Salmon Cakes with Dijon Cumin Aioli January 19, 2009

OMG! Suddenly you have people coming over! You’re in a rush, and you have to make something fancy for dinner! Your father is judging you! Judging you as you frantically search the cupboards for something tasty, fast and healthy…

This happened to me, so I whipped these up, and they were a big hit! Also, really tasty, and pretty good for you.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of salmon
• 1 clove garlic, very finely chopped
• 1/4 cup very finely chopped onion
• 1/2 a big zucchini, grated and with most of the moisture squeezed out (see below)
• salt, pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup egg whites, just to bind everything together
• Dijon Cumin Aioli for garnish

Method:

1. Chop up the garlic and onion, then add it to a bowl.
2. Drain the canned salmon really well, and pick out any big bones, dump into a bowl with the garlic and onion, add salt and pepper
3. Grate your zucchini, and spread it into a tea towel. Now wring the crap out of that tea towel to get lots of the moisture out. Repeat, then add the zucchini to the bowl too. This is about 1 cup of zucchini when I do it.
4. Mix everything together, and add the egg white a bit at a time to help it stick. 
5. Take 2 tbsps of the mixture at a time and press into cakes. You may need to squish extra moisture out towards the end. I get 12 cakes, about 2 inches across. 
6. Fry in a hot non-stick pan with some pam until golden brown.
7. Serve with Aioli!

Dijon Cumin Aioli

In a bowl, mix together:

• 2 tbsp miracle whip
• 1 tsp whole grain dijon mustard
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp cumin 

Spoon into a sandwich bag, nip the corner off with some scissors, and then pipe onto finished salmon cakes.

 

Frying the salmon cakes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden brown!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YUM! He's so happy I'm going to eat him!!

Quick Salad – Spinach, Shrimp and Blueberry with Dijon Dressing January 19, 2009

No picture on this one because it’s a really quick prep, and I already ate it. So sorry. 

This is another one of those “what can I eat? What do I have currently in my fridge/freezer, because frankly, I’m lazy, and I’ve already left the house once today my knee hurts.”

Well, you might not have said that, but I certainly did. 

So take:

• 4 handfuls of spinach
• 1/3 cup blueberries
• 7-8 shrimp, sauteed 
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tsp rice wine vinegar

And then:

Put the spinach on a plate. Add the blueberries, then the sauteed prawns. 

In another small bowl, stir together the mustard and the vinegar. Pour the mixture over the spinach and blueberries.

Enjoy!

Whole Wheat Pear Lychee Green Tea Muffins January 16, 2009

I like muffins. I really like them. They’re good gifts, they’re tasty, and not too sweet. However, I hate buying muffins because they’re awful for you. So I make my own – that way I can control how much sugar and fat goes in them. I am a crazy lady sometimes.

Anyhow, I thought this recipe up while driving home from the ferry terminal,and thinking, I should make something tasty for Graham. What do I have? Not a lot… But I really like green tea…  

This is adapated from a classic recipe standby – the Five Roses basic muffin mix.

For non-Canadians, or non-old farts such as myself, Five Roses is a brand of flour, and some time in the fifties, they put out their iconic cookbook. It’s filled with great mid-century recipes, so that means including great things like basic cake and muffin recipes that don’t call for a quart of low fat yogurt, it’s also got stuff like “how to prepare squirrel”, and recipes for all our favourite now terribly out of style treats like head cheese and jello molds. It even has a few recipes for things like Spaghetti – listed under the “foreign fare” section. It may be common for us to toss some penne and some fresh basil and tomatoes together now for dinner, and finish it with some olive oil and a bit of parmesan, but in the fifties, that was just not done. And if it was, you got plenty of advanced warning in case you didn’t like this weird food.

ANYHOW – muffins. Here’s my green tea muffins recipe, and then 2 variations. We ate a couple of muffins, and then split two of these in half, and topped each half with whipped cream and blueberries. Green tea and blueberry shortcake!

Supplies:

• 2 Tetley brand Pear Lychee green tea bags
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup  liquid egg whites (or, 2 whole large eggs)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup sugar (or splenda)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Rip open your tea bags, and dump out the tea into a measuring cup. Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and set aside to cool down. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine flour, salt, sugar, baking powder in a large bowl.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix eggs, vanilla, oil and cool tea. At this point you’re saying “there is loose tea in my mix. There is going to be tea in my muffins! What the hell?! Just go with it.
4. All at once, stir wet ingredients into dry, and now plop into well greased muffin tins.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes until done. Mine took 16 minutes. You should get either 10 small muffins or 8 bigger ones out of this recipe.

Variation 1: Lindsey’s Ray of Sunshine Fruit and Almond Muffins

• replace whole wheat flour with white flour
• replace tea with 1 cup milk
• skip egg substitute and replace with 2 whole eggs
• increase oil to 1/4 cup
• reduce sugar to 2 tbsp
• add 3 tbsp apricot jam or marmalade to the wet ingredients
• stir in: 2/3 cup slivered almonds and 2/3 cup dried fruit trail mix (the kind with dried cranberries works well – the dried fruit should be chopped into little squares when you buy it) into dry ingredients 
• Follow all the same directions as above, including baking time. This will make 12 muffins no problem.

Strawberry Raspberry Zinger Muffins

• replace green tea bags with 2 herbal raspberry flavoured bags
• add 1 cup chopped frozen strawberries to mix
• flour should be half whole wheat, half regular.

Lunchtime Bliss Muffins

• reduce sugar to 2 tbsp
• add 1 chopped up pear
• increase oil to 1/4 cup
• add 2/3 of a large bar dark chocolate to mixture (I used 85%)

 

Shortcake, but with green tea muffins, whipped cream and blueberries!