spaghetti magnifico

Ever since Rock brought me to Cochon Dingue in Quebec City when I was pregnant, I have been obsessed with their ‘spaghetti magnifico.’  It’s just spaghetti with bolognese sauce topped with some sautéed vegetables but it’s sooooo good.  There’s something about the sauce that makes it taste totally different from any other spaghetti sauce I’d had.  But turns out Rock’s mom’s ‘ma sauce spaghetti Italienne’ tastes pretty damn close!  And no wonder it doesn’t taste like your usual spaghetti sauce ‘cus there’s some rather unconventional ingredients (to me anyway!) in there such as Campbell’s soup, chilli sauce and soy sauce.  Anyway, Rock’s mom gifted him a beautiful handwritten book of all her recipes for Christmas and her spaghetti sauce recipe is in there.  So I used an adapted version of her sauce recipe and roasted some veggies, hoping to recreate my fave QC food (other than poutine of course).  UPDATE: I regularly just make the sauce without adding the roasted vegetables too – it’s become my go-to bolognese recipe.

‘ma sauce spaghetti Italienne’: 1 kg ground beef  /  ~1 tbsp olive oil  /  1 cup diced celery  /  1 cup diced carrots  /  1 cup diced onion  /  1 tbsp sugar  /  salt and pepper to taste  /  4 garlic cloves, minced  /  1 large tin crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes in juice (I think it’s about 750ml)  /  1 can (5.5oz each) tomato paste  /  1 can Campbell’s tomato soup  /  1/2 bottle (455ml) Heinz chilli sauce  /  1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce  /  1 tbsp soy sauce  /  2 bay leaves  /  3 drops of tabasco sauce  /  1 tbsp dried thyme  /  1 tbsp dried parsley  /  1 tbsp dried oregano  /  1 tbsp Italian spices  /  ~1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper (adjust according to how much heat you want)

Roasted vegetables: Olive oil  / salt and pepper to taste  / whatever vegetables you like, roughly cut into 1 inch pieces – I like to use celery,  mushrooms, yellow and red peppers and zucchini

And of course you’ll need spaghetti noodles!

In a large pot or dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat, sautée the onion, celery and carrots in the olive oil until the onions have turned translucent and the vegetables have softened.  Next, add in the garlic and the beef and cook while stirring until the beef is cooked through.  Then just throw in all the rest of the ingredients, give it a stir and bring it to a boil.  Turn the heat down to a simmer and put a lid on.  Now all you have to do is let it slowly simmer away for 3.5 to 4 hours, giving it a little stir every now and again.

This sauce is AMAZING!  Anyway, close to when you wanna serve your spaghetti, scatter your veggies on a baking sheet, drizzle a bit of oil over top, season with some salt and pepper and slide into a 375F oven for about 20 minutes.  And while everything’s coming together, cook up your spaghetti til al dente.  And to serve, just plate up the spaghetti with some sauce generously ladled over and then some roasted veggies toppled over top.

Update: I have since made Rock’s mom’s spaghetti sauce about a kajillion times and everyone that tries it loves it. Definitely try it!

afghan inspired eggplant

Recently a friend took us to East is East in Vancouver and I had a roti roll filled with some seriously yummy eggplant which they called ‘Ghandara Blues’.  Ever since, I’ve been thinking that maybe I really love eggplant and I just had to find out how to make this eggplant dish.  I googled ‘eggplant’ and ‘Afghan’ and found lots of different recipes for borani banjan which is apparently a very popular dish in Afghanistan (I’m not gonna pretend I know anything about Afghan cuisine hence I’m calling this dish Afghan inspired instead of Afghan style!).  All the recipes were quite different and involve having the eggplant fried and layered whereas the dish I had wasn’t quite like that so I decided I’d just have to try and wing it.

2 medium sized eggplants  /  4 cloves garlic  /  1/2 medium yellow onion  /  1 can of whole tomatoes (796 ml)  /  1/2 can of tomato paste  /  1 tsp ground turmeric  /  1 tsp paprika  /  1/4 tsp hot chilli powder (or less/none if you don’t like heat)  /  avocado or olive oil  /  plain greek yogurt  /  dried mint  /  salt First slice the eggplant into 1 inch thick rounds, sprinkle liberally with salt and let them drain out excess liquid between some paper towels for about 30 minutes.  In the meantime, preheat the oven to 400F and after the eggplants have let out the excess liquid, cut them up into 1 inch cubes.  Scatter the eggplant cubes evenly on a baking sheet and drizzle some oil over top and give it a bit of a toss.  Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, mince the garlic and finely chop up the onion.  Drain the can of whole tomatoes and just roughly slice the tomatoes into halves.  Sauté the garlic and onion in a large frying pan with some oil until the onions are translucent.  Add in the tumeric, paprika and chilli powder.  Then tip in the tomatoes and add the tomato paste and give it all a stir.  The tomatoes will cook down a bit and then add in the eggplant.  Let it all cook together for about 5 minutes or so and then that’s it.  Season with a bit more salt to taste.  Dollop some yogurt sprinkled with the mint on top and serve with basmati rice. I’m very happy with the result!  Considering I had no idea what I was doing and tried to recreate something I’ve eaten only once, this turned out great.  We think that it would also be good if we made this with more of a sauce consistency but either way it’s just up to personal preference.  Maybe next time to make it more saucy I’d add just a bit of water or the liquid from the tin of tomatoes and let it thicken up a bit while cooking.  Also, next time I’m gonna do some research and try my hand at making the Afghan style rice that’s got carrots and raisins in it…!

matcha green tea popsicles

We got some popsicle moulds from Superstore awhile back and I decided to finally give them a whirl.  I don’t think I’ve made popsicles since I was a kid and I don’t know why cus they’re so easy!  I decided to try making some healthy popsicles using matcha green tea and I think these worked out pretty well.  I just used ingredients that I always have on hand.  This makes 4 popsicles.

1 tsp matcha  /  1/4 cup boiling hot water  /  2 tsp agave syrup  /  1 cup unsweetened almond milk

In a measuring cup (just to make life extra easy since the measurements are right there!), pour the hot water over the matcha powder and mix until dissolved.  Then stir in the agave syrup and finally the almond milk.  Pour into your moulds and pop them in the freezer until completely frozen.  And that’s it!

We love matcha!  Happy to have found another way to have it.  I used almond milk for these but maybe another time I’ll try using coconut milk to get kind of a richer creamsicle consistency. Either way, delish popsicles!