Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps

I've been trying to snack on healthier foods lately, which has led me to becoming obsessed, again, with Raincoast Crisps. But even the knock-off version I found at the grocery store is crazy expensive. I remembered that a few years ago everyone was passing around a bake-at-home version of the crisps, so with a little Googling, I tracked down this recipe. The taste and texture is pretty close to the original; next time I'll bake them for the second time on Silpat at a lower temperature as I think they came out a little on the burnt side. I might also add a little more rosemary to them to pump up the flavour a bit too.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (optional)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup flax seed, ground
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Method

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar and honey and stir a few strokes. Add the raisins, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed and rosemary and stir just until blended.

Pour the batter into five small loaf pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for about 35 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

The cooler the loaf, the easier it is to slice really thin. Popping the loaves into the freezer seems to work best. Slice the loaves as thin as you can and place the slices in a single layer on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Preheat the oven to 300° F and bake them for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake for another 10 minutes, until crisp and deep golden. (These are the directions from the original recipe, but I think that the crisps came out a little too burnt, especially the raisins.  I think next time - I still have four loaves left in the freezer - I'll bake them on Silpat at approx. 250-275° F). Truly addictive! 

Makes about 10 dozen crisps.

Super Bowl Sunday Pizza

Super Bowl Sunday was pretty relaxing at our house this year. We didn't completely skip traditional Super Bowl fare though, as we had pizza. But instead of ordering out, we decided to make it at home. Santa brought me a copy of Jamie's Italy for Christmas this year, and we made the easy and tasty pizza dough recipe from it. We've tried lots of pizza dough recipes at home, but this is my new favourite, and my husband really has mastered the technique! It is simple and reliable to make, and it yields a delicious chewy, yet crispy pizza crust. The semolina flour (which I found at the Bulk Barn) gives the dough an authentic taste and texture.

Jamie's Basic Pizza Dough

Ingredients
1 3/4 lbs strong white bread flour
1 1/2 cups fine ground semolina flour
1 level tablespoon fine sea salt
1/4 oz. envelope active dried yeast
1 tablespoon golden caster (golden brown) sugar
just over 2 cups lukewarm water

Method
Pile the flours and salt on to a clean work surface and make a 7-inch well in the centre. Add your yeast and sugar to the lukewarm water, mix up with a fork and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, and a circular movement, slowly bring in the flour in gradually from the inner edge of the well and mix into the water. It will look like a stodgy porridge - continue to mix, bringing in all the flour. When the dough comes together and becomes too hard to mix with your fork, flour your hands and begin to pat into a ball. Knead the dough by rolling it backward and forward, using your left hand to to stretch the dough toward you and your right hand to push thee dough away from you at the same time. Repeat this for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, springy, soft dough.

Flour the top of your dough, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature. This will make it easier to roll it thinly. Now divide the dough into as many balls as you want to make pizzas, i.e. lots of small ones or a few large ones, but I suggest that 6-8 is a good quantity for this amount of dough.

Timing-wise, it’s nice to roll the pizzas out 15 to 30 minutes before you start to cook them. If you want to  work more in advance, it’s better to keep the dough wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge rather than having rolled-out pizzas hanging around for a few hours. Take a piece of the dough, dust your work surface with a little flour or semolina, and roll it out into a rough circle about 1/4 inch thick. Tear off an appropriately sized piece of aluminum foil , rub it with olive oil, dust it well with flour or semolina, and place the pizza base on top. Continue doing the same with the other pieces, and then, if you dust them with a little flour, you can pile them up into a stack, cover them with plastic wrap, and put them in the fridge.

When you're ready to cook them, preheat your oven to 500 F. At this stage you can apply your toppings. Remember: less is more. If you can, cook the pizzas on a piece of granite or marble in your conventional oven - if not, do them one by one on the bars of the oven shelf toward the bottom of the oven. (We used to cook our pizzas on a pizza stone until we accidentally broke ours - now we cook them on a perforated pizza sheet and the crust still comes out nice and crispy.) Cook for 7 - 12 minutes, depending on the amount of toppings, until the pizzas are golden and crispy. 

This dough also freezes well, so you can pop the unused portions, wrapped in plastic wrap, into the freezer, and thaw whenever a pizza craving hits.

Pesto Pasta with Veggies

This is one of my favourite pastas. I love pesto, and the colourful veggies brighten up a cold winter's evening. It's relatively healthy too - I use Catelli Smart Pasta for the extra fibre, and the vegetable stock not only livens up the flavour a bit but it also reduces the amount of pesto used (1/8 cup per serving (115 calories) instead of the standard 1/4 cup serving (230 calories)). Pesto is also high in heart-healthy monounsturated fat (I'm trying to find reasons why I can still eat all of my favourite foods while continuing to be on my diet...).

Ingredients
2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 small zucchini, cut into matchsticks
2 slices of red onion
6 mushrooms, sliced
Handful of grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup pesto
2 tbsp vegetable stock
Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
170 grams (2 servings) linguine

Method
Cook pasta according to package directions. Be sure to generously salt the water. (I always use a kitchen scale to measure out pasta portions - I love carbs so I need to control myself!)

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onions to pan and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add mushrooms, then carrots and zucchini and cook until desired tenderness. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Drain pasta, reserving 2 tbsp of cooking water. The starch in the cooking water will help the sauce to coat the noodles evenly.

Add the pesto, vegetable stock and cooking water to the veggies and stir to mix evenly. Toss in the cooked pasta.

Divide into 2 equal portions. Top with the grape tomatoes and some shaved Parmesan cheese.