Eggroll Bowls

I swear, I do eat food with ‘structure’. But there is something nice about a random bowl full of flavours. My kid suggested that rice would be a good addition to this – there’s quite a bit of liquid – and I agree. Next time I’ll add some cooked rice at the end to soak it up.

This makes about 6 servings.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 pounds ground pork
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 onion, sliced thinly
2 cups of shredded carrot (approx 3 large carrots)
1/2 green cabbage, thinly sliced (I used savoy)
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons sriracha

Optional garnish:
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add garlic and ginger and cook for about 1 minute. Add pork and cook fully (break meat into small chunks).
   
2. Push pork to the side of the skillet and add sesame oil. Add onion, carrot, and cabbage. Stir everything together to combine. Add soy sauce and sriracha.
   
3. Cook until cabbage is very tender, 8 to 10 minutes.
   
4. Transfer to a serving dish or individual bowls and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds (optional).

Chili

No photo. Chili is not an appealing photography subject. But as someone who doesn’t particularly like chili, I’ll admit that this was delicious. I’m looking forward to making it again! (It is particularly good with herb bread – recipe here.)

Ingredients  

• 3 pounds lean ground beef
• 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 2 ½ tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoon2 cumin
• 1 bell pepper seeded and diced (I use red because I’m allergic to green)
• 1 large can crushed tomatoes
• 1 large can kidney beans (or black, or..) drained and rinsed
• 1 large can diced tomatoes with juices
• 2 ½ cups beef broth
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions 

• In a large pot, brown ground beef with 1 ½ tablespoons of chili powder, onion, jalapeno, and garlic. Drain any fat.
• Add in everything else. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer (uncovered) for about an hour – until chili has reached desired thickness.

Nana’s Fruit Salad

As I was flipping through my nana’s recipes, this one stood out – I felt pretty confident that I had eaten it and enjoyed it, but I also couldn’t quite get my brain to accept the ‘sour cream’ part of the ingredients list. Oh well – I made it, put it in the fridge, and waited 24 hours to taste it.

And it was absolutely the ‘fruit salad’ that I remembered. And it’s still delicious. Very 1970s.

Ingredients:
1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut
1 tin mandarin oranges, drained
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 tin cubed pineapple, drained

Directions:
Mix everything together. Let stand overnight [in the fridge].

Notes:
My grandmother wrote “Very good.” next to this, so there’s your endorsement. I used the small ‘tins’ of oranges and pineapple and it turned out that they were the right size. I understand that a sour cream-based fruit salad seems … odd… but it really doesn’t taste like sour cream. Just… creamy? Yeah.

Herb Bread [Spread]

Herb bread [spread] was the epitome of happiness for me at family meals growing up. Buttery, sweet, savoury… so good. Don’t get me wrong, I love garlic bread – but this is way better. I’ve made it a few times over the years and most times people just kind of shrug politely, so perhaps it’s an acquired taste? If you make this, let me know your feelings.

Note that this makes a LOT of spread – I do half of this recipe and it will absolutely cover 6 to 8 ciabatta buns, sliced in half (as in the photo above). Storing this in the fridge is fine but makes it hard to spread – you’ll want to let it come up to room temp before using.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese (yup, the cheap stuff for this!)
1 tablespoon parsley
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon sage or poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon seasoning salt

Directions:
Combine all the ingredients together. Spread onto bread, rolls, etc. Bake at 350F (unwrapped) until golden.

Notes:
I air-fried this at 350F for 5 minutes.

Nana’s Apple Cinnamon Cake

As a kid, this cake always disappointed me. It wasn’t predictably sweet. The cake was kind of.. eggy? But I remember eating it on many occasions so, clearly, someone in my family liked it. Recently I was thinking about it – trying to remember if I knew what it was called – and when I stumbled across a recipe in my nana’s book that seemed right, I figured it would be a good candidate for my “let’s make all the old recipes” quest (did I mention I’m doing that this winter?). Turns out, Adult Me really likes it.

Ingredients:
3 cups of flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup white sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup brown sugar
cinnamon
5 apples – peeled, cored, and sliced thinly

Directions*:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9×13″ glass baking dish with some butter.
2. Cream butter and white sugar together. Beat in the eggs.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder. In a third bowl, combine milk and vanilla.
4. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk mixture to the butter and sugar.
5. Spread half the dough into the glass dish.
6. Arrange half of the apple slices on top, sprinkle with half of the brown sugar and sprinkle cinnamon on top.
7. Spread the rest of the dough over the apples. Arrange the rest of the apple slices on top, sprinkle with remaining brown sugar, sprinkle with cinnamon.
8. Bake for about 50 minutes, give or take, until a cake tester comes out clean.
   

Notes:

I did not slice the apples ‘thinly’ because I wanted chunky apples in there. There was no cooking time listed for this recipe, so I went with 20 minutes and kept going until it was done – approximately 50 minutes. Also, you could probably make this in a metal cake pan but I remember it being in a glass one, so I went with that. And, in case it matters, I used Cortland apples because that’s what I found at the grocery store in the “for baking” section. I don’t regret that choice.

Butter Tart Squares

Okay, listen. If you like butter tarts, these squares are worth the very little amount of time that it takes to make ’em. They disappear so quickly!

Ingredients:

crust:
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1/4 cup packed (light) brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

filling:
1 cup packed (dark) brown sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup corn syrup (or maple syrup!)
1/4 cup butter (melted)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup raisins (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large bowl, if you are doing this by hand), make the crust. Blend the butter, brown sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon together until it’s crumbly and combined.
3. Line an 8×8 square pan with parchment paper. Press the crust into the pan. Bake for 15 minutes, or until it’s firm and golden around the edges.
4. While the crust is baking, make the filling! Use the same bowl. Mix the dry ingredients together first, then add the wet ingredients. Add raisins (optional). Stir/mix until very smooth.
5. Pour the filling over top of the baked crust. Put into the oven for about 25 minutes – you’ll know it’s done when it’s a deep golden colour, a bit puffy, and bubbly around the edges. Cool fully (in the fridge, if you want to make slicing it easier!) Remove from fridge, slice, and serve at room temperature.

Coconut Frosting, Sorta’

My youngest kid turned 21 and he asked for a plain vanilla cake with coconut frosting. I ended up using a box mix for the cake (because he didn’t mind at all) and then I got a little creative with the frosting. It turned out far better than I expected – I like coconut, but I don’t love it – and I’d definitely make it again if someone asked.

The recipe makes enough frosting to go between cake layers + the entire outside of 2 stacked 9″ cakes + some leftover.

Ingredients:

453 grams cream cheese, at room temperature (slightly less than 2 blocks)

227 grams (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract

453 grams icing sugar, sifted

170 grams sweetened shredded coconut (one small package)

Directions:

Use your electric mixer to combine the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and almond extract on low speed. Slowly add the sifted icing sugar. Mix until it’s smooth, not whipped.

Cover the bottom cake with frosting. Put the 2nd cake on top. Cover the entire outside with more frosting. Sprinkle coconut on top, use your hands to ‘pat’ more coconut along the sides.

Serve at room temperate.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Every once in a while I’ll remember that I have (or had) a recipe for something that I really enjoy – and will realize that it’s not here on ye olde blog. I realized this week that I hadn’t made roasted red pepper hummus in a while, scanned for the recipe here, couldn’t find it – dug around in some cookbooks and finally found the on that I had been using reliably. No picture because I ate most of it in the last few days and I tossed the rest into the freezer for later. It’s hummus though, so… use your imagination, I guess?

Ingredients:

1 can (540ml) chickpeas, drained and quickly rinsed
1/2 cup roasted red pepper (I buy a small jar of them and use half of it, minus the oil)
1/4 cup tahini
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons water
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove of garlic, minced (or a lot more if you love garlic)

Directions:

1. Dump chickpeas, red peppers, tahini, spices, and garlic into a food processor.
2. With the food processor running, add the olive oil, water, and lemon juice.
3. Continue running the processor until you get the consistency you like (I like mine super soft).
4. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, or freeze in small batches (so you can thaw ’em to eat or toss in your lunch bag.)

Notes:
Use random roasted veggies, or sun dried tomatoes, or extra garlic, or caramelized onions, or… whatever you like.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

I am on a quest to use up the ungodly amount of food in my pantry (actually, I have several) and freezer. I have adapted somewhat to buying/cooking for just one person old habits die hard and sometimes I buy a 3-pack of something where I really only needed a single item.

Anyway. Welcome to my childhood in the 70s.

Makes: 6-8 servings depending how hungry you are

Ingredients:
1 pkg (340 grams) of broad egg noodles
2 cans of condensed cream soup (your choice – mushroom is standard)
a few cups of frozen peas (I use a LOT)
400 grams shredded old cheddar cheese
2 cans of flaked tuna in water (not oil) OR a whatever protein you like (chicken, ham, etc.)
2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning
Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cook the noodles until they’re nearly done. Toss in the frozen peas and stir around until the peas are thawed.
3. Drain the noodles and the peas. Dump everything into a very large bowl.
4. Open the tuna (or turkey, chicken, ham) or chop up some cooked chicken/turkey, and throw it into the bowl with the noodles.
5. Open the 2 cans of soup and throw them into the bowl too.
6. Add in about 3/4 of the shredded cheese (the rest will go on top of the casserole while it bakes).
7. Add in about 1.5 tablespoons of Italian seasoning (the rest will go on top of the casserole).
8. Add in some black pepper if you like it.
9. Mix everything together very well. Put it all into a casserole dish. I don’t butter mine, but you can if you want. Totally up to you.
10. Top with the remaining cheese and Italian seasoning.
11. Put the casserole, uncovered, into the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes – until the cheese is melted, everything is hot, and you can’t possibly wait any longer because you’re very, very hungry.
12. Leftovers are delicious reheated in the microwave.

Notes:
I recently made this with 1 can of tuna and about 3/4 cup of diced, precooked, seasoned chicken breast that I had left over. It was spectacular.

Instant Pot Mac n’ Cheez

No photo at the moment (I’ll update next time I make the recipe, though). Whenever a friend buys an Instant Pot, this is the recipe that I suggest they try first – it’s easy, has minimal ingredients, and always turns out perfectly.

Makes: approximately 6 servings, depending on what you consider a reasonable amount of pasta to eat.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound elbow macaroni
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 cups water
• 1 can evaporated milk (plus extra milk if you want it creamier)
• 2 cups (or more) shredded cheddar cheese (or marble)
• Parmesan if you like it

Directions:

1. Add macaroni, butter, mustard, hot sauce, salt, and water into the instant pot. Stir well.
2. Secure the lid on IP and make sure the valve on top is set to “pressure”. Hit the “manual” button, then set to 4 minutes. Release the valve (“quick release”) when finished.
3. Leave it on “keep warm” and stir in cheese and milk(s), alternating, until you reach the consistency you prefer – saucy, gooey, whatever!
4. Eat the mac and cheez.

Optional:

• Add black pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, or other random spices to the water in the pot before cooking.
• After cooking, add in pre-cooked bacon, or other meat (chicken, turkey, etc), for additional protein.
• After cooking, transfer to a casserole dish, top with bread crumbs and cheese, and briefly broil in the oven for a crunchy top.