Peanut Butter Cups

In August for my roomie's birthday, I made her homemade peanut butter cups. It's taken me this long to post the recipe, and I have no good excuse for a near two-month delay. So without further ado... Peanut Butter Cups.

The recipe itself comes from this blog. I made a few changes to the recipe (for convenience's sake, mostly!)

Ingredients

For the shells:

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup milk chocolate chips

2 tbsp natural smooth peanut butter

Pinch of salt

For the peanut butter filling:

3/4 cup natural peanut butter

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Line a muffin tin with paper liners (12)
2. In a double boiler, combine chocolate, 2 tbsp of peanut butter and a pinch of salt. Stir together until melted.
3. Spoon a teaspoon or so of chocolate into each muffin liner. Shake the tin to even out the chocolate.
4. Let set.
5. In the meantime, stir the peanut butter, with the 1/3 cup of brown sugar and some salt together.
6. Once the first layer is set, spoon 1 tbsp of peanut butter mixture into the muffin liners.
7. Put in freezer until peanut butter is hardened.
8. Spoon 1 tsbp of chocolate mixture on top. Shake the tin side-to-side to even out the layer of chocolate.
9. Let set... and enjoy!!

Long time no cook!

Hello to my small collection of followers,

It's been a while since I've written a post... My sincerest apologies. The summer became very busy and quickly came and went, and now here I am starting a new school year. I haven't stopped cooking - in fact I've been perfecting a few of the recipes I've already posted.

Currently, I'm on the hunt for some new recipes and hope to be blogging again soon. In the mean time, if you have any cool recipes I should try - please share!

Pizza Napolitana!

I'm currently re-reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a true narrative about a woman who leaves her life behind and spends a year travelling - 4 months in Italy (where she learns to eat) 4 months in India (where she learns to pray), and 4 months in Indonesia (where she learns to love).

In her writings about Italy, the author goes into extensive detail on the delicious-ness of authentic pizza from Naples - aka pizza napolitana! Naturally, I started craving it. So, here I go! An attempt to make real, authentic, pizza napolitana!

I googled and found a number of recipes, which I combined to make my own (based on what ingredients and kitchen tools I had access to!).

The Crust

Ingredients

• 1/2 packet of instant yeast (about 1 1/4 tsp)
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour

Directions

1. In a metal bowl, combine yeast and water. Stir and let sit for 5 minutes.
2. Add salt and stir.
3. Add olive oil and flour. Stir with a wooden spoon until dough is rolled into a ball.
4. Knead dough on a lightly floured wooden surface for about 8 minutes. (One recipe didn't call for kneading, another called for 12 minutes of it... So I compromised!)
5. Once dough is smooth, place in a lightly oiled metal bowl and cover with a clean dish cloth. Let sit for 2 hours in a warm spot, until doubled in size.
6. Roll dough into a thin crust. You can use your hands or a rolling pin.
7. Place on a pizza pan or stone. I don't have either, so I flipped a cookie tray upside-down (to get a flat surface with no lips or sides) and covered it with tin foil.

Sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 can of San Marzano tomatoes (Yes, that's it!)

Directions

1. Hand mash the tomatoes. (That's all there is to it!)

Toppings

Ingredients

• 5-10 fresh basil leaves. You can leave them whole or julienne them.
• a few tbsp olive oil
• fresh mozzarella, sliced into disks

Directions for putting it all together!

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Make indentations over the centre portions of the crust, leaving a border around the outside. The border should be a bit higher than the rest of the pizza.
3. Pour some olive oil onto the crust and spread evenly, avoiding the border.
4. Even distribute the crushed tomatoes across the crust.
5. Lay the disks of mozzarella evenly across the pizza.
6. Lay the basil leaves over the top, and sprinkle with olive oil.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Bake until the crust is slightly charred and the cheese is dappled brown.
9. Let cool slightly, cut, and serve!

Notes

Delicious and simple. Nothing else to say! :)

Artichokes and Dip

This recipe was taken from a Facebook page I belong to called 'What's Cooking'. I saw it and thought, why not? I've never cooked fresh artichokes before - in fact, I've only ever tasted canned artichokes!

It was an interesting experience... At first I wasn't really sure how to eat them, but I'd seen people on TV do it so I just went with that. To eat an artichoke leaf, you don't actually put the whole leaf in your mouth. You just kind of scrape the leave along your teeth to get the "meat" off, and then discard the leaf. It makes for a need finger food!

Anyway... The recipe!

Ingredients

4 fresh artichokes

1 lemon

2-3 tsp garlic powder.

Directions

1. Wash the artichokes thoroughly before use. Snap off the stems and the leaves closest to the stem. Then, using scissors, snip off the spiky bits at the top of each leaf.
2. Rub each artichoke with lemon juice and sprinkle with pepper and garlic powder.
3. In a sauce pan, put about 2-3 inches of water in the bottom and set the artichokes in.
4. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 40-50 minutes. They're ready when you can pull a leaf off without issue.
5. Drain artichokes and cool. Then, lightly separate inner leaves and scoop out "the choke". (Sidenote: I have no idea what this is. I guess I need to brush up on my artichoke anatomy. I left the "chokes" in. )
6. Serve with garlic dip (recipe to follow!).

Garlic Dip

This recipe was paired with the artichoke recipe and makes a yummy semi-homemade dip.

Ingredients

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp water

2 tbsp sugar

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3 tbsp of onion, minced

1 cup Ranch dressing

Directions

1. In a small sauce pan, add vinegar, water, sugar, garlic and onions and stir well.
2. Simmer for 6 minutes and pour into a bowl.
3. Refrigerate for 15-20 minutes to cool.
4. Stir in ranch dressing.

This was a very simple recipe for a yummy dip! It keeps in the fridge for about a week.

Notes

Well... Not much to say here. My first artichoke experience was pretty interesting... I still have to figure out what the "choke" is, but whatever... Everything else tasted good!

Spicy Thai Chicken Wings

For a BBQ my friends hosted last week, I decided to bring chicken wings... But I didn't want to bring the classic BBQ flavoured wings, so I set out on a Google mission to find some interesting twists on the classic.

I came across this one from This Food, That Wine. It's a recipe for some Spicy Thai wings that included (mostly) things that I had around the house, so I didn't have to go out to buy anything.

Ingredients

20 fresh chicken wings

1 tsp cracked black pepper

2 tsp ginger, freshly grated (tip: keep your ginger root in the freezer! It keeps well and makes it so easy to grate!)

1 tbsp garlic, freshly minced (about 2 cloves)

1 tbsp palm sugar (I didn't have this, so I used brown sugar instead)

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp veggie oil

2 tbsp lime juice

1-2 tbsp chili garlic sauce (to taste!)

Directions

1. Rinse chicken wings well and pat dry. Put in a large bowl.
2. In another bowl or measuring cup, mix the rest of the ingredients until well-combined.
3. Pour over wings and toss to coat.
4. Cover bowl and put in the fridge to marinate for at least two hours.
5. Spread chicken wings on a baking sheet lined with tin foil (for easy clean-up).
6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, turning once.

Notes

• These wings don't turn out to be very saucy. I know I said I wanted to get away from the classic wing recipes... but I was talking about in flavour! I love saucy chicken wings! So I think next time I might add some ketchup to the mix and see what that does for the sauciness factor.
• After the wings had cooked for 20 min, I found that they weren't crispy enough so I broiled them for a few minutes on each side.
• The taste was pretty good... Not sure what I would change about it next time, but I think I would still play around with the flavours.

Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

This recipe is also courtesy of Elijah (Thanks, buddy!). It's from dairygoodness.ca and is pretty darn delicious!

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

2 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup butter, melted

2 tbsp pure maple syrup or packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups shredded apple (about 2 large apples)

2 tbsp butter (for cooking)

Directions

1. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients (exluding the apples and the 2 tbsp of butter).
3. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.
4. Add apples and stir until combined.
5. Heat a nonstick skillet and cover pan with a thin layer of butter.
6. Scoop approximately 1/3 cup of batter per pancake.
7. Cook for 2 min, or until bubbles break on the surface and do not fill in.
8. Flip and cook for another 2 minutes or so.
9. Serve with maple syrup or whipped cream... or both!

Notes

I have a few notes about this recipe.

• First of all - it makes a lot of pancakes! This batch made about 12 or 14 pancakes with a 15cm diameter. You can freeze them though, so leftovers aren't a bad thing!
• I think the recipe could use more cinnamon. I grated an entire 3 inch stick of cinnamon and still felt they could have been spicier.
• Also, I didn't have pure maple syrup or brown sugar, so I used Aunt Jemima maple syrup. The pancakes still tasted great, but I bet the real stuff would've been even better!

Pesto Orzo

It's been a while since my last post... I haven't stopped cooking - I just didn't have any free time to blog about it! Now that my last paper has been handed in, I'll have plenty more time to post!

When I was in Italy last summer I ate a lot (and I mean, a lot!) of pesto, and I've been searching for a good recipe ever since. I tried one that I found via Google, and it just wasn't authentic enough. After complaining to my fellow food/linguistics nerd, Elijah, he sent me this one, from the show The Main with host chef Anthony Sedlak. It was perfect!

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of orzo pasta

3 large garlic cloves

3 cups of loosely packed fresh basil leaves (You cannot make pesto with dried basil.)

1/2 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup of Parmigiana-Reggiano, grated

2/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook the orzo in a salted boiling water, according to the package directions. Rinse and drain.
2. Blend the garlic in a food processor until finely diced.
3. Add the basil, pine nuts, cheese, salt and pepper, and blend until finely chopped.
4. Add the olive oil bit by bit, blending until incorporated.
5. Toss with pasta and serve.

Like I said, this recipe was perfect and as delicious as "the real stuff" I ate in Italy last summer. I did have to make a few alterations to the recipe though:

• I couldn't find pine nuts anywhere! So I used walnuts and it tasted just as delicious.
• I used Grana Padrano cheese. It has the same taste as parm, but is a little cheaper.
• I also couldn't find orzo, so I used gemelli instead. Same diff!

Even with all those changes, it was still delicious! I will definitely be making this again!