Purple Cowboy: Tenacious Red

I recently celebrated my birthday and one of my girlfriends threw me a "classy but trashy" party. What's that, you say? Well, we had super classy food and wine but in trashy ways! Beer Pong? puh-lease. Us classy girls play WINE pong! It was super fun and Mela went all out, complete with two lobsters, super aged and organic steak, a mimosa bar, and bottles and bottles of wine for us to do blind tastings. The fun and presents never stopped and it was a birthday I will never ever forget. MELA - YOU ROCK! I love you!

So back to the purpose of this post (other than relishing in the awesomeness of my friend). One of the wines that we had in our blind tasting was this one: PURPLE COWBOY. As soon as I tried it... I was in love. It's a nice mellow red with an easy finish. I love the body and fullness of the flavour. It was rich and... just so good. Like chocolate. If Michael Buble's voice were a wine, this would be it. Yup, that amazing and even a couple days after it was still just as good (so no, it wasn't the drunk-me just claiming it was good). It's from Napa Valley. No idea how much it cost but Mela really went all out and she has an elevated palate so I can't imagine it's a cheap bottle. Need to get my hands on more bottles of these!

Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies

My toddler LOVES food. It is not uncommon for her to wake up in the morning and her first words be, "I want !". Then she'll start to whine, cry and whimper (while still half asleep) repeating the food she wants.

So cookies were high on her list a couple weeks ago. She must have been influenced by Cookie Monster on TV because I don't buy pre-made cookies and I rarely make them. I had pinned this chocolate chip banana oatmeal cookie and one fine Sunday morning, decided that it was the day she and I were going to give that recipe a try.

Here is the original recipe link: http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/08/chocolate-chip-banana-oatmeal-cookies.html

And here is the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl and set aside.  Place butter and sugars into a mixing bowl and beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low.  Add egg and vanilla and mix until combined.   Mix in banana.  Add flour and mix until just combined.  Stir in oats and chocolate chips. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop or cookie scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets spacing about 2 inches apart.  Bake cookies until golden brown and just set, about 12 to 13 minutes.

 

On the original website, the photo of the cookies make it appear as if the cookies turn out quite flat. I know that some recipe indicate that you "drop" the cookie batter onto the sheet and as they cook, they melt a bit and come out flat. With this one I dropped the cookie batter and they melted a little bit, but not that much and the cookies were quite... plump (see photo).

 

I didn't have the 2 cups of chocolate chips that it called for. Instead I used whatever I had leftover in the house which was 3/4 cup of large chocolate chips and 1/2 a cup of white chocolate chips. It was okay. You can taste the bananas in the cookies and the cookies themselves are quite soft. They were largely consumed by my husband with glasses of milk to accompany them. My daughter ate a few but she mainly zoned in on the chocolate chips. I don't normally like cookies but these were pretty good. 7.5 out of 10.

Manu's spicy olive tortilla wraps

A great place for picking up new recipes after confirming their tastiness are work functions. Especially if your work is fond of the potluck party.

Manu, an colleague from an old job has given me tasty recipes in the past: Manny's heavenly hash, chicken soup. Another party pleaser that he often makes are his spicy olive tortilla wraps. I can never have just one. So when my new workplace had a potluck party, I e-mailed him for the recipe. And here it is:

	green onion, finely chop
1 can	black olives
6 cloves	garlic
1/4 bunch	cilantro
2 containers	Herb and dill cream cheese
1 tbsn	paprika
1/2 tbsn	pepper
2 pinch	salt
	burrito shells

Instructions

1.  Chop up very finely a bunch of green onion, can of sliced black olives, 6 cloves of garlic, ¼ bunch of cilantro and throw in a bowl
2. Add 2 containers of herb and dill cream cheese (Don’t use low fat, the real stuff) add to bowl
3. Add a table spoon of Papirika, ½ table spoon of pepper and a couple pinches of salt (Manu's notes: I like it spicy so I add a generous amount of chilli flakes or cayane pepper)
4. Mix it all up real well and taste – if you want add more of something now is the time to do it
5. On a regular size burrito shell (doesn’t matter flavor, white or brown) spread a layer all over
6. Roll it up, cut the ends off (either throw them away or eat yourselves), and with whats left cut in about1.5 inch pieces

The Finished product - sorry it's so blurry!

Ariana helped me make these - and if a 2-year old toddler can make them, anyone can. She even declared them to be "good" and couldn't stop pinching them. They were quite garlicky and slightly spicy so I'm surprised she didn't spit it out. But then again, she is part Romanian and it was inevitable that she like garlic!

Notes: 
1. I mixed all the first ingredients up in my food processor to "finely chop" everything. It didn't detract from the taste, but I think the next time I do this, I'll manually cut up the olives to improve the texture of the rolls. I think it need some chunkiness to it. 
2. I didn't buy two separate tubs of herb, and dill cream cheese (since the combination didn't exist and I wasn't entirely sure if that was a typo on Manu's part or not) but one large tub of herb and garlic.

A great vegetarian finger food for future parties. Thanks Manu!  

Homemade Crumpets

I like crumpets. They remind me of my mother who use to have them with butter and jam. So when I came across this recipe on Pinterest, I read through it, realized I had all the ingredients and figured I'd give it a shot.

Ingredients:
3 Packages Active Dry Yeast
3/4 Cup Warm Water
3 Teaspoons Sugar
1 Cup Warm Milk
3 Eggs
3 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Salt
Butter
Makes 25 Crumpets*
1. Mix the Yeast, Warm Water and Sugar in a glass bowl.  Let the yeast "proof" (get foamy) for 5-10 minutes. 

2. Into the Yeast mixture, whisk the Warm Milk, Flour, Eggs and Salt until no longer lumpy.  Cover with a towel and let rise for 30-45 minutes.

3. Cut 1/2 Tablespoon of butter and melt it on your griddle/frying pan at Medium-High Heat.  Scoop out about 4 Tablespoons of batter and pour it on to your griddle for each crumpet.  You can "eye" it up - pour enough batter to make the size of crumpet you'd like! 

4. Cook the crumpets on one side until they bubble through and appear mostly dry on the tops.  Then, flip them and cook for another 15 seconds

So this is what mine looked like:

Sorry, blurry picture of the batter - very elasticy

crumpets on the griddle.

They were ugly but tasted ok and we didn't need to freeze any because we all ate them within the next few days. I wish I had my homemade butter to go with it.

I tried making some in a circular form I had but it was impossible to pop it out without having some of the batter cake to the sides. I even tried a mason jar lid that someone on the blog had suggested. I gave up on that idea.

While making them, they reminded me of mini-pancakes. The yeast I used had expired back in December but it still foamed. I wonder what the results would have been like if I had used fresh yeast.

Wouldn't mind trying this recipe out again. Maybe with lactose-free milk (or maybe even leftover buttermilk from making real butter) and gluten-free flour.

Jacob's Creek Moscato

On a recent business trip to Victoria, I wanted to thoroughly enjoy my child-free days. Don't get me wrong - I love my kid but it's not often that you get the opportunity to drink without having to worry who's watching the kid.

I picked up this bottle of wine from a hotel-attached liquor store on my way back to my hotel. It was the only Moscato they carried and I was desperate for something easy to drink. I think it was $14. Less than a glass of wine bought at the hotel restaurant. It was a pretty label but I should have turned it around and read the back because I only discovered back in the hotel room that it was carbonated or "frizzante" as indicated. Yuck. Hence the low rating. Otherwise if you like a sweet, fizzy wine this is perfect for you. I let it sit overnight to try it make it go flat and not wanting to be wasteful, tried to finish it off before I left. Couldn't even do that. I think I left what you see above. It was difficult for me because not finishing a bottle of opened booze is alcohol abuse in my eyes! lol.

Wouldn't buy it again but not due to the taste but because I'm not a fizzy-drink kind of gal.

Salmon with Sesame Ginger Citrus Glaze

I had Sandy and her family over back in August for dinner and found this recipe for salmon:
http://cary.wholefoodsmarketcooking.com/recipes/11780_salmon_with_sesame_ginger_citrus_glaze

Serves 4

• 2 Garlic cloves, minced
• 4 teaspoons grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon Brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Orange juice
• 3 tablespoons Soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Sesame oil
• 1 dash toasted sesame seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon Red pepper flakes
• 2 Scallions, optional
• 1 20-oz salmon fillet (cut into 4 5-oz pieces, season with salt/pepper)

In a small bowl, mince garlic and grate ginger. In a large zip tab plastic bag, combine next ingredients brown sugar, orange juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes. Then, add seasoned salmon, garlic, and ginger to zip tab plastic bag; seal. Marinate in refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Coat broiler pan with cooking spray. Place salmon on broiler rack and brush glaze on top. Broil for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Thinly slice scallions and sprinkle the scallion slices over the cooked salmon as a garnish.

I bought wild salmon from Costco and I was so impressed with how this came out. It was moist and flavourful and super delicious. I'm having another friend over this Monday and I can't wait to make it again. Photos to come!