Steak Sandwich with Gorgonzola Spread

Sep18

Evie got a new book, guess what, it involves cooking! She was so surprised to find this book, it is a kids book by Giada de Laurentis. There are two others in the series as well that we are keeping an eye out for.

This is the book

There are two recipes in the back, one for pizelles and one for steak sandwiches.

We made the sandwiches.

First of all you need to marinade the steak. We liked the flavour of the marinade and will try freezing steak in it sometime for a freezer meal.

You will need:

1/4cup balsamic vinegar

1/4cup soy sauce

1/4cup Worcestershire sauce

1tbsp yellow mustard seeds cracked

4oz Gorgonzola crumbled

1/2cup sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste

1 baguette

2cups lightly packed arugula

3 (12-14oz) ribeye steaks

Combine first five ingredients in a large resealable plastic bag, and the steaks and seal the bag. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes up to 2 hours. Turn occasionally as they marinate.

Remove steaks from bag and discard marinade. Grill steak to desired doneness. Let steaks rest on a plate for about 10 minutes then slice thinly across the grain.

Stir sour cream and Gorgonzola together with a sprinkle of salt and pepper to make a thick spread.

Cut baguette lengthwise and scoop out a little of the bread. Smear the spread over both sides of the baguette halves. Sorry, got carried away with making dinner and forgot to take pictures. Arrange arugula over bottom half of baguette then add warm steak slices on top. Sprinkle the steak slices with a little salt and pepper. Cover with baguette top. Cut sandwich crosswise into 3-4 equal parts.

Then Evie made these little sandwiches from the leftovers for her lunchbox the next day.

Just baguette,steak with a drizzle of balsamic and some arugula leaves.

Notes: we did not use ribeye steaks as the store that I went to had noe, so we just used another type of sandwich/grilling steak.

Also determined that neither Evie or I like Gorgonzola, we ate the sandwiches because they were very good, but Gorgonzola stinks! We can’t get over that so I will use the steak part again, maybe with a different less stinky spread!

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Jul5

This is the best ever banana cake. It is so moist and has a lot of banana flavour, made even better by adding cream cheese frosting. It is dangerous for me to have this cake in the house because I cannot pass it without cutting off a little bite. I also like to keep this one in the fridge, I like it better cold. You can use the frosting or if you prefer more of a snacking cake for ~~breakfast~~ mid-morning snack, it is also very good with out the frosting.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 & 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups four

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 medium bananas, mashed (1 cup)

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and mix to incorporate

Add in sour cream and vanilla, mix

Combine flour baking soda and salt, gradually add this to the creamed mixture

Mix until combine into a batter

Add in the banana and mix until combined

Pour batter into a 9″X13″and bake.

TO prepare the cream cheese frosting:

Take 1 block of cream cheese at room temperature, 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature, 2 tsp vanilla and about 3 cups icing sugar. Mix until combined and creamy smooth. I usually add 2 cups of the icing sugar and them keep adding until it is as sweet as I want it.

Well I got carried away and didn’t take a picture before frosting!

Guinness Chocolate Cake…a.k.a Best Cake Ever

May23

We all LOVE LOVE LOVE this cake. I make this at least a few times a year. This is another Nigella recipe (from her book Feast) and it is my favourite. It is a delicious dense dark moist chocolate cake topped with a very creamy smooth cream cheese icing.

Preheat your oven to 180C, which I think is 350F. Start with a can of Guinness. This is what happens if you are unprepared when you open it and don’t have a pot ready to pour it in. I lost a little bit.

Pour the can of Guinness (250ml) into a pot and add butter (250g) heat until melted. I just realized, while typing this, that I just poured in the whole can. I think that was quite a bit more than I needed. Which explains why the batter was wetter than I remembered it being and it took longer to bake. But it turned out amazing!

Add sugar (400g) and cocoa powder (75g)

Whisk this together while heating

Take that off the stove and let cool a couple of minutes, in a separate bowl whisk together 142ml sour cream, 2 eggs and 1Tbsp vanilla

Pour that mixture into the chocolatey beer mixture.

To that add 275g of flour and 2&1/2 tsp baking soda

Pour batter into prepared (greased with a round of parchment lining the bottom) springform pan (8 or 9″)

Place the pan on a cookie sheet, just in case of leakage.

Bake for about 45-60 minutes until done. Don’t worry about the cracks in the top, those nooks and crannies will get filled with the delicious cream cheese icing.

Let cool completely before icing. Once the cake was at room temperature I wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator overnight and did the icing the next day.

The cream cheese icing is amazing but very simple. Beat together 300g room temperature cream cheese with 150g icing sugar and 125ml whipping cream. I used a little less that that amount of whipping cream as I found the icing was getting too liquid. Use your judgement.

Dollop the icing on top of the cake and spread to the edges.

It kind of looks like a pint of Guinness!

I think this cake would also be great without the icing or just a sifting of icing sugar.

Turkey Pancakes

Feb16

Tomorrow is Pancake Day, otherwise known as the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, when Lent begins. We always have regular pancakes for Pancake Day supper. Well not quite “normal” we hide a clean (wiped with rubbing alcohol, washed well with dish soap and water, then boiled for about 15 minutes) coin into most of the pancakes. When we were kids Mom’s wedding ring was hidden inside one as well. I don’t go that far with it. I know this may all sound a little dangerous, with those small items being choking hazards, but we were looking for the hidden coins well before we put a bite in our mouths. We will do that tomorrow as well and all coins will be accounted for.

I was thinking this may be a good recipe for supper on Pancake Day, but Evie promptly said “No! I hate turkey pancakes”. We made these a few weeks ago and I thought getting her to eat it could go either way. She was not impressed. But she doesn’t like stuffing with her turkey, I think it is the texture for her. These do taste a lot like turkey with stuffing.

This is a great way to use up leftover turkey (or chicken). If we don’t have leftovers I just cook a couple of chicken breasts (bake seasoned with a little salt and pepper) and use those.

In a large bowl whisk together 1 egg, 1/2 cup milk, 1/4 cup sour cream and 1/4 cup melted butter.

In another bowl stir together 1 cup flour, 1&1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt

mix this together gently to form batter

Gently fold in 1 & 1/2 cups chopped turkey (or chicken).

I added about 2 tbsp chopped parsley (this is optional, if you don’t have any don’t worry, or you can use some chopped green onion if you have that)

and 1/2 cup cranberry sauce (i used regular Ocean Spray canned stuff, whole berry)

I also tossed in a few sprinkles of Mt. Scio savoury, just to make it taste a little more like turkey and stuffing. We use that in all of our turkey dinners in Newfoundland, it just gives it the taste that we like.

Cook the same as you would any pancakes.

Heat pan or griddle that has been lightly greased.

Use about 1/4 cup better for each pancake. Some I made a little too big so the next batch I made a little smaller.

Cook over medium-high heat for about 4-5 minutes until bubble start to come through the top and bottom is golden brown.

Flip and cook until other side is golden brown. As you can see I overcooked a few, but caught them just in time so they didn’t taste overdone. A few extra seconds and I would have ruined them.

A platter of turkey pancakes.

This is what they look like inside.

We like them topped with a little sour cream and cranberry sauce.

Adapted from: unsure, but from a Christmas cookbook, maybe Taste of Home or Canadian Living.

Peaches and Cream Muffins

Sep21

I think peach season is probably over in most areas by now, although you can still get them at the grocery store. We had a basket of peaches that had a few left in the fridge almost past their prime. When you have over ripe fruit make muffins!

I was pressed for time since the peaches were spoiling fast and it was a week night. I found a recipe that was short and seemed fairly quick to whip up.

This recipe is adapted from a Taste of Home recipe, I had to change it a little because the batter seemed really dry. These turned out really good. I got 12 regular-smallish sized muffins out of the recipe.

In a small bowl mix:

1 egg; 1/2 cup sour cream; 1/4 cup milk; and 1/4 vegetable oil

In another, larger, bowl mix:

1 &1/2 cups all purpose flour; 1/2 cup sugar; 2tsp baking powder; 1/2 tsp salt

Stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moistened and then stir in 1 cup of chopped peaches.

Place in greased or paper lined muffin pans and bake at 350F or about 20 minutes.

They should be lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Cool for about 5 minutes in the pan and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

I also found another Peaches and Cream muffin recipe from the website that I like, mennonitegirlscancook.ca, that has a streusel topping. I am going to try that one later when I have more time. It sounds moist and really good.

cookswithevie

our adventures cooking … and other fun stuff

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