I tried a new recipe in the breadmaker last night - honey oatmeal bread. I thought this recipe looked pretty easy and best of all, I had all the ingredients on hand.

I threw everything into the breadmaker and switched the settings for a 1 pound loaf on “light” crust. Then I left to go to a course. When I got home three hours later, the smell of freshly baked bread was wafting around the apartment. A perfect way to end a snowy and blustery day.

Photo taken on a Harrods Food Hall bag for general elegance and a touch of class.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5

Honey Oatmeal Bread (makes a one pound loaf)

• 1 cup warm water
• 3 Tbsp honey
• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup Oats (I used the 3-5 minute kind)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Dry milk
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 Tbsp butter
• 2 tsp active dry yeast

I’m not a vegan, I just play one on TV.  Ha ha.  I found out about ZenKitchen gourmet dinners from a vegan friend and her photos of the dinners looked amazing.  The more I read about the background of the dinners (local foods, organic, seasonal etc.) the less it mattered whether the meals contained meat, dairy or eggs.  In fact, I’m really excited to experience a full four-course dinner without these familiar staples of my diet.

With limited seating you get to mingle with other diners and then ask the chef questions after the meal.  I really love this concept.

We scooped up two tickets for the December dinner.

I decided to look for some bread recipes using our leftover buttermilk from making pancakes.  I went to my faithful recipe source: fooddownunder.com and found this recipe for a buttermilk oat bread.

I decided to make the smallest recipe - the one pound loaf - hence the squatness of the loaf.  It was nice to try, but it doesn’t really meet my brown bread standard.

I’m going to keep hunting for buttermilk bread recipes.  The search continues…

Boyfriendly rating: 3/5.   Not bad, not super awesome.

Another one of my staple recipes is a pork tenderloin toss.  I usually make it with  spinach, but this week we had a large bunch of swiss chard in our veggie box, so I thought it might be a nice change.

Swiss chard is another super green with a crazy amount of good stuff packed into the leaves.

Recipe 

• 1 bunch of swiss chard or 284g bag of spinach
• 1 red pepper
• pork tenderloin (about 375g)
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1/4 cup of orange juice (I used grapefruit this time)
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 2 Tbsp each of soy sauce and honey
• 1-2 Tbsp candied ginger (chopped)
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Wash the swiss chard or spinach.  Coarsely chop leaves into bite-size pieces.  Discard any tough stems.  Cut pepper and pork into strips.

Heat the sesame oil in a large pot or wok.  Add pork and stir fry until pork is no longer pink.  Remove from pan.

In a small bowl, mix juice, cornstarch, soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic.

Add swiss chard or spinach and red pepper.  Stir-fry for a couple of minutes.  Stir in juice mixture.  Add pork and continue cooking until sauce thickens up a bit (4-5 minutes)

Serve with rice!

Here’s the swiss chard wilting.  It’s amazing how a huge bunch of chard can reduce so much.

The final dish - served with a slice of homemade bread.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5 “Love the ginger”

This lasagna is one of my favourite recipes. I modified a recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry to come up with a lighter tasting dinner. The original recipe called for sausage, but I’ve been using ground chicken and a handful of other herbs that makes it taste more grown-up.

Lana’s Lasagna

• 227g ground chicken
• 227g lean ground beef
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tsp dried oregano, basil, marjoram and tarragon
• 1/4 tsp chili flakes
• 1 jar (700ml) pasta sauce (I use PC roasted red pepper)
• 1 can (190z) diced tomatoes (undrained)
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• pepper and salt

• Oven ready lasagna noodles
• 2 cups light cottage cheese
• 1 package frozen spinach (or wilt a fresh bag of baby spinach)
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozarella

Instructions:

Cook chicken, beef, garlic and onions until no pink is left in the meat. Add all spices. Cook for one more minute. Add pasta sauce, tomatoes, vinegar, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Wilt spinach in a small pan with a couple tablespoons of water.

In a medium bowl, mix the cottage cheese, wilted spinach, parmesan cheese and egg.

To assemble your lasagna, spread 1 cup of meat sauce over a deep 9×13 baking dish. Top with 3-4 noodles. Spread 1/3 of sauce and 1/3 of the mozarella. Top with 3-4 more noodles, 1/3 sauce, all of the cottage cheese mixture and 1/3 mozarella. Add 3-4 more noodles and top with remaining sauce and mozarella.

Cover lasagna with foil and bake at 375F for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5 “Lots of flavour”

(Submitted to Presto Pasta Night)

The snow outside my window is telling it’s not too early to start posting holiday recipes. My mom sent me a link to this holiday cider recipe that sounds like a real “keeper”. You could probably half the recipe if you’re not planning a big party.

(An aside: I like apples. No, I love apples. And I love apple cider. But I hate apple juice with a fiery passion. It doesn’t even taste like apples people! Yuck. Rant over.)

I don’t see a lot of recipes in Canada that use star anise pods, so I’m looking forward to trying this out.

Here’s the recipe from the CTV site:

Mulled Holiday Cider (Serves eight to 10)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 2 liters of fresh cider
• 1 orange
• 24 cloves
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 branches of rosemary
• 8 star anise pods
• 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• 1 bottle of any wine

Directions

Pour the water into a medium sized saucepot large enough to hold the cider and wine. Add the sugar and begin heating over a high heat. The sugar mixture will form a syrup and come to a boil, continue simmering as the water boils away. Don’t stir or shake the pot! When the syrup begins to brown around the edges, gently swirl the pot until the resulting caramel is a beautiful golden brown. Working quickly and
carefully add the cider to ’shock’ the caramel and prevent it from further browning. It will spatter so be careful! Bring the entire mixture to a simmer.

Spike the orange with the cloves and add to the cider. Add the remaining spices and vanilla then continue simmering for another 30 minutes or so.

Add the wine, bring the mixture back to the simmer and serve immediately in a festive mug. Garnish each serving with a rosemary sprig.

I should have known it was going to snow today.  How?  When my internal chili alarm went off yesterday afternoon.  This little alarm tells me to start cooking warm meals and stock up on hot chocolate and marshmallows.

After a quick search, I found this easy chili recipe (sorry, not Veggie!) that’s flavoured with cocoa powder.   The overall flavour was pretty good - I decided to drain the liquid from the tomatoes and kidney beans to reduce the cooking time.  (When the chili alarm rings, you can’t wait AN HOUR for it to simmer.)

I topped it off with a heaping of  chedddar cheese.  Delicious!

Boyfriendly rating: 4/5  (The flavours probably would have developed more in an hour, but time was of the essence.)

What could be more boyfriendly than cake? Especially when it’s a cake recipe from Nigella Lawson. And how about some homemade ice cream?

I made Nigella Lawson’s “Autumn Birthday Cake” from How to be a Domestic Goddess. Let’s just say, when the recipe calls for two cups of maple syrup, it’s hard to go wrong. The seven minute icing was just enough to cover the cake, but a slightly larger recipe would have been nice. (There were a few bare spots.)

But the real experiment of the day was homemade ginger ice cream. I used this recipe from Saveur, but replaced fresh ginger root for powdered ginger. After making the custard base and letting it chill, I poured the mixture into the ice cream maker and let it run for about 30 minutes. Then it went in the freezer for another hour to set. I couldn’t believe it worked. And it was awesome. It’s not to hard to achieve awesomeness when there is a cup of whipping cream involved.

And the final result? Cake and ice cream - fit for even the pickiest foodie’s birthday.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5

This week’s veggie box also included arugula and some *really* delicious tangerines.  Arugula is another super leaf - Wikipedia tells me it’s high in vitamin C and iron.  It’s peppery taste was also considered an aphrodisiac in Roman times.  Ahem.

Moving on.  What to do? Salad time.

Boyfriendly arugula and tangerine salad

• 2 cups torn arugula leaves
• 2 cups Mesculin mix
• 2 tangerines
• 1/3 cup toasted walnuts

Dressing:

• 1 Tbsp. raspberry vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. dijon mustard (we used the coarse kind)
• 5 Tbsp. olive oil
• pinch sugar
• salt & pepper to taste

(This recipe makes twice as much dressing as you need - so you’ll need to make the salad part fresh again the next day.)
Boyfriendly rating: 5/5. Another winner! And probable dinner party salad.

This week’s vegetable box contained a big bunch of kale (Red Russian kale to be exact). I thought it would be a great addition to a hearty winter soup.

Kale is a real “super food” - according to Wikipedia it’s “considered to be one of the most highly nutritious vegetables, with powerful antioxidant properties and is anti-inflammatory. Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, lutein and zeaxanthin and reasonably rich in calcium.” So there you go.

Second Wikipdedia fun fact - Canada is the largest export producer of lentils in the world and Saskatchewan is the most important producing region in Canada. Crazy!

Here’s how I made my Sausage, kale and beluga lentil soup. First, the kale got chopped up.

Another new ingredient to us - beluga lentils. I picked these up at the Herb & Spice. They look a little more fancy than the standard green lentils.

Soup simmering for 30 minutes…

And the result!

De.lic.ious. And extemely boy friendly.

Rating: 5/5 - fast, easy, healthy, delicious. What more could you ask for?

Boyfriendly beluga lentils, kale and sausage soup

• 3 links of Italian sausage thinly sliced (Tried to buy turkey, but there was none at the grocery store)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 onion
• 1/2 cup beluga lentils
• 3-4 cups of water (I used close to 4 - the lentils soak up a lot of water)
• 3 tsp chicken stock powder
• 1 1/2 cups (generous) of thinly sliced kale (stems removed)
• 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Method:

Brown sausage in a heavy bottom pot. (If there’s a lot of grease, you can remove the sausage and pat off the excess - I didn’t find this necessary). Add chopped garlic and onion and cook until softened.

Add lentils, water, stock powder. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add kale in the last 5 minutes and simmer uncovered. Before serving stir in the Balsamic vinegar and add pepper to taste.

Make two large meal size servings. I’d probably double this recipe next time to have leftovers for the next day.