Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Maple Sauce

Sep18

These are lemony, light and airy pancakes. The egg whites give a slightly soufflé like texture and the ricotta gives extra protein. The sauce is quick to make while the pancakes are cooking, just maple syrup, seedless raspberry jam and frozen blueberries simmered to make a sauce.

Start off by seating a lemon, you will need 1 heaping TBSP of the zest.

In a large bowl whisk two egg yolks (save the whites), 1cup ricotta, 3tbsp sugar, 1/2 cup all purpose flour and zest

In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until glossy peaks form.

Gently fold the ricotta mixture, a bit at a time, into the egg whites. Then slowly mix in 2tbsp melted butter.

Cook in hot fry pan or griddle

For the sauce I placed 1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam, 1/3 cup frozen wild blueberries and 1/3 cup maple syrup in a small saucepan and let simmer gently for a few minutes and then keep warm until ready to pour over pancakes.

Too with the blueberry maple sauce
Very light and fluffy and sooo good!

Berries

Sep10

we picked wild blueberries and wild raspberries.

Evie tried the black berries and partridge berries (ligonberries), they are both pretty sour.

The sod cellar is where dad kept the winter vegetables, it was next to my great grandfather’s house, which is gone now. The water pump is where they got water back then.

Our friend Bucky, such a sweet horse.

We had a fire and made some smores, but it was so cold outside that the chocolate was too cold to melt!!

Wildflowers and Blueberries

Sep8

In My Kitchen September 2015

Sep1

I cannot believe that September is here already, summer flew by in a blink. I am not ready for it to be any where near over and I am certainly not ready for winter, it gets pretty harsh here.

We took a trip to Niagara Falls for a week and that was fun, though the drive was long.

Evie and I are in Newfoundland for a wedding until September 14th, she is a bridesmaid. I will post more on that after the wedding. In addition to the wedding preparations we will be picking blueberries and hopefully doing a little bit of baking with them.

Here is a little bit of what has been in our kitchen since our last IMK post.

We went to a Ukrainian festival where we had an excellent Pierogi lunch. We bought some paczki filled with a prune puree and they were very fresh and delicious. Evie stuffed herself on both the pierogi and packzi.

This Nordic Birch water is Evie’s new favourite drink, she loves it!

We made a pizza this is a favourite, we will have to post the dough recipe soon.

It is basically a Margherita with green olives.

We tried this Strawberry Basil and Jalapeño Lemonade, though it sounds weird it was actually really good

On our trip to Niagara we went to St. Jacob’s and stopped into a local bakery, Evie got a little peach pie.

at the market we got some jam made by Mennonite ladies. There is a large population of Mennonites in the St. Jacob’s area. The local hardware store has a separate parking section for the horse and buggies.

We also stopped into a British store where Evie found her favourite marmalade

Her dad got the ginger chocolate. We also had Cadbury Flake bars that we devoured as soon as we got in the car.

I got these Empire biscuits and as you can see I couldn’t wait to take a picture

Evie also got these pickled onion Montser Munch. They didn’t have any single bags, due to costs and problems with customs, only this large bag with 6 bags inside. The shopkeeper was so nice he gave her this supply. He told her to space them out, but now she would have some.

Some fresh Niagara peaches

wild blueberries from the farmer’s market

And our lovely friend Karam, who you may remember from way back in this post where she made mug brownies with Evie, just got back from a trip to Scotland and brought Evie back this cute tin of shortbread biscuits. It is extra special because it has a highland cow on it, which Karam has taught her is actually called a “Heilan Coo”. She says that ALOT!

As alway thank you to Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for hosting the monthly IMK posts, they are always fun. Don’t forget if you want to participate you must post and let Celia know before the 10th.

Strawberry and Rosewater Frozen Yogurt Pops

Jul1

First of all I have to add a disclaimer, this is totally Evie’s recipe, it is to her taste (not mine). This child is very picky when it comes to yogurt, it is all too sweet. When we were on vacation last summer the guy working in dairy at Whole Foods was determined to find her a yogurt that she liked. He saw us in there everyday getting breakfast and one day as she is mulling over the yogurt he noticed and started asking questions and making suggestions. She told him the ones that she tried and were too sweet, he then picked a couple off the shelf and brought them to the cash telling the cashier that he was giving these to her to try to find one that she liked so we would know what to buy next time, I thought that was very nice. We pretty much stick to plain. God help us if she finds any of that fruit on the bottom stuff she will shiver ~~trying not to gag~~ in disgust.

A popular breakfast for her is plain yogurt, with a drizzle of honey and a splash of rosewater. This concoction was given to us by an Iranian friend, who I used to work with. It was an instant hit! So from her breakfast yogurt came the idea for her frozen yogurt pops. And they are perfectly red and white for Canada Day!

Our measurements are not accurate because she is 7 and not quite aware of all of the measurements yet and it is completely by taste, Evie tastes and tells me when it is right so I can figure out roughly how much she used. That is life with 7 year old foodie!

Take about a handful or two of strawberries and slice them, set aside

about 1 & 1/2 cups plain yogurt (you can use vanilla if you really don’t like plain)

about 2 tsp of honey (we used rose honey, it had a lovely rose flavour)

1/2 tsp (plus a few extra drops to taste) rosewater

Stir this together

Add some to a ice pop mould, about 1/3 way up. them ad a few slices of berry, top up with more yogurt then some berry then yogurt and add the top and stick and freeze until solid.

There you have it, just in time for Canada Day. If you want to make for 4th of July just add some blueberries along with the strawberries for red, white and blue yogurt pops.

Happy Canada Day!!

Raspberry White Chocolate Scones

Feb2

I love scones, these are delicious and this recipe is quick and easy to make.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

3 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup cold butter, cubed

4 squares white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup raspberries, or mixture of berries (fresh or frozen); today we used frozen raspberries and blueberries

3/4 cup milk (can add a little more if needed)

1 tbsp coarse sprinkling sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Use pastry blender cut butter into flour until crumbly (sorry, forgot this picture).

Stir in chocolate and berries.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add milk and stir with a fork to make a ragged dough.

Turn out onto counter top and knead just until the ragged bits are incorporated into the dough (the berries make a pretty colour). Gently pat into a 3/4 inch disc and cut into wedges or circles (using a medium-large cookies cutter).

Place on an ungreased baking sheet, sprinkle top with coarse sugar, if using.

Bake in preheated over for 12 to 15 minutes until bottom is golden and edges and top are starting to brown. Let cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Mell’s Wheat Germ Muffins

Jan17

I really like these muffins, but we haven’t had them in quite awhile. The recipe is from my cousin, not sure of the original source, but we have had the recipe for many years. I ate a lot of these in the days after Evie was born, it was one of my sources of sustenance. I kind of needed a break after that, but I thought of them the other day and voila.

In a bowl mix together the following dry ingredients:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat germ

1/8 tsp baking soda

3 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

In another bowl mix together the following wet ingredients:

1 egg

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and let sit for 1-2 minutes.

This is what it looks like after sitting, sort of foamy

Fill greased muffin tins, or use liners, 3/4 full. Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes until done.

*Note: You can add in 1/2 cup of berries if you would like to make them into berry muffins.

I was given a large bag of frozen blueberries by my neighbour, who received a large amount from a friend who is a farmer and picked them fresh and then froze them. I did a split batch here, filled half the cups with non-berry batter and then added a couple of handfuls of berries to the rest of the batter and finished filling the cups.

These didn’t last long!

Arrived in Newfoundland…a little late

Aug9

We left on Tuesday afternoon to catch our flight, everything was going fine until we boarded the plane, then a power surge blew the computer and the navigational software was lost, over 2 hours later we took off, but missed our connecting flight. We ended up landing in St. John’s at 4am. Evie was a trooper slept on the plane then went back to bed at 4:30am and woke up ready to go at 8am. After a small breakfast and a visit with her cousin we went to get her “Kitty Cat Pizza”, she has been waiting almost 3 years to have this pizza again. Raye and I had “East Coast Donairs”. This isn’t our favourite place for donairs, but our old university haunts will be visited when we are back in the city.

We made it “around the bay” mid afternoon and then we has fresh cod and chips for supper. My Mom’s batter recipe is below also. After all of that eating we had to go for a walk and picked a few handfuls of blueberries. The next day was going to be busy we had a local museum to visit, going jigging for cod, and supper at Nan’s.