Pumpkin wins the vote!

And pumpkin wins the veggie poll with 46.43% of the vote! Thank you all for voting. You can all look forward to some pumpkin posts in the near future 🙂

Vote for your favourite veg!

Fall is officially here tomorrow. For this reason, it is the perfect time to hold a survey on our viewers favourite vegetable. Voting will be going on until Sunday, September 25th. You can blog as many times a day as you want.  Then we’ll be doing 5 posts on your favourite vegetable, whatever that may be. After that we’ll do a series on the 2nd favourite vegetable, the 3rd favourite vegetable and so on. So everybody is a winner in this scenario!

In my opinion, pumpkins are the vegetable that I look forward to the most. Roasted or pureed into a soup, pumpkins are fantastic. I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of pumpkin pie, but then again I’m not really a fan of any kind of pie. But don’t hold that against me! My sister already does… anyways that’s just one blogger’s opinion. We’re really interested about your thoughts. So vote away!

Read My Lips

Wow, all this time and we haven’t written a post about one of DavidsTea’s bestsellers? Time to step up our game.

Read My Lips is one decadent dessert tea, featuring vanilla, peppermint, chocolate and peppercorns for extra spice. In short, it’s a classic and delicious chocolate and mint tea. Though not nearly as chocolatey as Chocolate Rocket or Super Chocolate, it has a great balance of richness and the fresh flavour from the mint. Definitely worth a try.

 

$6.50/50g @ DavidsTea 🙂

Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies are the dessert of every kid’s childhood. No childhood is quite complete without a chocolate chip cookie and a warm glass of milk right before bed. Since this dessert is so iconic, Jessica Seinfeld decided to make it better. At least from a moth’ers perspective. You see, mothers are constantly trying to sneak more vegeatbles into their kids diets. I know because that’s what my mom does. Except it’s not so much sneaking anymore. It’s more, there’s a salad every dinner. Also, I like vegeatbles now. The taste of them seems to have developed on me over the years. Anyways, that is all besides the point. The point is that Jessica Seinfeld wrote a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious, a cookbook of which all the recipes have some kind of vegetable sneakily snuck in. This recipe is one of them.

When I think of chocolate chip cookies, I don’t generally think that I’ll be getting part of my intake of vegetables for the day. However these cookies have chickpeas in them so they’re practically healthy! You can totally justify having one of these right before bed. 🙂 This recipe is really fast since the whole recipe can be done in one bowl. Therefore clean up is minimum therefore making the baker very happy. It also makes a lot cookies–one batch usually makes 54 cookies for me. These cookies are also good for a school snack since they’re easily packable.

Recipe

Ingredients

•  Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup trans-fat-free soft tub maragarine spread
• 2 large egg whites
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and margarine with a wooden spoon or on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the egg whites and vanilla, then the chickpeas and chocolate chips. Add the flour, oats baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed until a thick dough forms.

3. Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto the baking sheet; spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart. Press gently with a fork to flatten. Bake until the cookies are golden brown and just set, 11 to 13 minutes; do not over-bake. Transfer to a rack and cool.

4. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days. (Or until inhaled by your entire family :))

Thanks for reading!

Peach and Raspberry Tart

My favourite part of when people come over is when they bring tasty goodies. This past weekend our neighbours came over and with them they brought dessert. Not just any dessert either. A very tasty tart with pears and some other very yummy fruit that I can’t quite remember at this moment in time. Nonetheless, it was one of the best fruity desserts I’ve ever had. You see, I’m not a very big fan of cooked or baked fruit desserts. It’s just something about the texture that turns me off. However, to every rule there is an exception. This tart is the exception to my dessert eating rule.

Pizza Cake

This cake is kind of like the pizza of the cake world. It’s a vanilla cake on bottom, piled with different fruits on top. As my neighbour rightly said, “It’s a peach and raspberry tart, but it’s more like a whatever’s-rotting-in-the-fruit-bowl tart!” Just as she said, this tart is ideal for getting rid of fruit that’s rather wilting away in your fruit bowl. Like I said before the tart that she made had pears on it, which is not one of the fruits mentioned in the title of the recipe. By the way, this recipe can be found in Donna Hay’s cookbook Off the Shelf. I just oh so happen to have this cookbook, so the recipe may be shared with you!

Recipe

Ingredients

• 125g (4 oz) butter, softened
• 1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• 2 peaches, halved and cut into thin wedges
• 150g (5 oz) raspberries
• 2 tablespoons icing (confectioner’s) sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius (325 degrees Fahrenheit) . Line a 22cm (9 in) round cake tin with a removable base with baking paper. Place the butter, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the eggs and beat well. Fold in the flour and spoon the mixture into the tin. Top with the peaches and raspberries and sprinkle with the icing sugar.

Bake for 1 hour or until the tart is cooked when tested with a skewer. Remove from the tin and serve warm in wedges with vanilla bean ice cream. Serves 8-10.

Thanks for reading!

Mom’s Apple Pie

This member of the Fall Collection is a nostalgic blend of apple and cinnamon designed to take you back to your mother’s kitchen. It tastes absolutely fabulous (I love the warmth from the cinnamon) but something bothered me. It tasted too… familiar. I already own Movie Night, which also features apple pieces and green tea, and the two are way too similar. Perhaps someone with a more finely tuned palate would pick up on the differences, but I just don’t understand why one would ever need two teas that are almost identical. Seriously, DavidsTea? There are so many possibilities for new flavour combinations and you keep putting together the same ones? I expect better, but only because I know that you are just so epicly awesome ❤

$7.50/50g @ DavidsTea

Super Chocolate

After a year of hearing “Sorry, there doesn’t seem to be any left…” I finally got my hands on a bag of Super Chocolate. Oh my goodness, it was worth the wait! This blend of green tea, green rooibos, cinnamon and, of course, chocolate is so rich and simply amazing. I especially appreciate that the green tea, which can be very strong, didn’t overpower the chocolate.

Is it chocolatier than Chocolate Rocket? Well, that’s hard to say. Super Chocolate is chocolate-cinnamon, while Chocolate Rocket has a more nutty flavour from the almonds. Verdict? You’ll most definitely need both.

What a pity.

$6/50 g @ DavidsTea.

A Meal of Nibblies #4

What better way to finish a tasty meal then with a chocolaty, crumbly and decadent cookie? These deep dark chocolate cookies that we found on epicurious.com were the perfect way to end the meal. Small yet sweet, these cookies were the best things to have after a long evening of cooking, eating and cleaning. And of course, you have to have a cookie with a cup of tea!

This recipe was so easy that I really have nothing to write. These cookies were honestly just a good, basic chocolate cookie recipe. So easy I could probably do it in my sleep. Although that would be rather difficult in handling the blender. But you get the idea. 🙂 Here’s the link to the recipe on epicurious.com.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Deep-Dark-Chocolate-Cookies-242468

Thanks for reading this blog post and the series! I hope that you now want to go and make a meal of appetizers. Or as I like to call it, a meal of nibblies. 🙂

A Meal of Nibblies #3

Never roast bell peppers to make a salad. Trust us. It doesn’t work. The flavours of this roasted bell pepper salad with mint and pumpkin seeds was good, but the texture ruined it. It felt like you were eating slimy seaweed, or super slurpy tentacles from some sort of fish. Not very appetizing at all. On the bright side, it was the only new recipe that we tried that failed. And even then, at least it looks good! If you’re aiming for a beautiful meal, then serve this up. But only if you don’t mind your guests looking like they just ate something sour, or awful. Your choice.

The other not-so-good thing about this recipe is the mess that it creates. The baking sheet that we used to roast/blacken the peppers on took an eternity and a half to clean because of the blackened pepper that got stuck to the pan. Then we had to clean the frying pan that was used to fry the pumpkin seeds. Not as much effort, but it still required time. All in all, I heartily recommend that you don’t make this recipe. It was an utter disappointment.  Here’s the recipe though, just in case you want to try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 red bell peppers
• 2 yellow bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
• Salt and ground black pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (230 degrees celsius). Place the peppers on a baking sheet and roast for about 40 minutes, until blackened all over. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plasti wrap and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, heat a small dry frying pan, add the pumpkin seeds, and toast for 3 to 4 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until golden. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard, oil, and mint, and season with salt and pepper. Peel and seed the peppers, then cut the flesh into strips. Add the strips to the dressing and toss to combine. Cover and let stand for about 30 minutes. Divide the peppers amoung four plates, sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and serve.

Thanks for reading! Come back tomorrow for the last post in the series A Meal of Nibblies!

 

 

A Meal of Nibblies #2

Post number two of this amazing blog post series! Today’s post is on mini pizzas with sweet bell peppers and mozzarella. That really turned out more like pizza buns. You see, for some reason or another, the dough that we used rose tremendously. The pizzas therefore ended up more like pizza buns. Still super tasty, just slightly more bun then expected.

These pizzas were one of the more time consuming recipes of the evening, but it was still fast. The dishes cook a while to clean (a blender and a pan) but it was just those two things so that was good. The blender just took a while because of all the little parts. All in all though, I highly recommend this recipes if you want to cook a more substantial appetizer.

The only difference that was made to this recipe was the dough. We didn’t make the bread dough, we bought it already made. Frozen white pizza dough is the full name of the product. If you live in the Ottawa region, you can pick up the same dough that we used at the Harvest Loaf in Westboro. I’m sure they sell the same kind of thing at grocery stores too. It just made the whole process so much easier. If you really wanted to I’m sure that it would taste just as good, if not better, with home made dough. You’d just have to be willing to put in the extra time and effort.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 quantity bread dough
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1 handful basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 5 1/2 oz. mozzarella, sliced
• Salt and ground black pepper

Instructions

Prepare the bread dough and leave to rise. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the garlic and peppers and fry gently for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender. Transfer the garlic and pepper mixture to a food processor, add the basil and balsamic vinegar, and process until smooth. Season to taste and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. and grease a baking sheet. Knead the risen dough briefly, cut it into 8 pieces, and roll the pieces into rounds, laying them slightly apart on the baking sheet. Spread about 1 tablespoon of the pepper mixture over each dough round, then top with 1 or 2 slices of mozzarella and season with pepper. Bake for about 10 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Top the mini pizzas with arugula and serve immediately.

If you would like to find out more about the Harvest Loaf in Ottawa, then you can visit their website at http://www.harvestloaf.com/

Thanks for reading!