À la Dankertier

Every time we go to Montreal, we have bagels on the first morning, thanks to my lovely sister :) In fact, no trip in Canada would be complete without it! I found this recipe years ago, when me and my friend Jenny wanted to make bagels "just because" on a Sunday afternoon when we both lived in Sherbrooke. I found many other recipes after, but this one stuck because the bagels are so easy and fast to make, on top of the fact that they are really close to the "real deal". Authentic Montreal bagels are smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser than others as well as heavily covered with seeds. The original recipe is for 12 bagels, but if you want "normal size bagel", you can easily make 16, as the quantity of dough is really a lot.  Stir together 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast and 415mL of lukewarm water . Let stand for a couple of minutes. Whisk in 5 tablespoons (60g) of sugar , one beaten egg , 45mL of oil , 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of ...

A month ago, André and I started to watch How I Met Your Mother again and couldn't help but laugh when one of our friend asked us if we wanted to have a "wine and cheese tasting": we are soooo grown up! ;) It was a wonderful evening and not exactly what I expected. In Quebec, when one says "wine and cheese tasting", it means: choosing the wine, making sure the cheese are going to fit with said wine and there is a special order to drink and eat. Bottom line: it is complicated and very well organized. What we had was a very nice, simple evening with wine and cheese: and we love those! Then I thought about another wonderful recipe that my step mom made from time to time as an appetizer and would go great on a cheese plate: it has perfect blend of sweet and salty, like I love. Blend 375mL of old cheddar cheese , 125g of cream cheese* and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup . Shape into 15cm long log using clinging wrap and put in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. Finely c...

Every time we make this recipe and rewarm it at work, we have to share a bite with our friends because it smells C good. Well, it tastes amazing too! This recipe (as well as many other wonderful recipes) comes from the cookbook of my stepmom's cookbook. We discovered one of the times we went back to Québec and we fell in love with it. Of course, there is maple syrup involved: how do you think I was going through 1 gallon (yes, 4 L) of maple syrup a year!?!?! If you can't find it, use honey or pancake syrup (but it won't taste the same... ;) The recipe is good for 4 people. Mix together: - 80ml of maple syrup - 2tbsp of soy sauce - 2tbsp of ketchup - 1tbsp of strong mustard - 1tbsp of orange juice - 1tsp of curry powder - 1tsp of grounded coriander - 2 cloves of pressed garlic (or half a teaspoon of garlic powder) - 1tsp of Worcestershire sauce Put in a big watertight freezer bag and add a pork filé (500-600g) Let the pork marinate for at least a couple of h...

This is a Canadian goody which has to be here. When I tasted it the first time, there was nothing comparable. It was so good and with an incredible texture, I couldn't believe it's self made! Even more, our first trials failed sadly, it was too sticky and we needed to throw most of it out (luckily the sugar can simply be dissolved in water, just takes time). Nevertheless, the last possible problem seemed the baking soda, which we couldn't find in Sweden. So on our last trip I brought it back all the way from Chicago :) - and voilà, it came out perfect! We made 2 forms, a pie and a spring form, and figured, that not only the spring form is much easier to remove and the sponginess is more uniform. An original recipe can be found on that page . In a big pot (minimum 3 liters) warm up on medium heat 625ml sugar   160ml light corn sirup (we don't know if corn is important, and the only we found here was dark pancake sirup - it works) 80ml of water and stir consist...

In the beginning of November, we organized a Thanks giving dinner at our place. This food is delicious, the smell is intoxicating and it's also a great occasion to share a little of my "good canadien side" with others. Here is the menu (some stuff is clickable to the full recipe): Greens beans (boiled and than with just a little butter) Carrots (boiled and then caramelized in a pan using butter and maple syrup) Mashed potatoes (no trick here, just do the recipe you like) Mashed squash (traditionally pepper squash, but I just found butternut squash here, still good! Add butter, salt, pepper and a little bit of maple syrup) Turkey (including stuffing) Marinades (gherkins, olives and root beets Cranberries sauce (in a can, sorry, I have my limits!) Lemon meringue pie Pumpkin pie

Here is the recipe for the masterpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner. This is a family recipe, that was given by my step mother to me this year, because she knew how much I was craving for the special food of Thanksgiving, which I did not celebrate last year. When you buy the turkey , you should allow between 250 g and 350 g of meat per person . This seems a lot, but this also account for the part you will throw out, like the bones and stuff... Put it in the fridge a couple of days in advance to unfreeze if frozen. You will fill the cavity of the bird with some stuffing. The quantity will depend on how big your bird is! With the amount you see in the picture, we were filling a 5 kg bird. For the stuffing, chop some onions and celery and dice some bread slices . I would say that you should have something like 50% bread, 25% each of the vegetables. Add a couple of teaspoons of poultry spices and sage, some melted butter, salt and pepper . The mix should be not too dry, but not soake...

Another classic, as I was saying in the other pie post. It may seems like a strange idea at first to make a pie with pumpkin filling, but for those of you who like the gingerbread spice mix, you will also like it as the spices are quite similar. I really like the texture and taste of the pie "as is", but if you want, you should too it with some nice whip cream. Once again, use your favorite recipe to make a 9 in (23 cm) pie crust and put it in a buttered pie dish. Mix 190 ml of sugar with half a teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of grounded cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ginger and a quarter of a teaspoon of cloves . In a big bowl, beat 2 eggs add 2 cups of cooked and mashed pumpkin* . Stir in the sugar-spices mix and mix well. Finally, slowly incorporate 350 ml of milk to the mixture and pour it in the crust. Bake in the oven at 220 C for 15 min and reduce the heat to 180 C for another 40-50 min, or until a knife inserted in the middle if the pie comes out clean. Like f...

Like those of you who were there for the Thanksgiving dinner know, it's a tradition for me to have this pie as well as the pumpkin pie as a follow up to the delicious turkey. The few times I made lemon meringue pie before, I just bought a box of jello with two envelopes inside and it was ridiculously easy to make from that. Here, in Sweden, things are different and even though we found the box with the pumpkin pulp to make the other pie, I had to find another solution for the lemon meringue pie. I looked on the Internet for something easy but that seemed good too! The recipe comes from this website On the website they are doing a quite fancy crust. In our case we used the regular recipe that we also use for the salty pies, but using gluten free flour (which I don't recommend to use if you don't have to because its very painful! Thanks to Riccardo and Flavia, it went smoothly though!). Grease a 9 in (23 cm) and put the crust in. Bake it at 200 C for 8-10 min until pale...