Eggs o' plenty

Inspired by Simone's post and fantastic picture, I set out on my own to make the Spinach and Apple Tart. I am now in possession of many, many eggs (from a friend with her own chickens), so was looking for ways to use them. Although I have much to learn in the art of making pie pastry, this turned out reasonably well. In retrospect, I would have weighted the pie shell down with rice or beans while it was cooking so that it would keep its shape. I also would have secured the edges of the pastry over the edges of the pie plate to avoid shrinkage. A moderate success nonetheless. The onion-rosemary confit (substituting rosemary for thyme) was quite simple, though was basically slow-roasted onions. I don't think it was necessary for the meal. As the picture of Simone's tart is a perfect example for this recipe, I will show only the confit. My rating is 3 stars and 2 bars.

My second egg recipe for the weekend was smoked salmon scramble, an excellent breakfast for a Sunday morning before a day of yard work (as was the case). The salmon, I smoked in the summer with wood ships from an apple tree, and was very excited to re-discover it in my freezer for this recipe. The cream cheese, partially melted, was an excellent addition to the scramble; fresh dill would have been much better than dried. My rating is 2 stars and 1 bar.

Apple and Spinach Tart (Page 72)

Nic went away and I had a few of the girls over for brunch and crafts. I decided to make this tart and it was not disappointing. I didn't bother making the onion-thyme confit but it was tasty enough on it's own. The recipe is bang on when it says that savory and sweet strike a nice balance in this tart. The apples and blue cheese were a super good combination. I did make the whole wheat pastry (pg 34) and was surprised how well it turned out. Nic usually makes the pastry so it was a big deal for me to make it on my own. I followed the recipe exactly (except used only butter instead of butter and shortening). But I did put ice in the water to make sure it was cold!

I made the tart the night before and it kept well overnight. I ate it for lunch for two days as well and it kept quite well.

I'd give it three stars for taste and two bars for effort.

Lasagna of Champions!

We made Lasagna Rio Grande (Page 180) and what can I say. It was some of the best lasagna I've ever tasted! We did wuss out on the pesto and bought a jar of basil pesto to use (I really don't like cilantro so that was out). We also used a mixture of chard, kale and spinach for the greens, just to be innovative! The lasagna was fantastic! Lasagna is always a bit labour intensive and this was no different. The recipe refers to three "sub-recipes" in excellent rebar fashion. Also, as usual, the quantities were way off. We ended up with two lasagnas! But I can't stress enough how tasty it was. We will definitely use this recipe for lasagna again, although we might cut down on the amount of filling we make (or else we need to buy a bigger lasagna pan!!

I'd give it four bars for taste and three for effort

Quinoa Corn Salad

This recipe packs a lot of punch. I went light on the raw jalapenos (1 instead of 2) and Tabasco sauce (1/4 tsp instead of a 1/2), but it was still was very flavourful. I served it at a potluck of discerning enviro-chefs, and it was gone before I could to have seconds. It's also very simple and quick to make. I give it two stars and one bar.

Roasted Vegetable Strudel and Rebar Chocolate Cake

Inspired by my boyfriend's (belated) birthday dinner, I made two Rebar recipes: Roasted Vegetable Strudel and Rebar Chocolate Cake. Although I was initially intimidated by the reputation of the cake recipe (having heard some disaster stories from poor timing of steps), I was surprised how well it turned out. The strudel, however, was more difficult than I expected. I found the recipe not entirely clear about how to handle the phyllo sheets, causing some mistakes on my part. Pictures in the recipe would be helpful! I also found the strudel a little too rich (could have skipped the cheese perhaps?). Chocolate cake, on the other hand, can never be too rich (or chocolately). Four stars for the cake, and three bars. Two stars for the strudel and three bars.

a new entrant

Due to a technological mishap I am joining this blog competition a little late. I have been busy on the Rebar challenge, but unfortunately I have no pictures. You'll have to imagine my creations for now. As some of you already know, I created a star and bar rating scheme. Feel free to use it if you would like.

One star: Okay
Two stars: Tasty
Three stars: Mouthwateringly delicious
Four stars: Yum-orama! Wish I could make this again, but the competition must go on.

One bar: Easy and quick
Two bars: Moderately lengthy
Three bars: Requiring extensive effort
Four bars: RE-diculously time-consuming, using obscure ingredients

My creations have been.
Carrot Ginger soup: 2 stars and two bars
Border Paella: 3 stars and 1 bar (I used ghee instead of oil; sooooo good)
Raspberry Oat Bars: 2 stars and 1 bar (though a bit too sweet for me)
ChangMai Tofu Grill with Thai Basil Soy Tofu Marinade: 2.5 stars and 2 bars

Salad

Dear readers. Here is a salad we made to go with the soup on Sunday. Romaine lettuce with gala apples and spiced pecans. The pecans were a hit (and it helped that I put in 4 times as many as I was supposed to as a result of some careless reading), but unfortunately the dressing didn't work out (in another bit of carelessness, I bought milk instead of the required whipping cream). Overall though, a nice salad. I especially liked the gala apples, which didn't seem to brown in the salad, even a day later.

Poppyseed Papparadelle - an easy, tasty dinner (p 165)

I had a day off and thought I would extend our Rebar cooking streak by making a Rebar supper. This pasta was easy and tasty. Nic picked up the ingredients after work and we were eating by 7:00.

We used whole wheat rigatoni instead of Papparadelle and substituted white wine for red, but otherwise followed the recipe. I think it's always nice to find a new pasta sauce that isn't based on tomatoes or cream. The main ingredient was mushrooms but I thought that the sauce, which was made of wine, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar had a very nice flavour that wasn't overwhelmingly mushroomy- a great meal and one that's possible to make on a week day.

Smoky Green Split Pea Soup... without the smoke (P 119).

We hadn't seen Marc and Jacquie since before Christmas and decided to have them over for dinner on Sunday. Matt and Sarah joined us as well. We decided this was a good chance to try another soup. We had our eye on the green split pea soup last week and decided that this was a good chance to try it. The soup was pretty easy to make but it does require that the split peas be soaked overnight and a fairly long cooking time to get the peas soft enough. Therefore you do need to play ahead to make this soup and allow enough time to get it finished.



I was excited to use the vegetable stock I'd made the week before and it provided a nice tasty broth. Nic looked for liquid smoke at the store formally known as Dan-D-Mart and had no luck, so we left it out... there's something about "liquid smoke" that doesn't seem like it would be that healthy, so we didn't really mind. We also only had dried sage as all the sage that grows in our garden is dead at the moment. Finally, after last week's spicy soup fiasco I decided to forgo the chipotle altogether, although I did put in a few dashes of red chile flakes.

This is one of those classic Rebar recipes that refers you to another page for one of the ingredients. Luckily this time it was only Roasted Garlic (p 158). We roasted about one and a half bulbs (since that's what we had left) and added it to the soup when it was done.

The soup got great reviews from all of the dinner guests although I thought we could have cooked it a bit longer to get the peas a bit softer. It tasted great and was a much bigger success than last week's soup. I might put in a bit less garlic if I made it again, but that's just personal preference.

The recipe said it served 8-10. We served it as a main course for six, with salad and bread with dessert and had two jars of leftovers... perfect.

Lonestar minestrone soup - hot hot hot!

Last Sunday, we had a bonus day at home between our holiday at Tyaughton Lake and going back to work. After being outside for the previous few days, it seemed like a good day to hibernate at home. And what better food for hibernating than hearty minestrone soup? Rebar's minestrone is a little variation on the original - more "southwestern flavour". Sounded great.

When I started cooking though, things didn't smell so great. The problem came when I added in the two Jalepeno peppers called for by the recipe. Now I'm pretty tentative with chiles. Not so much because I don't like hot food - I quite like it - but because Simone can't stand it. So before adding the chiles to the pan, I tasted them - both the flesh and the seeds. I chewed them, touched them to my tongue, etc. All seemed good. I figured that if I could plop them straight into my mouth, then they'd hardly be noticed in a big pot of soup. How wrong I was. When they went into the pan, the air in our house filled with chili flavoured tear gas. Simone, who was on the phone with home at the time, broke into a choking fit for half an hour. I even had to stir the soup from outside on the back porch for a while. I thought that perhaps these chiles might be special airborne chiles, which release all their flavour into the air, but don't spice the food too much. I was wrong. The soup ended up tasting substantially of jalepenos. And unfortunately, it made about 6 litres of soup. Since Simone's is understandably reluctant to venture too close, that leaves me with about two and a half weeks worth of work lunches. I'm slowly working my way through.

Despite the heat, however, the soup is really good. Highly recommended winter weekend soup. Just go easy on the chiles.

Sweet Basil Goodness

Ok, Ok, I don't usually have double-Rebar days, but after the crepe-fest, I also made tomato sweet basil sauce (p. 45) for dinner. This is the second time I've made this sauce, and I think it's going to become a staple. It's flavourful and simple to make, especially compared to many Rebar recipes. The only problem is that it needs a while to simmer, so it's not quite a "get home from work and whip up a batch" recipe. We ate it with fresh spinach-cheese ravioli, and it was an excellent meal - kind of elegant comfort food.

Basic Vegetable Stock for Soups and Sauces - Page 35

Simone and Nic started out the year by deciding to go back to basics and make vegetable soup stock. We have made chicken stock from scratch before but usually use powdered stock for vegetarian soup recipes. It was easy to make and made enough for two or three soups. We used the pressure canner to can the extra for use in future soups.

We will definitely make the vegetable stock again when we have enough time.

Not-so Blintzy Blintzes

For me, "Will you come over for brunch" is code for "I want to see you while at the same time working on perfecting my sub-standard crepe-making skills." So, when I invited the girls over for brunch yesterday, it was a given that I was going to subject them to some less-than-round crepes. It wasn't too much of a leap to reach the decision that I should start off my Rebar challenge by serving sweet cheese blintz with summer berry compote (p. 80). In terms of a tasty meal that was enjoyed by all and looked good on the fine china (using the china more is a bit of a new year's resolution), it was a success. In terms of completely emulating what the recipe was supposed to produce, my achievement was, perhaps, a bit more qualified ....



As I alluded to above, I am lacking some serious crepe-pouring skills - they never come out round. I looked into some internet tutorials, and I think I know what to try for next time, though - I was always pouring at one edge of the pan, but perhaps I have to pour into the centre? Any tips from more successful crepe bakers would be appreciated. I also never seem to get the crepes nearly as thin as the recipes suggest they should be but, once again, maybe that will be improved by my pouring techniques (looks like I'll have to host another brunch before I forget all this ....). Nevertheless, the crepes, which I cooked on Friday night, worked out fine (despite not being particularly elegant looking).

The next step was the fruit compote. I used frozen strawberries and blueberries, and it worked out really well. I did add more maple syrup than the recipe called for, because it seemed a bit tart, but I think that was because I was too vigorous in juicing my lemon. Happily for me, there are leftovers to enjoy in my yogourt this week!

The final stage was the sweet cheese filling, and this is where things went somewhat awry. I hadn't had time to go on a special cheese-buying mission, so I substituted ricotta for the dry curd farmer's cheese in the recipe. I think it would have been ok, except that I made the mistake of taking the hand blender to it to try to work in some of the cream cheese that was stubbornly remaining in lumps. The cream cheese got well worked-in, but the whole thing turned quite runny. At this point, I abandoned any hope of making secure little packages and frying them up like blintzes. So, I stuck the crepes in the oven to warm them up, and just served them with some of the runny cheese in the middle and the fruit on top. The cheese filling still tasted good, though, and I am sure that our arteries will thank us for refraining from stuffing something with cheese and then frying it in butter. There was plenty of filling left, so it's gone into the freezer for the next time I do a more "free for all" crepe meal.

Welcome to 2010

The purpose of this blog is to record our progress in the Great Rebar cooking challenge of 2010!! when you make a recipe make a short post including what you made, and any comments on how it worked, tasted, who you made it for, etc. If you want to include photos, that's even better. Then we can keep track of who's making what and how we're doing on challenge.

We've got some vegetable soup stock in a pot on the stove right now... and it sure smells good.

Looking forward to many great meals in 2010!!