Lingonberry Loaf

Who doesn't love Ikea! The cheap furniture, the impulse buys (photo frames, candles, kitchen stuff, blankets...) and, of course, the Swedish food. I always manage to leave with at least one jar of lingonberry jam. I'll make meatballs one day (well, I'll get someone else to make meatballs) so I can use it as a condiment, but I usually just eat it on toast. Until, that is, the hubs came home with Scandinavian Feasts by Beatrice Ojakangas from the library and I found a new way to use lingonberry jam - in sugary loaf-form.

First up: the dry ingredients. 1.5 cups flour, 1/2 tsp each cinnamon and ginger (though I skipped the ginger because I was out) and the best part - 1 tsp cardamom. My favourite spice of the moment. I was especially excited because I ground up cardamom pods for the first time in my (old) coffee grinder - are they ever potent when freshly ground! I will definitely stop buying the pre-ground stuff. I also added 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp each baking soda and salt.

This recipe is basically a simple yogurt loaf, which I've written about before on this blog. You just have to make your own with 1/2 cup each of lingonberry jam and sour cream - I'm sure you could use yogurt instead. But first you have to cream 1 cup sugar (so much!), 1/2 cup butter and 2 eggs. Then mix all the ingredients together in some sort of orderly fashion.

Spread the batter in a greased loaf pan and bake @350 for about an hour. This made a very moist loaf - unlike my low-fat ones, this one stayed moist for a couple of days. It was tangy from the sour cream and lingonberry jam, and the cardamom was definitely present - the hubs thought it was too strongly spiced for him. I thought it was just fine. It did fall apart a little when I sliced it - not sure why. So not the most solid loaf. I'd probably cut the sugar down next time, and maybe try with a low-fat yogurt instead of sour cream. Can't wait to try more recipes with fresh cardamom!

Tex-Mex Chowder

You know those grocery store magazines, filled with recipes featuring all their own products? Well, the Sobeys one isn't so bad. And one day I just happened to have the right ingredients for the Tex-Mex Chicken and Corn Chowder, sans chicken, and decided to give it a whirl. I had been buying avocados a lot that week, and was in a Tex-Mex mood.

I added some oil to a large pot and threw in one chopped green onion, 2 chopped large potatoes, 1 Tbsp (fresh!) oregano, 1 Tbsp chili powder and 1 tsp cumin, and let those cook about 5 min. Not really long enough for the potatoes to brown, but oh well. I was impatient. I then added 2.5 cups chicken stock, 1 cup of medium salsa (yum!), 1 can of red kidney beans, and 1 diced red pepper (for some added veg).


I did end up boiling it for 15 minutes, though I assume without the need to cook the chicken you wouldn't have to wait that long. After that I stirred in 3/4 cup frozen corn, and 1 more Tbsp fresh oregano for the last couple minutes. Normally I wouldn't splurge on buying fresh herbs, but I thought it would be worth it. On second thought, it only called for 2 Tbsp total so next time I would probably just stick with dried.

Now to make it extra good, the recipe calls for stirring in 3/4 cup sour cream and 1/3 cup sliced green onions. And the garnishes: more sour cream, more onions, and avocado. Drool. This was quite the decadent recipe for being from the Sobeys website - it was creamy and salty (from all the salsa) and delicious. Not something I would repeat - too many ingredients to buy that I normally wouldn't have on hand - the potatoes, salsa, sour cream, green onions. Fun while it lasted, though!

Vegetarian Chili Mac

I've always been intrigued by putting certain spices into savoury foods. In high school I found a recipe for tomato sauce that involved adding cinnamon - it was supposedly 'Sicilian' - and I was hooked. I tend to look out for recipes that include cinnamon, coriander, cloves, nutmeg etc in dinner foods. I also got a great vegan cookbook a few years ago called Supermarket Vegan and with it discovered Cincinnati's own Chili Mac, a "cinnamon-spiked" chili served over spaghetti.

I heated up some olive oil in a large pan, and added 1 diced onion and 1 diced red pepper. I also had some sweet potato in the fridge, already cut up, so I thought that would be good to add in as well - more carbs but they go so well with cinnamon. Then I added the spices: 1 Tbsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp each of sugar, cumin, oregano and 1/4 tsp each cinnamon and allspice. The allspice I added because I had just bought some and never used it before.

Have I mentioned how easy this recipe is? I like this cookbook because it doesn't include fake soy meats or ingredients you can only get at natural stores - strange for a vegan book. No, this book is all about easy recipes with stuff you can buy at the grocery store. All that was left to add to the chili sauce was a can of red beans and a can of diced tomatoes. The recipe suggested buying the kind with chilies - I didn't, and it could have used a jalapeno or something to give it more kick.

I just let it simmer away until the potatoes were cooked and got the spaghetti (well, whole wheat spaghettini) ready and voila, Chili-Mac. And yes, I did cover it with a large amount of cheddar cheese - hey, I never said I was vegan! The cinnamon and allspice gave it a nice warm spiciness. A filling and hearty winter weeknight meal.

Almond Chai Cookies

Sick of Christmas cookies yet? Clearly I'm not... I found a special baking issue of Canadian Living at the library last week and copied out this Almond Chai Cookie recipe - thought they would go well with tea or coffee. The in-laws were supposed to visit us last Saturday but it got postponed due to a vet visit instead - so darn, we had to eat all these ourselves!

The dough was easy enough to make. Beat sugar and butter together, then mix in the dry ingredients in three additions. Lots of good spices in the dry ingredients - cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and a bag of cardamom chai tea (I just happened to have a bag) - along with the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and ground almonds. I love using ground almonds in stuff - it made the cookies a little more crumbly and delicate but very yummy.

Each one was topped with a single blanched almond - nice presentation. Notice there were no eggs in this recipe - which means it was quite easy to snack on the dough while I was supposed to be rolling it into balls! I also seemed to have made them twice as big as the recipe called for - oops. This meant they took about 17 minutes to cook instead of 12, and they flattened out quite a bit.

Mmm these were a good choice. A little sweet, a little spicy, and a faint lemony flavour, not sure where that came from (the tea?). Also very soft and buttery - perfect for afternoon tea.

Onigiri

My new favourite snack - rice balls! I got the recipe from Vegetarian Times (September 2012), even though it was in the 'kid-friendly' section. I really wanted to try them because I'd never made sushi rice before, and they seemed way easier than trying to make actual maki rolls. I saw sushi rice on sale at the grocery store, so I grabbed a bag and some avocado and got ready to assemble some Japanese snacks.

First I rinsed 1 cup of sushi rice in a strainer. Actually, I forgot this step the first time, but the water hadn't boiled yet so it wasn't too late. I assume it's important. Put the rice with 1 1/2 cups water in a pot, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 12 minutes, or until the water's all gone. Easy. Let it stand for a minute, then mix in 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt. You will feel like the master from Jiro Dreams of Sushi. The first time I made them I used agave nectar, and the second time I used granulated sugar. The agave nectar was way better - the sugar made them overly sweet. I bet honey would work well if you're not into agave nectar. But you should be, it's delicious.

After the rice had cooled on a pan for 5 minutes, it was time to assemble! My fillings were corn and diced avocado. The recipe suggested placing plastic wrap in a 1/2 cup measure to make it easy. I just filled it half way with the seasoned, sticky rice, put some of the veg in the middle, then put more rice on top. I gathered the plastic wrap at the top and squeezed it all into a dense ball.

One obvious problem - the rice kept sticking to my fingers, so I think I ate a little too much. It was just so tasty. These things are perfect work snacks - I made them the night before, just left them out on the counter overnight (horrible memory of a school dance with dry, refrigerated sushi) and had them the next day. The recipe made about 5 large balls - they didn't last longer than 24 hours. The rice was slightly sweet, salty and sour, and the avocado inside was delicious. A little hard to eat while walking (they sort of fall apart) but totally worth it.

Grapefruit-Soba Noodle Salad

My sister, knowing my love of peanuty-cilantro flavours, sent me a link to this Grapefruit-Soba Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce from Vegetarian Times. A perfect meal for me - one big saucy mess of carbs, protein and veg. One bowl/pot meals are the best! And I should eat more grapefruit.

I mixed the sauce first - all the usual ingredients. Rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, agave nectar, toasted sesame oil. I doubled the peanut butter to 4 Tbsp, because PB is amazing. I didn't have chili oil and I didn't feel like mincing some garlic so I substituted 1 tsp of sriracha. It was quite vinegary, and thinner than I usually make it, but I suppose the point of the recipe was a nice, light lunch.

I fried up half a block of tofu in a pan, then fried/warmed up a couple of green onions and 1 red pepper so they wouldn't be completely raw. Alas, no radishes, though maybe I should start buying them... but I don't remember if I like them! I also boiled the snow peas for two minutes as the recipe suggested but I would shorten that time - even after only two minutes they were quite soft.

I love that the official name for cutting citrus fruit is supreming. It's just cutting off the skin with a paring knife and then cutting each individual segment out, avoiding all the white bitter pith. The citrus cut through the peanut butter and (faint) spice nicely when it was all mixed together. Delicious despite my lack of cilantro and sesame seeds, the suggested garnishes. If I had a longer lunch break at work I would definitely bring cold noodle salads. Easy to make with any veggies you have lying around your fridge!

Cranberry Orange Muffins

We had leftover fresh cranberries in the fridge. We needed muffins for work snacks. I put two and two together and voila - citrus muffins.

First step was whisking the wet ingredients together - 1/3 cup oil, 1 egg, the zest of one orange, and 2/3 cup orange juice. I juiced the orange I zested, and topped it up with a little with water to make the full amount. I also added a squeeze of lemon juice to keep the acidity. It would be pretty easy to make them vegan, since there's no milk or yogurt. I'm sure an egg replacer (flax seed, apple sauce, etc) would work just fine.

Next I whisked the dry ingredients - 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and a pinch of salt. The real trick to muffins is not to over-stir, so I stirred the batter until it was about 2/3 combined, then added the cranberries. By the time the cranberries were mixed in, the batter was just ready.

A note on cranberries - the frozen ones are very handy to use, but they can streak the batter with their red juice. I used fresh cranberries, since I had them, but they took some work - I cut them all in half, and had to go through them to throw away any mushy ones. Fresh cranberries are not attractive - they are hard, white, and taste horrible.

But magic - when they're cooked in muffins, they become the soft, red, juicy, tart berries we all know and love. I sprinkled sugar on top of them before baking, and it created a sugar crust, which was delicious. But because the recipe was so low in sugar, the bitterness of the orange zest was a little strong. Maybe don't zest an entire orange - I'm sure half would be fine. And while they stayed moist, they were a little crumbly. How could a moist muffin be crumbly? Well, I'm not sure. Second Cup muffins were always moist, but crumbled easily as well. A mystery for another day.