Chocolate Mousse

One of our family favourites is Chocolate Mousse. Its really easy to make and is extremely delicious. 

200g of Milk Chocolate

6 egg yolks

500g of whipping cream.

First you whip the cream with an electric mixer until stiff.

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Next you want to separate your eggs and have the yolks ready to go

Melt your chocolate in a double boiler. I just use my small pot over a larger pot of boiling water, stirring the chocolate constantly. My preference is Cadburys milk chocolate even better if its imported from England.

Once the chocolate is melted remove from the double boiler and add egg yolks, quickly stir them in before they set.

Then add the chocolate egg mixture to your whipping cream.

Fold it in with a spatula.

Then pour your mixture into bowls or glasses for serving. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Meringues

We had a sewing day on the weekend so I decided to make Meringues and homemade strawberry "soft serve" ice cream to take. My one friend had a lot of food allergies and as the two items only have three ingredients total its was a good choice.

For the meringues all you need are 6 egg whites and 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Pre-heat the oven to 230 F. Beat the egg whites till stiff. Then gradually add the sugar till its all mixed in.

I placed aluminium foil shiny side down on my cookie sheets. Spoon about two big spoonfuls of meringue for each one

Then bake for about an hour and a half. Be sure to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't over cook. You want them to brown just slightly.

For the soft sever I just put frozen strawberries through my Yonana machine, it can also be done in the blender or food processor. 

Jelly Roll

I love a jelly roll. Haven't had it in forever so my husband made me one for my birthday. His first time making a cake.

5          eggs room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp     vanilla
3/4 cup cake flour ( we used whole wheat flour and it turned out fine)
1 tsp     baking powder
1/4 tsp  salt
1/2 tsp  lemon juice
Raspberry jam or other filling

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare 10 x 15 inch jelly roll pan. Grease well. Line bottom with waxed paper.

Beat eggs in small mixing bowl untill frothy. Beating at high speed slowly add in sugar. Add vanilla. Continue beating untill mixture becomes thick. Transfer to larger bowl.

In a second bowl mix flour baking powder and salt together. Fold into egg mixture one third at a time untill all  is moistened. Spread into jelly roll pan. Bake in oven for 15 - 20 minutes.

Dampen a tea towel. Turn pan out immediately onto tea towel.

Carefully remove wax paper.

Trim edges.

Spread with jam.

Start at narrow end and carefully roll up onto roll untill its completely rolled up.

Transfer to plate and trim edges.

Crepes

My mom makes the best crepes. She came over today for a visit and made us breakfast.

When we were growing up we never had pancakes always crepes.

Crepes:

4 eggs

2 tbsp sugar

10 tbsp flour

3/4 cup milk

1 tbsp  vanilla

Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add flour and milk and beat.

Heat up your frying pan and add a little butter. Use a little more than 1/2 cup of batter and spread thin on pan.

You can lift the edge slightly to check underneath when its ready to flip.

Then serve.

I like it with a little sugar and lemon juice sprinkled on top. Syrup is great too or fruit toppings, even nutella is great.

Tortilla Pizza

This is a meal we make quite often. We have it for a light quick meal in the evening after work and often for lunch on the weekends. Its quick and easy to throw together.

We like to use whole wheat tortillas but any kind will work. We use whatever left overs we have on hand. Today its spicy Talapia with tomatoes and cheddar cheese. Quite often we'll put shredded chicken on. Last week we had ground pork left over that we threw on. It all works.

We always use peanut sauce as a base as its our favourite but tomato paste or BBQ sauce would work just as well.

Next is the protein of choice or sometimes we just go with vegetables.

Then bake it in the oven for 12 minutes at 425 degrees.

Whole Grain Bread

I started making my own bread about a month ago. I was interested in trying some whole grain wheat and found a great locally grown flour by Gold Forest Grains that is sold at one of our local farmers markets. The first flour I tried from them was a Spelt flour, its was delicious and very dense. A large loaf of spelt bread came out about the size of normal medium loaf. This time round I decided to give their other flours a try. I got their Park wheat flour and the Tibetan Barley Flour. For this loaf of bread I used the Park flour.

Park Flour Whole Grain Bread

Large loaf (2 pound)

1 1/2 cups water

2 1/2 Tbsp butter or margarine

2 Tbsp Molasses

4 cups Whole grain flour

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp quick rise or bread machine yeast

Use the large whole wheat loaf setting on your bread machine.

It was delicious. It made quite a large loaf, much larger than with the spelt flour, and was nice and light. We devoured quite a bit fresh from the bread maker.

I also used it to make some protein bars and they turned out well.

Ahi Tuna Salad

This is a favourite dish in our house.

Dressing

2 Tablespoons of Raspberry Vinaigrette

2 Tablespoons of Balsamic Vinegar

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon of Dijon Mustard

½ - 1 Tablespoon of Brown Sugar

Mix all ingredients together

Salad

1 small package of mixed greens, baby greens (your choice)

1 cup raspberries

1 can of mandarin oranges

Handful of Shaved almonds or walnuts

Handful of dried Cranberries

(2) Sliced Avocados

Feta in Olive oil with green olives, drain the olive oil(can be found at Wal-Mart in the cheese section)

-          Have not tried to use this olive oil in the dressing, might be worth a go.

Combine everything in a large bowl. Drizzle with dressing.

Ahi Tuna

(4) 5 oz pieces of Ahi Tuna

1 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

 1 table spoon of pepper corns.

2 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Season tuna with salt and cayenne pepper

In a frying pan over medium high heat combine the butter, olive oil and pepper corns.

Heat until pepper corns are soft and pop.  (approximately 5 minutes)

Once the pan is ready place the seasoned tuna in the pan for:

1 minutes per side (Blue rare)

1.5 minutes per side (medium)

2 minutes per side (well)

Slice the tuna into bit sized pieces and plate with the avocado/salad.

  

The above will serve four people.