Butternut squash roast chicken in La Cloche

One thing I like about winter is the winter veggies. Butternut squash is probably one of my favourite

For an easy to make dinner, I decided to roast my chicken with the squash in the La Cloche.
It only takes about an hour to an hour and 15 mins depending on the size of your chicken. It allows you time to do other things while it's baking and you get a nice and moist chicken when it's all said and done.
Simple and delicious. 

Ingredients

• 1 Whole chicken
• 1-2 Tbsp Minced Garlic
• 1 tsp Oregano
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 butternut squash
• 1 1/2 tsp Olive oil

Directions 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 Degrees F.
2. Wash the chicken
3. Put 1/2 tbsp of garlic, 1/2 tsp of oregano and 1/2 tsp olive oil on your hand and rub it in-between the skin and the breast meat under the chicken if you're able reach in without breaking
   
   skin. This is similar to what I do to turkey but the chicken skin is much more delicate so I try to be more careful.
4. Salt and pepper the entire chicken and rub 1/2 tbsp garlic and 1/2 tsp oregano over the skin of the chicken.
5. Set it in the la cloche
6. Take the butternut squash and peel it with a peeler.
7. Cut it in half and scoop out the seeds and stingy inside with a spoon.
8. Cut it down to strips about 3/4 inch thick
9. Toss the squash with the rest of the garlic 1 tsp of olive oil and salt and pepper.
10. Put the squash around the chicken. I even put a couple of slices on top of the chicken breast.
11. Cook with the la cloche covered for 45-55 mins depending on your bird size
12. Take off the lid and let it cook for an other 15 mins for color.

Then you're done :)

Slow Roast Coconut Cauliflower

I think this has to be one of the simplest ways to make cauliflower. Especially if you already have the oven going to cook something else. Just add in an extra rack and put this on top.

I had wanted to try cooking with coconut oil because it's supposed to be good for you. I brought it but haven't used it beyond making popcorn so I decided to try with the cauliflower.
The aroma was very nice but it did not taste very strong in coconut flavour. So if you want stronger coconut flavour, you'll probably need to add some coconut flakes.

Since I usually bake the cauliflower only if I'm baking something else (ie chicken etc), the heat in the direction below is alter for that.
If the only thing you're baking is the cauliflower, you can bake it at 400 degrees F for 25-30 mins instead of the lower heat.

Slow Roast Coconut Cauliflower

Ingredients

• 1 Cauliflower
• 1 tsp Coconut Oil
• Sprinkle of Salt
• Sprinkle of Pepper

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and add that second rack for the cauliflower.
2. While the oven is preheating, remove the leaves of the cauliflower.
3. Wash your cauliflower in salt and water. Let it soak in case there are bugs so they'll come out.
4. Once you've had a good soaking, peel the outer layer of the stem because it tends to be too hard to eat. 
   
5. Cut up the cauliflower and it's stem into bite size pieces. 
6. Throw into a baking dish.
7. Salt and pepper the dish and mix it up.
8. Add bits and pieces of the coconut oil on top of the cauliflower and spread around as much as possible so that when it melts, it will cover all the cauliflower.
9. Bake it for 45 mins to an hour in the top rack, pending on how soft you like your cauliflower

Tip: The length of time in your oven will really depend on things like is your oven convection or not to determine how well hot air gets circulated around the different dishes you have in the oven. If you don't have a convection oven, it will take longer since it's on the top shelf. Try to stagger the dish so they're not completely on top of each other and flip it around half way through so both sides gets even cooking.

Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Fall is time for pumpkins and all the wonderful winter squashes. I love pumpkin soup. It's yummy on it's own or as a soup base for noodles. If you want to use it with noodles, try cooking frozen Udon noodles in with the soup. 

The first time I made pumpkin soup, I just cut it up, peeled, boiled and blended it. The roasting method takes a little longer but I find it's less work overall because peeling can be a pain. It also adds another flavour to the soup because it's now roasted.

This recipe will make everything from scratch including the soup base! You can replace the soup base with instant broth if you already have it available.

Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Medium size pumpkin
• 2 onions
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 1 chicken shell
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp garam masala
• pinch of nut meg
• Sprinkle of Savory powder
• Sprinkle of cinnamon powder
• 2-3 L water
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
   
2. Cut the pumpkin in half and use a spoon to the scrap of the insides. (save seeds to roast for pumpkin seed snack)
3. Cut the pumpkin into smaller pieces and line them into baking trays. If there's an empty space, add the onions as well. There's no need to cut up the onion.
4. Add a bit of water to the trays and then put it into the preheated oven to bake. Baking process should take 30 min to an hour depending on your oven, size of your pumpkin etc.
5. While the pumpkin is baking, get your soup base ready. Start with 2L of water in a pot and bring it to a boil.
6. Add the chicken shell to the water along with the bay leaves and let it simmer for the entire time you bake the pumpkin. Add more water as necessary. 
7. You can poke the pumpkin with a fork to test it's readiness. Once it's soft it's ready for blending.
   
8. If you have a blender that can withstand heat, use a spoon and scrape the pumpkin meat right into the blender. Add a little bit of the chicken stock to help it blend.
   If you do not have a blender that can withstand heat, scoop all the pumpkin meat into a big bowl to let it cool. Blend after it's cooled.
9. Once you're done blending the pumpkin, blend the onion with the garlic as well using the same method.
10. Remove the chicken shell from the stock and add the pumpkin and onion puree into the pot with the chicken stock.
11. Add the cumin, garam masala and nut meg and sprinkle savory and cinnamon powder. Let the mixture simmer for 5-10 mins for the flavours to combine together.
12. Taste and add as much salt as you want to bring out the flavours.

Yummy on it's own or as a soup base for Udon noodles!!!

Enjoy!

Shrimp Tacos in 30 mins

Have you ever been in a situation where you buy something for 1 recipe and have lots of left overs you have to finish?
We brought a bag of avocado for something but only needed 1, so I had to think of a way to use the rest.
I had a package of frozen shrimp in the freezer so I decided to make tacos for dinner.
Shrimp is a great choice when you need a fast meal because it marinates in a very short period of time and it cooks very fast.

Shrimp Tacos

Makes 12 tacos Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 5 mins

Ingredients

• 1 package of Shrimp (400g of shelled and deveined shrimp)
• 1/2 TBSP Mango Chipotle Seasoning
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 package of taco shells (12 hard or soft shells)
• 1.5 cups of shredded lettuce
• 2 avocado
• 1/3 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 2 tbsp diced red onion
• salsa

Directions

1. The first thing to do is rinse the shrimp under cold water and marinate it with the Mango Chipotle seasoning.
2. While the shrimp is marinating, wash the lettuce and cut into strips.
3. Grate the Cheese
4. Dice 1/5 of a red onion
5. Cut an avocado in half and pull it apart. Remove the seed. I like to cut the avocado while it's still in the shell before I cut it out. It's easier to dice up that way. So while it's in the shell, I made 4 cuts vertically and 6-7 cuts horizontally. Then I take my knife and using the hole the seed left behind, I cut out the blocks of avocado from there. To remove avocado from shell, take either a spoon or your knife and slice along the edge.
6. 10-15 mins should have passed since you first started washing and cutting things. This is perfect time to cook your shrimp.
7. Heat up your pan to medium high heat.
8. Once the pan is hot, add oil and the garlic. Stir until you smell that garlic smell. Once you smell that nice cook garlic smell, add the shrimp.
9. Stir the shrimp around to ensure even cooking.Once all the shrimp changes color and shrinks a little it's cooked. Should be less then 5 mins.

Then the fun begins to assemble your taco :)

Mozzarella Stuffed Turkey Meatballs with Chia Seeds

Chia Seeds were recently on sale so I decided to buy some to see what the fuss is all about.
Honestly, it's hard to see the health benefits when you're just trying them out. I think you have to be committed to eating them to really truly see the benefits of switching to Chia.

One of the things I like about Chia Seeds is that it's easy to use.
It's so easy to incorporate since it's tasteless unlike Flaxseed and you DO NOT have to grind it up before you use them.
I can just throw the Chia Seeds into my smoothie in the morning to give it that extra boost without any extra work or throwing off it's taste.

Since it has the abilities to soak up water and gel things up, I figured why not try it in meatballs.
Turkey is healthy, Chia seeds are healthy, lets make a healthy meatball. The gooey cheese in the middle definitely helps counter the lean meat I used and make it moist and tasty.

It's pretty easy and if you lack time, you can skip the browning process in a skillet and just preheat the oven to a higher temp, like 450 degrees F, and cook it for 5 mins before adding the sauce and turning down the heat.

Mozzarella Stuffed Turkey Meatballs with Chia Seeds

Makes 20 meatballs Prep Time 45 mins Cook Time 45 mins

Ingredients 

• 2 lbs ground Turkey
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 Tbsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tsp Oregano
• 1 tsp Parsley
• 1 tsp Basil flakes
• 2 or 3 Tbsp Chia Seeds
• 1/2 garlic powder
• 1 Egg
• 125g Mozzarella Cheese - Cut into 20 cubes
• half a can of pasta sauce

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix together the onion, garlic, salt, pepper, herbs and chia seeds.
2. Add the turkey and mix it in well.
3. Make a hole in the middle and crack the egg in it. Whip the egg.
4. Mix the meat with the egg.
5. Preheat skillet to medium low heat and preheat oven to 350 degree F
6. Grab a handful the meat mixture and press it flat on the palm of your hand.
7. Place a cube of cheese in the middle and curl your hand to make a fist to close the meat ball.
8. Roll it around a bit to make sure it's closed and you can't see any cheese.
9. Place it in the skillet and while it browns, make the next one.
10. Keep on repeating steps 6-9 until you finish using all the meat.
11. Place brown meatballs into a baking pan.
12. Once all the meatballs are browned, add the pasta sauce into the pan.
13. Bake for about 25-30 mins so the meatballs are cooked and the cheese is all melted.

Great on pasta or on it's own :)

Cranberry, Sunflower seeds and Flax Seed Bread

I've been baking bread from the Bread Bible ever since I got it.
There's so many recipes to try but recently I've been playing around with the basic hearth bread recipe (page 305).
What I like about this one is that it has that nice rustic crust I like from artisan bread and because it's a basic recipe, I can use it as a base to try different things.
This is one I've recently finished perfecting and I'm quite happy with this variation.

Toasted slice of bread

You can borrow the book from the library. I found that it was available in both Markham and Toronto.

For this variation, I used half the recipe to create a loaf bread.
I like the loaf bread because I find it easier to cut and it's perfect size for 2 people to eat within 1 week.

Modifications
1. Add 1/3 cup of soaked dried cranberries.
2. Use the water used to soak the dried cranberries as the water the recipe calls for in the dough starter.
3. Add sunflower seeds
4. Add Ground Flaxseeds. (I've done with both whole and ground but I read that it's better to use ground because you can absorb all the benefits Flaxseeds bring vs it going through your system undigested)
5. Baking with La Cloche instead of just straight into the oven.

Method Modifications
In regards to adding the extra ingredients, I added them before the first rise so it has time to meld into the dough.

After Kneading the dough and it's ready, let it rest for 10 mins for the dough to relax.

Then press out the dough into a rectangle.

Do not press too thin or else the seeds and berries will cut right through the dough.

Once it's pressed out, I spread the ground flax seeds all over.

Then sprinkled both cranberries and sunflower seeds to cover the dough. (Picture to the Right)

Once that's done, I rolled it up like a jelly roll.
(Picture below)

Connect the ends to make a donut shape and knead softly a couple of times.








Then proceed as the instructions in the recipe.
You can make a round shape loaf or a loaf
If you wish to make a loaf, then follow the instructions for how to roll a loaf bread

The picture below is my loaf without tucked ends. You can tuck the ends to make it look prettier on the ends.

Baking with la cloche
I've tried both starting with a cold oven and starting with a preheated oven.
Some people say the crust is crisper if you preheat the over.
I do agree but honestly if you're scared of the la cloche cracking, go with the cold oven.
I found the baking time different between cold and preheated to be about 10 mins for my oven. It may very pending on how fast your oven heats up, so please check your break before you turn off the oven.

Cold Oven
If you decide to use a cold oven, place the bread in the la cloche with the top on and turn the oven on to 475 degree F.
Once the oven reaches temperature, start the timer for 10 mins then turn it down to 425.
I lifted the lid after 10 mins and only needed to bake it for an other 5 mins and it was done.

Preheated Oven
The Bread Bible will tell you to preheat the oven with the lid inside. The la cloche instructions will just tell you to preheat the oven.
I tried the Bread Bible method and my la cloche did not crack. This will be up to you for how confident you are with cracking or not.
Preheat to 475 degrees F, lid is optional.
Once it's preheated, place the bread in with both la cloche top and bottom and start the timer for 10 mins.
Turn down the heat to 425 and bake for 15 mins.
Lift the lid and cook for about 10 more mins afterwards. Check your bread as it will vary oven to oven.
Cooking time is very similar and to cold oven start. Really depends on how long it takes for your oven to heat up.

Happy baking

Pesto Chicken Baked in La Cloche

I've been having a lot of fun with the la cloche. I found that baking chicken in the la cloche actually helped keep the chicken moist.

I had left over pesto sauce that we made an other day so I decided to use it on the chicken.
I rubbed the sauce in-between the chicken breast and the skin so it would get to the meat directly.
It's my favourite thing to do when baking a turkey and I'm glad it also works for a chicken.

Pesto Chicken Baked in La Cloche

Makes 1 Chicken, Prep time: 15 mins Cook Time: 40-60mins

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Chicken, washed and dried
• 3 carrots
• 3 sticks of celery
• 1 Onion, quartered and 1 quart cut into 1/8
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• Salt and peper
• 1 Tbsp Pesto sauce

Directions

1. Preheat the over to 375 F.
2. Wash and cut all the veggies
3. Placed the washed and dried chicken onto the la cloche dish.
4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and rubbed it in.
5. Use your hand to separate the skin from the breast meat of the chicken. The middle part to separate the 2 halves of the breast will stay but that's ok.
6. Use your hands and rub the pesto sauce on the breast meat under the skin. This will help marinate the meat directly
7. Put a quarter of the onion and half the garlic in the tummy of the chicken.
8. Rub the rest of the garlic along with left over pesto sauce onto rest of the chicken (the legs, wings and back)
9. Sprinkle the veggies around the chicken.
10. Put it in the oven with the lid on top.
11. For a 1.4kg Chicken, I cooked it for 40 mins covered                                                                               and 15 mins uncovered.

Enjoy

Using La Cloche Bottom for Pizza

I've been playing around with the La Cloche whenever I can and I know one of the things you can do with it is make pizza. If I look at their instructions, they put the pizza into the deep dish itself but if I want to make multiple, I don't know how to get a cooked pizza out and a new one in!

I don't have anything that can dig into the dish itself to get the pizza out so I had to figure out another way to use it.
My husband suggested using it upside down and I was very skeptical because it's bumpy and there's words. I really thought the dough would just stick to the bottom. But we tried it out and it worked great. No sticky at all!

Same pizza beer dough that I normally use, I'll eventually write up a post on it. ;)

When I put on the first pizza, the La Cloche was cold and out of the oven.
The oven was preheated and I put it in at 350 degrees. The dish didn't crack.
Once it was done I just used a normal plate and I lifted the pizza right off.

Getting the second one on was a little tricky since the stone was not hot.
I don't have a bread paddle so it was tricky.
We took the stone out of the oven and quickly put the rolled out dough on the stone.
Then the 2 of us put on all the toppings in less then 3 mins cause we didn't want the stone to get cold.
Then we popped it back in the oven. :)

Next time I'm going to try with my cookie sheet and lots of cornmeal to see if I can slide the pizza off of the sheet onto the plate right away.

Pesto Chicken Beer Crust Pizza

At my parent's house we cook Chinese food every weekday. Since we have all the Chinese seasoning on hand, cooking Chinese food is the easy way out. On weekends my brother and I like to mix things up sometimes if we're not feeling lazy. Pizza surprisingly can be quite labour intensive depending on what type of ingredients you use.

If you use things like pepperoni, already cooked meats, pre-sliced veggie and shredded cheese, then it's super easy.

For this Pizza, I used homemade beer crust dough and Pesto sauce.

I'll eventually write separate posts for those items.

Pesto Chicken Beer Crust Pizza

Makes 1-12 inch pizza, Prep Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 20 - 40 mins

Ingredients

• 300-500g Pizza Dough (Depends on crust thickness and size of pan)
• 1 Chicken thigh meat (sliced and cooked)
• half an onion sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 Tbsp Pesto Sauce (a little more doesn't hurt)
• 200g Mozzarella

Directions

1. If you're making your own pizza dough, make it and let it sit for 30 mins while you prep the rest of your ingredients.
2. While the dough is sitting, slice up the onions and dice up the garlic. Cook in a little bit of oil in a pan on medium heat to slowly caramelize the onion. Doesn't have to be fully caramelize when you use it for this pizza.
3. Cut the chicken meat into small bite size piece. Add to the pan and cook the meat
4. Let your toppings cool
5. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (or to the max heat your pan allows, I like 400 as it makes my crust nice and crunchy)
6. Grate your mozzarella
7. Roll our your pizza to your prefer thickness. The one in the picture above was cracker like because I like my super thin crust pizza.
8. Spread the pesto on the dough. Since this is pesto, cover even the the edges, your crust will taste awesome.
9. Spread a thin layer of cheese
10. Add the chicken, onion and garlic topping.
11. Add the rest of the cheese
12. Bake until the crust is brown and the cheese is all melted. Depending on thickness of your dough, can take anywhere from 20 mins to 45 hour. So keep an eye on it.

Not too complicated. :)