shaved asparagus & mushroom pizza

We love our weekend pizzas!

Some of my thoughts on hassle-free Friday night pizzas:

• When making pizza dough, double the recipe and store the remainder in ziplock bags in the freezer for quick pizzas. Come Friday morning, let rise on the counter (within its bag) and come home to a risen dough ready to top and bake.
• Crank the oven – hot! I’m talking 500˚F (260˚C) if your oven can. The shorter the time in the oven the better! Allow the veges to just start to brown and the cheese to melt. Ideally, use a pizza stone that also reaches this temperature before the pizza is transferred to ensure a crisp base.
• Keep a stash of homemade tomato sauce on hand for such occasions. Reduce a large can with chosen herbs/spices and transfer to yogurt containers, muffin pans or ice cube trays to freeze. Let defrost on the counter during the day, ready to be smeared over the base.
• Try new combinations – but keep it simple. Recall a dish you love and recreate the flavours on your pizza. We love mango, chicken and cashew… spinach, pumpkin (squash) and feta…. caribou, red onion jam and mushrooms… peanut sauce, grated carrot, thai chicken and cilantro… kale, mushroom, zucchini and pesto…
• Get creative with the sauce. No need for it to be tomato pizza sauce. Try kale pesto (or basil), goat cheese, satay, or Béchamel
• Forget the cutlery and plates! Enjoy it hot off the pizza stone with a glass of wine and good company.

Shaved asparagus & Mushroom Pizza with Béchamel Sauce
Makes one large pizza to share
Recipe from The Healthy Foodie

1/2 standard recipe for wholewheat pizza dough (enough for one 12 inch pizza)
6 button mushrooms, sliced
12 stalks asparagus, woody ends removed
large handful grated cheese (mozzarella)

For the Béchamel Sauce
1 small clove garlic, crushed
2 green onions, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp flour
½ cup milk
pinch salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 500˚F with pizza stone positioned in center.
In a small saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add green onions, garlic, salt and pepper and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add flour and whisk to combine. Slowly pour in milk, whisking constantly until sauce becomes thick and smooth, about 2 minutes. Add more milk if required but keep in mind a thin sauce will create a soggy pizza!

Roll dough out as thin as possible and place on pizza stone in hot oven. Cook for 2 – 3 minutes, or until starting to puff and JUST baked. Remove from oven.

Spread over the Bechamel sauce and top with mushrooms, shaved asparagus and cheese. Return to the oven and bake for about 10 minutes, until cheese is melted, base becomes crisp at the edges and the vegetables become tinged with colour.

chocolate & mint {avocado} mousse

We get mocked, in good humour of course, for using the term fortnight in Canada. We sound Shakespearean, so they say. Upon research (reliable Wikipedia no less) I realise it is in fact an Old English term, commonly used in Australia and New Zealand. Who would have thought?

Here in the North, we order groceries from the city biweekly (Kiwis, that means fortnightly). For this reason, it’s feast or famine in our house. That is why you will see a lull in posts on De La Casa for up to a fortnight (a biweek?), followed by a gush of recipes as we flounder in our sea of vegetables.

It’s not easy buying enough vegetables for two weeks, and timing them so that each one is used before it wilts. Add to that the fact that vegetables lose nutrients with each day that they sit in your fridge (plus the days it took to travel from South America) and you see why we are scrambling to utilise each vegetable for what it’s worth. Broccoli gets flash-cooked then frozen for future use. The huge bunch of cilantro (coriander) is divided into two – half to garnish a week of meals, and the rest frozen in icecubes or made into pesto to last us through the second week. Half the baby spinach is par-boiled and frozen. Half the cherry tomatoes are dehydrated to top our pasta as our produce dwindles. We are forced to get creative!

One of the more difficult ones is the avocado. We do love our guacamole, and we are pretty content scooping it straight from the skin with a grind of salt and pepper. But when our bag of 5 are at their peak, it can be tricky to stomach them all before the green flesh turns to mush.

Apparently avocadoes make for some wonderful desserts. We love avocado shakes and we love chocolate mousse. Figures, we couldn’t go wrong with an avocado chocolate mousse. Throw in some fresh mint and we had a real after-dinner treat.

Chocolate & Mint {Avocado} Mousse
Recipe adapted from Forgiving Martha
Serves 2

I added a banana to the mix which I liked but Jesse didn’t. Keep it pure minty chocolate by leaving it out (add a little more sweetener) or think of it as a tropical treat and enjoy the added flavours. If you’re not a mint fan, replace it with vanilla extract. The egg whites are optional but we love the fluffy lightness it brings to the pudding.

1 avocado
1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
1 banana (optional)
2 Tbsp chopped mint
2 Tbsp honey (or agave syrup)
1/4 cup milk, or more as needed
1/4 cup pasteurized egg whites (optional)

Place all ingredients in blender of food processor and whizz until light and fluffy. Place in serving bowls and chill for at least an hour. Serve with grated chocolate.

thai cashew chicken & vegetable quinoa

After a long white winter peppered with near-sunless days, we soak up every ray we can, now that the sun not only rises, but hovers directly overhead. Rather than setting at 3pm, already it hangs around until 10pm. And with each passing day, we get 10 minutes closer to having a midnight sun.

Dinner, in the style of bowl food and fork, is enjoyed, legs crossed, on the floor around the coffee table, beside the great, river-facing windows as the late evening rays eminate the warmth and light we have been craving. Inspired by the flavours of Thai cuisine but devoid of the heaviness of the traditional creamy curry, this dish is truly pleasant on those warmer (relative to the -30˚C we’ve been having) evenings.

Enroute to the ski cabin for a late night fire with friends and foil-wrapped bananas with chocolate. The time was 9.15pm – the sun sets slowly, sitting on the horizon until close to 10pm.

Quinoa is one of those less-is-more type of seeds (not a grain!). Being so high in protein (a nutritionally superior source of non-animal protein), amino acids and complex carbohydrates it is considered a top muscle-building food. But as usual, if you aren’t using the energy or working the muscles, watch the portion size – being healthy doesn’t mean low calorie!

For Laura, of Top Of The World Girl, our delightful dinner guest visiting from far North city, Inuvik. Laura’s blog is one of the two that enticed me to the North this time one year ago.

Thai Cashew Chicken & Vegetable Quinoa with Mint Raita
Recipe from Quinoa 365
Serves 3 – 4

This uses about 3 cups of vegetables. Chop, slice and dice whatever you have on hand. I was fortunate to have a very colourful array this week, but broccoli & onion would do the trick. Marinating the chicken overnight will ensure a deeper flavour but we’re about fast-food here – half an hour is better than nothing!

Chicken
1 chicken breast
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp oyster sauce (optional)
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 large clove garlic, crushed

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water

2 heads broccoli
1 red pepper
1 red onion
handful asparagus

Thai sauce
2 Tbsp peanut butter (or almond/cashew butter)
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp hot water

1/4 cup whole, raw cashews

Raita
2 Tbsp yogurt
2 inch cucumber, peeled
2 Tbsp mint
salt and pepper

Slice the chicken thinly and let marinate in the soy sauce, oyster sauce (optional), garlic and ginger for at least 30 minutes (or overnight) in the fridge.

Bring the water and quinoa to a boil. Let simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.  Turn heat off and let stand on burner for another 6 minutes. Fluff with a fork and set aside.

Meanwhile, place yogurt, cucumber and mint in food processor. Whizz until smooth and season to taste. Set aside.

Heat a dry (unoiled) pan over medium heat. Add cashews and toss until toasted all over. Watch carefully as they can burn. Remove from pan and set aside.

Heat a dash of sesame oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add vegetables and stir fry until slightly charred but still bright in colour, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a bowl (save dishes by using one of the bowls you will serve in) and set aside.

Heat another dash of oil and stir fry chicken, reserving the marinade. Once chicken is browned, add marinade and stir in the honey, peanut butter and water. Toss around pan until chicken is no longer pink inside. Return veges to the pan and stir to coat in the sauce. Divide the quinoa among serving bowls and top with the chicken and vegetables. Top with mint raita and toasted cashews before serving.

sourdough pancakes

“One should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

Happy Friday to you all. Treat yourself to a wonderful breakfast this weekend, in the presence of your beloved, while the sun hangs around longer and the temperatures head closer to the positives x

Sourdough Pancakes
Recipe from Frugal Feeding
Makes 6-8

This is yet another way to use up the ‘discard’ of your sourdough starter! Love that it is still bubbling away, about 6 months on, making its presence in every loaf of bread, pancake or tortilla we make. If you’re not much of a pet person, stow it in the back of your fridge, simply stirring and feeding when you remember or when you need it – mine has gone 2 weeks with no issue (just stir that seperated liquid back in). I absolutely recommend using a cast iron pan for a beautiful crisp outer, and an even cook throughout. Keep cooked pancakes in warm oven until ready to serve.

2 eggs
150ml (3/4 cup) milk
120g (1 cup) plain flour
100ml (1/2 cup) sourdough starter
pinch of salt
25 (1 1/2 Tbsp) butter

1. Break eggs into bowl, whisk in the milk, flour, sourdough and salt. Melt the butter and incorporate too.

2. Heat a dollop of butter in frying pan. Pour in about 3/4 cupfuls – cook on both sides until golden. Serve hot with fresh fruit, yoghurt and real Canadian maple syrup.

yoghurt & granola parfait

We grew up calling it muesli. Which is the accurate name for the raw oaty mix found in our breakfast bowl every morning, commonly found in health stores. The toasted, sweetened cereal that is more common on the supermarket shelf is indeed more accurately called, as they say in North America, granola.

“Muesli was created at the break of the 1900’s, in the German section of Switzerland by physician and nutritionist, Bircher-Benner… as a natural health food to help his patients during hospital rehabilitation.

The ingredients of muesli and granola are very similar with a variety of oats, grains, fruits and seeds. However, muesli is made with raw oats and is usually unsweetened or contains small amounts of sugar or dried milk solids. Granola is usually toasted with honey and oil giving it its sweet crispy flavor, but adding additional sugar and fat content compared to muesli…. 1 cup of muesli provides 289 calories, while 1 cup of granola provides an astounding 597 calories.” Source.

Jesse and I eat the same breakfast every morning, the same homemade, raw muesli from my childhood (after I moved off mini-wheats. UNfrosted miniwheat they were… no candy frosted mini-wheats exist in New Zealand!). My parents were onto something good with their muesli creation, and to this day we stand by it wholeheartedly.

But once in a while we crave crunchy, sweet cereal to enjoy with cold milk and yoghurt. And so Jesse, the primary granola maker, will mix up some oats, nuts and honey, a spice or two, and some dried fruit. Unfortunately, being sweetened and toasted in oil, only a scant 1/4 cup will equal the calories of our usual untoasted, unsweetend oats… and a quarter cup of cereal is not a breakfast in our books! So for us, it’s gouter; a few tablespoons, layered with yoghurt and fruit makes for a great dessert parfait, or a small bowl with milk for a balanced mid-afternoon meal.

Date & Cinnamon Granola
Yields 9 cups, stores for a month or so

This recipe can be adapted to your liking or, as is often the case, to use up whatever nuts and dried fruits you have lurking (remember, nuts are natural, wholefoods so will expire!). Sub in whatever you have on hand, whatever spices you fancy, and get creative. Here are the recipe bones with the specifics that we chose for this lot in brackets.

3 cups old-fashioned oats (the large flakes, not rolled or quick cook)
3/4 cup sweetener (honey)
4 tablespoons oil or butter (olive oil)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon spices (cinnamon)
1 cup raw nuts or seeds (almonds and pecans, coarsely chopped)
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ (optional)
1 1/2 cups dried fruit (chopped dates and dried cranberries)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In large bowl, stir together honey, butter and vanilla. Add oats, nuts, chosen spices and wheat germ; stir to coat well.
Transfer to baking pan, spread out, and bake until dark golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring every so often. Cool in pans on wire racks. Transfer to large bowl and stir in dried fruit.

Store at room temperature in airtight container.

To make the parfaits, place 3 tablspoons of granola, 1/4 cup natural yoghurt (or cottage cheese) and diced fruit in a tall glass, alternating the layers as desired.

This recipe takes part in Skinny Parade, a celebration of low calorie desserts featured on While Chasing Kids – a wonderful homely blog, featuring food from Russia (and all over)! Check out some other delicious low calorie treats.

banoffee pie

I was informed late yesterday that it was Pi day, 3.14, being the 14th of March.

So we made pie, with a twist. No butter, no pastry, no chocolate and no wheat flour (boring huh!). Just the raw flavours of banoffee, banana and toffee, made from hearty, whole ingredients. Jesse created a variation on caramel sauce, using honey and our favourite nut butter while I played around with the chocolate chunk {chickpea} cookie pie recipe to achieve something of a banoffee twist – banana, coconut flour and dates.

Following pie, we embarked into the midnight darkness and stood in awe beneath the geomagnetic storm, watching greens becomes purples, pirouetting across the sky; the jewels of a galaxy the complete upside-down opposite to those which we, and our fellow kiwi friends with whom we shared our evening, grew up with in the Southern Hemisphere.

Banoffee {Chickpea} Pie
Recipe adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie
Serves 4 (call us ogres but there’s no getting 8 out of this)

1 1/4 cups dried chickpeas, soaked and cooked (or 1 can, drained and rinsed)
3 Tbsp coconut flour (specialty stores, such as Arctic Co Op in Yellowknife, or Well.ca stock this)
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1/4 cup applesauce
1 ripe banana
1.5 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
agave syrup to taste (optional)
1/2 cup dates

Blend all ingredients, except the dates, in a food processor until smooth. Add dates and pulse until chopped and mixed through. Pour into a lightly greased pie dish. Cook at 350˚F (180˚C) for around 35-40 minutes. Let stand at least 10 minutes before removing from the pan. Slather in caramel sauce and garnish with a pitted date.

Caramel Sauce
Recipe from Healthful Pursuit

3 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp almond butter (or any nut butter)
vanilla extract

Place honey in a small frying pan and heat on medium-low heat for 4 minutes, stirring constantly with a fork or spoon, until it begins to foam. Add nut butter and vanilla and continue stirring for 1-2 minutes, until big bubbles form and the mixture pulls away from the sides; the longer you cook it, the harder it will get. Two minutes was plenty for us; any more and it becomes like toffee on cooling.

Remove from heat and pour over pie.

hummingbird cakes & pineapple flowers

You’ll hear the term ‘summer simulation’ be thrown around here and there in the North. Supposedly it is what occurs during the depths of winter; someone sparks the idea of throwing a summer simulation fiesta and so, the heater is cranked until it’s a balmy 28˚C inside, the tropical cocktails make an appearance and the beach-ware is retrieved from the bottom of the drawer. I’m yet to see this in action. But when I do, I’ll be bringing these tropical, coconut and pineapple delights.

Hummingbird cake has always been a favourite of mine, bursting with the fruity flavours of banana, pineapple and coconut. But, in miniature form, hummingbird cakes can easily be mistaken for the humble banana muffin. Especially in true clean-eating form, these muffins, with barely a sweet nick from honey, could do with the nudge from a glamorous topper. These pineapple flowers are a doddle to make, and will take your dessert from good to gorgeous.

Pineapple & Coconut {Hummingbird} Cakes
Makes 24 (plus two extra texas-muffin sized ones)
Pineapple flowers from Food Coma and Lightened Hummingbird cake adapted from Southern Living

Wholewheat flour could be used in place of all purpose. I wanted a lighter cake this time (as it was dessert, not a hearty mid-morning meal I was after) so I used unbleached white four.

1 large pineapple

3 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
¾ cup honey (or agave syrup)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted and cooled
1 3/4 cups mashed banana (about 3 – 4)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained

1 can coconut milk, stored in fridge, upsidedown, for a couple of hours or overnight

For the pineapple
Preheat oven to 220˚F and line 2 or 3 baking trays with silmats or baking paper. Remove skin and head of pineapple. Using a paring knife or a small spoon remove the ‘eyes’. With a large sharp knife, slice pineapple into thin rounds, almost transparent. Lay the slices on baking trays and leave in oven for up to 2 hours, turning over half way through. They may take longer – keep dehydrating until starting to shrivel, brown at the edges and become dry to the touch. While still warm, place dehydrated slices in muffin pan and let sit for a couple of hours or overnight until completely dry and shaped like flowers.

For the hummingbird cakes

Lightly grease 24 muffin pan holes with baking spray.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Stir together eggs, applesauce, honey and oil, beat in the mashed banana, vanilla extract, and pineapple; add to flour mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened – do not beat! Pour batter evenly into muffin pans – a large cookie scoop is handy here.
Bake at 375° for 20 to 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean and the muffins are springy to the touch. Remove from pans and let cool on wire rack.

For the coconut icing

Turn cold can of coconut milk upside up and remove top. Liquids will now be on the top. Pour them off (save for a curry or smoothie) and place the thickened coconut cream into a bowl. Beat with electric beater until firm; it will not become as firm as whipped cream but should have some hold. Add vanilla essence or honey to sweeten as desired.

Assemble

No surprises here. Dollop coconut cream on cupcakes. Place dehydrated flower on top. Blow away your end-of-winter blues with a summer simulation fiesta.

pulled caribou & barbeque sauce

Another of the many characteristic North American dishes we looked forward to prior to moving here is pulled pork. Traditionally, a shoulder of pork is cooked in a slowcooker before being pulled (shredded) and served with either a tomato/barbeque sauce or a vinegar based sauce on a burger bun.

I first tried pulled pork at a work-do shortly after we arrived in Norman Wells, in the heat of summer, atop fresh buns. I never planned to make it myself (we rarely eat pork) until I pulled our slowroasted caribou from the slowcooker and it shredded in my hands.. Ah ha – mix together a sweet & tangy barbeque sauce, throw in a bottle of Ale and voila; a Northern (and very economical) spin on a traditional dish.

I used a baron roast of caribou, from the wild beast I butchered last summer. It is a beautiful cut of meat; lean and flavourful. It slowroasted for 10 hours while we were at work, in a shallow pool of half red wine, half water. I threw in a bouquet garni a bay leaf, a chopped onion and plenty of fresh ground pepper, and pushed cloves of garlic into the meat. At lunch time I popped home to put on a loaf of wholewheat bread.

One’s house truly becomes a home when it welcomes your return from a tiresome day at work with such permeating aromas, and a simple but delicious dinner ready to go!

Pulled Caribou
Serves 6

For the caribou

1 caribou baron roast (about 1 lb)
1 onion, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup water
1 bay leaf
1 bouquet garni (optional)
freshly ground black pepper

Rub the roast with plenty of ground black pepper. Pierce the meat and push in garlic slices. Place in slowcooker and pour over wine and water. Add bay leaf, bouquet garni and sliced onion. Let cook on low for 8 – 10 hours. Give it a stir halfway to coat the meat in red wine (only if you happen to be around, not necessary).

Memphis barbeque sauce

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup tomato paste (or 1/2 cup ketchup and less water)
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp molasses
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp each paprika, cayenne, oregano, thyme
salt & pepper

1 bottle dark ale (or desired beer)

Once caribou has roasted, remove from slow cooker and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix together ingredients for barbeque sauce. Once cool enough to handle, shred caribou and place in saucepan with barbeque sauce and beer. Let simmer for 10 minutes until sauce has thickened.

Spread a little mustard onto sandwich bread or bun. Top with pulled caribou and a slice of mozzarella. Eat fresh or toast until cheese has melted.