All posts by Stephanie

Cajun Spice Mix

May 5, 2010 Stephanie

I had to mix up some ‘Cajun spices’ when cooking up a shrimp recipe a while back, when I realized I no longer had my Cajun Sweetness spice mix. I quickly found a few recipes online, and took what I wanted from them.

After that debacle (yeah, I’m being dramatic), I figured I should make up a recipe that I can use when I need some Cajun spices. I did a little bit of “research” online, and came up with a mix that I thought would be a good mix of herbs and spices and add just enough heat.

This is a mild-medium blend, as it is meant more for flavour than heat. I generally like my spice blends to be mild, and I add in the right amount of heat to each dish.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp Paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme

Preparation:

If you only have dried garlic and onion pieces/granules, you should grind them to a powder first.
Mix all of the ingredients together.
Put in an airtight container, like a spice jar.

Challenges, the Mélange

Monthly Mélange: April 2010

May 3, 2010 Stephanie

Noodles!!

APRIL CHALLENGE : NO REPEATS! – WRAP-UP
Just to sum up my last week of the April challenge, “No Repeats” — LAME! Ahahaha, not the food, just me. I really only had two nights where I could cook this last week, and we opted for a ‘spread’ meal on Thursday. You’ll learn more about “spread” meals soon, but let’s just say that it doesn’t necessarily involve any cooking… The other meal I made was pretty darn good – Miso Vegetables & Tofu (from 101 Cookbooks).

To sum up the whole month, this has been a great challenge. I wanted variety in my cooking, and I got it!! I took the opportunity to dig into my cookbooks a little more, and made peace with the fact that they aren’t the kind of cookbooks I need (so I don’t feel bad not reaching for them all the time). Seriously, how many vegetarians actually make all of the “loaves” that are in some of these books? Argh!!

Just say ‘No’ to Food Waste!
I think I’m going to make this a regular entry in my rundown. Just because the official challenge is over doesn’t mean it isn’t still a part of my life! After collecting cutoffs from my veggies for over a month (think mushroom stems, herb stems, onion ends, other veggie ends that you don’t feel like eating but aren’t gross), I used my bag of frozen bits and bobs to make broth. I didn’t follow a long recipe, just sautéed some onions first, then the frozen stuff, topped it off with a ton of water and simmered for a nice long time. The broth was fantastic!! Who says veggie broth has to be watery… 🙂 I have continued to collect the ‘veg bits’, as well as shrimp shells, and have used both (and another special ingredient) to make an incredible broth for an upcoming post… tee hee hee.

One small ‘boo’ to add to this… I lost a half a bag of frozen veg bits to my own exuberance. I had added some new bits to the bag, had zipped it closed, and shook it a little bit too hard… the zipper popped open and my bits got strewn across the floor. 🙁 Le sigh. Let’s take a minute of silence for the poor lost bits.

I Made This!
The (New) Brunswick Stew was a huge success. Technically, I made it at the end of March, but I wasn’t allowed to post about it until April because it was the Daring Cooks challenge for April. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this stew, because I wasn’t really in the mood for stew when the challenge was first posted. Once I finished all of the leftovers, however, I kinda wished I had made the batch for 12 instead of cutting it down to 4. Next time.

Party in My Mouth
Aww, come on! You know what this is about — cupcakes! April was an amazing month for the sweet treats… On the other hand, I picked up a Jelly Belly “problem” and am now self-rehabilitating. I’m trying to cut down on sugar, in general, so that’s new…

Monthly Spice
Paprika. I put that s**t on everything! Seriously, I think I pick recipes just because they call for a buttload of paprika. Sweet paprika, smoked paprika… and the other day I ventured into the spice store in Kensington Market and found their stash of around 20 different kinds of paprika. I feel a blog post coming on!! First, I need to research the difference between Spanish and Hungarian paprika.

Mystery Ingredient
Love.

Shameful Secrets
No secret. I have now become a cupcake.

I’ve started to collect some herb plants for my balcony forest. I really like the idea that I can just pop out there to grab some fresh herbs, green onion and eventually some tomatoes and salad greens. I am a little concerned that they will all die when I go on vacation, but what can I do?

Cookbook Diving

Aviyal

April 30, 2010 Stephanie

Aviyal is a South Indian dish that is made up of thin strips of any crisp vegetables you can get your hands on. I found this in a cookbook, and it looked interesting, so I thought I would Google it to see if the recipe was anywhere near authentic. It’s safe to say that this recipe is a North Americanized version of the dish, as many of the ‘acceptable veggies’ that are often used in this dish are probably not easy to find. We go to Little India, here in Toronto, every once in a while, so I may just try to make Aviyal the ‘real’ way sometime this summer.

The one thing that is intact in this recipe is the inclusion of coconut. Coconut seems to be a primary ingredient in the sauce. I am a little bit skepical, however, as many comments about Aviyal is that it also has a lovely sour taste to it (sometimes introduced by tamarind). There was nothing sour about this dinner. I did take one ingredient out of the dish. After reading up on the dish, and the “rules” for making it, I really couldn’t bring myself to put in any tomato. The #1 rule is to use only vegetables that would remain crisp when cooked. That means you shouldn’t use tomato, eggplant, okra, or even regular onions (which the recipe also called for). Luckily, I had some green leek on hand, which gave a nice onion flavour without the mushy fried onion texture.

The dish was a hit! The veggies were still crisp and fresh tasting, and the sauce was light and coconutty. The sauce is actually a little hard to describe — the coconut meat, which makes up the bulk of the ‘sauce’ was really not saucey at all. Some coconut milk did come out of the coconut, however, and nicely mixed with the spices to make a yummy sauce.

This recipe is from the book “Simple Vegetarian Recipes” by Rosemary Wadey et al. (p.45)

About Aviyal:

Recipes

Leeky Pasta

April 28, 2010 Stephanie

This dish was inspired by something I had at a restaurant many years ago. I had never had rosemary or leeks in a pasta like this. While often considered ‘fall’ flavours, the combination of the woody rosemary and leeks with the fresh tomatoes and light olive oil sauce is really interesting. Topping it off is some crumbled chèvre that melts into the hot pasta. This dish is best when you can get fresh local tomatoes.

This is an olive oil sauce, the flavour of which is balanced with salt. This is more salt than I usually add to a dish, but it is actually important.

Since I usually make this dish from the top of my head, I decided to try to flesh out an actual recipe. I laugh at myself, because I actually bought too few tomatoes for the dish. Had I figured out a recipe years ago, I would have known how much to get. I also had a hard time guesstimating how much pasta to make. I found this neat page, on the Barilla website, to help you figure out how much pasta to cook (based on a 2oz serving size). In the end, I just estimated based on the amount in the package – I used half of a 900g package, so it’s just about a pound of dried pasta (or a 6-inch bunch, when you measure the circumference).

This recipe will feed 4-6.