Ottawa Eco Fair

Jacqueline Cooks Soup!

This past weekend Jacqueline from the Red Apron was the featured Chef at the Ottawa Eco Fair.  This event celebrates green living ideas, products and services.  While there Jacqueline prepared an Heirloom Tomato Soup using heirloom tomatoes that we purchased from Bryson Farms.  This simple soup is a taste of summer, and we will be preparing a similar soup next week at Bonappetit!

Many people asked Jacqueline for the recipe, so by popular demand!

Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato Soup

1 large or two small head garlic
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, sliced
8 cups tomatoes, fresh or frozen, skins removed.  You can also use canned tomatoes, but the quality is very important!
1/2 cup red wine
salt
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream or cashew cream – See note (optional, but scrumptious)
fresh basil, parsley and chives, finely chopped

Roast garlic by wrapping it in foil and baking it a 350 oven for 35-40 minutes, until very soft.  Cut off the top and squeeze the garlic out into a bowl.  Heat the olive oil at med high, and when shimmery, add onions and 1/2 tsp of salt.  Saute onions, stirring every minute or so, until they are brown and very soft. Add minced garlic and cook another two minutes on medium, stirring constantly. Add wine and stir to scrape up the caramel from the onions.  Cook one more minute.

Add tomatoes,balsamic and sugar and a bit more salt, and heat through. Use the hand blender to blend until smooth or put it in the food processor. If it’s thick,  add a little stock or water.  Adjust seasoning. Add cream or cashew cream, and heat through to serving temperature.  Serve garnished with a generous portion of minced herbs.

Note:  To make cashew cream, blend raw cashews with the same quantity of  water in blender until it resembles cream.

Filed Under:  Recipes, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized

Food for Young Palates

Not everyone knows this, but the Red Apron provides fresh meals each day to Acorn Early Learning Centre, located in the Glebe on Rosebery Ave.  Joanne Saunders and her caring staff provide a safe, healthy and stimulating program for preschool children.

Many childcare centres operate with little budget allotted – or consideration made – for the food the children are eating.  Joanne’s desire to provide the children with a rich understanding of the importance of quality, nourishing ingredients, and also to educate them on the relationships between their personal health and the health of the environment and their communities, made this a project we had to be part of.

Each day the children eat the same types of food we prepare for our regular clients.  They enjoy a variety of organic whole grains (pastas, rice, couscous and barley).  They devour a healthy vegetable soup once a week, the type of soup changing from one week to the next – they have tried everything from gazpacho (not their favourite) to sweet potato & curried coconut (a big hit!).  They celebrated Chinese New Year this year with a feast of Long Life Noodles with Lucky Chicken and Greens. Each Friday throughout the warmer months, they receive a picnic-type lunch, which they take to the park to enjoy.

Many of the parents from Acorn visit our store, searching out their child’s favourite soup or muffin, but since all of the food is custom-made for the Centre, we rarely have the exact same item in our retail store.  So, to satisfy the needs of those hungry kids, we are sharing the recipe for the muffins we provide each day.  The recipe was created so that we could provide a moist and tasty, dairy-free and egg-free (Vegan) muffin.

So, by popular demand, here is the recipe.  This recipe makes a large batch (40-50 muffins).

3 cups        organic whole wheat flour
¾ cup        organic cane sugar
1/3 cup       oat bran
¼ tsp          salt
½ tsp          cinnamon
½ Tbsp      baking soda
½ Tbsp      baking powder

Mix all the dry ingredients together

3 cups         water
1 cup           oil
4 cups         fruit (frozen berries, chopped apples, etc.)

Note:  we have made a wide variety of combinations using this base recipe.  For banana muffins, we mash in 4 ripe bananas, and still add the chopped fruit.  We have made them as well with date puree.  They were fantastic!  You can also mix up the dry ingredients and keep the mixture in an airtight container, so when you want a small batch of muffins, you can just scoop out 1/4 of the dry ingredients, quarter the wet ingredients, mix, scoop into greased muffin tins and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.  Test for doneness. Enjoy!

Today's Very Berry Muffins

Filed Under:  Recipes, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized