>Oatmeal Corn Waffles


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I really enjoy waffles.  All those little pockets to hold syrup and butter, or a nice fruit sauce.  They are a real treat on a weekend morning, and the left overs can be popped in the toaster for a nice treat in a week day morning.  I know there are waffle like substances available from your local factory food outlet, but we deserve better.
I will be releasing a number of waffle recipes on the blog, including a traditional wheat flour waffle, a herb and parmesan cheese waffle which is an amazing base for poached eggs and smoked salmon and a chocolate desert waffle which would be amazing topped with Fox Hill Cheese Coconut Gelato.
But for today I am going to give you my favorite hearty waffle recipe.  This recipe is a cross between a waffle and a bowl of flavorful oatmeal.  It is crispy on the outside and soft and a little creamy on the inside.  A couple of these waffles will give you the energy you need to start the day.
Ingredients: 
7 Cups of Rolled Oats
1.5 Cups of Corn Meal
8 Cups of Hot Water
1 Cup of Apple Cider
1/4 Cup of Canola Oil
3 Tbsp of Honey or (Brown Sugar to make it Vegan)
2 Tbsp of Vanilla Extract
1.5 Tbsp Cinnamon
2 Tsp Sea Salt
1/2 Cup Currents
1 Apple Cored and Diced
In a large mixing bowl combine the first 9 ingredients (not the apples or currents) and stir to combine.  Allow this to sit for about 20 minutes to allow the grains to hydrate and absorb the flavors.  
While waiting heat up a waffle iron if it is variable heat it to medium heat.
Using an immersion blender blend up the batter a little bit, it is ok to have flakes of oats left but the batter should be mostly smooth.  Then stir in the currents and diced apples.  You can blend this in small batches in a blender but really get an immersion blender because it is so much cleaner. (Well for me anyway :))
When the iron is heated, spray with no stick spray and cover the bottom plate with batter.  This is not leavened so it will not rise much so don’t worry about filling it up.  It wont expand and overflow.  These waffles take a while to finish cooking as they contain a lot of moisture, cook them until they are crisp on the outside and the steam is no longer pouring out of the waffle iron.  It takes 5 to 8 min a waffle.  They should be golden brown in color.  Serve right away, if you are going to freeze the left overs allow them to cool on a cooling rack and then freeze.  They reheat beautifully in a toaster.
These are very flavorful and very good for you.  They are low in fat and oats are one of the best grains you can eat.  For my vegetarian and vegan friends they can be made with no animal products.  Having said that these waffles do not sacrifice any flavor in order to be healthy.  Give them a try.
Thanks to my Local Suppliers:
Apple Cider: Pasture Hill Farm
Also Pictured:
Berkshire Bacon: Active Life Farms
Fresh Mint: Riverview Herbs
As always thanks to the Halifax Seaport Farm Market for giving me a place to connect with my suppliers.

>Beef and Barley Soup – A Hearty Winter Warmer


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On a cold snowy day there is nothing better than a hearty hot soup to fill you up.  A thick soup with big pieces of flavorful beef, sweet savory carrots and tender barley really hits the spot.
As alway I try to source local product to make my soup and I use my homemade beef stock base which I keep in my freezer.  With the stock already made this is a quick and easy supper idea and leftovers make a great work day lunch.
Ingredients
1 tbsp of Grape Seed Oil (vegetable oil will work as well)
1 pound of Stew Beef cut into 1/2 inch cubes and trimmed of excess fat
2 Medium Potatoes – 1/2 inch cubes
1 Medium Onion rough chopped
3 Large Carrots sliced
2 Stalks of Celery – sliced
1/4 cup of pearl barley
2 Cloves of Garlic – chopped 
1 tbsp Tomato Paste
2 tsp Paprika
1/2 Cup Dry Red Wine
8 – 10 Cups of Homemade Beef Stock
2 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Black Pepper
Fresh Thyme 6-8 sprigs
Fresh Rosemary 2-3 sprigs 


Heat up the oil in a large stock pot over medium high heat.  Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper to the beef and add to the hot oil.  When the beef is about half browned add in the paprika and tomato paste and continue cooling until the beef is nicely browned.  Remove the beef from the pot and add in the potatoes, onion, celery, barley and carrots.  Cook until the onions start to get a little color stirring occasionally, add in the garlic and cook until the garlic starts to turn a very light brown.  Be careful not to overcook the garlic.  


Add the beef back into the pot and deglaze the bottom of the pan with the red wine.  Continue cooking until about 1/3 of the wine has cooked off and then add in your beef stock.  Tie together with butchers twine the herbs and add into the pot.
Heat to a simmer and allow to simmer for about an hour, or until the potatoes and beef are nice and tender.  At this point add salt and pepper to taste and serve.
Thanks to My Local Nova Scotia Suppliers
Beef – from Getaway Farms
Vegetables – from Noggins Corner Farm
Garlic – from Active Life Farms
Red Wine – from Jost Vineyards
Herbs from Riverview herbs (Located at the Halifax Seaport Market)

>An All Nova Scotia Bagel Breakfast Sandwich


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I love a good bagel.  A real bagel, chewy and soft, lightly toasted.  Though the local supermarkets are full of bagel like substances, really large doughnut shaped dinner rolls, it is really hard to find a good bagel.  I have been known to lose my mind over bagels I have bought that are bread through and through but being sold as a bagel.  
In my quest to find a real Bagel in Halifax I happened upon one made by Spice of Life Artisan Foods at the Halifax Seaport Market.  They have it spot on, nice and chewy, on the outside, soft on the inside and it toasts up beautifully.  If you are a bagel lover you have to try this.  They are affiliated with Rock Island Bistro and if you buy their delicious baked goods you get Bistro bucks that you can use toward a meal at the Bistrol.  I will have to review them soon.  Check out their facebook page.

The bagels inspired me to create an all Nova Scotia Breakfast Sandwich.  I used eggs and the amazing Berkshire pork bacon from Active Life Farms and Garlic Quark and medium cheddar cheese from Fox Hill Cheese House.  
What is Quark you ask, well I just asked that question my self a week ago.  Whitney, Fox Hill’s smiley, friendly and informative sales person (be careful she will bewitch you with free gelato samples), explained that it is German cream cheese like product.  It is spreadable and rich in flavor, it is also lower in salt then standard creamed cheese.  Click on this link and scroll down to the Quark section for more information. 
To prepare my sandwich I cooked the bacon first on low heat to render off the fat then I drained the fat and turned up the heat to crisp it.  This makes for more tender meaty bacon.  
I selected 2 beautiful farm fresh eggs to poach.  Notice in the picture the different colors, which occurs because the eggs are from different breeds of chicken.  If you talk to Kevin and Heather from Active Life they can tell you which eggs come from which types of chickens.  When I visited the farm I was impressed with how the chickens were treated, I even saw one of them jump into Kevin’s feed bucket, it was pretty cute.  Free range eggs are the only eggs I want to eat, not only are the chickens treated better than egg factory chickens but the eggs are better for you.  For information on this go to the Active Life Farms Egg Page and click on the hyper link for the specific nutritional benefits.  In addition to this the eggs taste amazing and are not watery and runny like factory eggs.
To poach the eggs heat up some water to a simmer (not a rolling boil).  Add in salt and 1 tsp of vinegar(I prefer rice wine vinegar).  The vinegar will help to quickly set the egg whites.  Poach the eggs until the egg yokes are just firm, you don’t want them runny, but you don’t want them dried out and bright yellow.  When they are set allow them to drain on a plate.
I then lightly toasted the bagel, spread it with quark, put the bacon on the bottom and added the eggs, which I sprinkled with black pepper and paprika.  I then topped with Fox Hill Cheese Medium cheddar and enjoyed.
This is just an example of the kind of high quality, flavorful food you can have while eating local.  It is good in so many ways but from a selfish perspective, it just tastes great.  That is all the reason I need.

Roasted Creamy Butternut Squash Soup


I am a serious soup lover.  A hot bowl of soup on a cold winter night is one of my favorite comfort foods.  A smooth creamy soup can be just the thing to bring warmth and comfort, but those calories can get a little out of hand.  I have just the fix, a rich creamy soup with no dairy and very little added fat.  Roasted butternut squash, one of my favorite winter vegetables makes a wonderful creamy soup that your whole family will enjoy.

Ingredients:
2 Butternut Squash halved and seeded
1 Apple pealed cored and diced
1 Pear pealed cored and diced
2 Cloves of Garlic chopped
1/4 cup of Calvados (apple brandy) optional
1/2 a medium onion chopped
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
8 cups of vegetable stock  or chicken stock (Click for my stock recipes)
1 tbsp Good Olive Oil
2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 375 and sprinkle the squash with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roast the squash for 45 minutes to an hour until slightly browned and fork tender.  Allow to cool so it can be handled.
Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a stock pot over medium heat.  Add onions, pear, apple, garlic and a tsp of salt.  Stir until it slightly caramelizes.  Deglaze the pot with calvados or a little vegetable stock.  Add vegetable stock and simmer until the apple and pear are tender.  Scoop the butternut squash out of the skin and into the pot.  Simmer for about 15 min.  Blend the soup in the pot with an immersion blender (Kitchen Aid makes a good stainless steel model that comes with a little food processor).  When the soup is smooth stir in the balsamic vinegar, you can adjust the consistency by adding more stock if it is too thick, we want a creamy soup not something akin to babyfood.  Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.
If you make this with chicken stock you have a totally vegan soup and even with chicken stock it is very healthy.  It is a soup that uses local winter product, all of the produce for the stock and soup I obtained from Nova Scotia providers.
Variation
For those of you like my buddy Sairam (a faithful vegetarian follower and good friend) who love to feel the spice, here is a simple addition to kick it up a notch.
When roasting your squash roast off one Serrano pepper.  Let it cool in an air tight container to make pealing easier.  Peel and seed the pepper when cool and add to the soup before blending.  If you are cautious about spice add it in a quarter at a time blend and taste.  This adds a very nice level of heat to the soup.
 
Special Thanks to my Providers
 
Active Live Farms for the Chicken for my Chicken Stock and the Garlic
Noggins Corner Farm for all of the wonderful Fruit and Vegetables

 

 
And as always the Halifax Seaport Market for giving me a place to find local product.
 
Local product also pictured
 
Oatmeal Bread from Aziz Best Bakery obtained at the Halifax Seaport Market
Cranberry Cheddar from Fox Hill Cheese 
 
 
 
 

>Homemade Sweet Italian Sausage


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A few weeks back I put up a recipe for breakfast sausage and from the feedback I have gotten it has been a big hit.  Sausage adds a lot of flavor to your meal and if you make it yourself you can control the quality of meat that is used and the levels of fat and sodium. 
I have a great love for Italian food and as a result I have been working on a Sweet Italian Sausage Recipe to be used in some of my favorite Italian meals.  If you can make hamburgers you can make sausage meat so if you like Italian Sausage then please give this a try.
Ingredients:
1.5 pound of Ground Pork
3 Cloves of Garlic – fine chopped
3 Basil Leaves – fine chopped
¼ tsp Oregano
2 tsp Fennel – Grind the whole seeds
¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 tbsp white wine
In a large bowl press out the sausage meat and then sprinkle the garlic herbs and spices evenly over then meat.  Now get your hands dirty and mix the spices into the meat to provide even flavor.  Add in the white wine, the flavor of the wine is nice but it also draws flavor out of the herbs and spices you have added to your sausage meat.
Cover and let the sausage sit in the refrigerator for a couple hours if possible overnight.  This will draw the flavor into the meat.  Heat up a fry pan over medium high heat and lightly oil.  Take a small patty and fry it off for a couple minutes on each side.  Taste the sausage and if required add more seasonings to give the flavor you want.
You can cook this sausage off in patties, make sausage meatballs or use it as a stuffing.  It also adds a lot of flavor to lasagna or pizza.  I will be posting recipes very soon that will use this sausage.  Stay tuned.

>Vegetable Stock – A soup base for all the vegetarians I know and love.


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A good friend of mine who is also a vegetarian often said “Why do you eat meat, all of the good flavor comes from the vegetables anyway”.  Though I don’t fully agree with that, I do agree that there are a lot of deep robust flavors in vegetables that make a rich flavorful stock.  When selecting vegetables for your stock you want to use aromatic vegetables and pay attention to the flavors that they bring.  You want a nice balance of flavors selecting sweet vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes; aromatics like onion and celery as well as spicy flavors like those of ginger and garlic.  Be careful of recipes that just throw a bunch of veggies into a pot and boil, I avoid tomatoes and potatoes because they will cloud the stock and tomatoes can dominate the stock.  Other vegetables such as mushrooms, cauliflower, spinach and corn add little to the stock and are best used in the main dish you are preparing.
Here is my winter vegetable stock recipe.  This stock will add rich flavor to soups, stews or rice.  This along with my Chicken and Beef Stock will freeze well and having a good stock on hand will simplify your meal preparation.
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp good olive oil
1 Large white onion – peeled and chopped
3 Stalks of celery – rough chopped, bitter white ends removed
3 large carrots – cleaned and rough chopped
2 large parsnips – cleaned and rough chopped
1 bulb of garlic – pealed and crushed
½ cup white wine
1 large sweet potato – cleaned and rough chopped
1 2 inch piece of ginger peeled and sliced into 4 or 5 pieces
1 small bunch fresh thyme
2 sprig fresh rosemary
10 whole black pepper corns
6 Allspice Berries
4 cloves of ginger
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
3 tsp of salt
As with any other stock you need to build the flavors and then infuse the broth with them.  Heat up the olive oil in a 6 L stock pot over medium heat.  Add in chopped onion, celery carrots and parsnips and 1 tsp of salt.  Stir these until the onion starts to brown and then add in the garlic and cook for about 5 more minutes.  Deglaze the pan with the white wine and add in the rest of the vegetables, herbs and spices.  This process will build flavor by caramelizing the aromatics and then transfer them to the stock through the white wine.
Now Fill the stock pot with water and simmer (heat just below the boil) for 4 to 6 hours.  This slow infusion of flavors will build a nice stock.  When this is completed add the balsamic vinegar and then salt to taste.  Strain the stock and allow to cool.  You can use this stock as is or freeze for later use.  Will be posting a Butternut squash soup using this stocks as soon as I have a change to perfect it.