Recipes

Chocolate Quinoa Cake: The Cake I Couldn’t Kill Even Though I Tried

May 28, 2011 by danawyyc 4 Comments

I didn’t set out to try and kill this cake. I decided to make it for my birthday. People made fun of my when I made grilled angel food cake with balsamic vinegar, fresh pepper and cut up strawberry topping for Gordie’s first birthday cake (he just ate the topping) but I figured I’d get a free pass to try something different on my birthday. Which actually I did.
Somehow though even though I can usually follow a recipe, I managed to:

not let the Quinoa cool before I tried to put it in the food processor with the wet ingredients.
not let the Quinoa/wet ingredient mixture cool before i mixed it with the dry ingredients (even though I had noticed that I should have let it cool already)
Put the cake in the oven and then remember that I had read the word butter, but had not in fact touched any butter.
Took the two cake pans out of the oven (after only 4 or 5 minutes) and poured in 75% canola 25% melted butter into the two pans and stirred it around a little bit.

I had also managed to mess up my icing by putting in the food processor instead of using my hand mixer and then adding way to much milk. This predictably made it a lot soupier than I had intended. I have no idea what possessed me. But let’s face it, it’s basically sugar and butter, it still tasted good.

The cake was more of a surprise. Although a chunk of it did break off when I took it out of the pan and tried to peel the parchment paper off, it was delicious. I almost gave up on it after I made so many mistakes, but clearly this is a robust recipe which can take a bit of abuse. It’s definitely a dense cake rather than fluffy, but it is moist and no one could guess it was Quinoa if they didn’t already know. And it is super chocolaty tasting.
I would definitely make it again and honestly, wouldn’t even bother with the icing.

Chocolate Quinoa Cake: The Cake I Couldn’t Kill Even Though I Tried

(adapted from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood)

Ingredients

⅔ cup quinoa (I didn’t rinse mine but they recommend it)
1⅓ cup water
⅓ cup milk
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup butter melted and cooled (oh, oops again)
1½ cups sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

Instructions

Bring Quinoa and water to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan. Cover, reduce temperature to low and cook for 10 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it sit for another 10 minutes with the lid on. (I don’t find a difference between leaving it on the burner with the heat off and just taking it off the heat). Or you can just cook the Quinoa according to the package instructions.
Next, take the lid off and fluff with a fork. Let the Quinoa cool. And by that I mean actually get to room temperature instead of leaving it for 30 seconds and moving on to the next step like I did.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two 8 inch square or round cake pans with parchment paper. (I ended up using 8x8 square pan and a large loaf pan, so you can probably use what you like just make sure you do a good toothpick test).
Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla in a blender or food processor. Add the butter and two cups of cooked Quinoa (I definitely did not measure this, I just used what all of what was cooked, it should be right anyway) and blend until smooth. (you could still see a lot of the individual quinoa when I stopped blending, but it wasn’t getting any smoother and was at least consistent in texture).
Mix the dry ingredients (sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add the wet ingredient/Quinoa mixture and mix well.
Divide into your two pans and bake on the centre rack of your oven for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool completely before serving.
Store amazingly well in a sealed container in the fridge. Honestly the leftovers were just about as good as fresh. You can also freeze it but I haven’t tried that myself.

BBQ Chicken Enchiladas

May 3, 2011 by danawyyc 4 Comments

I decided to try out this Enchilada recipe from Feels Like Home for my brother’s birthday dinner. I’m pretty sure the best time to try out a new recipe is at a special occasion for a bunch of people right? Normally we would get take out, but we still haven’t found a chinese food place we like in our neighbourhood and half the family finds Indian too spicy. At the last minute I decided I’d just make these Enchiladas. Ill-advised or not, it was awesome.

I dialled back the spices from the original recipe to accommodate our family heat wimps. They found it to be spicy but at a level they (and Gordie) could easily handle. If you are looking for something spicy, you’ll want to amp up the spices, but it’s nice and flavorful (if not hot) as written below).

I made my own Enchilada sauce which allows me to control the level of spice and fat but you could easily use the bottled stuff instead.

Enchilada Sauce Recipe

(adapted from Feels Like Home)

Ingredients

¼ cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons flour
1.5 tablespoons chili powder
1 16-oz can tomato sauce
chicken broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon onion powder
salt

Instructions

Add the oil to a pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, stir in the flour and chili powder. Use a whisk (this will help prevent lumps in your sauce) to stir constantly under it starts to brown (a minute or two)
Continue to stir as you add the remaining ingredients. Cook until sauce begins to thicken – about 10 minutes. If you are wanting to speed things up you can bring the sauce to a boil for a minute or two and the sauce will thicken a bit quicker.

BBQ Chicken Enchiladas

(adapted from Feels Like Home)

Ingredients

½ cup BBQ sauce (plus 2 tbsp) (I used Kraft original)
meat from 1 roasted chicken or 1.5 pounds of boneless chicken, cooked and shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cup of shredded cheese
8 whole wheat tortillas (I have also managed 10, but 8 is more reasonable)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375F.
Add the BBQ sauce to the enchilada sauce and stir.
Add a little oil to a second pan and saute the chopped onion until it softens. Add the chicken, and a couple tablespoons of the BBQ sauce. Cook for a couple more minutes and then add ½ a cup of the enchilada sauce and 1 cup of the shredded cheese. Mix well and cook until the cheese is melted.
Add a layer of the enchilada sauce to a 9x13 baking dish.
Add a big scoop of the chicken mixture to a tortilla, and roll it. Place it in the baking dish seam side down. Continue until all your tortillas have been filled. If you are running out of space it is totally okay to squish your tortillas together so you can fit more in.
Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the rolled tortillas and top with the last cup of cheese.
Bake for about 25 minutes. The cheese and sauce should be hot and bubbly.

So, Did They Eat It?

This was a huge hit. I served this with a fried rice and a black bean salad to 11 people. I cut each of the enchiladas in half so it was easier for people to take just how much they wanted. Everyone from my toddler to my grandparents and my spice sensitive inlaws enjoyed it. The BBQ sauce really helps give it some extra flavor without the extra heat. I will be making this again for sure, although I may add some extra chili powder if it’s just for us.

Broccoli and Cheese Pizza

April 27, 2011 by danawyyc Leave a Comment

I found the inspiration for this recipe on Healthy Happy Life a vegan food blog. I seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time on vegan food blogs for someone is not even remotely vegan in my eating habits.

Gordie has been a little suspicious of green food lately (except edamame which he loves), so he was not particularly impressed by this choice. But I think it might lure in some reluctant broccoli eaters.

Broccoli and Cheese Pizza

Ingredients

broccoli
shredded cheese
cream cheese (regular or any kind of savoury flavoring)
olive oil
garlic
whole wheat pitas

Instructions

Spread a thin layer of olive oil on the pita. Add thin slices of garlic. I used about a clove per pita.
Add thin slices of broccoli. For mine I used the whole ‘tree’ but for Gordie’s I used little bits of the florets (pictured on the right).
Add little splotches of cream cheese (about 1 tbsp total) around the pita.
Top with shredded cheese.
Bake for about 5 minutes. I used the toaster oven so I did 3 minutes on bake and 2 on broil. Basically your goal is to melt the cheese without burning the pita too much.
I used sundried tomato cream cheese which was nice, but I really think any would be fine.

I used whole wheat pitas for the ‘dough’ and that worked well, but I think I would probably blanch the broccoli quickly in the microwave if I was doing it again just so they were cooked a little bit extra. This wouldn’t be a problem if you were using base that wasn’t quite so thin.

I really enjoyed these and will definitely make them again. I wouldn’t skip the cream cheese though. I tried one without it and it just needed a little something extra.

Sometimes Food Tastes Like Love: Chocolate Peanut Butter Marshmallow Pitas

April 22, 2011 by danawyyc 2 Comments

You may have noticed that I don’t make a lot of desserts. I actually didn’t make this one either. I was having a nap after putting Gordie to bed and when I woke up my husband had made this for us and even took pictures so I could blog about it. And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

Sometimes Food Tastes Like Love: Chocolate Peanut Butter Marshmallow Pitas

Ingredients

2 whole wheat pitas
1 handful of mini marshmellows
1 small handful of chocolate chips
2 (ish) tbsp of peanut butter

Instructions

Spread peanut butter down the centre of the pitas. Top with marshmallows and chocolate chips.
Fold the pitas over and grill for about 5 minutes in your indoor grill. Alternatively you could bake them in the oven or cook them in a non-stick frying pan. The insides should be melty and squishy when ready.

These were really sweet and really messy. A nice quick treat that would be great to make with the kids too.

Chocolate Hazelnut Hummus

April 21, 2011 by danawyyc 1 Comment

Hazelnut butter is the only nut butter that I’ve tried that might give peanut butter a run for it’s money. It’s just so good. So it was almost inevitable that my hummus experimentation would end with Nutella inspired hazelnut hummus. It was way better than the peanut butter hummus. I ended up leaving it a little chunkier than I usually do with hummus which gave it a really nutty feel. I ate the whole batch with apples for dipping (over a few days of course!) And I didn’t even share. Yes, it is that good.

Hazelnut butter is not as easy to find as peanut butter or even almond butter. In the superstore by my house you can find it in the aisle with the organic food, soy, and gluten free products. Not in the peanut butter and jam aisle.

Chocolate Hazelnut Hummus

Ingredients

1 can (16 oz) Chickpeas ; rinsed and drained
4 Tbsp Hazelnut butter or 2 TBSP hazelnut butter and 2 Tbsp peanut butter (I just used a big spoon – more if desired)
½ teaspoon Sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup cocoa powder
4 Tbsp maple syrup (you can adjust this to taste (2-8 Tbsp)
½- 3/4 cup Water (depending on the texture desired)

Instructions

Drain and rinse the chickpeas.
Add all the ingredients to the food processor (you can use a blender, but it’s not really not as effective. I have tried and don’t recommend it. I ended up buying a food processor so I could make hummus).
Run the food processor until the hummus starts to appear to bounce up and down (this won’t take a really long time) . Alternatively just check it every 10 seconds or so. You’ll want to scrape off the sides of the food processor because I find some chickpeas tend to stick to the sides and then give it another quick blend. If you are finding it’s not as well mixed or creamy as you would like just add another ¼ cup of water.
Serving Ideas With apple slices, as a sandwich spread, sauce on a dessert pizza, on crackers, with pita

Cinnamon Raisin No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

April 14, 2011 by danawyyc 2 Comments

Ever since I first posted about No-Knead Bread I’ve been thinking about what kinds of variations I could try. Cinnamon raisin was first on my list. I love raisin bread, but I hate that you can just about never get it on whole wheat bread. So I gave it a go and it is awesome. Seriously I just want to eat this all day. Gordie loves all the bread I’ve made so more. He asks for Mommy’s bread all the time.

This recipe and directions are almost identical to my Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread Recipe. There is the obvious additions of raisins and cinnamon, a slight increase in the amount of yeast because cinnamon inhibits yeast production and a little extra water.

Note: you will need an oven proof dish with a heavy lid to make this – Dutch ovens are perfect for this but other oven proof dishes like casserole dishes can work too.

(Adapted from Calgarian Julie Van Rosendaal’s take on Jim Lahey’s no knead bread method on babble.com)

Cinnamon Raisin No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
½ tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2½ cups water (this is more than the standard recipe because whole wheat flour is thirstier than refined flour and it’s even more than my regular whole wheat flour recipe because the raisins soak up some of the water)
wheat bran, cornmeal or additional flour for dusting (wheat bran worked really well)(I use Robin Hood – Best for Bread Flour which works well as it is high in protein as most Canadian flours are which is necessary for making good bread)

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl stir the flour, yeast, salt and cinnamon together with your hands. Then add the raisins.
Add 2 cups of the water. Mix the dough and water together with your hands until you can no longer see dry flour. You can run your hands under the tap to wet them if you are worried about the dough sticking to them, but it’s not really necessary.
Check your dough, it should look wet but the flour shoimageuld absorb all the water. You couldn’t knead this dough if you wanted too. If your dough still looks dry add a little at a time and mix until it looks wet. I found 2½ cups of water to be perfect. Don’t stress out too much about it though, I’ve made it both too dry and too wet and the bread still turned out fine. It was just a little dense when it was too dry and it was harder to move when it was too wet.
Cover the bowl with saran wrap and leave it on the counter for 12-24 hours. Whenever it is convenient for you. The dough should have risen noticeably and you’ll probably see some little bubbles at the top. image
When you are ready sprinkle wheat bran, flour or corn meal on the top of the dough as well as on a large tea towel.
Use a spatula to loosen the dough from the bowl and drop it onto one side of the tea towel. Fold the dough over on itself a few times and then sprinkle the flour (or whatever) on the top.
Roll the dough onto the other side of the tea towel and coat the other side with flour (or whatever) again. Fold the tea towel over the top of the dough ball and leave it out for 1-2 hours. (Don’t leave it on the stove it will get all sticky and attach itself to the tea towel when you are preheating the stove – trust me).
In the last half hour preheat the stove to 450F with your oven safe heavy lidded pot inside to make sure it’s nice and hot.
Take the pot out of the oven and dust the inside with flour, this will help keep the raisins from sticking and burning to the bottom (or whatever). Roll the dough into the hot pot, place the lid on and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes. Then, take the lid off and bake for 15 more minutes.
For best results, let the loaf cool before eating, but if you really want warm bread, you can cut it right away and it’s still really good.

I’m sure this would be lovely with some butter or cinnamon cream cheese, but I eat it straight up.

Cranberry Turkey Burgers

April 11, 2011 by danawyyc 1 Comment

One of the problems with turkey burgers is that they can just be so dry and tasteless. These burgers compensate with the addition of spices, dried cranberries, parsley and green onions. My husband’s uncle served cranberry turkey burgers one year after Christmas. We liked them so much we tried to replicate them at home and this is what we came up with. Since then it’s become a family favorite and we’ve made it again and again.

Cranberry Turkey Burgers

Ingredients

1 pound Ground turkey
¼ cup Dried cranberries chopped
1 green onion (scallion) chopped, finely
1 TBSP chopped parsley
½ teaspoon Allspice
¼ teaspoon Ground ginger
¼ teaspoon Basil dried
¼ teaspoon Cinnamon

Instructions

You can cook these like any other burger but it’s generally recommended that they are cooked at a slightly lower heat for a longer time to ensure that they inside reaches the correct temperature.

Topping Ideas

Mayo, mango chutney, cranberry sauce, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, avocado. (but not all at once!)

Almond Zucchini Sauté–Tired Mom Side Dish

April 8, 2011 by danawyyc 2 Comments

I often seem to either make either a good side dish or a good meal but not both when I’m making supper. So I’m always on the lookout for quick, easy and healthy side dishes that I can manage to make in addition to whatever else I’m making for supper. When I saw this zucchini dish at Smitten Kitchen I knew I’d found a winner.

Almond Zucchini Sauté–Tired Mom Side Dish

Ingredients

1 TBSP olive oil
1 small handful of sliced almonds
1 normal sized zucchini (cut into sticks, you can cut them smaller than I’ve done above, I just don’t have the machinery or the patience)
optional: salt, pepper, parmesan cheese

Instructions

Heat the oil over medium heat. Add the almonds and sauté for a couple minutes until they are browned.
Add the zucchini and cook for about a minute just until the zucchini is heated.
Add a little salt and pepper and parmesan if you want. It’s really good with them, but I often forget and it’s still good.

No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

April 7, 2011 by danawyyc 2 Comments

I’ve started baking my own bread. I made my first loaf on March 25. It’s now 11 days later and I have made 6 loaves of bread so far. I feel like some kind of supermom. But it’s so quick, easy and flexible that no superpowers are actually necessary. Seriously, I am at best an amateur cook, I rarely bake and never anything with dough – if I can make this, so can you. The only catch is you need a oven proof dish with a heavy lid. Dutch ovens are perfect for this. I managed to get one at Costco this fall for only $50 so that’s what I’ve been using but there are other things that can work like casserole dishes if you want to give it a try.

I’ve also made a number of mistakes that I’ve learned from that I’ll share as well. Amazingly despite the mistakes every loaf I’ve made has still turned out. This recipe is really resilient.

(Adapted from Calgarian Julie Van Rosendaal’s take on Jim Lahey’s no knead bread method on babble.com)

No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
¼ tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2¼ cups water (this is more than the standard recipe because whole wheat flour is thirstier than refined flour)

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl stir the flour, yeast and salt together with your hands.
Add 2 cups of the water. Mix the dough and water together with your hands until you can no longer see dry flour. You can run your hands under the tap to wet them if you are worried about the dough sticking to them, but it’s not really necessary.
Check your dough, it should look wet but the flour should absorb all the water.You couldn’t knead this dough if you wanted too. If your dough still looks dry add a little at a time and mix until it looks wet. I found 2¼ cups of water to be perfect. Don’t stress out too much about it though, I’ve made it both too dry and too wet and the bread still turned out fine. It was just a little dense when it was too dry and it was harder to move when it was too wet.
Cover the bowl with saran wrap and leave it on the counter for 12-24 hours. Whenever it is convenient for you. The dough should have risen noticeably and you’ll probably see some little bubbles at the top.
When you are ready sprinkle wheat bran, flour or corn meal on the top of the dough as well as on a large tea towel.
Use a spatula to loosen the dough from the bowl and drop it onto one side of the tea towel. Fold the dough over on itself a few times and then sprinkle the flour (or whatever) on the top.
Roll the dough onto the other side of the tea towel and coat the other side with flour (or whatever) again. Fold the tea towel over the top of the dough ball and leave it out for 1-2 hours. (Don’t leave it on the stove it will get all sticky and attach itself to the tea towel when you are preheating the stove – trust me).
In the last half hour preheat the stove to 450F with your oven safe pot inside to make sure it’s nice and hot.
Take the pot out of the oven and dust the inside with flour (or whatever). Roll the dough into the hot pot, place the lid on and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes. Then, take the lid off and bake for 15 more minutes.
For best results, let the loaf cool before eating, but if you really want warm bread, you can cut it right away and it’s still really good.

This looks like a lot of steps but is really very little work and not very hard. Check out this youtube video where Jim Lahey demonstrates the process.

Making Muffins– Whole Wheat Pumpkin Ginger Nut Muffins

March 31, 2011 by danawyyc 1 Comment

I don’t bake very often. I like baking. In fact it used to be one of my favorite things to do when I was stressed. But I found that stress eating and stress baking were going hand in hand. So I decided that perhaps I should try different ways to manage my stress and bake a little less. It didn’t hurt that around the same time the oven at our rental unit was broken (I could use the stove and broil things, but not bake) so I couldn’t bake even if I wanted to.

Baking can be so great to do with kids though. You don’t tend to need much in the way of sharp implements and the heat is all at the end. I love ginger and I had some left over canned pumpkin from the holidays so when I found this recipe from the food blog Simply Recipes, I was sure I had found a winner.

Gordie loved them! I made them into mini-muffins because they are easier for little hands to hold. The pumpkin provides some good nutrients, but I wanted to see if they’d still be good if I used whole wheat flour. They weren’t quite as light as the white flour ones (or as pretty) but they were good and Gordie loved them just as much.

Making Muffins– Whole Wheat Pumpkin Ginger Nut Muffins

Ingredients

1½ cups whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon salt1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup pumpkin pure
⅓ cup melted butter
2 eggs beaten
⅓ cup water
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp allspice
1 tsp ground ginger
½ cup chopped pecans
¼ cup chopped candied ginger (I like them roughly chopped but most kids will probably like them better if they’re pretty finely chopped).

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, spices) in a large bowl.
Beat eggs in a bowl and then add the wet ingredients (pumpkin, melted butter, water).
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a fork. (I love how recipes say “do not over-mix” without over explaining what that means. I try to stop right after there isn’t any visible dry flour).
Spoon into the mini-muffin cups (using my non-stick muffin tray I find it’s actually better not to grease the pan) and bake for 17-22 minutes. Test a muffin with a toothpick. If it does not come out clean, bake for a couple more minutes and retest.
Makes about 24 mini-muffins.

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