Bannock Step by Step

To start you will need:

Add 4 cups of flour

Add (approx) 1 tbsp sugar

Add (approx) 2 tbps baking powder

My dad uses the larger spoon in the cutlery set as a table spoon

Each spoonful is heaping

Also add a pinch of salt, (approx 1 tsp)

 

 Mix together all dry ingredients

My dad shakes them in the bowl because he feels it mixes it evenly

Mix 3/4 c. water and 1/4 c. oil together

Create a well in the middle of the flour

This is where you will put your liquid ingredients

After adding 1/4. c oil with 3/4 c. water, also add 1 + 1/4 c. more of water

Pour liquid ingredients together and then mix from the inside out

Pull flour from the sides into mixture

Kneed dough inside bowl to start

Take dough out of bowl and put remaining flour on table to continue kneeding

Put dough onto pizza pan and even around the edges

Bake in oven at 400 - 415 F for 25-30 minutes

Let cool for several minutes

It should look like this

Serve with tea, butter, honey or jam!

Enjoy!

Bannock recipe provided by Gary Merasty

-The Littlest Chef

Fluffy Bannock

This recipe calls for:

4 c. all purpose flour
2 tbsp (heaping) baking powder
1/4 c. oil (or 14 c. lard)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 c. water


To prepare:

Preheat oven to 400 F
Mix all dry ingredients together
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients
Mix water and oil together (or lard)
Pour water in middle
Mix from the inside out, slowly pulling more flour mix from the sides into the water, until all mixed
Kneed thoroughly
Put on cookie sheet, and
Put into oven for 25-30 minutes until crust is golden!

Review:

Today is a bit different of review...
I did not actually make this recipe myself. My dad is the bannock maker in the family, so I took a series of pictures of him making it instead. He does not use actual measure equipment, most are guesses. Here is a series of pictures to make:
(coming soon)


Conclusion:

It's delicious and fluffy. My dad has become more health conscious. h\He substitutes lard for oil now, and enjoys using whole wheat flour. However, multipurpose flour makes it far more fluffier.

I also think it tastes just that much better. Enjoy! :)


-The Littlest Chef

Yucky Fried Rice Paste

This recipe calls for:

1.5 C cooked rice
1 pepper, medium dice
2 stalks celery, medium dice
1/2 onion, diced
2 eggs
Cooked meat, medium dice
Soy Sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

To prepare:
Cook rice (if no rice cooker on hand, use a pot on the stove)
In a frying pan, heat meat, with the vegetables, salt, pepper, and any other seasonings you would like, until the veggies are soft.
Add cooked rice, and soy sauce.
Once everything is mixed and cooked, crack eggs over and cook.

Review:
I didn't actually use a recipe for this, my boyfriend made something similar a few weeks ago and it turned out really good. When we tried to re create it it turned into a horrible mess.

Whether it was the fact we wanted a quick meal and used 5 minute rice;
The fact we weren't careful how much soy sauce we added;
The fact the heat was turned down when adding the eggs turned it into a binding paste;
The fact we didn't scramble the eggs separately (although we've never done that before);
Or maybe it was that we had too much filling in the frying pan, what was supposed to be fried rice stir-fry, we ended up with a oatmeal looking paste mush.

Conclusion:

Next time, I'm looking up a recipe for fried rice. I am never being spontaneous again. :(


-The Littlest Chef

Spicy Mayan Hot Cococa

Also known as Spicy Mayan Hot Chocolate :)

This recipe calls for:

1 C. milk
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

To prepare:

Heat milk until scalding.
Add 1/3 of scalding milk into cocoa powder and spices.
Mix back into milk.
Add in honey.

Optional: add 1/4 tsp of vanilla or frangelico.

Review:
So I was very worried that the milk would develop a skin or curdle or something but it didn't. I heated it over a lower heat. When I was mixing the heated milk into the cocoa mix, it looked like melted chocolate! So if you see that you're on the right track. If you feel strange about using honey, you may use 1 tablespoon of sugar instead (but I think the honey added character).

Over all this recipe blew my mind! The spicy kick from the cayenne pepper? Totally worth it. It'll take the chill right off your bones. And it's getting chilly out! Have fun adding vanilla or frangelico. Enjoy! :)


-The Littlest Chef

Chicken Parmigiana

I always thought it was Chicken Parmesan.. Anyways.

This recipe calls for:

2 chicken breasts - cut into cutlets
2 large eggs
3 tbsp bread crumbs
3 tbsp grated parmesan
1 2/3 C. tomato sauce (recipe included at bottom)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mozzarella cheese slices

You will need:
Frying pan
Baking sheet
Rolling pin/meat pounder (mallet thing with spikes)
Plastic wrap
Cookie sheet

Preheat oven to 450 F.
Slice mozzareella cheese
Slice chicken breasts horizontally into cutlets. Place peice in between plastic wrap and flatten with meat pounder to tenderize them.
Prepare two dishes, one with beated eggs, and one with parmesan, bread crumbs, salt and pepper.
Dip cutlets into beaten eggs and let the excess egg drip off before placing into breading mix. Coat evenly, avoid clumping.
Heat oil in frying pan and saute chicken cutlets on both sides. Approximately 3-4 minutes each.
Place one mozzarella cheese slice onto each chickent cutlet.
Place chicken onto cookie sheet and into oven for 8-10 minutes until cheese is lightly brown.
Serve on spaghetti noodles and tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce recipe:
1 2/3 C canned diced tomatoes (best if canned tomatoes include italian spices)
1 clove garlic
1/2 onion - diced small
1/2 carrot - diced small
1/2 celery stalk - diced small
1 tbsp oil
Salt and pepper to taste

To prepare:
In sauce pan heat oil.
Cook off onion and garlic to start.
Add carrots and celery. Cook until soft.
Add tomatoes, salt and pepper (if canned tomatoes do not include italian spices, I suggest adding some, as it can be pretty bland otherwise).


Review:
This recipe was really delicious, and very filling! It was reasonably easy, the only scary part was tenderizing the meat. The chicken I got was pretty fragile so one of my first pieces fell apart, when I accidently hit it too hard with my rolling pin.. In the middle. It was horrible. Lesson learned, do not apply too much force in one spot. Try too keep your pieces even.
When I cooked it, I cooked the meat first, then took it out, placed the cheese on, and put the oven at 250. I didn't want the cheese getting really brown.

I would definitely make this again! It lookes pretty professional when it's all done and put together, everyone will think you're a hardcore cook. Ideal for a special dinner party? I think, yes!


- The Littlest Chef

Crustless Quiche

This recipe calls for:

1 tbsp olive oil
2 c. zucchini, sliced thin
1 c. onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4 oz cheese, grated
1 c. tomato diced
5 eggs
3/4 c. milk
1 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped (or 1 tsp dried basil)
Salt and pepper to taste

You will need:
Large frying pan
9 inch pie pan, greased

Pre-heat oven to 350 C.
In a large frying pan, being cooking garlic and onions. Once the onions are semi-translucent, add zucchini, and tomato. Cook until soft (approximately 6 minutes).
Transfer zucchini mixture into pie pan. Sprinkle grated cheese to cover mixture.
Mix egg, milk and basil, with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour egg mixture over the cheese (if you wait for the heat of the zucchini mixture to melt it a bit, it won't float to the top).
Place in middle of oven for 35-40 minutes. Poke with toothpick, if it comes away clean it is done!

Once the quiche was finished, it came out kind of runny. I blame the tomatoes... I think next time I would take out the "guts and seeds" (I hope you know what I mean, I don't know how else to explain the liquidy part) or strain it a bit.
Because I used Litehouse Freeze-Dried Basil (not the same as dried basil, with freeze-dried basil you use it as if it were fresh basil), when mixed into the egg mixture it floated on top and made it look really pretty. The flavour really came out, it was quite nice.
I would probably add more cheese in future, I love cheese.

This recipe had tiny room for improvement. The tomatoes made it a bit too runny. I read that you could also sear tomatoes after slicing them to keep the moisture in. Aside from the runny appearance, it still tasted positively amazing, and that's all that really counts, right?


-The Littlest Chef

Egg Drop Soup

This is a chinese dish, also known as Egg Flower Soup. I found this recipe here.

I feel that this was a good choice to kick off my blog! It's a very simple recipe, and pretty easy on a budget.


4 c. chicken broth
1-2 green onions
1/4 tsp white pepper
salt (to taste)
A few drops of sesame oil

The recipe called for chicken broth, which I did not have. Instead, I substituted Knorr OXO chicken Bouillion Base "In-a-Mug". It was about $3.50 for 170 g. For each cup of water, add 5ml (1 tsp) of the powder. I found that this already has a lot of flavour, so if you want to hold back on the ratio, I don't think it would be a problem. The recipe called for 4 cups of broth.

When cooking I used a wok, but a saucepan should work just as well. You can add the (1/4 tsp) white pepper, salt (to taste) and sesame oil (just a few drops). If you are using the OXO Chicken Base that I used you may want to hold back on the pepper and salt.

The sesame oil I used was around $10 for 375ml. Sesame oil is very popular in asian dishes, if you don't have any on hand a good substitute could be peanut oil, for it's equally strong flavour.

If you want to make your own sesame oil the ratio is: 1.5 tsp of roasted sesame seeds to 1/2 tsp of canola (or vegetable oil) would be equal to 1 tbsp of sesame oil. Typically you would want to use canola or veg. oil because it has a very neutral flavour, where as olive would have a strong flavour.

When I was done the recipe I couldn't really taste the sesame oil, I may in future add sesame seeds instead (if you roast them first they bring out more flavour).

Once everything has come to a boil, I let it sit for another minute so the flavours really mix and come out before slowly adding the lightly beaten eggs. In a steady stream, add the eggs while stiring clockwise.

Now let me tell you, I did lightly beat those eggs, and I had a huge clump fall into the boiling water, and it just cooked into a blob of egg. So don't froth the eggs until they are foamy, but do make sure it's beaten.

The eggs will cook really quickly since the water is boiling, similar to poached eggs. My sister walked by just at this time, and told me it looked like soggy toilet paper.. Please do not let this discourage you from making this recipe! The eggs should become stringy. It really only needs another minute of cooking before it's ready. I used a chop stick to stir it, thinking it might be a bit more traditional, but I'm sure wooden spoons work just as well! I also thought it might help the eggs become very thin strings.

Once it's all done, remove from heat and then add the green onions. You really only need one or two stalks of onions. Cut thin, and remember: you can cut up the whole green onion, but nearer to the root it's stronger so be sure to keep that part thin, it's still an onion after all and full of flavour! I cut mine at an angle to make it fancy.

Although the eggs did startle me at first, this dish is very delicious! I would like to make it with real chicken stock sometime, and compare. I would also add sesame seeds to try and bring out that flavour more.

The eggs, although they may have looked kind of funny, did take on a similar texture to noodles. It was hard to tell that there were no noodles in this recipe. I thought this was very interesting.

The site I looked at for this recipe had variations you can look at. One that I would like to mention is minced fresh ginger root. They say to add ginger if you're not feeling well, as it is great for colds and the flu. I wanted to mention this one to give you a quick tip on peeling fresh ginger root (please do not mistake this for the pink pickled ginger). If you take a regular kitchen spoon, rubbing it on the skin should take it right off fairly easily, and then use a paring knife to get the really hard bits. You save so much more of the ginger this way, rather than using a paring knife the entire time.

I give this recipe two thumbs up!
I do have a picture, and I'll have to add it later, my computer is being funny.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and I look forward to any future recipe suggestions you may have! :)


- The Littlest Chef