Quick dessert; shortcake the way you like it! 

Monday, August 8, 2011 at 12:14AM

  This is the easiest dessert: no baking necessary. You can whisk a beautiful and tasty creation like this one in less than 5 minutes. The best about it is that is you can modify this recipe as your liking. If you don't like strawberry you change the fruits for blueberries, peaches or raspberries. It is a ideal dessert for hot summer; it is not heavy and rich as other cake can be. This dessert is fruity, colorful and beautiful.  You won't need to bake anything and I can guarantee that everyone in your family will love it! Pick an ingredient from each categorie and meet me at the recipe section.

Ingredients
- 1 cup of sugar
Cake
- Hostess Already Bake Shortcakes
or
-1 package SARA LEE pound cake
or
- Any shortcake cake
Filling
- 4 cups whip cream
or
- 1 container of cool whip
or
- 4 cups of vanilla pudding or custard
Fruits
- Fresh cut strawberries
or
- Blueberries, raspberries or blackberries.
or
- Peach, pears, apples.

Recipe
1- Wash your fresh fruits and slice them thin, cutting the stems out.
2- In a bowl add your fruits and add 1 cup of sugar.
3- Mix the sugar with the fruits until the sugar is completely absorbed.
4- Let the fruits rest for 20 minutes until the juices are coming out with the sugar making a nice glaze.
5- Lay you cake on a plate
6- Add the filling of your choice
7- Top with the fruits mixture and glaze with the juices.
8- Add any of the garnish below !

Garnish ideas
- Drizzle with dark chocolate shaving.
- Add a layer of jam in between the cake and the filling.
- Add almond or candied pecans.
- For strawberry shortcake, drizzle balsamic vinegar reduction! It''s delicious!
- Drizzle with maple syrup and cover with maple sugar!

A bit of cooking

Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 11:02PM

I spend most of this week cooking and I will have a lot of recipe to share with you this next following week. I wanted to share with you that I will now start to actively garden. I was able to have a space in a near community garden and decided that better later than never. I will take picture of my garden progress as I go along.Just question to make your mouth water until then check out the pictures of mynew creation. Like I said the recipes will be coming this following week !
Enjoy with your eyes !

   
Fanny's creation: Spanakopita without the pita 
 
 Jars : Cherry Jam and Spaghetti Sauce 

   Normandie- Dutch Pie 
Cooking for friends

Lunch at Annie

Double dark chocolate cupcakes

 

French Onion Soup Annie's style !

Saturday, July 16, 2011 at 09:54AM

This next dish is good pretty much any time of the year, but you will especially like it during the winter month. It has been one of my favorite since I was a child and I can't say I never had a problem with onions. I would say that, even to this day, the onion is still one of my favorite vegetable. This version of the French onion soup is so easy to make, anyone can make it in less than 15 minutes. Here is the recipe for the French onion soup, Annie's style.

Ingredients
- 1/4 cup of butter
- 2-3 medium onions, sliced in stick of about 1/2 inch each
- Three cans of condensed beef broth
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1/2 cup of red wine (optional)
- Thick white bread / French Baguette / Crouton / Melba Toast
- Swiss cheese in slice or grated mozzarella cheese

Recipe
1 - At low medium heat, melt the butter in a large pan (Min 6 cups). One the butter melted add the onions. Do not overcook the onion. Set a low-medium and cook for 10 minutes. The onions will be trans lucid.
2- Add sugar and stir well. Add the red wine and beef broth. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.
3- Cut the bread in slice of approximately 1 inch thick and big enough to cover your oven safe bowl. If you are using baguette, cut the baguette in half first. Then, cut the piece to the desired size. Bake your bread about 10 minutes in the oven at 350 degree F or until browned. If you do not have bread, you may use crouton or melba toast. Do not bake these.
4- Pour the soup mixture into the oven safe bowl and make sure to leave about 2 inch of room at the top. Place the toasted bread slice on the top of the soup. Add either 1 slice of Swiss Cheese or some grated mozzarella cheese.
5- Bake at 425 degree F on Broil until cheese is melted and lightly browned and bubbly.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm still there

Monday, July 11, 2011 at 01:11PM

I decided to make a list of recipe I feel was missing from this site. I have got some great food item that I  am sure you will enjoy. it's the summer right now, it's time for fresh food. There is nothing more in the world that I like then going picking fresh vegetables and fruits. I love making jam, making pie, bread, eat fresh and healthy.
This recipe remind me of summertime in my family, my grandma would paint in her own picked seashell and my mother would cook in it. They would use the large seashell, open them and clean them. They would use the shell as a decorative place for an amazing recipe called coquille St-Jacques. To this day it is still the best food I ever had.

Here is the recipe

Ingredients
Base
- half pound bay scallops
- half pound baby shrimps
- 1 cup white wine
- Parsley
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1 pound mushroom
- 1 green onion minced
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 small onion minced
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon of water
Sauce
 - 1/8 cup butter

- 1/8 cup flour

- 1/2 cup of half and half cream (15%)

- 1 egg yolk

Topping

- 4 large potatoes mashed

- Gruyere or white cheddar cheese

Recipe

1- First, mix wine with the 1 bay leaf and 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley, bring to a boil. Chop the scallops in medium size pieces and add to the wine mixture. Add the baby shrimp to the mixture. Cook for 4 minutes, remove and reserve liquid.

2- Melt the butter in a large skillet, cut the mushroom in small pieces and add to the melted butter. Add the green onions, onion, water and simmer for 10 minutes.

3- In a skillet melt the butter for the sauce. add the flour. Pour the liquid left from step one and simmer until mixture has thicken. Remove from heat, add the egg yolk and the cream. Mix well until smooth and add salt and pepper.

4- Add the seafood and mushrooms to the cream made in step 3. Fill the shells or other mold with the mixture.

5- With a piping tool , cover the shell with mashed potatoes starting by the sides first. Cover with cheese.

6- Brown the cheese at 400 degree F in the oven for 15 minutes.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let's move on!

Friday, June 17, 2011 at 02:22PM

I haven't posted in the while due to vacations, playoff and work. Now that it is things of the past, I am glad to be sharing some more recipes with you. I am going to introduce you to the French Canadian way of doing Chinese hotpot. We call it " fondue Chinoise", which is not really Chinese but I think it might of been inspired by their technique. This recipe would originally come from North of China. It was and still is a meal that is meant to be share by multiple peoples similar to the "fondue bourguignon" or "la raclette". It has the property of being low in calorie due to the fact that the oil is replace by water. The original Chinese fondue does not have meat in it and only fish, we have adapted it to our liking and there is as many alternative to this fondue as there is region in Quebec.
With the Quebec fondue, each guest have their own little place. The hot pot is located at the middle of the table and each guest is provided with long and thin metal fork to boil their concoction. It is made of a few different things.
1- Broth
The broth can be either store bought in the form of can under the name Canton. If you conscious of sodium, you may want to make your own. I will put my recipe below.
2- Vegetables
You will want to have mushrooms cut in pieces, broccoli, cauliflowers and oven baked potatoes.
3- Meat
You will need thinly slices beef tenderloin or chicken. In Quebec it can be asked in any major grocery store. Anywhere else, if you have the Chinese hot pot beef or chicken, that will do. It his so thin that the meat need to be frozen in order to be able to slice it properly.
4- Sauce
We love our sauce as you probably know it. You can buy in store store already made sauce to dip you meat in once it has been cooked. One of the popular sauce is The Royale Sauce. I will give you also the recipe below.
5- Cheese
You need cheddar cheese, brie, gruyere. You will need to cut them in small cube. You will need to make a little package with the cheese inside the uncooked meat. Then you will put it in the broth, the meat will cook and the cheese will melt inside. You take it out and dip it in the sauce. It's really delicious.
You can serve this with the baked potatoes, salad and bread. This meal is made to be consumed slowly as it does take time to cook.
If you want to know what a fondue set look like click on this link.

Quebec fondu broth
- 4 cups of water
- 2 cube of chicken stock
- 3 cube of beef stock
- 1/2 onion minced
- 2 garlic clove minced
- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon of hot sauce
- 1 teaspoon of thyme, oregano, celery salt, pepper.
Mix everything well together in a pot until boiling.

Royale dip
- 1/2 cup of Ketchup
- 1/2 cup of sunflowers seed oil
- 1/2 cup of sesame seed oil
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- 1/2 cup of soy sauce
Mix everything together really well. Pour into small individual bowl for each guest.