Category Archives: Recipes

Pineapple Smoothie

I’m not sure what’s up with me, but for the past few weeks I have had very little appetite. It’s not that I am not eating, but more just that I don’t crave anything in particular and nothing really seems all that appealing to me. This is especially true at breakfast time. I am not the type of person to skip breakfast. I absolutely need breakfast every morning, especially on a work day when I know I won’t really get an opportunity to snack before lunch. I have my breakfast staples like eggs (of any kind) and homemade flax granola, but lately I just don’t feel like eating breakfast. I like smoothies, but I try to drink 16 oz of water as soon as I get up and always have a large coffee before I leave the house, so the thought of more liquid before work doesn’t seem like a good idea, but I honestly need to change things up a bit. We always have frozen berries in the freezer because my daughter eats them like there’s no tomorrow, but my husband brought a bag of frozen pineapple home from his last Costco trip. I love fresh pineapple, but the frozen bag has been sitting in the freezer untouched for about 2 weeks already, so I decided that I might try a pineapple smoothie for something completely different to start off my day. Pineapple is packed with nutrients and is supposed to aid in digestion as well, so it seems like  great choice. In preparing for this post, I found this article on  Style Craze,  that highlighted 17 Amazing Health Benefits of Pineapples. If you like pineapple, check out the post and stock-up on this delicious nutritious fruit.

We make fruit smoothies all the time, but I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever made one with pineapple. I searched the web and came up with several different recipes. I decided to try a few and see which one I like this best. Here’s today’s Pineapple Smoothie Recipe taken from Creme de la Crumb.

Skinny Pineapple Smoothie

pineapple smoothieThis simple recipe takes less than 5 minutes to make and has good flavour.

  • 1 cup frozen pineapple
  • ½ medium banana (I used a frozen banana)
  • ½ cup crushed ice (I omitted the ice in lieu of the frozen banana)
  • ½ cup vanilla yogurt (or greek vanilla yogurt)
  • 1 cup coconut milk

Toss the ingredients in the blender. Blend and serve.

I liked the taste of this smoothie, but I can’t say it will be my new “go to”. It was a bit creamier than I like and so I think I will test out another recipe next time and see if it is more to my liking. Don’t get me wrong, this recipe is good, just not quite what I’m looking for.

Skillet Chicken Salad

broccoli chicken saladThis stir fry dish is both nutritious and tasty. We usually serve it on top of a bed of steamed brown rice. This recipe makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 sliced sweet red pepper

1/2 lb. of broccoli (cut into small florets)

1/4 vegetable oil

1/4 chicken stock

3 Tablespoons vinegar

1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

salt and pepper

2 chopped green onions (or medium onion sliced)

Method:

  1. Cut the chicken crosswise into 1/2″ wide strips.
  2. In a large skillet, heat 2 Tablespoons of oil over medium heat. Cook the chicken for about 4 minutes (or until done), stirring occasionally. Using slotted spoon, transfer chicken to a warm bowl.
  3. In the same skillet, heat the remaining oil. Add the red pepper and broccoli (and onion if using sliced). Cook for about 2 minutes. Stir in the stock and reduce heat to low; cover and steam for two minutes. Using slotted spoon, add the vegetables to the bowl of chicken. Cover to keep warm.
  4. Pour the vinegar into the same skillet and bring to a boil while scraping up the brown bits in the pan. Stir in the mustard, tarragon, salt and pepper.  Add in the mushrooms and chopped green onions.
  5. Return chicken and vegetables along with any accumulated juices to the skillet. Heat through.
  6. Serve on a bed of steamed rice.

 

This recipe was taken from a mini specialty cookbook that was put out by Canadian Living. The book was a freebee I got way back when I was in university with the purchase of a tank of gas and is called Easy Chicken Dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

Decadence on a Dime: Chocolate Butterscotch Dessert

I was under the weather last week and was happy when I woke up Saturday morning feeling almost 100% again.

I had planned to try out 3 new recipes for our dinner party, but stuck to my mom’s Chocolate Butterscotch Dessert to complete the meal. This was my favourite dessert growing up and it has now become a favourite for my entire family. This dessert is easy to make, quick to prepare and absolutely delicious. Unlike most desserts that can be pricey to prepare, I can generally make this by purchasing only one item ~ whipping cream. This is a real winner!

Chocolate Butterscotch Dessert

Mom’s Chocolate Butterscotch Dessert:

Prep time: about 20 minutes
Serves: 4 – 6

Ingredients:

  • 5 eggs
  • 3 rounded teaspoons cocoa
  • 3/4 cup icing sugar
  • 1 heaping Tablespoon flour
  • whipping cream (enough to use as topping ~ about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup icing sugar (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla (optional)
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until very stiff and gradually add the beaten yolks. Add the icing sugar, cocoa and flour. Pour the batter into a greased and floured jelly roll pan (approximately 15 1/2″ X 10 1/2″ pan with 1″ sides). Bake 7 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully begin rolling the cake lengthwise releasing it as you roll. (The pan won’t be overly hot, so you really don’t need to wait very long before you’ll be able to handle it.) Place the roll on a damp towel and roll the towel around the roll, so that the air can not get at the roll. When cool, unroll the towel and cut the roll into sections for serving.

Bake the cake in a jelly roll pan.
Roll the cake and place in a damp cloth.

Butterscotch Sauce:  Place the last four ingredients in a glass bowl. Set the bowl in a hot water bath so that the butter melts.( You only want to melt the butter, do not boil by placing on direct heat or microwaving for too long.)  Stir until all of the melted butter has been thoroughly mixed with the other ingredients.

Beat the whipping cream. Add 1/4 cup icing sugar and vanilla, if desired or simply serve as is. Place a dollop on each piece of chocolate roll.

Serve the warm sauce over sections of chocolate roll topped with whipping cream. Enjoy!

Best Ever Tortellini Soup

This has been a family favourite of our for a long time. This soup is bursting with flavour and very filling. I couldn’t find the original source, but I have modified it over the years, so will just share our version.

Tortellini Soup Recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 lb Hot Italian Sausage with the casings removed
  • 1 chopped green pepper (cut in 1/2″ squares)
  • 1/2 cup dried onion flakes (when I don’t have any, I just use chopped onions.)
  • 1 clove of minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon Oregano
  • 1 900 ml carton of chicken broth
  • 1 to 1 1/2 cans of water (28 oz)
  • 1 28oz tin of diced tomatoes (you can use Italian if you wish, but regular is fine too)
  • 1 19 oz tin of Aylmer’s Spicy Red Pepper Tomatoes 
  • 2 Tablespoons of chopped parsley
  • 1 thinly sliced zucchini
  • 1 package of frozen meat tortellini
  • salt and pepper
  • Parmesan Cheese

Directions:

Fry up the sausage, green pepper, onion, garlic, oregano and zucchini until done. Be sure to break up the sausage into smaller pieces with a fork, as the mixture cooks.  Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. This soup is quite chunky, if it is not liquidy enough for you add additional chicken broth and/or water, but be careful not to water down the flavour.  Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated parmesan cheese on top.  This is great served with garlic bread and Caesar Salad.  Delicious!!

Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies

I got this recipe in 1996 when Tim and I were on an extended trip to California. We met a Manitoba gal down there through friend and ended up staying with her for over a month. She was an awesome person, but we lost touch after we returned home. I often think of Donna and wonder how she’s doing. This was her recipe, so whenever we make these cookies, I always think of her.

Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies:

1 cup of softened margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine the above ingredients and beat until fluffy.

1 1/2 cups flour (you may need to add a touch more if dough seems overly sticky after cooling)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup walnuts
*white chocolate chips
*Add 1 cup of Cornflakes or Rice Krispies instead of the walnuts

Mix the flour, soda and salt together. Add the oatmeal and nuts (or cereal). Mix well and add chocolate chips, if desired. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough into balls and dip them in sugar.  Place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake about 10 minutes. Should make about 4 dozen.

P90X Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

My hubby is on holidays right now and was looking for a healthy new soup to try. He found this recipe in our P90X Cookbook. This is only the second recipe we have ever made from the book, but the Island Pork Tenderloin is one of our favourites and this soup proved to be very tastey as well. I think we need to take a serious look at this book because both of the recipes we’ve tried have been both delicious and healthy.

P90X Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Although this recipe came from our P90X recipe book, I found this link for it on food.com. My husband had the soup  ready when I got home from work today. He sure knows how to make my day – love that!!

Ingredients:

    • 2 cups white wine (added about 1/2 cup extra)
    • 1 onion, finely chopped
    • 5 red peppers, roasted
    • 2 cups celery
    • 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
    • 2 plum tomatoes
    • 1/4 cup tomato paste
    • 2 cups chicken broth
    • 2 tablespoons dried thyme
    • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
    • 1/4 teaspoon cumin
    • Optional: Garnish with Parmesan Cheese, Sour Cream and/or chopped Green Onions

Directions:

  1. Place peppers on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Give them a half turn and bake an additional 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Pull and discard the stems. (Don’t worry about removing the seeds.)
  2. While peppers are baking, chopped the vegetables for the soup.
  3. Heat wine in large heavy soup pot over medium heat. Add onion, red peppers, and celery. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. Stir in garlic. Cook 2 more minutes, adding more wine if necessary.
  4. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, and broth, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes.
  5. Puree soup in a food processor. Return to pan, add seasonings, and heat through.
  6. Garnish as desired.

Yummy Mexican Salad

Thursday was the staff appreciation lunch at my kid’s school and the PAC had planned a Mexican themed feast for all of the great staff in the school. I signed-up to bring a salad and of course, was looking for something that would fit with the theme. I came across this recipe on Divas Can Cook and it not only looked incredible, but had great reviews from their readers. I actually love both corn and black beans, but since going on The Plan have realized that neither would be considered “friendly foods” for me personally. Knowing my body and how it reacts to certain foods doesn’t mean I can’t eat them, it just means that I am aware and more mindful of what else I eat on the same day and the day after. So, you guessed it…..I made a double batch, one for the luncheon and one for dinner on Thursday night.

Let’s just say the Diva’s did not disappoint. I loved the vegetable combination and although I was a bit skeptical when making the dressing, it came together to make a really yummy dish. We ate it as a salad along side the Chicken Fajitas we had for dinner, but I can see it being a great topping on rice or even served over a chicken breast. I am sure it would make a great dip with nachos as well. Yummy!

Black Bean Corn Salad

This recipe was taken directly from the Divas Can Cook site and I followed it almost exactly. I did include the optional avocado and only used 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I also used freshly squeezed lime juice as the recipe suggests.

Ingredients:

  • 11 oz sweet corn, drained (I used a can of Peaches & Cream)
  • 15 oz black beans, rinsed & drained
  • 1 green bell pepper, diced
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 1 small red onion, diced
  • 1 pint grape tomatoes, diced
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2-3 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 avocado, diced (Not optional if you ask me – delicious!!)

Chili Lime Dressing:

  • 1½ Tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • ½ teaspoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder (can add more)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Pinch of cumin

 Instructions:

  1. Combine the beans and chopped vegetables in a large bowl.
  2. Mix the Chili Lime Dressing ingredients together in a small bowl.
  3. Add the dressing to salad and toss to combine.
  4. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

I let mine salad sit for several and it was still great! (However, I only added the avocado and tomatoes about an hour before serving time.)

Hard Boiled Eggs in the Oven?

If you frequent Pinterest, I’m sure you have seen the pins showing how to bake eggs in their shell instead of hard boiling them on the stove. If you read my Devilled Egg post back in the summer, you would understand why I jumped all over this idea. So, I decided to try this out for our Easter eggs.

Directions for Baking Eggs:

I basically did exactly what was suggested on the “pins”. I preheated my oven to 325 degrees. I placed my eggs in a muffin tin and baked them for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes I removed them from the oven and transferred them to an ice bath.

The Good News:

The eggs cooked perfectly.

The Bad News:

Like some of the other pinners, my eggs ended up with brown spots on the shells and even some spots that looked a bit scorched. Decorating wasn’t high on my kids interest list, so we ended up peeling and eating some of the dozen that I baked.  All of the eggs had little brown/scorch marks on them in a place or two. It had no impact on the taste, but if presentation was of concern, I would not recommend this technique. I’m not sure what causes this, but I have to admit I did not turn the eggs during the 30 minute bake time. Some suggested turning them half way through the baking time and others didn’t, so of course I opted for the easier of the two and didn’t bother turning them. I’m not sure if turning would have prevented this or not. Although my muffin tin was clean, it is well used and “seasoned”. I’m not sure if this was the problem or not.

The Verdict:

This works well if you are making egg salad sandwiches for your family, but I wouldn’t recommend this method for devilled eggs you plan on serving to company or for decorating Easter eggs. Having said that, it didn’t really impact the few eggs we decorated this year. We just made sure to “colour” over the spots and you really couldn’t see the brown marks, but it would totally depend on how you were decorating your eggs. Based on my one experience with this cooking method, I think I’ll probably stick to the traditional method and just boil them. Cool idea though!

Place the eggs in an ice bath.
You can see the discolouration on the eggs.
Most of the marks washed off this one, but 1/12 isn’t a great result.

FYI They didn’t peel any easier either! 

Easy Banana Pudding Trifle

This is a first for me….this will be the third dessert I have made within 4 days…. two over Easter weekend and then one for our staff lunch on Tuesday. Fortunately, I’m sending a salad to the Staff Appreciation lunch at my kid’s school on Thursday, 4 desserts in a week would be a bit much! I had a “banana pudding” dessert several years ago and it was delicious. I actually got the recipe for it, but it was missing a step or two and I didn’t want to guess what to do. I ended up searching for a banana pudding recipe and although I found one that was very similar, I opted for this one instead. I must say I was intrigued by the 10 minute prep time and the inclusion of sour cream. I decided to wait and post this after the luncheon. I really enjoyed it and it got rave reviews from the staff as well! This was super easy to make and the taste did not disappoint!

This recipe was found on Divas Can Cook.  I have found several good recipes on their site, so I was pretty confident it would be a good one.

Easy Banana Pudding:

Ingredients:

  • 3-6 bananas (I used 6 banana ~ 2 per layer)
  • 2 102g boxes instant Vanilla pudding
  • 2 cups of milk
  • 1 box of Nilla Wafers (You’ll only need about 3/4 of a box)
  • 8 oz. container of Cool Whip (3 cups)
  • 1 cup sour cream

Instructions:

  1. Combine pudding and milk in a large bowl.
  2. Whisk until creamy.
  3. Add sour cream and 1 1/2 cups of Cool Whip.
  4. Stir until combined.
  5. In a dish, add a layer of chopped bananas and Nilla Wafers
  6. Spread approximately 1/3 of the pudding mixture on the wafers.
  7. Repeat the layering process two more times, ending with the pudding mixture.
  8. Spread on the remaining Cool Whip on top.
  9. Garnish with crushed wafers.
  10. Refrigerate for 3 hours.
  11. Serve cold.
Notes:
I made this dessert the evening before and it kept very well. The author does not recommend using instant banana pudding in lieu of vanilla. This tasted great as is and I wouldn’t change a thing!

Lemon Trifle

This was the second dessert I prepared this weekend. I said I would bring something to Tim’s family’s Easter dinner and decided on a dessert. When I was young, my mom often had Angel Food Cake for dessert. She had a few variations of how she served it, but one of my favourites was with a lemon topping. Unfortunately, it was not one of the recipes I thought of asking her before she passed away, so I haven’t had it in decades. I thought that I might try a search and see what I could come up with. I really had no memory of how she made it, so this was pretty much a shot in the dark!

Lemon Trifle:

Basically, I pretty much made this up. I found a recipe that looked promising for my Mom’s lemon topping on Food.com.  I used the suggested ingredients and ratios to come up with this trifle. It was delicious, but I’d make a few modifications next time, more so for presentation than anything else.

Ingredients:

  • 1 pouch of Sherrif lemon pie filling mix – prepared according to the instructions – Cooled completely.
  • 3/4 cup of whipping cream + 1 cup of whipping cream – whipped
  • vanilla sandwich cookies (I used a row of Girl Guide Cookies because I have an entire case on hand) Anyone want to buy cookies??
  • 2 angel food cakes (I bought one from the bakery and it wasn’t enough to fill my trifle bowl. I think a cake mix makes a larger angel cake and one mix would probably make enough, but the store bought ones seemed smaller and I would buy two next time or make my own.)
  • lemon rind

Method:

  1. Cook the lemon pie filling according to the directions and then cool completely.
  2. Meanwhile, whip the cream. (If you wish, you can add a tablespoon of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla to the whipped cream, but I didn’t). You can do this all at once and make an approximate division for the recipe or whip it in two batches. This isn’t rocket science and it will not make much difference if your whipping cream is a bit off. Both the lemon and whipping cream are delicious, the combination really just makes it creamier.
  3. Remove about 1/4 of the lemon pie filling and set aside. (I didn’t do this in my original attempt, but think the brighter yellow and stronger lemon would be a nice addition.)
  4. Take the remain lemon pie filling and fold in the 3/4 cup of cream that you previously whipped (if you mixed it in one batch, just take slightly less than half of the batch.)
  5. Chop 10 to 12 vanilla sandwich cookies (lemon would be good as well).
  6. Break the cake into small bit-sized chunks. Divide the cake into thirds.

Assembly:

  1. Place one third of the cake pieces on the bottom of the trifle bowl.
  2. Add 1/3 of the lemon cream filling.
  3. Add second layer of cake followed by 1/3 of the lemon cream filling.
  4. Add the reserved lemon curd. It will be a very thin layer.
  5. Top this with the crushed cookies and the final layer of cake.
  6. Add the remaining third of lemon cream.
  7. Top with the remaining (1 cup) of whipped cream.
  8. Garnish with lemon rind and/or additional cookie crumbs.

There really is no right or wrong way to do this, I made it up! As long as your whip cream whips properly, you’re good to go. I suppose you could even use Cool Whip in lieu of the whip cream, but I like the real thing. This sounds like lots of steps, but I literally whipped this up in about 30 minutes. It was delicious and light!