Don't let the greasy looking, not very exciting pictures dismay you. Beer battered fish is good. It is not healthy. Yes, there is grease involved. And beer. But it still isn't healthy and it still tastes good!
My birthday boy turned 10. Double digits, that's a big one. And we've made it a tradition that for a birthday dinner, whomever's birthday it is gets to choose dinner. Usually the kids want to go out somewhere, so when my boy said he wanted fish and chip, I figured he wanted to go out and knew of two places he could choose from. He very quickly corrected me and said he looooooooooved the beer battered talapia I'd made a few weeks before from the Nintendo DS recipe, even though it was not crispy, and wanted me to make it for him at home.
And yes, I should buy myself a deep fryer for his birthday. Please.
How terrible is that? "Please, Mom, I like your cooking better than a restaurant, won't you cook for me for my birthday, and please go buy yourself something for your kitchen so it will be easier for you to cook it?" So I did, I bought this one here, on sale.
And here is the recipe I used for his birthday dinner. I didn't have that much pastry flour, so used all purpose, and increased the cornstarch slightly. I found that 3/4 of a cup of beer was not enough, the batter was thick, thick, thick, so I added more beer, and the batter was thick, thick. I probably should have just used the entire bottle instead of leaving the last 1/4 cup in it. This made plenty of batter, enough for over 2 1/2 pounds of fish, and I had batter left over, probably enough for at least another 1 1/2 pounds. 
Beer Battered Fish
from Allrecipes.com
3 eggs
3/4 cup beer (use the entire bottle)
1 1/2 cups milk
4 cups pastry flour (or all purpose)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons cornstarch (increase by 1 tablespoon if using ap flour)
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder (I didn't have any so skipped it)
1 1/2 pounds cod fillets (I used nearly 2 pounds of haddock and close to 1 pound of talapia, for 4 adults and two children)
2 quarts vegetable oil for frying
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cornstarch.
In a large bowl, beat together eggs and milk. Mix in beer. Stir in flour mixture. Season with salt, black pepper, and garlic powder.
In an electric deep fryer or a heavy saucepan, heat oil to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Coat fish in batter, and submerge in hot oil. Fry until golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes. Serve.
Birthday fish and chips
Magazine Mondays
I missed being able to contribute something to Ivonne's Magazine Monday, so did not want to miss this week. While I can't guarantee I am going to participate every week, I am going to try and do so regularly. If for no other reason than to use some of that stack of magazines I moved with me!
Favorite of my cooking magazines, and the one I have never thrown out an issue of, is Fine Cooking. While I don't subscribe to their online service (yet), it is only because I have so many other online sources for reading and recipes.
This recipe comes from the February 2007 issue, and had been sitting bookmarked since it came through the door. The surprising thing is that I had not yet made it until now.
We love cinnamon buns, and quick cinnamon buns are no exception. I wasn't turned off by the addition of cottage cheese to the dough (though if you'd asked me to eat the stuff outright, that was not going to happen!), so it must have simply been the fact that I rarely, if ever, have that ingredient on hand.
These were quite tasty, though the glaze was too thin for my icing liking and lacking cream cheese, a necessity for cinnamon bun icing, in my very prejudiced opinion. Unfortunately my left over buns suffered a horrible fate - they were partially wrapped in foil on the counter when I accidentally knocked over a gingerale, another terrible loss, and the gingerale seeped into the foil and into the left over buns. As much as I like both those items, together, not so good.
I think I will make these again next weekend, for Sunday breakfast.
Fastest Cinnamon Buns
from Fine Cooking, February 2007
3/4 cup cottage cheese
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour; more for rolling
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup chopped pecans (optional, I did not use, but did substitute raisins)
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
2 to 3 Tablespoons cold whole or low-fat milk (or do as I do and use 1/2 and 1/2 cream)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Heat the oven to 400°F. Grease the sides and bottom of a 9- or 10-inch springform pan with cooking spray. (My only springform pan was busy elsewhere, so I used a 9 inch cake pan instead, turning the buns out onto a plate at the end, which worked just fine.)
Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it with floured hands 4 or 5 times until smooth. With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12x15-inch rectangle.
Starting at a long edge, roll up the dough jelly-roll style. Pinch the seam to seal, and leave the ends open.
With a sharp knife, cut the roll into 12 equal pieces. Set the pieces, cut side up, in the prepared pan; they should fill the pan and touch slightly, but don’t worry if there are small gaps.
Bake until golden brown and firm to the touch, 20 to 28 minutes. Set the pan on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Run a spatula around the inside edge of the pan and remove the springform ring. Transfer the rolls to a serving plate.
Menu Plan Monday: Back on track
Still the occasional chest pain here, but I am gradually getting back to "normal". This week will be the true test of things: extra work shift and attempting to make all 3 of my swims!
In the meantime, after a good weekend feed, with lots of new things tried, here is my menu plan for the week:
Saturday: Normally this is hubby's night to cook, but we had company, so we had a homemade Chinese food feast, though he did help make it. Recipes and pictures for this later this week.
Sunday: Mexican Pot Roast Tacos
Monday: Fried chicken with tomato salad
Tuesday: Sweet and Sour Pork with rice (my grandmama's recipe for the sauce, but not using the ribs tonight.)
Wednesday: Grilled steak with mashed potatoes
Thursday: Club sandwiches with soup
Friday: We are going to Brockville to meet my other Mom, a yearly tradition where we have dinner with her when she is there for a curling tournament.
As always, so see I'm an Organizing Junkie for even more plans. There are so many out there that you could start menu planning just by "borrowing" someone else's plans. Many include recipes or recipe links too - you will sometimes get recipes from me, but I have been attempting alot of new recipes lately so only post them after I've made them, slooooooooooowly.
Tyler Florence Fridays: Lasagna Bolognese
I don't really need to say anything, do I?
Oh, well how about "Dinner at My Place, pages 22, 23 and 27."
And check out the round up, here.
Bake Along 3: Malted Milk Cookies
Notice I didn't say "vanilla" malted milk cookies?
I was sure I had a jar of malted milk powder, but now I think I must have thrown it out after the kids and I discovered we didn't like it as drink. Ooops? We did, however, like the chocolate malted milk, so I still had that on hand and just used it instead of the plain powder. And I skipped the vanilla bean part, since you wouldn't be able to taste it over the chocolate.
I'm not a fan of Martha recipes, or of Martha herself. Sure, these are easy enough to make up, but how the heck do you pipe the dough for these? It was very thick and I could tell right away that it would not be nice to my pastry bags, so I tried with a heavy duty ziploc. Twice. After the second one broke, I decided to skip that part of the instructions and just scooped them instead.
That was last night. And I still have no idea how these taste as they are still on the counter, waiting to be eaten. The kids had big cookies in their lunches already, and I had sent in cupcakes for their classes Valentine's day celebrations, so they did not need extra cookies in their lunches. And I'm sure they will be disappointed to find I don't bring them any for after school snack. But I will have them ready for them tomorrow when they get home.
Unless they are inhaled after dinner tonight.
Despite being from Martha, I suspect these cookies are highly edible. I hope they are since 3/4 of the dough is in the freezer to be baked off later!
Go see Megan or Nic to see the recipe and to see who else baked along with them.
Thai style beef and noodle soup
Shortly before we moved, we talked our children into trying Vietnamese for dinner one night. Two appetizers, three bowls of pho and a bowl of noodles with chicken was an inexpensive but healthy dinner out for our family of four. And at the end of the meal, we had at least one pho convert from out children, and two children who desperately wanted to learn how to use chopsticks!
Since then, the oldest has learned to use chopsticks and has asked to go back, and the youngest is working on learning how to use kids chop sticks, like these. (And he uses them to get toast out of the toaster without burning his fingers.)
This is a Rachel Ray version of a noodle soup bowl, which was alright, but was not pho. Rice noodles would have been better than pasta in this, and next time I try a noodle soup such as this, I'm going to use them. From her original recipe, I made only minor changes - I forgot to buy the shiitake mushrooms, but then the kids wouldn't have eaten them, and I used half chicken and half steak, to provide a variety.
Thai-Style Grilled Beef in Broth with Lot o'Noodles
from Rachel Ray's Express Lane Meals, page 218-219
1/2 pound thin pasta, such as vermicelli (I found capelleti, but as I said, use rice noodles)
3 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 1/2 inch thick shell steaks (or 2 top sirloin steaks, since we don't get shell steaks, and 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and grated
2 celery ribs, thinkly sliced (or left bigger if you want the option of eating around them, like I do)
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
12 shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and discarded, caps thinly sliced (or do as I do and forget to buy them)
black pepper
5 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
3/4 cups bail, chopped (oh yes, I forgot to buy this as well, so much for a grocery list!)
juice of 1 lime
In a shallow dish, combine half of the ginger, the Worcesteshire sauce, 2 tablespoons of the veg oil and the hot sauce. Add the steaks, and chicken if using, and marinate.
Preheat a soup pot over med-high heat with the remaining oil. Add the coriander and cumin, toasting for about 30 seconds while constantly stirring. Add the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, remaining ginger, the jalapeno, mushrooms, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 15 minutes.
While the stock is simmering, heat a grill pan over high heat, and bring a pot of water to a boil for the pasta. Cook the pasta until al dente, drain, and then run under cold water.
Season the steaks with salt, then grill on high heat until rare to medium rare. If using chicken, be sure to cook thoroughly. When desired doneness, remove to a cutting board and let rest for a few minutes before cutting into thin strips, at an angle.
When ready to serve, add the cooked noodles to the simmering broth, along with some of the cilantro and basil, just until the noodles are reheated. Add lime juice.
Use kitchen tongs to transfer noodles and veggies to bowls, top with slices of grilled meat, then ladle the broth over the meat. Serve with extra cilantro, basil, slices of green onions, chopped jalapeno, whatever else you might like to top your soup with.
Use chopsticks to eat the noodles and meat, and big soup spoons to slurp up the broth.
Expect to dribble some on your shirt.
Word of advice
When baking a cheesecake, don't go off to play Rock Band 2 with your guys, trying to get through a set or two with all of you on expert.
It's a bad idea.
Trust me.
Menu Plan Monday: Can I have a redo?
Last week's plan? It really didn't happen.
And I've learned something important.... Having a freezer well stocked with meats is great, if you can cook them. Otherwise, not so helpful. Having a few premade items in your freezer, whether store bought or homemade, very necessary for times when you can't cook.
So, I'm not actually going to move last week's plan over to this week, though some of it is coming over, and I am going to try and take it easy still this week as I am still very weak, still coughing, and tire easily. Which is sooooooo much better than I was last week.
Sunday: hamburgers and fries and caesar salad
Monday: pepper garlic chicken with green and yellow beans (the chicken is preseasoned with a wet rub from Costco and I just have to cook it)
Tuesday: stew with mashed potatoes
Wednesday: pizza. I want to say homemade but I am going to leave myself open on this, just in case. If it ends up being homemade, it will likely be the Thai Chicken pizza I wanted to make last week.
Thursday: We are having a birthday today, my "baby" is turning 10, and he wants fish and chips.
Friday: Breakfast for dinner, eggs, bacon and/or sausage, hashbrowns and toast.
Don't forget to head on over to all the other menu plans and join in with your own.
Monthly Mingle: Healthy Family Meals
When Meeta and her cohost, Michelle, of What's Cooking Blog, picked the theme of Healthy Family Dinners for this months Monthly Mingle, I'm sure Meeta had no idea that I was going to turn to her for my inspiration.
You see Meeta, in addition to being a photographer, blogger and extrodinairy cook and baker, is also a mother. She knows how important it is to feed her growing child good, healthy food. And she knows how important it is that the food taste good, or that growing child won't eat it. Fortunately, my children, like Meeta's son, are sometimes up for a bit of culinary adventure.
Since I have discovered that my boys love Indian Butter Chicken, I decided to try something similar, but different, which is where Meeta comes in: her recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala. Yes, it involved more work than my oldest son's favorite jar of butter chicken sauce, or even of the homemade recipe I've made for butter chicken, but not huge amounts more. And most of it was just planning ahead.
Having an indoor grill is so handy!The recipe itself is not difficult, and Meeta's instructions are very good, so the only question I had to field to her was about canned cocktail tomatoes. For those of us not in Germany, use canned diced, they work just fine. And if you can't find red chilies, crushed red pepper flakes substitute well. Just be careful of the heat when feeding non-adventurous children.
To go along with this, I also made homemade Naan bread. I don't know where I printed this off from, but it says it was adapted from The Cook's Book, by Dan Lepard, and has some personalized instructions in it, things like, "I used melted butter because I love the flavor." Sounds good to me!
I know it doesn't look like I served a vegetable with this, aside from the tomatoes in the sauce, but I did. I just didn't put it on this plate for the picture. Because then it would ruin the prettyness of the tikka masala spread out across the rice. See that's how food bloggers think, isn't it?
Looking forward to seeing what else makes it to the mingle, with such a great and diverse theme to choose from. And now that I'm finally starting to feel better, I may be looking for some culinary inspiration from other families.
Go see Meeta, here, for the Tikka Masala recipe, but here is the Naan, with my notes now, not the ones on my printout.
Naan Bread
adapted from The Cook's Book, recipe by Dan Lepard, no idea where I got this from
2/3 cup water at 72F
1/3 teaspoon dry active yeast
2 cups cake flour
3 1/2 tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt (I don't think mine was low fat)
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt (I used kosher)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
sunflower oil, ghee or melted butter for kneading (I too used the butter and am just going to say butter in the recipe, but use whichever you want)
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley
In a small bowl, mix the water and yeast. Add half the flour, mix together with a fork, then cover the bowl and leave in warm place for 30 minutes.
Stir in the yogurt, then add the rest of the flour, salt and baking powder. Mix together with your hands into a soft, sticky ball. Pour 2 tsp of melted butter into the bowl and rub it over the top of the dough. Pick the dough ball up, butter and all, and squeeze it once or twice. Recover the dough, still in the bowl, and leave it to rest for 15 minutes.
Pour another 1 tsp of melted butter onto the dough, rub it lightly all over, before turning the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface. Knead the dough gently for 30 seconds, then return it to the bowl. Cover and rest for another 15 minutes.
Knead the dough, now a fairly smooth ball, on the oiled surface for a few minutes, then divide it into the number of breads you want to make (I think I had 5). Dust the portions with flour and leave them for 5 minutes.
Heat a wok or a nonstick skillet with a lid over medium heat.
Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it it out into a teardrop shape, dusting well with flour as you go. The dough should be quite thin when you are done rolling.
Lay the rolled out piece of dough in the hot pan, brushing the surface with a little oil, ghee or melted butter (though it is recommended if you use butter to mix it with a bit of oil so it will not burn so easily, which is what I did.) If using the herbs, have it mixed with the butter before brushing it on. Place the lid on the pan and leave for 1 minute. (This is enough time to prepare your next piece of dough.)
When the naan has risen slightly and is slightly browned on the bottom, flip and cook for an additional minute. Remove from the pan and keep warm in a clean dish towel.
Repeat until all the naan is cooked.
Enjoy with some lovely Chicken Tikka Masala.
And the results are....
Showing off some moves with the demo team - my boy can kick!
Our school, the host school, placed very well from everything I saw throughout my day, but for our little family, we are proud to say, it was a bronze medal in patterns, and a silver medal in sparring.
Have I mentioned?
That I am sick and tired of being sick and tired? Three days so far of antibiotics, for bronchitis, and inhalers twice a day. You'd think I would be feeling alot better by now.
Today I did two things - I asked my mother in law to make the cookie recipe I'd had out on my printer for a few days, so the kids would have a snack for later, and I took a nap.
And, no, I have not yet taken pictures of the cookies. I may not get to it before they are eaten.
It took alot of energy to do those two things, so I have none left and am going to bed now.
Goodnight everyone.
Tyler Florence Fridays: Roast Chicken dinner
Let me start by saying this: This is a horrible picture which makes the chicken look flabby and uncooked. It wasn't. In reality, the skin was crisp and browned and it was definitely cooked. Trust me, however, the other pictures I took looked worse.
Okay, with that out of the way, on to the meal itself, Rotisserie chicken with lemon, garlic and bay leaves, along with lemon roasted fingerling potatoes. First the changes. I could not find fresh bay leaves, I don't live somewhere where they just grow in your front yard. I also could not find Meyer lemons this time, and if I could, stuffing it up a chicken's butt is not where I would put one. Waste of a lemon. I also did not find fingerling potatoes at the time, in the two stores I had been to that day and was not willing to go into a third to look for them.
You may have also noticed I called this post roast chicken, not rotisserie. I have two rotisseries, both unused at this point. One goes with my stove and I don't know how to use it, and the other with my snow buried bbq, which has no propane in it right now. In neither case could I put a pan of potatoes underneath to catch the juice of the chicken, so I went with Tyler's other method of oven roasting the chicken on top of the potatoes.
And the final results?
It was a chicken. Nothing special, nothing fragrant, nothing special. Just a chicken. Couldn't taste lemon, or garlic, or thyme, nothing but plain chicken. Though the bones did make a decent stock.
The potatoes were very lemony.
By now you might be wondering if I even like Tyler Florence recipes, since this is the second week in a row I've not had anything really amazing to say about what I made. I'm not sure myself, but there are alot more recipes left for me to try.
Or we are just much fussier than he is. (Try not to laugh too hard over that one!)
Good thing I have this lovely group (hi everyone!) to remind me and encourage me to try different things.
Now since I am still home sick, and it is a long walk to where I've left my cookbook, I will have to get back to everyone later about the page number for these two recipes. I can say it is from the "Dinner at my place" book, but that's it.
Menu plan.... Or not
Course, a menu plan will mean nothing to you if you and your husband get sick at the same time and spend your day sleeping, when the coughing stops long enough to let you.
Guess I'll save that ham for another day.
And later this week, when feeling better, restock the pantry with canned soups.
Menu Plan Monday: its carb loading time
We've done the carb loading thing in our house before. My husband has run marathons and is currently in training for a triathlon this summer.
But I admit, I didn't really think we needed to carb load for my son's Taekwon-Do tournament this weekend.
He, however, has different ideas, and since he isn't asking for anything unusual or exotic, what the heck.
Oh, also requested was a good amount of protein to go with those carbs, and not too many "junky" desserts, since he wants to behave this week and figures he can't if I make too many things involving sugar and chocolate.
It really does sound like his instructor took the round-a-bout way of saying, "Eat healthy this week, and not too much sugar." He's having more success saying it the other way, so probably a wise call.
Sunday: Penne with spicy Italian sausage, cream, tomatoes and peas
Monday: ham with cheesy mashed potatoes and broccoli
Tuesday: homemade hamburgers with fries (baked sweet potato for me) -I want to try out this hamburger spice mixture I picked up at the grocery store
Wednesday: Thai chicken pizza
Thursday: chicken meatball and tortellini soup with garlic bread
Friday: spaghetti with either meat sauce or meatballs, depending on what I feel like making at the time.
Saturday: It is tournament day! So we are likely going out, either to celebrate a win or just to celebrate all the hard work in training that has been done lately.
Don't forget to go see the other menu plans for the week, and maybe join in yourself?
And if you happen to be in Ottawa, why not come out to the tournament on Saturday morning? They are always lots of fun to watch, and who knows, you might be inspired to try being more active yourself?
Grocery shopping in Ottawa
Now that I live out in the "boonies," I regularly receive all the local grocery store flyers again. This did not happen when I lived in the fastest growing neighborhood in the city, where I had 5 grocery stores in a 5 minutes drive radius of me.
Now that I have no grocery stores less than a 10 minute drive away, usually more, I am trying to plan things a bit better. Having that stack of newspapers helps, but can be a bit confusing.
Well not anymore!
While I don't regularly read the Ottawa Citizen, I do daily read whatever their food editor, Ron Eade, has to say about food and the food scene in Ottawa. So when Ron started putting up what the best food deals of the week were from the flyers, then asked for input, I was IN!
Ron knows his food, not just buying it or eating it, he also knows how to make it. I've read him long enough, pretty well since he started his blog, to know that he knows what he is talking about. So when Ron says boneless blade roasts are on sale at the local Independent Grocer's, and make the best post roast, I trust him! (And the fact that I've made pot roasts for years with that cut of meat and agree with him, well that's just handy too.)
So if you live in Ottawa and area, I highly recommend you bookmark Omnivore's Ottawa and make it a regular read. I've learned lots of little things over the last year, not just where to buy the least expensive milk for the week (Food Basics this week, at $3.97 for a 4 liter bag.)
It's a party, come on in!
Most of the boxes have been unpacked, at least the important ones. We can all find our clothes, our toothbrushes, the cereal in the morning, and the milk. We even get junk mail already, so we must be settled in enough to have friends and family over for a little get together.
Thankfully our new home is a "bit" bigger than our old one, so fitting 40 or so people in was not a problem, we had lots of room for everyone. Including the pile of boots and coats that come with a winter party!
But what would a party be without including my blogging friends as well? It would be a party without good food, that's what it would be! So I invited you all over to come join us in celebrating our new home.
Here are some of the goodies that fellow bloggers brought to the party, such wonderful "housewarming" presents!
Fellow Daring Baker, and an amazing writer, Kelly from Sass & Veracity brought us a divine looking Orange and Almond cake, or Sformato di Aanci.
You can find her entire feast, a family dinner, ending with this lovely cake, here.
Kelly is right, where food and family are concerned, the more the merrier! 
Newish to the blogging world, and new to me, is the blog Zaayeka, hosted by Navita over in Hong Kong. Boy the blog world is small, that someone would come to help us celebrate all the way from Hong Kong!
Zaayeka means Taste, according to Navita, and with this Creole Baby-Mac Salad with Coriander Viniagrette, she's right! I love the flavor combinations in this salad and wish I had bowl right now.
Enough of this healthy-ness for now, though, let's get back to the sweets!
How about some decadent brownies, with caramel? Oh yes, two of lifes joyful flavors, together in one scrumptious dessert! Oh yes, I like those flavors together.
So I am very thankful that Tart Reform brought some for me to the party!
I wonder if I put some of these in my children's lunch boxes, would I get a "mother of the year" award from my boys, or a "please don't send these to school again" from the teachers? Or maybe a "only send these to the teachers" note instead. Yum, yum, yum!
Chocolate and caramel cannot make the world go round, no matter how much we might want it to. No, indeed, for that, we need bread!
How about this wondeful looking bread, an Oatmeal bread, made with fresh yeast and love, just for me, from my good friend Mary! Mary who has been so patient with me, teaching me long distance how to make her signature sour dough, and is godmother to my starter, Marvin.
I'm so glad Mary included the amount of dry yeast needed to make this bread in her post, since I have yet to see fresh yeast anywhere and would like to make this bread. As soon as I buy some steel cut oats. And whole wheat flour. I'm out of both, how did that happen?
Feeling full yet? No? Good, because there is more delicious items to come.
When I sent out my invitation for the party, I let all my fellow Daring Baker's know that I would welcome their variations of the January challenge to the party. I knew it would be tuiles, they knew it would be tiules, but lots of people didn't know it would be tuiles and I'm sure their curiosity was peaked by that invitation.
Well fellow Daring Baker Deeba, from Passionate About Baking, took me up on the offer and brought some gorgeous tuiles to the party! For some very drool-worthy pictures, go visit Deeba, and tell her I said hi!
Just don't go with an empty stomach, or if you are on a diet. You'll be hungry, fast!
Here, have a seat....
This is going to be such a lovely place to sit in the summer time, in the cool of the shade, with a book. 
Not so much right now, with the snow on it.
I can picture myself sitting there, reading a book, enjoying one of these bacon, ramp and mushroom swirls, brought to the party by my friend Jasmine. Her oven, affectionately known as Beelzebub, must have decided to behave for her so she could bring these for us all to enjoy.
Jasmine and I sometimes have a similar cooking style, putting something together we like, and then afterwards saying, "Recipe? I was supposed to have a recipe?" Fortunately for us, Jasmine was able to mostly remember what went into these, and what she did to make them.
I had the good fortune to meet up with Jasmine last summer, in a whirlwind tour of breakfast and shopping in downtown Toronto, and look forward to being able to meet up with her again - Jasmine, you want to come explore the market with me downtown in Ottawa this summer? 
I wish I could extend this same invitation to another blogger friend, Meeta, who brought this scrumptious looking Tarte d'Alsace to the party all the way from Germany. Alas, Germany is a bit far away to have a fun food and shopping day here in Ottawa.
Meeta doesn't know it yet, but she's my Indian food guru, who I will turn to if I have a question about an Indian dish, such as her chicken Tika Masala that I made a few weeks back (and just realized I haven't blogged about yet - so many yummy dinners, so little blog time!)
Thank you so much, Meeta, for bringing this tart. I think I will not share this with my children, who likely would not appreciate it anyways.
Speaking of not appreciating, here is one I wouldn't even have to hide from my oldest son, who dislikes mushrooms, though he has never really tried them to have that opinion. I, however, love mushrooms, so I was thrilled when Sara brought me some grilled Teriyaki Mushrooms! My inner Hobbit was jumping up and down with joy, tasty mushrooms for me!
And Sara, don't worry, there are still boxes left to unpack, there are rooms to paint, smoke detectors to replace, oh, a looooooong list of things to do (and hardware departments to visit), so you have lots of time to unpack your last boxes!
One of the benefits of blogging in the foodie community is the "friends" you make, all through sharing food and experiences in the kitchen. During this last year I have been fortunate to make a few more friends through my blog, one of which is my pal Megan of My Baking Adventures, and her cooking children, Sabrina and Alex. Her children have actually set a lovely example to my own Alex (the oldest), and have inspired him to get into the kitchen as well. But not to make these tasty fried mozzarella balls, I get to make these, since I am not ready to set him loose with a deep fryer yet.
Though it is his birthday coming up, and he has decided I need to buy a deep fryer for myself for his birthday, so I can make him lots of mozzarella balls. And beer battered fish and chips. He's a boy who knows what he likes, isn't he?
Back to the sweets, how about this amazing looking treat, brough to us from the other side of the world, the upsidedown side, Australia!
Steph has taken a few things I love, and combined them in one decadent bite: a Dorie Greenspan recipe and chocolate. Sorry, not just chocolate, but Quintuple Chocolate! That's FIVE chocolates in one square, alot of chocolate.
Do these not look simply amazing?
Oh my, oh my, oh my, what a way to end a party....
Oh wait, I've forgotten something!
How about my own dish! I can't have a party without making something good and tasty for all my friends, can I?
Seeing how much I love chocolate, and caramel, okay, and butter and cream..., it will probably come as a bit of a surprise to see that I did not make a dessert, but instead a soup. Alot of soup. Enough to feed an army.
It is cold outside, and has been for awhile, so I wanted something warm and hearty, to welcome my guests and make them feel all toasty inside. Which is why I chose the Barefoot Contessa's Cheddar Corn Chowder.
I admit, small lapse in judgement on my part - doubling a recipe that makes enough for 10-12 people was probably too much soup. But it did give me enough to send some home with family, and still have some for dinner the next night.
And, to be really honest, I also forgot to add the cheddar to the soup. And the half and half cream. I know, how could I forge those items? Easily - and you know, it didn't matter, it was still a very good soup! I served it from my big crock pot, with garnishes of green onions, bacon and cheddar cheese. So the cheese made it into the soup, just not the way the recipe was written.
Cheddar Corn Chowder
from the barefoot contessa cookbook, pae 74-75
8 ounces bacon, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cups chopped yellow onions
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric (I didn't add this either)
12 cups chicken stock
6 cups medium-diced white boiling potatoes, unpeeled
10 cups corn kernels, 10 ears fresh or 3 pounds frozen, I used frozen
2 cups half an half (or not)
1/2 pound sharp white cheddar cheese, grated (again, or not, or saved for a garnish)
In a large stock pot on medium high heat, cook the bacon in olive oil until the bacon is crisp. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and save for topping the soup with later.
Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions and the butter to the bacon fat, and cook for 10 minutes, or until the onions are translucent.
Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper (and tumeric, if using), and cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock and potatoes, bringing the mixture to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Add the frozen corn to the soup, stirring well. If using the cream and cheddar, add both to the soup, cooking fo 5 more minutes so the cheese can melt. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve hot with bacon (and cheese).
Note: If you don't add the cream and cheese, this soup heats up very well the next day.
Thank you all so much for coming to our housewarming party! I hope you enjoyed yourself. Please feel free to come visit us again.
Last day for your Housewarming entries!
It is almost time.
My house is clean, their are flowers in my vases, and bottles of wine chilling. Lis is bringing over the napkins and cutlery, so I am nearly set to invite you all into my new home!
Today is the final day to send me your submissions, be it a dessert, a drink or something savory. Just send me your link, along with a picture, and the name of what you've made, to allthingsedible (at) hotmail (dot) com - and be sure to include the word HOUSEWARMING in your subject line. If you don't have a blog and want to participate, please feel free to join in as well.
I plan to have all the entries up tomorrow for everyone to come on in and enjoy the party.
Just one thing.... With all the snow we've had lately, please be sure to wipe your feet!
TFF: Pancetta Carbonara
In Tyler's book, Dinner at my place, this is known as, "My wife's pregnancy pasta."
That title must have sent my brain back into pregnancy mode - shrunken ad not working properly at all. Why else would I choose to make a pasta for dinner that I KNEW at least half of my family would not like?
Yes, my family really likes pasta. But let me qualify that: my husband loves his spaghetti, with tomato based sauces only. My children like cream sauces, but my husband does not. And the boys like fun pasta shapes, but my husband does not.
So here I was on a Sunday night, standing over a double boiler, with my nearly 10 year old immersion blender, trying to make the sauce for this pasta. I didn't have time to make my own, so I had used the only long, non-whole wheat pasta I had, a long tube pasta that I had bought for fun - spaghetti length, but thick with almost a straw like make up. Yes, fun pasta! In the bowl I had 6 eggs, a cup of cream and a cup of milk. I went back and forth between my blender and a whisk, so my immersion blender did not burn out on me, when my husband walked in, looked at what I was doing, and said, "Cream based? With eggs?"
That is when the bells went off. A little late.
To be fair, he ate a full bowl. My youngest dove into his, but then proclaimed he did not like it. My oldest raved about it for 1/3 of his bowl, then put the rest in the fridge "for later." I found it alright, but rather rich and did not finish my bowl either. I tried some again for lunch the next day and found it tasted like scrambled eggs on noodles, so it did not reheat well.
So much for trying something different. After cleaning up, I made a second dinner, another pasta, but this time a staple that everyone will eat.
For other Tyler Florence Friday participants, his recipe is on page 146 of Dinner at my Place, and is missing an important step: When done eating, break out the mop to clean up the sauce splatters from your floor, a result of the immersion blender.
Daring Bakers: Light and dessert?
This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.
Phew, now that I got that important bit of information out of the way.... (Hi BC, and BC's wonderful computer literate son!)
Well this was an interesting challenge, making Tuiles and shaping them, with alot of different options. And I will admit right now, I ignored most of them. I printed off the original post with recipes, I used the first one and I ignored everything else.
I also made them twice.
This was attempt number one.
I had this plan. I was going to make little Tuile cups, filled with a fruit mousse, and serve them at my housewarming party. They were going to be so cute, these little cups, entirely edible, with fun tuile decorations.
The best laid plans of mice and bloggers....
It didn't work.
I personally think I forgot to sift the icing sugar or something, cause they just did not work well. I could never get the cookie layer thin enough on the sheet and what did bake up had an odd, lacy texture.
I even tried with some of my little decoration ideas. Chocolate tuiles, thin, wrapped around chopsticks for a fun and "ooooh how did you do that?" shape. Some of my batter I turned blue to make playful shapes with.
Unfortunately, most of these turned out brittle and uncooperative.
So I put them aside, made other things, and came back to them later.
This is what later resulted in. A much better batter, able to make thin, crisp tuile cookie cups and shapes. This time I went with a slightly larger sized mold, a ramekin, and made just enough "cups" for my family, with seconds for the boys.
The blue tuile cookie, standing out on the plate, is actually from my first attempt, as are the little chocolate curls that decorate the mousse (which is a milk chocolate salted butter caramel mousse from Tartlette - hey, Karen and Zorra said to pair the cookies with something light, which a mousse is. They never said anything about that light not involving chocolate or caramel! Common, this is the Daring Bakers, of course I had to use chocolate and caramel!)
Aside from not freaking out about this months challenge recipe length, one thing that really hit home actually came from the mousse rather than the challenge recipe. I decided to make the mousse on a Sunday night. After we'd all had dinner, I'd cleaned up, gotten a start on the next day's lunches, mopped my kitchen floor, and then the entire rest of the house, I decided to make mousse.
Heck I'd even put my youngest son to bed already. While he curled up under his blankets with all his little stuffed friends, I made a caramel without blinking an eye. I pittered around the kitchen, getting the next steps ready, while the sugar bubbled away in the pot and I kept an eye on it.
I could never have done that a year ago. Working with hot sugar would have forced me to do it early in the day (so I'd have time to redo it, several times if necessary) and I'd have hovered over the stove, afraid to blink.
Every month, despite some annoyances, I am glad I am a Daring Baker. And I thank Daring Baker's like Karen and Zorra, for sending me off on a different culinary path than one I might have chosen for myself. If not for this month's challenge, I might never have felt a need to make a tuille cookie.
And extra special thanks, ongoing all the time, to Lis and Ivonne for starting this little baking journey that sooooooooooo many of us are on now.
Oh, and in case you wondered, I did let my little guy get out of bed to have an extra special bed time snack with his brother. They giggled and ate, talking about how they were eating the antlers off the mousse with ever crunch of the cookie. Both of them had seconds.
Menu Plan Monday
Another pretty good week for the menu plan. Still working the tweaks out of the Thursday night meals, as even the plan of sandwiches didn't work well and we ended up having various types of take out (pizza slices for the children at 4:30pm, and then subs for the adults at 9pm.)
This week's plan is decadent, and on purpose. I'm trying to plan ahead for a few blog events, and am making use of my well stocked freezer to do so. So if you are coming here for the first time, seeing this plan and thinking, "Wow! That is quite the decadent plan!", you would be right.
Sunday: spaghetti carbonara
Monday: Rotisserie chicken with lemon and garlic, and lemon roasted fingerling potatoes
Tuesday: shrimp and vegetable tempura (anyone suggest a good tempura recipe for me?)
Wednesday: lasagna bolognese with garlic bread
Thursday: Texas chili (in the slow cooker) with chips and fixin's
Friday: Taco night - my almost 10 year old has decided that he would like to try cooking, and has specially requested that he make taco's on this night, the only item in the entire week that will not involve a recipe. And, yes, I know that means tex-mex two nights in a row. I wanted my slow cooker, and he wanted his tacos, and we like tex-mex!
Saturday: Up to the hubby. This past Saturday he made bacon, egg and cheese bagels for dinner.
As usual, don't forget to head on over to I'm an Organizing Junkie and see the how many others have been inspired to menu plan.
I have menu planned for years, but have to say the last few weeks, posting on my blog, has made me feel almost accountable to everyone for my plan, so I am less likely to ignore it. And it really is nice to know that when I plan with recipes, I write down what I will need to pick up for them, and always have my list with me. I still get to a grocery store too often during the week, but only when I am already near one anyways for other events. And I have yet to start a recipe and discover I am short an item (which does not include the recipe I made last week where I missed an ingredient off my list entirely, but then decided we didn't need it and it was not worth my making the extra stop.)
Don't forget, only a few days left to get your housewarming recipe to me for the big Housewarming Party! Your choice of sweet or savory, food or drink, everyone is welcome. Just send me your post link, with a picture and some info about yourself to allthingsedible (at) hotmail (dot) com by January 30th.
Start your morning out right
I've had the recipe for these pancakes sitting in my in-box for awhile. An email from a friend, with her recommendation for "the perfect pancake mix" that she makes for her family. While we both work to feed our family healthy meals, in a few ways she is a bit more health conscious than I am (and her family will eat things that mine will not, legumes being a prime example.)
This is a two part recipe - part one for the dry mix that you can keep on hand, and part two for actually making the pancakes. A bit heartier than my family enjoyed, they aren't fans of textures inside pancakes, but I liked them. Though I think they need some cinnamon and blueberries. Don't all pancakes need blueberries?
The "Perfect" Pancake Mix
3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour or oat flour or combo - I used the whole wheat
1 cup 7 whole grain cereal
1 cup cornmeal
4 tablespoons wheat germ (optional) - I didn't use this
Mix together and store in air tight container. If you are using wheat germ, you have to store it in the fridge.
For pancakes for 1 or two - I doubled this and made pancakes for all of us, plus a few left over
1 tablespoon butter
1 egg
1/2 cup nonfat yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream or milk - I went with yogurt
1/2 cup pancake mix
Melt butter in pan. Lightly beat in the egg and sour cream (or whatever you use). Add mix and blend until smooth.
Heat your griddle and make pancakes, like this:
Good with warm syrup, with yogurt topping, with fruit, with whatever.
Yahoo! Non-food related milestones!
This morning marked a major milestone for me in the pool. Two actually.
I've always had a fear of water and could not learn to swim growing up. I could tread water forever as an adult, but could not put my face in the water or swim much at all. Going one length of the pool, 25 meters, was very, very hard.
Despite this, I joined a Master Swim program last September and learned how to swim.
Today, I swam 2000 meters, for the first time ever.
And, at the encouragement of my coach, went up on the 3 meter diving board, frightened as I was creeping to the end of that thing, and dove. Well, it was somewhere between a dive and a belly flop.
And now I am celebrating with a breakfast devoid of good nutrition, toasted crumpets with butter.
And later today, I will take a nap.
