Food

Some days just seem to revolve around food. This used to happen a whole lot more in later times, but I feel I'm getting back into the swing of things in my new home with my new life and I'm enjoying it!

Today I made Ryan and I some fantastic juice with the juicer he got me for Christmas! Oh my I have been enjoying the goodness of fresh juice so much!

Specifically orange juice, but I like to mix it up a bit too. Today's juice was made of:
3 blood oranges (which make any juice a vibrant gorgeous red-pink colour)
2 bananas
3 naval oranges
3 apples

Enough juice for me to have a tall glass and him a short glass and a bit extra to top it up! (he requested a smaller glass, I'm not just greedy ^_~)

The banana adds some real sweetness to the orange juice... he wasn't as much of a fan when I had made the juice with just oranges and grapefruits! A bit of an acquired taste I guess, but I loved it!

This afternoon I got creative and made my first ever savoury Crepes! 

Now, when I was in Jr. High to Highschool, I was a crepe master. I made crepes almost every weekend for breakfast for whoever I had sleeping over or just my family. I even knew the recipe off by heart... But in recent years, what with traveling all over Canada and living in hotels, I haven't made them!

This was kind of a wing it type of cooking adventure.

I made the basic crepe recipe minus the sugar.

Crepes
1 cup flour(I used whole wheat)
1/4 cup sugar(ignore this if making them savoury)
pinch of salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1 Tbsp oil or melted butter

In a medium sized bowl combine flour, sugar and salt. In a small bowl, combine eggs, milk, and oil. Pour into dry ingredients and beat until smooth.
Coat pan in oil on medium heat. When pan is hot pour a bit of batter(I use a ladle full) onto the middle of the pan and tilt the pan in a circular motion to coat with a thin layer of batter. Flip when browned and keep warm on a plate in oven until all are ready.

Meanwhile make a filling! You can make any type you can imagine. Mine was totally improvised based on the ingredients I had in the fridge...
It went a bit like this.
1 lb ground turkey thigh meat
1 small potato, finely chopped(so it cooks quickly)
1 onion, diced
1/2 each red, yellow, green bell peppers, coarsely chopped
3 leaves dinosaur kale, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped

Fry turkey meat on medium heat, when beginning to brown add potato and onion, spices, salt & pepper, etc.(I used some random things.. thyme, braggs, cumin, italian spice mix, chili peppers... whatever you like, really). Fry with lid on, stirring often, until fully cooked. Add peppers, kale and garlic, cook with lid on until peppers are bright and kale is wilted, stirring occasionally. Serve in crepes! Mmmmm, wish I had taken a picture of this!

Then this evening around 7:00 I got the awesome idea to bake cookies! Whipped Shortbread this time! Usually a Christmas time cookie, but as I had done no baking over the holidays I felt that it was suiting.

Whipped Shortbread
1 lb Butter
1/4 cup cornstarch
3 cups flour(I used whole wheat again)
1 cup icing sugar(eventually I'd like to find a delicous healthy alternative that still results in the same smooth texture)
1/2 tsp vanilla(I used almond extract for fun)

Preheat oven to 325. Cream butter. Gradually whip in icing sugar, vanilla, cornstarch, and flour. Drop by tsp onto cookie sheets. Decorate with bits of candy cane, nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, cranberries....etc. Basically anything you want, but those are the things I used.
Bake for 10-15 minutes. Cool and enjoy!