Day #20 Gift > Shortbread Video

Today’s gift to you is a video.  I know you all LOVE the videos.  Well, this one ties in nicely with some previous posts.

Remember when I was at Day #2 of this 29 days of giving thing, that was the day I gave you my recipe for Easy Bar Shortbreads.  I make them every year, only at Christmas time, and they’re easy and very yummy.

Right away, Veggie Club member Suzi tried the recipe, and then she emailed me: “I made your short bread bars for my work Christmas party… and they were a BIG hit.”

On Day #13 I had a preview lesson for the Back-to-Basics class that’s coming up in January.  The little lesson was all about the RIGHT way to measure flour, and there are loads of comments on the blog about that one, thanks!

So today, to tie it all together, I’ve got a video of me making the shortbreads that includes demonstrating the flour measuring part.

I’d be happy if you were to forward this email to anyone you know who might benefit from it, and encourage them to sign up at www.OneRoastVegetable.com to also follow along with the Back-to-Basics lessons (and other great veggie ideas).

Ready to start cooking? Don’t forget to leave a comment below

All best,
Shelley

Day #16 Gift > Back to Basics: Boiling the perfect egg

In January, I’m launching a Back-to-Basics class that covers all those things we (maybe) learned in Home Economics in high school school, but have since forgotten…

I hardly remember any of the calculus I studied, so is it any wonder that we can’t remember other things? (OK, hard boiling an egg is perhaps slightly more useful than rotating an imaginary object in space around the ‘z’ axis, but you get the picture).

Brandi sent me this email:  “If I had to pick something I struggle with, it would be consistently making the perfect hard-cooked egg. The photo of your eggs in the nicoise salad (photo a, below) are the hard cooked eggs of my dreams. Every time I need to make eggs like that, I need to look it up. So the ability to have a quick, printable reference would be fantastic.”

OK, so today’s preview lesson is how to hard boil the perfect egg. Yes, you can do it. Really, you can. You won’t look like an idiot. You won’t have to throw the eggs out. It’ll work. Here’s what I do, and it works every single time for me.

1. Start with a pot and some eggs and some cold water.  Place the eggs in the pot and ALMOST cover with them with cold water. A tiny bit if egg can be showing through the top of the water (photo b, above).

2. Now put your pot on the stove, and turn the heat to high.  When the water comes to a very hard, full boil, remove the pot from element completely, turn off the heat, and let the eggs sit in the water for 15 minutes. (I usually say 13-15, but you can go for 15 just to ensure they’re completely cooked and next time when you have more confidence pull them out at 13-14).  Go for 15 minutes if you want hard boiled eggs for sandwiches, and stop at 13 minutes if you want the yolk to be a tiny bit soft for a salad.

3. At 13 (or 15 minutes), pour off all the hot water, add in a bunch of very cold water to stop the cooking process.  Let sit until cool enough to handle.  Then you can peel and serve.

So to recap, start with cold water, do NOT cover with water completely, once they start to boil hard then you remove them from the heat all together, wait 13-15 minutes (don’t touch the pan). Then change the water to cold water (just until they’re cool enough to peel). Then you can peel and serve   OK, now you’re making me hungry!

All best,
Shelley

PS Lessons in the full “Back-to-Basics” class will include my tricks for making the best hard boiled egg sandwich, as well as foolproof soft-boiled and fried eggs… and oh yeah, I’ve got a really great (and dead simple) recipe for quiche that I can’t wait to share with you. Yippee, this is going to be so much fun!

Shelley’s meal plan (April 12)

Look, I finally have a week without homemade veggie burgers I need a break! Here’s what we were eating this week in the test kitchen:

Monday: Celery roumalade, pâté with pistachios, steak frites. OK, perhaps not the most veggie-filled meal I’ve had this week, but my hero Suzanne Falter-Barnes was in town and we just had to go out for dinner at L’Express and eat our way through the menu (the nice thing about girl-eating is that we shared everything). Do you know Suzanne from her website How Much Joy? I think she’s just the best. Here’s my cleverly disguised affiliate link to her site.

Tuesday: Trial #1 of Beet salad with oranges and goat cheese. This salad wasn’t bad, the vinaigrette was a bit too vinegary for me, and the beet flavour was a bit flat. And I LOVE beets. So I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more beety-punch. I’ll try this recipe again with adjustments.

Thursday: Grant’s chicken (roast chicken with a kicker spice rub), basmati rice, and Tinfoil Carrots which is Recipe 1.11 from The Veggie Club.

Friday: Thai curried chicken, with mushrooms, carrots, and baby red potatoes. Our favourite Friday night, one-pot dinner. This is the recipe that I try to make only every few weeks, but I think André could eat it every night.

Saturday: Trial #3 of Pasta with carrots, beets, feta and white wine. Trying to keep this recipe low fat, but high flavour. Last time I made it with goat cheese and it turned out a bit sticky (and not really low fat…).

Sunday: Vegetarian corn chowder with homemade spicy cheese crackers.

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Are you a member of The Veggie Club? Not yet? I don’t want to torture you, but here’s what you’re missing this week on the private membership site… New article from Doctor Kristie about how to eat well when you’re travelling. A new slide show from ‘yours truly’ on how to prepare Tinfoil Carrots step-by-step. The full version of the Tinfoil Carrots recipe (Recipe 1.11), including nutritional information AND price per serving. Coming tomorrow, I’ll be responding to a letter from Bobbie where she asks “Why bother cooking at all?” Then later this week, a new illustrated recipe for Salad Niçoise (where the key ingredients are green beans, tuna and baby new potatoes). Yikes, it’s a busy week, because then our monthly teleclass on Friday night is “Kill Kitchen Clutter.”

So long as you’re on THIS LIST, you’ll be notified on May 1st when The Veggie Club opens again for new members.

All best and happy veggies,
Shelley (Head Tomato)

Shelley’s menu plan for this week (April 7)

Hi there, just a quick post to let you know what we were eating this week.

MONDAY > Chicken pitas with cucumber and yogurt sauce (this was trial #1, and it wasn’t great, but it gave me some ideas for next time. Maybe marinated chicken with Greek salad in a pita with tzatziki …)

TUESDAY > Lasagne with tomato and sausage. I love this recipe, it’s definitely comfort food, and is great the next day for lunch. It’s missing a veggie or two though, so we save it for special occasions.

WEDNESDAY > I worked in the kitchen at Robin Des Bois, and we had Pasta with spinach and parmesan cheese as our staff meal.

THURSDAY > Lentil Potage, this is recipe 1.7 from The Veggie Club, and it makes great leftovers.

FRIDAY > Trial #4 of Veggie burgers made with lentils and whole wheat bread crumbs. This time they turned out much better than previous versions. I think I’ve finally found a recipe that I can adapt and make better… I stuck a few in the freezer to see how they will reheat.

SATURDAY > Baked pork tenderloin with mustard, served with side of Roast vegetable pasta (with beets and carrots).

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As you can see, we’re eating well this week. And things are busy in the test kitchen night and day! One morning this week I got up early, made myself some PB+banana toast, did the dishes, and then popped a beet into the oven to roast for a future salad. I’ll let you know about that salad when I make it — cold roasted beet with oranges and goat cheese.

Thanks and happy veggies
All best, Shelley (Head Tomato)

PS/ The Veggie Club’s spring fever sale has been extended, and joining the membership site is amazingly inexpensive right now. Yes, for less than the cost of a magazine or a Big Mac meal, you can get access to all of the illustrated recipes and the 30-page ebook “Veggies Made Simple.” Earlier today I posted a slide show on how to make tinfoil carrots. And I know you don’t want to miss that!
http://www.OneRoastVegetable.com

Shelley’s menu plan for this week (March 24)

In my ongoing attempts to keep you entertained, excited, and inspired (OK, maybe it’s not that exciting to read what I’m eating this week, but you never know)… anyway, I have my meal plan ready. (See revolting picture that accompanies Tuesday night’s dinner.) If you see anything in my meal plan that you’d like developed as a recipe for the site, just let me know

MONDAY

Homemade white meat chicken fingers, coleslaw made with celeriac, steamed green beans. The celeriac slaw I’d made before, this was just a fine-tuning. The recipe will be ready for the site, soon.

TUESDAY

50/50 burgers (half ground beef, half beans) on whole wheat buns, served with revolting turnip gratin. The burgers were trial #3 in my attempts to come up with a homemade veggie burger that isn’t pasty. These burgers were quite OK, but not special. The revolting part was the turnip gratin. I found this recipe online (let that be a lesson to me that I can’t rely on other people’s blogs as reliable sources for recipes… some people just can’t cook!). There was much too much liquid and the lovely bitter taste of the turnips became overwhelming retched in this soup. That said, I ate my serving, André had two servings, then we threw out the rest. Grim. I’ll make one more attempt at turnip gratin using a more sophisticated recipe, and then I think I’ll just have to pass…

WEDNESDAY

A quick and easy freezer meal (this week it was spaghetti sauce).

THURSDAY

Baked fish with rice, and Roast Fennel on the side (this is Recipe 1.8 from the Private Members’ site).

FRIDAY

Broiled pork tenderloin with red pepper and snow peas in a soy/honey sauce (this will be trial #1 of this recipe).

If you have any recipes you’d like me to work on, or if you’d like to tell us what you’re eating this week, just post a comment below.

All best and happy veggies,

Shelley (Head Tomato)
www.OneRoastVegetable
“Eat more vegetables”

PS/ Only a few days until you can sign up for the private membership site “The Veggie Club.” Doors open on Tuesday April 1st (no fooling) and will remain open for 3 days only. More info to come this weekend, including a tour of the site, and a case study on recipe development.

Shelley’s menu plan for the week…

One of the topics in the recent teleclass on meal planning was lack of imagination. [If you missed the call, the recording is posted on the blog > http://theveggieclub.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/meal-planning-motivation-audio/] So to help you with imagination, and to inspire your own ideas, I thought I’d share my meal plan with you for this week. It might give you some inspiration, or you might say “oh, gross, she’s eating that?”

MONDAY: Homemade veggie burgers and oven roasted sweet potato fries. This was trial #2 on homemade veggie burgers, with lentils and mushrooms. They were edible but given a thumbs-down by André. I thought they were OK, not great. The oven fries were too soft so I’ll make the slices thinner next time.

TUESDAY: Thai curried chicken with carrots, potatoes, mushrooms. This is one of my favourite one-bowl dinners, and I try not to make it more than once every two weeks but sometimes I can’t resist.

WEDNESDAY: Baked trout with roasted vegetables (beet, celeriac, red onion, carrots). This will be trial #1 of this particular vegetable mix. I’ve roasted carrots in tinfoil successfully, and now I’m going to mix it up a bit. Hopefully the beet juice won’t colour everything purple…

THURSDAY: André is at art class, so we have leftovers, or sometimes I have popcorn for dinner… . Don’t tell anyone.

FRIDAY: Pasta with two kinds of mushrooms, onions, sundried tomatoes. This will be trial #1 where the goal is a great pasta dish that is low in fat, high in veggies, and isn’t tomato-sauce-based.

SATURDAY: Leftovers, sandwiches, or something from the cupboard (tuna-lemon penne, perhaps).

SUNDAY: Homemade vegetable soup with homemade cheese crackers. This soup recipe is the private members’ club, “The Veggie Club” (it’s recipe 1.6) and it’s one of my favourite quick dinners that is fabulous and wowie it’s even healthy, too.

If you’d like to see any of these recipe developed for “The Veggie Club”, just post your comments below. Or any other ideas you might have. Or you can share with us what you’re making this week.

All best, Shelley (Head Tomato)