After a wonderfully relaxing trip to Alberta, I’m back in frigid Ottawa.  While Calgary was nearly +12 when I left, coming back to a brisk -18 degree Ottawa was less than enjoyable.  To cheer myself up and to get back into the routine of having to prepare my own meals, I decided to crack open a cookbook that I had gotten myself for my birthday last September. The William-Sonoma cookbook has been sitting on  my shelf, basically untouched, since I bought it. A few days ago, I decided to flag all the recipes that I was interested in trying over the next semester.

Thirty sticky-notes later, I had a list filled with new ideas.  One of the recipes that I flagged was the write-up for the Tomato and Goat Cheese Muffins.  I don’t know if it was the goat cheese or savoury aspect of the muffins that did it for me, but this recipe went right to the top of my “to make” list.

I can’t say I was disappointed with this recipe.  Served warm, these muffins are an utter treat! Gooey goat cheese and warm tomatoes are definitely a nice breakfast surprise. Fairly straightforward, these muffins probably took about 45 minutes to make.  My only complaint is that the recipe only yields 11 muffins – not nearly enough at the rate they are currently disappearing.

The recipe calls for chickpea flour – something I’ve never used before – but a quick trip to the bulk bins at Ottawa’s Herb and Spice ensured that I was stocked with just enough for the recipe.

Nevertheless, these muffins will present a nice change to my normal breakfast routine of bagels or oatmeal.

Recipe bellow

• 6 T Butter
• 4 green onions, finely chopped
• 3 T basil
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• 1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 cup Chickpea Flour
• 3 1/2 t Baking Powder
• 1/2 t Salt
• 1 1/4 cup Milk
• 2 Eggs
• 90g Goat Cheese, cut into small chunks
• 1 large plum tomato, diced

Now, I always have recipes that I want to try. Typically as I browse though my favourite food blogs, I find recipes that I save for a rainy day.  For the most part these recipes end up in a giant bookmark folder and are promptly forgotten about.  This was not the case for this recipe.  As soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to have it and that it woulld be the perfect dessert to bring to the party.  As an added bonus this pie/tart, uses some of my favourite ingredients: cream cheese, chocolate and berries.

While the original recipe calls for the baker to make their own tart shell, I cheated and used a frozen store bought one that was hiding in my freezer.  I recommend checking out the original recipe sourced below for the instructions on how to make the actual tart base.  By skipping the tart manufacturing phase I was able to cut down the amount of time this recipe took.  Over all it took me last than an hour to make and was a huge hit! Definitely a great summer treat and good for any occasion (or lack thereof).

Recipe Below:

• 1 pre-made pie shell

For the chocolate Ganache:

• 2 squares of bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup of heavy cream
• 1 T unsalted butter, room temperature

For the Cream Cheese Layer

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 2 T cream

Topping

• 1 basket of fresh strawberries, stemmed and sliced thinly
• melted chocolate, for drizzling

1. Place the chopped chocolate in a heat proof bowl
2. Bring the cream to a slight boil in a pot then remove from heat
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let stand for a few moments
4. Begin to whisk the chocolate/cream mixture until the chocolate is full melted
5. Whisk in butter into chocolate mixture
6. Pour ganache into pie shell and spread evenly.
7. Put shell into the fridge and allow the ganache to set
8. In a new bowl, cream the cream cheese and sugar until smooth
9. Add the vanilla and cream and mix until incorporated
10. Remove pie shell from fridge and pour cream cheese mixture over the chocolate ganache layer and spread evenly.
11. Take sliced strawberries and lay them in a circular patter from the outside in
12. Drizzle melted chocolate over the finished pie.
13. Refrigerate until you reveal the pie to tremendous applause.

Recipe Adapted from Annie’s Eats

One recent exception to this pattern seems to be risotto. In the past few months, whenever I lack inspiration to try out a new recipe, I go straight for risotto. While you long term readers might remember my disaster with risotto about a year ago, I have since become confident in my ability to create a delicious rice-based meal.

I find one of the strongest factors for my recent habit of choosing risotto when I am feeling less than inspired is the fact you can throw pretty much anything into risotto and it will turn out delicious. I’ve made it a habit these past few months to always have arborio rice and a litre of veggie or chicken stock on hand.  After those two ingredients, the worlds your oyster. Got a few leftover arugula leaves lying around? Throw it into the pot! Ditto for that leftover bacon lying around.  Pretty much as long as the ingredients you add work well together, you will have a tasty result.

Essentially, what I am trying to say is once you’ve mastered the art of making risotto, you can throw away the recipe and experiment with the veggies/meats that you enjoy or have on hand.  Attached below, is a Savoury Student original, that I crafted last weekend for a dinner with my friend Nick. As a side note stay tuned to Hilary Makes for another risotto recipe, that both Hilary and I crafted while traveling in Europe.

I hope you enjoy!

Recipe BelowKitchen Sink Risotto

Serves 3/4 (depending on appetites)

• 1 cup Arborio  rice
• 1 T Olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 T Butter
• 1 cup mushrooms, diced
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 250 grams sausage, casing removed, friend and drained
• 1 1/2 cup arugula, washed and diced
• 1/8 cup sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, washed, stemmed and chopped
• 1/2 cup white wine (more if you like the flavour)
• 1 tetra-pack of chicken or veggie stock

1. Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat
2. Add onion, mushrooms and zucchini and fry until cooked (about 6 or 7 minutes)
3. In a small pot, bring stock to a boil then reduce heat and keep simmering.
4. Meanwhile, in a larger pot, heat olive oil over medium heat
5. Add rice and garlic and fry for 2 minutes until rice is glossy.
6. Add the wine to the rice and stir until absorbed.
7. Add stock one ladle at a time, only adding more once the rice has absorbed all the liquid.
8. Be sure to stir often, to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
9. Continue adding stock for about 15 minutes, until the rice is almost cooked, then add onion, mushrooms, zucchini, sausage, sun-dried tomatoes, basil and arugula.
10. Continue adding stock for about 5 more minutes until the rice is cooked; keeping careful not to over cook the rice.
11.  Serve and enjoy!

I now have a growing list of eggplant recipes that I am very excited to try out! One of these recipes that I discovered during my hunt was an eggplant curry dish called Baingan Bgharta.  Apparently this recipe originates from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan and attempts to pair the smokey flavour of eggplant with the spiciness of curry.

Unfortunately, I think something got lost a long the way when the recipe was adapted for the North American kitchen. I can’t say that I was all that enthused by this dish.  I found that the finished product was not worth the hassle of making this dish.  As a busy student I didn’t think the effort put into this recipe was worth the result.  If you are interested in checking out the recipe I used, it can be found at the following link. I haven’t posted my own notes about the recipe because I can’t say I really recommend it. 

On a more positive note, this little hiccup hasn’t deterred me from my hope of incorporating more eggplant into my meal rotation. In fact, I think it has inspired to find the perfect eggplant dish for my repertoire.  Stay tuned for some upcoming posts about my adventures with eggplant!

I don’t know if it was the flavor combinations, or the innovated dishes that converted me to a Turkish fanatic, but what I do know is that for the rest of my trip, all I could think about was the amazing dishes I was going to try to replicate once I got home.  This urge was so strong, that for my first official breakfast in Canada, I made myself one of my favourite dishes that I sampled abroad.

Menemen is a Turkish style “omelet” which incorporates more filling than actual egg.  The egg really just acts as medium to hold everything together and is usually enjoyed with warmed bread or pita. The dish can either be served for breakfast or as a lazy dinner option. Either way it’s delicious.

More Below

Recipe

Serves: 2

2 T olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

½ red pepper, diced

½ green pepper, diced

1 small hot pepper, diced

2 tomatoes, diced

3 eggs, beaten

1. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat
2. Fry the onion and peppers until they are soft
3. Add the tomatoes and fry for an additional 5 minutes
4. Add the beaten eggs and fry until the eggs are scrambled and cooked
5. Serve with toasted bread or pita
6. Enjoy!