Tasty Tangents | Talk from around the kitchen table

March 26, 2012
by Amanda
1 Comment

Floral Cupcakes

Flower Cupcakes

Spring is finally here, and in honour of the warmer weather I thought I’d post some photos of these beautiful cupcakes made by my brother’s girlfriend, Sam, a few weeks ago. You can find great instructions here or watch this instructional video.

The idea comes from a great cupcake book, Hello, Cupcake! that is full of fun and whimsical ideas for decorating cupcakes. Sam tells me the decorating was fun, but VERY time-consuming, so be aware if you’re thinking of embarking on this kind of project. Another note, don’t bother buying coloured sugar, just toss some white sugar in a ziploc back with a couple of drops of food colouring and you’re good to go.

Sam’s got a talent in the kitchen, but truly anyone can get creative and make their cupcakes, whether for a party or bake sale or just dessert at home, something special.

I suppose it’s kind of besides the point, but the cupcakes were mochaccino and oreo flavour, and they were absolutely delicious.

Flower Cupcakes Closeup

March 2, 2012
by Amanda
1 Comment

My TV Debut

: Amanda with Tom Knowlton on the CTV News at Noon on Friday, March 2, 2012.

So today I was on the CTV Southwestern Ontario News at Noon to share my recipe for Pasta Puttanesca (which you’ll find below). Without further ado, click here for the link to the video clip.

March 1, 2012
by Amanda
3 Comments

Pasta Puttanesca

This sauce is named for what one cookbook I read politely referred to as “women of the night.” Why? It’s cheap, quick and easy.

It’s a sauce with strong flavours, but it can easily be modified to your taste. For less salt cut back on the capers and for more heat increase the chili flakes.

You can also take your pick of olives and tomatoes.

I’ve always used sliced black olives, but Nicoise or Kalamata would be delicious too, just make sure there are no pits involved.

If you prefer a thicker sauce, use crushed tomatoes or buy whole plum tomatoes and give them a good squishing (it’s a great job for kids who want to help cook). For a lighter and fresher sauce, diced tomatoes work better.

There’s no salt added to the sauce and that’s not an oversight. The briny capers and salty anchovies give it more than enough sodium.

One final tip, to turn this into a meal, it’s easy to poach a thin cod fillet or egg in the sauce as it cooks. Or you can simply add a can of tuna, drained, when the sauce is just about ready.

Ingredients for Puttanesca Sauce, clockwise from top left: Olive oil, parsley, canned tomatoes, black olives, oregano, garlic, chili pepper, capers and anchovies.

Ingredients:

500 grams linguine or other pasta
2 tbsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced (about 2 tbsp)
8 anchovy fillets, coarsely chopped
2 cans diced/crushed plum tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp chili pepper flakes (to taste)
3 heaping tbsp capers, drained
1 cup sliced black olives (about one can)
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley, plus extra to garnish

Directions:

Fill large pot with water. Bring to a boil, add salt and stir in pasta. Cook according to package directions until al dente.

In a separate pan, heat olive oil on medium heat and add chopped garlic and anchovies. Sautee until garlic is golden.

Turn heat to high, add tomatoes and bring to a boil. Once at a full boil add the oregano, chili flakes, capers, black olives and parsley. Stir frequently.

Reduce the heat slightly and continue to simmer until the sauce has thickened to your liking.

Drain pasta when ready and combine with a few ladles of sauce. Plate pasta and top with more sauce. Garnish with additional chopped parsley.

Cook your Puttanesca Sauce longer for a thicker consistency.

Watch CTV Southwestern Ontario at noon on Friday, March 2 to watch me prepare the dish live! I’ll post a link to the video when it’s ready.

February 27, 2012
by Amanda
0 comments

Banana Bread Cookies

It seems to be that time of year where every couple of weeks there are two or three really sad-looking bananas left on the counter. I often peel, bag and freeze them for future use, but since I’d done that just a week ago, I decided I needed another solution for the ones left on the counter.

My husband and I both love banana bread, but I was itching for something a little different, something that didn’t need to be sliced and that wouldn’t leave crumbs everywhere. So I settled on a recipe from allrecipes.com for Banana Cake Cookies. The recipe even includes a frosting, but I had some ready-made cookie frosting on hand, so I used that. If you want the scratch-made frosting follow the link.

Now for some reason by the time I got around to taking the picture, after I had put the cookies in a Tupperware to keep them away from our doggie, the frosting started to melt off even though it was completely solid when I put the cookies in the container. They still tasted as good, but weren’t quite as pretty, sorry.

Maybe I’ll do something different in terms of the frosting, or just dust with icing sugar next time, which will be soon since there’s a couple more bananas that have already turned brown.

Here’s my version of the recipe, with very few modifications.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (about three ripe bananas)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a bowl, mix butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add eggs and banana and mix until well combined.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cloves then add to wet mixture and beat well.

Add pecans and stir until just combined. Place by heaping tablespoonful on parchment-lined baking sheets, about two inches apart.

Bake for 12 minutes and then cool on rack.

February 20, 2012
by Amanda
1 Comment

Happy Anniversary

Red Velvet Anniversary Cake

For most people, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to remind your sweetheart how much you love them. But in my family, it means it’s time for my parents’ wedding anniversary.

When they married, the day wasn’t chosen because it was the ‘day of love,’ but simply because that Saturday was available at the local church. It’s now been 42 year since that day and we try to celebrate every year.

This year, I decided to take on dessert duty, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.

I’ve had good luck before with Martha Stewart recipes for cupcakes, so I went for a Red Velvet Chocolate Cake and a Basic Buttercream recipe. (I’m still a little worried about trying the frosting that requires adding hot syrup to egg whites that was recommended for the cake’s frosting, but someday I’ll try it.)

I doubled the cake recipe for my two 10″ round pans, and the cake turned out nice and moist. I made about 1 1/3 the frosting recipe (because that’s how much butter I had) and it worked out, but next time I think I’ll double the recipe just in case.

I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make the fondant cutouts and just glued them on with a little water. I then rolled pink and white ropes for the base, which are much harder to make an even size than I thought they would be, so if anybody has any tips please let me know.

And that’s it! Everybody seemed to love it, so I’d say it was a successful recipe. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

January 25, 2012
by Amanda
1 Comment

Celebrity Endorsements

Paula Deen's The Deen Family Cookbook

So this is one of those tangents the name of the blog allows me to explore. I have to admit I’ve been ignoring the whole Paula Deen kerfuffle lately, but I decided to take a closer look, since the whole concept of the food celebrity is quite fascinating to me.

I you haven’t heard, here’s the story: Deen has known for three years she has Type 2 Diabetes, but recently decided to go public after securing an endorsement deal with a diabetes drug manufacturer.

The thing is, when I heard she got an endorsement deal, I thought well her name is her bread and butter (no pun intended), so it makes sense that she would find a way to turn a serious diagnosis into an income source.

However, knowing that she’s endorsing a drug instead of say, a more heart-healthy margarine or a line of grills or a brand of salad, is a disappointment.

I’m not the first person to point out that she has the potential to use her diagnosis for good. This article on Huffington Post and this one are ones that said it best for me.

And while I’m the first person to say she’s not responsible for the choices we at home make when it comes to food, it still somehow seems like the easy way out. (We’re each responsible for educating ourselves on healthy eating, by the way.)

Endorsing a drug means she doesn’t have to admit her eating habits have impacted her health, and the health of anyone who now thinks butter should be part of their daily diet.

That would be one hell of an admission too. Imagine learning that something you’ve been doing for decades, that is your entire living, your entire world, could eventually kill you. Not easy.

So I guess I hope she’ll eventually take responsibility. I hope she’ll learn from the experience. Most of all I hope she’ll do what other chefs/cooks have done and move toward healthier cooking or simply teaching that some dishes are only meant for rare special occasions.

And for everyone else, there’s nothing wrong with butter- and sugar-laden recipes on special occasions and at the holidays.

Someone smart quoted a great line to me…it’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s that’s important, it’s what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas.

What do you think? Do celebrities have a responsibility when it comes to choosing what they endorse?

January 15, 2012
by Amanda
6 Comments

Post-Holiday Cheer

Cicitielli

As always a few weeks after the Christmas season, things tend to get a little dreary as all the sparkle and joy begins to fade away.

So it seemed like and ideal time for my first guest post. My mom is always working to perfect family recipes. Ones that have been handed down on scraps of paper with little more than the names of a few main ingredients. (And that’s at the best of times.)

So without further ado…here’s a word from my mom.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

I have been wanting to write about my special Christmas sweets for quite some time. I remember the sights, smells and tastes that come with them, but most of all they represent my family’s traditions of preparing so many different sweets for the season that were made from recipes passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. The ingredients have always remained the same, but the quantities come from individual experience.

I made one particular sweet three times this season starting in late November when our family Christmas party was being organized by my sister, Lucy. I was excited to have a big family gathering and wanted to bring tradition to the party with my sweets.

I took pictures of the process and felt very close to the people who made them before me. I could hear my grandmother whispering “piano, piano,” (slowly, slowly) and knew she was watching over me while I deep fried them. I made them again within days because I thought they were too small and there weren’t enough.

The care and attention I gave them paid off. They were magnificent. After the frying and cooling, I made the icing and remembered how often I had watched my mom make them with the same care and the resulting cicitielli were always beautiful little balls of snow white icing adorning the fluffy cake inside. Mom’s were the best.

I had come close to the way they were supposed to be and appreciated the hard work of those who made them before me. I could feel their strength go through me and settle in my heart as I felt pride in having completed the job.

I made them again just before New Year’s Eve to bring them to my daughter’s house. They smelled, tasted and looked just like they were supposed to and I iced them at her house just before guests were supposed to arrive.

The work paid off because everyone who tasted them said they were surprised by the flavour and texture that they had. They were not what they had expected and then they had another. I think that my son-in-law, Dan liked them a lot when he dipped one in the chocolate fondue. He said that they were delicious. My husband kept telling me that they were the best sweets of the season whenever he ate one.

I will probably not make them again until next Christmas and look forward to the event as part of the joys of the season, but I suppose I could make them some time before if I really wanted to.

October 17, 2011
by Amanda
3 Comments

Apple Cider Surprise Cookies

They’re the perfect autumnal dessert (and a nice break from all the pumpkin). I used this recipe from The Cooking Photographer only substituting the apple cider mix with what was available.

Actually, for some reason I had a box of the stuff and haven’t used it in quite awhile and it turned out to be the perfect amount.

The whole wrapping a caramel in each cookie is a bit time consuming, but it’s totally worth it!

The cookies are definitely best served at room temperature or slightly warm so the caramel centers are soft.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 230 gram box Lynch’s Original Hot Apple Cider Mix
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 (14 ounce) bag Kraft Caramels (about 50 caramels)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar, salt, and all packets of apple cider mix until smooth and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract, then mix in the baking soda and baking powder. Add the flour and mix until just combined.

Use a standard cookie scoop to scoop the dough, scraping off the excess. Make an indent in the dough and place a caramel in the center. Work the dough around the caramel and roll the ball in your hand to seal well. Place the cookies two inches apart on the sheets.

Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. After baking, carefully slide the parchment with the cookies onto the counter. Let cool until they are no longer soft but still slightly warm. Twist gently to remove, and cool the rest of the way upside down on the parchment or on a cooling rack.

Makes about four dozen cookies.

September 24, 2011
by Amanda
1 Comment

No-Bake Cookie Pops

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Oreo Cheesecake Cookie Pops

On a hot summer’s day I wanted chocolate chip cookies and I did not want to turn the oven on. I had also seen a recipe for no-bake oreo cheesecake pops that sounded fantastic.

On top of that, I had a new package of lollipop sticks ready to go, so I figured it was kismet. And it was also delicious. I guarantee you won’t regret making these quick recipes. I served them cold from the refrigerator though you could serve them frozen.

The first recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls comes from Joy the Baker , but I made way more than the recipe claimed, about four dozen. My version is below. I only half dipped them in chocolate so I could see the yummy dough.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 cup and 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup peanut butter (or Greek yogurt or applesauce)
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
Lollipop sticks/popsicle sticks/plastic forks

Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in peanut butter along with the vanilla extract and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add it all at once to the butter and sugar mixture and stir until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.

Roll heaping tablespoonfuls onto wax paper lined cookie sheet and insert lollipop stick. Press in dough around stick to secure.

Freeze about three hours or overnight, until firm.

Dipping

Chop about 1 cup dark chocolate pastilles or semi-sweet baking chocolate and melt in double boiler or microwave (in 20 second increments). Dip balls and return to freezer to harden. Serve cold from fridge or freezer.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pops - Undipped

The second recipe is from the blog Some Kitchen Stories.

Oreo Cheescake Pops

1 package of Oreos
8 oz packages of cream cheese, at room temperature
2 packages of semisweet baking chocolate (16 sq. total, for dipping)
Lollipop sticks

Put the Oreos in a bag and smash them into crumbs using a rolling pin or the bottom of a frying pan. Then combine the crumbs with the cream cheese in a mixer just until it’s well-blended.

Scoop out the mixture by the tablespoon and roll into little balls. Set them on a lined baking sheet coated with some cooking spray then stick in the lollipop sticks, a little more than halfway through, pressing the mixture around it.

Refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight and then repeat the dipping process above. I dipped the dip in oreo crumbs, just for effect.