Baked French Toast Recipe

Another breakfast recipe!  I typically prefer warm breakfasts during the winter, but don't usually have time to make something in the morning.  Hence, this is a nice recipe to make on a Sunday night and eat it for the first couple of days during the week.  This recipe is extremely delicious, more so than you might imagine!  It is from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 5 cups bread cubes (use raisin bread!!!)
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup white sugar, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon margarine, softened (I omitted this)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (use more!!!  maybe add some nutmeg too if you're feeling crazy!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly butter an 8x8 inch baking pan.
2. Line bottom of pan with bread cubes. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, 2 tablespoons sugar, salt and vanilla. pour egg mixture over bread. Dot with margarine; let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and sprinkle over the top. Bake in preheated oven about 45 to 50 minutes, until top is golden.

Hot Quinoa Porridge

I wasn't expecting much from this recipe because it looked so healthy, but was pleasantly surprised.  You know how sometimes you make a cake and don't want to tell others what went into it because it is so unhealthy?  Well, the opposite happened with this recipe, whereby I did not want to tell Aki what was in it because I thought that would negatively bias his rating of it.  Anyways, this recipe is from the new Fresh restaurant cookbook (Fresh: New Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes from Fresh Restaurants by Jennifer Houston and Ruth Tal), but was printed in the Toronto Star a couple of weekends back. 

Quinoa, Oat & Barley Porridge
1/2 cup each of quinoa, steel-cut oats, pearl barley
4 cups water
6 dried apricots, sliced (I used craisins)
6 dates, pitted, chopped
2 tbsp currants (I omitted these)
1/4 tsp salt
cinnamon & maple syrup to taste

Rinse grains under cold running water.  Transfer to medium saucepan (I used a pressure cooker), add water, apricots, dates, currants, and salt.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover.  Simmer, stirring occasionally until water is absorbed, about 20 to 30 minutes.  Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes.  Top with anything you would like.

How to Make Fried Rice

Hehe I typed "friend" instead of "fried" in the title just now, perhaps because fried food is my friend?  I don't actually agree with that however.  Although we are not enemies, we are not exactly friends either.  Perhaps acquaintances.  Anyways, onto more important matters...

Ingredients
Basically any leftovers you have sitting in the fridge, including cooked rice.  In this case, old and slightly dry rice that has been in the fridge for a day or two is actually preferable.  Examples of some ingredients to include in fried rice are listed below:

-Chinese vegetables
-Red/green/yellow/orange pepper
-Mushrooms
-Carrots
-Onion
-Peas
-Corn
-Snowpeas or snappeas
-Small pieces of any vegetable really (broccoli, rapini, etc.)
-Small pieces of meat (optional)

-Soya sauce
-Fish sauce (optional)
-Ground black pepper

Directions
-Place 2 tbsp of oil in pan and let it heat up.  Fry up small pieces of meat.  After it is half cooked, add in vegetables from longest cook time to shortest cook time.  For example, add in onions and carrots first until half cooked, then add mushrooms and peppers, then snowpeas.  Add some soya sauce and fish sauce, set to side. 
-Place 2 tbsp of oil in pan and let it heat up.  Add in cooked rice and press spoon down to break up lumps of rice.  Let cook for about 10 minutes.  Add back in the cooked veggies, add more soya sauce and fish sauce, and lots of ground pepper.  Serve with hot sauce.

Optional:  Move rice to side and fry up a scrambled egg in the pan.  Stir into rice.

Note:  Making fried rice is a great way to get rid of bits of leftover cooked vegetables and meat from the fridge.  This makes it much easier to make as well, as you do not have to first cook the meat and veggies.  Instead, you would cook the rice first and add in the meat and veggies and sauces towards the end, just to warm them up.

Raw Food - Sardines

I like raw food a lot.  It may gross some people out but it is probably my favourite way to have a lot of things, specifically with regards to seafood and meat.  I like to think that I am not picky and that I am open to a lot of different foods, however when it comes to meat and fish I am quite picky unfortunately.  I will eat everything especially if I am at someone's house or ordered it at a restaurant, but definitely prefer things cooked (or not cooked!) certain ways. 
This past weekend I ate A TON of seafood, most of it being raw.  Please be warned that this is not a smart thing to do.  For example, I ate a huge bowl of raw shrimp (those that I referred to in my previous post about Diana's Seafood store) and it seems as though my stomach can only handle a medium bowl of raw shrimp.  Lesson learned!
Here is a picture of something you may not have thought to try raw.  Fresh sardines!  They have to be very fresh in order to eat it raw and, surprise surprise, Diana's sells it fresh enough to eat raw.  Aki filleted the fish and topped it with grated ginger, green onions, and soy sauce.  YUM!

Lemon Pasta with Basil & Coconut Shrimp

Here is another pasta recipe!  :)  I prefer tomato-based sauces because I like the tanginess, however this is a nice change to have once in a while.  The shrimps used for this recipe are HUGE!  They are from Diana's seafood store (http://www.dianasseafood.com/) in Scarborough that I have mentioned before.  I am just looking at their website now and it looks like they are shipping in an order of sashimi grade shrimp this Friday!!!!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOO....the post is from last week and that means they came in last Friday.  What a disappointment!!!  But maybe that means they are in season, so they will come in again soon.  One can only hope.

Lemon Basil Pasta Recipe (Giada De Laurentiis)

Ingredients

• 1 pound spaghetti
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 2/3 cup grated Parmesan
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 3 lemons)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

Directions

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the oil, Parmesan, and lemon juice in a large bowl to blend.

Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Toss the pasta with the lemon sauce, and the reserved cooking liquid, adding 1/4 cup at a time as needed to moisten. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with lemon zest and chopped basil.


Chili Coconut Shrimp Recipe (Chatelaine.com)

Ingredients

• 340 g frozen raw jumbo shrimp, peeled
• 1/4 cup cornstarch or all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup Thai sweet chili sauce
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 cup unsweetened medium desiccated coconut, toasted

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil and lightly spray with oil. Thaw shrimp following package directions. Pat dry with paper towels. Stir cornstarch with salt and pepper in a shallow dish. In a small bowl, stir 1/2 cup chili sauce with vinegar. In another shallow dish, spread out coconut. Toss shrimp in cornstarch mixture. Then, shaking off excess starch, dip each in chili-sauce mixture and coat with coconut. Place shrimp on foil.
2. Bake in centre of oven until shrimp is cooked through, about 10 min. Serve remaining sweet chili sauce alongside as a dipping sauce.

• Substitution Tip:

  Can’t find sweet chili sauce? Stir 1/2 cup honey with 2 tbsp each chili-garlic sauce and rice vinegar.
  

Tomato Sauce using Canned Tomatoes

I wanted to post this recipe because it is a very delicious, yet simple and easy tomato sauce recipe, made from canned tomatoes.  I use it a lot!  I am going to make cabbage rolls again this weekend and will use this tomato sauce.  It is from "The Big Book of Pasta." 

Here it is:

Tomato Sauce
5 tbsp olive oil (use the full amount!)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, sliced
large handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped
-or-
large handful of fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper

Heat oil in large pan over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, until soft.  Add the tomatoes and garlic.  Bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, or until the oil separates from the tomato.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add in the basil or parsley.

Thyme & Garlic Baked Brie

This was our New Years celebration snack.  On December 31st at 11:40pm, Aki and I got back home and were rushing around trying to get this brie cheese marinated in olive oil, fresh thyme, and crushed garlic before heading out to Nathan Phillip Square to watch the fireworks. 

It was such a silly thing to be rushing around marinating brie cheese as our last activity of 2011, but quite classic I would say.  When we got back we heated up the brie on the stove, and then enjoyed it with a fresh baguette and champagne! 

Happy (belated) New Year!!!