Recipes

Shoshy’s Stuffed Shells

The first time I ate this dish, I wasn’t even done my first bite before I was scribbling down the recipe and asking clarifying questions with my mouth full of cheese and tomatoes.

The first time I served this dish, my apartment smelled like heaven, my guest was floored/impressed/hungry, and we drank white wine, ate raspberry crumble and watched Glee until the cows came home.

This is my friend Shosh’s delicious, simple, indulgent recipe. Thanks Shosh! :)

Oh stuffed shells, how much do I love you? Let me count the ways.

  1. You are easy peasy.
  2. You impress people with little-to-no effort made on my part.
  3. You smell heavenly.
  4. You contain four types of cheese: mozzarella, cheddar, goat and cottage.
  5. You are absolutely positively one of the most delicious things I have ever consumed.

So if I have convinced you that this food must be put into your gullet at the earliest possible convenience, READ ON young foodies and be amazed, astonished, delighted, full.

Preheat that oven to 350!!

Ingredients:

  • Jumbo pasta shells
  • 2 Cans of diced tomatoes
  • 3 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp basil
  • 1 package of goat’s cheese
  • 2 cups cottage cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar
  • 1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella
  • 2 eggs
  • Salt & peppa!

For the sauce:

Combine the tomatoes, garlic, basil and goat cheese in a large saucepan. Stir together on medium heat until the cheese is melted and the sauce is a even consistency. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

For the shells:

Cook the shells like you would any other pasta – in boiling water with a bit of salt. I used an 8×8 glass baking dish, and I was able to squeeze in about 25 shells. Depending on the size of your dish you may want to cook more or less shells. Once they’re cooked, let them cool while you prepare the filling. Combine the grated cheese, cottage cheese and eggs (beaten). Put 1/2 the sauce on the bottom of the dish. Stuff the shells with the cheese mixture, and place them in the pan. Add the rest of the sauce on top. Cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 for about an hour.

And voila! Delicious, easy, impressive. Serve it to your friends and listen to them gush over your food. Experience a slight ego boost. :)

Hope you enjoy!

xoxo,

Pie That Made Me Cry

Happy American Thanksgiving!

I’m so lucky, I got to have two Thanksgivings this year: one with my family in October, and one with my friend-family yesterday night!

There was: turkey, tofu, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberries, jello, pumpkin pie (with chocolate swirls and without), brownies, blondies, chocolate pie..

We sat around in food comas for a long time after.

It was awesome!

I didn’t take any photos, since I was too busy stuffing my face and proclaiming my exasperation about not having seen HP7 yet (jeez!). But I do have a few photos of the pecan pie that I made a couple days ago with my besties.. :)

We used Pioneer Woman’s Pie That’ll Make You Cry recipe, and it was..delicious.

It’s basically all sugar. And pecans. And amazing.

You want some?

Okay do this:

Make 1 pie crust. Pioneer Woman suggests a specific recipe, but since we were without internet, we used a basic pastry recipe in one of our basic cookbooks. Use whichever you want. Feel free to dip the extra pieces of pastry into the extra filling and then eat it. Yay salmonella!

It should look something like this..

..But potentially more pretty.

Then mix up the following, it should take approximately two minutes.

1 cup white sugar, 3 tbsp brown sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 cup corn syrup, 3/4 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup melted butter, 3 eggs.

Pioneer Woman explains in her post the reason for chopping the pecans and putting them in the crust first: so that they rise up, triumphant, and distribute themselves beautifully throughout the filling. I would like to say amen to this. It was perfect!


So you follow her recipe, you hear? Put the 1 cup pecans in the bottom of the pie crust. Then pour the filling overtop. You can (like me) try to recreate Pioneer Woman’s awesome action shot of this process and (like me) fail miserably. Wanna see?

Fail. Gotta get my head out of the way. Sorry guys, I tried!

Then the pecans will rise. It’s beautiful. You should watch it happen, it’s like a magic trick.

Then bake that sucker.

Pioneer Woman says bake it at 350 for 30 minutes covered with tinfoil, then to remove the tinfoil and bake for 20 minutes longer. We tried this method, but since it was still jiggly (and PW says NO JIGGLING) we put it back in, covered with tinfoil and checked periodically until it was finito. Yes!

Look how beautiful it is..

YUM.

Happy Thanksgiving indeed.

I am thankful for: pie, food, friends, family, love.

How about you?

xoxo,


Apple Pie

A word up front: this pie is VEGAN.

Ooh, big scary words. Them’s fightin’ words.

Let me assure you, however, that this is one of the most delicious pies I have ever consumed, ever. Period. Vegan or not, it was marvellous, delicious, outstanding. I ate it warm out of the oven, giggling away in delight. Om nom. Nom.

So, why vegan? Well, for one thing, the boyfriend is lactose intolerant. And for another, why the heck not? I’ve been trying to move myself in the vegan direction for quite a while now, with little success (Damn you cheese. Why do you have to be so irreplaceable?) but I’ve been perusing some fantastic websites lately, like Vegan Dad and Vegan Yum Yum that are giving me tons of delicious inspiration. I may be throwing some more awesome vegan recipes at you in the very near future, so if you’re a squeamish carnivore: watch out! Rawr.

But for now, please just make this wonderful pie.

I used two recipes in hybrid: Joy the Baker’s With Love, Apple Pie for the apple prep + Savvy Vegetarian’s Vegan Pie Crust

I rolled out my pie crust with a wine bottle, since my mother refused to buy me a rolling pin at the beginning of the year since, when she was in university, she rolled things out with a wine bottle. Granted, I think her wine bottle would have been a) empty and b) had the label removed. Since my wine bottle had neither, it is a miracle that this pie turned out at all. I was so afraid that at any second its cheap twist-on lid would somehow pop off and turn my pastry red..and winey..

Here we go!

First things first: obtain some apples. I know that so many apple pie recipes specify not to use McIntosh apples, but since they were accidentally all I bought, and since I was fighting a cold and just wanted some apple pie, damnit, I decided to risk potential mushiness and go ahead with my macs. Verdict: not mushy! Delish! I don’t know if that was just good luck on my part, but I loved the consistency of the pie using these babies.

Here I am! Looking my best, as usual..peeling some apples.

Ta-da! Yummo. Now slice those babies up into small, equal slices.

Like so. Now go ahead and toss them with 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1/4 cup each of brown and white sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp salt.

‘OOH, HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH’

Pause here to eat several slices. Consider the possibility of giving up on the pie entirely and just eating these.

Fine. We will continue. Reluctantly.

Now here is where I differed from Joy the Baker’s recipe: she uses a cool technique of caramelizing the apple juices with butter, which I was too exhausted to attempt. Instead, I just mixed the apples with a couple tbsp of flour (I didn’t have cornstarch, my grocery store seems to be, for all intents and purposes, hiding it from me, along with cornmeal. Both are probably hiding together in the same aisle, giggling as I walk past for the fortieth time..) and let them hang out while I made the pie crust. Which was awesome. And easy.

Around this time, preheat the oven to 425 and put a cookie sheet inside! This is a special trick I just recently learned from Joy the Baker. I think it helps to cook the pie from the bottom as well as the top. Who knows. All I know is, it works.

For the pastry: I didn’t have Earth Balance, so I used Becel Vegan margarine. Same diff. I stuck 1 cup of it in the freezer for about 1/2 an hour, and chilled my 2 1/2 cups flour in the freezer as well. That’s what the recipe said to do!

Basically all you need to do for this recipe is mix the margarine with the flour until its crumbly, then add a few tbsp of cold water until it all sticks together and you can form a ball with your hands. Then plop it down onto the floured counter, whip out your wine bottle and go at it. Unfortunately, I did not take photos of me rolling out the pie crust with a wine bottle. I will leave that up to your imagination.

PRESTO!

Fill the pie shell with apples and any juices, roll out the top crust, put it on top, crimp the edges so they look pretty.

Then cut some vents in the top. I was feeling lovey dovey so I cut out hearts.

..It sort of ended up looking like a creepy mask. I was okay with that. Mainly, it was cute.

Guys, it was really cute! Okay??

I sprinkled some sugar on the top, but didn’t have a brush to brush it with egg wash or water. I was okay with that too.

Now take the baking sheet out of the preheated oven, put the pie on top of it, put it back in. For 45-55 min. Warning: your entire house will start to smell absolutely divine. Resist the urge to yank the pie out of the oven and eat it as is, immediately. I promise, it’s worth the wait.

Ooh la la.

My apartment seriously smelled like apples and cinnamon for like 3 days.

So delicious.

The pastry is delicious and flaky, the apple juices were bubbling, and the apples actually held their form, despite being McIntoshes.

YUMMO.

Okay, I’m off to have my eighth slice.

I would also like to say: I just forgot how to spell eighth. Thank goodness for spell check. I don’t know how the cavemen did it.

xoxo,

 

 

Mom’s Chili + Easiest Scones Ever

Mm, fall food.

How much are you loving fall?

A lot? A little?

Personally, I find it difficult to disassociate the beautiful autumn weather & fun fall activities from the hell that is midterm season. I resent that though, because fall is my favourite of all the seasons! It’s electric, full of excitement and crunch and unadulterated joy.

One thing that makes fall easier to appreciate, for me, is making delicious fall-like food and consuming it. I do this a lot.

I think my favourite comfort food right now is a big hearty bowl of my mom’s chili with some sour cream and green onions and some biscuits on the side. Mmmm. It’s the perfect food really: easy, healthy, sharable, delicious, keeps for a long time in the fridge :)

So, my fine people, I share with you the deliciousness that is chili in the fall. Enjoy!

 

Mom’s Chili

Makes about 6 servings, depending on how hungry you are.. :)

1.     Chop up 1 onions, 2 stalks celery, 3 garlic, 2 carrots very small

2.     Cover ½ cup of barley (or bulgor wheat!) with 2 cups of water; simmer until barley/bulgor is cooked

3.     Meanwhile, sauté the veggies in olive oil until tender crisp

4.     Add finely chopped pepper and zucchini to the sautéed veggies, sauté until soft (I add diced mushrooms and neglect the zucchini)

5.     Add spices: cinnamon, chili powder, cumin, basil, shake of salt, little pepper, any other spices you might like..

6.     Add a large tin of diced tomatoes

7.     Add some red wine (few tbsp)

8.     Simmer it a while, add drained barley and a rinsed can of kidney beans

9.     Taste! Add salt. Add a little sugar, a bit more cinnamon. Add some ketchup. Taste & repeat if necessary!

10. Simmer on low heat for as long as possible.

11. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and some green onions – YUM!

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Easiest Scones Ever


Follow this link to find the easiest scones of all time..yummo!

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Bon apetit!

Let me know how the recipe turns out, if you try it!

xoxo,

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