Movin' on Uptown

Toronto Bakes For Japan

So I've moved out of the urban jungle and now living uptown.  I've been living here for 2 months and I'm finally taking a break from baking this weekend!  The first weekend we moved here, I donated 8 dozen cupcakes to Toronto Bakes For Japan.  I made about 4 dozen black forest cupcakes and my sister helped me baked 4 dozen green tea cupcakes (Thanks Sis!!).  The bake sale raised over $30K!!!  THANK YOU TORONTO!

Cake Pops

I bought a whole bunch of goodies from the Bake Sale, but the most memorable purchase was the cake pop.  It was my first cake pop experience and it was scrumptious!  (Oops ... actually my first cake pop was from Starbucks and I was less than thrilled.)  I had burnt some green tea cupcakes in preparation for the bake sale (need to adjust to a new oven).  Reluctant to throw out 2 dozen muffins, I cut off the burnt bottoms and decided to try making green tea cake pops.  These things are not easy to put together.  The cake is mixed with icing and then shaped into balls.  Too much icing and your cake balls will fall apart.  I took a cake pops class a few nights ago at Le Dolci and here is a pic of the final result ...

Vanilla Cake Pops

The Winner of The Chili Contest Is ...

My Vegetarian Chili!  At work, I helped to organize a Cinco de Mayo celebration during the lunch hour.  We had margaritas, chicken tacos (homemade, of course), nachos with all the fixin's and 3 chilis to sample for the chili cook-off.  My vegetarian chili entry actually won!  (I voted for the other beef chili that came in 2nd place.)  My husband told me I would lose to the meat chilis.  But my co-workers told me they thought my chili had a lot of flavour.  My favourite ingredient to add to chili is chipotle peppers.  Some people have been asking me for the recipe, but I don't really remember how much of what I put in it!  I started with a stew recipe and added whatever was in my spice rack to make it taste more like chili.  One co-worker said that my chili technically wasn't a chili because there was no meat in it. Well, my chili was the people's choice.  :)

Vegetarian Chili

(Serves 6)
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 large Onion, diced
1/2 large Red Pepper, diced
1/2 large Green Pepper, diced
3 cloves Garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/2 tsp salt
A few dashes black pepper
2 Chipotle Peppers (canned), drained and chopped
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
3 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable stock
1 cup Corn
1 (16-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup fresh Cilantro, lightly packed, torn into pieces (stems and all)
Finely grated zest of 1 lime
Juice of 1/2 lime

In a stockpot, sauté the onions and peppers in the oil over moderate heat for 5 minutes.  Add the garlic, cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt and black pepper.  Sauté 1 minute more.  Add the chipotles, tomatoes, water and vegetable stock, stir.  Bring to a low boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Uncover, add the corn and beans.  Thin with more water if needed.  Cook uncovered for 5 more minutes.  Add the cilantro, lime zest, and lime juice.  Let sit for at least 10 minutes.  Serve.
I actually reheated the chili in a slow cooker for a few hours at work before serving it at lunch, so I think that's when the magic really happened with my chili.
 
Detox to Retox
Like most women, I always think that I need to lose weight.  Lately, I've been eating way too many cupcakes and other goodies.  Since the beginning of April, I have been baking cupcakes almost every week.  For my brother & his fiancée's jack & jill showers, for afternoon tea on Will & Kate's wedding day, and of course Mother's Day.  So I decided that after Mother's Day I would detox for about 5 days.  5 days of fruits, veggies, whole grains, no dairy, no animal protein, no processed foods.  I did that for months after my second Master Cleanse and maintained a relatively flat tummy.  This time, I lasted only 3 and a 1/2 days.  For those 3 days I did hot yoga two days in a row, ate fresh veggies and savoured my morning watermelon fruit smoothie.

Watermelon Berry Smoothie
1 cup watermelon cubes
1/3 cup frozened berries
3/4 cup fruit juice (I used Oasis Wild Berries and Pomegranate)
1/4 cup water
Blend everything in a blender and enjoy!

Winter & Comfort Food

It's winter and I've been practicing comfort food classic recipes.  This Martha Stewart Mac & Cheese has been in high demand since I made it for Christmas Eve dinner at my parents' house.

Macaroni & Cheese

I used to cut this recipe in half and used Gruyere cheese.  Since Christmas Eve, I made the full recipe using Pecorino Romano (pronounced with an Italian accent) and sprinkled panko crumbs on top instead of the buttered bread cubes.  It tastes so much better with Pecorino Romano, probably because it's saltier than Gruyere.  I'm not sure what's better for you: Kraft Dinner full of processed chemicals made to taste like cheddar; or cheddar and pecorino romano cheeses, milk, and butter??

Last summer, I picked up a copy of Jamie's Food Revolution from Costco because the recipes looked approachable with lots of pictures.  I finally attempted his Lamb Rogan Josh recipe and it was very tasty!  I don't think it was authentic, but it was quick, simple, and tasty.

What's Baking?

Just before Christmas, I participated in a cookie exchange at work.  I ended up baking green tea shortbread and made them into sandwich cookies filled my green tea icing recipe.  It wasn't too difficult to make (just 5 ingredients!), but there was a lot of butter in them.  I couldn't find a leaf cookie-cutter I liked, so I just cut the dough into 2 inch squares and used the back of a knife to imprint lines onto the dough.

Green Tea Shortbread Sandwich Cookies

And back by popular demand, green tea cupcakes!

Green Tea Cupcakes with Green Tea Buttercream Icing

One more goodie to take with you - Chocolate Banana Bundt Cake.  So easy and delicious!

• 1 cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 cup Cake & Pastry Flour
• 2/3 cup Cocoa Powder
• 1 + 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 + 1/3 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/4 cup Canola Oil
• 1 + 1/2 cups Hot Water
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 3 Bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup pecan or walnut pieces, optional

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F.  Spray a bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray (or lightly grease with oil).
2. In a large bowl, sift flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add sugar to dry ingredients and whisk until ingredients are blended.
3. To the flour mixture add the canola oil, hot water, and vanilla extract; mix well.
4. Now add the mashed bananas and stir batter until well blended.
5. If adding nuts, fold nuts into batter with a spatula.
6. The batter will be quite water-y.  Pour the batter into the the bundt pan.  Bake for about 45 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  (My cake was done after 45 min.)
7. Move the bundt pan to a cooling rack and let it cool for 15-20 minutes.  Use a wooden skewer or spatula to loosen the edges of the cake from the pan.  Remove the pan from the rack and place the rack over the open side of the pan and invert the cake onto the cooling rack.  Continue to cool the cake completely before serving.  Dust icing sugar over the cake and voilà!  Bon appetit!

Are You There Blog? It's Me, Mir

Keeping a blog updated takes a lot of effort!  I like blogs with lots of pictures, so I want to post my own pics on this blog.  I've been in a bit of a hibernation mode (already!), thus no published posts in 3 months!  Without further ado, I'd like to share my love for Swiss Meringue Buttercream with you:


Don't you just love pretty food???

 


I finished my cake decorating class last Sunday and I am still no professional decorator.  Royal icing is supposed to be easier to work with, but if you don't make it properly, it will likely be too stiff.

My baker alter-ego experimented with different lemon cakes during the cake decorating classes (we had to bring baked cakes to 3 classes).  I discovered that Martha Stewart's cake recipes didn't work out for me.  I guess everyone has different cake preferences and her recipes turned out like dense pound cake, but I was looking for something light and fluffy.  I finally found the recipe on allrecipes.com.  My husband actually liked the Martha Stewart one, and not the fluffy chiffon cake.  Here are the cakes I decorated this fall (please lower your expecations ...):


 Moist Lemon Cake with Whipped Topping



Lemon Cake with Raspberry Filling and Almond Buttercream




Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Curd Filling and Vanilla Buttercream

Luckily, my husband and I didn't have to eat all these cakes by ourselves.  We invited family over for intimate dinner parties.  My husband is taking a level 1 culinary course and every Sunday, he brings home enough food for 4 people.

My upcoming baking projects will be baking 8 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange at work (but first I gotta test drive some new recipes), and cupcakes for 5 holiday parties.  I think it's time to bring back the Green Tea Cupcake.  :)

The Best Thing I Ever Ate

I have been dying to share my recent food experience with everyone.  I bought these delectable vegetarian pockets called Murtabak from Absolute Bakery in Cabbagetown.


Mini Murtabak

My sister and her friend shared a large chicken Murtabak that was being made on the street.  The guy would take a 5-inch round of dough and turned it into paper-thin wrappers about 12-inch wide in a matter of seconds without any tools!
I didn't know what I was buying from the bakery because there were no labels.  After I tried a mini Murtabak, I returned to the bakery a couple hours later to buy several more to share with some colleagues.  The outside of the Murtabak is almost like roti, but very thin.  It is filled with a yummy mixture of seasoned potatoes and other vegetables (other versions include chicken or beef) and then pan fried.  I think Murtabaks originate from the Muslims, so they can also be found on the streets of Indonesia and Malaysia.  I'm salivating as I'm thinking about them ... :)

And For Dessert ...
In my baker life, I made banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting yesterday.  I used a banana muffin recipe from allrecipes.com that yields a light and fluffy muffin.  Since I didn't have a lot of time yesterday, I had to open my emergency Duncan Hines jar of frosting from the pantry.  ;)  It's aaaall good!


Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting



The Essence of Mir

My latest obsessions:

EARL GREY TEA
I used to hate it because of the bergamot, but now I love it!  My new favourite AM pick-me-up :)

RED COSMETICS

My fingernails and toenails are painted bright red.  Why not?  (It's hotter than blue or green.  What's up with that???)  Today, I even put on bright red lipstick.  I'm feelin' bold (or old).  I even bought a tiger print top a week ago ... oh crap, do I smell like a cougar???

BOOT CAMP

It takes place twice a week in the sketchiest park in TO, but that's part of the fun.  Watching pot-heads and trannies frolicking in the park.  The smell of weed as I'm lunging.  Should I watch that barefoot man throw his boot up in the tree or continue doing burpees?  Just when we thought we had seen it all, a man 20 feet away from us was throwing knives at a tree today.  Any other exercise would be boring compared with this.

BELLYDANCING

What more can I say?  It's so much fun!

ARUGULA & TUNA SALAD
I made this for lunch yesterday and today and it was sooooo good!!!  I was literally 2 inches from the plate as I shovelled the salad into my mouth in 5 minutes.  I don't bring a camera to work, so this is the closest picture I could find to my dish. 

Arugula, tuna, and bean salad

2 handfuls of "aroogoola"
8 grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 tablespoon goat cheese (I used 1/3 cup of gruyere cheese yesterday)
1 can of Clover Leaf yellowfin tuna in olive oil
2 tablespoons of homemade balsamic vinaigrette

Layer ingredients on a plate.  Grab a fork.  Position your mouth 2 inches from the salad.  Shovel.

My Little Bakeshop

My friends seem most interested in my baking projects, so I will share my latest one.  For the company BBQ, I ended up making chocolate chip cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

This Martha Stewart recipe was a lot more effort than I initially thought it would be.  The cupcake turned out a little more like a pound cake, despite folding in beaten egg whites into the cake batter.  My cupcakes are usually soft & moist.  I brought only 2 dozen cupcakes to the BBQ and I didn't see any left over.

I didn't end up baking lemon meringue cupcakes for my boss because I spent most of my Sunday baking a Black Forest Cake for my mother-in-law's birthday.  It didn't work out the way I wanted to.  First of all, I used silicone cake pans and totally forgot to grease/flour them before pouring batter into them.  So the cake stuck to the pan.  Not giving up, I carefully scraped the cakes out of the pans.  With the two thin layers of cake, I slopped on the cherry pie filling and whipped cream.  To make a long story short, it was quite an ugly cake (hence, no pictures of it here!).  I was running out of time and my hubby wrote "happy birthday" with a store-bought icing tube.  Since it didn't have enough time to chill and it was hot day, the cake was leaning to one side and the "happy birthday" was running off the cake by the time we served it.  (It was horrendous!!!)  Oh, well.  I hope she appreciated the thought.  :|  I thought it tasted pretty good.  I have made my recipe corrections for my next attempt at Black Forest Cake.

Next Saturday we're celebrating four birthdays at my aunt's house.  hmmm ... what would Brian Boitano make?  (One of my favourite Food Network shows)  I think I will attempt the hamburger cupcakes.

A Day in the Life of a Foodie

Aside from my usual smoothie for breakfast followed with a mid-morning snack, I had the best food day today!

My lunches are never boring.  You'll never catch me eating a ham & cheese sandwich (maybe the occasional salad with whatever scraps I can find in my fridge & pantry).  So for lunch, I had a grilled veggie sandwich with goat cheese.  Last night, my hubby grilled red peppers, zucchinis, and eggplant.  We sandwiched them up in a toasted panini bun with goat cheese.  YUM-MIRS!

Tonight, we had a late dinner at Terroni's new spin-off, La Bettola on the corner of Richmond & Adelaide (formerly Sushi Man).  I dunno if we were hungry or a little tipsy from the wine, but dinner was DEE-LISH!!!  We started off with deep-fried zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta.  I've always wanted to try this dish and it was awesome.  :)  Then we shared a pizza with parmesan, stracciatella cheese, arugula and cherry tomatoes.  The crust was perfection - thin, light, and crisp.  The finale to our meal was Terroni's handmade gelato - chocolate hazelnut.  m-mmm ... :)

No, my day didn't stop there.  I had some leftover corn-on-the-cob from last night's bbq, and very ripe avocados.  I combined these ingredients with tomatoes, coriander, spring onion, lemon juice, and S&P and made a SICK salad for lunch tomorrw.  It ROCKS!