Waffles

Sunday morning waffles.  Here are some waffles we made a few weeks back, served with fresh raspberries, banana, peaches, icing sugar and of course maple syrup.

Enjoy

Steel Cut Oats

Recently I purchased some steel cut oats. They are a nice treat for the weekend. Cut with a steel blade, compared to normal oatmeal they have a nuttier flavour and are firmer.

Raw Steel Cut Oats

The only downside is that they take about 25 minutes to make, which is a fairly long time. I’m very much a fan though.  To make them bring 41/2 C of water to a boil and add 1 C of oats.  Simmer for 25 minutes stirring occasionally until they are done.

Cooked Steel Cut Oats

Just add a little brown sugar and serve with milk along side of fresh fruit and/or raisins.  Enjoy.

A Late Spring Meal

This is a five course meal that I created for my housemates in the spring.  It was a fun time to hang out with Cliff and Steve over a delicious meal.

As a side note I’ve finally finished my thesis so I’m having a little bit more time on my hands to hopefully catch up on my cooking and blogging.  Enjoy.

Appetizer

This is a corn soup, with chili and green onions. It has been feature before here.

Sweet Corn Chili Soup

The Meat Tasting Course

This course consists of two parts.  The first is chili lime beef.  Slices of sirloin were marinated in lime juice, chili powder and olive oil.  They were cooked to perfection and served with a Hoisin sauce for dipping.

Chili Lime Beef

The second part was succulent baby back ribs with a home made BBQ sauce.

Baby Back Ribs

Pasta

This is a sweet potato ravioli.  It was flavoured with allspice and cinnamon and it was topped with a semi whipped cream and basil.

Sweet Potato Ravioli with a Semi Whipped Cream

Main

To change things up a bit I decided to do breakfast for the main course.  This is an eggs Benedict consisting of a tower of asparagus, toasted baguette, bacon, a poached egg and a sun dried tomato hollandaise.  It’s accompanied with oven baked, home made, potato chips.

Asparagus, Eggs Benedict with homemade Potato Chips and a Sundried Tomato Hollandaise

Dessert

To complete the meal I used some strawberry and rhubarb that was in the fridge on top of a shortbread based tart.  It was completed with a custard in addition to the fruit and topped with a meringue.

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart with Custard and Meringue

Enjoy.

Fruit Carvings

Here are a few fruit carvings that were created this spring. After church on Good Friday I had some friends over for brunch and I wanted to display the fruit in a creative way.  Flora created both of the beautiful swans shown below.

Apple Swan

Melon Swan with Fruit Arrangement

This is just a quick post, but I may detail how these were created at some point in the future.

Enjoy.

This Cake is Not a Lie

This is a cake I made for Mike on his birthday.  He told me that he was going to spend almost all of his birthday day studying and I felt that was no way to spend a birthday so I made this for him.

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Oranges, Strawberries and Shaved Chocolate

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Chocolate Cake (I used two 9 in cake pans)
1 cup whipping cream
5 squares of baking chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 tsp of flavouring (vanilla extract, coffee, liqueurs etc.)
Fruit for decorating
Chocolate for decorating

For the cake I used Devil’s Food Cake Cockaigne from the Joy of Cooking. It is my favourite chocolate cake recipe.  To make the mousse melt the chocolate over a double boiler.  When it is melted add some of the extra cream to it and stir until it forms a ganache, which is a chocolaty creamy mixture.  The chocolate will seize (become solid fairly quickly) when you first add the cream, but as you add more cream and stir the mixture will thin out.  Add the flavourings to the chocolate mixture.  Vanilla and Coffee flavourings will make the chocolate taste even better.  Whip the all the rest of the whipping cream using an electric mixer.  Mix about 1/4 of the whipped cream with the chocolate mixture.  Then fold the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream.  Refrigerate this mixture for an hour to let it set up.

To construct the cake place one of the two cakes on a plate.  Ice the top of it with the chocolate mousse.  I then covered this layer with strawberries.  Place the second cake on top of the other cake.  You may need to top the cake (cut a bit off the top of the cake to make it flat).  After this ice the rest of the cake with the mousse using any extra mousse to form a dome at the top of the cake.  I decorated it with strawberries and orange segments.  I also shaved chocolate, using a vegetable peeler, onto the top of the cake.

Chocolate Mousse Cake for Mike

Enjoy.