Versatile icing

This is a really simple icing that won’t compare to the beautiful cakes here, but I like that it does on anything, and a little bit of food coloring it can be any color that you want. It’s a simple way to make cookies look a little bit brighter. It works really well with sugar cookies. It really works well if, like me, your baking skills are less than stellar and you accidentally burn cookies, it works well as a cover up. Or, if you have better cooking skills than mine you can use it to design your cookies to make them more festive.

No cook icing

1 cup white sugar

1 unbeaten egg white

1 tsp vanilla

¼ tsp cream of tartar

½ cup boiling water

Mix all of these ingredients together, and add any food coloring you want. For me the food coloring is essential, the plain white icing can be a little bit much, so even adding a couple drops of red really helps. I recently used this icing on some cookies that I made for a baby shower and I did add red to half the mix and blue to the other half, with just a couple drops the icing turned a nice shade of baby blue, while the red made a nice shade of pink.

Supper in a Rush

This chicken recipe is easy to whip up if you’ve got something else to do. It does take an hour to cook, but prep time is only a few minutes. As long as you have the ingredients at home this makes a great meal on week days that can be hectic with homework. As long as you stay relatively close to the kitchen, you can multitask while making dinner! If you feel like changing it up, feel free to substitute. Just make sure to adjust the cooking time accordingly.

Chicken “hurry”

1 pkg onion soup mix

½ cup ketchup

¼ brown sugar

¼ cup water

cut up chicken

Mix together and spoon over chicken. Bake 1 hour uncovered at 350° F.

I love this chicken on days when I’ve got a million thing to do and just want something than can basically make itself, and it tastes pretty good too! Let me know what you think!

The best chicken wings you will ever taste!

This recipe for wings is famous in my family. It’s sure to make you want to stay home to watch the game. Wings make a great finger snack, as long as you have a napkin near by. These wings need a lot of attending to, and if you’re someone like me you should probably have a chaperone, I’ve burned myself more than once while flipping these wings over. I must say that it worth it though, they really are delicious! So, I’m eating these wings, managing to get my keyboard sticking and soaking my burn hand. Now that’s what I call multitasking! Don’t take my example, be careful flipping these wings, and get ready for a treat!

Chicken Wings:

3 lb chicken wings

1 cup soy sauce

½ cup water

½ cup sugar

¼ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp salt

cut tips from wings and discard. Divide winds at joint into 2 pieces. Place in a large baking pan.

Mix next 6 ingredients well. Pour over chicken. Bake uncovered for two hours at 350° F. Turn Chicken every 15 min.

This chicken is pretty labor intensive, so you can’t stray far from the oven. The sauce will start very water, but as the wings cook it will thicken up and stick to the wings. Things wings aren’t spicy at all, and unfortunately the flavor doesn’t go well with hot sauce, but they are great for people who like a milder flavor. Enjoy!

Canning Bonanza

This post is inspired by my grandmother; who just sent some pickles and jams for my family and I to enjoy! I’ll admit, because of my Grandmother I’ve been pretty spoiled with great Jam. It sounds lame, but I’ve never had to buy a jar of jam, or pickles!

I love homemade jams, they go well with anything, and they make a great housewarming gift. If you make the jam yourself, you can pick up jars that have fun designs and are a little bit fancier than ordinary jars you would put jam in for your own home.

I recently tried making some jams of my own, but the didn’t turn out the greatest. (Hence, the arrival of jams from grandma’s). One frantic phone call with Grandma later, I’m assured that there is an instinct component in making jam; one that I’ve been assured will come with time. That being said, I’m not looking forward to how many trial errors I’ll have to go through before I work it out.

Pickles, especially homemade pickles are my absolute favorite thing. Dill pickles can be time consuming, but well worth it if you ask me. What do you think, are pickles a food or just a condiment? That’s a debate that my bothers and I have been having for years.

Here the recipe that are my favorite. Try them out yourself!

Dill Pickles

1 qrt vinegar

2 qrt water

¼ to ½ cup pickling salt

2 cups sugar

1 clove garlic

Dill

Raspberry Jam

4 cups cleaned but not washed raspberries

4 cups boiling water

4 cups sugar

Juice of ½ a lemon

Pour boiling water over raspberries in colander and drain well. Put berries in a pot and add 2 cups and sugar. Bring to a rolling boil for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add the other 2 cups of sugar and the lemon juice. Ring to a full boil for another two minutes. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

This Jam has a reputation as being an easier one to make, and I’ve heard it sets well. In my own attempt it didn’t go so well, but I wish you the best of luck!

You’ll have to eatmore!

This recipe comes with a warning; you may need someone to help you stir it. The bars become very thick and hard to stir in the bowl, and even harder to put in the pan. The final result is well worth it though. You’re bars will be homemade but just as good as any store bought chocolate bar!

Are there any recipes you use that are homemade versions of chocolate bars? I love making things at home as an alternative to buying something. These bars are great for lunches just for a quick snack; but are careful! Make sure you don’t over indulge, these bars aren’t the best calorie wise option, so maybe share with the guy you got to help with the stirring?

Eatmore Bars

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup corn syrup

1 cup rolled oats

2 cups crushed peanuts

½ butter

(If you want some variety the crushed peanuts can be switched for sun flower seeds, or used as a combination)

Melt together chocolate chips, syrup and butter. Add rolled oats and crushed peanuts (and/ or sunflower seeds). Spread on greased cookie sheet and refrigerate. Cut and Enjoy!

Maybe my favorite part of this recipe is that you don’t have to bake anything at all. I’m a klutz; the oven and I don’t always get along, so as long as I have someone to help me stir I can enjoy Eatmore bars without ever using the oven!

Snow days!

It must be Christmas because the weather is awful. But why brave the storm if you don’t have to? Staying inside can be great too, and you might as well get a start on that Christmas baking, it is December after all.

Every family has their own favorite Christmas traditions, and baking. Cookies and special kinds of cake always come out during the holidays in my house. My Mom and I have been baking like mad to get ready for our big family Christmas. The holidays are a great time to enjoy family time and great food, no matter what you’re celebrating. It’s nice to take some time from the frantic shopping and crazy malls and just enjoy time at home. For my mom and I there’s nothing like spending time baking and belting out the carols (even if they are very off tune). What’s your favorite Holiday tradition? Or, Even better yet, what’s your favorite wintertime recipe? What’s better, spending warm cozy time inside, or do you prefer to go play in the snow?

Hands down the best part of my holidays are always these chocolate raspberry squares, they’re like brownies but with a fruity twist, why don’t you try them out these holidays?

1 ¾ cups flour

1 cup margarine

1 cup white sugar

1 beaten egg

1 cup raspberry jam

1 cup chocolate chips

¾ sliced almonds

Heat oven to 350 ° F. Grease 9 by 13 inch pan. Combine flour and sugar. Add margarine and mix until crumbly. Add egg and mix well. Set aside 1 cup of mixture and press remaining into pan. Top with raspberry jam. Then mix the 1 cup of remaining mixture with almonds and chocolate chips. Sprinkle over jam. Bake for 40 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Soup, Glorious Soup

So I've been on a real soup kick lately with the weather being cold and all, and been the adventurous type i decided to make some from scratch. It seems super intimidating to me to make ANYTHING from scratch, but it turns out soup is super easy to make. You basically boil, bake, or roast the hell out of something, throw it in a blender and then mix it with some stock and spices. Delicious every time, low sodium (unlike the can stuff), and super health. I've tried it with squash, roasted red peppers, and cauliflower. All the recipes online are pretty easy to follow, and all of them are practically the same, but i do have a couple secret ingredients that i like to throw in.

Secret ingredient number one: Beer.It seriously can go in anything!
Secret ingredient number two: Curry. I've only tried it in my squash soup, but it was amazing! just be careful, you don't need a lot. You just want a hint of it. It compliments the sweetness of the squash perfectly.
Secret ingredient number three: nutmeg. If you can get fresh stuff it's amazing.

MIX UP!

Donuts = Good

Bacon = Super Good

Beer = Super Good

Donuts + Bacon + Beer = Good ???

So Rogue has come out with a new beer to test the above theory. It's called Bacon Maple Ale and it's based of the popular Voodoo Doughnut flavor. I don't know what to think of this, but i do know that i want to try it. It's getting good reviews online, but i'm not sure what to expect. Meat flavoured infused beer doesn't really sound like the best idea on paper, but some of the greatest food combination come from unlikely pairs. I'm mean when the first person combined peanut butter and chocolate, people must have thought he was crazy. Apparently bacon chocolate is a big craze right now too, so maybe it can't be all bad. If this beer is good then I think that makes bacon a miracle food. It seems to go well with everything!

Wild Beer Flavors

I like to consider myself a bit of a beer snob. Whenever there's a new beer in the store, I immediately want to try it. If you're looking for something a bit out of the ordinary, here the list for you.

Top 3 weirdest beers I've ever had.

No. 1: Rogue Chipotle Ale
So I've never had anything Chipotle before, so this beer really hit me over the head. The aroma was amazing. I cracked this one and was instantly bombarded by a mix of smokiness and peppers. The smell is coupled with a very strong taste (a mix of hops and roasted peppers) but lacked the spiciness I'd been expecting. Honestly it really wasn't for me. I guess I'm just not a fan of Chipotle, because i couldn't wrap my head around the taste.

No. 2: Palo Santo Marron (Dogfish Head)
This is one of my all time favorite beers. It's full of complex flavors and had the body to back them up. The Guys at the Dogfish head brewery really went all out for this one. They crafted special wooden brewing vessels out of Paraguayan Palo Santo wood, which lend a earthiness to the vanilla and caramel notes already in the brew. If you ever get the chance to try this one don't pass it up. Dogfish stopped exporting beer into Canada so they're hard to find, but every once in a while you'll find an old batch on a shelf in a no name liquor store. The one i had was a year old. And because of it's high alcohol content (12.0 abv yikes!) it could easily age a couple more.


No. 3: Lemon Tea Beer (Mill St. Brewery)
This is one you can actually find pretty easily around Calgary, I've even been able to get it some bars and pubs. It's not really my type of beer. I'm into dark, extremely hopy, or rich beers and this is the exact opposite, but i love it. It taste like lemon tea! i don't know how they did it but they got it spot on. It's subtle, light, and perfect on a hot summer day.

Tofu Patties

Being a vegetarian if I wanted to eat a burger I would use store bought patties that are frozen. They were very bland and I just didn’t like the look of them. Then my mom found a recipe to make tofu veggie patties. Usually we would pan fry the veggie patties but then I found a great recipe that bakes the patties instead of frying them. This makes them so much healthier.

I got the recipe from here. It gives you all the ingredients and steps to cooking it. I did change a couple of things in it though. I left out the celery and garlic and replaced it with green peas. Also, I used chick pea flour instead of regular flour. It gives a completely different taste to the patties. I kept everything else the same and the patties turned out to be very delicious. And the author was right you don`t need a bun. I ate them with ketchup. Yum!

You can also just make them an freeze for a couple of weeks or just put them in your refrigerator if you`re going to eat them with the next couple of days. Mine didn't look exactly like the ones in the picture but I think I just need to practice a bit more.

What makes bread rise?

Have you ever thought about what makes bread so soft and fluffy? I have and decided to find out. As we all know it is the yeast doing all of this. Yeast is a single cell organism that can multiply very fast. When added to warm water the dry yeast comes to life and starts to multiply. Then when sugar is added it starts to consume the sugar as food and multiply even faster.

When baking we add the flour, sugar, yeast and water. After combining all these ingredients the dough is allowed to sit for a while before going into the oven. At this point the yeast are multiplying super-fast and as they eat they release gas. It is this gas that makes the bread rise. Since the yeast can only survive in warm temperatures the dough is not refrigerated or put into the oven right away. When it does go into the oven, it continues to release as until it dies from the high temperature. That’s why, if you’ve ever watched anything bake in the oven, you’ll notice that the bread rises at first but then it deflates slightly and stays the same.

This process also seems to work for frozen bread dough. When you leave it out at room temperature for a few hours it will grow to double or triple its size. This is when the yeast comes to life and start to release their gases. This might seem disgusting but the end result, the baked goodies, are hard to resist.

the Old Spaghetti Factory

Veggie Lasagna

One of my favorite restaurants is the Old Spaghetti Factory. Whenever my family and I go to Banff we always go to this restaurant. I am posting a link in case you ever want to go there. I usually go to the location in Banff but there is also one in Calgary http://www.osf.com/. The dish that keeps me coming back for more, is their Vegetarian Lasagna. I love it! I tried to make a knock off version, and it turned out great. I still enjoy having someone else make it for me, but it is cheaper to make it in larger amounts at home. My sister loves when we make this recipe, and it is even better the next day for lunch.

I usually make two dishes of lasagna and freeze one.

Vegetarian Lasagna

· 2 cups fresh whole leaf spinach

· 2 cups shredded carrots

· 1 package crumbled tofu

· 1 bottle spaghetti sauce (whatever you prefer)

· 1 250gram container of ricotta

· 1 teaspoon salt

· 1 teaspoon pepper

· 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

· 1 box whole wheat noodles

Preheat oven to 380. In a large pot, bring water to a boil and add noodles. Cook until chewy. In a baking dish, layer tomato sauce and noodles. Sprinkle a little shredded cheese after making each layer. In the centre add a layer of ricotta. The next layer is the shredded carrot and spinach (lay the spinach leaves flat). This is the secret to a copycat recipe from the Old Spaghetti Factory. Bake for 40 minutes and broil to brown the cheese for 10 minutes. Let the lasagna sit for 20 minutes before eating. This will help the juices set. You can make this recipe yourself or follow my link to the address and enjoy a night out. Cheers!

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

Used by almost all, genetically modified foods are involving the alteration of the DNA of that food. Most of us have head of the genetically modified tomato with the fish gene inserted into it. I used to think that was pretty disgusting being a vegetarian. Then I found out this just meant that a small part of the tomato DNA was switched with that of a fish that lived in cold water. Originally this was done to protect tomatoes from frost bite before harvest time. Because of frost bite farmers lose their earning and the decrease in supply of tomatoes leads to higher prices.

With the ever growing human population there is a limited amount of farm land to provide food for all. GMOs help plants to increase nutritional value, resist diseases and rapid weather changes. This reduces the amount of pesticides used and the leaking of the pesticides into our water supply. It also slows down the fast rising food prices. So, GMOs are not as bad as we might think. There just another scientific advancement meant to make our lives easier. This is my perspective on the subject, if anyone else knows anything else feel free to share.