Super Lime Bars #SundaySupper

It's almost St. Patrick's day, and whether you're Irish or not, green is the colour of the week. Luckily for us foodies (especially us veggie-lovers), the colour green is quite plentiful in the edible world - any trip to your standard grocery store's produce section will provide you with every shade under the sun. I adore almost every green thing on offer - but when it comes to desserts, there are really only three green-tinged items I use: granny smith apples, pears and limes.

Being a family of citrus lovers, for this green #SundaySupper there was clearly only one option.With limes of all sorts in season right now, their tangy, bright flavour is too good to pass up! While the zest is critical for flavour and colour (at least for the glaze), the juice also plays a critical role in keeping the sweetness factor down. I actually used a blend of limes in this - key limes in the glaze and Persian (aka "regular") limes in the cake, and the medley had a flavour all its own. To really make these healthier bars stand out on the dessert tray, I used Kamut flour for a rich, almost buttery flavour and colour, and added a touch of Greek yogurt for extra moisture. As a nod to my mom (it's her birthday today!) a dose of custard powder added a "key lime pie" flavour and a pillowy softness I've yet to find in any other cake.

Forget St. Patty - I'm eating this by myself!

Best Breakfasts

• Get Your Greens Smoothie by Hardly A Goddess
• Green Breakfast Omelet Bites by Momma’s Meals
• Green Eggs and Ham by Feeding Big
• Green Scrambled Eggs with Ham by Cricket’s Confections
• Kuku Sabzi – Persian Herb Frittata by Caroline’s Cooking
• Matcha Overnight Oats by Brunch-n-Bites
• Southwest Breakfast Spinach Wrap by The Freshman Cook
• Super Green Smoothie by Simple and Savory

 

Must Make Main Dishes

• Chicken Paillard Arugula Truffle Salad by Family Foodie
• Gambian Spinach with Peanut Sauce by Tara’s Multicultural Table
• Grilled Lettuce and Steak Salad by Sunday Supper Movement
• Pan Roasted Cod on Spinach Basil Risotto with Lemon Butter Sauce by Positively Stacey
• Poached Cod with Pesto Wine Sauce by Life Tastes Good
• Potato Leek Skillet Pizza by A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
• Sautéed Garlic and Parmesan Chicken With Spinach by My Sweet Savings
• Skinny Reuben Wraps with Homemade 1000 Island Dressing by For the Love of Food
• Tequila Chicken Salad by Cosmopolitan Cornbread

 

Scrumptious Salads

• Brussels Sprout and Kale Salad by Pies and Plots
• Green Goddess Bibb Salad by Palatable Pastime
• Pixie Dust Salad with Avocados, Pixie Tangerines and Radishes by Shockingly Delicious
• Quinoa Tabbouleh by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Sesame Wedge Salad with Key Lime Vinaigrette & Pickled Green Tomatoes by Gourmet Everyday
• Shades of Green Salad by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Zucchini Carpaccio Salad by The Bitter Side of Sweet

 

Stunning Sides

• Colcannon by Wholistic Woman
• Green Goddess Dip by From the Bookshelf
• Grilled Cabbage with Spicy Lime Dressing by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Irish Cabbage by Turnips 2 Tangerines
• Miso Roasted Broccoli by Life Currents
• Pistachio Parmesan Oven Fries by Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts by Books n’ Cooks
• Soy Glazed Sugar Snap Peas by Food Lust People Love
• Spinach Tots by A Mind “Full” Mom
• Warm Brussels Sprout Slaw by Jersey Girl Cooks

 

Dreamy Desserts

• Matcha Mint Coconut Candy by My Life Cookbook
• Super Lime Bars by What Smells So Good?

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Piri Piri Sauce

This weekend marks the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, which (for most of us) also translates into a few days of total disorientation as the clocks move forward and we lose an hour of sleep. Luckily for the kids (and us teachers), the shift happens over March Break - so while it's irritating to wake up an hour later than you wanted to, we're not sabotaging our work cycles too much. 

That said, when I need to wake up my brain - whether it be first thing in the morning or before pulling an all-nighter of marking, writing or lesson planning - my tried and true remedy has always been something spicy. Nothing sets your neurons firing like a dollop of wasabi or searing hot pepper sauce mixed with rice or grains, and last year (with a garden and a half overflowing with hot chilies), I got to try my hand at making and tasting a handful of variations. One that was first on my list was piri piri sauce - essentially a Portuguese twist on Tabasco, made with layers of flavour - chilies, garlic herbs and lemon all feature heavily. My dad had turned me onto the bottled stuff after mentioning his experience with it during workplace lunches, and after consulting a few blogs and my copy of The Chile Pepper Bible, I set to work with the myriad of peppers and herbs I had stashed in my freezer.

Now, when people make "authentic" piri piri, they often add fish sauce for the salty, pungent flavour. However, to keep things vegan (and avoid it going wonky in the fridge or freezer) I used fish mint instead, which provides the flavour without the animal products. I also used some lemon balm for an extra burst of citrus. After letting the mixture infuse and mellow a few days in the fridge, I made my mom a grilled turkey burger with a spoonful mixed into the meat as a tester - it almost, but not quite, blew her head off spice wise! Luckily, this condiment is often diluted a bit and used more as a marinade than anything else, so when used as intended it just adds a nice low burn than a dynamite explosion in your throat.

Vanilla Clementine Marmalade Toast Topper #76

It's been ages since I've posted one of my infamous Toast Toppers. Over the summer last year, I made and canned a ton of things to savour over the chilly winter season, and now we're finally rounding the corner on the sauces and savoury toppings lining the shelves. That said, I didn't get much of a chance to do a lot with fruit last year - I made a few things with peaches during the two weeks or so they were any good, but ran out of steam after picking pounds upon pounds of both wine and Concord grapes from the backyard vines. Now that we're in March, the memory of sweet, juicy fruit is bordering on torture, especially when I can see fellow bloggers down south enjoying first of the season berries!

Finally, there was no getting around it - the jam jars were empty, and since we're now spoiled by homemade jam and jelly, a jar of storebought spread just isn't the same in the morning. But what to preserve when nothing is growing? Thankfully, decent international shipping means that winter here is citrus season - Meyer lemons, blood oranges, clementines... almost all of them. I decided to utilize a few clementines (a childhood favourite) to make this small-batch marmalade.

Unlike most jams, marmalade is set by the natural pectin in citrus seeds and pith combining with sugar. I'm not going to lie - this spread is much higher in sugar than my normal Toast Toppers, but a little goes a long way because the flavour is so pronounced. To up the ante even more, I went more of a "creamsicle" route by adding vanilla sugar as half the sweetener. The vanilla added just the right amount of floral, comfortingly classic flavour to the batch, making it not only great on a morning bagel, but with scones or even stirred into yogurt (mom's favourite). The whole process takes time, but very minimal involvement with the exceptions of stirring occasionally and checking your thermometer. Not a bad trade-off, I would say!

Big Batch Honey-Wheat Bread

As someone who doesn't eat bread, I sure have a love for making it. There's something about it's versatility, it's living (and essentially) breathing nature, and of course it's sheer aroma as its made and bakes to crusty perfection. However, I'll admit that I don't make it as traditionally as my mom and grandfather do and did - I've yet to develop satisfactorily Olympian-swimmer arm and shoulder muscles to adequately knead the denser whole grain loaves my mom loves to eat, so my stand mixer is my best friend in that respect.

Now, my stand mixer is a beast - it's a professional-grade 7 qt KitchenAid that weighs a ton (officially 25 lbs) and never moves from it's spot on my counter. Because of it's size, though, it rarely gets to show its true prowess, as while it's great for the preliminary kneading of single-loaf dough, I still wind up doing a lot of the final kneading. Obviously, bigger batches of dough were the way to go - and a quadruple batch of hearty, 100% whole grain bread fit the bill perfectly! What I love about making such huge batches at a time is that I can freeze "portion pack" balls of dough for months and pull them out when we need fresh bread but I don't feel like fussing with the ingredients and kneading.

We never get tired of it, since as I mentioned before bread is almost infinitely versatile - the first loaf I made with this batch was studded with rock sugar and shaped into a boule, which came out perfectly sweet and just crusty enough for a great PB & J, while being absorbent enough for a killer French toast. Other loaves were filled with cheese, trail mix, or swirls of spice. I even took my last two balls of dough and added cocoa and chocolate chips to one half, orange zest and extract to the other and twisted them together into a decadent and dessert-worthy loaf.

My favourite part of making this bread these days is using my own home-ground, sprouted wheat flour (which I now store in one of my Infinity Jars). It's infinitely worth either buying or grinding sprouted wheat flour to use as part of any loaf - it lends a delicate sweetness that overrides any possible bitterness the whole wheat might impart (I've never found any regardless, but the earthy sweetness is nice). In my experience, sprouted flour also feeds sourdough starter better than plain ol' flour does. I guess I'm spoiled now!

A final note - measuring by weight is 100% your friend here... unless you want to scoop out 15 cups of flour by hand!

Simple Decorating Icing

March kicks off a massive round of birthday parties around here. My grandmother's is first - and while the day itself is in February we usually celebrate it alongside my Mom's a month later in mid-March. My dad and his girlfriend's birthdays chase right after that, followed a week later by mine and finally my sister's eight days later. Factor in Easter, my uncle and my cousin's birthdays in the same 30 day window and you can see why by May I feel like a (very poor) walking cloud of sugar, chocolate and flour! 

While my mom's cake is in the works as we speak (it's a multi-day preparation with vanilla bean frosting, chocolate decorations and a multi-layered buttermilk sponge), my sister also got her baking game on this past weekend for a fundraiser at her work. Apparently, many veterinary  offices around the country celebrate "cupcake day", where employees bake and sell cupcakes to raise money for local animal shelters. Being a lover of all things furry, it was hard for her to choose something to put on her cupcakes, but seeing as we have 10 (adorable) rats at home I think she was well advised to choose one of them as her model. Originally, for simplicity's sake, she was going to rely on tubes of decorator icing, but a scouring of four local groceries yielded no white. Finally, I offered to whip her up a batch of mine - not only is it pure white, but lightning-fast to make, perfect for piping and (IMHO) better tasting, even when left unadorned. Of course, feel free to add flavouring or colouring as needed!

Frosting made, the cupcakes below were soon whipped up and decorated without a hitch. I think they looked great - how about you?