My next trip will be to South America!

Instead of watching Grey's I'm here blogging about my latest endeavour; EMPANADAS. (Ok so Im taping it)

Attempting to make this South American fare was completely unplanned. As I was trying to lovingly force-feed W and watch Handy Manny, I was scoping out new recipes I could try for dinner. I came across Tyler Florence's Potato and Chorizo Empanadas , the reviews were great and it involved using Masa Harina which sounded authentic albiet strange. Surprisingly, I found it at my local grocery store, which now has a whole aisle devoted to authenic ingredients including Indian, Asian, Mexican and Lebanese. I loved making this because it required many steps, but alot of cooling and wait time in between, which allowed me to get things done outside of the kitchen. I began cooking the filling (chorizo, onions, garlic and potatoes) around 2pm because it needed to cool completely before continuing. As it cooled, I did a load of laundrey and then whipped up the Empanada dough (so easy!) I have to say I may have been grossed out a bit as I un-cased the chorizo sausages.

So with having a brother-in-law who's been to South America recently and has tasted authentic Empanadas, I had to make sure I nailed it. He came over for dinner and said they tasted really good!

The recipe called for a Cilantro Cream (sour cream, finely chopped fresh cilantro, lime juice, S&P) to dip the Empanadas in. It also suggested a 4" cookie cutter, which would make very small crusts, instead, I used a pyrex bowl which made larger Empanadas.


..and this is how they turned out!!

Will definitely make them again, the dough was a little tough to work with as it kept cracking, but it yeilded a very authentic tasting crust. Next time I plan on making them with a different filling, the possibilities are literally endless. B said he wants to try sweet Empanadas, so if anyone knows of a good filling, please share!

Last night the Vegetable Barley stew turned out nicely, I'm starting to think that the crock-pot infuses my food with a wierd taste, so next time I make it will be in a pot on the stove. It was very hearty and healthy.

Tomorrow I hope to visit our friends at Ade's Meat Market to pick up some ham hocks (is that that part that has all the flavour!?) and make Pasulja (Navy Bean soup) Should be interesting!

I want a new set of pots and pans for Christmas, that would make me very happy. and maybe a new kitchen too!

As mentioned in my last post, while making my apple pie yesterday I accidently forgot to "dot" the apples with butter prior to going into the oven. Turns out, it wasn't entirely necessary the pie turned out delicious and the Macintosh apples I used were the perfect type to use in this particular recipe. I used my favourite pie crust recipe from Home Cooking with Charlie Trotter

Mom's Apple Pie

Filling

2/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoon flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice

6 to 7 cups thinly sliced peeled and cored apples

1 tablespoon butter

Streusel Topping

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup butter

1/4 tsp nutmeg

In small bowl combine sugar and next 5 ingredients. Place half sliced apples in pie crust and sprinkle with half of sugar mixture. Top with rest of apples then rest of sugar mixture. NOTE: I added the apples to the sugar mixture and coated them well before putting them in the pie pan. Dot filling with butter. Top with the strusel topping.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes in a 425 degree oven.

I've been making ALOT of vegetarian meals lately, so I knew it was time to start adding a little more meat to our dinner menus. Last night I made Veal Scallopini. The original recipe just called for the veal to be smothered with a mushroom sauce type thing, in addition to that I served it on a bed of brown rice spaghetti pasta, which gave the meal more substance. The veal was a little tough but thats because B wanted it crispy which meant it spent way more time in the pan than it should have. I will make this again, but will subsitute chicken for the veal. I used portobello, shitake, crimini and oyster mushrooms. Love mushrooms, the more the better! The recipe didn't call for Basil, but I added some to the flour which coated the veal.

Dinner tonight is Vegetable Pearl Barley Stew, it's in the crock pot now and smells yummy. I hear W bouncing around in her crib and I better get her before she jumps her way out! She's attempted MANY times. I'm just waiting for a huge THUD!

Dinner 4 4

I am an avid follower of my friend Jordana's blog because the recipes she tries always look so good, she also gives me good ideas and inspiration through her posts and pictures of the yummy food she cooks up! Last night we had A & J over for dinner so I decided to make Roast Chicken with Lemony Bombay Potatoes adapted from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie, which She featured a few weeks ago. It turned out great, and was a simple one dish meal which I will definitely make again.

So with B being back in town after his 3 weeks in Boston, life is good! While he was away I barely cooked dinner, I would either get take-out or make salads for dinner. However one evening I felt like being creative so I put together a tofu stirfry with spicy Chilli sauce and Dijon mustard sauce. it was satisfying and healthy! Sometimes I make up a similar dish, but with a coconut peanut sauce instead.

I steamed the asparagus and tossed it with the tofu.

I currently have an apple pie with a streussel topping in the oven, sadly, it's not looking very promising. It's been in there for 45 minutes (5 more to go) and I just realized I forgot to dot the apples with butter...OOPS! hope it's not a big deal.

How do you know if you have H1N1? I feel like I have it, but only in the mornings, my chest hurts and I have a croup-like cough which generally lasts until 10am. Should I be worried? I really wanted to hit the gym hard starting this week, but this cold/cough/h1n1 thing is in the way of me and a good run. Frustrating, but at least I have a riding lesson on Friday and a massage on Saturday morning.

Tonight for dinner is Veal Scallopini taken from here and steamed Broccolini (which is hard to find in this town!) It's so much better than regular Broccoli, and the name is cute too!

Cooking to Di for

This is Violet's Mom ( Diana )

Cooking has always been my passion. Having a house full of kids and a husband who all love food my life has been very fruitful. I always like to try new things and usually end up with keepers so my list goes on and on with my recipes.

Here is one of our favorite desserts. Poppyseed strudel / Makara

Something else I love to do is scan the newspapers and magazines for interesting recipes. Here is one I found in the Toronto Star for Roasted Sweet Potatoe and Red Onions with Black Beans and cilantro / dressing of Lime juice,olive oil and jalepeno peppers. YUMMO

This was so easy and yet so very very good.

This is the start of something good.

And now for the finished product.

Im HOME!

I'm home from Colorado, Boston and Toronto and will tell you all about it, but first Iam pleased to announce that my own mama will be guest blogging about a delicious meal she prepared while I was in Toronto this week.

In case you are wondering, this was the weather I had in Colorado. Gross.

an out of the ordinary Friday night

Usually we are out on Friday nights, but with the babysitters aka the inlaws in Europe, we really have no one else to stay over while we go out for dinner etc.. Tonight we are enjoying our favourite type of meal; good cheese, vintage wine and a fresh baquette that just came out of the oven, and B is loving the pork and chicken liver pate..not my thing!! As we're munching, I'm helping my handsome husband pack for Bo-town, yes, you heard me right, he's leaving for 3 weeks tomorrow at 7am and decides to pack the night before...wow I love him! I wish I could pull that off.
Image #1: dinner
Image #2 proof that this is a casual dinner..no bread knives allowed (serbian style)

Image #3 my husband "packing"

I haven't yet talked about my newest favourite movie, Valentino, love love love love love, I love it! Kind of wants to make me become anorexic like my 18 month old daughter, who by the way had 2 bites of a pancake, 3.5 bites of a cheese quesadilla, half a bowl of brown rice noodles, and a bottle of milk...ALL DAY..one cannot survive on this and it has me worried. so yes, I've always loved Valentino Garavani (who knew Valentino was his first name, love that!) and the movie makes me want to be Valentino clad for the rest of the year!

Off to watch Grey's from last night.

We're getting a bird and naming her Cupcake

This made my day! My little model :)

When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt like having an easy day so I decided not to make dinner and perhaps convince B we needed some Chanosos..for the second time this week! Around 3pm I started getting the bug to make a creative dinner...so as W napped, i flicked on the Food Network and was instantly glued to Oliver's Twist. Jamie Oliver was making this beautiful quattro fromaggio quiche that I wanted to make too. I flipped open my laptop and went to the Food Network website to snag the recipe, and even though hubby doesn't like quiches' I had a feeling this one would be different. Sadly, I did not find the recipe, but as I was searching the site, I came across a pizza recipe that looked too scrumptious to pass up. It was Giada De Laurentis' Roasted Acorn, Arugala and Gorgonzola pizza. For the dough, I used Wolfgank Puck's go-to pizza dough recipe, which was so easy to make but required 2 hours to rise. The dough recipe yielded enough for 2 pizzas so on the second one I put a thin layer of pizza sauce, the rest of the gorgonzola, some feta, mozzarella, spicy chorizo sausage, fresh basil and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Both pizzas turned out nicely, but we prefered my made up version better than Giada's. I was, however, very impressed with the way the acorn squash turned out, before roasting I tossed it with red pepper flakes, maple syrup, olive oil, salt & pepper. I will definitely make it again, just not on a pizza.

B is leaving for Boston tomorrow, it makes me sad but Iam looking forward to leaving W at my parent's and joining him in 2 weeks from today!!! I can't wait to visit Harvard Square and have a latte at La Crema Cafe which is quite possibly one of the best cafes I have ever been to, it was also where we met the guys from the NPR show, Car Talk. I love Cambridge and Boston, and would move there tomorrow.

Wish me luck on my 3 weeks sans husband. I will need it!

Riding on Monday! :) :) :)