Shoecakes.

Good Friday Quiche

06 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment

by shoecakes in Uncategorized

Happy Easter everyone!

I’ve just finished my rotation in Geriatrics, where I was going all over the hospitals, back and forth, up and down to the various floors for consults. Needless to say, this didn’t make it easy to bake…and who would I feed it to?

But I’m starting IMCU this week, so there will be plenty of nurses, PTs, OTs, and residents to feed. So stay tuned for more baking…

In the meantime though, since I’ve got friday and saturday off for Easter, I thought I’d make something fancy for brunch. Joffre’s post-call today and in a coma since he didn’t sleep last night, so I had the whole morning to myself to clean up the kitchen and make it messy again with this quiche.

Asparagus, Red Pepper, and Bacon Quiche (adopted from JoytheBaker)

I had a couple pillsbury premade pie crusts lying around, and thought this would be a perfect use for it! If you’re more motivated than me…you can make your own pie crust from scratch.

Ingredients for the filling:

- 6 whole eggs

- 1 C milk (I used skim)

- 1/2 C heavy cream

- 1 C shredded cheese (I used a combination of cheddar and mozzarella)

- 1 1/2 C chopped asparagus (I used almost 2 cups and the quiche almost overflowed…so stick to 1.5 C)

- 1/2 red pepper, diced

- 4-5 strips turkey bacon, diced

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, and put your pie crust into a 9′ pie plate.

Lightly saute in butter or olive oil, the asparagus, pepper, and bacon. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper. Then spread on the bottom of the pie crust, and top with 1/2 C shredded cheese.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, heavy cream. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Pour on top of the asparagus/pepper/bacon/cheese mixture. Add the rest of the shredded cheese to the top. Then bake for ~50 mins (45-55 mins) until it’s not longer jiggly on the top and golden brown.

Voila! Enjoy!! I’m sure you can use whatever variation you want. Take away the bacon to make it vegetarian. Substitute half the cheese for feta. Add green onions, spinach, or mushrooms. YUM!

Teriyaki Burgers!

22 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by shoecakes in Uncategorized

YUM! I’m in Toronto for an elective right now. My friend and I have been eating out way too much, so I made these turkey burgers for us yesterday! I took a picture, but that will have to wait for when I get back to Edmonton.

This is loosely based on a recipe off of Annies Eats, as well as these delicious teriyaki burgers we had while camping with Steph and Les once. This is my own version! It was super fun because I just made it up as I went along, using what ingredients we did have and not really measuring out anything. Try it out!

Teriyaki Burgers

1. Chop up onion into very small pieces (I used about 1/3 of an onion), as well as some bread crumbs (I shred up one end piece of whole wheat bread). Mix them with your choice of ground meat (I used ground turkey – healthy!) Mix them together thoroughly. Don’t be afraid to get dirty, I used my hands! (well, make sure your hands are clean though )

2. Add in the following ingredients…here are the approximate amounts I used:
- 3-5 tbsp soy sauce
- 1-2 tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tbsp ground/diced garlic
- 3-4 tbsp sugar (white or brown – we didn’t have brown, and white was fine)
- 1 tsp vinegar (of your choice, we used a chinese vinegar)
- salt and pepper, dashes of each

3. Mix them all up again, and form your patties! Then cook those suckers up. You can top them with this pineapple/mango salsa recipe:

For the salsa:
1 mango, diced
1-1½ cups diced fresh pineapple
½ of one red bell pepper, diced small
¼ cup red onion, finely diced
1 tbsp. minced fresh cilantro
Juice of one lime
Pinch of coarse salt

Mmmmm…delicious. I also made sweet potato fries as a side. Sweet livin’ =)

“Can you come live in my house and bake for me all the time?”

25 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment

by shoecakes in Uncategorized

I was propositioned today at work. One of the nurses working in emerg first accused me of not baking for them today and then realized there was a nice little loaf sitting beside her lovingly and retracted her statement. She later decided she wants to keep me for herself and offered to have me live in her basement. 57 inch flat-screen TV with satellite! Big movie collection! Treadmill and elliptical and bike! Kitchen’s right above my potential bedroom! She said there’s only a twin bed, but that just means more cuddling for me and the boyfriend!

What a tempting offer =) hahaha but I think I better stick to finishing medical school. I’ve come this far…can’t be side-tracked by a flat-screen tv.

So make a loaf of this delicious quick-bread today. It’s very very yummy, citrusy, fragrant, and just a different kind of loaf then I’m used to. I got a little worried that it was starting to burn, when the middle was still a little gooey, but it actually was tastier that way. With the substitutions that I made, it’s only about 180 calories a slice. Delicious little snack that’s fairly healthy too!

Orange, Berry, and Pecan Bread (adapted from bakingbites.com)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest
1 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp apple sauce
1 large egg
1 cup mixed berries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup pecans

1. Preheat oven to 375F and lightly grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
2. Toast pecans – I throw them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake them for about 7 minutes (watch them carefully so they don’t burn!)
2. Whisk together flours, sugars, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.
3. Mix together orange juice, orange zest, oil, applesauce and egg in a separate container. Pour into flour mixture and stir until just combined.
4. Stir in berries of choice (I used blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries) and toasted pecan pieces. If using frozen berries, do not thaw beforehand (as this will turn the batter icky colours). Just toss them in still frozen.
5. Spread evenly in prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove loaf from pan and cool completely before slicing.

I got about 13 slices out of it. You could probably get more if you sliced it a bit thinner. I was in a hurry and didn’t let it cool completely, hence the bigger slices. It’s a bit sturdier once it cools down completely. Enjoy! yum yum yum…

“Where’s the fruit?”

19 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment

by shoecakes in Uncategorized

One of the doctors doing a locum in our clinic was going back to South Africa today. He is a super-nice guy who used to work here, but moved back to South Africa awhile ago. We’ll miss him! So I decided he required a going-away cake.

Boy, what a cake. Yum yum yum! It got rave reviews from all of the staff at the clinic. My preceptor went back for seconds. It’s a rich cake and one small slice is more than enough.

Instead of following the recipe exactly, I made some substitutions. Including adding a banana. One of the other doctors is somehow adverse to ALL things fruit. She just can’t handle them. Kiwis, apples, pears, strawberries…don’t even talk about bananas. So even though the banana taste is very very faint, she managed to pick up on it. And complained loudly to me about it. I’ve thus promised to make something strictly chocolate or vanilla with no fruit of any sort (including raisin) for her in the future.

Everyone else on the other hand, loved the cake. Someone asked me for the recipe, another person said it was the best thing I’ve made so far, and the pharmacist thought it was store-bought.

So make this cake for a special occasion. Don’t do it on a normal day, that would be spoiling people too much. And also DKA-inducing.

Chocolate Layer Cake (adapted from bakeorbreak.com)

* 1 cup All-purpose flour
* 1 cup Whole Wheat flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (I accidentally omitted this, but it tasted fine without it because of the frosting)
* 3 large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 small banana, mashed (If you don’t want a chocolate-banana taste, omit the banana and add an extra egg)
* 3/4 cup unsweetened chocolate, melted
* 3/4 cup buttermilk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and lightly flour three 8-inch square baking pans. I used the silicone ones, so I didn’t flour or grease them. Line the bottoms with parchment paper.

Sift together flours, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer on medium speed, mix butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add well-mashed banana. Add chocolate, and mix until well incorporated. Add dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in sour cream.

Divide batter equally and pour into prepared pans. Bake for ~25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Then, remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Amalgamated Frosting
I made half of this frosting originally for the inside, and I was planning on making a cream cheese frosting for the outside. However, I think I was a little overzealous in heating the milk and it clumped instead of thickening prettily. I also didn’t have unsalted butter, and the salted butter just tasted a little off in the frosting. So instead I just added cream cheese (about 300 grams) softened to room temperature to this concoction and added some more vanilla and icing sugar to taste. It was delicious like that! Otherwise you can make a traditional cream cheese frosting (or follow the suggestions for the 2 frostings on the bake-or-break original recipe). Everyone loved this frosting though, so it was a nice accident-gone-wrong. =)

Now spread it on between the three layers, and then on the top and sides. The amount I had was just right to cover it completely. If I were to make this again, I might chop up some good chocolate or some chocolate bars (like reese’s peanut butter cups to compliment the banana) and sprinkle it between the layers, but it’s not needed. Then decorate as you like! We had grand rounds in the morning at 7:30 so I didn’t have time to do anything too elaborate at 7 AM. Some simple chocolate drizzle and fresh strawberry!

ENJOY!