Yummy yummy noodles!!

I swear I’m not turning into a vegetarian. But I’ve been craving peanut buttery noodles…so I had to make these when I saw them! Mm…delicious. Try it. I stuffed my face and am uncomfortably full but still want more. It’s super easy to make and takes no time at all. I used half the recipe for the dressing and ~1/2 box of whole wheat spaghetti noodles and didn’t find I needed any more dressing. 

 

Peanut Sesame Noodles
Adapted from Gourmet, June 2002

Servings: Makes 6 side-dish or 4 vegetarian main-course servings.

For peanut dressing
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup warm water
1 tablespoon chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 medium garlic clove, chopped
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons Asian toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes or a splash of the hot sauce or chili paste of your choice

For noodles
3/4 lb dried soba nooodles (dried linguine fini or spaghetti will work in a pinch)
4 scallions, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips
Half a seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
1 cup firm or extra-firm tofu, cubed
3 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

Now you just mix up that delicious peanut buttery goodness sauce, cut up the veggies, toast the sesame seeds…and mix em all up and inhale!! 

 

BBQ TIME!

Oh my goodness me. Make this sandwich. Do it. Run out and get any missing ingredients you don’t have (because you don’t want to miss a single part of it) and then fire up that BBQ.

We just put together our new BBQ and today was the second time firing it up. It’s been a crazy few months, moving to a new apartment, getting wedding stuff organized, and…oh yeah, that whole residency thing and being on call all the time! I have a presentation to finish for tomorrow, but this sandwich was too good not to write about first.

I saw this recipe on Sandwich King, on the Food Network on one of my post-call days when I was in a post-call delirium (as per usual) and it sounded delicious. The good thing about moving to our new place is that there’s a huge patio which we didn’t previously have, which means space for a BBQ! I bought the last few ingredients today and we had the grilled vegetable naan-wiches for supper. I cannot say enough good things about it…it’s to DIE for. And healthy! Maybe other than the goat cheese. But otherwise it’s loaded with veggies, everything’s grilled, and even the naan bread we bought was Superstore’s PC Blue Menu. Try it out, it’s a super easy sandwich to assemble…though there are a few steps to it.

Grilled Vegetable Naan-wich (as seen on Food Network w/ Jeff Mauro)

Marinade for vegetables:

~1/2  C olive oil (I used a little less)

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp dijon mustard

2 tbsp thyme (I used dried and added 1.5 tbsp, but if you have fresh, even better!)

Pour the marinade over two large portabello mushroom caps, 2 zucchinis sliced lengthwise, and 2-3 discs of red onion. Mix it by hand to get everything nice and coated.Add the onions last to the mix so you don’t break them into the individual rings (makes it easier to grill if they’re all together in one disc).

Grill on the BBQ. I won’t lie, I have no idea what goes on in this step because I don’t know how to operate the barbeque and Joffre was in full charge of this step.

Then lightly brush two pieces of naan bread with olive oil and grill for a few minutes to warm them up/toast a little.

While all the grilling is happening (hopefully via your partner so you don’t have to worry about it), take a couple tablespoons (or more if you’re glutenous like me) of goat cheese and put in a small bowl. Take a handful or two (eyeball it out based on your taste preference) of sundried tomatoes in oil and chop into finer pieces. Mix well with goat cheese to make the spread.When the veggies are ready, take them off the grill and slice the mushroom caps.

Then assemble! Naan bread. Then a layer of sundried tomato goat cheese spread. Then a layer of portabello mushroom. Layer of zucchini. Throw on the onions. More mushroom/zucchini if you’ve got it. Banana peppers (toss these around in the marinade for extra flavor). Add some fresh basil or spinach leaves. Put another layer of SDT goat cheese spread on the other piece of naan bread. DELICIOUS!

On the show, Jeff also grills up some whole banana peppers that he slices in half. You could do that or just add the banana pepper rings like we did. He also grilled some yellow squash, which I’m sure would be tasty in the sandwich too. Use your imagination! Eggplant would probably be pretty fabulous. If you don’t like goat cheese? Maybe just cream cheese. But really…who doesn’t like goat cheese?

Good Friday Quiche

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!

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’ =)

What the world needs now…is cookies, sweet cookies.

This past weekend, I was on friday/sunday call. Now, for those people who don’t know what that means…it means that I was working in the hospital, from 8 AM Friday morning, to 11 AM Saturday morning. I got one hour of sleep. And then…back to work Sunday 8 AM to 11 AM Monday morning. Needless to say, I was a little sleep deprived, and a whole lot of grumpy. So to offset the grumpiness, I made cookies after my nap on saturday afternoon. And yum, these cookies were good!!

I brought them to work and shared them with the nurses on sunday, and my team on monday. Unfortunately, the original recipe called for peanut butter chips, which I thought I had…but didn’t actually. So I substituted and put in toffee chips and more chocolate chips! Delicious variation, though I may try to original way with pb chips eventually.

Chewy Brownie Peanut Butter Chip Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups all purpose flour (I substituted for 1 C whole wheat, 1 C all-purpose)
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar (I used about 2/3 cup sugar)
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups combo of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips*or chopped up peanut butter cups (I used 1/2 cup of toffee chips, and 1 cup of combo of chopped dark chocolate and chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. With the mixer on low, beat in the flour mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary, and continue to beat until all of the dry mix has been incorporated. Do this slowly to avoid dusting your kitchen with flour and cocoa. Stir in chocolate/toffee by hand.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheet (dough balls were a bit larger than 1 inch in diameter). Leave about 2 to 3-inches between cookies to allow for spread.
Bake for 9-11 minutes, until cookies are set at the edges and tops are slightly cracked looking. Cool on baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.
Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Makes about 4 dozen. (I got 46 cookies)

DELICIOUS!

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

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?”

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!

Just add milk.

Chocolate is my biggest downfall. Well, chocolate and peanut butter. And tortilla chips. And ice cream of course. Oh dear, you can’t forget CUPCAKES!

…Okay, fine, chocolate is one of my biggest downfalls.

Joff left a box of those seashell chocolates in my Lloydminster house a week ago and they have slowly but steadily been dwindling in numbers. I snatch one before I go back to clinic in the afternoon as a “boost”. I sneak one before dinner to “tide me over”. I’ll have one at night to “appease my sweet tooth”. You get the idea. So I decided I had to get rid of them.

And cookies are a perfect way to get rid of them This is a simple, one-pot recipe, which is GREAT. The fewer the dishes the better! Instead of chocolate chips, I used a cup of the seashell chocolates, chopped up, and topped it up with about 1/3 cup of chocolate chips. This might be my go-to cookie recipe in the future, so yummy and easy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from twopeasandtheirpod.com)

1/2 C unsalted butter
1/2 C firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup your choice of chocolate

1 – Heat the oven to 350 degrees (180 C). Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment (I lined one baking sheet, but didn’t line the others)
2 – Put the butter in a medium saucepan and set over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the butter is melted. Slide the pan from the heat and add the brown sugar and granulated sugar. Whisk until no lumps remain. Set aside to let cool, about 5 minutes.
3 – In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk until well blended. Once the butter mixture has cooled, add the egg and vanilla and whisk until blended. Pour in the flour mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4 – Using a tablespoon, drop dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, arranging them about 1 1/2 inches (4cm) apart.
5 – Bake 1 sheet at a time (make sure to use a cooled sheet for the second batch until the cookies are light golden around the edges and puffed, about 11-12 minutes. If these cookies are over baked, the won’t come out chewy. Transfer the cookie sheet to a rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Using a spatula, lift the cookies from the sheet onto a rack and let cool completely.

Makes 26 cookies.

Helping Haiti.

We are all oh-so-busy in our lives. An hour and a half driving to and from the Sturgeon Hospital (wayyy on the NORTH end of St. Albert) eats up a good chunk of my day. Working, learning, studying, eating, and every once in awhile, sleeping. So many activities!

But there’s always time for baking. And there should always be time for helping out others. That’s what medicine’s all about afterall, isn’t it? Wasn’t that part of the obligatory generic answer in the med school interviews? Why do you want to be a doctor?

So I don’t have a ton of time to help out these days. But I want to do my part. I’m going to have an e-bake sale. I will be taking requests for baking! Anything (within reason) that you have a craving for, that I can feasibly make, I will make for you. Think about it…instead of going to a regular bake sale with the usual cookies and puffed wheat squares…you can really satisfy those cravings! I’ll be charging a minimum donation fee of $15.

Even if you don’t live in Edmonton, you can still help! Leave a comment and let me know which charity you think should get the money. I’ve been leaning towards Doctors without Borders. For every person that comments on this post, I’ll donate 50 cents (up to $500).

Technicalities:
1. The e-bake sale part only applies to people in Edmonton unfortunately. I don’t have the time or resources to ship to other parts of the world! Sorry!
2. I’ll make the baking on a first-come, first-serve basis. So you may not instantaneously get your baked goods. I still have to spend 75% of my day in the hospital, you know!
3. Please try to make your requests more general so I have some room for creativity! “cake with cream cheese frosting”, “something with chocolate”, “cookies with nuts”, that sort of thing.

If others would like to get involved in this e-bake sale…let me know =)
Hope to hear from you all soon. <3