Recipe #25 Roasted Beet Salad

This recipe makes a serving for 2 (can be easily doubled for a family)

1/2 pound fresh red beets (about 6 small)
2 tsp olive oil (we use imported olive oil from Greece)
1 medium tangerine, peeled, divided into segments, seeds removed
2 tbsp chopped red onion
1 medium celery stalk, chopped
2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper


Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C). Place beets on a large piece of aluminum foil; drizzle with oil. Fold foil to form a tightly sealed packet. Place packet on a baking sheet and roast until beets are tender when pierced with a fork, about 1 hour.


Cool beets for 10 minutes, open packet (be careful of escaping steam), slip off beets skins with a paring knife and cut into 1/2 in cubes. Wear rubber gloves to avoid staining your hands. Place beets in a serving bowl. Add sliced tangerines sections, onion and celery, toss gently.


In a small bow, whisk together winegar, mustard, salt and pepper; pour over beets and toss to mix and coat. Serve immediately with your favorite steak, chicken or pork main dish.

This recipe was taken from the Weight Watchers Book #8 - called Mix-it-Up Recipes!

Making healthy choices!

By writing this blog, I have discovered how important it is to share recipes with others. Each week, I hear from someone who has read and enjoyed the recipe of the week. This has been my inspiration to keep writing and publishing our favourite recipes.

This week I am focusing on making healthy choices. Making the extra efffort to search out whats fresh in the marketplace improves the taste of what is served in your home for dinner. We don't have to wait for the local garden produce, our supermarkets import fresh products daily. In Canada, supermarkets carry a wide range of produce imported from many parts of the world. How fortunate we are to live in this beautiful country - its just up to us to use the products in our kitchens.

Recipe #24 French Toast Casserole with a twist!

Since we were out celebrating over the past few weeks, I needed a recipe that we could make ahead and just pop in the oven. While visiting our friends Livio and Marilyn Ubaldi in Sault Ste Marie, we were served the perfect recipe. I just added my own twist to it and it will now become a family favourite. Many thanks to Liz Ubaldi for providing the initial recipe.

French Toast Casserole

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 tbsp corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla

Bring above ingredients to a boil, pour into 9x12 pan and let cool. Cover with 6 slices of Raison bread, sprinkle with a little white sugar and cinnamon, and cover with 6 more slices of bread. I recommend thicker slices of bread. Beat 6 eggs with 1 cup of milk and pour over. Cover and refridgerate overnight. Cook at 350 for 30 minuites.

Flip over when serving so that the topping is on top. Cut the bread to fit your pan.

Serve with fresh fruit. Add maple syrup if you like.

Celebrating our 35th Wedding Anniversary

Today, Feb 22, 2010 is our 35th wedding anniversary and what a wonderful month of celebrating.

We enjoyed a beautiful meal in Stratford with friends Todd & Brenda from Tavistock. Great conversation, wonderful food and sharing with friends is a beautiful way to celebrate. Thank you so much for joining us to celebrate Valentines Day and our anniversary!

Then, our girls & their families made reservations for us to have dinner at Cello's in London. Kern's nephew, Kristoffer is a chef at this restaurant and he made our visit a special time. At the end of the dinner, he even posed with us for a photo. Cello's is a great restaurant in London. It is located right across the street from the John Labatt Centre. Visit the website to see what they have to offer - http://www.cellosupperclub.com/

My dinner of choice is often fish, so I thoroughly enjoyed the Seared Rainbow Trout dinner - it was excellent! Kern sampled the Braised Osso Bucco and he really enjoyed feeling like a VIP for a night!

A west coast specialty - BC Dungenous Crab

During a recent visit to British Columbia, Pauline (Kern's sister) and Rick demonstrated how to clean and prepare a west coast specialty - British Columbia Dungenous Crab. Kern & Rick visited a local market and purchased two large, live Dungenous crabs. Rick continued to demonstrate how to clean and cook the crab. Pictures are worth a thounsand words, so please see the process in the pictures above. Eating the crab needed very little instruction - the dinner table was very quiet while we enjoyed this west coast delicacy. Thank you Pauline & Rick!!!

Recipe #23 British Columbia Dungenous Crab Cakes!

Ingredients:
2 lbs steam cooked crab
1 egg
2 tbsp mayonnaise (low fat)
1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
Paprika to taste
2 slices of fresh soft bread, grated into soft, bulky crumbs
A small amount of dried panko breadcrumbs

In a large bowl, combine the egg, mayonnaise, Worchestershire sauce, celery salt, Old Bay and paprika. Whisk it until smooth.

Add the crabmeat to the egg mixture in the bowl and lightly fold the meat into the liquid until all the crabmeat is coated.

Next, add the soft fluffy breadcrumbs. Lightly fold the crabmeat and breadcrumbs together until the crumbs are incorporated into the mixture. The mixture will look rather dry but thats okay - you only want a small amount of binder to hold the crab cakes together. Remember, crabmeat should be the main ingredient in a crabcake, not breadcrumbs. Make into rounds and cover with remaining breadcrumbs.

In a heavy skillet, melt 1 tbsp butter or Becel until foamy. Gently add the crab cakes to the hot skillet. Fry over medium heat three or four minutes, until browned, then turn over and brown the other side.



Roasted Red Pepper Sauce with Capers and Dill

(makes about 1 cup)

2 large red bell peppers, roasted and peeled
1 tbsp fresh dill
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tbsp drained capers
1 tbsp sour cream (I used reduced fat)
2 tbsp mayonnaise (I used light 1/2 fat)
Salt and pepper to taste

Puree the peppers, dill, parsley and capers in a processor or blender, maintaining a little texture. Transfer to a small bowl. Add the sour cream, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Stir until combined. Taste for seasoning. Let stand until needed, about 30 minutes, or refrigerate up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Recipe #22 Old Fashioned Baked Beans

2 cups Thompson's White Pea Beans
5 cups cold water
1 medium onion, sliced
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp. vinegar
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp prepared mustard
1/4 cup Molasses
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
Pinch black pepper
1/4 lb salt pork or bacon,sliced

Sort and rinse the beans then soak them in cold water overnight. Drain and add 5 cups of fresh cold water, cover, heat to boiling, then simmer 30 minutes or under nearly tender. Drain the beans reserving the liquid. Place onion slices on bottom of a 6 cup casserole (we use a cast iron pot with a lid). Add remaining 7 ingredients to the beans, stirring gently to combine, then pour the beans into the casserole. Add the reserved liquid and enough water to cover the beans, then place sliced lean salt pork or bacon on top. Cover with the lid and bake at 250 degrees F for 7 hours. About four hours into the cooking time and every hour after that, check the beans to make sure they have enough liquid - add more if needed. About 1 hour before the end of the cooking time, remove 1 cup of beans, mash, then stir back into pot carefully. Uncover the casserole to allow the beans to darken and add salt to taste.

We used to make this recipe in our cast iron dutch oven cooked in a wood cookstove. We were very fortunate to have a wood cookstove at our cottage on Lake Duborne. Although, we sold the cottage in 2000, it has left us with many memories of cooking wonderful meals this way.

Childhood memories

Memories can be triggered by pictures, smells and conversation. A few weeks ago, I shared some memories of maple syrup and when I first tasted the sweetness in my early childhood at my grandparents home (pictured above). I also remember eating bannock, blueberry pie and baked beans in this house. A huge wood cook stove was used to heat the house but more important it was used for cooking. Cooking on a wood cook stove can be challenging but the the food tastes incredible! It takes skill to gauge the temperature on a wood cookstove and both my grandparents were masters. I can still smell the aroma of fresh bannock from the oven that my grandfather baked. He would then get maple syrup from the root cellar and made us feel very special. My grandmother would bake pies for special guests, with local wild blueberries - we all loved this special treat!
Cooking in this time period was not done for fun, it was a necessary daily chore. But it left me with many, wonderful memories of my grandparents beautiful home on the Dokis Bay Reserve. Whenever I look at pictures of the old homestead or catch the sweet smell of food being cooked in a wood cook stove or look at my grandparents (Pauline and John C. Restoule) wedding pictures, it triggers fond memories of my early years.