Where I've Been

Well... I've not updated for two weeks I think? Just thought however might haven been awaiting a post would like an explanation. I won't be giving exactly that but... I've got a little video for you all of my trip out west. This only accounts for 5 of the ~14 days I was MIA but enjoy none the less!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgC2InzvRgw 

Wordless Wednesdays - Chipper

Holy, Delicious Banana Bread

OK, so I really like bananas. I feel as if for the past 365 days, if there's a banana in sight Imma eat it (only one a day though, must save some for later). So you must understand how upsetting it is to wake up and find that your banana's are just a bit too ripe. You tear up a bit and then realize, they can still be used! To make this ........

Sighh, Isn't it just lovely? Initially, I had planned to used just this recipe for buttermilk banana bread. However, once the batter was all mixed up I saw chocolate chips. Just sitting in the cupboard. So, in they went. I'll admit I may have gone a bit overboard but it's chocolate so you won't hear me complaining.

While I was at it I thought I'd add a bit more sweetness and so I whipped up a quick cream cheese frosting and covered the top of the bread (cake) while still warm.

The quick cream cheese frosting
4.5 tablespoons of softened cream cheese
3.5 tablespoons of agave nectar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Mix it all up and you're done.

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesdays - Bejeweled

Wordless Wednesdays - Juicy

Pasta with Lemon and Shrimps

10 days or so have gone by since I started my little vegan challenge and I'm done! Sadly, I didn't get the chance to photograph many of the meals I was 'forced' to make. I really enjoyed being vegan for this short amount of time but my family of meat eaters would not support it over the long term. Oh well, many of the dishes will be made again so I hope to post them as soon as I can. 

Now onto tonight's dinner. I'm so glad to have seafood, eggs and milk back into my diet. Oh how I missed them so! We hosted 10 people for dinner tonight and we had this lovely pasta, a salad which I take no credit for and a honey cake (which have no pictures of). 

The pasta was great served cold and had a nice refreshing lemony taste, perfect for the crazy hot weather we've been having here. For those of you interested here's the recipe for the pasta: RIGHT HERE! Note: I used alfalfa sprouts in place of rocketcress. 

I would include the recipe for the honey cake however, it was a little dry at points so once it's perfected it shall be posted. 

Forever Nuts

I never liked tea. Though if you met me now you'd never this. I remember the first time I actually enjoyed a cup of tea. My family went out to an indian restaurant after one of my cousin's dance recitals. Chai tea was brought to the table, and feeling adventurous I decided to have a sip. It was delicious! The moment I got home I tried desperately to re-create the tea with no success. I wasn't happy with another cup of tea until a friend introduced me to DAVIDs TEA. The flavour of the tea was just so interesting, chocolate, mint, and peppercorn in a black tea. Mmmm. I visited DAVIDs TEA on Monday with my aunt who is visiting from Australia. We decided to pick a fun tea to try. We chose Forever Nuts and it legitimately tastes like apple pie! Oh and of course turns an amazing pink colour.  

Though I now love tea. I never liked iced tea. Though to be fair I had only ever tried Nestea. Forever Nuts makes a great iced tea however (like many teas at DAVIDs TEA)! Unlike Nestea, I can choose to add no sugar to my drink. Plus, the flavour of Forever Nuts is so much more interesting than what ever Nestea is, and likely a lot better for you. Hope all you tea lovers and 'tea haters' enjoyed this post, and I'll write to you all again very soon.

Mmmac and Cheese

I've always thought vegans were crazy. I mean no milk or cheese? Ahhh how does one survive? Well I've decided to challenge myself, and so I will be eating vegan for the next 2 weeks or maybe longer.

So what a better way to begin my vegan challenge than with a blog post about my dad's macaroni and cheese. Ahh, it's torture just looking at it. I made this mac and cheese a while ago and I've had the picture just sitting on my computer for weeks. Though why should I keep it to myself. So here it is...

Mmmmm, sadly the recipe my dad made up for me at the time was not cheesy enough for my liking but I've found that what is written bellow works perfectly. 

Dad's Mac & Cheese

For the sauce:

4 Tbsp of butter

1/4 cup of flour

3-4 cups of milk

3 cups of cheddar

1/4 cup of goat cheese

2 tsp worchester

1/4 parmesan cheese (it can be the the dried stuff)

For the topping:

1 Tbsp melted butter

3/4 cup of bread crumbs (rice crispies and potato chips work great too)

1. Melt the butter and combine with flour

2. Whisk in milk and microwave for 2 minutes

3. Whisk and combine remaining ingredients

4. Microwave for 5 minutes and stir

5. Cook pasta and set oven at 400℉

6. Combine sauce and pasta in a lightly greased casserole dish

7. For the topping, combine butter and bread crumbs and sprinkle over the pasta and sauce

8. Cover and bake for 15 minutes

9. Remove cover and bake for another 5 minutes

I will continue posting some 'non-vegan' foods (there is slight build up of photos) along with some new yummy vegan recipes. Please let me know if you try out this recipe and how it turned out for you!

Wordless Wednesdays - And Then She Was Vegan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alight/104983988/

For Mom

First weekend at the cottage and what a weekend it was. We celebrated Canada Day and my mum's birthday! WOOHOO! Typically, I would make something quite fun for my mum's birthday but I was faced with a challenge... our old cottage oven. This oven will burn everything. And so I stood there wondering, "how will I make something fantastic with this oven and Duncan Hines cake mix?" So I cake up with this.

For the icing I found some milk chocolate whipped icing in a tub. I marked the top of the cake with a shot glass and cut out the shape with a butter knife along with the burnt part on the bottom. I will admit it was quite the challenge and icing the first few crumbly cakes, I nearly burst into tears. However, everything payed off in the end. The mini cakes looked so much prettier and tastier than any cake that would have come right out of the oven. I finished off the mini cakes with some blueberries, raspberries and a scoop of a vanilla ice cream. And for those of you in the states (or just no-chocolate-people) you could make these vanilla for the Fourth of July. Hope everyone else had a great weekend and I'll leave you with another puppy picture.

Taste of Summer

Ahhhh. Finally summer! To be honest I'm not sure what my favorite part of summer is. Wether it's the freedom, the nicer weather, or the food. Oh my, so many potlucks, BBQs and picniks! Well to kick of the summer I had a group of friends over to swim and eat. Unfortunately, the weather was not the best it could have been so the swimming was minimal but the food was fantastic. Everyone brought something from these gorgeous local field strawberries....

To these perogies.

And incase you all were wondering what I made. It was these pink lemonade cupcakes.

I don't think anything tastes more like summer than lemonade and pink lemonade? All the better! The cupcakes were great. Very sweet with a bit of sour which came mostly from the icing and a really nice spongy texture. Typically, I'm not one to decorate my food because I can never seem to find icing tips or other little additions. Luckily, my friend brought over her icing tips and these pretty paper parasols to add a little extra to the cupcakes. And finally, for those of you who wish to try the recipe here it is:

From Sweet Cheeks in the Kitchen:

Source: Simply Sweet Bake Shop
Yield: 9 Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
Pinch salt
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/3 c. thawed frozen Pink Lemonade Concentrate
1/4 c. buttermilk
Pink food coloring

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin pan with liners. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and lemonade concentrate. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of buttermilk, beating until just smooth.
3. Add just enough food coloring to turn the batter a light shade of pink.
4. Scoop batter into liners (fill about three-fourths full). Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting (see below).

Lemonade Buttercream:
3 c. + 3 Tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/8 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. pink lemonade concentrate
Pink food coloring

1. Add the butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, lemon juice, and a few drops of food coloring to the stand mixer and mix on low using the paddle attachment until combined.
2. Turn the speed to med-high until the buttercream is fluffy and uniformly pink. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

I will definitely be making these again. Maybe in cake form? yummm. Hope everyone is having a great start to their summer and I will be talking to you all very soon.

Wordless Wednesdays - Love you always

Happy Father's Day

First off, happy Father's Day to all dads out there. This year our Father's Day started off with a 5K run to raise money for our town's hospital and later on the day some family came over for the pretty meal you see bellow.

Sadly, I had nothing to do with this meal so I have nothing to share other than, the salad my grandmother made was delicious! I will do my best to recreate it some time. For any of you that may be checking back every once and a while for a post, I'd like to apologize for not posting much lately. I have a very busy week ahead of me but then I should be back to posting more frequently.

Talk to you all soon!

Wordless Wednesdays - Not my dog

Wordless Wednesdays - A Beautiful and Confused Calender

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

More cookies? Yes, of course! Actually, these are props for a play tomorrow but they're edible, homemade and delicious.

The request from the friend using this prop was just chocolate chip cookies. Honestly, I was disappointed I was kind of hoping to make some interesting flavored cookie. Oh well another day I suppose!

Here's the recipe I used from 'Handle the Heat'.

In the end these were great. It only just occurred to me that I hadn't made chocolate chip cookies for a couple months! These cookies certainly fixed the problem of a lack of chocolate chip cookies. The recipe made A LOT and I made huge cookies. They also had a nice soft texture with super crunchy out sides. The cookie was also very nice and buttery.

One unexpected twist. Typically, I use semi-sweet chips for my cookies but we bought milk chocolate by accident. Still needing some darker chocolate the rest of the semi-sweet was used up and the remaining chocolate was milk chocolate. The taste overall? Heaven. I'll definitely be mixing the two chocolates more in future chocolate chip cookies.

I really could write about these cookies late into the night but they are making me hungry and I really must sleep.

Sweet dreams ;)

Deep, Dark Chocolate Cookies

Alright so I was definitely in a chocolate mood. Not just a sugary, creamy milk chocolate but a dark almost bitter dark chocolate. These cookies were perfect. I brought them to a birthday party with a bunch of kids who thought the cookies tasted just like only cocoa. So fair to say they weren't popular there butttt all the parents loved them, one parent ate so many his wife has cut him off from dessert for a week.

So for any one who wishes to try these here's therecipe from the blog Abbey Cat Chat. The only thing I did differently was to add about 3/4-1 tablespoon of extra cocoa powder and used milk chocolate chips to offset the darker cookie.

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesdays - Funnel Cake oh my

Tales of Lemon Squares and Spring Rolls

Hello! Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend I definitely did and though it was a busy one I still got the chance to cook a bit ;) Friday between singing lessons and homework I tried a recipe for lemon squares for my mum's book club. They tasted excellent and were and definitely satisfied mum's constant lemon craving!

So for anyone who wants it here's the recipe.

For crust

1 cu flour

1/8 tsp salt

½ cu confectioner’s sugar

8 tbsp butter, melted but not hot

For filling

2 lg eggs

¾ cu sugar

1 ½ tbs. flour

6 tbs. juice from 2 lemons

2 tsps finely grated lemon rind

Oven 325.…cook crust for 20 min.

Spray an 8 x 8 first and then fit an 8 inch by 16 inc. foil over the bottom and

Up the sides it is much easier to get out of pan.

Press crust into pan and bake 325 for 20 min. (I found it took a little longer)

While baking whisk eggs, sugar, flour and lemon juice and zest in a bowl.

Remove pan from oven and pour mixture over and bake until just

Set about 20 min. Let cool in pan for a few min.

And then put on a rack for further cooling.

I also managed to make some vietnamese spring rolls in the last few hours of the weekend to pack for my lunch today. I've never attempted these so the first two or so were a mess. No surprise that no one took those two for lunch. Though I forgot to buy cilantro they were still great and once I got going, super quick to make. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of them this time but I can promise you that they will be remade and they'll get they're own post.

Happy Monday!

Wordless Wednesdays - Obsession Egg Tarts