What's Cooking?

Herb's Butter Bowties

My college roommate and I were Chefs MoreButter and Nuke-It when we learned to cook in college. Our kitchen consisted of: a 4-cup coffee maker, a Hot Pot kettle, and a beer fridge. A case sale of Lipton's noodles and sauce kept us in, well, noodles for most of one semester. Oddly enough, I still really like the Butter and Herb noodles. Here is my own copycat version of the Lipton recipe, using bowties instead of egg noodles. If you want to use egg noodles, just use a half cup less water in the cooking. For the total college dorm experience, this is best cooked in a lidless hot-pot on the highest setting - drink copious amounts of beer while cooking.

Barn Cookies - horse treats

Most of my horses enjoy these 'cookies'. These are really easy to make, are almost, kind of, sort of healthy for the horse (okay, maybe healthy isn't the right word, but don't we all need a cookie once in while?). I've used whole wheat flour in the recipe, but you can substitue all purpose (white) flour if that's all you have. Either way it isn't the best ingredient for a horse, but a binder is needed to help keep the cookies together. Sweet feed is not recommended, but if it's all you have then cut back the molasses to half a cup. Blackstrap molasses is the preferred molasses, as it has a higher mineral content than the fancy cooking kind. Just a note - if your horse has HYPP, or any disease that requires a potassium restriction, then these cookies are not a good idea.

Made in Canada - Orange Beef and Broccoli

I'm thrilled with this recipe - it actually turned out. I almost followed the recipe as written (which could explain all my other cooking disasters) and it was beautiful as well as great-tasting. It's from a taste of home cookbook (Chinese Cooking, Pare 2003), and from my experience all the recipes in these cookbooks end up great. The trick with doing a stir-fry is to have all ingredients ready to go into the pan before you start cooking anything. If you're going to stir-fry something correctly, you should have your pan smoking hot - and that doesn't leave time to peel and chop veggies. So save yourself the annoyance of ordering pizza and try to avoid the burnt food - have it all ready to go first.

Egg, Dairy and Fat Free Cocoa cake

Maybe it's not totally fat free, but it's pretty close. The fat in baking is what gives it texture, so you may notice a slightly different cake texture here. This is an old recipe that I messed around with in order to reduce the fat content. It makes a great snacking cake, and kids love it in their lunches. It can also be made in one bowl - a real attraction for those of us who think housework is a type of domestic torture.

If Coffee is healthy, can cake be healthy too?

Coffee is in. One cup of coffee per day can halve your risk of Parkinson's disease, improve your mental focus, reduce kidney stones, help prevent tooth decay, fight cancer, and reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes. What better to go with coffee, then coffee cake? Most coffee cakes are laden with sugar, fat, white flour, and no nutritional benefit. This cake is really no exception, except that I worked with the recipe to reduce the amount of sugar and fat, and add in some essential fatty acids. This could be made without sugar by substituting Splenda, but I like to try to stay away from artificial sweeteners.

Easy Pizza Dough

Although living in the country is very quiet and serene, that serenity comes with a price - no pizza delivery. Now, I only live about 7 minutes from town. But when I'm feeling too lazy to cook supper I'm REALLY feeling too lazy to pack up three hungry kids, drive to town, get out of my car, pick up the pizza ... I'm sure you get the drift. Here is a really easy recipe for pizza dough, that does not need to proof unless you have the time to leave it. If you are motivated on a different day you can make a triple batch and freeze it in one-crust sized baggies. Or not.

Coffee-Chocolate Pudding Cake

This is a slight twist on an old fashioned recipe. It's not really gourmet - although you could cook it in little ramekins for more pizzazz - but it does taste pretty good. This turns out with a chewy brownie floating on top of a hot coffee-chocolate pudding. If you use water instead of the coffee, it becomes a chocolate variety of Montreal Pudding.

Trade Secret battered fish

This is my favourite deep fried fish recipe. I found it in a little cookbook called the Art of Irish Cooking. It is a very simple, cheap and easy batter to make, and there are a few variations you can try. My cookbook states that the baking powder was a trick used by the fish and chip shops in Britain and Ireland, and that it was kept a trade secret for generations. There is a technique to making this fish turn out properly, so read the recipe through. And DON'T use a fryer basket, as the batter will puff up through the holes and you'll never get the fish out.

Pepper Sage Pork

I was at the grocery store the other day and I saw that boneless pork loin was on sale for $1.67lb. Literally right above the sale pork were trays of boneless pork loin CHOPS for the bargain price of $2.67 per pound. The moral of the story here is to watch the 'sale' prices on some items - grocery stores are out to get your money. It's pretty easy to slice your own pork chops from a piece of on sale pork loin (which is obviously what the grocery store had done). This is a simple pork recipe that uses either a pork loin or pork chops. If you want the flavour of your pork to shine through then use a pork loin, but if you like the flavour of the sauce to come out then use chops. The quarter cup of applesauce is about the same size as those snack packs of applesauce - not a bargain, but useful to know if that's what you've got. If all you have is sweetened applesauce then just reduce the brown sugar by 1Tbsp.

Craving sugar, chocolate, crunch?

Graham break-aways are my absolute favourite now. My husband's cousin brought over a box of name-brand graham crackers and this recipe was on the back. Of course, you can do this with store brand or homemade graham crackers, or even with saltines. This is a great recipe for school snacks. It takes such a short time in the oven to cook that it isn't really frugal to preheat the oven just to cook this snack - it's easy to throw in the oven after your supper is cooked, though.