February 12th: Sweet & Spicy Faux-Fried Chicken, Sesame Carrot Coins, Oven-Roasted Tomatoes

I was really looking forward to this recipe, and it lived up to my expectations! From February 2014's Chatelaine: Sweet & Spicy Faux-Fried Chicken. In the magazine, they pair the recipe with waffles, but we don't have a waffle maker, and I forgot to buy vegetables for the side, so I worked with what I had in the house, and re-made last week's Sesame Carrot Coins as well as one of my go-to recipes from Canadian Living, Oven-Roasted Grape Tomatoes. I usually make the tomatoes to accompany steak, but they went well with this chicken. The whole meal had some spice to it, and Sadie ate it up. I think I have finally figured out the trick with this kid: she likes spicy food! Whoever would have guessed? Too bad Olivia doesn't, or we would be set. Ah well. Kids must keep me on my toes. To the recipes!

Sweet & Spicy Faux-Fried Chicken

2 cups cornflakes
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp honey, divided
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about 500 g)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp water
1/8 tsp cayenne


Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with foil.

Crush cornflakes with your hands in a medium bowl until finely crumbled. Stir in Italian seasoning. Whisk egg yolk with 1 tbsp honey and Dijon in another medium bowl.

Cut each chicken breast in half crosswise and pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle with salt. Coat each piece with egg mixture, then press into cornflake mixture to completely cover. Lay chicken on prepared sheet.

Bake in centre of oven until golden-brown, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine water with cayenne in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in remaining 2 tbsp honey. Drizzle cooked chicken with cayenne honey.

Makes 4 servings.

Sesame Carrot Coins

Stir 1 tbsp each rice vinegar and tamari (or soy sauce) with 1 tsp each brown sugar and sriracha sauce in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Heat a medium non-stick frying pan over medium. Add 1 tbsp canola oil, then 6 thinly sliced carrots along with sauce mixture. Cook carrots until tender-crisp, about 5 min. Drizzle with 2 tsp dark sesame oil and stir in 4 sliced green onions.

Makes 4 servings.

Oven-Roasted Grape Tomatoes

4 cups (1 L) grape tomatoes (or halved cherry tomatoes)
2 tbsp (30 mL) olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 tsp (2 mL) dried oregano
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
1 pinch hot pepper flakes (optional)

In 13- x 9-inch (3 L) glass baking dish, toss together tomatoes, oil, garlic, oregano, salt, and hot pepper flakes (if using).

Roast in 400°F (200°C) oven, stirring occasionally, until shrivelled, about 25 minutes.

Makes 4 servings.

February 5th: Granola Bars and Chili-Garlic Chicken with Sesame Carrot Coins

I have been trying maaaaany homemade granola bar recipes this year, trying to find something that is healthy enough to put in Olivia's lunch and tasty enough that she will eat one every day until the whole batch is gone. I have not had much luck. The healthy ones she tires of quickly, the tasty ones are sugar-laden. The latest one I tried, she says she's not crazy about, but so far, they're being eaten, and I think they taste pretty good. I made them awhile back, but was waiting to see her reaction over an extended period of time before blogging about it. It's a good recipe in part because you can alter the ingredients to suit yourself quite easily. Altered slightly, original from smitten kitchen:

Thick, Chewy Granola Bars


1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups dried fruits and nuts, your choice*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons melted butter (I used 7!) or oil of choice
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water
1/3 cup peanut butter or another nut butter* (I used soy butter, notes below)


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8″ x 8″ x 2″ pan in one direction with parchment paper, allowing it to go up the opposing sides. Lightly grease the exposed pan.


Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the fruit and nuts. In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, melted butter or oil, liquid sweeteners and water. Toss the wet ingredients with the dry and the nut butter until the mixture is evenly crumbly. Spread in the prepared pan, pressing them in firmly to ensure they are molded to the shape of the pan.


Bake the bars for 30 to 40 minutes, until they’re brown around the edges — don’t be afraid to get a little colour on the tops too. They’ll still seem soft and almost underbaked when you press into the center of the pan but do not worry, they’ll set completely once completely cool.


Cool the bars in their pan completely on a cooling rack. (Alternately, after about 20 minutes you can use your parchment “sling” to lift and remove the bars, and place them in their paper on the rack to cool the rest of the way. This can speed the process up.)


Once cool, cut the bars into squares. If bars seem crumbly, chill the pan in the fridge for 30 minutes, then cut them cold. To store, wrap the bars individually in plastic or stack them in an airtight container. They also freeze well.


*Suggestions: Dried cranberries, apricots, pecans, sunflower seeds, coconut, walnuts, sesame seeds, pepitas, dried apples or chocolate chips. My mix: pepitas, unsweetened coconut, rice krispies, chocolate chips, raisins, dried cranberries.

Obviously, since I was making these for school, I had to avoid nuts of all kinds. I opted to buy "Wow" Butter, which is soy butter proclaiming to look, smell and taste like peanut butter.

LIES! All lies! Look, yes; smell, almost; taste; NOTHING LIKE PEANUT BUTTER! If someone spread that on a piece of toast for me to eat, I would throw it back in their face. However, for this recipe, it worked.

I think if I made the recipe with peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate chips, it would be a surefire winner. Alas. Maybe this summer.

On to supper! I have had the flu the last two days, but somehow managed to pull off cooking meals, one of them a new recipe. I can't tell you a thing about them; I remember next to nothing of the dizzy, crazy state I was in. Today I felt on the better side, and I can report that supper was yummy! From February 2014's Chatelaine:

Chili-Garlic Chicken with Sesame Carrot Coins

MAKE 2 or 3 shallow cuts, about 1/4-in. deep, diagonally across surface of 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts. Stir 1 tbsp each rice vinegar, tamari (or soy sauce) and chili-garlic sauce with 1 tsp brown sugar in a medium bowl. Coat chicken with vinegar mixture.

HEAT a large non-stick frying pan over medium. Add 1 tbsp canola oil, then chicken. (Do not discard marinade.) Cook chicken 5 min. Flip and continue cooking, covered, until springy when touched, 6 more min. Transfer to plates.

RETURN pan to heat and add 6 thinly sliced carrots along with reserved marinade. Cook carrots until tender-crisp, about 5 min. Drizzle with 2 tsp dark sesame oil and stir in 4 sliced green onions. Serve with chicken.


I used the full marinade on two chicken breasts, but we found the chicken a little bland; in future I intend to double the sauce recipe so there is some left in the pan to pour over the chicken. I didn't have any chili-garlic sauce, so I used 1 tsp sriracha in its place.  The carrots were spicy and I loved them! You have to understand; I hate carrots! Also, Sadie loved them! You have to understand; Sadie doesn't like anything! I served this with jasmine rice.

January 18th: Carrot Salad & Spinach and Pine Nuts

My friend Susan recently started a blog tracking her progress of eating 100 salads in 100 days: a noble goal. I thought her quick recipe for carrot salad, inspired by her days in France, sounded good and gave it a go tonight. She didn’t post a recipe per se, so here’s what I did:

Carrot Salad

4 carrots, grated

½ cup raisins

¼ cup toasted pine nuts or other nuts

2 tbsps olive oil

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients. If time allows, leave salad to sit at room temperature (or overnight in the refrigerator) to allow the flavours to blend.

Makes 4 servings.

Except, when I made it, I forgot to add the nuts. Susan says in her post she had added almonds. As I was eating the salad, I was saying, this is good, but it could use something. Since I had pine nuts on my plate in the spinach dish, I scooped a few over to the carrots and voilà, the carrot salad was complete. I simply should have read the post more closely! Don’t leave out the nuts!

Also on the menu was a spinach, pine nut and garlic stir-fry which was tasty. Seemed to please my spinach-loving sister guest. I recommend reducing the salt, perhaps by half, and you’ll be good to go.

Served with rice and “Fearless” Fried Chicken.

November 3rd: Roasted-vegetable salad + Caramelized pumpkin seeds

Verdict:
Try Again: Roasted-vegetable salad & Caramelized pumpkin seeds

Tonight's supper recipe is a re-try from November 2009's Chatelaine: Roasted-vegetable salad. It's getting a re-try status again because I'm not feeling in top form tonight and didn't entirely enjoy supper. I think it was me though, not the recipe. G&O ate it up. We do make this one with a few modifications: using just carrots and not parsnips (I've tried and tried and can't bring myself to like parsnips), using spinach and not kale (a whole 142 g of spinach), and deleting the chickpeas or beans. We're not big fans of the legumes around here, although I do try to incorporate them into our diet occasionally. I do add goat cheese and toasted pine nuts to this salad, which is a guaranteed combo to make any meal better. Mm mm.

Did I mention this is our vegetarian meal of the week?

Late night snacktime. While scooping seeds from my pie pumpkin on the weekend, I couldn't help but notice how much smaller the seeds were than jack-o-lantern pumpkin seeds. I was curious: could I make tasty roasted pumpkin seeds? I've tried my hand at roasting seeds a few times, with a success rate of nil. Since I was making my pumpkin oatmeal from the Cooking with my Kid blog, I decided to try her Caramelized pumpkin seeds recipe too.

First of all, I think the term "caramelized" gets used too loosely on a regular basis. These seeds are in no way caramelized. They are toasted and then sugared. End of story. No long, slow cooking in sugar so that the sugar become syrupy and coats the seeds with an even, sticky layer of caramel. I come across this misnomer often in my constant seeking out of recipes.

But I digress. These pumpkin seeds are pretty good! Better than any I've made before. It's important to note that all the cooking comes in the first part of the recipe; once you add the sugar, the cooking is done. So you want to make sure your pumpkin seeds are perfect for eating before you move to the second step. I say all this because I think I should have cooked mine a smidgen longer, and I'm now wondering if half-cooked pumpkin seeds are difficult to digest. Time will tell.

September 13th: Grilled steak and potatoes with buttered carrots

For the past seven months, I've been teaching three BodyFlow classes a week, plus an occasional sub. This fall I have just one class every other week. I sent an email to an instructor or two to let them know I am available for subbing, and I find myself this week teaching five classes, which is about the maximum my abs and legs can take. I know other instructors do more, but not this bod. Today was my fourth day in a row of teaching and I came home from the gym famished, which is the best way to arrive home when your husband is cooking for you.

Tonight, from September 2010's Chatelaine: Grilled steak and foil-wrapped potatoes (with rosemary from our garden!) with Buttered carrots. Yum all around. Easy to make too, or so I was told.

One of the ladies at the gym brought me cookies, so that was my dessert. Okay, I actually ate them in the car while driving home, so it was a pre-supper dessert. :) Then a lie-down with Liv with rain and thunder outside, very cosy. And now, bed.