Sunday Afternoon Biscotti

It was a beautiful day today, relatively speaking...sun was shining, and it was not minus 40.  Seriously though  it was lovely and we even got to take the puppy for a long walk (she's so tired, she's still sleeping!).  So my daughter and I, who crave chocolate on the best of days, wanted biscotti.  Not just any biscotti...we wanted good chocolaty biscotti.   So, we did what anybody would do...we made some!  And it was surprisingly easy!  She found a recipe from Allrecipes.com for double chocolate biscotti...who could resist that?

The finished product...dressed up with icing sugar
just to make it look sexy!

Here's what we did (which is of course slightly different than the actual recipe!)

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar (we used 1/3 white sugar and 1/3 brown sugar)

~cream together butter and sugar, then add:

1/4 cup cocoa powder 

2 teaspoons baking powder

~beat 2 minutes, then add:

2 eggs, one at a time (preferably no shell!)

Now...get that wooden spoon out, and use it to mix the rest:

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Four 1-oz squares of white chocolate, chopped (did not have this, so left it out, plus that sounds like too much work)

So mix the flour and chocolate chips and let the dough cool in the fridge for 10 minutes...then shape like this and put on a cookie sheet:

Here's the biscotti right before putting it in the oven to bake....

Bake 20 minutes on 375 convection (or 25 minutes on regular bake, depending on how hot your oven is.  Once done, take out, and cool for 10 minutes on baking sheet and cut in strips like this:

Soooo goooood......

Turn and bake cut-side-down for about 10 more minutes and voila!  You have home-made biscotti.  The original recipe says you have to cool on a wire rack for an hour...I have no wire rack, and I don't have an hour to wait for my treat...so I just waited 10 minutes, and cut with a long non-serrated knife, and it worked beautifully!  

And my house smells......ahhh......like chocolate!  Cheers!  Time for tea!

Sole Food

I made an amazing, delicious, simple, quick dinner tonight!   I had bought sole at the grocery store, and tossed it in my freezer last week.   On the menu tonite was pasta with a garlic cream sauce...light on the cream, as I only had less than 1/4 cup of whipping cream, spinach cakes (yes, spinach cakes, which were delicious) and pesto crusted sole.  

1.  Spinach cakes were easy, and I got the recipe from a friend of mine.  All you do is chop up 12 oz of fresh spinach (i used two 6 oz bags of baby spinach).  Chop it up in batches in a food processor, and add  1/2 cup of ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, 2 eggs, a minced garlic cloves and salt and pepper.  Mix the chopped spinach together with all the other goods, and then plunk it into muffin tins (greased) and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.  I added a bit of extra cheese, and 1 extra egg, as it seemed a bit dry, but it was DELICIOUS!

Easy Sole with pesto and bread crumbs

2.  Fish....EASY!  I spread some pesto on top of each piece (pesto from Costco!) and then sprinkled Panko bread crumbs on top and put one slice of lemon on each piece just to make it look pretty.

Doesn't this look amazing?  Sole, spinach cakes and pasta!

The end result?

This is my daughter's plate!  
And she had seconds of the fish!

Make your own pizza night

Mushroom red pepper pizza

One of our favourite meals to make on a weekend is make your own pizza night.  It gets the kids involved, and everyone gets the topping they like.   The kids love it!  Our son who loves bacon (who doesn't?) will typically stuff his crust with cheese and more bacon, while our daughter typically does a mushroom and red pepper pizza with not a lot of cheese.  We usually do a fancy pizza and of course always offer a slice to the kids!

Our fancy pizza this time?  Pesto Shrimp Pizza, inspired to me by a thin crust pizza they offer at Earls Restaurant.   I had this for the first time a few years ago, and loved it!  And so super easy!

Bacon pizza with cheese and bacon stuffed crust

 Pizza dough:  Either buy a pre-made crust or by the dough from an Italian market or make your own (which is what I do).   Combine 1 cup of warm water, 2 and 1/4 teaspoons of yeast, 1 TBSP sugar in a mixing bowl.  Add in about 3 1/4 cups of flour and 1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil.  Throw in a dash of salt on top of the flour.  Knead well and let rise for 45 min - 1 hour.

Toppings:  While the pizza is rising, prepare the toppings....sliced mushrooms, red pepper, cooked bacon and/or pepperoni, mozzarella, pizza sauce (I cheated and bought pre-made tomato sauce from Sobeys).  Kids can decorate their own and even roll out the dough if you are okay with a bit more mess!

Pesto Shrimp Pizza

Pesto Pizza:  Instead of tomato sauce, use a pesto (I bought the one from Costco).  Spread on your dough and bake for 10 minutes in the oven at 350.  Once baked for a bit, take out, and top with shrimp.  I have used both raw and cooked.   If using cooked, you need to bake the crust longer in the oven first.   Also pat the shrimp dry before adding to the pizza.   Sprinkle mozzarella on top, and can also top with fresh or sun-dried tomatoes.  Bake until shrimp is "snappy" and crust is cooked.   Take half a lemon and squeeze over pizza once cooked.   Serve with a few glasses of red wine (!!)


If you are having a large crowd, you can double the dough recipe and make the pizzas on rectangular cookie sheets!   Leftovers are great for breakfast, school lunches or a midnight snack!