Lime Coconut Squares

Spring is in the air and that means cravings for lighter, fruitier fare - no more heavy winter meals. I made these bars for Easter dessert and they were fabulous - sweet and tart at the same time. The recipe comes from Canadian Living - what a good find.

To make the crust, you need graham cracker crumbs, coconut (which can be toasted ahead for more flavour, though I didn't do it this time), sugar and melted butter. Press into pan, cook for 10 minutes to brown @350. I should mention now that I've made this recipe in a 8x8" pan (like the recipe says) and a 9x13" pan (by accident) and it turned out fine both times, so either one will do. I just got graham cracker crumbs at the store - feel free to smash your own if you're so inclined.

The lime curd on top is really zippy, due to the large amount of lime zest and juice. If you love lemon or lime desserts, these are for you. Apart from zesting and juicing a good 5 limes, the curd is really easy - it's only made with 4 egg yolks (save and freeze the whites in a ziploc bag - use for macaroons!), one can of sweetened condensed milk (the magic ingredient in my Breakfast Bars) and lime juice and zest. Cook about 15 minutes, then stick them in the fridge overnight to firm up.

Mmmm do I ever love lemon and lime desserts! It's April, the sun is shining, my kitchen table is covered in Easter chocolates - the perfect time for something different. And because bars travel so well, they're perfect to bring to your next food-based celebratory get-together. If you want them as thick as the picture, use the 8x8" pan - the 9x13" made them thinner but just as delicious.

Rustic Swedish Cookies

More Scandinavian stuff. Well, this recipe came from a recent (fall? winter?) issue of Bon Appetit magazine, so it may be fake Scandinavian. I'm just in the mood these days to try more cookies, after neglecting them for so long. And I made them while I still had Ikea lingonberry jam in the house.
First you whisk 2 cups whole wheat flour (ooh, up my alley already), 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tsp baking powder in a large bowl. Then you rub in 10.5 Tbsp room temperature salted butter - but I used unsalted because that's all I usually buy for baking, so I added some salt in with the dry ingredients for balance. In small bowl, whisk 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, then stir into the flour until just combined. Easy.


The recipe says to measure the dough by 2 Tbsp and then roll into balls, but who's measuring? It made about 18 cookies. The fun part is, you get to make indentations in the cookies and fill them with 1/2 tsp jam - lingonberry in this case. You know, because it's Swedish. Bake @400 for 12-14 min.

They ended up a little like shortbread - a bit crumbly, so the jam was nice to have. Unfortunately I either didn't make my indentations deep enough or just used too much delicious, tart jam, because it oozed out of some of the cookies. They also weren't as good the next day, so I would suggest eating them right away. A hardship, I know.

Hopgood Crab Dip

So the town's going crazy over most restaurants on Roncesvalles these days, including East Coast joint Hopgoods Foodliner. People are specifically going crazy over the chef's recipe for crab dip - served with Triscuits. Very retro/church basement. Now, I have yet to visit this establishment, but thanks to Toronto Life's first cookbook, a magazine-sized collection of recipes from Toronto's hippest restaurants, I was able to enjoy hot crab dip with friends in the privacy of my own home!
This is a cream cheese-based recipe, not my usual fare, but we were having people over for a dinner party and I wanted to impress with my cheesy appetizers. I started by whipping 12 oz softened cream cheese for about 3 min, then beating in 5 Tbsp mayo. I added 2 cups crab (let's not kid ourselves - I used the fake stuff, the crab-flavoured pollock or whatever it is. I don't care what you say, that stuff's delicious), 2 chopped green onions, and 1 grated garlic clove.
Some finishing touches - lemon zest and juice of one lemon, 2 pinches of cayenne, 3 dashes Worcester sauce (yum!) and a pinch of salt. Once in the warm dip bowls (this recipe filled two small ones) they were topped with a nice mix of 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs and 1/4 cup grated cheese. I used cheddar, but the recipe called for parmesan. Bake at 375 for 15-20 min so it can get warm and gooey.

Mmm this stuff was addictive. I served it with Triscuits, as per Mr. Hopgood, and it was a big hit. Very cheesy, meaty with crab, with some great flavours - maybe a little strong on the garlic, but that's easy to fix. The recipe did make a ton though - we had leftovers, but there was a lot of food that night so I won't blame my cheap, delicious imitation crab. Which I keep buying now to put in cold rolls. And just eat plain. Out of the fridge.

Tofu and Dumplings

I was flipping through Canadian Living magazine (yes, I am a middle-aged woman on the inside...) when I come across this Chicken and Dumplings recipe. I liked it for two reasons. 1) I had been eating a lot of Asian-flavoured things, Thai, Indian, etc and I liked the idea of something very homey, like Thanksgiving dinner and 2) it involved minimum work because the 'dumplings' were actually just gnocchi. Amazing.

Well, first things first, I skipped the chicken and made tofu instead. It's all bland protein anyway! So I fried up one package and set it aside. Then I put some butter in the pan and added the veggies in: 3 small carrots, 1 small onion, and 1 large parsnip. I skipped the celery but I'm sure it would be tasty. Then I stirred in 2 garlic cloves, 2 Tbsp flour to thicken things up and 1/2 tsp dried thyme, which smelled amazing and so like Thanksgiving.

I added in 2 cups chicken stock and 1 cup of water, brought it to a boil, and cooked the veggies for about 10 minutes. Then the fun part, throwing in the tofu, a package of gnocchi and some peas. Good thing too, because without the carrots and peas it wouldn't have been very visually appealing - so many white foods! My only complaint was that it was a little bland, so salt was needed, and a little spice would have been nice, like paprika.

Of course this Sunday dinner-style meal is probably meant to be shared with friends and family - alas, I ate it all by myself on a night in. Maybe I shouldn't have - alone, I ate about three servings at once. It was that irresistible. It was like a chicken pot pie filling - pure comfort food. I will definitely make this again, multiple times. Super easy and delicious and if you ignore the large amount of carbohydrates, sorta healthy? Right?