Frozen Treat of the Moment

I came across these while grocery-shopping at a different store than the one in our neighbourhood. These are really great! They’re miniature “ice cream” sandwiches, but made with coconut milk instead of dairy. I had the Banana Split Flavour, which was really Neapolitan, but with banana instead of vanilla. The small size is great for portion control, and the texture is just perfect. You do have to like bananas, though, because the smell permeates the whole thing. I think the few bites of strawberry were my favourite. I really hope more stores start carrying this product! It’s a great organic dairy-free alternative to ice cream sandwiches. (Chapman’s make a great lactose-free vanilla ice cream sandwich, too, but again, I’ve only seen them at the OTHER grocery store: the Provigo on Avenue du Parc.)

Low-Cal Chocolate Cookies

I found a recipe for a low-calorie chocolate cookie – originally, it was meant as a Valentine’s treat, but really, you can use whatever cookie cutter shape you want and make them for any (or no) special occasion. I thought they were really good, but the problem is all the leftover dough: it has to be thawed, rolled out and frozen before it can be cut out into shapes, which seems like a lot of trouble, so I ended up baking some pretty shapes along with pieces of the leftover dough. It all tasted good! I didn’t get anywhere near the 40 cookies mentioned in the recipe, though, but it all fits on two baking sheets.

1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
4 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
4 Tbsp unsalted butter or margarine, cut into pieces
½ cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg

In a bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.



In another bowl set over (not in) a saucepan of simmering water, place chocolate, butter, and brown sugar; stir frequently until almost completely melted. Remove from heat, and stir until completely melted; let cool slightly.




Add egg to chocolate mixture. Beat until well blended.



Gradually stir in flour mixture (dough will form a ball).



Divide dough in half; roll out each half on a sheet of parchment paper to a ¼-inch thickness. Transfer each half (still on paper) to a baking sheet; freeze until firm, about 20 minutes.



Preheat oven to 350 °F. Using a 2-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter (or the cutter of your choice), cut out cookies; place, ½ inch apart, on two baking sheets.





Bake until firm and fragrant, about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool.

Biscuit du moment

J’ai récemment essayé et adoré les biscuits Style de Vie Bleuets-Cassonade et Lin de Peek Freans. (Le lien est en anglais, parce que le site web de Kraft est étonnement mal conçu et que la seule page en français que j’ai trouvée était la liste des ingrédients.) Ils sont vraiment délicieux, faits avec de vrais bleuets (qui laissent de vraies graines de bleuets entre les dents), pas trop sucrés, plus santé que bien des biscuits commerciaux et vraiment très, très bons. Même l’Ingénieur, qui n’aime pas trop les bleuets habituellement, les a adorés. Je recommande fortement!

Jamaican Pumpkin Soup with Coconut Milk

I saw this recipe on Gluten-Free Girl last fall; it’s adapted from Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea. I bookmarked it because it looked really good. Then, a few months ago, we had dinner at Anancy, a Jamaican restaurant that served us a delicious pumpkin soup with coconut milk – so at that point, I was even more eager to try that recipe I had bookmarked! I did finally get a hand mixer, and I just love it. Since I don’t have a slow cooker, though, I adapted the recipe by using a Dutch oven in a 250 °F oven.



In this case, I think that was a bit excessive – 8 hours of cooking, really? The soup tasted a little overdone. Of course, that probably works great for those who make the soup and let it cook in a slow cooker while they’re away all day, but when using a regular oven, it’s probably a little too much. I’m not sure how many hours the soup really needs to cook in order to be puréed easily, but without a slow cooker, feel free to experiment a bit (and let me know what happens!).

I didn’t have a 15-oz can of pumpkin purée (cans are always bigger in Canada), but I still used a full can, so I increased the amount of coconut milk at the end too – again, a full can. And added salt. It wasn’t quite as good as Anancy’s soup, but it was delicious nonetheless, and I’m looking forward to making it again.

a 15-ounce can of puréed pumpkin (or a bigger can)
1 red onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 yams, peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground turmeric
¼ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp sugar
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
5 oz coconut milk (or more, depending on your taste)




Put the pumpkin, all the vegetables, the salt, spices, and sugar into the slow cooker. Pour in the liquid and stir it all up. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.





Use an immersion blender to puree the soup, either ¾ puréed, with some chunkiness inside, or all the way blended. Season with more salt, nutmeg, and whatever else your tastes dictate.

Montreal Bagels: Saint-Viateur vs. Fairmount

I decided that before I left Montreal, I had to make up my mind as to which institutional bagels I prefer: Saint-Viateur’s bagels or Fairmount’s bagels. So the Engineer and I had a taste test: four bagels from each place, eaten side-by-side, to see which we preferred. And it was much harder than I had thought! At Saint-Viateur, we got one poppy seed, one sesame seed, one plain and one cinnamon-raisin. At Fairmount, it was one poppy seed, one sesame seed, one garlic and one chocolate.

From what we could observe, the preparation methods of both places seem to be the same: the dough is boiled first, then baked. Fairmount, though, is somewhat more of an institution (1919 vs. 1957), AND they have the first bagel in space! (On Mission STS-124.)




For the sesame seed bagels: the first one is from Saint-Viateur, and the second one is from Fairmount. I had a slight preference for the Saint-Viateur one, which I felt had a better texture: chewy inside and crispy outside. The Engineer said the exact same thing about the Fairmount one, though. And the more we tasted, the less sure we were that there existed a significant difference.



For the poppy seed bagels: the one on the left is from Saint-Viateur and the one on the right is from Fairmount. In this case, I felt that the Fairmount one was a little tastier, because it had more spices (caraway, I think), whereas the Saint-Viateur one was blander. The Engineer felt the same.

As for the other ones: I was a bit disappointed by the chocolate from Fairmount, because it was really some chocolate chips scattered in the batter, not pure chocolate – but it was good for what it was. The Engineer loved the garlic bagel, but it was a little too much for me. I felt the same about the cinnamon-raisin, which is more his taste than mine. And the plain one was...plain, but leaps and bounds better than grocery-store bagels.



In conclusion, I have a slight preference for Fairmount (both because of the bagels themselves, but also because they offer over 20 flavours). Also, Saint-Viateur’s mascot is a little scary. That being said, we’re not exclusive clients of either place and are not part of either of the two camps of Montreal’s “bagel snobs”.

Mujadara

Another great find on Orangette. Mujadara (there are various spellings) is a Middle-Eastern dish made with rice, lentils and onions. It’s really simple and uses things one normally has on hand in the pantry. The longest part is caramelizing the onions (I should have been a bit more patient with mine, it’s a problem I often have in the kitchen), but it’s really worth it, and theirs will be the main taste of the dish. Mujadara is delicious hot, and I also loved leftovers cold for lunch, served with a salad, bread and cheese. So even though it’s great for a winter meal, it’s fine for a nice summer lunch too. I hope you try it!

¼ cup olive oil
2 medium yellow onions (about 1 ½ lb), finely chopped
1 cup brown or green lentils, picked over for stones and other debris
½ cup basmati rice
water
1 tsp salt, plus more for serving

In a large (12-inch) sauté pan or a Dutch oven, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are deeply caramelized, a rich shade of amber. If they’re burnt and blackened in spots, even better. This is a fairly slow process. Depending on your pan and your stove, this could take between 30 minutes and 1 hour in total.



While the onions are cooking, place the lentils in a medium saucepan, add water to cover by an inch, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook, undisturbed, for 20 minutes. Drain and rinse the lentils, and set them aside.

When the onions are ready, stir in the rice. Then add the cooked lentils, along with 2 cups of water and the salt. Stir to mix well, and bring the pan to a boil. Reduce the heat to keep the pan at a slow simmer, cover, and cook. Depending on the size and shape of your pan, this last stage – cooking the onions, rice, and lentils together – could take from 20 to 40 minutes. Basically, the dish is done when the rice is done.

After about 20 minutes, remove the lid, and give the pot a gentle stir. If there is still some liquid visible, replace the lid and keep cooking until it is fully absorbed. On the other hand, if there is no obvious liquid, take a taste. If the rice is tender, the mujadara is ready. If the rice is not yet ready, add another splash of water, replace the lid, and cook until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked. The mujadara is ready to eat when the rice is tender and there is no liquid left in the pan.

Marathon Cookies

I made these cookies recently and absolutely loved them. They were moist and delicious. I believe the name comes from the fact that they are very nourishing and would be just the thing to eat after a marathon – and totally healthy to boot. I have to say, though, that the amount of sesame seeds called for was inadequate for me (maybe my cookies were stickier than they should have been, or maybe I made too many – I had about two dozen – but there you have it). I made some with the white sesame seeds called for, some with black sesame seeds, and some without seeds. I preferred the crispy outer texture and taste with the sesame seeds, and the white ones looked better than the black. So be prepared to buy some sesame seeds in bulk for this! I changed the required 1/3 cup to 1 full cup, tentatively.




I didn’t have whole wheat pastry flour and suspected that plain whole wheat would be too heavy, so I used the Robin Hood Nutri flour I always keep on hand (a blend of unbleached flour and wheat bran that tastes like white flour but provides the same amount of fibre as whole wheat flour). For the beans, I made some calculations and ended up using a weight of about 13 oz (out of a 19-fluid-oz can). I’m pretty sure you can fudge that amount, though. And for the sugar, I had some demerara-style brown sugar that worked out perfectly.

2 cups rolled oats (not instant oats)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tbsp aniseed, crushed in mortar and pestle (or spice grinder)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
zest of one lemon, finely grated
½ tsp fine grain sea salt
one 15-oz can white kidney, great northern, or navy beans, rinsed & drained
¼ cup olive oil
1 cup natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chopped dates
1 cup white sesame seeds

Preheat your oven to 350 °F and place a rack in the top third. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Pulse the oats in a food processor until they resemble flour. Transfer the oats to a large mixing bowl and whisk in the flour, aniseed, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest and salt.



Pulse the beans and olive oil in the food processor until they are creamy.



Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla extract and pulse until smooth. Scrap down the sides of the bowl once or twice along the way.



Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir until the ingredients start to come together. Sprinkle the dates across the top of the batter and stir until everything just comes together.





Place the sesame seeds in a bowl. Make each cookie with about 3-4 Tbsp of dough. Roll each scoop of dough into a ball, then coat it with sesame seeds (mine were too sticky to be made into real balls, but they smoothed out during baking). Set each ball on the prepared baking sheet and, with the palm of your hand, flatten the dough just a bit. Repeat with the remaining dough, leaving at least an inch or so between each cookie - they'll spread a bit, but not much.






Bake for about 15 minutes or until the sesame seeds around the bottom start to get golden.