Prairie Honey Oatmeal Muffins

More muffins! I wanted to try something new, so I flipped through the Complete Canadian Living Baking Book, a great bargain find at Winners, and picked out their Prairie Honey Oatmeal Muffins (p. 286). I guess the term 'prairie' means wholesome ingredients? I picked them because they seemed quite simple - and I had all the ingredients. After a delicious taco dinner at Grand Electric, I didn't want anything too fancy. Yes, readers, on Fridays we have an early dinner and come home and watch TV and make muffins. The epitome of cool.

First, stir 1 cup oats with 1 cup buttermilk, let sit 15 min. The recipe called for large-flake oats - I had quick, don't think it made too much of a difference. Also, my buttermilk, as usual, was just regular milk with some cider vinegar added to sour it. Yum. Mix the dry ingredients: 1 c whole wheat flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp each baking soda and cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp salt.


The wet ingredients were stirred into the buttermilk/oat mixture: 1/3 cup each oil and honey, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 1 egg, which were then added to the dry ingredients. It was a much thinner batter than I'm used to. Originally the recipe called for 1/3 cup sunflower seeds as well, but alas, the seeds I had in my freezer had gone bad (when they smell like Play-doh, throw them away!) so walnut pieces it was. Bake @375 for about 17 minutes.

No idea why the recipe said it made only 10 muffins - it made 12 easily. They had a nice crunchy top, and were super tender and fally-aparty - I guess because I'm used to 2 cups of flour, and these were half oats instead. Maybe the honey helped. Either way, they were sweet and delicious, and while a little plainer than I usually make, quite satisfying at breakfast/work break.

Shakshuka

I've found a few recipes for shakshuka over the last year, and was very intrigued about trying this Israeli breakfast dish - though of course I made it for dinner. It's sugary cereal for me in the mornings. I was recently given the new Toronto Star Cookbook as a birthday gift and to my surprise, there was shakshuka right on the cover! So for a quick weeknight dinner on my own last week I made Pita Break's Poached Eggs in Spicy Tomato Stew (p. 20).

First I fried up one diced onion, 3 green onions and 6 garlic cloves - this sounds like a lot but they turned out to be a little elderly, and so not very strong tasting. After 5-7 minutes, I stirred in everything else: 2 chopped red peppers, 2 chopped plum tomatoes, 1 can tomato paste (that's a lot!), 2 Tbsp ketchup, 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 2 tsp oregano, 1 tsp red pepper flakes and 1.5 cup water.



This recipe also called for mushrooms - which I omitted because they are gross. Simmer for 30 minutes to thicken. Then comes the fun part - breaking 4 eggs into the tomato stewy mix. Cover, and cook 5-7 minutes - though I found I need more like 8-9 minutes for the whites to cook. Of course the authors suggested eating this with fresh pita, and such other goodies as bagels, olives, pickles, hummus, lox etc. I just had toast.

All in all it was pretty good, but a little bland - next time I would add more spice and fresher garlic. It was also really thick and tomatoey - I may try a recipe that uses a can of diced tomatoes instead of tomato paste and water as a base. Fairly comforting, however, as I sat down to watch my library find: a recent Russian movie called Hipsters that featured 1950s teenagers singing and dancing. What more could a girl ask for.

Egg Salad: Two Ways

Who doesn't love egg salad? Well, if you don't eat eggs, you may think you're doomed to live without it. Not so - a delicious tofu version is available and may be better than the real stuff! Make both and decide.

I decided to make a more jazzy version of egg salad than usual - a curry-spiced one with apples featured in Bon Appetit (May 2012). A bit more fun than mayo and paprika! It involved a dressing made of a bit less than 1/4 cup mayo, 1 green onion, 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon, 1/2 tsp curry powder, and 1/4 tsp cumin. I only had 3 eggs so the amounts are a little different from the recipe. The dressing is mixed with hard-boiled eggs and most of a peeled and diced green apple.


The result is super good - there's a sweet crunch from the apple to cut through the mayo, curry to add flavour and a really nice tang from the vinegar - something I may add to normal egg salad in the future.







Next up is a really good recipe I got from a vegan cookbook - Vegan A Go-Go by Sarah Kramer. The book is full of tips if you're a vegan traveler, but for me, I just enjoy the recipes. The Faux Egg Salad (p. 50) is made by mashing a block of firm tofu with a variety of delicious things. This time I used 2/3 block of tofu, 1/2 chopped red pepper, 2 green onions, 1.5 Tbsp Dijon, a big spoonful of relish (I only eat Bick's Tangy Dill), and about 1/4 cup mayo.

Now this stuff is addictive. The mustard and relish are delicious - I never thought of adding them to egg salad until I made this recipe. Now they're my go-to condiments when I want to cut down on the mayo. One thing to know, though - this makes one messy sandwich. Tofu is not like boiled eggs - it stays chunky and will fall out all over the place. But you'll want to scoop it back up to stuff it in your face, I promise.

Thai Sloppy Joes

So this dinner pretty much put two of my favourite things together. 1) lentil sloppy joes - I've already written about those here, and 2) thai flavours. I took the recipe from the LCBO Food and Drink magazine, substituting the beef with lentils. Note on the link: I couldn't direct link to the recipe, so you'll have to look up the Summer 2012 issue and scroll through. Don't ask me why.

For the lentils, I boiled 1.5 cups in 4 cups of water for about 20 min. Then in a large pan, I got started on the sauce. I threw in one chopped onion, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1/2 jalapeno, and 1-2 Tbsp Thai green curry paste and let them cook for a few minutes. Then I added in a can of diced tomatoes, 1/4 cup ketchup and 1/4 cup cilantro, and cooked about 5 more minutes. Time to add 1 Tbsp lime juice to finish it up.

I was a bit worried because it wasn't very saucy - I used green lentils so it didn't really have the same mushy consistency as when I use red lentils. It also wasn't very spicy, so I added in red pepper flakes and grated in lots of ginger for more flavour. I was also looking forward to making an Asian slaw to put on top, unlike my other sloppy joes. The dressing consisted of 3 Tbsp oil, 1/2 tsp lime zest, 1 Tbsp each lime juice and sesame oil, 1/2 tsp each soy sauce and sugar, 3 sliced green onions and some cilantro, mixed with coleslaw mix from a bag - normally I avoid these bagged salads but the coleslaw one is cheap and with a tangy Asian-inspired dressing like this one, I went through the bag in a few days.

Finish by putting big spoonfuls of delicious, thai-flavoured lentil mixture onto toasted buns and top with the zippy Asian slaw. I didn't even attempt to eat this as an actual sandwich. It was really tasty but I wanted even more flavour from the lentil mix - more spiciness, more ginger or thai paste. I'll double everything next time and see where that takes me. If anything it's a good way to get lentils and cabbage in your diet!