Veggie Crepes

Wow this month flew by!  I don't know how it happened, but it is already time for another Secret Recipe Club reveal.

This month I got to check out Kirsten's Kitchen.  Kirsten's blog is filled with a wonderful assortment of vegan recipes, you can find recipes for everything from breakfast to dinner!

I wanted to make the Vegan Sheefa she made for last month's SRC, they look absolutely delicious.  I don't know if I will make the vegan or meat version - either way I am guessing they are going to be delicious.  Since Kristen just made them for last month's reveal I decided to keep hunting around.  

After much hunting and pinning I finally settled on the veggie filled crepes.  It has been a long time since I made crepes and while we usually fill them with cheese or nutella I loved the idea of filling them with fresh crisp veggies.

Once I had decided on what to make I passed the actual work part on to Will and Mike.  The girls and I were out for the day, so the boys had dinner duty and they came up with a wonderfully tasty meal.

 They used regular milk instead of soy and added some leftover chicken to the filling selections.  Mike also made a wonderful Asian influenced dipping sauce, it was a wonderfully simple and tasty meal.

Crepes
1 cup flour
1 1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. sea salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil, plus additional oil for the pan

Combine all ingredients, whisk together until smooth.
Rub a small amount of oil on the bottom of  a crepe pan, or small saute pan.  Place over medium heat, let pan heat for about 3 minutes.  Add a small ladle of batter, rotate pan so entire bottom surface is covered with batter, should be almost see through.  Let cook for about 2-3 minutes then flip.  Repeat with remaining batter.

SRC - Wonderful Winter Soup

Like many I crave simple easy foods at the start of the year.  After a month of indulgence all I want are simple nutritious foods and nothing fits this desire more than soup.  Soups can be made in 30 minutes or can simmer all day.  They can be a simple broth or chocked full of meats, vegetables, beans or pasta.  Being in a soup frame of mind I was thrilled when I came across Lesa's White Bean Sausage Kale Soup for this month's Secret Recipe Club.

Lesa's site, Edesia's Notebook, is filled with wonderful recipes that she shares with her husband and two adorable daughters.  Her holiday treats were mouth watering and the number of challenges and cooking groups she belongs to is definitely inspiring.  I was definitely tempted by many of her recipes, but stuck with the soup.

I made a few changes to Lesa's soup based on what was available in my kitchen, but that is one of the wonderful things about soup is that they are so versatile.  The two main changes I made were using spinach instead of kale and using a chorizo beef sausage and a chicken sausage in place of the Italian sausage Leasa used. We have become big fans of Cacique Beef chorizo it is wonderfully spicy and adds great flavor.  It almost disappears when cooking, so don't look to it if you want to add flavor and texture to the dish.

In my recipe I also added half a bottle of beer to help cut the spiciness of the chorizo and to add a little more flavor.  The addition of the beer is completely optional the soup is yummy either way.  I often add half a bottle or so because I like the hoppy flavor it provides and sometimes I add half a bottle just because it has been one of those afternoons.  It is completely up to you and the soup won't suffer either way.

Spinach White Bean Sausage Soup
5 oz. Cacique Beef Chorizo
2 links chicken sausage, cut into 1/2" slices
4 oz chicken broth
1/2 bottle beer (dark or light whichever flavor you prefer)
2 cans white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups frozen chopped spinach (or a bunch fresh spinach, chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste

Over medium heat, heat large soup pot.  Once pan is hot add chorizo, cook for about 5-7 minutes  add sausage cook until sausage is lightly browned.  Add broth and beer cook for 10 minutes or until liquids are warm. Stir in beans and spinach, add salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer over medium low heat  for 10 minutes.

Please visit Lesa over at Edesia's Notebook and be sure to check out all of the wonderful recipes in this month's SRC reveal.


 

SRC - Simply Cooked

Chicken and peanut butter is one of my favorite combinations.  I could eat it every day and never grow tired of it, so when I saw Sarah over at Simply Cooked had a recipe for Bang Bang Chicken I new what I would be trying this month for the Secret Recipe Club.

As always the SRC club introduced me to another wonderful site.  Sarah has a great assortment of recipes, a lot of the recipes are vegetarian, but there are options for the carnivore lover as well.  In addition to her recipes Sarah also has some fabulous book reviews from her Kitchen Reader book club.  I spent just as much time reading these posts as I did her recipes, so not only did my recipes to make list grow, but so did my books to read list.

Sarah's recipe for Bang Bang Chicken is wonderfully simple.  It is a great dish to have in your repertoire as it can be prepared ahead of time and is just as yummy cold as hot.  I actually prefer to it cold, the flavors are much more enhanced.

 I followed Sarah's recipe pretty much exactly, but did add some carrots for a little added crunch.

Bang Bang Chicken 
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Recipe from Simply Cooked and adapted from A Little Taste of China

Make this with leftover roasted or poached chicken. Or poach the chicken at the beginning of the recipe, then use the same cooking water for the noodles.

1 1/2 cucumbers
1 t salt
30 g Rice vermicelli
1 t toasted sesame oil
2 c. Cooked chicken, shredded
2 scallions (spring onions), sliced

for the dressing:
1/4 c (peanut butter
1 t soy sauce
4 t sugar
3 T rice wine vinegar
1 T toasted sesame oil
1 scallion (spring onion), sliced
1 T minced ginger
1 t chilli paste
1/4 c (60 ml) chicken stock or water

Slice the cucumbers into sticks. Toss with the salt and set aside in a bowl for 20 minutes.

Make the dressing by whisking together all the dressing ingredients.

Cook the noodles according to the packet directions; this will only take a few minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water so they cool to room temperature.
Combine the cucumbers, noodles, sesame oil, and chicken. Pour the dressing over and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the scallions.

As always there are lots of great recipes to check out with this month's SRC. You can check them out here and be sure to visit the Secret Recipe Club site throughout the month for more recipe reveals.

September SRC - Brownies

It is Secret Recipe Club time again and this month I had the privilege of meeting Jenn over at  The Misadventures of Mrs. B.  I got sucked into Jenn's blog and ended up spending a lot of time over there.  She has great recipes as well as wonderful reflective "self:" articles.  I really enjoyed getting to know her.

As I said there were a lot of great recipes to choose from and I had a really difficult time deciding which one to try.  I was tempted by her Buffalo Chicken Dip, but I had just made chicken wings, so I decided to bookmark that for a later date.  After more contemplation I decided on Indian Butter Chicken, I was looking forward to making a wonderful Indian feast and then Jenn had to go and post this recipe and the chicken went out the door.  The chicken is on this week's menu, but the brownies became a priority.

There were a couple of reasons why I had to make these brownies.  Jenn's description of them being "decadent, super chocolate, sexy, rich, fudgy brownies" was pretty persuasive, but what really clinched it for me was the fact that she found the recipe on Pintrest and I have to agree with her that that site is evil.

Reading the recipe I knew this brownies would be all she described them to be, but decided to up them a little more by adding chopped Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Chocolate chips -  oh my decadent to the extreme.  With or without the extras this is a great recipe and it was wonderful to find it on such a great blog.

The “Baked” Brownie (Printer Ready)
from The Misadventures of Mrs. B

Ingredients:
1¼ c. All-purpose flour

1 tsp.  Salt
2 tbsp. Unsweetened cocoa powder
11 ounces Dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 c. (8 ounces) Unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tsp Instant coffee
1½ c.  Granulated sugar
½ c.  Light brown sugar, packed
5 Eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp Vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat a 9×13 pan with cooking spray, line with parchment paper or foil.  

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder and salt.  Set aside.

In a double boiler, or large bowl set over a pot of simmering water, melt the chocolate, butter and coffee together.  Whisk until smooth.  Turn heat off and add sugars.  Stir to combine.

Remove bowl from on top of pot.  Mixture should be at room temperature.  In separate bowl lightly beat eggs and vanilla.  Add to chocolate mixture, mix until just combine.  Do not over-beat, over mixing will cause the brownies to become more cakes and less fudgy.  

Sprinkle flour mixture on top of chocolate and gently fold in until just a little bit of flour is visible.  

Pour batter into prepared pan and place in oven.  Bake for 30-40 minute.  Brownies are finished when a toothpick inserted into the center is clean, with just a few crumbs clinging.  Use parchment/foil to lift brownies from pan.  Cool and cut into squares.

*As I mentioned I added peanut butter cups and chocolate chips to the recipe, I didn't add these items to the recipe listed above since I just added what remains I found in the pantry. It is one of my favorite ways to use up little bits of candy.

Choux - SRC August

I love Pate a Choux.  It is easy to make, extremely versatile and a lot of fun to watch come together.  It is also something that I have been wanting to make with the kids, so I was thrilled when I came across it while checking out the Cooking Rookie and her blog Cook Book of Trial and Error, for this month's Secret Recipe Club Challenge.   This is a great blog to check out there are lots of recipes from past Daring Baker's challenges - the profiterols were from the May 2010 challenge - plus a wonderful assortment of delicious looking sweet and savory dishes.

If you haven't made Choux, you definitely need to give it a try.  It is the base for eclairs, cream puffs or profiterols, but it is equally tasty when used with savory fillings.  There are only a few ingredients and it is beautiful to watch these basic items come together to form a puffy golden container.  Because there are only a few ingredients it is a great recipe for kids and beginning cooks.  You can make it using a stand mixer, but it is great to do by hand.  Your really get to see the ingredients come together, plus your arms get a good workout.


I gave my two oldest the task of making these one afternoon, while their sister was sleeping - the help of a 2 year old would have been a bit much for this project.  While they had the challenge of making our dessert for the evening I challenged myself to take a step back and let them work.   I have been trying to do this more when it is just the two of them cooking.  Putting them in charge is not only a good way for them to build their confidence in the kitchen, but it is also a great way for them to learn how to work things out. It is very hard for me to take a step back.  I want  to correct every mistake and make sure they are doing everything my way,  but I am always amazed at what they accomplish when they are given the opportunity to work with my limited input.

Today I was especially amazed at how they worked things out.  Will took on the role of reading the recipe out loud while Maggie hunted for the ingredients, since there are only 5 ingredients she was able to easily find everything.  They took turns measuring out ingredients, then I joined back in when it was time to head to the stove.  At the stove they had fun watching the butter melt and catching steam.  When the flour was added a little help was needed to make sure it didn't burn.  When we moved back to the table they engaged in some impressive negotiations and figured out who would add the eggs and who would stir.  Again, a little help was needed with the stirring, but they each gave it a good try.  The piping was little frustrating, but another good thing about Choux is that it really doesn't matter what they look like going in the oven, they still bake beautifully and puff up into amazing shapes.



For dessert we served the puffs with some vanilla ice cream and a quick chocolate sauce.  It was a yummy dessert and the kids were very proud of their work.  We even had enough puffs leftover to have a puff lunch the following day - puffs filled with tuna salad then another round of puffs filled with ice cream.


Pate a Choux

(Printer Ready)

¾ c. Water
6 Tbs. Butter
¼ tsp. Salt
1 Tbs. Sugar
1 c. All-purpose Flour
4 Eggs

Directions
Preheat oven 425.  Line baking sheet with parchment.
In saucepan combine water and butter and sugar.  Over medium heat bring to boil, stirring occassionally.  Once boiling remove from heat and add flour, stir until combined.  Return to heat, stirring continuously, cook until mixture appears dry and pull from pan.
Transfer to bowl and allow to cool slightly.  Add eggs one at a time, stirring until egg is fully incorporated after each addition.  Mixture will look like mashed potatoes and will be very sticky.  
Transfer mixture to pastry bag, fitted with a large round tip.  Pipe into desired shape, keeping them about 1 inch apart.   Place in 425f oven, until puffed and light golden brown, about 10-15 minutes.  Lower oven temperature to 350f and continue baking until deep golden brow and dry, about 15-20 minutes.  Remove from oven and place on rack to cool.

As always be sure to check out the rest of the SRC challenges, lots of great dishes to try.  The group has grown and there will be three reveals throughout the month, so go to the Secret Recipe Clubs new site and see all of the challenges.

Secret Recipe Club - July

It is time for the Secret Recipe Club! This month I was introduced to Judee at Gluten Free A-Z.   I usually don't spend a lot of time on blogs dedicated to allergy or gluten free diets.  My husband has some food allergies, but they don't effect our daily diet so they aren't sites I seek out.  After spending time on Judee's blog I might be more apt to seek out similar sites.  Her blog is filled with lots of great recipes and healthy living suggestions.  It was tough making a decision on what to make.  Her quinoa salad looked great and it is a flavor combination I love, but I wanted to try something new and different.
I decided to try the Gluten Free Banana Oatmeal Cookies.  I decided on these because they sound great and because I have been looking for new recipes that kids can easily make on their own for a snack.  I have a similar 3 ingredient recipe for Peanut Butter cookies that I recently taught them, and that they love, and thought this would be a good addition to their recipe collection..

The kids had fun making these cookies, although Maggie was a little put off by our super ripe bananas.  She definitely eats with her eyes and the browning of the bananas was a little too much for her.  The kids are use to a sweeter cookie so we decided to experiment with the recipe a little by adding some peanut butter and honey.  These cookies were different from what the kids are use to, but they had fun making them and like having another recipe that they can do on their own.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies
adapted from Gluten Free A-Z

4 Banana, slightly over ripe

2 c. Old Fashioned Rolled Oats

2 Tbs. Peanut Butter

1/4 c. Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven 350
Mash bananas.  Add oats and peanut butter, stir until combined.  Mix in chocolate chips.
Drop spoonfuls onto parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes or until tops are slightly browned.