Cobbler, Quiche, Burger, Cabbage, Dumpling

Whole Wheat Peach Cobbler



Adapted from Joy the Baker.

Well, I swapped all-purpose flour for whole wheat (that was all I had), white sugar for coconut sugar (all I had... strange kitchen, indeed), likely decreased the amount of overall sugar and, clearly, substituted the plums for peaches. Ta-da.

This recipe is a keeper - adaptable, delicious, simple.


Bärner Zibelechueche



Swiss (Bernese) onion pie. I would liken it to an onion quiche. November Switzerland in pie form.

German recipe here.


Salmon Burgers



Recipe adapted from Underbaraclara. (Google Translate will provide you with the jist)

Adapted due to lack of ingredients/equipment/motivation. EX: mashed a much smaller quantity of salmon with a fork. Still added a whole egg, so needed some breadcrumbs to soak up the moisture and was unwilling to toast bread, so smashed some stale bread with a rolling pin into entirely too large pieces. Did not even realise that the recipe called for sour cream for the dressing and so used mayonnaise + crushed garlic + lemon juice and that's it.

I suppose I can no longer call this space a "vegetarian" blog. We might get into this another day.


Cream Braised Cabbage and Tomatoes



Something resembling a recipe:

Chopped cabbage, onion, little oil, salt, pan. 10 minutes ish. Veggie bacon, halved cherry tomatoes. Couple minutes. Little cream, even littler white wine, pepper, few minutes.

Sometimes the most humble of meals are the most satisfying.


Apple Dumplings



Recipe from The Pioneer Woman.

Mustard Friend guest appearance! And yes, that is Mountain Dew. Being poured over an entire cup of melted butter with even more sugar on top of very few apples wrapped in two packages of Pilsbury crescent rolls. Eating these literally takes 3 years off one's life. Literally worth it.

I don't think I will make these again (I won't say ever) simply because they are so dangerously easy and gooey and buttery and caramely... I'm in the kitchen cutting up apples and taking out the Mountain Dew right now. Damn it.

Cocolate Puffed Wheat Squares

Chocolate Puffed Wheat Squares









This recipe is always a winner. It's not healthy by any stretch of the imagination (hey, it's got puffed wheat, doesn't that count for anything?! And about a pound of butter and sugar, nice try) but it's good. That much I know.
My mum used to make it for us to take on school trips and the 4L ice cream bucket full of them was licked clean long before we got where we were going and sad was the kid who didn't realise we had brought them and didn't get one.

You can also substitute 4 C Rice Krispies for the puffed wheat. Magical.
But the most magical thing about them? They're dead simple. Even easier than that, really.
And, if you use margarine and not butter, they're vegan. Yum.

(This recipe is from memory, hence the wild-Missus-Mustard-this-does-not-make-sense style instructions.)

Puffed Wheat Squares

1/2 C butter or margarine
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C corn syrup
2 T cocoa powder (feel free to add more!)
2 t salt (this is my addition, but I recommend it)
6 C puffed wheat

Stovetop Directions
1. Melt butter/margarine over low-medium heat in a small saucepan. Add remaining ingredients - except puffed wheat - and stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Pour puffed wheat into an appropriately-sized, greased baking pan. ("Appropriately-sized" meaning, pour the puffed wheat in, and if it looks like the height you wish your squares to be, go for it)
3. Pour chocolate mixture over puffed wheat and stir to coat evenly.
4. Let set for a few hours at room temperature, if you can wait that long.

Microwave Directions
1. Melt all ingredients - except puffed wheat - in a large, heat-proof bowl until sugar dissolves or almost dissolves.
2. Pour puffed wheat into bowl with chocolate mixture and stir to coat.
3. Pour mixture into appropriately-sized, greased baking pan. * See above note!
4. Let set for a few hours at room temperature. I dare you.

Maybe Dad would like some.

Root Beer Float Cake

Root Beer Float Cake



Recipe from joythebaker.com/blog

I had planned weeks in advance that this was to be my birthday cake. Baked my me. For my own birthday. Yes, my mum thought it was a bit weird too.

So I make the cake. With the whole cup of cocoa powder. And I tell my mum and sister what the icing is meant to be. There is uproar. No, you can't have root beer cake with root beer icing! Make a white icing! It was only after I played the "it's MY birthday!" card that they agreed to go along with this (in their opinion) overly root beery icing.

It turned out perfectly. I have never had a better cake in my existence. It wasn't that root beery but it was all-around delicious and thinking about it's dense, moist chocolateyness makes me want to bake one this instant. And I'm already thinking about that pop/soda to use next.

PS - This is the second cake I have ever made from scratch in my life. The last one being six years ago in Grade 10 at OSS.

Key Lime Cheesecake

Key Lime Cheesecake





I have been away. I have been a naughty blogger.
But I am getting back onto the scene! (Literally meaning: I'm not "new" at my job anymore and Mr Mustard has moved back to Vancouver, so I can finally breathe)
And as I'm easing myself back into the beautiful bounty that is blogging, I present you with something easy (for me). Here's a link. Done.

Recipe from smittenkitchen.com

I'm not the loviest lover of cheesecake, but as my sister ordered it for her birthday, cheesecake it was! As you can tell, I did not use mango as a topping and I thought it was great (as far as cheesecake goes).

Mock crabcakes & cinnamon buns

Mock Mayland Crabcakes



Recipe from delicioustv.com
I have been watching Toni's podcasts lately and thought this one sounded yummy. I will basically try mock-seafood anything, though, so maybe it's just me. Mister Mustard deeply objected to the making of crabcakes, but I persisted and finally made them.
I didn't like them all that much. Sorry, Toni.
Tartar sauce recipe from allrecipes.com
I added a few chopped capers and spices. It was quite a while ago, so I don't remember. It was good, though.

Cinnamon Buns



Recipe from edible-moments.blogspot.com
Half of the recipe I used straight away and half I put in the freezer. Both batches were tasty, but the freezer batch was even more so.
The author of this recipe didn't specify how thick to roll out the dough and I definitely went overboard with the rolling pin. Next time I will stop myself at about 1 - 1.5 cm to make them more fluffy like her's.

Jogging time, folks. We had roasted potato fries with miso gravy for lunch. Guiiilty.

Quinoa ratatouille, tabouleh & oreos.

Ratatouille with Quinoa


Mister Mustard coordinating his outfit to his cooking endeavours.



We make ratatouille a lot in our house. It will absolutely be made again, and next time it will be accompanied by a recipe!
This was both of our first times eating quinoa. It's curly! And sticky. And distinctively very yummy.


Homemade iced tea. New obsession as it gets warmer.

Tabouleh



Mister Mustard's Tabouleh

1 chopped tomato
1/2 English cucumber, chopped
1/2 chopped red pepper
3 green onions, white & light green bits sliced thinly
1 avocado, chopped (optional. it wasn't used in this picture here, but it's really tasty)
raisins (optional)
chopped parsley (optional)
3-4 servings of cooked couscous

dressing:
Mix in a separate small bowl or measuring cup
2:1 ratio of olive oil : lemon juice (about 1/3 - 1/2 C in total? he said he doesn't know)
salt
pepper
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp paprika
2 tsp dill (I love it, but the Mister hates it, so add accordingly)

Mix together in a big bowl and eat it up! Mister Mustard served it with hummous and tortilla chips.

**Really, we just add whatever vegetable we have in the fridge and think would taste good.

Homemade Oreos



Does using raw, organic sugar instead of 'ol white, refined sugar make a difference in baking? It sure seems to for me. I could feel the crystals in these and it put me off, but the taste was amazing! So I will be trying these again. Either with un-hippyfied sugar or some kind of powder like sucrose or Splenda or something fancy and chemical like that.

Something else I would change (back), is the method of forming the cookies. In the recipe I'm linking to here, she forms them individually (which I thought was a waste of time!), so I rolled my dough into a log, threw it in the fridge and then sliced it. Do it her way. I think they will turn out more compact and less full of air holes. Because Oreos don't have air holes.

I've had a bit of trouble but I do urge you to try these! They are very tasty and the filling is much better than the original. So easy as well. Everybody wins.

Recipe from cupcakeproject.com

PS The only things I made in this episode were the iced tea (go me!) and the oreos. So, thank you Mister Mustard for your yummy lunches and dinners!

Black Bean Pumpkin Soup & Brownies

Black Bean Pumpkin Soup




If you take a gander at the (adapted) recipe from smittenkitchen.com, you'll quickly say to yourself
"woah, Missus Mustard, what did you do to it?"
Yeah, yeah. My aforementioned compulsion of recipe changing sometimes gets the best of me. This soup and yesterday's, ahem, adventure of using up the rest of the canned pumkpin I used for this soup to make muffins (no this, no that plus too much pumpkin and applesauce makes for some funky (though still edible) muffins) are just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Usually I can follow my nose and turn out spot-on, though radically different than intended, dishes.
But sometimes. Sometimes...

Lessons learned: PRECOOK DRIED BEANS. Soaking alone is not enough.


Dessert: brownies. With Reese chips.
Recipe adapted from doughmesstic.blogspot.com
They turned out so-so. Much better the day after, though.

Toskanische Tomaten-Brot-Suppe & Apple Pie

Toskanische Tomaten-Brot-Suppe


Leftover bread = mandatory bread soup. Made by Mister Mustard!
(If you should be so inspired, and happen to have old bread, give me a shout and I'll translate the recipe from German for you. Mum?)
Recipe from a Swiss magazine, Annemarie Wildeisen's Kochen.

My First Apple Pie




And it tasted great. Except next time I will somehow try to prevent the apples from turning to applesauce. Thicker slices? Cooler syrup? I don't know. But I do know that cutting all those apples up only to have them turn to mush was quite disappointing.

Crust recipe from smittenkitchen.com
Filling recipe from allrecipes.com

No cooking tonight. Yam tempura sushi with spicy cream cheese and potato crisps. It may sound off, but oh no. DELICIOUS.