Enchiladas?

I went to a restaurant in Saskatoon and had an excellent enchilada made with cream cheese and spinach, so this is my attempt to resurrect it.

Maybe 1 cup of spinach
About the same of your choice of meat, I used shrimp
1 brick of cream cheese, softened
pepper to taste
salsa and cheese to cover them






Chop up the spinach and shrimp














Soften up the cream cheese in the microwave, and stir in the spinach, shrimp and pepper. Maybe I added some sage, too, I can't remember...












Wrap, em up and cover with salsa and cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
This tastes a little like a mushroom cap baked with salsa and cheese. I like all those things, and I like them together.

Borscht

This one takes a bit of chopping or grating, but it's SO worth it.

1-2 beets
1 small onion
1 medium potato
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
1 cup red cabbage
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup crushed tomatoes
2 cups water
1/2 tsp dill
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
black pepper, to taste
2-3 tbsp sugar
1-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (I used balsamic and it was good too)

Grate all the vegetables and place them in a pot with the stock, tomatoes, water, dill, caraway seeds and pepper.
My recipe said to use a food processor to do the grating, which would probably save a lot of time, but alas... I used a little grater for most of it and just chopped up the onion and celery. It was actually kind of relaxing :)









Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer until vegetables are very soft, about 25-40 minutes. I let this boil for about 50-60 minutes, because I am easily distracted, but you can never go wrong letting a soup meld longer than it tells you to.

Add sugar and vinegar, and simmer another 5 minutes, then taste to see if you like it, and adjust sugar and/or vinegar if you need to.








Mmm, look at that color!

Make Your Own Pasta Sauce pt 2

2 cups white wine
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp basil
1 tsp cardamom
1/4 cup sour cream
small pasta
I used a bunch of seafood cooked in olive oil and garlic also








Bring wine and spices to a boil














When it's boiled for a few minutes (maybe like 5 mins), drop in the sour cream and whisk it around.
This works well because it gives you a creamy texture but doesn't curdle like milk does and you won't have to throw out 2 batches of sauce and start all over. Ahem.











Reduce until it makes a sauce.
I would add some cayenne or something next time around, even with all the curry powder, it was a little bland. Hmm.

Some Kind of Fish

Peanuts, crushed
Honey
Salt & pepper












Crush up a bunch of peanuts, enough to cover the fillet
Drizzle with honey, just till it starts to drip over the edge.
Salt & pepper, to taste.
Bake as usual

Black Bean and Mango Salad

1 can black beans
2 cups mango
1 cup sweet red pepper
1/2 cup tomato
2 cups lettuce (you could probably use spinach too)
1/2 lb shrimp
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
salt & pepper






I cooked the shrimp for a few minutes to heat it, and the black beans.













Chop the veggies up, combine ingredients. Eat.

Chocolate Cupcakes (NSFW bit at the end!)

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup boiling water (or coffee)
1 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt 
1 tsp espresso powder*
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

* a note on espresso powder

I literally baked coffee grounds on a baking sheet and then blended them to make them super fine. Espresso powder basically makes chocolate stuff really good. Plus if you use coffee instead of water at the beginning, you'll get a lovely flavour. Do both if you want! Or one, or the other.


Preheat oven to 375. Butter or spray or line cupcake tins.
In a small bowl, stir boiling water or coffee and cocoa powder until smooth, let cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, espresso powder and salt.

In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Add dry ingredients and beat only until just mixed. Then add cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

As a side note, this recipe seems to be excessive, like there's too little dry ingredients, then too much, then too little again. But it evens out in the end, and tastes great :)

Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake for 16-20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

(Chocolate) Buttercream icing
This is the easiest thing ever, if you are too lazy to make your own icing, you shouldn't be baking. Period.
1/4 cup butter
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup icing sugar
(opt) 1/3 cup cocoa

(opt) Pinch of espresso powder

Mix together. That's it.

You can decorate these cupcakes any way you want! Whee!

Shrimp Salad

1/2 lb shrimp, cooked.
1/2 cup avocado chunks
1 med tomato, chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper



Mix oil & lemon, salt & pepper, stir in shrimp, tomato and avocado.
Serve on a bed of romaine or spinach.