A spot of Jam

Today I bring you, my fresh (frozen) berry spread recipe. 

There are 2 ingredients necessary:

1 cup Frozen raspberries

1/3 cup sugar

Makes approx 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup depending on how much you reduce.

The less you reduce, the saucier the spread. 

Pour the berries and the sugar into a medium sized pot. Heat on low until the juices start appearing from the berries. Turn the heat to medium and boil for 5-8 minutes. Stir and watch the consistency carefully. I cooked mine a tad longer today, so much thicker in its final form. 

Perfect for breakfast pancakes, breads, whatever you like.

Keep in the fridge for 7-10 days if it lasts that long:) 

Give this recipe a go, let me know if you like it.

Enjoy! 

Salsa! Yum Yum Yum

My premise behind salsa is a good flavor yet mild and kid friendly. Add more jalapeño if you like. the original recipe tells you to use much more than I do. About 1/2 cup for this batch size 

So one day you think to yourself, yup I bought tomatoes and yup it would be fun to "try" my hand at making salsa.

So you have no idea how head deep you'll be and well, your being lazy like me and making a half batch. Not because your actually lazy, but because you don't just trust a recipe you've never used before... So you don't want to waste good food. Right? Right! 

So here we go the recipe says take x amount of cups and you think hmm, I have no idea how many tomatoes equals 1 cup of peeled, diced strained tomato 

The actual recipe is found on food.com called wonderful salsa. 

http://www.food.com/recipe/wonderful-salsa-9272

but this is my slightly tweaked version and half batch. Yields approx 7 cups of salsa 

Let's dive in:

4 cups tomato (approx 20 small Roma tomatoes) 

1 1/4 cup diced onion (1 medium onion)

1/2 large bell pepper diced

1 inch off the center of a whole jalapeño finely minced and I removed the seeds. (Less than 1 tbsp)

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp pepper

2 tbsp kosher salt

3 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp white vinegar

1 can tomato paste 5.5 ml 

1 can tomato sauce 7ml (I didn't have tomato sauce so I opened another can of tomato paste used 2 tablespoons of paste and my 5.5 oz can that was empty full of water to make a sauce consistency)

So when you start on the tomatoes you might feel like you are about to lose the rest of your day and if your like me and hand slice because your stubborn you just might:) get a large pot of water boiling, after washing your tomatoes Blanche them for 1 minute in the boiling water, remove them and place into cool water, now you can slice one line down the tomato and remove the skin, get chopping, place into a colander over a bowl and keep going;) 

Once you have prepped all of your ingredients. Pour them into a pot get to a low boil and boil for 10 minutes. Place into sterilized jars and be ready to water bath can for 10 minutes and voila.  

Seriously delectable, I hope you give this a try:) and tell me just how tasty it was. 

Rustic grilled cheese sandwich

When I say rustic, I mean you can style and shape this sandwich in your own way and it's homemade, except perhaps the cheese, but I'm sure I'll make some cheese on a blog post one day. 

Anyways it's fairly simple, you make a loaf of some sweet crispy magic homemade bread. Once the loaf has cooled completely,  preheat your pan.

Cut 2 slices of bread per sandwich.

Slice enough cheese to top one side of a face of bread. Per sandwich, 2-3 slices will usually suffice

Butter the outside faces of bread with butter, lightly toast the insides of the bread on your heated pan. Once slightly hard and crisped flip one onto the buttered side place cheese inside and place the other slice of bread on top.

Heat until you have a nice golden crisp crust, then flip the sandwich and remove from the skillet when browned. Dip with your favorite topping. Mine is super fancy... It's called ketchup.

Enjoy! 

Salt and pepper potatoes:)

These salt and pepper potatoes are for the simplicity of a soft foil baked style potato, that's already bite sized. When you put your fork into them it's like dipping into a mashed potato, when you pull these out of the oven feel free to generously top with cheese, basil, crushed garlic, butter or olive oil:)

The prep is quick. So here we go.

7 yellow flesh potatoes about 2.5lbs

Chopped into wedges

Salt and pepper to taste. I didn't measure but I'm guessing a minimum of 1/4 tsp of each.

2/3 cup water

Place into your 9 by 13 baking dish. Put salt and pepper, then pour in the water.

Cover with foil 

Bake at 400F for 20 mins to get steamy and bake at 350 for 20 mins to complete the cooking process. Garnish with your favorite topping or dip in ketchup:)

enjoy! 

Pizza Rolls.

This is my spin on pizza in a cinnamon shaped bun, 

I'd highly suggest putting cheese inside and outside, but I'm just a bit in love with cheese. 

I made some pizza dough and hand stretched into a large rectangle. You are more than welcome to roll with a rolling pin. Make the dough about as thin as you'd make a homemade pizza dough, I know seriously vague, but I'm not giving a measurement that will be a lie.

I'll just post pictures and say, chop whatever you like into bite sized pieces. You can roll the items with the sauce in the bun or place on top with the cheese. It's not a science, it's a fun food. 

Once you have rolled it together you will take a fresh new piece of dental floss and  wrap around your dough roll and cut. I'd say you'll like the flavor more if you cut shorter than the height of a cinnamon bun but that's just because we are making pizza and you want maximum crispness and flavor with cheese and minimal crust, so do as I say and not as I did, cut them a tad thinner:) 

let them rise for 20 minutes after rolled and then:

Place in the oven at 350F for 15-20 mins until golden on the bottom crisped on the top and baked in the middle. I baked mine for 20 minutes and the bottoms were a little more than golden. 

Give this a try, if you need a pizza dough recipe, check my previous post on pizza. 

Crepes, something to try out!

So this was my first attempt. Let's continue trying out recipes and proving we don't need special machinery. 

This recipe is copied from foodwishes.com. 

http://foodwishes.blogspot.ca/2008/06/how-to-make-crepes-even-messed-up-ones.html?m=1

2 eggs

2 tbsp oil

1 1/4 cup milk

1 cup flour

Pinch of salt

(Should make 10 crepes) 

Mix until there are no lumps or very minimal. I mixed with a whisk for about 4 minutes. I had doubled the batch as shown above. Place the mixture into the fridge for one hour. If the mixture seems a little thick, add a bit more milk. 

After the hour, get your frying pan ready and lightly oiled, take 1/4 cup measuring scoop. Lift the pan off the heat with one hand and pour the batter into the pan that has been preheated on medium heat (5).

As you are pouring rotate the pan in a circular motion and get as flat and evenly placed as you can. Then place back on the heat it takes about 45 -60 seconds and then flip, get very lightly browned and keep making more. 

Top with whatever you like. Cream, berries, jam, syrup, wrap them, roll them and enjoy:) 

If you look at the batter on the pan, some is changing color from the heat, once it is all the same yellow-y color you are allowed to flip, but you can also cook a bit longer.

Evenly colored

Flipped 

Oodles of crepes. 

Pizza! my take on it :)

So, I've been making pizza for a few years and I saw it made in my childhood. I'm certain as a child I wondered how this was better than store bought, but now as an adult i feel store bought, is a different thing over all. 

My pizzas are generally very basic toppings. Ranging from zucchini, bell peppers, olives, onions, chicken,or a pepperoni type meat. There are a few  ingredients in my pizza making that I will say are necessary, aside from what you need to make the dough and these three things are game changers. Finely chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Yup that's it. So let's get started.

Take a large mixing bowl 

3 cups of warm water, (not hot) 

2 tsp yeast 

1/4 cup oil

2 tbsp sugar

5 cups of flour, (follow the additions in the recipe method, caution don't pour all in at once) 

1/2 tsp salt,

Put all ingredients excluding flour and salt into the mixing bowl.

then:

Start by putting 2 cups of flour and the salt into your bowl and mix. Pour and mix the next 2 cups of flour. At this point you have a slightly firmer dough, not stiff, and not a batter. Knead in 1 cup of flour or extra if necessary.  Once kneaded. Let it sit in a lightly oiled bowl for 20 mins. Take out and separate into 2 dough balls, press onto well greased pizza pans. The next process should hopefully take you 20 mins of prep work so when you are done you can toss it in the oven. 

Preheat your oven to 350F 

Now take sauce and cover the top of your pizzas

Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic and spread evenly. 

Take any toppings you like, chop into preferred bite size pieces and place.

Grate cheese at least 1/2 cup per pizza if possible

Sprinkle with salt and pepper

Place in the oven on 2 trays and rotate in the middle of cooking. 10 mins and switch then 10 mins.

Bake at 350F for 20 mins. 

Pull out let cool for 5 mins or until you can safely cut and serve.

Enjoy:)