de facto redhead

If there’s one thing this meal is, it’s green! Basil, avocado, and, well, nothing. That’s all it took to make this week’s guacamole-coloured pesto the lovely shade that it was, and once a few extra ingredients were thrown in for texture and flavour, all was right in my carefully constructed world of pasta.

This week’s recipe is from Chef Chloe, and she is the creator of the Beach Cookies Ami and I loved so much a couple weeks ago. CeeCee is back for Week 11′s simple title (Avocado Pesto Pasta), simple ingredient list (9-10 items), and simple directions (you make the pesto while the pasta cooks). Now wait just a minute. This meal is something else other than green, after all – it’s also…wait for it…simple! Yahoo!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound dried linguini
• 1 bunch basil leaves (about 2½ ounces)
• ½ cup pine nuts
• 2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about ½ of a lemon)
• 3 cloves garlic
• ½ cup olive oil
• Salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• ¼ cup chopped sun dried tomatoes (optional)

DIRECTIONS

In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Add pasta and cook to package directions. While pasta cooks, in a food processor, blend basil, pine nuts, avocados, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Drain pasta. In a large serving bowl, toss pesto with hot, freshly cooked pasta and garnish each serving with a basil leaf. For an extra touch of color and flavour, top pasta with sundried tomatoes.

My ingredients. President’s Choice takeover!

Ami’s ingredients. Doesn’t her basil in her colander look farm-fresh and perky?

My pesto, pre-pestozation.

Ami’s pesto, blended (i.e. pestosized) to perfection!

My final dish, plated a la sprig au basil.

It’s green, it’s Ami’s, and it looks delicious!

For me, the adventure with this recipe began at the grocery store. I was gathering up my items at Fortino’s, and nearly dropped everything when I saw that pine nuts were being sold for $47 a pound. I actually thought it was a mistake, and scooped about a 1/2 cup into bag. Nope. That small amount would have cost me $13 had I not asked the cashier to take the pine nuts off my order. WTF? Ami informed me that Bulk Barn’s prices are much cheaper, but I didn’t have a chance to check that out for myself because I didn’t have the car the day I was making the recipe, so I had to look up a substitute. Sunflower seeds appeared to be the common Internet response to Googling “replacement for pine nuts.” So, the first and only substitution for this week is sunflower seeds in place of pine nuts. Other ingredient notes include:

• I halved the recipe, and still had too much pesto. Ami made the full amount, but, in her words, had “wayyyyyy too much” as well. Even though she used her extra pesto the next day on fresh bread, she wished she would have split the recipe in two. Take note, singles and couples!

• The measurements confused us. One pound of liguini? Two-and-a-half ounces of basil leaves? Duhhhhhhhh, me no know. Luckily, I have a spaghetti measurer that helps me figure out portion sizes, but I had to do some online conversions to find out what was equal to half of two-and-a-half ounces, in grams, since that was the unit of my basil package. From what I could tell, my package was approximately half of two-and-a-half ounces, which ended up working out great for me. Ami noted, “2 1/2 ounces means nothing to me,” and threw in her entire bunch of basil, sans roots, ounces be damned! In fact, I think this whole confusing paragraph can be damned!

• Ami found that she needed to use more olive oil than what the recipe called for, in order for her to get the right “pesto” consistency, but she also mentioned that this could have been because she played fast and loose with her basil, or because her avocados were gargantuan mutants.

• She also added the juice from a whole lemon because after an initial taste-test, she thought her pesto needed more. Wild basil leaves and giant avocados strike again?

• I added the “optional” sun-dried tomatoes, and I’m glad I did! Ami meant to, but forgot, and her dinner-time conversation went like this: Chris – “This is good…but it could use something.” Ami – “Sun-dried tomatoes?” Chris – “YES! That would have been perfect.” Hear, hear, sun-dried tomatoes, hear, hear!

To me, the final dish was delicious. To Darcy, not so much. There was a lot of “Well…it’s OK“-type comments, and he thought the avocado flavour was overpowering. Naysayer! I loved it. Ami and Chris both enjoyed their meal, too, but felt something was lacking, and in Ami’s words, “it was a little plain Jane for us.” Next time, she plans to add anything from roasted zucchini and peppers, to seafood, but for this meal, she had to settle for grated Parmesan and chili flakes added halfway through her supper.

Another word of warning – this meal is filling! Ami was stuffed, Chris didn’t eat seconds (which is apparently a rare and shocking occurrence), I was certainly full, and Darcy doesn’t matter because he didn’t like the meal anyway. Harumph! When all was said and done, Ami rated the recipe a 3 out of 5, but I am going to award it a 4 out of 5 because besides the measurement issues, I thought the recipe was amazingly simple and easy to follow, it took no time at all to prepare, and as soon as I finish typing out this blog post, I’m heading to the kitchen to make myself a bowl of this pasta! (Darcy can have his soup – see if I care!)

Learn about lamb, cook lamb, eat lamb, have a drink, repeat. This is the essence of a Culinary Adventure Company cooking class I went to last week for an article I had to write for myontarioinfo.com, and I had such a great time taking part! The class provided a few “firsts” for me – one, I had never been to a cooking class; and two, I had never eaten lamb. I’m not big on the more carnivorous pursuits of the kitchen, but I was pleasantly surprised about how much I actually liked this type of meat! Especially the meatballs! I won’t go on too much more about my experience, though, because I already wrote all about it on myontarioinfo.com, so if you’re interested in what went on, check out my article here.

The evening is off to a nice start!

Properly outfitted!

Deboning a lamb leg is not an easy task…

…and here is proof. Help me!!

Concentrating on my precious meatballs!

Look what I made!

Eating professionally cooked lamb – I’m so full here!

To be more exact, Elvis lives in Burlington, in a Tupperware container, in my refrigerator. He’s also deliciously flavoured with cinnamon, maple syrup, dark chocolate, and peanut butter. Elvis, thou art sweet and savoury.

Now, why this week’s recipe has the official name of “Elvis Granola,” I don’t know. Is there a joke out there in the pop-culture world that I’m just not getting? Does the author of Eat, Live, Run know something I don’t? (I’m sure she knows many things I don’t.) I just realized I should have been listening to Elvis while making my granola – an Elvis opportunity, wasted! Swoon and collapse and fetch me my smelling salts.

ANYWAY, enough talk. As you’ve heard by now (it was on the news, right?), this week, Ami and I made our own granola. Here are Ami’s initial thoughts on the idea:

“I actually have been wanting to try my hand at making my own granola for a while…and this recipe looks too delish to pass up. It seems like making your own granola is so easy; I always feel like a fool buying it at the store. Same with hummus. People make it sound like it is so easy to make both. Why pay for it?! So, if this recipe works out, I may just start testing out other granola recipes, and, who knows, maybe I will stop ever buying granola again!”

Did Ami’s prophecy come true? Read on…

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 4 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds
• 1/2 cup dry-roasted peanuts
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 2/3 cup chopped dark chocolate (or miniature chocolate chips)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 275.

Bring the canola oil, maple syrup, peanut butter, salt, and cinnamon to a simmer on the stove. Cook for three to five minutes.

While that’s cooking, mix together the oats, ground flax, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. Pour hot syrup mixture over the oats and toss well to coat. Spread out granola onto two lined baking trays and bake for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally and turning trays midway through.

Let granola cool completely before adding the chopped chocolate.

*This granola will stay fresh for about a month sealed in Tupperware and kept in the fridge.

My ingredients. Like my new syrup dispenser that I bought for $2 at the Reuse Centre?

Ami’s ingredients. I want her fresh maple syrup!

My granola, all mixed up and ready to be put in the oven.

Ami’s granola. Those oats are about to be baked good. Real good.

My finished granola, looking much like it did before it went into the oven.

Ami’s granola (pictured here, complete with a poised spoon) already being consumed by someone.

All right – as usual, I’ll start with the ingredients, and how we handled them.

• Ami used coconut oil instead of canola oil (she wanted the extra health kick, and she likes the flavour more).

• I have no idea if my use of Quaker Quick Oats versus the use of actual old-fashioned oats affected my granola, but the quickies were what I had on hand, so too bad!

• I also don’t know if non-salted peanuts bought from the bulk bin are the same as dry-roasted peanuts (I don’t think they are), but I used them anyway, and if you can believe it, the world didn’t explode.

• I chopped up the chocolate myself, and even though only one bar is pictured above, I had another on reserve in case I “needed” it. I needed it.

The directions for this recipe are mostly straightforward, but I admit that I was completely flustered at one point. In my ingredients picture above, you can see that my peanut butter is not PC Blue Menu Just Peanuts Peanut Butter. I did, however, have a bit of this left in the fridge, so I used the rest of it, plus the Compliments brand, to make up my 1/4-cup of peanut butter. I had misgivings because, for some reason, the PC Blue Menu stuff never really “oiled up” (i.e. separated) in the fridge like natural peanut butter usually does. It still tasted good, but it was dry and clumpy, and didn’t spread well (and yes, I checked, it wasn’t expired). What the heck, I used it anyway. Bad idea. My syrup mixture was clumpy, too! I thought I had created the first official disaster of our cooking/baking series. But, when I poured the clumpy mixture over the oats, and broke the clumps up with my fingers, smaller pieces were left that, when tasted, were like little balls of oaty (oatie?) peanut butter (you can see them in my “finished product” picture above). I quickly mixed up another pot of the syrup mixture with the Compliments brand peanut butter, and since it looked much more like the picture on Eat, Live, Run’s blog, I figured I was good to go. Crisis averted!

After doing all the heating, boiling, and mixing, the only other thing that was a bit odd for both Ami and I was the fact that we had to use two baking sheets. I was also confused by what was meant by “lined.” Did that mean rimmed? Or lined with parchment paper? I used two un-rimmed cookie sheets, covered in parchment paper, and I placed them on the two most “middle” racks of my oven. Ami used rimmed baking sheets, but her positioning was the same, since it was obvious there was no way the sheets we had were going to fit side by side in our ovens.

Everything turned out fine, and while both of us only stirred the granola once (after 20 minutes), I forgot to turn the trays. This didn’t appear to affect the outcome, either. Success!

Ami rated her granola-making experience a whopping 5 out of 5, and while I almost agree based on taste alone, I just can’t quite get there because of my syrup fiasco, and because of what I thought was ambiguity surrounding the baking sheets and their positioning. Therefore, my royal decree delcares…4.5 out of 5. The granola is dang good, y’all!

And now for Ami’s prophecy.

• Her initial statement: “So, if this recipe works out, I may just start testing out other granola recipes, and, who knows, maybe I will stop ever buying granola again!”

• Her final consensus: “I am completely converted to making my own granola from here on out.”

Ooohhhhh, eerie! To be honest, though, I don’t think I see a reason to buy granola again, either. Carla’s kitchen is a-rockin’!

One more granola note from Ami and I – make sure you have a large Tupperware container to store the granola in because it ain’t no joke – this recipe makes granola for dayz.

Last week, Ami and I had our fun with a recipe that contained coconut, and when it came time for me to send Ami a list of choices for Week 9, I had coconut on the brain, and included a recipe for coconut shrimp. Ami mentioned that our readers (Hello? Please say you’re out there?) might be getting sick of vegan recipes, and because of that, perhaps we should try the shrimp. Our motives weren’t entirely altruistic, though – she loves the coconut shrimp at Red Lobster, and my eyes glaze over and my mouth gets slack when coconut anything is mentioned. Everyone, please extend a warm welcome to Paula Deen’s Coconut Shrimp with Orange Marmalade.

Ingredients

• 2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
• 2 cups bread crumbs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (as usual, Kosher salt is not necessary)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 24 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• Vegetable oil, for frying

Dipping Sauce:

• 1/2 cup orange marmalade
• 1 to 2 tablespoons dark rum

Directions

Last week, Ami and I had a bit of a miss, but this week, we’re back on track with a total hit! Our recipe in Week 8 (beach “cookies” that are actually more like squares) comes from Chef Chloe, and it’s also the last cooking adventure of March, which also means the end of Ami’s month of being 100% vegan. She didn’t miss much in her four weeks of animal-free eating, but is glad to be able to use butter and eggs again. Hear, hear!

I didn’t join Ami in vegan solidarity this week, and that is simply because I just used what I had at home. I didn’t feel like going to the grocery store. Me lazy.

INGREDIENTS

½ cup vegan margarine (Earth Balance soy-free non-hydrogenated buttery spread)
2 cups graham cracker crumbs (Chef Chloe suggests Health Valley Graham Crackers, which you can pulse into fine crumbs in the food processor. Feel free to do this with any vegan graham cracker or wafer cookie.)
1 cup canned coconut milk
¼ cup agave or maple syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1  1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
1/2  cup chopped walnuts, toasted (optional)
2 cups non-dairy chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Melt margarine in microwave or over stove, and pour into a 9″x13″ baking pan. Swirl around until the bottom of the pan is completely coated.
3. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs evenly into pan until bottom of the pan is completely coated in crumbs. Pat down lightly with your hands.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together coconut milk, agave, vanilla, salt, and arrowroot. Drizzle this mixture evenly over the graham cracker layer.
5. Sprinkle the shredded coconut into the pan, then layer the optional nuts, then the chocolate chips. With the palm of your hand, gently pat the top of the cookie pan so that the chocolate chips get cemented into the rest of the cookie.
6. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until centre looks thick and slightly bubbly with very lightly browned edges.
7. Let cool, then refrigerate for a couple hours or overnight. Cut into even bars. The textures and flavours of this cookie really work best after refrigeration.
8. If you’re feeling festive, platter the cookies on a tray or dish of organic brown sugar (mock sand) and stick some cocktail umbrellas in the sugar for a “beach scene.”

My ingredients. (I had to use plain old Aunt Jemima syrup because I was out of pure maple syrup. I felt guilty about it, and the fact that I used regular chocolate chips. Am I vegan-chip convert? Maybe. Time will tell…)

Ami’s ingredients. She’s so wholesome and organized with her labelled mason jars!

Left: The top view of my squares, before they faced the heat of the oven. Right: The side view.

My finished product, laid out all lovely-like on a Pyrex plate.

Ami’s version of the beach cookie. Mmmmmmm!

This recipe is really easy to bake, and, vegan or not, finding the ingredients is simple. The combination of chocolate, coconut, graham crackers, and walnuts is pretty unbeatable, and the firm square that’s created after the pan hardens in the fridge is delicious! First, though, let’s start with a discussion of the ingredients:

• Ami didn’t substitute or change anything this week.

• As for me, I manually crushed my graham crackers into crumbs (like I did with the peanut-butter cups), and it takes a lot of crackers and a lot of crushing to get two cups’ worth of crumbs! I think I used about a sleeve and a half of crackers, and my arms were getting sore. Who knew the act of pummelling with a rolling pin was so arduous? I dare you to try it and not complain!

• I used corn starch in place of arrowroot, and I have Ami to thank for the tip that substituting one for the other is A-OK.

• I didn’t toast my walnuts, and, as I mentioned, I used regular chocolate chips and Aunt Jemima syrup.

As for the directions, instead of melting her margarine in a separate bowl, Ami just melted it in the pan, inside the pre-heated oven. She made a good point when she told me that it saved a dish, and this note was particularly poignant after I put my pan in the oven, and my kitchen counters looked like about five children under the age of six had been helping me bake.

There’s really nothing else to say about the directions, other than the fact that Ami and I both recommend eating these squares COLD. She left hers in the fridge for three to four hours before eating them, and I had mine in there for about five hours. (Well, that’s a bit of a lie – I took them out after three hours and ate one, and then put the pan back in the fridge until suppertime.) And, I think they tasted even better the next day, when the squares really had a chance to harden overnight.

Now, for the rave reviews. Ami made these for friends, and they loved them. Two people asked her for the recipe, and one commented that they were similar to “magic bars,” and that she would likely be abandoning her magic-bar recipe for the almighty beach cookie. Go, beach cookie, go!

Here is Ami’s first paragraph in her “review” e-mail to me, sent the day after her get-together: “Man, oh, man, were they tasty. I had to send Chris to work with five of them on Monday to get rid of the rest, after devouring like four on Sunday afternoon. I actually think this might be my FAVOURITE recipe so far…OK, well, tied with the PB cups (I can’t choose between the two).” Is it any surprise that she rated this recipe a five out of five (“I couldn’t find anything wrong with the recipe or that I didn’t like!! A definite remaker!”)? I am pretty addicted to them, too, and I am rating them a 4.75 out of five because I also like them just as much as the PB cups, and that’s the score I bestowed on that recipe. Oh, the power I wield!