Oatmeal Latte

I would pass by Cafe Descartes whenever I'd go down to the Loop and was curious, but never went in until I read an article recently about its owner and how he started his business. I finally stopped by one day to try their Oatmeal Latte. I love this drink. It's a mix of a double shot of espresso, steamed milk, oatmeal, cinnamon, honey with walnuts and almonds (that's why it's served with a spoon). At $5 a pop, it's probably a bit pricey, but hey, you're getting coffee-and-breakfast in one so it's not so bad! It's also a bit filling. I didn't have lunch until early afternoon.


Cafe Descartes Oatmeal Latte

8 oz Oatmeal, uncooked
2 Tbsp. Golden Raisins
2 Tbsp. Chopped Walnuts
2 Tbsp. Slivered Almonds
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 Shot of Freshly-Roasted Cafe Descartes Espresso
1 tsp. Honey
1 Tbsp. hazelnut of vanilla syrup
8 oz. Skim Milk
2 Tbsp. Fresh Blueberries

Pour 8 ounces of raw oatmeal into a large cup.

Add the dry ingredients to the cup: 2 tablespoons each of golden raisins, chopped walnuts and slivered almonds; and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Pour in a shot of freshly-roasted espresso.

Add 1 tsp. honey and 1 tbsp. of hazelnut or vanilla syrup into the cup.

Froth 8 oz. of skim milk in a stainless steel pitcher, for about 10 seconds.

Add the other ingredients to the milk.

Froth all the ingredients together, about 15 seconds.

Add 2 Tbsp. of fresh blueberries to top it off.

Pour back into the cup and enjoy!

Five Ways To Enjoy Sweet Potatoes

From Real Simple

• Sweet Potato Wedges With Rosemary and Brown Sugar
  Toss sweet potato wedges with olive oil, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and chopped fresh rosemary. Roast at 400° F, tossing once, until tender, 45 to 50 minutes.
• Sweet Potato and Bacon Pasta
  Sauté peeled and diced sweet potatoes in olive oil with smashed garlic cloves until tender. Toss with cooked pasta, grated Parmesan, crumbled bacon, and chopped fresh chives.
• Baked Sweet Potatoes With Chipotle Sour Cream
  Pierce whole sweet potatoes with a fork. Bake at 400° F until tender, 45 to 50 minutes. Serve with a mixture of sour cream and chipotle chili powder. Top with chopped fresh cilantro.
• Sweet Potato Pancakes With Sage
  Mix coarsely grated sweet potatoes with grated onion and chopped fresh sage; season with salt and pepper. Pan-fry spoonfuls of the mixture in olive oil until crisp and cooked through.
• Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes
  Boil peeled and cut-up sweet potatoes until tender. Mash with unsalted butter and honey. Season with ground cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper.
• Tip: Pureed cooked sweet potatoes are a delicious alternative to canned pumpkin puree in pies, cakes, and casseroles.

Baked Eggs

My husband usually prepares breakfast, but for Mother's Day, I made baked eggs and while my husband and I enjoyed our meal, our son found it "unteresting", meaning he didn't like it.

Calamansi Marmalade

This is one of my favourite meals for lunch - almond butter and calamansi marmalade on toasted bread. I've run out of both so it's back to peanut butter and jelly. Sigh.

Knothole Egg

Here's another recipe from Marion Cunningham's Cooking with Children that I tried last week. It's a fun way of making fried eggs (whether sunny side up or over easy).

Serves 1.

1 slice bread
1 egg
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper

1. Toast the bread lightly in a toaster. Using a 2-inch round cookie cutter or a small glass (I used the 1/4 measuring cup), cut a hole out of the center of the slice of toast. Discard the little round piece of bread - or eat it up.
2. Crack the egg into a bowl. (Or you can crack it directly onto the skillet.)
   
3. Place the butter in a small skillet over medium-low heat. When it melts, lift the skillet a little and tilt it all around so the butter coats the bottom. Put the toast in the skillet. Now pour the egg from the bowl into the hole in the bread so the yolk falls into the hole. The white will run over the bread, which is what it is meant to do. (Have a spoon nearby so if the yolk misses the hole you can gently shove it in with the spoon.)
4. Turn the heat as low as possible. Sprinkle the egg with salt and pepper (I like to add some herbs). Cover the skillet and cook for about 1-1/2 minutes. Then take off the cover, turn the toast and egg over with a metal spatula, and cook the other side for just a few seconds more, uncovered. Slide the spatula under the bread-and-egg and carefully lift it out of the skillet, put it on a plate, and eat it while it's hot.

Meatloaf

I am not a big fan of meatloaf, but it was one of the recipes in Marion Cunningham's Cooking with Children that I wanted my son to try. (She has a grown-up version of it at Epicurious.) My son actually loved the dish, but I would cook it longer than the 40 minutes indicated in the recipe.

Serves 4.

If you are making meatloaf for dinner, set the table and wash the greens for a salad (or prepare anything else you plan to have with the meatloaf) while it is baking. Then you will have everything ready so you can serve the meatloaf while it is hot and sit down and enjoy it. Remember that leftover meatloaf makes a wonderful sandwich the next day. It is just as delicious cold in a sandwich as it is hot on a plate.

1 lb ground beef (about .454 kilo)
1 egg
1/3 cup tomato ketchup
2 slices bread
1/4 cup milk
1 small yellow onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly oil a loaf pan or any medium-sized baking dish that will hold about 6 cups.
2. Put the ground beef in a mixing bowl and break it into pieces, handling it lightly. If you pack it down, press on it, and squeeze it firmly, it will be tough when it is baked. Handling it lightly and gently helps keep the meat moist and tender when it is baked.
3. Break the egg into a small bowl and stir it with a fork. Add 1/3 ketchup to the egg and stir to mix. Pour the ketchup-egg mixture over the meat, but don't mix it in yet.
4. Tear the 2 slices of bread into bits about the size of a macaroni noodle, and put them in the bowl you used for the egg.
5. Sprinkle the 1/4 cup milk over the bread pieces, and then lightly toss them with your hands. Let the bread and milk sit a minute while you chop the onion.
6. Add the minced onion to the beef in the mixing bowl, but don't start mixing yet.
7. Add to the meat the bread bits that have soaked up the milk and sprinkle salt and pepper lightly over the beef and other ingredients.
8. Using your hands, gently mix all the ingredients together.
9. Gather up the beef mixture and put it into the loaf pan or baking dish. Pat it lightly so it is even on top. Put it in the oven and bake for an hour.
10. Carefully remove the meatloaf from the oven and put it down on a heatproof surface. You can cut slices of meatloaf right out of the pan. Make them about 1 inch thick. Use a knife or thin metal spatula to lift the slices out of the pan. Put the slices on the serving plate and eat while the meatloaf is still hot.
    

Asparagus - Steamed, Roasted, Stir-Fried, Grilled

Asparagus is our family's favourite vegetable, so I was thrilled to see this article from Mark Bittman about it.

It takes effort to maintain a sense of seasonality with asparagus, given that it has become a year-round product. But right now even the stuff in supermarkets may come from a local source — so that the stalks snap rather than bend when you apply pressure and the aroma and flavor are fresh rather than simply strong.

Still, even the best asparagus needs something, even if it’s as little as olive oil and lemon. Hence the following below, with the best cooking methods — steaming (or poaching; in the case of asparagus, they’re roughly equivalent); roasting; grilling (or broiling, which is always an alternative, because the broiler is nothing but an upside-down grill); and stir-frying — and flavors well suited to each.

There are several varieties of asparagus, including white, which is, in my experience, overrated. (You Northern Europeans may yell at me all you like; I’ve tried it everywhere.) The most relevant difference for most of us is thick versus thin, and you can use either in any recipe here. In the 1990s, I considered skinny asparagus far superior to fat, because it requires no peeling and cooks in a flash. A few years ago, I began to better appreciate the delicious snap of thick spears as well as their relative sturdiness. Certainly if you’re steaming or grilling, thick is the preferable type. It really should be peeled; it will look, taste and bite more nicely if you take the time. And with thick or thin, you can snap the bottoms off or go the easier route and just chop off the last inch or two with a chef’s knife.

You might prefer asparagus crisp-tender or softer than that; either way, it’s done when you can pierce the thickest part of a spear with a sharp knife without much resistance. This might take less than five minutes for very slender asparagus, twice that long for thick. (Roasting is the slowest of the cooking methods here.) For all of these recipes, use 1 1/2 to 2 pounds to serve four people, and as always, add salt and black pepper to taste.

1. STEAMED

With Brown Butter
Put asparagus in a covered pot with an inch of water (they may stand, lean or lie flat) and turn heat to high. Put 2 to 4 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over medium heat; stir occasionally until foam subsides and butter turns nut brown. When asparagus is done, drain, drizzle with butter and serve.

With Aïoli
Skip brown butter. Put an egg yolk in a food processor with 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, 1 to 4 peeled garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Turn it on and drizzle in 1 cup olive oil; an emulsion will form. Serve asparagus dipped in aïoli.

With Fried Eggs and Ham
Skip brown butter. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 4 slices good ham and cook gently on both sides; remove. Add 2 more tablespoons butter in skillet and fry four eggs until whites are firm. Serve asparagus topped with ham, eggs and any pan juices.

2. ROASTED

With or Without Bacon
Heat oven to 450. Toss asparagus with 2 tablespoons olive oil (more if you don’t use bacon) and 4 ounces cubed bacon (optional) in a roasting pan. Roast, turning once or twice, until done. Garnish: Grated Parmesan.

With Carrots, Sesame and Soy
Skip bacon. Substitute sesame oil for the olive oil and add 2 thinly sliced carrots to roasting pan. After 5 minutes of roasting, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sesame seeds. When done, drizzle with soy sauce and toss. Garnish: Crumbled toasted nori.

With Blue Cheese and Bread Crumbs
After 5 minutes of roasting, turn asparagus and top with 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs and 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese. Continue to roast without turning until asparagus is done. Turn on broiler and broil until top browns, about 1 minute.

3. STIR-FRIED

With Shallots and Fish Sauce
Put a large skillet over high heat for 3 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil, then asparagus — cut into 2-inch lengths — and 10 halved shallots. Cook, stirring, until asparagus and shallots are dry and beginning to brown. Add 2 tablespoons water and 1 tablespoon fish sauce; cook until done. Garnish: Chopped peanuts.

With Scallops and Black Beans
Soak 1 tablespoon fermented black beans in sake or white wine to cover while pan heats. Substitute 1 tablespoon minced garlic for the shallots and soy sauce for the fish sauce. Add black beans and 1/2 pound sliced or cubed scallops to pan along with soy sauce and water. Garnish: Chopped chives.

With Chicken and Shiitakes
Skip shallots. When pan is hot, add oil, then 1/2 pound cubed chicken thighs. Cook, stirring occasionally, until browned; remove. Add asparagus and 1/2 pound trimmed and sliced shiitake mushrooms; proceed, substituting oyster sauce for the fish sauce. Add chicken back to pan along with oyster sauce and water. Garnish: More oyster sauce.

4. GRILLED

With Lemon Marinade
Heat a grill with rack 4 to 6 inches from flame. Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil and zest and juice of 1 lemon; brush asparagus with this. Grill asparagus crosswise, turning once or twice and brushing with sauce until done. Garnish: Lemon wedges.

With Grape Tomatoes and Pesto
Skip lemon; grill 1 pint grape tomatoes, skewered, with the asparagus, brushing all with olive oil. Purée 1 cup basil leaves, 1 small garlic clove, 1 tablespoon pine nuts, 1/4 cup (or more) olive oil and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan in a mini food processor. Serve asparagus and tomatoes with pesto.

With Red-Pepper Glaze
Substitute lime zest and juice for the lemon; add 1 tablespoon honey and 1/2 teaspoon (or more) red-pepper flakes. Grill 1 yellow bell pepper — cut into thick strips — and 4 trimmed scallions along with the asparagus, brushing all with the glaze. Garnish: Lime wedges.