Tomato-basil tortellini soup
Posted on | June 5, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
Oh, how I wish I had taken a photo of this soup before we hoovered it down for dinner last night. The basic recipe for this soup was in the most recent issue of Delicious in the ‘Tuesday night cooking’ section. We made it on a Wednesday. No matter.
I think the recipe from the magazine was a little sparse and called for a only single can of diced tomatoes. There was no way the basic recipe was going to tide us over for dinner AND lunch the next day (especially when one of us has a little tenant moocher). And, so the recipe took a Jamie Oliver-esque twist and I started adding extra tomatoes and herbs and reducing other things - like chicken broth. No one like watery tomato soup. Yuck.
This is a super quick, easy and healthy meal. We even crumbled some of our homemade ricotta on top. Mmm.
Boyfriendly rating: 5/5 “Just make sure you aren’t wearing your brand.new.shirt when puree-ing the soup.”
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cans diced tomatoes (798ml). Preferably the no-salt added variety.
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 cloves garlic - chopped
- 12 sundried tomato slices
- 1/2 tsp each of thyme, basil, oregano
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- Salt and pepper to taste
- A few stems of fresh basil
- Package of cheese or meat tortellini
How to:
- Boil water in a kettle and soak the sundried tomatoes for 5-10 minutes until they are soft.
- In a pot, add the olive oil and chopped garlic. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes.
- Add the tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, herbs and broth. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil and cook the tortellini.
- Add the sugar, salt and pepper to the soup.
- Use a hand blender to puree the soup until smooth.
- Chop and add fresh basil to the soup, but reserve some for garnish.
- Spoon soup into bowls, add tortellini and garnish with basil.
Serves 4 as a main course.
Homemade ricotta
Posted on | June 2, 2008 | 2 Comments| Printer Friendly
I was cutting out recipes from a stack of cooking magazines this weekend and came across Donna Hay’s method for making your own ricotta. I had also cut out a recipe from Martha for a grilled asparugus and ricotta pizza. Why not try to make the ricotta for the pizza?
Now, Donna Hay’s version seems to call for 6 cups of whole milk - because I guess down in Australia they sell milk in 1.5 litre bottles?? Who knows… but I know I didn’t feel like buying two litres just to please Donna.
To make the ricotta, you place your 1 LITRE (take that Donna) of milk in a saucepan and heat until it reaches 80 degrees Celsius. Remove the pan from the heat and add vinegar. I used 1.5 Tablespoons of cider vinegar. Of course, if you’re following Donna’s recipe, she uses 2 tablespoons.
Donna’s version calls for white vinegar, but I didn’t have any on hand. I must have used it all when I was cleaning our windows in the spring. (I bet Donna doesn’t have to clean her own windows!) Anyway, I used cider vinegar and as you can see, it still turned out.
Next, you need to carefully scoop the curds out of the saucepan into a strainer lined with muslin. Donna makes it very clear that you can’t just POUR the curds into the strainer - no no - this will ruin their delicate curdiness. So we scooped. But you know what? We totally poured the last bit into strainer.
And it strained. *whistles*
And now we have about a cup of homemade ricotta just waiting to get smeared onto a pizza.
Couscous and chorizio salad
Posted on | May 28, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
I shouldn’t have rushed so much taking this photo, but I was sooooo hungry. It’s a variation on a recipe that I saw in Australian Women’s Weekly “Main Course Salads”. (I highly recommend this series of cookbooks - great photos and simple recipes.) The original recipe called for a truckload of couscous and chicken sausage. Finding turkey or chicken sausage at our local grocery store is pretty hit or miss. It seems like they only get a few packages in a week or someone in Centretown is hoarding sausage. Both options are totally possible.
At any rate, we substituted chorizo for the chicken and halved the amount of couscous that the original version called for. The result was this really nice Mediterranean flavoured salad that was a hearty side dish to our personal pizzas.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup couscous
- 3/4 cup chicken stock
- 1 cup sliced green olives
- 4-5 sliced green onions
- mild chorizo (approximately 125g or half a package of the President’s Choice brand chorizo)
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- lemon zest
- 1 can of chickpeas (washed and drained)
- 1/4 cup (or more) chopped cilantro
Bring the chicken stock to a boil - add the couscous and remove from heat. Let sit for five minutes and fluff with a fork. Meanwhile - slice the chorizo into bite size pieces and toss in a frying pan to crisp up the edges. Use as much chorizo as you like. Toss everything into a mixing bowl: couscous, olives, oil, lemon juice, zest, onions, chickpeas and cilantro. Serve!
Boyfriendly rating: 5/5
Personal pizza
Posted on | May 26, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
Since I bought a bread machine in the fall, our pizza consumption has skyrocketed. I admit, I used to used pizza dough mix - you know, just add water and wait 15 minutes and voila - dough! Those days are over. (While not very ‘cheffy’, those pizzas always tasted good to me.) Now, I mix up this “eezy peezy” dough recipe and toss on whatever we have in the fridge.
I’ve been on a bender putting mango slices for the last few pizzas with some cilantro, mushrooms and carmelized onions.
This pizza was a little more practical - roasted chicken, herbs, red pepper and green onions. (Secret sauce: PC roasted red pepper pasta sauce.) I kicked it up a notch by making them into individual pizzas. Because smaller = fancier.
Grilled eggplant and asparagus salad
Posted on | May 26, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
The prerequisites that led up to this salad: must have grilled veggies, shaved parmesan cheese and arugula. I think I was feeling particularly inspired after flipping through Jamie at Home and he did a similar salad (minus the arugula).
After a rare trip to the Byward Market on Sunday, we came home with more than just herbs for planting. We ended up with wild garlic, asparagus and some extremely cute baby eggplants. (PS: it’s the last week for wild garlic!)
I “fired up” the Mario Batalli grill, tossed the eggplant slices in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and set them grilling for about 15 minutes. Once they were done, in went the asparagus for another 10-15 minutes.
Serving this salad couldn’t be easier - toss some arugula on the plate, load up with veggies, add cheese and finish with a does of olive oil, salt and pepper. Maybe even a squeeze of lemon. Easy.
Oooh corn on the cob cupcakes
Posted on | May 22, 2008 | 1 Comment| Printer Friendly
I LOVE a good cupcake - especially a cupcake with some sort of theme - like my “Orville cakes” or pumpkin cupackes from last year. Ok, this cupcake idea from Martha Stewart may in fact be the cutest.thing.ever. Sorry Orville. I’m not sure I love the idea of eating jelly beans and cupcake together, but I would be willing to take one for the team and try it out.
Casarecce with ricotta, asparagus and sundried tomatoes
Posted on | May 22, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
We picked up some fancy shaped pasta to make this dish (President’s Choice Memories of Piemonte Casarecce) just for something a bit different. I’ve been keen to make this recipe since I saw the recipe posted over at Simply Recipes - it just seemed so easy and a guilt-free way to get a creamy pasta sauce.
The only thing we added to the recipe were sundried tomatoes. We tossed them into the boiling pasta for the last few minutes to soften them up (we alway buy dry - never the oil-packed sundried tomatoes). Just don’t ask how long we spent in the cheese section selecting the ricotta. Let’s just say it was long enough to make the husband fidgety.
Boyfriendly (and peanut) rating: 5/5 and everyone went back for seconds. Just be generous with the cracked pepper to serve. Mmmm cracked pepper.
Edamame dumplings
Posted on | May 9, 2008 | 2 Comments| Printer Friendly
We tried making this edamame dumplings recipe this week and it was a total hit. I blitzed the spices and edamame in my blender, but it was a poor substitute for a food processor. Next time, I’d probably use my hand blender to mash the beans up. I can see this recipe (and the sauce) becoming an entertaining staple for us. May try steaming them next time too - though the crispy outside was pretty delicious!
Boyfriendly rating: 5/5 “Really good, even without meat”
Rice pudding
Posted on | May 6, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
I’ve had this recipe bookmarked from Simply Recipes for a long time and finally made it over the weekend. My only regret? Not making it sooner. This recipe is a.maz.ing. You probably have all of the ingredients just hanging out in your fridge and cupboard: milk, eggs, rice, sugar. Just add a bit of elbow grease for stirring the rice and you’re set.
I omitted the raisins because well… I hate raisins in desserts.
This is a keeper recipe for us. Sometimes it seems the easier the recipe, the better it tastes!
Boyfriendly rating: 5/5
Cucumber and avocado soup
Posted on | May 5, 2008 | No Comments| Printer Friendly
The Boyfriendly Cooking hiatus is over! Hurrah!
The boyfriendly household is expecting a long-term dinner (breakfast and lunch) guest arriving in September. That’s right, we’re cooking for three (and a hungry orange tabby). Suffice to say, foodblogging fell a bit to the wayside for several months, but now I’m back and hungry!
To get back into the swing of things and celebrate the start of spring and chilled soups (mmm!) I decided to make Gordon Ramsay’s avocado and cucumber soup that was featured on Canada AM last week. A previous attempt at avocado soup did not have great results, but I was willing to give Gordon’s recipe a shot. It was much more refreshing than the Ace Bakery version I had previously made.
Boyfriendly rating: 5/5
Gordon Ramsay’s avocado and cucumber soup
Ingredients
- 2 large cucumbers, abut 14 oz each, chilled
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 ripe avocados
- 2 tbsp strained plain yogurt
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- Sea salt & black pepper
- ½ red onion minced
- 1 plum tomato, seeded & minced
- 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
- 3-4 basil leaves, finely shredded
Directions
Peel the cucumbers, quarter lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Dice a quarter and set aside for the garnish. Roughly chop the rest, place in a blender with half the lemon juice, and whiz until smooth.
Halve, pit, and peel the avocados. Mince one avocado half to use for the garnish. Squeeze over a little lemon juice and set aside with the diced cucumber. Tip the rest of the avocados into the blender.
Blend the avocados with the pureed cucumber, strained plain yogurt, and Worcestershire sauce until very smooth. Season generously with salt and pepper, and add lemon juice to taste. Chill until ready to serve.
For the garnish, combine the diced cucumber and avocado with the red onion and tomato. Toss with the olive oil and shredded basil.
Taste the chilled soup for seasoning and add a splash of cold water if it is too thick. Pour into four chilled bowls and spoon the garnish into the center. Add a drizzle of olive oil and grind over a little pepper to serve.
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Vanilla bean added to vodka on December 27, 2008
