Organic Campus and Cinnamon Carrot Bread

If you've been peeking around my Flickr account, you've probably noticed some photos labelled Organic Campus. Organic Campus is a club at McGill that I just "joined"; every Tuesday I go and pick up my basket, then I pay $10 for next week's. While the basket is not all local Quebec food (the stickers on some of the vegetables say they're from the states), it's still pretty reflective of what grows in the area at this time of year. There's also baked goods like cinnamon rolls and zucchini breads that you can buy with the basket, but I never do because I'm a whole grain snob.

I've had a bit of fun trying to incorporate these foods into my diet; making potato dishes again, making applesauce, trying to prepare Jerusalem artichokes and failing... You can follow my weekly baskets in this Flickr set, and I'll be sure to share some of the meals I create with these vegetables too!

One of the things I made early on was this cinnamon carrot bread:


The first time I made this bread was actually for a potluck two years ago; the theme was "soup and bread" and I was the only one who made bread, so they went out and bought bread anyway because this bread is relatively sweet and doesn't take to soup very well. For this version, I tweaked the recipe to decrease the amount of sugar and (of course) replace the oil with applesauce, which I actually made myself with the apples from the basket!

Applesauce
This is a "recipe" that I learned from some friends who lived in my residence in freshman year. It is so, so good warm from the pot, but one day I would really like to can this stuff.

• Apple juice/water
• Apples, peeled and diced
• Brown sugar and cinnamon (optional)

1. In a medium/large pot (depending on how many apples you have), pour in apple juice or water just until it covers the bottom of the pot.
2. Add in apples and simmer until apples have softened.
3. Using a potato masher, mash apples until purée is formed.
4. You can leave it unsweetened, especially if you're going to be using it in baking, or season with brown sugar and cinnamon to taste.

And now for the bread:

Cinnamon Carrot Bread
Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Makes 1 9" x 5" loaf

• 125 mL (½ cup) white sugar
• 30 mL (2 tbsp) packed brown sugar
• 185 mL (¾ cup) unsweetened applesauce
• 500 mL (2 cups) whole wheat flour
• 10 mL (2 tsp) baking powder
• 5 mL (1 tsp) baking soda
• 5 mL (1 tsp) ground cinnamon
• 2 mL (½ tsp) ground nutmeg
• 2 mL (½ tsp) ground ginger
• 2 eggs
• 1 pinch salt
• 250 mL (1 cup) grated carrots
• 60 mL (¼ cup) chopped walnuts/pecans
• 60 mL (¼ cup) raisins
• 2 mL (½ tsp) vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F). Grease and flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the sugars and applesauce. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt into the bowl while stirring occasionally. Beat the eggs together, and gradually stir into the batter until everything is combined. Mix in carrots, nuts, raisins and vanilla until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake on middle rack for 60 minutes, or until it tests done. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Part of a complete breakfast.

This is my submission for hosted by What's For Lunch, Honey?

Read More...

Valentines Cupcheesecakes

At the Tribune, we have editorial board meetings every Friday where the pair who conducts the "postmortem" (i.e. reads the entire paper and comments) is also in charge of providing snacks for the meeting. Since I already make baked goods for my news meetings on Tuesday, I wanted this treat to be special, so I immediately decided on mini cheesecakes, or "cupcheesecakes". And since it just so happened to be the day after Valentine's, the stores were full of inspiration for decoration.


Conversation hearts are by FAR my favourite part of Valentine's Day. Not for eating of course--nutritionally they are nothing but carbohydrates: Sugar in a variety of forms, then filled out with a bit of starch, colour and the ones that I bought this year even had artificial fruit flavour. Still, whenever February 14th rolls around, I can't help but buy a pack of these candies, if only to have a good laugh over what the companies print on them.

The thing I love about cupcheesecakes is that they're so decadent, but also nice and small, so you don't feel too guilty eating one. They don't take too well to icing, which some may think is unfortunate, but I like it because I'm not stuck fussing with a recipe for the base, a recipe for the icing and then trying to use my limited cake decorating skills to make the cakes look good.

Of course, it's not like the possibilities aren't still endless! Cupcheesecakes also go good with sprinkles, chocolate chips, perhaps a little drizzle of some sort of sauce, pie fillings, fresh berries. Of course, if you're a purist, they also stand well alone.

Cupcheesecakes
Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Makes 6 cupcheesecakes (this recipe can be easily multiplied)
Crust:

• 85 mL (⅓ cup) graham cracker crumbs
• 15 mL (1 tbsp) butter/non-hydrogenated margarine, melted

Filling:

• 1 - 250 g (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 60 mL (¼ cup) sugar
• 7 mL (1½ tsp) lemon juice
• 2 mL (½ tsp) grated lemon zest
• 1 mL (¼ tsp) vanilla extract
• 1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 165°C (325°F). Line muffin pan with baking cups.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the graham cracker crumbs and butter with a fork until combined. Press a tablespoonful of mixture into each cup. Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes, then remove to cool. Keep the oven on.
3. Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla until fluffy. Mix in the egg.
4. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the muffin cups, filling each until 3/4 full. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool completely in pan before removing. Decorate and refrigerate until ready to serve--this last step is crucial in getting the right cheesecake texture; while it may not look/feel like anything spectacular when it comes out of the oven, everything will be ok after it has been refrigerated.

Chocolate cupcheesecakes: Omit lemon juice and lemon zest. Melt 2 - 30 g/1 oz squares of bittersweet chocolate and add in with 2 mL (½ tsp) of cocoa when beating cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Be sure to melt the chocolate just prior to adding it in, or else it will solidify and not give your cheesecakes that rich, chocolate colour.

This is my submission for Spectacular Cupcakes 2008, hosted by HomeMadeS

Read More...

恭喜發財!

Although the Year of the Rat began on February 7th, in China, people celebrate for two weeks, ending their celebrations on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year during the Lantern Festival (元宵節), which my mom has sometimes referred to as the "Chinese Valentine's Day". So although this entry comes a little late, they still have a few more days of celebration in China.

I hosted my own celebrations on Friday the 8th; some Asian student groups at McGill got together to host a night festival at a mall close to my apartment that night, but we didn't end up going because I came home late from a meeting and therefore dinner ended up running past when the night festival ended. It was fine; we ended up playing our own party games and had a lot of laughs.



We ate SO MUCH. Because I arrived home late from my meeting, my roommate Chelsea surprised us with an artichoke dip, shrimp ring and wine to entertain the guests while I was in the kitchen. I went to Chinatown and picked up a pound of bbq pork (叉燒) and an entire roasted duck (燒鴨). My roommate Cindy boiled some dumplings (餃子), a Northern Chinese new years tradition, and we steamed some baby bok choy (白菜苗) and Chinese broccoli (芥蘭), two of my favourite vegetables. All of the food was good, except the rice was a little undercooked because we filled our rice cooker with a little more than it could handle.

The star of the night was the Poached Cod with Tangy Sauce. Whole fish is generally served for New Years because the Chinese word for fish, 魚, sounds that same as the word for plenty/extra, 餘, and is therefore a symbol of good luck. While it may have been safer to just steam the fish and cover it in soy sauce, green onions and ginger, I tried one of Martin Yan's recipes and it turned out wonderfully. Kudos to the fishmonger in Chinatown who told me that this 2.56-pound 青班 (which barely fit in my pan anyway) would be a better choice for feeding 8 than the ½-pound-per-person recommendation that Yan gave.

Poached Cod with Tangy Sauce
Adapted from Martin Yan Quick and Easy
Makes 3 servings (if you're not having any other dishes, I'm guessing)

• 1 whole cleaned cod/trout/mild-tasting fish (about 675 g/1½ lb)
• 2 green onions, cut in half and lightly crushed
• 5 quarter-sized slices ginger, lightly crushed

Sauce:

• 60 mL (¼ cup) Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• 60 mL (¼ cup) rice vinegar
• 30 mL (2 tbsp) soy sauce
• 15 mL (1 tbsp) fish sauce
• 15 mL (1 tbsp) shredded ginger
• 1 green onion, julienned
• 10 mL (2 tsp) cornstarch dissolved in 15 mL (1 tbsp) water

1. Place the fish on a cutting board and make 2 cuts, each 1 cm (½ inch) deep, along either side of the backbone, running each of them the length of the fish.
2. Pour water to a depth of 5 cm (2 inches) into a pan wide enough to hold the fish. Add the green onions and ginger and bring to a boil over high heat. Slide the fish into the water, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until the fish turns opaque and just begins to flake, about 8 - 10 min.
3. While the fish is cooking, make the sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the cornstarch solution and cool, stirring, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and keep warm.
4. With a slotted spatula, remove the fish from the poaching liquid (which you can save, because it is now a yummy fish broth) and place on a serving plate. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve.

We ended up enjoying three desserts: my roommate Jessica shared some Lindt chocolate balls she had lying around and I boiled some frozen 湯圓, small glutinous rice balls filled with a sweet black sesame paste served in a broth made with brown sugar and ginger. 湯圓 is generally eaten the night BEFORE the lunar new year, where the family gathers around to end the year on a good note. In Chinese, roundness symbolizes togetherness and completeness. Finally, I fried up some slices of 年糕, a glutinous rice "new years cake", one of my favourite Chinese New Year foods. My mom was kind enough to share her recipe for a version that uses coconut milk. Because Hong Kong is a British colony, the dry ingredients are measured by weight. You should be able to find the necessary ingredients in your local Asian-food store. (I found them in mine!)

Coconut Milk New Years Rice Cake

• 225 g (8 oz) Glutinous rice flour
• 85 g (3 oz) "Tang" flour*
• 185 mL (¾ cup) boiling water
• 225 g (8 oz) sugar
• 125 mL (½ cup) coconut milk
• 30 mL (2 tbsp) evaporated milk**

1. In a large bowl, mix together glutinous rice and tang flours.
2. Dissolve sugar in boiling water. Add coconut milk and evaporated milk.
3. Pour sugar water slowly into flour mixture. Mix.
4. Pour batter into a greased cake pan. Steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour (with a plate over the cake pan itself to avoid the condensation dripping down onto the surface and ruining the texture) until firm. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.
5. When serving: Cut into slices and pan-fry until browned, turning once.

*According to Wikipedia, this is wheat starch, but at the store that I went to, I found some that was purportedly made from mung beans, so it's probably best to ask a store clerk.
**I never have evaporated milk on hand, so I just used regular milk, since it's such a small amount. I would also be tempted to just replace it with more coconut milk as well.

Read More...

My Eastern European Side

"What goes in borscht?" I asked my boyfriend one morning many Saturdays ago. Beets were on sale for 29 cents a pound at my local grocery store and borscht, in our relationship, is the perfect food; I love beets and he loves cabbage. Since I knew I wouldn't need a whole head of cabbage for the borscht, I decided to try another recipe popular in Eastern European cuisine: cabbage rolls.

I finally decided to base my recipe on one that I had tucked in the back of my mind since I first saw it and its accompanying photos of candy-striped and yellow beets, so click on over and try one of the two variations (I used the second one, with the savoy cabbage) My boyfriend insisted that there was meat in borscht; since I was too lazy to choose an appropriate cut I just bought a pound of stewing cubes (which I needed to cut down anyway), but according to the comments veal shank is a great addition.

Just wanted to warn you that the recipe does make a lot, but is perfectly freezable.

The savoy cabbage was actually a good idea because I think it actually facilitated in the making of my cabbage rolls. Since it was my first time making them, I opted for a simple recipe, but I'm already thinking of variations, like adding in more vegetables, marinating the beef beforehand, using prepared tomato sauces (the chunky flavoured stuff) instead of condensed tomato soup...
I got to make rice in a pot (as opposed to a rice cooker) for the first time for this recipe, which was pretty exciting.

Basic Cabbage Rolls
Adapted from AllRecipes.com
Makes 8 servings

• 170 mL (⅔ cup) water
• 85 mL (⅓ cup) uncooked white rice
• 8 cabbage leaves (I used savoy, which is untraditional, but pretty and easier to roll)
• 450 g (1 lb) lean ground beef
• 125 mL (¼ cup) chopped onion
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 5 mL (1 tsp) salt
• 1 mL (¼ tsp) ground black pepper
• 1 - 284 mL (9.6 oz) can condensed tomato soup

1. In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add rice and stir. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Bring a large, wide saucepan or wok of lightly salted water to a boil. Add cabbage leaves and cook for 2 to 4 minutes or until softened; drain.
3. While you're waiting for the water to boil and the cabbage leaves to cook, in a medium mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, cooked rice, onion, egg, salt and pepper, along with 30 mL (2 tbsp) of tomato soup. Mix thoroughly.
4. Divide the beef mixture evenly among the cabbage leaves. Roll, tucking the stem end underneath.
5. In a large skillet over medium heat, place the cabbage rolls and pour the remaining tomato soup over the top. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring and basting with the liquid often.

Read More...

Trying to make up for my neglect

So as you've probably noticed, no matter how hard I try, this blog keeps ending up on the back burner. Fortunately, my cooking is still in relatively full swing, so I have a compromise--I've cleaned up my Flickr site and will now only be uploading photos of food (unless I take a really good photo of some non-food thing). I will eventually blog about it, but for now you can just feast your eyes.

Check out the photos here or just click on the Flickr badge to your right :)

I hope that's an ok compromise!

Read More...

Black Bean Brownies

Continuing with the themes of "vegetables in baked goods" and "applesauce instead of oil," here's a recipe that we actually handed out during the McGill Open House a few weekends ago, when we intended for the theme of our booth to be protein, but sadly came to the realization that Open House is attended by 17-year-olds that care only about figuring out the easiest way of getting into med school.

I actually encountered the idea of black beans in brownies during my internship last summer (incidentally, I'm starting another internship in two weeks and today was my orientation day, which got me really excited for it), but unfortunately lost the recipe. After doing a search online, a little tweaking and making some test batches, we finally "mass produced" these goodies--which translates to spending a Saturday afternoon at one of my team members' apartment, churning out 3 pans at a time from her oven and tiny convection oven, before we came out with 12 9"x13" pans of 32 brownies, or a grand total of 384 brownies.

The fantastic thing about these brownies is that they contain no flour, which means that the structure is completely based on the beans (which are a great source of fibre as well as protein) and the eggs.

Overall, most people liked the brownies even though they admittedly don't taste as good as normal ones. I found that you have to warn people that they're made of black beans, or at least that they consist of a "secret ingredient", so that they can expect that a little off-taste and fully appreciate that they are quite good despite the weird ingredient.

I used these lovely, organic salt-free canned beans when I made my test batches because I was weary of the amount of salt that comes in regular canned foods, but when we made our large amounts with regular canned beans and no added salt, everything turned out ok (just make sure you rinse your beans very well, perhaps.)

Black Bean Brownies
Adapted from RecipeZaar
Makes 16 brownies

• 1 (398 mL/14 fl oz.) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 3 eggs, large, beaten
• 45 mL (3 tbsp) applesauce, unsweetened
• 5 mL (1 tsp) vanilla extract
• 125 mL (½ cup) sugar
• 60 mL (¼ cup) cocoa powder
• 1 mL (¼ tsp) salt

1. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F). Grease and flour an 8” square baking pan.
2. Purée black beans in a blender or food processor. If it is not moist enough, you may need to add one of the eggs into the food processor.
3. Mix black bean purée with eggs, applesauce and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Mix in sugar, cocoa powder and salt.
4. Pour ingredients into prepared pan. Bake for approximately 25 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the brownies comes out clean.
5. Let cool before cutting.

Read More...

A Revelation

This is a photo of my dad and I just this past Christmas; I insisted that we take a photo together because for his birthday in November I wanted to send him one of us, but realized that I hadn't taken any photos with him since high school.

My dad's had health problems for a while now; he actually rattled them off for me over the break—hyperlipidemia, diabetes, tachycardia, an enlarged prostate... I don't know what his blood pressure's like, but I do know that his father died of heart disease when my dad was just a teen.

What always confused me was that I never found out when my dad got diabetes--I was always told he was borderline, borderline, borderline, then all of a sudden, he was just popping back all these pills everyday (although he claims half of them are vitamins, which in my mind is just as bad.)

It's not that I don't want to help my dad out, it's just that our schedules are so busy that I don't have the time to sit down and really do a tally of what he eats. He eats out a lot (for Chinese food, mostly) and rarely exercises, so all I've been telling him really is just to find time to exercise because that's already going to make a difference.

Anyway, near the end of last week, my dad suffered what I think was an angina (I'm unsure only because my mom explained this to me in Chinese), which caused him to feel sick and so he went to see the doctor. The doctor told him to go to the hospital, where he got some EKGs done and the doctor there recommended angioplasty (I'm not sure if he also got a stent.) He's fine now and sneakily called my mom on his cell phone to tell him so, but now he can't fly for three months so he can't come back to Canada to visit me (He's in Hong Kong right now) and my mom is now there for two weeks to take care of him.

But the revelation: the doctor at the hospital stopped his meds while he was there, but after being fed low-sodium, low-sugar foods at the hospital for a few days, my dad saw that his blood sugar was normal—5.4—without them and he realized that he did not need his meds to control his blood sugar. He just needs to eat better! And move more! So I told my mom to see if he can get a referral to a dietitian in Hong Kong (something his doctor should've done in the very beginning instead of stuffing him with all those meds), and hopefully good things will happen. I don't think my mom fully grasps that I'm not offering to do it not because I don't want to, but because the logistics of it just don't make sense right now (I'm sure emailing back and forth will just be completely awkward.) However, I have made the RASH decision of asking my clinical coordinator to see if she can give me an internship placement in Hong Kong next semester--something that I have yet to talk to my parents about.

So yeah, I hope that things will work out for my dad on that end and that he won't wind up in the hospital in the near future. This whole thing has just made me value my family a lot more and I really miss them.

Read More...

*Potentially* the healthiest muffins ever

I love vegetables in baked goods. Not in that sneaky Jessica Seinfeld kind of way, but just in a it's-a-novelty sort of way.

I also have a new favourite baking trick--replacing oil with unsweetened applesauce. I haven't dared to make the same replacement for solid fats just yet, but so far the 1-to-1 conversion has worked like a charm (and I've also discovered I love applesauce with walnuts and raisins sprinkled into it as a snack!)

As an editor for the Tribune now, I've made it a point to bring some homemade treat to every meeting not only to flex my baking muscles, but also to entice people to come and take stories! (Although no one has seem to caught on yet--only two people showed up to our last meeting.)

So how are these potentially the healthiest muffins ever? Well aside from the vegetables and the applesauce, I also used whole wheat flour, and the recipe calls for omega-3 rich walnuts. The amount of sugar is still alarmingly high (thus these are only "potentially" the healthiest) which is something that can definitely be tweaked the next time I make these.

Vegetable Muffins
Adapted from AllRecipes.com
Makes 1 dozen

• 250 mL (1 cup) sugar
• 1 egg
• 60 mL (¼ cup) unsweetened applesauce
• 250 mL (1 cup) whole wheat flour
• 5 mL (1 tsp) ground cinnamon
• 2 mL (½ tsp) ground nutmeg
• 2 mL (½ tsp) salt
• 5 mL (1 tsp) baking soda
• 125 mL (½ cup) chopped walnuts
• 500 mL (2 cups) shredded carrot and zucchini

1. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F). Line muffin pan with muffin cups.
2. In a large bowl, blend the sugar with the eggs. Add the applesauce and mix well. Mix in dry ingredients. Stir in the nuts and vegetables. Ladle batter into prepared cups.
3. Bake for 30 - 35 min, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

Read More...

Unabashed Product Placement

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus; I was pretty much shocked into the new year, what with taking two intense, condensed courses (I wrote my finals last week) and adjusting to my new position with the McGill Tribune. Fortunately, I'm on a three week "break" now (I still have one non-condensed course at 8:30 am twice a week, and the Tribune is not going to rest) so I have a lot more time to do a lot more cooking, and of course, tell you all about the cooking that I've managed to squeeze in in the past month.

But as much as I am a huge fan of making things from scratch, sometimes there are products that I can't help but gush over.

Case in point: Stonemill Bakehouse. I've gushed about their muesli bagels twice already, but unfortunately my local store doesn't seem to be carrying them anymore. Instead, the company has rolled out with a few other breads (some of which don't seem to be on their website.) In the past month I've tried a raisin muesli bread (not as good as the bagels, unfortunately) and my roommate has gotten me into the idea of sprouted grain breads. Stonemill makes a 3 Grain and a 12 Grain Rye as part of the line; the only qualm I have with them is that the slices are a lot smaller than your conventional commercial bread, but the 12 Grain Rye is so filling (perhaps due to its protein and fibre content) that I can surprisingly hold out till lunch with two slices slathered with pumpkin seed butter and banana.

On that note, I would like to retract another recommendation—I recently made some black bean dip and went to buy some pitas to eat it with. At first I was attracted to the many flavours offered by Pita Break, which I wrote about here, but a quick double-check of the ingredient list found that the first ingredient was "Untreated flour", NOT whole-wheat. I quickly put them down for a local company that listed whole-wheat flour as the first ingredient and only type of flour in their whole-wheat pitas.

Finally, I just received the March issue of Canadian Living in the mail not too long ago (note that this was the end of January), and of course they have a little blurb on Nutrition Month (hurray!) But take a look at this:

Health check? Are you kidding me?! Criticisms and bad publicity aside, the Heart and Stroke Foundation isn't even the organization BEHIND nutrition month! Dietitians of Canada is! OK, so maybe our consumer site looks like it's a bit of a snore, but it does contain all those meal planning/nutrition-label-reading tips that the Health Check site is reported to have. We don't really have any Nutrition Month-specific tools yet, but stuff will definitely happen as March draws near, and if it doesn't, you'll be sure to hear about it on this site.

As if that didn't already make me angry enough, check out what it said a couple pages later:

The photo is not very good because I put my camera on "text" mode, but how can you even believe that "Rumbly Graham Crackers" are healthful snacks? Also, why should you rely on package icons "to identify which food choices are a source of key nutrients"? There are so many key nutrients to be found in non-packaged foods, or perhaps even other packaged foods that don't have icons. And I guess I can't really say anything because I'm not a parent, but it's probably not the best idea to let kids associate eating with their favourite cartoon characters.

Other than that, there were parts of the March issue that I did enjoy: they have a feature on fruits (although I wouldn't agree that they're the 25 "best" fruits), an interesting article on food allergies, breakfast food recipes and a whole section of (yum!) chocolate recipes. So despite the fact that Health Check probably pays Canadian Living astronomical amounts of money in advertising fees (I've gotten the Heart & Stroke Foundation's calendar with some of my issues before), I'm still not going to end my subscription any time soon.

Read More...