Kate & Kelly’s Great Blog Recipe Exchange

Today’s the day to tempt everyone’s taste buds with your favourite recipe. Cookies, cake, bread, buttered chicken… post your recipe, link it up here, and then do the rounds to expand your culinary horizons :-)

The recipe I’m sharing is from Janet & Greta Podleski. These two Canadian sisters have written three fantastic fat-busting cookbooks that are fresh, fun, and full of tastiness.

       

One of my favourite recipes is from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry – it’s a low-fat but super-yummy version of Thai pizza. It may look and sound a bit strange with peanut sauce instead of tomato sauce, but trust me, your taste buds will thank you! To up the healthy factor and flavour, I use this recipe for whole wheat pizza crust. It makes enough for two pizzas – I split it in half and freeze one half for a future pizza.

A couple of notes: Don’t limit yourself to the veggies listed in the recipe – use the veggies that you like best and/or that you have handy. And I’ve discovered that blanching the bean sprouts for a few minutes and then drying them well prevents the crust from getting soggy. I do the same with bok choy, and would recommend blanching any veggies that have a high water content. And dry all the veggies well after you rinse them.

Here’s my dough about ready to me made into pizza. I pre-bake the crust for about 8 minutes at 425 degrees, let it cool, and then put on the toppings.

Toppings prepared and ready to go. I use more cheese than the recipe calls for – about 2 cups. But really, just eyeball it till it looks like a good amount to you. There’s also green onions, red & yellow peppers, shredded carrots, bok choy, and bean sprouts. You could replace the chicken with shrimp, or why not do both :-)

Assembled and ready to go into the oven…

Done!

My slice of Thai pizza ready to eat. Mmmmmm, nutritious and delicious!

Now it’s your turn! Use Mister Linky to join in the recipe exchange. It’s easy:

1. Click the Mister Linky icon below.
2. Enter your name (or enter the name of your recipe if you’d like) into the Your Name box and the permalink to your recipe exchange post in the Your URL box. To get the permalink, click the title of your recipe exchange post. The permalink will appear in your browser’s address bar. Copy & paste the address into the Your URL box.
3. Click Enter, and you’re good to go :-)

Be sure to check out what Kate’s got for you over at manningroad (she’ll be posting her recipe any minute now!), and do the rounds of all the recipe exchange participants. Have fun!

Kate & Kelly’s Great Blog Recipe Exchange

My blog friend Kate at manningroad is always posting pictures of her yummy culinary creations. I've asked her to send me more than one of her recipes, and her recipe for baked oatmeal has now found a spot in my breakfast rotation:-) So I thought, why not take the recipe thing a step further, and asked Kate if she’d be interested in doing a blog recipe exchange where we can swap recipes with other bloggers. Kate was all for it, and so with no further ado, I’m pleased to announce…

It’s easy to participate – all you have to do is post one of your favourite recipes on your blog, and then link it up to our Great Blog Recipe Exchange party happening one week from today on Wednesday, March 23rd. Make the rounds of all the participating blogs, and you’ll end up with a whole new recipe repertoire :-)

To make things as easy as possible, you don’t have to actually cook your recipe – although we certainly encourage posting pictures to go along with your recipe. So if you can manage to whip up a batch of your favourite stew or cookies and snap some pics, all the better :-)

Kate and I will both be posting link widgets on our blogs next Wednesday, so you can participate through either of our blogs.

And just to whet your appetite, I’m going to share my ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe with you right now…

Triple-Threat Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tbsp. milk*
2 tsp. vanilla extract*
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
2 cups oats
2 cups (or more) combination of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and Skor bits

* For an adult version, replace vanilla with Crème de Cacao and milk with Bailey’s Irish Cream.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper or spray with Pam.
3. In a large bowl, use a wooden spoon to combine butter, brown sugar, and white sugar.
4. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla and stir until just combined.
5. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter & sugars in large bowl and stir until just combined.
6. Add oats and stir until combined.
7. Add chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and Skor bits and stir until combined.
8. Use a dessert spoon to drop cookie dough onto cookie sheets. Leave about 2” between each cookie (cookie dough will spread).
9. Put one sheet onto middle rack in oven and bake for about 5 minutes.
10. After 5 minutes, turn the sheet 180 degrees and place on upper rake. Put second sheet of cookies on middle rack and bake both sheets for about 5 minutes (about 10 minutes total cooking time for each sheet). Cookies on top rack are ready when the edges are just barely brown and the center looks slightly unbaked.
11. Remove top sheet from oven, turn other sheet 180 degrees and place on upper rack. Continue this rotation until all cookies are baked.
12. Let cookies cool on sheet for a few minutes, then carefully remove cookies with spatula and let cool completely on a wire rack.

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And just to change the subject completely for a minute… you might remember that my friend, artist Matt LeBlanc, raised $38,000 for cancer research with his Art For Life Campaign last year. YAY MATT! He recently put together a video featuring 25 artists from around the world to promote cancer awareness. Please take a few minutes to check out the video…

See you next Wednesday with your favourite recipe!

If you want your home to reflect who you are and what you love, drop me a line for an in-person or online consultation.