Shakshuka Spaghetti Bake
Who doesn’t love Shakshuka and spaghetti? This mash-up egg dish is great for dinner or brunch by adding pasta to the Middle Eastern favourite.
Tag: Recipe
The Great Shellfish Cookbook Review + Game Day Fried Mussels Recipe
Don’t be shellfish, cook seafood for your friends! My review of The Great Shellfish Cookbook by Matt Dean Pettit talks about spreading the crustacean love, plus a recipe for Game Day mussels that will make you forget about nachos forever.
Around the World in 12 Plates: Sweden
I must confess: I ate a Princess Cake for the first time at IKEA. In the winter of 2012, I had been living in Toronto for a few months when Adam moved from Newfoundland to join me. It was the first time we were going to live together and I was SO excited to take him to IKEA to pick out some items for our nest (it’s a wonderland to me). But someone got the hiccups and was being a bit of a sook as we wandered through the stylishly decorated kitchens full of purchasable gadgets. In an attempt to salvage what could be a defining moment in our relationship (it felt like it at the time), I bought a Princess Cake. We ate the small cake together in silence, the hiccups subsided and our trip to the Swedish stockpile of home decor treasures was saved. I feel I owe something to this little marzipan-covered marvel, so it was meant to be for this month’s Around the World in 12 Plates. Continue reading Around the World in 12 Plates: Sweden
Rustic Veggie Chili Recipe | Dairy Farmers of Canada 2018 Milk Calendar
This year marks the 41st edition of the Milk Calendar from the Dairy Farmers of Canada we’re featuring March’s Rustic Veggie Chili.
Around the World in 12 Plates: Peru
Well, last month I didn’t cook one bite of food but boy did I make up for it! Since we moved home I hadn’t had the opportunity to cook with all my besties here in St. John’s, so for August’s Around the World in 12 …
Recipe: Halloumi Hummus Bites with Blueberry and Mint
This post is sponsored by Summer Fresh.
Who needs bread when you have halloumi and hummus? These are words I never thought would come out of my mouth, but here I am. I love bread and cheese, and it has always been a go-to for me when it comes to easy entertaining. It takes no time to prepare, everyone loves it and let’s be honest, everyone loves a great overhead shot of a cheeseboard on Instagram. And then I discovered grilled halloumi. I hadn’t grilled halloumi many times before, but now that I know how easy it is, I pretty much have eliminated the need for bread because it’s so versatile! You can use it in salads or in a supporting role in a canapé like these Halloumi and Hummus bites with Blueberry and Mint.
Continue reading Recipe: Halloumi Hummus Bites with Blueberry and Mint
Around the World in 12 Plates: Vietnam
The tight timeline for our recent trip Thailand didn’t allow for a trip to Vietnam, which I’m super sad about. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, but I surprised myself while doing research for this challenge: I actually know very little about the cuisine! …
Recipe: Cucumber Apple Salad with Artichoke & Asiago Dressing
This post is sponsored by Summer Fresh. I love entertaining at home, but in the summertime I get lazy. Super lazy. When the weather is nice here in St. John’s (which is seldom), the absolute last thing I want to do is cook for a bunch …
Georgian Khachapuri Recipe
This month I went rogue. With the move to Newfoundland and getting settled in a new home, I decided to complete Around the World in 12 Plates: Israel on my own. I wanted to get acquainted with my new kitchen, and while this challenge started from a need to cook with friends and family, sometimes a girl just needs to get all floured up in the kitchen by herself. For the past few months, I have focused on very traditional recipes but I went off book there too. Throughout my research, a particular dish kept reappearing and I just couldn’t avoid it: a bread boat full of cheese. Khachapuri is a Georgian-influenced dish that has become a hipster brunch food in Israel. Who can blame them? Bread? Good! Cheese? Amazing! With an egg on top? Genius! I had to make this Georgian Khachapuri recipe.
Israel’s cuisine is fairly modern if you look at it as it’s only been a country since 1948 — the cuisine is new but oh-so-old. An amalgamation of traditional Jewish cuisines and neighbouring countries with a Middle Eastern influence is entrenched in every bite. Georgian flavour came to Israel along with the immigrant influx from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. 140,000 Georgians now live in Israel and their restaurants are having a food moment. I’ve always been more of a cook than a baker, jealously drooling over other bloggers’ gorgeous breads. So, for May’s Around the World in 12 Plates: Israel challenge I went with the bakery vibe and made some bread (because, carbs).
Around the World in 12 Plates: Israel
After doing research for a khachapuri recipe, I adapted two recipes to created my own, which is posted at the bottom of Around the World in 12 Plates: Israel! The first is for a Kale Khachapuri from Joy of Kosher, and the second was the beautifully photographed Acharuli Khachapuri from award-winning blog Chocolate + Marrow. The former blog’s adaptation of Saveur’s Georgian Khachapuri recipe was helpful because it gave background on the ingredients. All recipes use the same techniques for making the dough and constructing the little boats, but different cheeses are used. The traditional cheese used in khachapuri is a Georgian sulguni, but most recipes sub in muenster and feta.
Why I don’t bake
I remembered five minutes into making the khachapuri recipe why I don’t bake — I’m so impatient! I had to let the yeast sit for ages and then wait 45-minutes for the dough to rise? I’m much more at home slaving over a hot stove.
Once my dough had risen, I did have fun making the boat shapes for this Georgian Khachapuri recipe, carefully making sure to roll and seal the sides so my precious cheese mixture didn’t melt all over the oven.
But I finally met my match: I didn’t even put enough cheese on the first one! The first boat had nowhere enough cheese, and didn’t have that melty gooeyness I was wanting, so I put more in the second boat. The cheese to bread ratio was perfect, and that runny egg. Oh baby.
Brunch for one: eating khachapuri
After spending the morning baking and slaving away, I enjoyed brunch for one. It was nice to just sit with a giant boat of cheese and a hot cup of coffee.
The other culinary adventurers
Check out the other bloggers conquering culinaria from Israel this month!
My Organic Diary serves up Homemade Hummus
Dish ‘n’ the Kitchen churned out a whole Israeli feast
Sugar Loves Spices’ Semolina Cake soaked in Orange Blossom Syrup
Korena in the Kitchen made Uri Scheft’s Challah
Here’s my Khachapuri recipe
Khachapuri: Georgian Egg and Cheese Bread
This brunch dish is great for sharing and best enjoyed right out of the oven. The runny yolk in the crusty and cheesy bread boat is perfect for dipping.
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Servings 3 boats
Ingredients
- 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- ¾ teaspoon sugar
- 2 cups warm water
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 cups all purpose flour plus extra for kneading and prepping the dough
- 4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 450 grams Muenster cheese grated
- 100 grams good quality feta
- 3 eggs
- Salt and pepper for finishing and garnish optional
Instructions
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Combine yeast, sugar, and warm water in a small bowl and let stand for 10 minutes or until it gets foamy.
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Mix olive oil, 4 cups of the all-purpose flour and salt in a big bowl and incorporate yeast mixture. Combine it all together with your hands (it’s gonna be sticky).
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Transfer the dough to a well-floured surface to knead the dough until it’s no longer sticky. Feel free to add a little more flour to make sure the dough is smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes.
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Put the dough in a bowl lightly-greased with olive oil and cover it with a cloth. Set it in a warm place for 45 minutes or until the dough doubles in size (I usually put it on my oven while I’m preheating it).
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Place your pizza stone in the cold oven and preheat 500F. Make sure to put the stone in while preheating; if you put a cold pizza stone in a hot oven it can crack!
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After the dough has risen, you're ready to make the boats. Punch it down and divide the dough into three parts. Roll out the dough into a 10-inch circle and then roll the sides of the dough inwards on both sides, leaving a space in the middle. Then pinch and twist both ends to make a boat shape.
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Fill those little boats each with a third of the cheese mixture (grated Muenster and crackled feta). Make sure to leave a little indent in the middle for the egg.
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Transfer the cheese boats to your hot pizza stone and cook for around 14 minutes or until the sides are browned. I cooked mine one at a time because they were large.
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Once the sides are browned, crack an egg into the cheese indent and bake for another 5 minutes or until the white of the egg is just set.
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Sprinkle with salt and pepper to garnish (optional).
Around the World in 12 Plates: GREECE
Greece is where I fell in love with food. When I was 22, I travelled abroad for the first time as part of a travel-study program in university. We spent six weeks travelling through Greece with two professors and ten students to study ancient art and …
Fried Mortadella Sandwich Recipe
To celebrate Ben’s Bakery’s 110th anniversary I created an updated (and upgraded) and fried bologna sandwich.
Around the World in 12 Plates: Ethiopia
For the third recipe challenge in Around the World in 12 Plates, we headed to Ethiopia! The cuisine of this country was the one I was least familiar with so far. In fact, I’ve never even eaten in an Ethiopian restaurant (bows head in shame). I was eager to understand a new culture and I learned so much! The most important thing we learned for Around the World in 12 Plates: Ethiopia — they put berbere in everything!
Seriously, of the five recipes we cooked, three of them contained large amounts of this spice blend. Berbere is a key element in the cuisine of both Ethiopia and Eritrea. We were able to pick up some of the blend at Desta Market on the Danforth where we found several ingredients. If you don’t have an Ethiopian market nearby, check out this recipe for Berbere by Chef Marcus Samuelson. It requires a lot of spices, but most are easy to get.
The recipes we used
Through my research, I learned all meals are eaten on shared platters; some meat and some vegetarian. So for Around the World in 12 Plates: Ethiopia we used four recipes from a variety of sources to make up our platter. The main dish and centre of our platter was key wat, a simple beef stew. I used this recipe from A Duck’s Oven, a travel and food blog. The two other wats, or stews, came from the same blog, The Gourmet Gourmand. The misir wat is a red lentil stew, and the shiro wat is a stew-sauce type dish made with chickpea flour. We also made two salads — a traditional green salad and a tomato salad — using the recipes from this 2014 Toronto Star article.
Snack time
I also discovered popcorn is a popular snack in Ethiopia, so naturally we had some! Guess what the popcorn is tossed in? You guessed it: berbere! It was a delicious twist and added a great punch to the freshly popped corn. We used this Ethiopian Style Spicy Popcorn recipe from the Wander Cooks blog.
Ethiopian eating etiquette
Rule number one when eating from a sharing platter: don’t lick your fingers! This sounds like a no brainer but when you’re all up in that plate, it’s harder than you think to not lick the delicious sauce off your fingers. Injera is a key element in Ethiopian cuisine as the plate and as a utensil, using small pieces to scoop up the food and put it in your mouth. This spongy bread is made from teff flour and takes several days to make. I made the executive decision not to make my own injera because I was able to track some down at Desta Market. It’s sour tasting — Adam said it smelled like salt and vinegar chips — and has an almost jelly-like consistency. We used one piece as the base of the platter and then rolled the rest of the pieces to break off and enjoy our meal.
Digging in to Around the World in 12 Plates: Ethiopia
While many of the dishes we cooked throughout the day had many of the same ingredients, the flavours of each component were very different. The meat in the key wat was melt-in-your-mouth and the flavours were strong but not overpowering. The green salad was a fresh addition to the plate with a hit of spice from the jalapeno and ginger, while the tomato salad added some acidity to the richness of the other ingredients.
What I loved about eating from the communal platter is that every bite was different. A bite of the shiro wat with the tomato salad was different than a mouthful of key wat and misir wat. It was so flavourful and fun to share a meal in a whole new way! Ethiopian food is definitely going into the regular repertoire — I’m definitely going try the key wat with couscous sometime soon!
The other challengers up to the task of cooking Ethiopian food also made some delicious dishes! Be sure to check them out!