Holiday Eats and Treats...

Herb Garlic Dijon Prime Rib

May your festive holiday be a pinch of patience, 

a dash of kindness, 

a spoonful of laughter 

and a heap of love! 💗

Happy Holidays From Ours To Yours...

WaNt NoTHing. (ﾉ>ω<)ﾉ :｡･:*:･ﾟ’★,｡･:*:♪･ﾟ’☆ 

Be content with what you have. Rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. -- Lao Tzu 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Bright New Year!

Cherry-Hazelnut Cream Scones...

These classic bakery treats are a cinch to make at home and perfect for a casual morning goodie or an entertaining weekend brunch but also to gift. With the Christmas holidays in full swing, these have always been my favourite to bake up and share-- for my neighbours, my kids' teachers and school bus drivers. This fabulous base cream recipe allows you to dream up unlimited flavours and texture combinations. This year I've got hazelnuts for crunchy contrast to the soft yield of the scone and chewy tart dried cherries for the festive bling! And I have to say, has been a big hit with everyone so far!

Cherry-Hazelnut Cream Scones
Makes 8 scones

3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp. cold 35% heavy cream (I know, but cream makes the scones real tender)
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for work surface
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and place in freezer for five to 10 minutes.
2/3 cup dried cherries, coarsely chopped (or use dried cranberries)-- buy them at a bulk store

1/3 cup roasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
Coarse or sanding sugar

Optional: 1/4 tsp. lemon oil or 1 Tbsp. lemon zest

To Roast Hazelnuts: Preheat oven to 325F. Spread nuts out on a baking sheet. Toast until lightly golden and fragrant, 8 to 12 minutes. Stir halfway through. Leave oven on. Wrap nuts in a kitchen towel and let steam for one minute. Then rub hazelnuts in towel to remove skin. When nuts are completely cool, coarsely chop.

Preheat oven to 400F. Whisk together 3/4 cup cream and egg, then lemon oil or zest if using. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Cut cold butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal, with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining (I use my fingers for this). Stir in cherries and hazelnuts. With a fork, stir in cream mixture until just combined. TIP: Cold butter makes the scones flaky!

The dough should be crumbly; do not overwork.

Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and pat into a 6-inch circle. Cut into eight wedges and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar, if desired. Bake until golden, 16 to 18 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through.

Cook's NOTE: Scones are best eaten the day they're baked. To work ahead, freeze unbaked scones in a single layer, then store in zip-top bag, up to two months; brush frozen scones with cream, sprinkle with sugar and bake at 375F for 25 minutes.

Love those bulging tart cherries!

Try also my Best-Ever Flaky Scones with Homemade Lemon Curd

And my favourite go-to scone-- Lemon Cream Scones with Currants

Jools Oliver's Easy Oaty Fruit Cookies...

Not only do we all LOVE baking cookies this time of year, but this December, ambassadors at Food Revolution Toronto is hosting a fabulous cooking contest to win one of four @jamieoliver cookbooks! A great contest to gear up for the holidays with Jamie Oliver's wife Jools' Easy Oaty Fruit Cookies recipe to get you and/or your kids in the kitchen baking. I've got my husband's office Christmas potluck (a huge hit by the way), treats for my neighbours and of course rewards/goodies for my little helpers, so a double batch is in order to make plenty to go around! A healthy, delicious cookie you can feel good about giving and eating!

As Jamie Oliver's site says of this recipe: “A really delicious, simple, comforting cookie – porridge oats are a high-fibre carbohydrate, which means they’ll keep you feeling fuller for longer. Feel free to use whichever dried fruit you like in the mix – things like prunes, apricots, sour cherries and blueberries all work well. ”

Jools Oliver's Easy Oaty Fruity Cookies
Makes about two dozen (24) cookies

3/4 cup all purpose flour, spelt or wholemeal flour
1 tsp. ground mixed spice or cinnamon
½ tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup quick oats (not instant)
2/3 cup raisins, sultanas or whichever dried fruit you like (we used currants, cranberries and apricots)
1/4 cup mixed seeds, such as pumpkin, sunflower, flaxseed, sesame
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup golden caster sugar
1/4 cup soft brown sugar
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line two large baking trays with parchment paper. (I doubled the recipe to make a double batch, lining four baking sheets).

Tip the flour, mixed spice/cinnamon, baking soda, oats, dried fruit (roughly chop up any bigger pieces of fruit first) and seeds into a large bowl and mix together well.

In another large bowl, cream the soft butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Crack in the egg and beat to combine. Tip in all the dry ingredients and stir together – it should come together, but you might need to press it together with your hands to get everything properly combined.

Stirring and cracking eggs- my boys favourite cooking tasks!

"I like looking it whizz from here mom!"

At this stage, the mixture will be sticky, but if you wet your hands, you will be able to it roll into walnut-sized balls – you should get around 24 in total. As you roll them, place them onto the lined baking trays, squashing them down a little with the palm of your hand.

Bake in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly golden and slightly soft in middle.
Once cooked, remove from the oven and when cool enough to handle transfer them to wire racks to cool a little – they’re delicious warm, but equally good cold. Keep in an air-tight container for up to 5 days.

TIP: If you prefer to bake two sheets, space racks so oven is divided into thirds and switch cookie sheets top to bottom and back to front halfway through baking. I was able to do this with four baking sheets, two on top and two on bottom. 

Ready for the ovenator!

Four dozen yummy cookies!!!

Give this recipe a try for the holidays-- how about for an cookies exchange, teachers' and hostess' gifts or a plate out for Santa on X-Mas Eve? Healthy, delicious and fun to make together! And while you're at it, why not also enter our December contest to win a Jamie Oliver cookbook? Just snap a photo and share it on social media as per below.
Hey #Canada -  Food Revolution Toronto want to get you BAKING! Starting December 1st 2016 until December 31st 2016, bake up a batch of Jools Oliver's Easy Oaty Fruity Cookies for your chance to win one of four Jamie Oliver cookbooks thanks to Harper Collins Canada!

How To Enter:

Bake Jools' Easy Oaty Fruity Cookies with your family, snap a picture and share it on social media using the hashtag #CookwithFoodRevTO and tag us on Facebook, or at @FoodRevToronto on Twitter or Instagram and you'll be entered to win a cookbook!

Eligibility and Contest Rules:

– Contest begins on December 1st 2016 at 10am EST on and closes December 31st 2016 at 6pm EST.
– Prize consists of one (1) Jamie Oliver cookbook (various titles).
– There are four (4) prizes in total.
– Open to readers or the age of majority with a Canadian mailing address.
– No purchase of any product necessary for entry.
– Winners will be chosen randomly (using random.org) from all qualified entries on Dec. 31st 2016 after 6pm EST.
– Winners will be notified via email January 1st 2017 and will have 48 hours to respond to the email.
– Winners will be required to answer a skill testing question.

***** Roll up your sleeves and Let's Get Baking! *****

Community Food Centres Canada #myfoodhero Campaign...

This holiday season, Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC) is celebrating the food heroes #myfoodhero in our lives, along with ambassadors at Food Revolution Toronto, we are inviting you to do the same. 

This month show your food hero you care by making a donation to Community Food Centres Canada on their behalf or in their honour. CFCC will let them know you're thinking of them with a personalized card and gift booklet filled with recipes and stories from their favourite chefs, including Jamie Oliver! Together, you'll know you're helping to reach tens of thousands of low-income Canadians with empowering food programs that build better health, hope, and belonging.

Photo Credit: Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC)

#myfoodhero is my grandma, Kuen. This is my story...

In the early 1980s with my grandma, brother and sister to the far right and our cousins.

Growing up, intimate and extended family gatherings were plenty and my grandma was often at the centre of them. It was a chance for everyone to catch up with her and to eat her homemade goodies. She immigrated to Canada from Guangzhou China when I was eight, and lived with us for a short time; she was always in the kitchen cooking up something good. Amongst her many traditional Chinese dishes, two trademark specialties are fondly remembered and loved. One is her casual bowl of rice dumplings in a light cabbage soup called tangyuan. The other is the labour-intensive zong zi, a Chinese version of tamales made to celebrate the annual Dragon Boat Festival. Bamboo leaves are wrapped around glutinous sweet sticky rice mixed with all sorts of filling- savoury or sweet and boiled until ready. Grandma’s signature filling is savoury with seasoned pork belly, Chinese cured sausage, peanuts and duck egg yolk. The entire process involves a lot of time, preparations and patience. Very few people know how to make these well but my grandma made them with ease and joy! 

Freshly wrapped zong zi made its anticipated circuit delivery to family members, an unwavering production from a huge batch which only later did I really appreciate grandma's tremendous effort. It truly was a labour of love! As she grew older, big family gatherings were far less, but we were bound together with a bite into her delicious zong zi.  She probably made them for family until she was 90. She passed away at 98! It wasn’t until I tasted a family friend’s version that I realized if I didn’t learn to cook these, my grandma’s culinary legacy would be lost forever. For the last two years, what felt like a momentous task at the start, I proudly self-taught to make these rice bundles along with my mom and have been distributing them to my siblings’ families. My regret is not learning the tricks of the trade first-hand alongside grandma when she was still alive. 

To see how to make zong zi, check out my step-by-step post.

Left: My mom preparing zong zi for the pot (1st year). Right: Second year in the making.

My grandma's luscious signature savoury filling exposed!

My wish is to carry forward new memories around this family childhood favourite from my grandma who I adored. It is my honour to preserve her culinary legacy by passing on the same heart, and skills to my children one day (who loves eating zong zi), and hopefully it will continue onwards for generations to come--  a family history that would exemplify a taste of the beautiful spirit of their great great (plus) grandma!

Christmas food spread one year with both Chinese and Iranian dishes!

My twins on grandma's right and left, and my cousins!

WOW! Grandma has 5 children, 16 grandchildren, 28 great grandchildren
and 9 great great grandchildren.

For my actual campaign post on CFCC, see it here.

This holiday season, I'm celebrating #myfoodhero grandma Kuen, with a donation in her memory to Community Food Centres Canada to support their work in bringing the power of food to low-income communities. I hope you'll consider making a donation in honour of your food hero, too. 

Please also sign up for CFCC's monthly enewsletter for updates on the campaign, as well as updates on their community impact, research on food issues, event announcements, and more!

Zahav's Hummus Tehina...

From Words to Wok is an online community of cookbook and food memoir enthusiasts founded by my friend Prachi Grover in Dubai. Members are people who have a huge collection of cookbooks and don’t know how to stop adding more to our book shelves. Since we don’t have any intentions of controlling this habit we decided to do the next best thing: become a part of this group where we can legitimize this kind of behaviour. For December, the cookbook of choice is Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking by Michael Solomonov.

Upon flipping through the part culinary memoir and part cookbook, Israeli-born Chef Solomonov's mouthwatering photo spread of hummus recipes tease the senses and seem to leap out of the pages. As Solomonov says about his Philadelphia restaurant Zahav, "more than anything, it's this dish that brings people to the restaurant in the first place." His hummus has been touted as ingenius. Bon Appétit named it their 2015 dish of the year. In Phyllis Grant's recent Piglet judgement, she wrote that the first chapter alone, with its seven types of hummus, should win a James Beard Award, which I totally agree. The genius of Solomonov's hummus is due to a series of steps in the preparations: soaking the chickpeas in baking soda to raise the pH and soften their skins, overcooking the chickpeas until they're mushy and falling apart a little, then whipping longer than you should until the hummus is silky smooth and creamy. But the biggest secret in all of this is using the finest tehina (tahini), and lots of it! In the book, there is his recipe for basic tehina made with sesame paste, garlic, lemon juice and cumin. I used a store-bought brand instead that has a thick texture, thus had to adjust his hummus recipe to get to smooth pureed consistency. The results were magnificent-- warm, smooth and luxurious, nothing like the cold, stiff tub of the store-bought refrigerated kind. A healthy homemade dip that pleased my family and one I will make again and again!

Scratch hummus and homemade pita chips

Rehydrating dried chickpeas.

Photo Credit: Michael Solomonov's varied hummus recipes in Zahav.

Zahav's Hummus Tehina (adapted from Michael Solomonov's Zahav)

Makes 3 cups

1 cup dried chickpeas
2 tsp. baking soda, divided

1-1/4 cups tehina (store-bought tehina can have its oil and paste separate-- stir very well to blend-- I used Alkanatar brand)
2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (to taste)

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 tsp. ground cumin (to taste)

water to aid in blending
EVOO, chopped parsley and paprika for serving (optional)

TIP: Serve leftover hummus a little warm or in room temperature for best taste.

In a bowl, cover chickpeas by at least two inches of cold water. Add one tsp. baking soda and let soak at room temperature overnight. Drain and rinse.

In a medium pot, cover soaked chickpeas by at least four inches of water. Add the remaining one tsp. baking soda and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium high and let cook at a vigorous simmer until chickpeas are quite soft, 1 to 1-1/2 hours. (Overcooked chickpeas are the secret to creamy hummus, so don’t worry if they start to break down a little.) Drain.

Dried chickpeas double in volume soaked in water overnight.

I didn't have parsley for garnish so I used on-hand sliced green onions.

Overcook the chickpeas until they're just shy of mush.

Add the warm, drained chickpeas to blender with tehina; blend for a minute then add garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and cumin. Blend until perfectly smooth, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl occasionally about two minutes; keep pureeing until the mixture is creamy and even fluffy, adding a little water if you need it to make the contents of the blender move. Taste for seasonings, adding more salt, lemon juice and/or cumin as needed.

Stir store-bought tehina very well to blend oil and sesame paste that separated.

Warm, smooth and ultra-creamy!

To serve, spread the hummus in a shallow bowl, dust with paprika, top with parsley (or green onions in my case) and drizzle generously with EVOO.

To make your own toasted pita chips: Preheat the oven to 375 F. Cut each pita bread in quarters and each quarter in half to make 8 triangles. Place them in a single layer on a baking sheet and sprinkle lightly with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for about 10 minutes, until crisp, turning once. Optional: sprinkle with paprika.

As Chef Solomonov describes his Hummus Tehina-- the texture is smooth and creamy, and the flavours are nutty, rich and satisfying in a completely wholesome way. Exactly!