Margarine or Butter

The debate over which is better for our health, margarine or butter, has been going on for years. Well I decided to look into and find out what the big deal is. Margarine is made from plant based oils like soya, canola and olive oil. Since the oils are in a liquid form, they are infused with a molecule of hydrogen so it would stay solid at room temperature and will only meld when it warmed. Because this hydrogen is added it increases the amount of trans fats in the margarine (taking in too much trans fats leads to increased risk of heart disease) and this has been one of the biggest reasons medical professional don’t like it. But now many manufacturers of margarine have changed the formulation to reduce the trans fats.

Another thing that kept on appearing when I was looking over the internet was that margarine had only 1 molecule difference from margarine. For people who didn’t like chemistry, just because there is one molecule difference between the two doesn’t make margarine plastic. It is how these different molecules are constructed that makes it into plastic or margarine. The biggest reason people prefer to use margarine is because it is low in calories, saturated and trans fats compared to butter.

Butter is made from milk. It is high in calories and saturated fats but no trans fats because its naturally semi solid at room temperature there is no need to add hydrogen to it. Over the past few years more companies are coming out with reduced calories and fats in butter. So if you have more of a choice. In the end it is up to you what you preferred and chose to consume. But as it applies to all things good and bad, everything must be done in moderation. I found this website that shows the history of margarine if anyone’s interested.

Gluten Free Fruit Crisp!

Since my sister was over for Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to make a gluten free fruit crisp so she can delve into the deliciousness of dessert as well. It is really not that hard to make, especially if you find that one right ingredient.

For the fruit base the recipe is as follows:

3 cups peeled and sliced Granny Smith apples

1 1/2 cups of sliced strawberries

1 1/2 cups of sliced rhubarb

1/2 cup of brown sugar

2 tbs of orange juice

1 1/2 tbs of cornstarch

throw all of this into a bowl and then into a sprayed baking dish ( 11 * 8 inch ). Once this is done then you can move straight to the crumble.

The crumble base recipe is as follows:

3/4 cup of gluten free rolled oats*

1/4 cup of white rice flour or brown rice flour

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

3 tbs of butter or margarine

*you can get these at Community Health Foods in downtown Calgary. I know as weird as it sounds, gluten free oats, it basically means that they have not come in contact with other gluteness rolled oats in the process. It is also said that it is only really safe if the said person with celiac only have a max of 3/4 cup of these oats per day (which I just barely made). More information on this, you can visit this website: celiac disease

Fruit is ready to go!

All baked and ready to be eaten!

Served up and topped off with a canelle of coconut icecream :)

It was tasty as I have always like this recipe, but it was the first time I made it gluten free. I myself used white rice flour and found it to be a bit gritty as that is what white rice flour tends to have a texture of. I asked the rest of my family and they all loved it. My sister especially which was nice :)

Sweet Dreams

Intro

Hello to anyone reading this post. My name is Raman and this is my very first time blogging. Like all of us who decided to join this “food group,” I love food. It is one of the best things out there. It is pretty easy to take interest in food since we literally cannot live without it.

As my name suggests I am from Punjabi decent and if you were to speak to any Punjabi you’d know how big a role food has in our lives. But that’s not always a good thing. As delicious our food usually is, most sweets and appetizers are deep fried and the preparation and cooking time can be very long depending on how much experience you have with cooking. I guess that’s what makes them so good.

This is something my mom made over the weekend. The main ingredients are chick peas, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and various spices. If anyone’s interested in trying this out, let me know I can get you the recipe.

Tuesday Night Dinner!

I usually cook my roommate dinner every Tuesday so I decided to post about it this time! I started off by melting some butter, adding lemon juice, pepper and then dipping salmon into it. I then wrapped the salmon in tin foil and put it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. I then took the salmon out, put a lot of parmesan cheese on it and then put it back in the oven for 5 minutes.

While that was baking, I steamed some carrots and made a honey garlic sauce to put on them. I put butter, honey, fresh garlic and brown sugar in a pot. I put the pot on an element on low temperature and continued to stir it every once in a while. I then added the carrots to the sauce once it was the consistency of caramel.

I then took some regular frozen perogies and fried them in some butter. I fried them at low temperature until they were golden and then flipped them and fried them until they were golden on the other side. I then took a lot bunch of parmesan and sprinkled it on them. In case you were wondering, my roommate really likes parmesan!

That is all I did! This was just my second time ever cooking fish, so I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I prefer baking to cooking so it is always a challenge for me to cook a nice meal. What did everyone else have for dinner last night? And does anyone have a certain way they like to cook salmon? Thanks!

Happy cooking!

Pumpkin Pie!

So I worked all this weekend and it was very busy. The pies I pumped out was absolutely crazy, but I guess that's a good thing. While I was at work though, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and made a pumpkin pie for my own Thanksgiving dinner. I brought in my fancy red Emily Henry Pie plate I recieved for Christmas last year and got myself pumped up for a long day of baking. First things first though, I had to make some pie dough. the recipe is as follows:

-1/2lb butter

-375g pastry flour

-125ml ice cold water

-5g salt

-15g brown sugar

mix butter and flour until it resembles coarse crumbs. Dissolve the salt and sugar in the water and add it to the flour mixture. Wrap and put it into the fridge to rest. remember, you might have to add more water but only a little bit at a time.

For Pie Filling, I have always loved the "Joy of Baking" website. There recipes haven't failed me yet.

The Pumpkin Pie filling recipe I used can be found here: pumpkin pie filling

I put the filling in a unbaked pie shell and into the oven for about 45 min. Until the crust was golden brown and the filling was set.

My pie felt uncertain of what was to come for him...

It was absolutely delicious! The only thing, and I always seem to have this problem, is that the bottom the pie crust was a little under baked. As you can see the filling did crack but the shell was still under baked. That is one of the things that bothers me is never knowing if the bottom of the pie shell is fully baked. Does anyone have any ideas as to prevent a soggy or underbaked shell?

Happy Gobble Gobble Day and Sweet Dreams!

Tyla