Tag Archives: easy

Warm Udon Noodle Soup

The mercury in our thermometer is dropping, so we are now collecting the best soup recipes to make for the cold winter nights. Next time you are home late from work – because the roads were so bad, of course – whip up a steaming bowl of warm udon noodle soup. You can omit the chicken and use vegetable stock for a vegetarian-friendly family, or swap in beef with beef stock for a slightly different flavour. We made this after a long day, and it was just what we needed!

1) Slice raw chicken breast, season with salt and pepper and cook until done.

cooking chicken

2) In a separate pot, stirfry mixed vegetables, and once soft, add stock of your choice. Bring heat up until soup boils.

vegetables in broth

3) Once the soup is boiling, add liquid sauce of your choice to chicken. We used hoisin sauce, soy sauce and hot sauce.

cooking chicken and vegetables for soup

4) Combine chicken in its sauce to soup and stir together. Before serving, separate and add udon noodles. Stir until noodles soften.

soup and noodles all mixed

5) Serve and enjoy!

noodle soup

Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Coffee Cake

With Canadian Thanksgiving having passed, we still have the thought of pumpkin in our minds and the taste on our tongues. Hot and sweet pumpkin pie, freshly carved pumpkin jack-0-lanterns, and salty roasted pumpkin seeds. No matter what form they take, pumpkins truly are the icon of autumn. Here is a recipe for a delicious Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Coffee Cake taken from Flavor Mosaic.

Ingredients:

Cake
  • 1¾ cups of all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
  • ½ cup vegetable oil
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • 6 ounces pumpkin puree (about ½ a can)
  • ½ cup milk
 Cinnamon Swirl
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter (1/2 a stick of butter), melted
 Glaze
  • 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk

Directions:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2) In a medium sized bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin spice. If you don’t have pumpkin spice, which we did not, we used a pinch of ground ginger as a substitute.

dry ingredients in a bowl
3) In another bowl, mix together the vegetable oil, sugar, egg, vanilla, pumpkin puree and milk.

wet ingredients in a bowl
4) Add the dry mix into the wet ingredients and mix together until batter is combined.

combined batter
5) Take an 8″ by 8″ cake pan and spray lightly with Pam or grease lightly with butter. Add cake batter into cake pan.

cake batter in the pan
6) Melt your butter completely in a small bowl and once melted add in the cinnamon and sugar and mix until smooth. (Side note: we made this cake twice- the photos are from the first time when the butter was not melted completely before adding sugar and cinnamon and the result is a much more clumpy cinnamon sugar mix. It was much more difficult to swirl through the cake).

7) Drop small spoonfuls of the sugar/cinnamon mix onto the cake. Take a toothpick or knife and distribute the mix throughout the cake batter. We dropped spoonfuls in each corner and swirled towards the middle of the cake.

the cake before the oven
8) Bake cake for 35-30 minutes in oven until a toothpick that is inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

the cake after the oven
9) After cake has cooled (about 15 minutes) mix together powdered sugar and milk until you have a smooth, runny consistency. Drizzle glaze over the top of the cake and let dry completely before serving.

pumpkin cake
10) Slice and enjoy!

Read the original recipe HERE!

 

Chef Warren’s Stovetop Lasagna

“This lasagna dish was cooked in 35 minutes on top of the stove. When cooking in Kitchen Charm cookware, the heat is distributed evenly so everything cooks through at the same time! Be sure to check your temperature as sometimes the lower heat setting and cooking for a longer time may be advised. Happy cooking!” – Chef Warren Goodgoll

Ingredients

1 Box dry lasagna noodle
1 ½ lb meat sauce
500 grams grated mozzarella cheese
Med container of cottage cheese
4 tbsp beef broth or water

Chef Warren’s Stovetop Pineapple Cake

Cake made on the stove top

Ingredients

1 box Duncan Hines yellow cake mix
Zest and juice of ½ lemon
1 tsp chopped ginger
3 tbl brown sugar
2 tbl unsalted butter
1 can pineapple rings
Maraschino cherries
1 large egg

Directions

Take the ginger, lemon zest and a couple TBL of the pineapple juice. Microwave it for 30 sec.

In a bowl mix cake mix, egg, ginger lemon mixture and pineapple juice from the can of pineapple rings. Mix them together to give it the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

In the Kitchen Charm 8” skillet melt the butter at a med low heat, sprinkle the sugar eavenly around.

Add the pineapple rings, put a maraschino cherry in the middle of each pineapple ring.

Add cake mixture, cover with redo vent open. Wait for steam to come out of the vent. It doesn’t have to whistle. Aprox 12 min. sometimes the cake may rise enough and block the vent. You should not need to cook more than 15min.

After the steam has started to come out of the vent, or after the time, take the pot of the burner if you are cooking on electric turn the stove off. Try to not open the lid to look this will release the heat inside the pan and the cake may not finish cooking. Let sit for ten minutes with the vent closed.

Take the lid off, run a knife around the side of the pot and invert onto a plate.

If you would like to make a quick caramel sauce, turn the pan on to a med heat add 1 cup heavy cream reduce till nice consistency. Aprox 3-5 min. the sugar and bits will mix the reduction to make a nice cream to pour over the slice of cake.

Check out our products used in this recipe on our website!

– Chef Warren at chefwarren.ca

Chef Warren’s Meat Sauce

Pasta with meat sauce is a classic meal that is always a hit with parents and children alike! For this reason, it is important that you perfect your sauce and become comfortable enough to whip it up in no time during a busy day! Take a look at Chef Warren’s take on meat sauce- it might just become a staple in your recipe book!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 white onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
2 cloves fresh garlic
few sprigs of fresh thyme
1.5 lbs extra lean ground beef
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tsp dry basil
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp tomato paste (heaping)
1 tin crushed tomatoes
1 tin diced tomatoes
1 tin black beans, drained and rinsed
2 bay leaves

DIRECTIONS 

In the 8″ skillet, turn the heat to low and sweat the chopped onion, carrot and garlic together by adding the lid and stirring every so often- the moisture from the onions create steam to hydrate the skillet so nothing sticks.  Add the thyme and stir again.

After a few minutes, add the ground beef and turn the heat up to medium. Stir every so often and then press meat down, put lid on and let cook for 5 minutes. Remove lid and stir.

Add spices (oregano, basil, chili powder) and tomato paste. Stir again.

Add tin of crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and tin of black beans plus a couple of bay leaves. Stir.

Put lid on and cook until whistle goes off. Keep lid ajar to avoid splattering and turn heat down or turn off stove until ready to eat.

– Chef Warren at chefwarren.ca