Roasted Asparagus

Can asparagus be roasted? Yes, it can.

I suppose that the answer to the question should have been obvious. I mean what would stop asparagus from being roasted? (Are there any vegetables that you can't roast?) But then I never cooked it this way until recently.

Roasted Asparagus

• Asparagus
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• Olive oil to coat
• salt & pepper to taste
• balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
   
2. Prepare the asparagus (break off the tough ends).
3. Toss with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.
4. Place in a shallow baking dish.
5. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until desired tenderness.
6. Sprinkle with a small amount of balsamic vinegar if desired.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Why what do we have here? Delicious chocolatey cookies, that's what! I spent the afternoon in the kitchen making a couple dozen cookies. Unfortunately I didn't seem to ever get the cooking time quite right so the middle was a little undercooked (but I know some people like that).

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (190° C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract (and almond extract) and eggs one at a time.
3. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the butter mixture.
4. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
5. Bake for 9 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are golden. Let cool on sheet for a minute then remove to cool on wire racks.

Mmmm, pancakes

Sometimes I think breakfast is one of my favourite meals. You can eat all sorts of delicious things for breakfast like pancakes! Pictured here are some banana pancakes cooking on my griddle before they were covered with maple syrup (the real stuff) and placed in my stomach. I don't really have an official recipe that I use for these, just a list of ingredients I copied down the ingredients on a little bit of lined paper, but I'll share it just the same.

Basic Pancakes

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 2/3 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons cooking oil

1. Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
   
2. Mix together the eggs, milk and cooking oil in a large bowl.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredient mixture and mix until smooth.
4. Heat your griddle to medium (coat with a bit of vegetable oil before hand if yours isn't non-stick) and wait for it to be hot enough -- water drops should sizzle on it.
5. Pour about 1/3 cup batter onto the pan per pancake, or however much you want to get the size you desire.
6. Wait until the top is all bubblely and it looks like it's cooked about half-way through and then flip, the pancake side should be golden brown. Cook the other side until it's also golden brown. note: if the outside browns too quickly, turn down the temperature of the pan.
   

To give these some banana flavour, I added 2 small mashed bananas to the wet ingredients, used 1/3 cup less milk and added about 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.

Day 8: Metroid Complete

So I spent a lot of time yesterday sewing together the metroid plushie and finished it this morning. As promised, here is a picture of the little guy. I think he's trying to eat my lamp but finding the plastic a little hard to digest.

I also busted out the slow cooker and made some pork chops in it yesterday. They were nice and tender (completely unlike the tough unchewable ones my parents made when I was a kid -- sorry mom & dad) and there's still leftovers for tonight. I probably should have taken a picture to share them, but I have to admit that they aren't all that pretty to look at.

In case you wanted to try making your own pork chops in the slow cooker, the recipe I used was modified from this one here at all recipes.

• 6 boneless pork chops
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Arrange the pork chops in the bottom of your slow cooker. Mix together all of the remaining ingredients to combine the sauce. Pour the sauce over the pork chops.
2. Cook on low for 6 hours.
   

Day 5: Banana nut muffins

Today's creation is a tasty treat. I made these muffins and then ate a couple for lunch almost right out of the oven. Delicious!

The recipe for these came from page 636 of Joy of Cooking I just threw in the remainder of some chocolate chips that I had on hand and added a smidgen extra vanilla because I could.

So if you want to make these yourself, preheat your oven to 375 F. In a bowl, mix together:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour or wheat bran
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking sodea
1/4 teaspooon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg

and then stir in:

2/3 cup chopped walnuts

and in another large bowl whisk together:

1 large egg
3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
1 1/3 cup ripe bananas (2 or 3)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Add the flour mixture to the liquid ingredients and fold until just moistened. Divide the batter into the muffin cups. and bake for 14-16 minutes.