Delectable Eggplant Sammies

Our yard renos are coming along somewhat slowly (It's my yard so there's no rush). We have been working on fixing it up, starting with a new fence and removing some trees that were in the way and coming up with ideas to make it a space we can really relax in. Today's plan to raise the sinking shed were put on hold due to rain. This of course allowed us time to clean up inside. (There's always something to do!) Aside from a nap and a trip to the store, I used some of our lovely bounty from the farm to make us a late lunch.

We keep getting such wonderful fresh veggies from our CSA at Almost Urban Farms and this is keeping me busy with cooking ideas. As the summer flys by, we get more and more yummy items in our baskets. This week we got this absolutely gorgeous (and gigantic) eggplant. We got an eggplant last week and I tried grilling it up along with the summer squash and let me tell you, it did not turn out as planned. Grilled zucchini and summer squash are always delish, but the eggplant turned out tough, chewy, and gross...ew...almost made me not want to eggplant ever again.

This week I knew it would wind up breaded, fried, and loving placed between 2 pieces of bread....and you know what? That is exactly what happened!

You will need:

1 eggplant
1 cup flour
3 eggs
2 cups panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper
1 clove garlic
fresh herbs (today I used rosemary, sage, oregano)
canola oil (enough to shallow fry)
provolone cheese, sliced (or any other good melting cheese)
marinara sauce (or your favourite tomato sauce)
Bread. Choose a good sturdy bread. I found a gorgeous loaf of Italian bread but the sour dough looked good too.

Wash and slice the eggplant into thick slices, sprinkle with salt and lay in a colander to drain.

Line a baking sheet with foil and place a rack on the sheet. Place this contraption in the oven and set the oven for 225 or 250 F, This will keep the cooked eggplant warm and crispy while waiting for the others to cook.

Pre heat a large fry pan and add a good amount of canola oil to the pan.  When the oil is hot, add a clove of garlic and a couple sprigs of rosemary, sage, and oregano. (Remove the herbs from the oil as they get crispy so they don't burn. I kept adding more herbs as I went and this really added a nice flavour to the the finished eggplant)

This is also a good time to heat up your marinara sauce in a small pot on the stove.

While the pan is heating up, you can set up a breading station: Place 1 cup of flour on a plate and mix in a good pinch of salt and a grinding of pepper. In a bowl, break and scramble up the 3 eggs. Finally, in a large bowl mix together the panko, Parmesan, garlic powder and another healthy grinding of pepper.

Review time:

• baking sheet contraption in the warm oven
• marinara sauce warming up
• oil heating up
• eggplant sliced, salted, and draining
• breading station ready to go

Now it is time to bread the eggplant and fry to a crispy golden brown!!

Pat the eggplant slices dry with a paper towel (or clean tea towel).

Coat each slice in flour and shake the excess flour and plunk it into the egg wash, make sure it is thoroughly coated and allow the excess to drip off.

Coat the egg coated slice into the panko mixture. You may need to lightly press on the crumbs to help them stick. (Don't forget the edges!)

Carefully place a slice of eggplant in the hot oil and fry until golden brown. Gently flip the slice over and continue to fry. When the slices are all golden brown and yummy, transfer to the baking sheet/rack contraption you have in the oven to keep warm. (I have found that without the rack, the underside of the eggplant will get damp and uncrsipy...so don't skip the rack)

Once you have everything all fried and golden, get the bread sliced, the cheese ready and start assembling your sammie!

Check out the rack on a foil lined baking sheet....

I layered my sammie like this: Bread, sauce, eggplant, cheese, (tossed some kale on too), bread. I only used one slice of eggplant but I should have used 2 (and more sauce)!

If you don't want to fry the eggplant, you can spray it with oil or nonstick spray and bake it in the oven. You won't get the same crispness, but it will bake up nicely.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.

You're Going Where?

It has been such an exciting week in the Little Kitchen! There is news to be told!! While baseball is still officially the Boy's first love, in the wake of his injury, he has been exploring other options.  He came upon an exciting endeavour being offered by his school through EFtours. After much thought and discussion, we have decided that this opportunity now in front of him to just too good to pass up. I am so excited, I can barely contain myself....The Boy is going......to......KENYA!!!! He will be participating in a voluntour with Free the Children and the Me to We people!!!!!!!!!! What a fantastic opportunity for young people! The itinerary looks amazing! He also gets to go to WE day this week as well!

How can I as a parent not do everything to help make this opportunity happen for my child? I wish I could go!! Of course to help celebrate this event, I have been researching some recipes for Kenyan foods!  The one we decided to try first is for a very simple flat bread called Chapati that we found on the internet here.  There some other recipes on this page that we hope to try out over the next few months before the Boy leaves on his trip.

Chapati

1 cup flour
1cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp oil
3/4 to 1 cup water
salt to taste (1 used 1/2 tsp)

Mix the flours, salt and oil in a bowl.

Slowly add the water, mixing and kneading as you go. You will know you've added enough water when it comes together to form a slightly sticky but kneadable dough.

Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it becomes smooth and stiff.

Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and set aside to rest for at least 30 minutes (or longer).

Heat a fry pan or griddle to medium/high.  Split the dough into 6 equal size pieces and dust with flour.  Roll each piece out to a thin roundish shape.

Brush the pan or griddle lightly with oil and lay one piece of dough in the pan. Let it cook for about 1 minute on the first side then flip and cook for another minute.  Each side should have some browning starting on each side.  As you cook the rest of the the Chapati, keep the cooked ones warm.

We find these easy to make flat breads quite tasty and are perfect with hummus and we are looking forward to trying them with other meals.
We are just so excited to be able to help the Boy have this opportunity to travel to Kenya and will keep looking from some regional foods we can make right here in our Little Kitchen.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Little Cabin in The Woods - Bannock

Ahhhh, my happy place....the little cabin in the woods....truly peaceful, calm, relaxing....especially when the water looks like this:

 Perfect and calm, like glass.....the perfect day for a paddle on the lake! As a matter of fact, the Boy is waiting for me on the dock!!

"Wish my Mom would stop taking pictures and get in the canoe....."

 Things in our neck of the woods have gone from super soaked to super dry...so dry in fact that all back woods travel, cooking/bonfires, and hiking has been forbidden.  Unless you want a 450 dollar fine for committing such things, I suggest you don't.  We had a close call the other Monday (Civic Holiday Monday, August 2). The Boy and I went out on the lake for an early paddle in the new canoe.  It was while we were on the other side we heard sirens and helicopters.  These are odd sounds for the middle of the lake so we knew something was up.  Later while we were eating a late breakfast at the cabin, water bombers started swooping in low over the cabin and into the river. 

Hmmm....something strange was definitely going on.

Turns out there was a small (1/3 of a hectare) forest fire burning not too far from the Cabin near Nutimik...ACK!!!  Luckily this fire was spotted early and It got doused early.  Whew! We have had dry years and forest fire threats such as this one from 1984.
Unfortunately the travel and fire restrictions mean I couldn't use a fire to bake.  That is just fine by me, I would rather have my forest in tact!

Bake on the fire? Yes, that is what I said.  I made bannock on the BBQ that weekend but what I really wanted to do was cook it the old fashioned way: it on a stick over the fire.  Alas, that will have to wait until the fire ban is lifted.

Crsipy, banocky goodness.....still hot!!

Bannock is a traditional Aboriginal biscuit-like simple bread with Scottish origins.  You can read more about the history of bannock here, and here.  Almost like a baking powder biscuit. I baked mine on the BBQ in a cast iron skillet but I remember my camp days of wrapping a rope of dough around a stick and cooking it over an open fire. We will have to do that after some rain has fallen and the fire ban is lifted!

The recipe is simple.  Traditionally any type of fat on hand would be used such as cooking grease, lard, bacon drippings.  I stuck with butter on this one but I do know that at camp we used lard.  When the kids make bannock at school I believe they use shortening.

This proved tasty and went well with breakfast!

Bannock

4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp baking powder
4 tbsp butter, shortening, or lard
1-2 cups cold water (this amount varies and you may not need all the water so hold some back, add a little at a time.)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add the butter. (I like to use the cheese grater to shred the butter, it helps incorporate the fat into the flour)
Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Add about half of the water and mix.  The dough will be slightly dry. If the dough is really dry, add some more a tablespoon or two at a time. It will still look like it won't come together, but it will. 

Turn the dough out onto the counter and fold the dough over onto itself a few times, patting it down in between each folding,...just like when making scones.  Just when you think the dough won't come together, it does!
Pat the dough into a flat disk.  If using a baking sheet, make the dough no more than 2 inches thick.

Toss onto a well oiled pan and bake at 400 for 20 to 25 minutes, or on the BBQ using indirect heat for 20 to 25 minutes.

Flip the bannock over so you can get a nice brown crust on both sides.  (You probably won't need to flip the bannock if  you are baking it in the oven)

Cut into wedges and serve!

Bannock is great served with butter, jam, honey,  good for making breakfast sammies........ best eaten warm.

While driving to the Farmers' Market, I took some photos of how smokey it got out in the Whiteshell.  Manitoba Conservation assured me the smoke was from forest fires burning in Ontario.  Yikes!

Smoke on the water........

Smoke on the road as well

Well, I am hoping for a really good rainfall, until next time, stay warm and eat well.

Too Hot To Bake Bread??? Bah!

The weather has been hot and steamy here on the prairies! I am not going to complain about the heat because we spend all winter complaining about the cold. We deserve weather like this, really we do! We endure the deep dark depths of a prairie winter to get these glorious long, hot, sultry days of summer.  We spent the weekend at the Little Cabin on the dock.  We had our sun brellas out, our sunblock on, and our books in hand.  When we got too hot, we jumped into the water to cool off.  I mean, really cool off.  You do have to brace yourself for the cold but after the heat it is just so gloriously refreshing.

I so wanted to bake some fresh bread at the Little Cabin but I dare not turn the oven on for fear of heating the place up even more!  The heat and humidity make for perfect bread rising conditions....hmmmm.... What to do, what to do.....

Fresh BBQ Bread (you can do this with any bread recipe you want. I just had all purpose flour at the cabin)

Printable recipe

• 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 1 pkg active dry yeast
• 2 tbsp honey
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 - 4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

Combine the honey and the water in a bowl, stirring to mix and dissolve the honey.  Add the yeast and give it about 10 minutes to get all foamy and ready to go. Then add the olive oil.

Add 1 cup of flour and mix with a wooden spoon.  Now add the salt and another cup off flour.

Keep adding the flour 1 cup at a time until you can mix no more.

Now knead the dough by hand for a few minutes until the dough is soft and elastic.

Place the ball of dough back in the bowl, cover with a clean towel to rise until double in size. (anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes, or sooner if hot and humid!)

Punch the dough down and form it into an oblong loaf.

Now you can either use a baking sheet or tin foil that has been doubled up.  Either way, dust the surface with flour to keep it from sticking to the baking surface.

Baking sheet

Double layer of foil - use a board to slide the foil on and off the grill

 Cover with a clean towel and allow it to rise until double.

Preheat the BBQ on high for about 10 minutes.  Depending on your BBQ you have a few options.  This BBQ has four burners so I turned off the middle 2, left the outside 2 on and placed the bread in the middle, on the burners that are off.  We are using indirect heat to bake the bread.

Bake for about 15 minutes, lift the lid to peek after 10 minutes but remember that when you lift the lid, you let ALL the heat out and it will take a couple of minutes for the heat to build back up again.

Until next time, stay cool and eat well.

Dips: It Takes One to Know One

So while walking with the class the other week, I turned my ankle and fell to the ground in grand fashion! We were only half way to our destination so I pried myself up off the concrete, looked around to see how many students saw and kept walking with the one student who happened to be walking with me.  It was slow going that last 1.5km.  We were heading to the movies.  There is a second run cheapie movie theatre a mere 3km from school so it is a popular spot for June field trips as we can easily walk there.  Once we made it to the mall, the student and I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up some first aid supplies to clean up my knee then met the rest of the class to watch "Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2" That movie was great. I truly enjoyed it!  One of the teachers was kind and drove me back to the school after.  Lots of ice, x-rays, and a couple of physiotherapy visits later, it is merely a really bad sprain....we're talking lower ankle, upper ankle, hurts from ankle to knee at times!!! ACK!! The best part (see the sarcasm) is the bruising.  I am fair skinned and bruises show up oh so nicely....it really does look way worse than it feels....I hope!

I figure no one wants to see ugly ankle pictures so let's get on with the grub!
In our venture to eat healthier we have become dippy with dip!  To be more specific, hummus and tzatziki!  Both hummus and tzatziki are such simple dips and a great way to add some flavour to your veggies, sandwiches, wraps, or whatever it is you want to use them on.  Keep a bin or a zippy top bag filled with cut and ready to go veggies in the fridge and you are set for lunches, snacks, even dinners!
I even made some fresh pita.  After reading this post here at A Little bit of everything, I just had to make it! I haven't made the roasted veggie dip yet, but I plan to!

A few simple ingredients is all it takes!!

Tzatziki (reminds me of my trip to Greece!)  Printable dip recipes

1/2 long English cucumber
1 cup Greek style plain yogurt
1 clove garlic (chopped fine or grated with a micro plane)
salt & pepper
1 tsp lemon zest (optional)

Grate the cucumber.  If your yogurt isn't very thick, squeeze out the excess liquid.  The PC Greek style yogurt at Superstore is so incredibly thick, I didn't drain the cucumber.

Grate in the garlic, lemon zest (if using), and add the salt and pepper.
Stir in the yogurt.  (Use your judgement here.  If the amount of yogurt doesn't cover all of the cucumber, then add more yogurt.  Consistency is really up to you!)

Let the tzatziki rest in the fridge for a while before eating...if you can wait.

Serve up with pitas, veggies, on sammies, in wraps, by the spoonful....

Hummus (unfortunately I can not find the pics I took of the hummus. I will post them when I find them, or make more and take new photos!)

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 or 2 cloves garlic
1 to 2 tbsp tahini or peanut butter (optional)
cayenne (pinch or to taste)
1 jalapeno
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
water to thin out if you don't want to use too much oil

Toss everything but the olive oil and water into a blender or food processor.  With the machine running, drizzle in olive oil.  If you are skeptical about using too much olive oil, switch to drizzling in water.  Keep the machine and the liquid drizzling until you reach the consistency you want.  Some people prefer a thick dip and others prefer a thinner dip.
Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.  (Remember, it is easier to add flavour and heat than it is to take it away!!)

Until next time, stay warm and eat well. (And stay on your feet!)

One A Penny, Two A Penny....

Yesterday we finally took a day off from rehearsals (as it was Good Friday and the school was closed and all....).  I slept in a little, relaxed, and got some baking done.  A nice day if I do say so myself!  What did I bake you ask? Since it is Easter weekend and all, I decided to make some good old hot cross buns.  I remember my Mom making hot cross buns when I was little and I always loved the mildly spiced soft buns with the icing on top! This really is a nostalgic thing for me. I remember a distinct flavour and texture of these buns.  I have tried other recipes but they just didn't fit the bill. 

Years ago I scanned the recipe from my Mom's Purity cookbook.  It is a coil bound cook book with some real gems in it and still uses some very old fashioned language that I find so very neat. One of my sisters has it now and I couldn't find the scan.  Lucky for me, I actually found a newer re print version of the Purity Cook Book from 1967 last summer in the recycling  hut out at the cabin.  I opened the door to put my recyclables in the hut and found a stack of cookbooks just sitting there waiting for me.  It was just meant to be! 

When I make these, I just somehow feel  a bit closer to my Mom, as though she were back in the kitchen with me. I do miss her more during the holidays and I do find it interesting that something as simple as hot cross buns can help bring back so many memories.
Without further ado, I bring you hot cross buns:

Hot Cross Buns - Printable version

1 cup hot milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1 tsp sugar
1 pkg  active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 egg yolk (save the white for the egg wash later)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cups raisins or currants
another 2 1/2 to 3 cups flour

In the bowl of your stand mixer using the paddle attachment (or a bowl and use a wooden spoon) place:

• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup butter, cut into pieces

Heat the milk (original recipe says to scald the milk but I put it in the microwave for 2 minutes).  Pour the hot milk over the sugar, salt, and butter. Mix until the butter melts and the sugar gets mixed in.  Allow this mixture to cool while proofing the yeast.

Now get the yeast working. In a bowl mix together and let it stand for about 10 minutes until all foamy:

• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water
• 1 pkg dry active yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast)

Add the yeast mixture to the hot milk mixture and stir.
Now add:

• 1 slightly beaten egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup raisins or currants (I didn't have any so I didn't add any)

Beat until smooth, then switch to the dough hook (if using a stand mixer) and add another 2 1/2 cups to 3 cups flour.

Mix until a soft, smooth, and elastic dough forms this may take about 5 minutes.  If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour. 

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and continue to knead by hand (get that stress out!)

Form the dough into a ball and place it in a lightly greased bowl, turning the ball to coat the dough.  Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and place in a warm spot to rise until double (about an hour)

Punch the dough down and divide into 2 equal portions, use a scale if you wish to make it really even!  Divide each half into 9 pieces and shape into a flattened bun.

Arrange on a lined baking sheet about 2" apart.  Cover with a clean tea towel and place back in that warm spot to double in size.(about 45 minutes).  This is a good time to pre heat the oven to 400.

Fetch that left over egg white mix in 1 tbsp water.  Brush the tops of the buns with the egg wash.

Using a sharp knife, cut an x (or a cross, a long the top of the bun.

Bake in a preheated 400F oven for 15 to 18 minutes.

Now it is time to make the icing!

Mix together:

• 3/4 cup icing sugar
• 1 tbsp hot milk (or water)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla (or more if you like more vanilla)

Mix well and drizzle over the hot buns, following the cut marks in the buns.

Enjoy!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!