Roasted tomato soup

This is a five-ingredient recipe and the oven does most of the work roasting the tomatoes. All you do to finish the soup is take a stab blender and whiz it all up. The apartment smelled delicious with the aromas of tomato, balsamic and garlic wafting around.

Roasted tomato soup

21 roma tomatoes
two cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
a handful of fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In the bottom of a big roasting pan, add the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and crushed garlic. Tip: It's good to crush the garlic (not mince it) so that it stays in large pieces and doesn't burn in the oven.

Wash the tomatoes and quarter them, adding them to the roasting pan. When all the tomatoes are in the pan, toss them around in the marinade. I just use my hands for this.

Put in the oven for 50 minutes.

Transfer to a stock pot. Blend with a stab blender and reheat. Ladle into bowls and top each with a pinch of basil chiffonade.

Rustic potato rösti for breakfast - yay weekends!

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This is my weekend morning potato specialty. It's a rustic rösti adapted from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie, the best recipe I've found for this Swiss specialty. It takes a bit of time, but so do most good things in life, so I don't mind.

Rösti is of Swiss origin where the farmers of yesteryear used to eat it for breakfast, according to Wikipedia. Thankfully it has since been adopted worldwide by potato lovers like my friend the Film Cricket, who first introduced me to rösti at Toronto's Marché Movenpick (now Richtree), where they serve it with sour cream and chives. So yummy. Now when I make it for breakfast, we eat with eggs, bacon and toast. Equally scrumptious.

Potato rösti
serves two

one russet potato
one clove garlic
one sprig rosemary (whole)
olive oil
butter

Preheat the oven to 400. Wash and peel the potato. Top and tail it, and cut it in half. Cut each half into thin matchsticks. Rinse the rosemary sprig. Peel the garlic clove (I smash it with the flat of my chef's knife so that it cracks a bit but is still essentially whole).

Heat up a non-stick, ovenproof frying pan. Add a splash of olive oil and heat. Melt a tablespoon of butter into the olive oil. Add the potatoes, the garlic clove and the rosemary sprig. Stir in the pan for 10 minutes until softened and starting to colour.

Put in the oven for 25 minutes until crispy and golden. I check it after this, and sometimes cook it maybe 10 minutes more.

Date, cheese and proscuitto bites

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This appetizer is full of contrasts — you get heat from the jalapeno cheddar, salty goodness from the prosciutto and an incredible sweet hit from the dates! My friend Ella made this for me in October. It's her own creation and shows just how talented she is at cooking without a recipe.

I made this for two Christmas parties. Most people loved it. It's similar to a popular recipe that wraps bacon around dates. I wouldn't serve too many before a big meal, but it's a perfect Christmas season appetizer when everyone has given themselves over to the idea of overeating anyways ;) One of my tasters this holiday didn't like prosciutto, so I made a few without that part and they still tasted good.

They key to this recipe is good dates — not the ones squashed together in a big brick. Look for honey pitted dates that have kept their round shape and have a hole down the centre that you can peer through.

Date, cheese and proscuitto bites

1 package of dates
1 small package of jalapeno havarti
1 package of prosciutto
toothpicks

Cut a slit down one side of the dates to open up the hole a bit so that you can stuff in some cheese. Cut the cheese into little pieces and insert a piece into each date.

Cut each prosciutto slice into three strips (or two, depending on the size) lengthwise.

Then wrap the cheese-stuffed dates in the proscuitto strips — try to go around a couple of times and wrap the sides up too so the cheese doesn't ooze out — and skewer them with a toothpick to hold them into place.

Bake them at about 400 for eight minutes or so until the cheese melts a bit. They are good cold, too.

If you can only find a brick of dates, don't worry, you can still make this. Just separate the dates as best you can and place the cheese and date side by side and do everything else the same way.

Mashed potatoes with ricotta cheese

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Happy New Year everyone!!

This year I tried something different with the mashed potatoes for Christmas dinner. I boiled them in the usual way and added just a wee bit of melted butter, but also mixed in a whole tub of ricotta cheese and some finely chopped green onions (white parts only). I then broiled the mashed potatoes in the oven for a few minutes and sprinkled them with some chopped green onion rings to give them colour.

These mashed potatoes were very tasty and creamy and didn't dry out at all the next day, which is an important bonus when eating a plate of leftovers!

Another healthier option that my Mom often chooses is to mash some boiled cauliflower into the potatoes — it also makes them soft and creamy AND you get the nutritional benefits of cauliflower.

In the photo, the mashed potatoes are sitting with some homemade sausage and apple stuffing. I'll post that recipe tomorrow.

Rösti and smoked salmon with apple salad

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I loved the hot corner of the Pelican Grill's Battle of the Salmons, so I decided to make my own version using the smoked salmon portion that we bought there.

It was also a great excuse to finally try my hand at rösti. I love to get it at the Richtree restaurant in the Rideau Centre. It's one of those dishes that I love, but because I don't eat it often I sometimes forget that it exists. Shameful, I know.

I put the salmon portion on a plate and served it with an apple/cherry tomato salad, a dollop of plain yogurt mixed with dried shallots and thyme (because I didn't have sour cream and chives), and I made my own rösti.

Rösti

one sweet potato
one russet potato
one small onion
one apple, cored and halved
shredded cheddar cheese (about a quarter cup)
salt and pepper

Over a cutting board, grate the potatoes using a box grater. Handful by handful, squeeze the excess water out of the grated potatoes over the sink. Place the squeezed potato in a large mixing bowl. Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, the onion and half of the apple (cube the other half for the salad).

Add the grated cheddar cheese to the rest of the ingredients in the mixing bowl, season and mix well with a fork.

In a frying pan on medium heat, add a couple of glugs of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the rösti mixture to the pan, patting it down to form a dense pancake.

Flip it when the bottom has started to crisp up and turn golden, about seven minutes on my stove.

Slide a spatula underneath the sides to loosen the rösti pancake. Take a large dinner plate and place it upside down on top of the frying pan. Turn both upside down so the rösti slides out onto the plate. Add more oil to the pan and slide the rösti back in to cook the other side.

It's crunchy, cheesy and delicious. Next time I'm going to experiment with some paprika and chopped herbs, and make this as an afternoon snack!

Potato and onion tortillas

Potato and onion tortillas on Flickr by beFOODled.

The first time I tasted a potato and onion tortilla was in 2005 in Munich, Germany. I was visiting a pal from JSkool who is a true lover of all things Spanish. She cooked this for breakfast one day and fed five adults and a baby.

I thought it was delicious but never tried to cook it myself. All that layering seemed too complicated until I found a simple-looking recipe and made two tortillas for our Transformer tapas party. They turned out golden, crispy and full of potatoey goodness. You just need to use a non-stick pan otherwise the crust will stick to the bottom (an inside scoop I found out on Saturday).

One of my cooking magazines calls this dish a tapas classic. You can serve it hot or at room temperature, the way I did.

Tortilla de patatas (potato and onion tortilla)
Makes two tortillas that serve 20 at a tapas party

1 1/4 cup olive oil
12 potatoes
1 large Spanish onion
1 clove garlic
12 large eggs
salt and pepper

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. Slice the onion into half moon slices and mince the garlic. Divide all ingredients in half and set aside. Divide the oil among two same-sized frying pans and heat on medium heat. Add the potato slices, the onion and the garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook gently for about 20 minutes or until almost soft. Remove from heat.

At this point, cook one tortilla at a time.

Beat six eggs in a large bowl. Remove the potato mixture from one of the frying pans with a slotted spoon and add to the eggs. Remove all but one tablespoon of oil from the frying pan. Return the potato and egg mixture to the frying pan.

Fry for five to seven minutes or until crispy and brown on the bottom. Shake the frying pan or run a spatula down the sides periodically to prevent sticking. Cover the with a large plate and flip the pan upside down to turn out the omelette. Slide it back into the pan to crisp up the other side for five minutes or so.

Repeat with the second frying pan full of potatoes.

Let cool on a cooling rack or serve hot in wedges or squares.

Cucumber, Mango and Mint Salad

Mango, cucumber and mint salad, originally uploaded by beFOODled.

Cucumber, whole mint leaves and pieces of fresh mango. Just stack them like insalata caprese et voila, you have a refreshing five-ingredient salad for summer. No dressing required — just add a bit of olive oil on top because the fresh mint makes it wonderful. I mentioned this recipe during an earlier post about the Gastonati's Indian night after PB and Jelly brought it as a garnish for their quail masala. (Psst ... Jelly, if you are reading this, Happy Birthday!)

Salmon Spinach Pastry

Salmon spinach pastry, originally uploaded by beFOODled.

S made this great-looking salmon spinach pastry last week. It's a recipe from his mom. I'm not joking—it really is only five ingredients! The secret is to use puff pastry that comes frozen in a package. The pastry is rolled up into two separately-wrapped tubes and this recipe uses one of those tubes.

This is the ultimate dinner-party food. It feeds six people, and looks so complicated that people will think you are a gourmet chef! But in fact, it's so easy that it has made me lose my fear of using pastry. There is some long-term prep, though. You have to salt the salmon the day before to get it to release some water.

Salmon Spinach Pastry

puff pastry (half a package)
one package frozen whole-leaf spinach (about 300 g)
250 g ricotta cheese
2 eggs
half of a whole fillet of salmon
Optional ingredients: half an onion, pan-fried and chopped fried bacon

Thaw the spinach in a bowl in the microwave (start with 6 to 8 minutes). When thawed, take out a handful at a time and squeeze out the juice. Chop up the spinach finely.

In a different bowl, add the egg and ricotta and mix with a fork. Stir in the spinach. Add salt. Add optional ingredients if using.

Presalt the salmon for a day and drain off the water. Take off the skin.

Thaw the pastry, about one-and-a-half minutes on low power. Roll it out with flour into a big rectangle about the size of a placemat.



Plunk the salmon on the pastry. If the fillet tapers to a point, you may have to cut off the pointy bit and put it over the bigger piece so that the salmon roughly becomes a square shape over the pastry. Cover the whole top with the ricotta mixture. Wet both ends of the pastry and fold up over the salmon. Leave a slit at the top to vent the salmon.

Bake at around 400 F (200 C) for 40-50 minutes or until pastry is browned.

Orange and Arugula Salad

I have been following Jamie Oliver's advice on Salads 3.0, and I've ditched romaine for some more interesting greens. My favourite is this refreshing orange and baby arugula combination, another 5-ingredients-only recipe (not counting oil, salt and pepper, of course). You can also use any combination of spinach, Belgian endive and arugula, if you want. I used all three when I made this for our Easter dinner yesterday.

Orange and Arugula Salad
one large orange, sliced into rounds and each round quartered
a couple generous handfuls of arugula, spinach or endive
3 parts olive oil
1 part balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp red pepper jelly
salt and pepper

Put the arugula into a big bowl. In a separate container, whisk the last five ingredients together to make the dressing. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss. Arrange the orange segments on top and serve immediately.

Raita

If anyone ever decides to award a prize for "simplest Indian dish ever," then it should go to raita. Good thing, too, because it's the best way to cool one's palate after those hot and spicy curries have blazed a trail down your throat. In fact, the yoghurt in raita or even a mango lassi is much more effective than water for this purpose - and somehow it tastes more refreshing, too. I made this for the Gastronati's Indian night. The recipe is from an Indian cooking class at the Real Canadian Superstore that I attended with Squeaky and Calimocho in November of 2006.

Raita

1 large tub of plain yoghurt (I like the red-and-white Astro Balkan Style with the cow picture)
one whole cucumber with skin
salt to taste
roasted and ground cumin seeds
dried mint

Stir the yogurt into a smooth paste in a large bowl. Grate the cucumber into the bowl. Add the salt. Stir well and serve cold. Sprinkle cumin and mint on top before serving, as much as you want!

Roasted Balsamic Chicken

Over the Christmas break I was the lucky recipient of three cookbooks. This recipe for roasted chicken with balsamic vinaigrette comes from one of them - the famous and the original Everyday Italian by Giada de Laurentiis, courtesy of my brother. It's the first recipe that I have tried, and judging by the fabulous taste, I think I picked the best - and simplest! - one in the book.

This is a five-ingredient recipe (not counting olive oil and salt and pepper, of course). Giada recommends that you enjoy the leftovers all week, so I took her advice and prepared a bunch of accompaniments on Sunday. Every morning this week I have taken a drumstick from the fridge, shredded the meat off the bone, and made a salad for lunch with chicken, arugula, a hard boiled egg cut into quarters and cold cooked potatoes. Then, come noon, I drizzle over a vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper. It's perfick!

Roasted Balsamic Chicken

5 to 6 pieces of chicken (I used 5 drumsticks with the bone in and skin on)
olive oil
1 lemon
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
3 garlic cloves, minced
parsley (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Juice the lemon and grate the zest (keep these separate). In a plastic bag or bowl, mix and blend the lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, mustard and garlic. Marinate the chicken pieces in the fridge in a plastic bag for at least 2 hours or up to one day.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Place the chicken pieces in a casserole dish and discard the marinade. Roast the chicken uncovered until cooked through, about 45 minutes. Serve hot with lemon zest and parsley (if you have it) sprinkled over top or let cool and keep in the fridge for use in sandwiches and salads.

Torching a Creme Brulée

Here's PB and J's recipe for the creme brulée that I blogged about previously after the Gastronati's French night. We each torched our own, and here's a video of S doing the honours.

Creme Brulée
Serves six

2 cups heavy cream
4 tablespoons, plus 2/3 cup sugar
4 extra-large or jumbo egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the egg yolks, cream and four tablespoons of sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally, for five to six minutes, or until small bubbles appear around the edges of the pan. Set aside.

In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and vanilla extract until smooth and light. Pour the hot cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture a little at a time, beating continuously until well blended. Divide the mixture between six small ramekins or four medium ramekins.

Arrange the ramekins in a baking pan on the middle shelf of preheated oven. Fill the pan with boiling water to halfway up sides of ramekins. Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil. Bake until the custard has just set, about 25 minutes. Chill two to three hours or up to three days.

Sprinkle the remaining sugar evenly over the top of the cooled custards. With a creme brulée torch, move the flame continuously over the surface of the ramekins, in a circular motion until sugar melts and becomes golden brown and bubbly. Serve with fresh fruit and crèpe-style French biscuits.

Mahogany Marinated Salmon

This is my favourite way to do salmon. The recipe's adapted from Dana McCauley's Pantry Raid. Because it's so fast and five ingredients only, I often make it for dinner on weeknights. If you want to make a more complete meal, serve it with a salad, rice or couscous with mushrooms, onions and raisins.

Mahogany Marinated Salmon

2-4 servings of fresh or thawed raw salmon (either fillets or steaks)
1/2 cup of your favourite BBQ sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp finely grated ginger or ginger puree
1 Tbsp honey

Combine the BBQ sauce, soy sauce, ginger and honey in a bowl with a whisk or a fork. Marinate the salmon in this mixture for at least 20 minutes or up to four hours.

Preheat the oven to 230°C (450°F). Place the fish portions on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish. The rule of thumb according to the Canadian government when you are cooking fish in the oven is 10 minutes per inch of thickness, plus another five minutes added to the total cooking time if the fish is wrapped in foil or cooked in a sauce, as this one is.

Caramelized Onions

I made these delicious, sweet caramelized onions for the Gastronati's French night. The sherry and worcestershire in the recipe give them an amber colour. They're really versatile. You can use them as a condiment or as building block in meat dishes, such as roasted chicken with garlicky yoghurt sauce. I've also eaten them with perogies and sour cream. I'm sure they'd taste great in a burger, too. And if you dice the onions instead of slicing them, they will also make a scrumptious topping for a baked brie cheese wheel. And they're only five ingredients! (Assuming you have butter, salt and pepper.)

Caramelized Onions

one large sweet onion, such as Spanish or vidalia, cut into half-moon slices
a pat of butter
thyme, fresh or dried
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 C cooking sherry
1 tsp worcestershire sauce

Fry the onions, thyme, salt and pepper in butter until they have turned translucent, about 10 minutes.
Add sugar and cook another 5 -10 minutes until the onions have browned a bit.
Add the sherry and worcestershire and reduce until the onions have absorbed most of the liquids.

Fusilli with Spinach, Tomatoes and Asiago Cheese

I'm starting a series of 5-ingredients-or-less recipes (not counting oil or seasonings like salt and pepper). This pasta goes into that category. It's another one by Giada de Laurentiis from her show Everyday Italian. It's meant to be a fast weekday dinner. The sauce literally takes five minutes, so you should start it after you've put the pasta on. The spinach and tomatoes make it very healthy as you can see in the photo. (Pay no attention to the iron in the background.)

Fusilli with Spinach, Tomatoes and Asiago Cheese

fusilli or another curly pasta of your choice, enough for two
1/4 C olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 bag baby spinach, washed and roughly chopped
cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 C grated asiago cheese (and/or grated Parmigiano Reggiano)

Cook the pasta according to package directions. As soon as you've put the pasta into boiling water, it's time to start the sauce.

Add the olive oil to a frying pan on low-medium heat. Add the garlic and fry until fragrant but not brown, about a minute or two. Wash the spinach, dry it in a tea towel or salad spinner, and roughly chop it. Add the spinach to the pan and stir for a minute or so or until wilted. Halve the cherry tomatoes and add to the sauce. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce in the frying pan. Toss to mix. Add one cup of grated asiago cheese. Toss again until the cheese has combined and becomes stringy.

Applesauce

I made applesauce with all the ida reds that we picked last month. It's very easy, but be prepared to do a lot of chopping! I brought the cutting board in front of the TV and dropped all the slices into a crock pot every time they started to pile up.

Applesauce
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

6 to 10 cups apple slices
an inch of water in the pan
the juice of one lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 C brown sugar (optional)

Peel, core and slice apples into slices, taking a break to squeeze lemon juice over them once you get a good pile of them. I cut them in half first, then quarters, peeled the quarters and cut each in half or in thirds.

Fill the pan with about an inch of water and cook uncovered over medium heat, stirring once in a while, for about 20 to 30 minutes or until the apples have fallen apart. Stir in the brown sugar if using. You can puree the applesauce at this point to make it extra smooth, but I just stirred it and it was the right consistency.

Insalata Caprese

Here's a simple, refreshing little appetizer that we made when AP, his mom from Cuba and EB came over for dinner a couple of weeks ago. I was first introduced to this little salad in the summer of 2005 when MV brought it for lunch at work one day. It's really easy to make and I think I will make it again for my birthday party this Friday.

Insalata Caprese

2 tomatoes, sliced
mozzarella or bocconchini cheese ball, sliced
basil leaves
salt to season
your best extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Create little stacks of tomato, cheese and basil leaves on a nice cutting board. Drizzle with EVOO and sprinkle with salt.