Easter DIY: Chocolate Mousse-Filled Eggs

Last year, I blogged about a few fun Easter egg DIY decor ideas. This year, it's all about the dinner table! These whimsical little eggs are filled with lusciously airy chocolate mousse and the eggs are simply dyed using pastel food colouring. You can easily store these in the fridge in their original container, which makes it easy to bring them as a hostess gift for any spring celebration. To plate, use a pretty egg holder with a small spoon.

The first step to making these is emptying the eggs. Gently tap the egg around its narrower top with a small pairing knife until the egg starts to crack. Running the knife along the top you want to remove, gently tap to crack the shell. Once you've removed the top piece, smooth the edge to get rid of any small pieces of shell -- and then empty the egg. Remove the membrane and wash the inside of the egg. In a large bowl, add a few drops of food colouring until you've reached your desired colour. Mix in a couple drops of white vinegar. Add your eggs - the longer you keep them in the water, the darker they will become. Let dry completely on a cooling rack.

In the meantime, make your favourite chocolate mousse (or try my Orange and Chocolate Mousse recipe). Fill the eggs with the mousse using a piping bag or a ziploc bag with a snapped off corner. Top with sprinkles -- or candied orange, or chocolate shavings, or all of the above. Enjoy!

Pantry Pasta

We all have those nights don't we? The day's been long, it's already dark outside and the fridge has little else in it other than milk, mustard and jam. My solution? Pantry pasta! I love coming up with quick mealtime solutions with what I happen to have on hand -- and it doesn't become much easier than this concotion!

The dish is made using sweet shallots (but you could use onions instead), marinated artichokes and a crumbly breadcrumb topping. Easy weeknight dinners don't get tastier than this!

A Deliciously Sweet Day at Hogwarts

I remember reading the first Harry Potter book - I must have been about 11 - while I was, oddly enough, riding the Eurostar to London. I was quickly hooked and fascinated by the world of wonder and whimsy JK Rowling had created. I devoured every book (and movie!) and even wept a few tears when the series ended. There's always a feeling of utter sadness when you finish a book that has transported you elsewhere, isn't there?

But something about the Harry Potter story endlessly lives on. I recently started re-reading the books (now on an e-reader!) and am happily reconnecting with the story -- and the numerous details about the characters I had long forgotten about. The magic of these books, I think, are not so much in the overarching storyline of good versus evil but rather in the creation of a world from the ground up. A world so well described that you understand the way it operates and can imagine what it would be like to live in.

Last week, I made my way to Hogwarts (in Florida that is!) to visit the Harry Potter park I had heard so much about. So many little details made the experience magical - from feather quill pens used to sign receipts in the different stores to being able to taste the array of treats that makeup Harry Potter's world.

Even in the setting of sunny Florida, the shops of Hogsmede seemed wintery and quaint, with storefronts that recreated the magical window displays described in the books and seen in the movies. The best part was seeing dozens of amazed children (and adults) from all around the world tasting butterbeer for the first time with excited grins (it's a frothy mix of gingerbready cream soda and marshmallow-like fluff if you're wondering!). It was a little bit like being allowed into a new world for the very first time.

Entering Honeydukes was by far my favourite part. The candy store is filled to the brim with the candies and sweets from the series -- from chocolate frogs, to every flavour beans (some of the jelly beans were deliciously sweet, others purposely revolting -- like earwax, rotten egg and soap -- so much so that I had to spit a few out!). They were exactly like I pictured them to be when I read about them.

Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

As I write this, endless cotton balls are falling from the sky, and have been for hours. This is winter at its finest but also the kind of weather that can make you a little lethargic. To beat the winter blues, I opt for slow-cooked, comforting fork-tender meat, like this pulled pork. To be honest, this dish was more of an afterthought this week. After a busy weekend, we only had a few hours to run house errands, including grocery shopping. So easy pulled pork it was going to be. The pork really doesn't need much in terms of flavour when it slowly cooks for so long. I put this together in less than 15 minutes before heading to work -- to develop summer grilling recipes for our Canadian Living summer issues -- and returned to the real taste of winter.

 

The only thing about cooking with a slow-cooker is that it really is meant for large-family cooking. For the time being, there are only three in our household (with our Persian cat Alaska that is - who we've discovered is a real pulled pork fanatic!). You can easily freeze your slow-cooker concoctions though so it's a great utensil to successfully meal-plan. I easily get bored with leftovers and don't like to eat the same thing two nights in row so I like to transform leftovers into a brand new meal.. which is incredibly easy to do with something as versatile as pulled pork.

On the first night, I shredded some of the pork and tossed it with orecchiette, some fresh parsley and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and black pepper. Then, these pulled pork sandwiches came to life. These are so simple they really don't need a recipe - I used some good pretzel-liked bread, a nice spread of grainy mustard, a heaping pile of pork goodness and some greens. And next on the list? Pulled pork ravioli!

Nutella and Toasted Coconut Brownies

There are not many store-bought products I have a never-ending craving for, but Nutella has consistently been my Achilles' heal. If I buy a jar, and there is a spoon somewhere nearby, the velvety, chocolaty hazelnuty spread never stands a chance. If every piece of cutlery in my kitchen disappeared, I would just use my fingers, and if those happened to have disappeared too, I'm pretty sure I would go as low as using my lips alone. Safe to say, I have a little bit of an obsession which is why I stay far, far away from the Nutella shelf when I head to the grocery store.

Exceptions do occur though, and World Nutella Day - on February 5th - is just as good of an excuse as any to indulge. These fudgy brownies use Nutella instead of chocolate, are topped with a thin layer of nutella and sprinkled with toasted coconut. The deliciously toasty smell of shredded coconut is heavenly and as each flake slowly turns golden brown, I always remember how much I enjoy cooking with coconut. And in case you were wondering, my Nutella jar has been licked clean.

Easy Weeknight Paella

Paella is not really one of those dishes you're supposed to be able to whip up in under 30 minutes. When I was at culinary school, my first partner was this amazing classical guitarist who lived in New York but was originally from Spain. When we were assigned to make a large-scale meal to feed a crowd, she offered to make her rendition of paella. I remember how difficult it was to get the dish together as a team. Not only did we have to figure out how to work as a team but we had to put together a dish by following the lead of someone who was not yet a trained chef... and someone who was used to making this dish with her family's very specific traditions, local ingredients and equipment. All to say that the dish didn't really turn out as planned and I remember it being a little bit of a fiasco.

After flipping through one of my Spanish cookbooks that suggested making paella over an open fire using  rabbit, I stared at my non-stick pan and knew I would be going the easy route. My goal wasn't going to be incredible authenticity but rather comfort, fast. Here is my rendition!

Bacon and Pea Pasta

If you ask me what I have at all times in my freezer, the answer would definitely be frozen peas. Sure, I'll get my hands on fresh peas if I can, but most of the year, that really isn't a tangible reality. For most quick meals, having a bag of these frozen green jewels helps add vegetables to a simple pasta, or make an easy side dish, simply complemented by a little butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Adding more vegetables to our everyday diets also seems to fit quite nicely with all these new year's resolutions, doesn't it? This pasta dish is garnished with crispy prosciutto and flavoured with Canadian bacon so the healthy points are not entirely there...but the delicious points definitely are.