Back to School (for the very last time!!)

It's my final year in University, and although I'm only a part-time student this year, it means less time for cooking, baking, and blogging.  But do not fret, back to school doesn't mean all negativity.  My favourite website Rouxbe Cooking School has an incredible Back to School offer on for only another 48 hours!!  If you purchase an annual membership with Rouxbe within the next 48 hours, you will automatically be upgraded to a Lifetime Membership! I know you may be thinking "do I really need a lifetime membership to this website?" Let me tell you, Rouxbe is totally unique to anything else that is out there.  Their instructions, tutorials, quizzes, and recipes are incomparable to any other food website.  So what are you waiting for?!  Head over to Rouxbe and get cooking! 

Roasted and Glazed Heirloom Carrots

I have officially fallen in love with heirloom carrots! You cannot even compare the flavour, colour, and shapes to that of regular supermarket carrots. I got inspired to take advantage of the beautiful carrots in their raw state by making a Green Goddess Dip to accompany them, but I also wanted to try preparing them a different way to experience the flavours and colours once cooked. This is when I came across Curtis Stones recipe for Honey Glazed Carrots that he made on his show Take Home Chef (which, by the way, is such a cute show! How I wish he would show up in my grocery store and come home with me!). This recipe intensifies and brings out the natural flavours of the beautiful heirloom carrots, making it exactly what I was looking for! Although Curtis Stones recipe calls for peeling, trimming, and cutting the carrots, I wanted to keep the carrots in their natural state, so I merely scrubbed the carrots really well (which is generally how you prep heirloom carrots) and continued with the directions.

Note: Don't have heirloom carrots? This recipe would work fine with regular carrots as well.

Tip: Make this in the toaster oven to save on energy!

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter, melted

2 bunches heirloom carrots, scrubbed

2 shallots, thinly sliced

1 large sprig fresh thyme, leaves only

salt and pepper to season

2 tbsp honey

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400º. In a medium roasting pan, toss the carrots with butter, shallots, and thyme and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Place pan in oven and toast, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, or until carrots are tender.

3. Remove from oven and drizzle over honey. Toss to coat. Season with additional salt and pepper, if necessary.

Marinated Grilled Onions

I've been getting a little tired of some of my standby side dish recipes (as you may have noticed with my Rosemary Fries recipe), so when it came to cooking onions to serve with a steak dinner, I was on the hunt for a new way to prepare them, rather than simply cooking them in a pan. I decided to take a cue from Bobby Flay and grill them up along with the steak. Merely grilling the onions will give them a great charred flavour, but I wanted to take it up a notch. That's when I came across this recipe for Grilled Vidalia Onions with an Italian dressing marinade from AllRecipes.com. It is so simple, yet it successfully gives your onions that extra bit of flavour to make your entire meal come together as something extra special. You may decide to use sweet Vidalia onions, but you could also make this with yellow or red onions, or even scallions.

Ingredients:

1 onion (any type), peeled and sliced into rings

Italian salad dressing (enough to coat onion rings)

salt and pepper

Directions:

1. In a shallow dish, lay out onion rings and coat with Italian salad dressing. Let marinate for 1 hour.

2. Cook on grill at low heat until it reaches desired tenderness and colour. Season with salt and pepper and serve as a side dish or on top of a steak or burger.

Rosemary Fries

French fries have become a bit of a staple in my house. Ever since we bought our own deep fryer years ago, we have been frying up all sorts of different fries from hand-cut, matchstick, curly, sweet potato, the list goes on! Although I didn't take part in the preparation and cooking of the fries originally, it has now become a bit of a family production line where my mum cuts the fries, my dad fries them up, and I dress them and prepare a dip. This time, I wanted to utilize my fresh herbs in flavouring the fries, while not overpowering the crispy golden potatoes.

Ingredients:

Potatoes (depends on how much fries you are preparing)

oil for frying

sea salt or kosher salt

rosemary, finely chopped

Directions:

1. Cut the fries into whatever shape or size you like.

2. Soak the cut potatoes in cold water for at least 15 minutes to remove excess starch and pat dry after soaking.

3. In a frying pan or deep fryer, heat the oil to 325º and fry the potatoes in small batches for about 3-4 minutes. Remove from oil and let sit on paper towels while frying other batches.

4. Reheat the oil to 375º and refry the already cooked fries in batches, until golden, about another 4-6 minutes.

5. Place cooked fries in a basket lined with paper towels and sprinkle with salt and rosemary.

Banana Nutella Wedges

Alright, the word is out. I am officially obsessed with Nutella!  There is simply no denying it!  I'm sorry to those of you out there who don't like Nutella, but let's be honest, you've gotta be crazy if you don't like this incredible chocolate hazelnut spread.  I love it so much, I have literally had dreams about it.  It was a Nutella dream that lead me to create this killer dish.  Recently I had a lovely Nutella dream about sun bathing in a Nutella-filled lazy river.  The next morning, I couldn't imagine eating anything other than Nutella!  If you know me at all, you know I'm not the type of gal to just spread some Nutella on some bread and call it a day. That's simply not how this redhead works!  So I created Banana Nutella Wedges, the perfect sweet treat to start your morning, or even end an evening.  The warm and soft bananas mesh together with the creamy Nutella and crunchy coconut and hazelnuts, and are sandwiched inside crispy cinnamon-sugar tortillas, making this a celebration of sweet flavours and multiple textures.  

Ingredients:

2 flour tortillas

about 5 tbsp Nutella or other chocolate hazelnut spread

1 banana, sliced

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut, toasted

1 tbsp toasted hazelnuts, chopped

Directions:

1.  Spread a layer of Nutella on one of the totillas.

2.  Top the Nutella with a layer of sliced bananas

3.  Sprinkle the bananas and Nutella with the shredded coconut and hazelnuts.

4.  Layer the naked tortilla on top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

5.  Bake in oven or toaster oven at 350º for about 3 minutes or until tortilla turns golden and slightly crisp.  Remove from oven, and cut into quarters.