating though... it was delish.


These cookies really just happened because I got bored.  After the bollywood film I just didn't know what to do with my poor, sore body.  Everybody likes cookies when they come home from school (or work ;-) and so, tomorrow being Monday,  I thought I would put this together.  Really this is a recipe for peanut butter and jam thumbprints so feel free to substitute if you would rather.  I'll post directions for both chocolate or jam.  I just really felt like using some chocolate today.  Since I was making some of this up, I did screw up a little and my first batch of cookies were kind of looking like UFO's.


I pushed the bottom out of some of them... OOPS.  Dang they still tastes good though.  That's the fun part of making it up... right?


Peanut Butter and Jelly (or Chocolate) Thumbprints (about 2 doz)
from Canadian Living Magazine

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp.
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup natural peanut butter
1/1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup grape jelly
OR
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1 1/2 tbsp corn syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicon mat.
Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl beat together the butter, brown sugar, sugar, egg and vanilla until fluffy.  Beat in the peanut butter until well combined.
Add in the flour mixture and mix well.  Drop by tablespoons, leaving about and inch of space between, onto the cookie sheet.  Make a criss-cross pattern with a fork (flour it if it's sticking too much) and with your thumb or the back of a spoon (I used a measuring spoon) make an indentation.
If you are using jelly then fill each indentation with a little bit of jelly and bake for about 10 min.


If you are using chocolate then:
Melt the chocolate and corn syrup together in a bowl over simmering water.  Bake the cookies for about 10 min.  Once out of the oven place a little of the melted chocolate in the indentation of each cookie.
Allow the cookies to cool completely.

Everybody needs a good snack cake and if that snack cake happens to be chocolate, then all the better.  I have several snack cakes that I go to regularly.  I saw this one though and thought that I had to give it a whirl.


Snack Cake... I love calling it that.  Somehow, calling it a 'Snack' cake takes some of the dessert importance out of it.  It doesn't have to live up to some kind of dessert ideal.  It doesn't feel like as big a deal and well, if I'm just having it as a snack then I'm sure that the calorie count must be lower too... right???  Haha.  Call it whatever you want, this is good cake.
We've been needing something chocolate in the house with the apple cake, the pear/pecan cake... not a chocolate in sight.  This cake was super easy and tasted just as good the next day.  Nice and moist but if you are looking for a brownie recipe then this is not for you.  This is cake all the way baby.  It totally lifted my spirits on my first day back to work after the long weekend.  Hear this... first day back, biking to work, I find myself braking too hard too fast and next thing I know my bike is going over my head and I'm kissing the asphalt... Great way to start the week.  So stupid... and sore!
I managed to bike myself back home from work and I sat my sore ass down to a nice little piece of Chocolate Fudge Snack Cake....


it felt like more than a snack and it was just what I needed.


Chocolate Fudge Cake
BBC Good Food Magazine

200g chocolate (I used 60% stuff but it would probably be better with Milk Chocolate)
200g unsalted butter
200g light brown sugar (I used half dark brown and half granulated)
100ml sour cream
2 lg eggs
200g self-raising flour
5 tbsp cocoa powder




Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Line a square 8inch baking pan with parchment or grease and flour.
In a bowl combine chocolate, butter and sugar with 100ml hot water and let it all melt together.
Once melted, add in the sour cream and the eggs and mix well.


In a separate bowl, combine the flour and cocoa powder.  Mix into the chocolate mixture.  Mix well and pour the batter into the pan.


Bake for 50 min (?) but I would check it around 40 - mine was ready.
Cool for about 20 min. in the pan and turn out to cool on a rack.
Ice once completely cooled.

Ganache:
Melt the chocolate and cream together over low heat.  Add in the corn syrup and mix well.  Add the icing sugar if necessary.  Cool for at least one hour (maybe in the fridge if you need to hurry).  Pour over cake once the cake has cooled completely.


Add Sprinkles!!!

It's Thanksgiving Monday here in Canada.
That means:
I got to sleep in until 7:45 (kid#2 woke me up)
I could do a whole hour of yoga today whenever I wanted
I got to cook and do my outdoor chores in my pj's (aren't you glad you are NOT my neighbour)

I'm also trying to put together some food for this week without the help of my food box.  Today is a holiday after all and so they don't deliver to me today, my usual delivery day.  However, I love the feeling (and challenge) of emptying out my stores.  I've told you all before that I'm not a horder of anything.  So, nothing gives me greater pleasure (well almost nothing!) than to see a near empty fridge.
Technically, as it's Thanksgiving Monday, I should be having leftover Turkey but we didn't cook any turkey.  I'm goin' veggie today.


So, in my PJ's, with my kids running around underfoot, takin' my sweet time, I made this pasta and enjoyed it a lot.  I will continue to enjoy it this week at work while everybody is having leftover turkey sandwiches.  Look Peeps, I got a half marathon coming up in exactly 6 days - I gotta load up!


Wanda's Veggie Pasta in Rosé sauce
serves 6

6 cups medium pasta (rotini/penne) cooked al dente and set aside
1 small onion, diced
1 medium zucchini cut in strips
1 medium red pepper cut in strips
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups of something green (chard, spinach, I used broccoli b/c that's all I had)
2 tbsp brown sugar or honey
1 lg can of diced tomatoes
1/2 cup soft cheese (cream cheese, goat cheese)
1/2 cup heavy cream or sour cream
salt (to taste)
basil - fresh 1/2 cup - dried 2 tbsp


Heat a large pot and add 3tbsp of olive oil (forgot that part).  Over medium heat throw in the onion, zucchini and peppers and cook for about 5 minutes.  Add in the garlic and cook another 3 minutes.  Add in the green stuff and the sugar and cook for another 5 minutes.  Add in the diced tomatoes and heat through.  Add in the soft cheese and allow it to melt into the sauce.  Add in the cream, salt and basil.  Feel free to add in a dash of pepper sauce as well (I did).


Toss with the cooked pasta.   Serve topped with a little parmesan and/or fresh herbs.

Happy Thanksgiving.
It's Thanksgiving in Canada.  This is an interesting thing.  For most internationals Thanksgiving doesn't even exist outside of the American movies that they might watch.  Canadian Thanksgiving is really nothing close to the big deal that the American Thanksgiving is:

Canadian Thanksgiving is earlier (our harvest is earlier, hello - Canada)
We get Monday off not Friday (therefor no black friday shopping extravaganza)
We might have Turkey but could also easily have Ham or Lamb
It's honestly no tragedy for most of us if we don't observe it at all.

It's kind of like Hallowe'en for me.  A very American holiday that I can take or leave (keep in mind people that generally I'm a bit of a 'Ba Humbug")


We did observe Thanksgiving this year though by visiting my parents.  Not for as long as we would have liked to but at least we got there.  We had a lovely dinner with them which included this whipped turnip dish that was divine and will be featured in a later post.  My contribution was a cake.
I do not like pumpkin pie.  I think it has something to do with the gross tasting canned pumpkin crap.  However, I've never been motivated enough to make my own and check it out.  So, I didn't make pumpkin pie.

I did make something which was kind of Harvest/Fall-ish.  Pear Pecan Cake.
I got this from the Magnolia Cookbook.  It was my first time trying it and it came out quite lovely.  I was a little concerned because the batter was really goopy.  I thought that maybe there wasn't enough liquid and that maybe I should add more.  I held myself back though and I'm glad that I did because they knew what they were doing apparently, those recipe people.  It worked beautifully and just the right texture.  This would make a beautiful coffee cake alternative as well.


So, Happy Thanksgiving and 'Here's to no Pumpkin Pie this year!' (Sorry Pumpkin pie lovers)


Pear Pecan Cake
The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

Cake

3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plus 2 tbsp veg oil (I used Canola)
3 lg eggs, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Bosc Pears (about 2 cups) cut into 1 inch pieces (I used 2 small pears and 1 apple)
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

Glaze

1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice/orange juice or water


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Lightly grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.  Make a well in the centre.  Stir in the oil, eggs and vanilla.  Mix well.  Add the fruit and the nuts.  Mix well.
(The batter will seem a bit weird at this point but just trust me... it's ok)
Spoon batter into the prepared pan.  Bake for 60 - 70 min.  or until a tester comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for about 20 min.  Finish cooling on a cake rack.


For the glaze:
Combine the icing sugar and the juice until it's the desired consistency.  Pour over a completely cooled cake.

Soup.
Soup is growing on me.  Soup can be wonderful.  Soup can also be easy and very good for you.  Why has it taken so long for me to fully appreciate soup?  Well, Soup can also be very boring.  Truth be told, this recipe borders on boring. For sure, it's the most boring soup you could ever look at - BAR NONE! Here's what makes all the difference for me though - it's the cheese.  I used very old cheddar in this recipe.  I'm thinking that a little bit of blue cheese or something strong like it would work beautifully as well. 


Allow me to digress for just a moment.  I got a beautiful cauliflower in this weeks food box.  Originally, I was going to make soup.  Then I wanted to make curried chick peas and cauliflower - except nobody in my house actually wants to eat it but me.  Then I thought I might try this interesting looking recipe which involved tortillas, roasted, spiced cauliflower, spinach and beans (still sounds quite interesting actually).  At the end of the day I just kind of lost steam and ended up back at the soup by default.  I ended up making vegetable curry (EASY and in an upcoming post) without cauliflower and without chickpeas.  I'll leave the tortilla/cauliflower/spinach for another time in the future.


I'm glad that I did the soup in the end.  See, I've been neglecting carrying a lunch to work with me these days.  I don't really have time to get to a microwave (we've already talked through how I feel about cold sandwiches), sit down and eat my food in between all the other stuff that's going on and I want to make the most of my time - I'm only there until 2:30 p.m.  So after I come home it's really nice to have a warm bowl of soup to put into my belly.  I happen to like mine with a few crushed chilli peppers on it.  Divine.


Cauliflower/Potato/Cheese Soup
serves 6

1 small to medium head of Cauliflower, broken up into florets
4 - 5 small fist sized potatoes, less if they're bigger, diced
1 onion, diced (I used Leeks which work beautifully too)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup butter
4 - 5 cups broth (I used vegetable broth but chicken will do as well)
1tbsp salt
2 - 3 tbsp fresh herbs, coarsely chopped
dash of pepper sauce if you desire
1 cup shredded cheese (old/extra old or blue work best)


In a large, heated Dutch oven add the butter and once melted throw in the cauliflower, potatoes and onion.  Continue to cook until the onions have begun to wilt.  Add in the garlic and continue to cook at med/low heat for about 10 min.  Add in the broth, salt, herbs and pepper sauce and stir well.
Once the veggies are soft, place small batches in a blender and puree.  You can do this with all or just part of the soup depending on the texture you want.
Put the pureed soup back on the heat and add in the cheddar.  If it needs it, add in a little milk too.  Check tastes and adjust as necessary.

Every once in a while I get a fail.  An epic fail.  A fail of colossal proportions.  A fail that makes you consider whether it's worth doing it.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I had great intentions but I was feeling wretched from a bloody cold that I caught from somewhere.  Still, I wasn't going to let that get me down.  I got ready to make a recipe, I had my dead bananas ready to go.  The recipe was one I hadn't tried before and I thought that it might be interesting but it felt wrong even at the batter stage.  I forged ahead though, always the optimist.  I could tell within the first 15 minutes of baking that it was a complete flop.

I had a decision to make:
A) Take out my frustration on everyone around me - Truth be told this is my 'go-to' response for these types of situations
OR
B) Decide that their are more important things in life than banana bread that might have been good, failing epically and just let it go.
Yesterday, I was the bigger man and choose option B.  A rather big deal for me and a shock to D, kid #1 and kid #2 who all hid in different parts of the house waiting for the explosion.
And now...


I am moving on... to Apple cake.  Fingers crossed and knock on wood and throw salt over your shoulder and all that other crap.   I'm not always a huge fan of this kind of thing but necessity is the mother of invention.  I had apples that needed to get used up.  I figured after the fail yesterday that I dealt with pretty well, even if today's venture blew chunks I'd still survive and my family might too.  Gave it a whirl and was pleasantly surprised - Thank God because, just between you and me, I don't honestly know if I could've held it together after all.  I barely made it though.  I used the wrong size baking dish and had to bake the cake forever before the inside was baked through.  I got nervous but held it together and it came through.  Beautifully!



Apple Cake

Part 1
2/3 cup pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp.
drizzle of corn syrup

Part 2
2 1/4 cups peeled and sliced apples (I used Mac's - I think!)
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Part 3
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 lg eggs
4 tbsp sour cream or plain yogurt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour an 8 inch round baking dish.
Line a baking sheets with foil.  In a bowl mix together the nuts, sugar, butter and corn syrup.  Place on the baking sheet and bake for about 9 min or until lightly toasted.  Set aside to cool.


In another bowl mix together the sliced apples, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Set aside


In a third bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In a fourth bowl (really!) beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs one at a time until the mixture is light and fluffy.  Add in the sour cream and vanilla and mix well.  Add in the flour mixture and mix until everything is well incorporated.  Place half the batter in the prepared baking dish.  Top with the apple mixture, making sure that there is no additional liquid going in as well.  Top that with the nuts mixture.  Top that with the remaining batter and spread evenly over the top.  Sprinkle the top with a little sugar and cinnamon and bake for about 45 - 50 minutes.