Fish Night!

I found myself at West Grey Premium Meats on Highway 6 just south of Varney, Ontario the other day and they had in a bunch of fresh white fish fillets in from Georgian Bay.

So, what to do? I could make my standard fish stew but I really felt like something different today. I had a few shrimp in the freezer so I pulled them out to add to the meal. Hmm, maybe a bit of quinoa would be nice too. Possibly a creamy, garlicky white sauce to tie the whole thing together. 

So here is the result:

Baked White Fish

Ingredients

One large white fish fillet (I cut mine into 3 portions)

3 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 tbsp butter

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to taste

Preheat oven to 375°F

Instructions

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Rinse fillet(s) in water and pat dry with paper towel. I took one large fillet and cut it into three pieces for this recipe. 

Squeeze the juice from half a lemon (approximately 3 tablespoons) and pour over fillets in the pan.

In a small, microwaveable bowl, place the butter, garlic, salt, and pepper and microwave on high for about 45 seconds to 1 minute. Pour this mixture over the fillets. 

Bake in preheated oven 20-30 minutes until fillet flakes. 

Creamy Garlic White Sauce

Ingredients

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp garlic, finely minced

Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions

Using a small saucepan, melt butter over low heat. When butter is melted, whisk in flour to create a roux, keeping heat low. 

Add milk, garlic and seasonings and continue to whisk while cooking over low heat. Continue cooking until sauce thickens.

Remove from heat and let stand 1-2 minutes to further thicken the sauce. 

To Plate: 

I cooked up some peeled shrimp in a pan with about 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and a minced clove of garlic. I threw in a couple of chopped up green onions for good measure. 

Quinoa was cooked in the normal method (1 cup quinoa, 2 cups water; bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer covered for 15 to 20 minutes.)

A mound of quinoa, covered with sauteed shrimp and then creamy garlic sauce served beside a piece of baked fish. 

There were no left-overs. :o) 

Coconut Banana Bread (with Coconut Oil)

I've been trying to replace a lot of the butter in our lives lately with coconut oil and other more beneficial oils. So I took my old banana bread recipe and tweaked it a wee bit. Here is my result.

Fresh out of the oven...mmmmm.

Had to try it, just to be sure it's okay, you know. 

So here is my recipe:

Coconut Banana Bread with Coconut Oil

Preheat Oven: 350ºF

Grease a 9X5" loaf pan (I used silicone so no grease)

Ingredients

• 3-4 very ripe bananas
• 1/3 c virgin coconut oil, melted
• 3/4 c white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-3/4 c cake and pastry flour
• 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 c flaked coconut
• 1/2 c chopped nuts (Pecans, walnuts, etc)

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl, mash bananas. Add coconut oil and sugar, beat with electric mixer until smooth. Add egg and vanilla, beat for 2 minutes. 

In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. 

Gradually add the flour mixture to the banana mixture beating on low speed until well-blended. Do not over mix. 

Stir in coconut and nuts. 

Bake for 55-65 minutes at 350ºF

Curried Coconut Carrot Soup

I found this recipe on a friend's facebook page and when I asked if I could share it, he said "Go ahead, it wasn't mine in the first place!" So I'm sharing the recipe here with a couple of little modifications. This is one of those times when organic really makes a huge difference. Do yourself a favour and use organic carrots when possible. They actually taste like carrots!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp virgin coconut oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
6 cups organic carrots, unpeeled and roughly chopped
3-1/2 cups vegetable stock
One 15 ounce can of full-fat organic coconut milk
1/2 - 1 tbsp freshly chopped ginger root
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp chili flakes
Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions: 

Heat the coconut oil in a large soup pot and add the onions. Sweat the onions on medium heat for about 7 minutes. Add the carrots and cook for another 5 minutes.

Pour in the stock and coconut milk, add the ginger, curry powder, and chili flakes. Put a lid on the pot and cook until the carrots are softened, about 25 minutes.

When the carrots are soft, using an immersion blender, purée until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with more chili flakes, if desired.

Sesame & Black Pepper Crackers

I've been making crackers for a while now. It's a lot easier than I thought it would be.
I've included my recipe at the end of this blog if you want to give making homemade crackers a try. You'll be happy you did!

Equipment Used:

• KitchenAid Stand Mixer
• Flat Beater Attachment
• Dough Hook Attachment
• Pasta Roller Attachment
• Ravioli Cutter Wheel

There's my ingredients all gathered (excluding salt and water)

I use organic unbleached flour for my baking unless otherwise stated. Also, our water is a spring well so I always use spring water for my recipes. If you are on city water, I would suggest using a Britta filter to remove the yuckies.

Dry ingredients in the Stand Mixer

I put the dry ingredients into my stand mixer bowl and set to speed 2 and stir until ingredients are well blended. That's black pepper you see in the bowl there. These crackers are heavy in sesame seeds and freshly ground black pepper. Gives them an extra bite.

Resting

After the dry ingredients are well mixed, I changed to the dough hook attachment and start the mixer on speed 2 again. In a measuring cup, I add the water and oils. For these crackers, I used olive and sesame oil. Run the machine until the dough forms a ball. If it starts to stick to the bowl, add more flour. If you can't get the ball to form properly, add more liquid. After kneading for a few minutes on speed 2, I remove the ball of dough and knead for a bit more on a floured surface. Then I wrap the ball with plastic wrap and let rest for at least a half hour.

Patting out the dough. 

When I'm ready to roll out the dough, I cut the larger piece into 4 pieces and work with 1/4 of the dough at a time. Here I'm preparing the pieces of dough for the roller.

Stand Mixer fitted with Pasta Roller Attachment

I roll the dough out to setting 4. That means the dough is run through the machine 4 times, each time at a setting smaller than the previous.

Rolled out to setting 2

Keep rolling, all the way to 4 (or thinner/thicker, depending on how thin you like your crackers. Changing thickness will also change the cooking time.)

Rolled out to setting 4, getting fork holes

After the dough is rolled out to the correct thickness, place it on a cooking sheet. I use silicon pads to bake on. No grease is added and it makes any cookie sheet a no-stick pan. I prick the entire surface of the cracker dough with a fork. This will stop the cracker from puffing up in areas.

Perforations added

Before they go in the oven, I use a ravioli cutter to make perforation lines in the cracker. This will make the crackers break apart really easy when they're cooled.

Cooked Crackers 

Here's what they look like when they come out of the oven. I transfer them quickly to the wire rack so they don't continue to cook and I need the pan for the next batch.

Cooling Crackers

After a few minutes, the crackers will be cooled off enough to handle. They break apart very easily.

The Cracker Tin

I keep my crackers in this tin lined with waxed paper. I truly don't know how long they will last as my hubby usually polishes them off in about a week. So I can say they last for AT LEAST a week. lol.

Here's my recipe:

Bev's Sesame & Black Pepper Crackers

Preheat oven: 400ºF

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Follow above photo tutorial.

Bake for 14-16 minutes if rolled out to setting 4. Less if thinner.

My First Hummus

So I decided to give Hummus a try. We don't use canned items very often because of the amount of sodium they use to preserve canned items so I bought dried chickpeas. 

I measured 2 cups out and filled up this 4 cup measure to the top with fresh spring water and left them on the counter overnight to soak. In the morning, I drained them and rinsed them a couple of times.

After soaking overnight, they doubled in size.

Then off they went to get cooked. I put them in a saucepan, covered with twice the amount of water as peas and boiled them slowly for about 1.5 hours. I think I should have gone another 10 minutes or so because they really didn't want to give up their skins easily. An important step here is to reserve the cooking liquid after cooking the peas. It's needed in the making of the hummus. 

There they are all cooked and ready for peeling.

After cooking, I rinsed the peas in cold water a couple of times to help loosen the skins. Then the tedious chore of skinning happened. From what I read online, this was a crucial step in making a nice smooth hummus so I peeled and peeled until I had 2 full cups of peeled chickpeas. I reserved the remaining chickpeas for a different recipe. 

The tedious chore of peeling peas.

4 cloves of minced garlic

I prepared the other ingredients. I minced 4 cloves of garlic (next time I would roast the garlic in its skin in a 400º oven for 10 minutes), added the Tahini, I ground up some cumin I had using a mortar & pestle, a little sea salt, 2/3 cup cooking liquid, and some lemon juice.

Yum! Ready to eat!

I don't have a food processor so I used my KitchenAid hand blender to puree all the ingredients together. It worked very well and it was a far cry easier to clean than a food processor!

My first Hummus and those sprouts are almost ready

The day after I made this, I made a fresh batch of tortillas. Spread hummus on a fresh tortilla, cover with super fresh sprouts....makes a fine lunch!


Edit: 2014-Mar-01
I realized I didn't include the recipe...here it is.

Hummus Recipe

Ingredients: 

1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight, cooked for 1-2 hours, rinsed, peeled.
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sea salt
1-1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp cumin, ground
6 tbsp Tahini
2/3 cup cooking liquid

Use hand blender, blend all ingredients until smooth. If too thick, add extra cooking liquid.

If you substitute canned chickpeas, omit the sea salt and reserve the liquid in the can and use in place of "cooking liquid."

Tropical Canadian Smoothie

I've been having the occasional smoothie for breakfast lately but something was missing. I was hungry too soon afterward so I thought I'd try adding some oatmeal.

The first time I did, I just put about 1/4 cup of oatmeal in my smoothie cup and blended it up with everything else. The problem with that was there seemed to be too many hard chunks of oatmeal for my liking.

Today I thought I'd try my new Hand Blender chopper attachment. I used about 1/4 cup of oats (quick cook, not large flake) but I found that the chopper blade isn't low enough to properly grind up the oat flakes.

Hand Blender Chopper Attachment

So out came the coffee grinder. Not the one I use for coffee, the one I use to grind up spices, seeds and nuts. Again, I put 1/4 cup of oats in the cup and pulsed for a couple of seconds. WOW, Perfect! That's what I was looking for, almost a oat flour. When I added that to my smoothie, it was awesome!

Black & Decker Coffee Grinder

So here's what I used in my smoothie:

1 small banana
1/2 mango
1/4 cup ground oat flakes
1/4 cup Saugeen Country Yogurt
1/4 cup 2% milk
1 tsp Maple Syrup
1 drop of almond extract

handful of ice cubes

Yum! 

Flour Tortillas (Chicken Fajitas)

So as I mentioned yesterday, I learned to make flour tortillas. They were a lot easier than I thought but then again, I do have a KitchenAid stand mixer that helps with stuff like this.

I added the flour and other dry ingredients into the mixer bowl and set the dough hook to stir while I prepared the other ingredients. This is per the instructions I read on the Internet. Next time, I would use the flat beater to do the first part of this recipe.

Next step was to add the lard. I found that the dough hook didn't properly break down the lard even though I introduced it at room temperature and in small chunks so I stopped the mixer and incorporated the lard with my hands.

Once that was complete, I then added the warm water while the hook continued on at 'stir' speed until the ingredients combined and created a ball of dough. I added a bit too much water so I had to add a little flour to bring it to the correct consistency. I allowed the stand mixer to knead the ball of dough for a couple of minutes.

Now onto the counter with the dough, KitchenAid work is done. Here I kneaded the dough for a bit longer and then divided it into 12 smaller balls of dough that I then covered up with a piece of plastic wrap to let stand for about 20 minutes.

Dough balls, just standing around. 

After the 20 minutes rest period, I then rolled the balls out into a thinner round which are then fried in a pan at medium heat until they puff up. Flip them over, and another 30 to 45 seconds and they're all done. Stacked on a plate that has been covered with a paper towel, and then wrapped up in a clean tea towel to be kept warm and moist for supper.

This was the first one out of the pan. 

I only had one pan that was suitable for cooking these, I can see a flat top being a much better plan. I would have liked to make them a bit bigger but my pan was too small. I used a bit of No Stick Spray to keep them from sticking as they were cooking.

All the tortillas are cooked and ready for filling. 

I pan fried a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts with some fresh organic green onions, chili powder, grapeseed oil, and cayenne pepper. In separate pans, I stir fried some onions and a bunch of sliced mini sweet peppers.

Yesterday I also harvested my counter top seed sprouter  so we had fresh alfalfa spouts to add to our wraps. I had a small piece of locally made marble cheddar that I shredded up and my hubby added salsa to his. The only thing we were missing, was sour cream.

I cooked up some chicken, peppers, mushroom, and onion. We harvested some fresh alfalfa sprouts and shredded some local marble cheddar. 

There they are all ready to be eaten. Wow, super fresh tortillas. My hubby says "No more store bought ones!"

So yeah, tortillas were EASY to make. A little time consuming but not anything huge. I'll attach the recipe I used below but please be aware that there's a mistake in the instructions. 

Step 4 says to add 1/4 cup of water, this should read 1-1/4 cups of water. 

Here's the recipe I used: http://www.ehow.com/how_5602856_make-flour-tortillas-kitchenaid.html