1Tbspplum (ume) extract syrup(can substitute with maple syrup)
1Tbsprice wine vinegar
1tspsesame oil
dashcayenne pepper
2Tbspsolive oil
lettuce(as garnish)
Instructions
Clean carrots well with vegetable scrub brush. Mix the marinade ingredients together. Brush carrots with marinade and place on a medium-high grill. Turn regularly, brushing with more marinade each time, until cooked through. Serve.
Keyword BBQ, Carrot, Grill, Soy Sauce, Vegetables
And now for the details…
I was hunting through my fridge at the end of the weekend for another veggie to go with our meal. I was hoping to find something I could grill, but the vegetable bin was pretty much empty and all I had left was celery and carrots. I have never really associated either with grilling, but at the same time, why not?
I chose the carrots, and if I was going to do them on the grill, I clearly needed to dress them with something. Some kind of dressing that would be sweet, salty, maybe even a tad bit spicy. I was already going down the thought process of soy and rice wine vinegar. But when I was debating between sugar or honey in my brain for the sweetness factor, I remembered another option I have in my fridge: plum extract.
I found the plum extract at our Japanese/Korean grocery store and bought it on a whim, without much thinking what I would do with it. The original inkling to buy it came from memories of the homemade Ume wine (a wine made from soaking Ume plums in liquor) we had at the ryokan we stayed in when we were in Nara, Japan. That Ume wine has haunted my since. It was sweet, tart, and fruity, and quite thick due to the high alcohol content. I figured this extract could be added to sparkling water and at least give me some remembrance of the flavour of that wine. But I regularly forget about it and it sits on the shelf of the fridge door, morosely waiting for the day it can be pulled out and become a feature of one of our meals (yes, I truly do feel this way about inanimate objects, I cannot help myself. Can’t you just see the sad eyes the bottle must be giving me every time I close the fridge and haven’t chosen it?) Now is it’s time!
After we have cleaned the carrots and set them aside, we will whisk the marinade ingredients (i.e. all the remaining ingredients in the recipe) together in a small bowl with a fork (or a tiny whisk; nod to you Binging with Babish). Yes, even the plum extract.
Next, brush the carrots on all sides with the marinade, and place on the hot grill.
As the carrots cook, check in on them every couple of minutes. Re-brush with the marinade liberally, turn them, then let them cook some more.
Pretty soon, the carrots will kind of look like misshapen wieners with grill marks. As long as they have cooked to your preferred level of softness, they are ready to come off the grill. Plate them, and brush them one last time with the marinade, and maybe adding a bit of lettuce for a super kitschy presentation, and you are ready to enjoy!
1cupfresh strawberries(cored and cut into small pieces)
1/2cupfresh raspberries
1Tbsphoney
1+1tspsvanilla extract
800mlcoconut milk(27 oz)
1/3cuppassionfruit purée
2Tbspsturbinado sugar
1/2cupwhite chia seeds
4Tbspsshaved coconut(toasted, for garnish)
Instructions
Wash and cut strawberries into small chunks. Wash raspberries and add both to pot. Cook on low-medium heat, until cooked down (~10 minutes). Add 1 tsp vanilla and honey, cook until honey is dissolved. Cool and place in five sealable containers.
Mix together milk, passionfruit purée, 1 tsp vanilla and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the chia seeds until just mixed, and pour over the compote. Seal the containers and let set in the fridge for a minimum of 60 minutes, or overnight.
I’ve been needing a good breakfast option lately, and have gotten into the bad habit of buying it at my coffee shop on the way to work. The option I have been purchasing frequently? Chia pudding with a fruit compote, similar to a jam. And every time I buy it, I question why I buy instead of make. It is relatively easy to make and WAAAAAAY cheaper for me to make it at home and take it to work instead of purchasing. Not to mention, I would be producing way less waste by making it in a reusable container instead of throwing the bought plastic into the recycling bin every day.
And so… I made some! In this recipe, I chose to amp up the pudding with some passionfruit purée, and made the compote from strawberries and raspberries that I had in the fridge, which were starting to look a little rough.
We start with our compote. Wash and trim the strawberries and cut into small chunks. These strawberries had seen better days and I needed to trim around the brown spots as well.
Place the strawberries into a medium sized pot and set them on the stove at medium-low heat. Wash the raspberries and add them to the pot with the strawberries.
Let the berries cook, stirring regularly to avoid the fruit from burning on the bottom of your pot, until they have softened and are breaking down into an almost jammy consistency. Add the honey and 1 tsp of vanilla, stirring until completely mixed in. Then allow to cool completely.
Next we will mix our pudding. Start by mixing the coconut milk and passionfruit purée together. The passionfruit is going to balance the creaminess of your coconut milk by adding a tart, fruity, and slightly floral flavour to your pudding. Passionfruit purée… where do I find it, you may ask? There are a few options. You could buy fresh passionfruit from a grocer who offers them, hope you have waited the right amount of time for them to ripen enough (unripe passionfruit are quite tasteless, make sure the fruit skin is super wrinkly), scoop the pulp to a blender, add a bit of water, purée, then strain and separate the liquid form the seeds. You could do that. Or… you can find it at your local latin market in the freezer section! You might be able to tell which option I prefer…
Add your sugar and vanilla, and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved. Finally, add your chia and stir until completely blended. Try to avoid stirring too much, which can make the pudding “tough”.
To get the pudding ready to serve, start by pouring your compote into your containers. I used a pastry bag made from parchment paper (a trick I learned by binging on Anna Olson shows) to help me avoid slopping up the sides of the container while I was pouring.
Next, pour in your chia pudding. Be careful to do this gently so it does not end up mixing into the compote and all ending up as one big blended mess!
And now? Put a lid on it! Bahahaha I’m so funny. But seriously. Cap your puddings and put them in the fridge to set. The chia seeds will soak up the liquid from the coconut milk and passionfruit purée and turn into more of a pudding texture. Once you are ready to eat (leave it at least overnight), top your pudding with some toasted coconut for texture (bake your coconut on a cookie tray at 350ºF until they are golden brown and cool), and eat!
Slice the shallots thin and dry on paper towels. Heat oil in a wok on medium to high heat and add the shallots. Cook, stirring regularly, until the shallots have caramelized. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels.
Mix together the mirin, soy and fish sauce and set aside. Drain most of the oil except for a small coating in the bottom of the wok. Add the garlic, stir frying until fragrant. Add the zucchini and cook until browned slightly, then add the enoki mushrooms. Stir until the mushroom have just started to soften, then add the sauce. Cook until the sauce is almost completely reduced.
Top with the shallots and serve.
Keyword Enoki Mushrooms, Mushrooms, Zucchini
And now for the details…
I love mushrooms. No seriously, I do. All kinds of mushrooms. I love cremini mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms. Matsutake’s. Shimeji’s. Portobello’s… *drool* Deeeeelicious. I love them so much so that a friend of mine suggested that “Mushrooms for Emily” sounds like it would be a great band name. The hilarious part of this is that when I was younger, I hated mushrooms. It wasn’t until my late teens/early twenties (*ahem* which aren’t THAT far behind me…) that I started to appreciate them. And that appreciation grew at logarithmic levels. Yep. Nerd joke. My love for mushroom was fast and hard, so much so that I really don’t think it can increase much more over time.
Enoki mushroom (full name enokitake, and also known as straw or golden needle mushrooms) are such a fun mushroom option. Long and thin, but with that slightly springy, spongy texture, they are almost like a noodle replacement, but way better.
Fun fact, a study done in Japan demonstrated that regular consumption of enoki mushroom resulted in reduced cancer death rates. So eating enoki mushrooms isn’t only delicious, it’s good for your health! 😛
We are going to cook this dish in a wok. Because we are going to be cooking at high heat, mix the sauce together in advance, because once cooking starts, things are going to move quite quickly.
Prepare your veggies by slicing the zucchini, and slicing off the base of your mushrooms. once the base is cut, the mushrooms should separate quite easily.
Heat the oil in your wok on a heat just below high, until a drop of water sizzles. Okay, so maybe my job has infiltrated my home life, but safety first here. Any time I am cooking with a mass of hot oil, I make sure I am wearing my glasses and not my contacts. Safety first, and PPE (personal protective equipment) where possible!
Add your shallots, and cook, stirring regularly, until they have turned a nice golden brown. Remove the shallots with a slotted spoon to a dish lined with paper towels to allow the shallots to cool. Drain the oil into a container, you can reserve this for future cooking where you need a savoury, shallot-y flavour, it keeps very well in the fridge. There should be a bit of oil left in the pan for the next part.
Are those giant chopsticks for stir frying? You bet they are.
Keeping the temperature high, add the garlic, and stir until fragrant. Immediately add the zucchini and cook until the zucchini pieces have started to soften, and have a glassy surface (2-3 minutes).
Add your mushrooms and continue to stir, with a bit of a light touch at first to avoid breaking the mushrooms into pieces. As they cook and soften, they will become more malleable and will not break as easily.
Once the mushrooms have become soft, add your sauce and stir, allowing the sauce to cook down. This should not take very long at high heat, likely less than 60 seconds.
Turn out onto your serving platter and top with the shallots. Serve and enjoy!
Slice the tomatoes into 1.5-2cm (1/2-3/4") slices. Slice the halloumi into 1/2-1cm-thick slices. Oil the tomato and halloumi slices, reserving some of the oil. Grill at medium-high heat on either side for several minutes per side. Place tomatoes, top with the halloumi. Drizzle with reserved olive oil. Sprinkle with cilantro and Maldon salt and serve.
Keyword Cheese, Halloumi, Salad, Tomatoes
And now for the details…
Yeah okay, so this was a super simple recipe. But it is also super delicious. Field ripened tomatoes are just starting to become available, and I have a bit of an infatuation with halloumi.
Halloumi. How could one not enjoy this fabulous creation. It is a cheese that is strong enough to withstand being placed on the grill or a hot pan. The result? Melting, salty, creamy tastiness that has the crispy finish of toasty cheese on the outside. Good enough to eat on its own with no further additions, we are going to balance that creaminess with the slight tang from our tomatoes and the fresh herbaceousness of the cilantro. Did I just make up a word there? Perhaps, but its appropriately descriptive.
We start by slicing our tomatoes and halloumi, and oil each side. Slice the tomatoes nice and thick, as they are going to have to withstand the high heat of the grill. If your tomatoes are very ripe and quite soft, slice them a little thicker yet.
Next we move to the grill. A medium-high heat on the grill, place the tomatoes and halloumi directly on the grill. Heat them just enough to get a nice brown grill mark on one side (3-6 minutes), then flip and grill on the other side.
Am I grilling pineapple as well for another salad? Why yes, yes I am.
As soon as the tomatoes and halloumi are ready, place the tomatoes on a plate and top with the halloumi (I cut each of my halloumi pieces in half to have the right tomato-cheese ratio). Drizzle the entire salad generously with the olive oil, and finish by sprinkling the chopped cilantro and Maldon salt overtop (sea salt or kosher salt will work too), and serve. Highly advised to serve with some crusty bread to soak up that rich, tomatoey oil left on the plate after you have cleared off the vegetables!
3/4cupcanola oil (can use other veg oil like corn, safflower, peanut, or soy)
1 + 1/2cupsgranulated sugar
2tspvanilla extract
Icing
340gplain cream cheese(softened, 12 oz)
1cupbutter(softened)
290gwhite chocolate(10 oz)
4-5cupsicing sugar
2tspvanilla extract
Instructions
Whisk or sift together the top six ingredients (dry ingredients) in a large bowl. Mix together the next five ingredients (carrots, coconut, walnuts, pineapple, raisins) in a medium bowl. Mix together the final five ingredients (wet ingredients) in a small to medium bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix lightly until the dry ingredients have just moistened. Fold the carrot mixture into the batter and until consistently mixed. Pour the batter into greased and papered cake tin(s). Bake at 350ºF/177ºC until toothpick comes out clean (~25min for 6" cake tins. Cool fully.
Whip cream cheese and butter together add 1/2 cup icing sugar, whip. Melt white chocolate, pour slowly into icing while whipping. Add vanilla. Add remaining icing sugar cup by cup until desired consistency.
Okaaaaay, so it seems super biased and a bit self-absorbed to call this my favourite carrot cake when… I’m… writing about it. Okay, so I swear I’m not that much of a narcissist. I did not create the recipe for this carrot cake. In fact, I found it online over a decade ago when I was looking for a carrot cake recipe that had ALL THE STUFF. Not just some light cake with a tad bit of cinnamon and carrots, but a toothy, rich, almost-worthy-of-a-meal concoction. And there it was. “Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake“. *heavenly sounds, rays of light, rainbows, and unicorns* And it is, in fact, still there to this day, as you can see by the hyperlink. Before even attempting to make it for the first time, I was already in love. Carrots. And pineapple. And coconut. And walnuts. And raisins. Seriously, I am drooling just listing this off. How can one even begin to enjoy a carrot cake that is simply carrots and cake??? Not when you can have this divine panoply that is… *royal trumpets sound* Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake.
Is there any way to boost this recipe even more? How about amping up the spices, and adding white chocolate cream cheese frosting to the mix? That sounds about right to me. So let’s do it.
We are going to start by mixing all our dry ingredients together. I use a wire strainer to do my sifting, and sift together the flour and baking soda into a large bowl, then whisk in the salt and spices until evenly mixed.
Next, shred your carrots and add them to a separate bowl. To that bowl, add in the coconut, walnuts, pineapple (do not drain!), and raisins. Stir these ingredients together until it is evenly blended.
Next, mix together all the wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, oil, sugar and vanilla) in a third, smaller bowl. Now is also a good time to preheat the oven to 350ºF so it is ready to go when the cake tins are filled.
Mix the dry and wet ingredients together until the dry ingredients are just moistened. This will ensure we do not “overwork” the batter.
Next, stir in the carrot mixture, just until all the ingredients are fairly evenly blended.
Before we pour the batter into the cake tins, we need to prepare the tins for baking. Some people will just butter the tins. Others will butter, then flour the base. For me, my mom passed on how she baked cakes, which is to bake them with the tins buttered and a piece of waxed or parchment paper cut to just the right size to fit the bottom of the pan. I have tried the other methods, but this one has been the only tried and true to avoid chunks of cake falling out when I am removing the baked cake from its tin. The tins I used for this cake were three 6″ tins, but two 9″ tins would work fine, or if you are interested in a pan, a 9″x13″ pan should work as well. Baking time, of course, will need to be adjusted for the different kinds of tins.
Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Run a knife around the edges of the tines, then turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and remove the waxed or parchment paper. Let them cool completely before frosting.
Next, we make the frosting. The cream cheese and butter need to be room temperature and soft in order to blend well. When they are soft, whip the two together until smooth. I add a bit of the icing sugar (about 1/2 cup) to them, as it seems to help cut through the cream cheese and the two blend more easily together.
Before adding the rest of the icing sugar, we will add the white chocolate. The white chocolate I used for this recipe is from Choklat, a chocolatier… sorry: chocolate maker (there is a difference! Did you know that most of the chocolatiers you know do not actually make their own chocolate?) in my city, whose chocolate I have become a bit obsessed with since they opened around the same time I first moved here. The smell of the store as you walk in to make your purchase is understated if its called mouth-watering. And the chocolate… oh, the chocolate. When they moved their store to a new location, it was a bit out of the way for me. But luckily, I recently discovered that my local grocery store is stocking a few choice offerings, score! For this recipe, I am using their white chocolate, which is actually a bit of a beige colour. They actually explain this on their label: white chocolate should not be purely white. Good quality cocoa butter is not white. Good quality vanilla is not white. Therefore, the resulting mix the creates white chocolate should be a luscious, melting, delicious off-white.
So maybe the entire bar did not make it into the recipe… I had to taste for quality, right?
We will use a bain-marie, to melt the chocolate more consistently and avoid scorching or burning it while melting. I used a metal bowl on a small pot of simmering water (the bowl should sit over the water, not touching it), stirring constantly as the chocolate melted all the way through. I added this to my cream cheese and butter, and mixed it in completely.
Finally, whip in the vanilla, then the remaining icing sugar, adding a bit of sugar (about 1 cup) at a time until you get your desired consistency (slowing the mixer speed in between each additions, of course; I prefer to not have my entire kitchen dusted in powdered sugar.)
Finally, it is time to frost the cake. Because I put the cake into 6″ tins, they cakes ended up quite thick. So I cut each of them in half, ending up with two cakes: one a two-layer and the other a four-layer. A local bakery has provided the amazing idea of garnishing the frosted carrot cakes with pumpkin seeds, dried apricots, and raisins, resulting in an added crunch and bite to the cake that is beyond… just… beyond.
540mlcanned red kidney beans(19 oz, drained and rinsed)
540mlcanned white kidney beans(19 oz, drained and rinsed)
2cupscherry tomatos(halved)
1cupfrozen or fresh corn kernels
1.5Tbspchilli powder
1tspchipotle chilli powder
1tspsmoked paprika
1Tbspground cumin
2tspsalt
1/2tsppepper
1tspWorcestershire sauce
250mlbeer(1 cup)
Instructions
On stove: Using a heavy bottomed pot, heat the olive oil on medium high heat, then add the shallots and garlic, sautéing until softened. Add the beef and pork, stirring regularly, and breaking apart large chunks, until cooked through. Add the rest of the ingredients (except corn), turn the temperature down and simmer for 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the corn within the last 5 minutes.
In Instant Pot: Set the pot to Sauté, add the oil and sauté the shallots and garlic until softened. Add the beef and pork,stirring regularly, and breaking apart large chunks, until cooked through. Add the rest of the ingredients (except corn), set the pot to Meat/Stew, and close under sealing for 15-25 minutes. Flip back to Sauté and add the corn, stirring for a few minutes until the corn is cooked.
Once done, serve with preferred toppings, like avocado, sour cream, shredded cheese and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Keyword Beef, Chilli, Stew, Tomatoes
And now for the details…
Even though it’s already May, we have been hit up with some pretty chilly weather. And so I figured what better meal for chilly than… chilli. Oh I am soooo witty *rolling eyes*.
This recipe was interesting to measure and document for me, since chilli is something I have been making sans recipe since I was kid. When I was little, I would be so insistent on “helping” while my mom cooked. When she cooked chilli, it was never off a recipe card, and it has become the same for me. A bit of an eyeball on quantities, cook a little longer, taste, adjust.
The bit of research I did on chilli was interesting. There is a lot of debate on the origins of the well known stew. Whether the true origin of chilli was as a pack meal, the angelic vision of Sister Mary Ágreda, or the preparation of defeated conquistadors by the Aztecs (ewwwwwwww), it seems as though the debate will continue. After learning more, I also apologize to the hardcores on the addition of beans, which I understand is also a matter of huge debate. But the simple fact that I am spelling it “chilli”, not “chili” is probably a clear indication that we are pretty far north from the origin (which has been determined as northern Mexico/southern Texas), and since I am Canadian, of course I have to apologize at some point here! All in all, chilli has become a staple for many, with chilli competitions across the globe, canned chilli being readily available in most grocery stores, and several pop culture chilli references (El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer, anyone?), it is a popular dish that will likely never be agreed upon, but readily enjoyed by all.
For this version, I have given instructions for both on the stove or in an Instant Pot. It is typically a stove dish for me, but I wanted to see how this did in the Instant Pot to see if I could get that “long simmer” flavour in a short period of time. It seems to have worked out quite well! For the purpose of these detailed instructions, I used the Instant Pot, but following the instruction on the stove would work just as well, it will just need a bit more simmering time.
Let’s start by sautéing the shallots and garlic in our pot (either Sauté setting for Instant, or medium-high heat on the stove). Once the shallots have softened, add the meats, sautéing until they are mostly cooked through, and stirring regularly to break the ground meat apart so it does not form into large chunks.
Next, we add the tomatoes, beans (drain and rinse them first!), spices, and Worcestershire sauce. Give it all a good stir and make sure everyone in there are close, personal friends. If in the Instant Pot, close it up on Sealing, set it to Meat/Stew and cook for 15-25 minutes. If on the stove, turn the heat down to a simmer, and let it cook for 45-60 minutes, and stir occasionally so that the meat does not burn on the bottom of the pot.
If you are using the Instant Pot, once the pressure cook is done, set the pot back to Sauté. Add the corn and cook until the corn is cooked. This should only take 3-5 minutes. I found this corn and jalapeño mix at my grocery store and thought it would be a great add to chilli! The jalapeños added their slight heat and flavour, which probably would have been lost if added at the beginning and stewed. If you are cooking on the stove, this step would happen in the last 5-ish minutes of cooking.
Now that your chilli is ready, ladle into a bowl, top with your toppings of choice (cheese, avocado and sour cream (or crème fraîche!) are the preferred options in our house) and enjoy!
