Swiss Chard & Sausage Lasagne with Meyer Lemons

The weather in Toronto has been ridiculously gorgeous this week. Just ridiculous. I walked around downtown in jeans, a t-shirt and flip flops today. I used to be able to bet that we'd always get one huge snowstorm in March. But over the past 3-4 years, that hasn't happened.

The influx of spring leaves me wanting lighter, brighter flavours. I want to gently poke my head out from beneath the culinary blanket of braised, rib sticking food. Emphasis on the gently. There's nothing pleasant about a rude awakening.

So, while revisiting an old Martha Stewart magazine in search of recipes for Easter (my parents and brother are staying with us this year!), I stumbled across a recipe for chard, sausage and lemon lasagne. It hit the right notes for me - bechemel sauce for comfort, lemons for brightness, tons of chard for veggie infused goodness (and seasonality - the chard at the shops are gorgeous right now) and sausage for that awesome hit of porky goodness.

And, it came together and cooked in under an hour to boot. Rock on, Martha. For the record, I used Meyer lemons because that's what I had on hand. The original recipe calls for regular ones, but the advantage to the Meyers is you get a slightly different aroma and their skin is thinner, so they incorporate better.

Swiss Chard & Sausage Lasange with Meyer Lemons.

(from Martha Stewart Living)

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter
¼ cup flour
3 cups milk
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
kosher salt and coarsely ground pepper
1 bunch chopped Swiss chard
1 lb sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
1 lemon, sliced paper thin
6 no boil lasagne noodles.

Directions

1. Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour and cook for two minutes. Gradually, whisk in milk and bring to a boil. Boil for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 3/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese, and season mixture with salt and pepper. Stir in the chard and set aside.

2. In a small saucepan cover lemon slices with several inches of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 7 minutes. When finished, gently remove slices from pot with a slotted spoon and let drain on paper towel. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook Italian sausage, breaking up pieces with a wooden spoon as they cook.

3. Preheat oven to 350º.

4. To assemble lasagne, ladle ¼ cup of the sauce into the bottom of an 8"x8" baking dish. Top with two lasagne noodles. Layer 1 cup sauce and ½ the sausage mixture on top. Repeat with another layer of noodles, sauce and the rest of the sausage. Before adding the last two lasange noodles, top sausage with half of the lemon slices. Top with lasagne noodles, the rest of the sauce and the remaining lemon slices.

5. Cover pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil, sprinkle remaining Parmesan on top of lasagne and broil for 2-3 minutes, or until top is golden and bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

The Sweet Tooth Continues - Raspberry Loaf Cake

Does the whole wheat flour (a bit), ground flax (a couple tablespoons) and mere two tablespoons of butter make this healthy (shhh, don't mention the 6 egg yolks)?

No? Okay, how about if I sent half of it to my husband's work (I'm on March Break, so my coworkers are out of luck) so it doesn't get eaten by me?

Moderation, right? And, I've moderated if I've only eaten 3 servings of the cake in as many days... right?

This argument is getting weaker by the moment.

Anyway, this is a lovely, quick recipe that goes down so nicely with a cup of tea (we had it with this gorgeous strawberry & chocolate tea that we picked up from the Tealicious booth at the One of a Kind Show over Christmas). There's a little bit of yeast in the cake to give it some extra rise, and it slices up moist and like a dream.

This really is best eaten the day it's made, though you can stretch it to two. Be careful about garnishing with fresh raspberries if you're planning on keeping the cake around longer. They will go mouldy.

Martha's Iced Raspberry Loaf Cake

 (slightly adapted from here)

Ingredients

Cake

3/4 cup all purpose flour
¼ cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp instant yeast
3/4 tsp coarse salt
2 tbsp ground flax
2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tbsp butter, melted
3 large eggs + 3 large egg yolks
1 cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar
1½ tsp vanilla extract
1 cup raspberries

Icing

2 tbsp butter
¼ cup whole milk
½ tsp vanilla extract
2½ cups icing sugar

raspberries for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease a 5"x9" loaf pan with butter (or cooking spray) and line the base with parchment paper. Butter the parchment as well. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together flours with yeast, salt and flax. In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt and the butter. Set both aside.

3. In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until mixture is light and thick. It should be a very pale yellow. Gently fold in the dry ingredients. Once incorporated, fold in the yogurt-butter mixture and then the raspberries. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until pale gold and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Martha says this will take 45-50 minutes, but it took my cake 70 minutes to fully cook. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a rack for 20 minutes before removing from pan. Let cool completely on rack before icing.

4. To make icing, heat butter, milk and vanilla in a saucepan. Whisk in icing sugar, ½ cup at a time, until mixture is thick but pourable. Pour half of the mixture over the cake. Let set for 3-4 minutes before pouring the rest over. Let set for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Vanilla Glazed Donuts

It's amazing how your eating habits change when you're pregnant. At least, I'm amazed at my reversion back to my 14-17 year old tastes. I was reading somewhere that a lot of women seek out food that remind them of their childhood, which would totally explain why I've had macaroni and cheese every Sunday for lunch for the past month. Today, I even threw hot dogs (albeit organic ones made with ecologically responsibly raised beef) in.

Between my morning cravings for fruit (I went through 3 grapefruit yesterday) and my dinner time cravings for something that includes Frank's Red Hot Sauce (pregnant women must keep them in business), I've found what I'm making in the kitchen to all be the less than healthy stuff.

It's weird putting on this much weight but not having that much of it go to my hips (although, I noted a double chin in action today... commence the high pitch whine now). I'm scared that, as I reached the halfway mark on Friday that July is going to come around and that I'll have put on way more than I ought to have.

Of course, that doesn't stop me from making desserts. Nor does that stop me from eating them.

Yes, they're donuts.

Yes, they're vanilla glazed.

Yes, they're delicious.

And yes, I started making them at 8 pm one night because I HAD to have them.

But, BUT (and I say this before you roll your eyes and start passing judgment), they're

a) baked

and

b) contain 1 tbsp of butter divided between 12 donuts.

So there. Not (as) terrible for me.

At least they wouldn't be if I hadn't already eaten 2 today. I can't even promise you that there's an end in sight.

Click here for the recipe. I suggest using more than a pinch of nutmeg, and adding a teaspoon of vanilla to the dough when you're mixing in the egg. I'm planning on attempting a chocolate mint version of these over March Break (next week! wheee!).

Also on the March Break to make list: Meyer Lemon and Rose Marmalade and about a million DIY things for our guest room/eventual baby room. Who wants to bet I get none of that accomplished?

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

Does anything say love more than the warmth of cinnamon and sugar?

Need I say more?

Flavoured with vanilla and nutmeg and rolled in cinnamon sugar, these donuts are the perfect fluffy antidote to a bad work day. Best of all, they take less than 30 minutes in total. In the interest of full disclosure, I made these as a vegan treat, but it's easily done non-vegan too.

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

(from C'est La Vegan)

Ingredients

3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1½ cups all purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
heaped ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax mixed with 3 tbsp water OR 1 egg)
3/4 cup milk (non-dairy or dairy)
¼ cup canola oil (or melted coconut oil)
1½ tsp vanilla extract

2 tsbp earth balance (or butter)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease or spray a standard 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (sugar through nutmeg). In a large bowl, stir together wet ingredients (flax egg through vanilla extract). Stir dry ingredients into wet. Spoon into muffin tin, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake for 18-21 minutes until they spring back when touched lightly.

3. Meanwhile, melt earth balance and stir together sugar and cinnamon a dish. Brush warm muffins with earth balance, then roll in cinnamon sugar mixture. Let cool on rack.

Jam Oat Bars

When I was, oh, I don't know, maybe 12 or 13, my mother had (and I believe she still does have) a Company's Coming Bars and Squares cookbook. There was one recipe in there that I love so much, that it was the first thing I knew how to make by heart - chocolate chip squares. They were so easy, I could throw them together on a week night for our lunches throughout the week.

This post isn't really about the chocolate chip squares. It IS about throwing together some bars for lunches mid-week, AFTER you've made dinner, you're exhausted and pregnant.

Expedient. That's the name of the game.

I'd like to think I've upped the health ante somewhat on your typical jam bar by using spelt flour (you could just as easily use all purpose or whole wheat) and gluten free oats. And, since all I have on my shelves is homemade jam, I used up what was left of a jar of my mother's Ginger, Pear & Crème de Cacao jam AND finally cracked into one of my jars of elderberry jam.

In the interest of honesty, let me admit that the elderberry jam scared me. When I made it, I was totally turned off by the smell. But, as it turns out, if you let the jam sit for the better part of 6 months, you're in for a decadent treat. This is up there with blackcurrant jelly in terms of rich berry flavours.

Which is a big relief, given how much effort I put into making the stuff.

Jam Oat Bars

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups flour (spelt, whole wheat, all purpose, or a mixture)
1 cup packed brown sugar
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
3/4 cups chilled unsalted butter (use earth balance if you want to make this vegan), cut into chunks
½ tsp vanilla extract
1½ cups GF oats
1½ cups jam

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Line a 9"x13" baking ban with parchment paper, ensuring that paper extends over the sides of pan. This will make it easy to remove the bars.

2. In a food processor, pulse together, flour, sugar, salt and baking soda. Add in chilled butter and vanilla, pulsing until small granules are formed. Add in oats and pulse twice. You want some of the oats to be in small pieces and others left whole.

3. Put 3/4 of the flour-oat mixture into the baking pan, patting down to firm. Spread jam over base. If you're using two flavours of jam, spread half on one side and half on the other. Sprinkle with remaining flour-oat mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until jam is bubbly.

4. Remove from oven and let cool completely in pan on a rack. Makes about 28 pieces, but you decide how much jammy goodness you need in a serving!

Peeking out from under my rock

Alright, it's been a while.

I know.

It's just that, by the time mid-November rolled around, I found myself steadfastly avoiding the kitchen. I couldn't look at a carrot without wanting to hurl.

The smell of cooking onions? Shoot me now.

Apparently that's what happens when you get pregnant - you lose your ability to do the thing you love the most.

Now that I'm happily into the second trimester and the constant nausea is a thing of the past, I can kind of look back on that stretch of food rejection with some humour.

I mean, there was a week there when I pretty much lived off of cheese slices and jujubes.

Let me repeat that.

Cheese slices.

Jujubes.

Those aren't even real foods. And the worst part of that week? When I went to the grocery store (and almost threw up in the dairy aisle), I walked out with 4 different processed cheese products. I haven't bought that nonsense in years. YEARS.

Babies make you crazy, I tell you.

Three weeks ago, I entered into what I'll call the "hot sauce phase". For the record, I've never liked spicy food. All of a sudden, I was licking buffalo wing sauce from the spoon.

And the pommelo Kat brought over for Chinese New Year? Totally made me gag.

So, it's a new day for my taste buds. I really don't know where they're going to bring me next.

I am back cooking now, so I hope to update here regularly again. To tide you over, here's a little something my husband wrote as our weekly menu:

Anyone know what foie gratitiude might be?

The Strawberry Oops interested me though... so I threw these together that night:

The frosting did, in fact, turn out wrong! It was supposed to be a strawberry buttercream, but I made some awkward substitutions and was headed down the path to disaster (Oops!) when I remember the whipped cream in the fridge, so it all worked out in the end.

Chocolate PB & J Pillow Cookies

A few months back, I received a shipment of jams and jellies from Uncanny Preserves and I promised Lindsay that I would make something using them.

But... you know... then they were too delicious and I just kept eating the jams directly out of the jars. The chutneys disappeared in a flurry of cracker crumbs and tidbits of cheese.

In spite of myself, I managed to restrain myself from opening the last remaining jar of sweet goodness until a few weeks ago. The blackcurrant jelly sat in my cupboard while I waited for divine inspiration to strike.

And then, voila: in my google reader feed over the weekend I spotted Angela's, from Oh She Glows, peanut butter chocolate cookies (she adapted them from Post Punk Kitchen - another great vegan resource) and I thought to myself, sure you could have chocolate and peanut butter, but what if you took it up a notch and threw in some sweet, tangy blackcurrant jelly.

Oh.

My.

God.

The jelly addition was a revelation. It took a recipe that was good and elevated it to a whole new level by balancing out the sweetness found in the two doughs.

Next time, I'm totally trying this with hazelnut butter and orange marmalade. Can you imagine?


Chocolate PB & J Pillow Cookies

(adapted from Post Punk Kitchen)
makes 24

Ingredients

Chocolate Dough
 
1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup finely ground oats
1/3 cup cocoa powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
scant ½ cup canola oil
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup maple syrup
3 tbsp non-dairy milk (I like almond)
1 oz dark chocolate (72%), melted
½ tsp vanilla

Peanut Butter Filling
 
½ cup natural peanut butter
2/3 cup confectioner's sugar
½ tsp vanilla
2 tbsp non-dairy milk

6 tsp blackcurrant jelly


Directions

1. In a medium bowl, stir together flour and oats. Sift in cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together oil, granulated sugar, maple syrup, non-dairy milk, chocolate and vanilla. Stir dry ingredients into wet. Mixture should form a smooth ball. If not, add additional flour, 1 tbsp at a time. Set chocolate dough aside.

2. In a small bowl, mix together peanut butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla and non-dairy milk. Mixture should be smooth and malleable.

3. Preheat oven to 350º. Line a large baking tray with a Silpat mat or parchment paper.

4. Divide doughs into 24 balls each, rolling to making a sphere.

5. Take a chocolate ball and flatten it out to form a circle.

 Place ¼ tsp jelly on the centre of the dough and then top with a peanut butter sphere. Pull the chocolate dough up over the filling and pinch to close.

 You make want to roll (gently!) the ball in your palms to smooth everything out. Repeat with remaining dough and jelly. Bake, 8 cookies at at time (they spread a lot - leave 2" clearance around each) for approximately 10 minutes.

Let cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Pork, Pumpkin & Tomato Laksa

Holy moly - it's been ages since my last recipe post! November has always been my least favourite month for many reasons: Remembrance Day rehearsals (actually, I don't mind that, it's just that they take up a ton of time), report cards, and that weird in-between stretch of blahness that stretches from Thanksgiving (Canadian) through Christmas. There's just nothing to celebrate about November. The leaves have fallen, the sky is dark in the morning when you leave for work AND when you get home, and there's no snow to lighten the whole place up.

Which is what makes warming, vibrant recipes like this one so important. It's easy to subsist on soothing comforting food throughout November - wrapped in a blanket of polenta, smothered with tomato sauce. But, it's important, in my oh-so-humble opinion to mix together the comfort with something zingy and exciting.

Laksa (that's a spicy, coconut based curry soup) is where it's at.

This was one of those meals that started off one way and then ended up very differently. I'd intended to make pork burgers. And then I'd changed that to pork lettuce wraps. But I really, really wanted some noodles (there are rice noodles buried under that soup) and so this recipe ended up being the winner.

It's a variation of a Nigel Slater recipe I've been thinking about making for a couple of years now, but never got around to. Thanks to a pie pumpkin I've had sitting in the corner of my kitchen (bought with grand intentions that have long been forgotten), it was finally possible!


Pork, Pumpkin and Tomato Laksa

(adapted from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries)


Ingredients

½ lb peeled and seeded pumpkin (squash would be equally at home here)
1 lb lean ground pork
4 cloves garlic
3 hot peppers, seeded if you want a milder laksa
1" thumb of ginger, grated
1 bunch cilantro, both leaves and stems washed
5 lime leaves
zest of one lemon
1 tbsp canola oil (approx)
4 tomatoes, cored and cut into hunks (I got 16 from each tomato)
1 14oz can light coconut milk
2 cups chicken stock
juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp fish sauce
4 oz (125 grams) rice vermicelli
small palmful mint leaves, chopped
¼ cup cashews, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Over a pot of boiling water, steam pumpkin for about 12 minutes, or until flesh is almost tender. Set aside

2. While the pumpkin is steaming, place garlic, ginger and peppers into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped, scraping down sides as necessary. Add in half of the cilantro, both leaves and stems, lime leaves and lemon zest. Pulse again, adding a little canola oil to bring mixture together into a paste. Set aside.

3. In a large wok over high heat, cook pork until almost browned, stir in spice paste and stir fry for 1 minute. Add in tomatoes, pumpkin, coconut milk and chicken stock and cook for 7 minutes, or until tomatoes begin to fall apart.

4. While laksa is in the last few minutes of cooking, cook rice vermicelli according to package directions.

5. Add lemon juice and fish sauce to laksa and let cook 2-3 minutes further.

6. To serve, divide rice noodles between bowls. Ladle laksa broth over noodles and top with extra cilantro leaves, mint leaves and chopped cashews. Eat with chopsticks and a spoon!

You know what else depresses me about November? The disappearance of natural light. Bah humbug.