Amazing Struesel-Topped Muffins

June 14, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

These muffins are so good I made them twice. Once for myself, and again the next day for my friend Heather, who just had a baby girl. For the last seven and a half months of her pregnancy, Heather was sick every single day, and obviously had a really hard time eating anything. This would be my own personal hell. Thankfully, now that the baby is out, she can actually enjoy eating again. I visited her and baby Zephyra on the weekend, and when Heather told me to “bring food!” I was more than happy to oblige with these muffins.

The original recipe from Smitten Kitchen is for rhubarb struesel muffins, and I came across it about a week after I posted the recipe for strawberry rhubarb coffee cake made with whole wheat pastry flour – I had been dreaming of a muffin incarnation, and then this recipe appeared, using whole wheat pastry flour to boot! The first time I made them I used (frozen) rhubarb, and they were delicious: not too sweet, with a delicate, springy texture, a crunchy golden struesel layer on top, and a good tang from the rhubarb. Not to mention the fact that they smelled HEAVENLY while baking. The second time around, I used fresh strawberries and frozen blueberries, because Heather has two older kids and I figured berries might be more kid-friendly than slightly sour rhubarb. I also played around with yogurt instead of sour cream, and switched it up with the flours, using a combination of whole wheat and all purpose in place of whole wheat pastry flour. Both times, they came out perfectly, and I think I may have found my new favorite muffin recipe. I’m fairly confident that you could put any kind of fruit in these – fresh or frozen – and they would be fantastic. Thank you Deb at Smitten Kitchen for this recipe!!…

Pumpkin, Sausage and Sage Risotto

June 11, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

Do you remember the days before the Food Network? Before Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and Top Chef and Cupcake Wars and Giada Di-Whatshername and Iron Chef, when channels like the Knowledge Network and KCTS9 aired cooking shows of the same calibre as Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting? I loved those shows. I used to sit in front of the TV, watching, with a pen and paper to write down the recipe and ingredients because there was no internet to get it from after the show. This risotto is based on a recipe from a show called Nick Stellino’s Family Kitchen, and believe it or not, the original recipe is now available on the internet!

After making Nick’s recipe several times, I’ve taken those flavours and put them into my basic risotto method. It comes out just as delicious but in a smaller, easier to manage quantity. If you’ve never made risotto, you should give it a try – it takes a while but is not actually difficult to make, and the results are worth it: creamy, flavourful, carbohydrate-laden deliciousness. Risotto is made of simple things – essentially just it’s rice and stock – so it’s important to pay attention to the ingredients. Use a flavourful stock, either homemade or good quality store bought. Don’t use bouillion cubes – your risotto will taste terrible. I know this from unfortunate experience :(. The rice must be specific for making risotto: short-grained round, Italian rice, and it will probably say “risotto” on the package. Arborio rice is the type I can usually find, but Carnaroli is another choice. Other kinds of rice (sushi, long grain, etc) won’t work.

“Arborio Rice – Ideal for Risotto”

And a quality parmesan (Parmegiano-Reggiano, if you can get it) makes a big difference in taste (I’ll admit that I used Canadian Parmesan for this because I’m feeling poor, but normally I’d splurge!).

Also important to note: this recipe calls for canned pumpkin purée, NOT pumpkin pie filling.

This packaging is somewhat misleading because it shows a slice of pumpkin pie, but the label reads “100% Pumpkin”

Make sure you read the ingredients on the package – it should be just pumpkin, no sugar or spices or anything else pie-like.

Nothing but pumpkin

If you are feeling industrious, you could steam some squash and make your own purée (about 1 cup), but I find opening a can to be much easier 😉

And I realize that these flavours might seem more suited to fall cooking, but my sage plant is currently sprouting leaves like mad so I figured this would be a good way to use up some of the bounty!…

Asparagus and Bacon Omelette

June 9, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

In middle school Home Ec, in addition to scones and boxer shorts, we learned how to make omelettes. This, like the scones, is something that has stuck with me since then, and I’ve made so many omelettes following this method that I can now do it one-handed while taking pictures ;). Obviously this is great for breakfast, but it also makes a nice lunch or quick dinner when the fridge is bare (I ate a lot of omelettes in university!). Asparagus and bacon is what I happened to have on hand, but use whatever you want as a filling – sautéed mushrooms are really good. The only thing that you absolutely must have is cheese – at least in my opinion. Eggs and cheese just go so well together!

The secret to a fluffy omelette (according to my Home Ec teacher, anyway) is adding a bit of water to the eggs. As the eggs cook, the water turns to steam, causing the eggs to puff up. It’s important to have a hot, non-stick pan (well pre-heated over medium to medium-high heat, about 6 1/2 out of 10 if your stove dial has numbers) and to have all your ingredients ready and assembled, because the omelette cooks pretty fast. The ingredients in this recipe are simple and completely customizable: it’s the technique that really makes a good omelette. But if a bunch of 12 year old Home Ec students can do it, and I can do it with one hand while taking pictures, then no one has anything to worry about ;)…

Glory Sauce and Greens from my Mum’s Garden

June 7, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 11 Comments

I spent the weekend on Salt Spring Island for my 10 year high school reunion (I cannot believe it has been 10 years – I don’t feel old enough for that yet!). It was a really great weekend, full of sunshine, old friends, and good food – including some of the Salt Spring classics: dough boys covered in cinnamon-sugar at the Saturday Market, pesto-cheese twists from Barb’s Buns (now apparently Barb’s Bakery and Bistro), and the tuna melt at the Tree House Cafe. I have to admit though, one of my favorite things about going to Salt Spring is eating vegetables out of my Mum’s garden. She is an avid gardener and has a huge garden that produces all kinds of delicious things, including these salad greens, which traveled back to Victoria with me:

We ate quite a few salads while I was visiting, all dressed with Glory Sauce – a delicious, creamy, tangy dressing made with nutritional yeast. I first had a dressing very similar to this at Strathcona Lodge a few years back, and it was literally the best salad dressing I’d ever tasted, but I couldn’t recreate it. I was over the moon when my Mum made this stuff and gave me the recipe. It seems quite fitting to be sharing it after a weekend on Salt Spring because not only does nutritional yeast make a killer salad dressing, it is also what practically every Salt Springer puts on their popcorn, so much so that the local movie theatre supplies a shaker of nutritional yeast! Anyone not from Salt Spring, have you ever heard of this/tried it? I’m curious to know if it is really just a Salt Spring thing. Most non-Islanders who encounter it think it’s pretty weird…

Anyway, back to salad. I made myself a salad for lunch with these greens, half a can of tuna, some cherry tomatoes, a handful of toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), and of course Glory Sauce. Mmm mmm. I suggest you do something similar!…

Chinese BBQ Pork Spareribs

May 21, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

Downtown in Victoria’s Chinatown (the oldest Chinatown in Canada, yo!) (also probably the smallest, as it’s literally only one block long) there are several Chinese BBQ shops with barbequed ducks, chickens, and meat hanging in the window. If you go in and order some barbequed pork, the guy behind the counter will grab a hunk of pork from the window, throw it down onto a worn wooden chopping block, grasp a formidable-looking cleaver, and hack the pork into little bits, which he will then wrap in purple butchers’ paper and hand to you with a little smile, like he knows how much you are going to enjoy those juicy, salty-sweet, porky morsels. Mmm-mmm indeed. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water a little bit.

I stumbled across a recipe for homemade Chinese BBQ pork on someone’s blog, and of course it made me want to try it for myself. I had also recently seen a recipe for Chinese pork spareribs, and I happened to have some ribs in the freezer, so I decided to combine the two to make Chinese BBQ pork spareribs. SO GOOD. I cooked them most of the way in the slow cooker and then finished them on the barbeque, because the Chinese name for barbequed pork means something along the lines of “fork toasted” – as in, the meat is toasted over flames on a fork to finish cooking it. I figured on a grill over flames was close enough!

The only thing I had to purchase for this recipe was the Chinese 5 Spice Powder, the ingredients of which vary but apparently the most common is a combination of cinnamon, star anise, cloves, fennel, and Szechuan pepper. In fact, my Chinese 5 Spice Powder is simply labeled “Chinese Spice Powder” and only has four ingredients! But it still tasted great, so I’m quite sure that whatever five or so spices sold together as Chinese 5 Spice Powder will be just fine in this recipe! Some more authentic recipes call for using maltose as a sweetener, but I couldn’t find any so I just used honey and a touch of brown sugar.

I chose to use this sauce on ribs, but you could also use it on other cuts of pork. Most recipes recommend marinating either pork tenderloin (for leaner BBQ pork) or pork butt (for fattier, juicier BBQ pork) in the sauce before roasting and then grilling it and brushing it with more sauce. I want to try making this with pork butt and rotisserie-ing it on the barbeque!…

Easy Coconut Rice

May 13, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

About 5 years ago, I had a meal at a restaurant in California that served up a mean coconut rice. It was creamy and delicious and delicately flavoured, and this is my attempt to duplicate it. Admittedly, I can’t remember with great certainty exactly what the rice at that restaurant tasted like, so I don’t really have anything to compare to, but this tastes pretty good and is super easy to make. I add a touch of brown sugar and a drop of vanilla for a little extra perfume and flavour, and if you want to get fancy, you can stir in some toasted coconut after cooking. This is great served with stirfries or curries, and is especially good beside meat grilled with sweet chili sauce.

Just be careful not to let the rice and coconut milk boil over, or your stove will look like this:…

Cinco de Mayo Fajitas!

May 5, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today I made flank steak fajitas with purple cabbage slaw for dinner. They are so simple that they don’t really require a recipe, so what follows is more of a guideline. The first time I made these was a few years ago during Earth Hour, when you are supposed to turn off all the lights, so I was literally making them in the dark (well, by candlelight) – but they were so easy to make that it didn’t matter. They were also delicious, and have become my favorite Mexican-ish dish to make at home.

If the thought of cabbage in a fajita weirds you out, you just have to trust me. It is tossed with lime juice and salt and pepper, and the fresh crunch of the tangy cabbage slaw is fantastic in the fajita – a nice change from lettuce. Please try these – you will not be sorry!

I like to use flank steak because it is relatively cheap and flavourful and is conducive to being sliced thinly, but obviously you can use whatever kind of steak you like. I upped the ante by making homemade tortillas, seeing as it’s Cinco de Mayo and all. They were really good and added a nice chewy texture to the juicy steak and crunchy cabbage….

Daring Bakers Challenge: Maple Syrup Mousse in an Edible Container

April 27, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 11 Comments

I recently joined an online cooking challenge group called the Daring Bakers (their website, the Daring Kitchen, is also home to the Daring Cooks). Every month members are challenged to make a certain recipe, showcasing their creativity and skills to interpret it. The members keep it a secret (no blog posts or online mention of the challenge) until the 27th of the month, when everyone posts a write-up on their blog, recounting their kitchen adventure with that month’s challenge recipe. April was my first Daring Bakers’ Challenge, and it was a good one!

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

I have to admit that I was a teensy bit disappointed because mousse isn’t exactly a challenging baking recipe, and the previous months’ challenges had definitely employed more advanced baking skills (including a Jaconde sponge/entremet and a yeasted meringue coffee cake, both of which I want to try out at some point!). However, the edible container part was intriguing, and gave me a chance to try two things that I have wanted to make for a long time: tuile cookie cups and chocolate cups using water balloons. I got over my initial disappointment pretty fast after that, because I love maple syrup (and coincidentally, I had just bought a litre of it for a relatively good price!) AND because Evelyne suggested incorporating bacon into the edible container – and who doesn’t love bacon? Plus the maple/bacon combination is just so delicious…

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Kale Tops and Spicy Peanut Stir Fry Sauce

April 15, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

I love spring. I love the warmer weather (well, slightly warmer – it’s still pretty darn cold out around here!), the longer days, the crocuses and cherry blossoms, the singing birds… but what I’m really appreciating this spring, more than usual perhaps, is the abundance of gorgeous, fresh, spring vegetables that are available – many of them local. At The Root Cellar, which is a super awesome green grocer in Victoria that you should definitely check out if you have not already, they stock all kinds of fantastic local spring produce, some of it fairly standard – chard, parsley, butter lettuce – and some of it more unusual – sorrel, collard greens, and kale tops. Most of the local greens in stock at the moment are from Vantreight Farms, best known for all those daffodils.

Anyway. The other day I was at The Root Cellar, browsing for dinner ideas, and I saw these kale tops. I am a big fan of brassicas (the broccoli family – my Dad calls them broccolids) so I was intrigued. Essentially, this is kale that is going to seed and is just about to burst into flower – probably not something that most people would think to eat, and definitely the first time I’ve ever seen it in a store – but why not? They looked so beautiful, green and crisp and fresh… so I brought some home to try….

Pork Tenderloin with Honeyed Butter and Sage and Perfect Roast Potatoes

April 14, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 8 Comments

This pork tenderloin is delicious. Honey-y and butter-y and sage-y and delicious. The recipe is adapted from my trusted friend Martha (I added the sage – rosemary or thyme would probably be really good as well), and as usual, she did not disappoint. This is easy enough for a weeknight but tasty enough for company. I can’t think of anything else to say, other than DELICIOUS.

The roast potatoes are adapted from Clothilde’s roast potatoes on Chocolate & Zucchini. I think her original recipe has the oven temperature a bit higher, but I find that they roast better at 375˚ F. The trick is parboiling the spuds, then draining them and giving them a good shake (with the lid on!) to bash them around a bit and create a soft, slightly mashed layer on the outside of each potato piece that gets nice and crunchy in the oven. Preheating the oil (I hear duck fat makes the best roast potatoes!) in the oven ensures that the spuds don’t soak up too much oil. It might sound complicated, but it’s really not, and it’s definitely worth the extra steps of parboiling and shaking! (Actually the shaking part is pretty fun 😉 )…