Sweet Potato Chipotle Bacon Soup

This is a nice one for harvest season. I love sweet potato soups and we have some sugar pumpkins from our CSA membership. They are smaller than the jackolantern variety and nice in pies and so on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

half onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp butter or oil

1 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced into 1″ slices

5 cups Epicure bouillon, prepared

about 2 cups cooked pumpkin (fresh would probably taste best, I’m sure canned would be ok too, or add more sweet potato)

2 tsp Epicure Minced Garlic

1 tsp Epicure Sea Salt

1 tsp Epicure ground pepper

Epicure’s Chipotle Bacon Cheddar dip mix: 1-2 tsp if you like it mild, 1TBSP and up for those who like it hot.

375g pkg bacon, cooked and crumbled (I like the naturals bacon, no nitrates)

optional: shredded cheddar cheese

In a large soup pot, melt the butter and saute the onion until soft, about 3 minutes. Add sweet potato and bouillon and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer until sweet potato is soft.

Add pumpkin, garlic, salt and pepper and Chipotle Bacon Cheddar dip.

Simmer about 20 minutes. Then puree with immersion blender in the pot or transfer to blender and carefully puree. If too thick add some more bouillon or water.

Add cooked bacon and top with shredded cheddar cheese if desired.

This recipe is great for the slow cooker too. Saute the onion separately and transfer to slow cooker. Then add the rest as indicated.

 

 

Guacamole Pulled Pork Bacon Burgers

Best ever Guacamole Pulled Pork Bacon Burger
(this one had our men wanting seconds, if they had the room!)

Make the patties with two pounds of ground beef and your favorite Epicure seasonings.
I used the Beef and Steak. Grill for four minutes per side. Add cheddar cheese if you like.
Prepare burgers in buns or lettuce wraps and layer with two cups left over prepared Epicure’s Pulled Pork, divided per burger. I used about two tablespoons per burger.
Make the guacamole with two avocados, mashed and mixed
with two tsp Epicure Cheese, Chives and Bacon and a squeezed lime wedge.
Divide that and layer onto your burgers.
Add a couple of cooked bacon slices, I started with one pound bacon, cooked.
Spread Epicure’s prepared Big Burger Seasoning on the buns and enjoy!
As I made these on the fly one night, please write to me if you would like more instructions:)

Mango Curry Sweet Potato Soup

This one became an instant favorite tonight! The sweet potatoes bring out the delicate flavours in the Mango Curry Dip Mix.

1 TBSP oil

1 onion, chopped

1 TBSP Epicure’s Mango Curry Dip Mix

1 large sweet potato

1 clove garlic, crushed; or use 1 tsp Epicure’s Roasted or Minced Garlic

3 cups Epicure’s Vegetable Bouillon, prepared

1 cup coconut milk

lime juice to taste

chopped cilantro to taste

Epicure’s Black Pepper, to taste

Heat oil in Epicure’s 12 cup Multi Purpose Pot and add onion. Cook and stir until wilted. Add Mango Curry and sweet potatoand garlic and cook about five minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered about
10 to 15 minutes or until sweet potato is soft.

Use an immersion hand held blender if you have one to puree the soup right in the pot. Or, carefully use a blender to puree and then returnto pot. Stir in coconut milk, lime juice, cilantro and black pepper. You can serve this one right out of the Multi Purpose Pot with the pouring spout.

Strawberry Cheesecake Bites

These are an easy one to do up for Valentine’s Day, or any time you would like something quick and simple and lovely.

1 cup cream cheese

1/2 cup vanilla flavoured Greek Yogurt

3 TBSP Epicure Summer Berry Fruit Dip Mix

1 lb strawberries, washed and sliced in half

1/4 cup Epicure’s Milk or Dark Chocolate (optional)

Mix cream cheese, yogurt and Summer Berry. Let stand 15 minutes for dip mix to bloom. Spoon or pipe with an icing bag onto the strawberries, flat side up.

Gently melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in Epicure’s steamer in the microwave. Drizzle onto the strawberries and allow to harden. Enjoy!

 

Coconut Flour waffles

This is a grain/dairy free recipe adapted from “Make It Paleo” by Bill Staley and Hayley Mason. It’s a wonderful book of grain-free recipes for the paleo diet enthusiast. And a very delightful photo of the authors on the front cover, enjoying their paleo meal and each other’s company.

Although we are not trying to go completely grain free at the moment, I do enjoy experimenting with gluten/grain free recipes and coconut flour. This one was delicious, but don’t expect the waffle, or the batter, to have the same consistency as a waffle made with wheat flour. This batter is a lot thicker and spreading it around the waffle iron will bring the best results when cooking.

1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp coconut flour

8 eggs

2 Tbsp coconut milk

2 tsp Epicure’s Cinnamon

2 tsp Epicure’s Baking Powder

Sift coconut flour to remove any lumps. Blend all ingredients with a hand mixer and bake one at a time on a waffle iron. Although the batter will be really thick, you can add a bit more coconut flour if you find it’s just too thick. Makes about 4 waffles.

Top with a sliced banana fried in coconut oil with a handful of pecans and a teaspoon of Epicure’s Maple Spice Fruit Dip Mix. Yummy.

 

Avocado/Paleo Brownies

My friend Darlene posted about these brownies and figured I was the one who should start the experiment by making them. Since I had three very ripe avocados waiting for their destiny, these brownies looked like a better alternative than the place overripe avocados often end up. (They seem to be hard one day and overripe the next, do you find that too?)

The original recipe is from http://tgipaleo.com/ and since it’s CHOCOLATE, it really deserved an Epicure treatment! I believe this new Epicure version is true to the idea of a paleo diet, however, milk may be found in the dark chocolate.

While not overly sweet, our kids devoured these, even though they helped to make them and saw all the “yucky green stuff,” as they would say!

Ingredients

1/2 cup Epicure’s Dark Chocolate, melted in a double boiler with 1 TBSP coconut oil

3 Small Avocados (or 2 Large)

1/2 c Honey

3 Eggs

1/4 c Epicure’s Pure Cocoa

1 TBSP Epicure’s Vanilla Extract

1-2 TBSP Coconut Flour

2 tsp Epicure’s Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Epicure’s Sea Salt

Instructions

Puree the avocado flesh in a food processor until there are no lumps.

Beat all remaining ingredients together with the avocado in a bowl with an electric mixer until  smooth and fluffy.

Spoon batter into Epicure’s mini muffin tin, sprayed.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out smooth.

The Checkerboard Cake

Came across this idea while perusing the internet for tea party ideas. The checkerboard cake. So pretty and I knew right away I had to attempt this one.

Apparently, you can do this quite easily with the Wilton checkerboard cake set. But having neither time nor desire to search out this special pan, I figured there had to be another way.

After some searching around the house for round things, I came across the tin cans in the drawer and found the perfect fit. The cake is made in three layers with three colors of batter set in the pan in alternating concentric circles. So you need two circles to separate the colors from one another. Then the baked cakes stack and voila! checkerboard pattern.

There are many excellent tutorials on the web on how to make a checkerboard cake using either the Wilton cake set or cutting and gluing the cakes together. Baking the cakes already in the correct patterns makes things much, much easier, and if you are fortunate enough to find tin cans in right proportions to your existing layer cake pans, you can make it simply without purchasing another cake set.

Here are a few photos of the outcome, I was very pleased with the results for my first attempt.

Oh

Sugar cookies with the chocolate decorator

I recently planned a tea party and wanted something a little different to mark the place settings. One night the idea came to me of making long cookies and writing the guests’ names on each one in chocolate.

Epicure’s chocolate decorator makes this a very simple process. I have owned this chocolate decorator for about a year and never used it. My first use for it was actually to add gingerbread syrup on top of frothy lattes. This was the first time I tried it with chocolate.

Simply place about 1/4 cup of Epicure’s chocolate in the decorator and microwave for one minute to melt. Or you can gently melt the chocolate on very low heat on the stove, then add to the decorator with a spatula. Then, add a tip and decorate away!

I used a simple cookie recipe to make the bars, this one is excellent for all kinds of shaped cookies. Epicure’s decorating sugar adds a bit of sparkle.

The Cookie Recipe

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp Epicure’s Vanilla Extract

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and extract. Mix flour and salt together and add to creamed mixture. Blend well. Chill at least 15 minutes before rolling, cutting and shaping.

 

Tourtiere

Tonight is our third new year’s eve partaking in a new family tradition of watching Mr. Bean and eating a meal in front of the tv. Past meals have included spaghetti and meatballs, jambalaya and this year, tourtiere.

This recipe is adapted from Anna Olson’s tourtiere recipe. In my tourtiere research, I discovered that tourtiere does not mean “meat pie” in French (as I thought), but rather “pigeon pie,” as this was an easy bird to catch way back when, and inexpensive as well. The pie has evolved to include ground beef, pork or veal, but a traditional version could include any wild game or bird.

Make your favorite pastry to bake your tourtiere in. I’m partial to the recipe inside the lard wrapper, easy to make and no need to copy it into your recipe book! I have since found a coconut flour recipe that I will try in the new year for sweet or savoury pies.

Filling

• 1 1/2 pounds ground pork, veal, beef or combination
• 1 tsp Epicure’s Mulling Spices
• 2 onions, diced
• 1 medium carrot, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Epicure Bay Leaves
• 1 tsp Epicure’s Sea Salt
• 1/2 tsp Epicure’s Pepper
• dash allspice
• dash ground cloves
• 1 cup apple cider, made with Epicure’s Mulling Spices
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups boiled  potatoes, riced

1. In a large pot, sauté onion until golden with a bit of oil. Then add beef, pork and/or veal and cook over medium heat with mulling spices until no longer pink. Drain off excess fat, add carrots and seasonings and cook another five minutes.
2. Add cider and water and bring up to a simmer. Let mixture simmer for about 15 minutes, until most of liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat, stir in potatoes and cool slightly.
3. Preheat oven to 375 °F. Roll two layers of pastry and line your pie plate with one, fill with the meat filling and cover with the other rolled pastry. Pinch the edges as you would any pie.
4. Bake 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Butter Chicken

This one is super easy with one of Epicure’s newest What’s For Dinner selections, seasoning for Butter Chicken. Simply saute a chopped onion in butter, add the seasoning, crushed tomatos and water and about 3 cubed boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Simmer until the chicken is cooked, then add yogurt or cream. For a twist you could add coconut milk and some frozen peaches or mangos. Serve over rice.

Delicious as well as quick and easy. (gotta love that:)