Montreal Bound

What a week! I hate to say it, but that artichoke is still in the crisper of my refrigerator. It will stay there for another week, most likely going bad, because I am en route to Montreal! :)

I did learn how to use the artichoke. I had plans all week to saute it in some butter and garlic. It would have been delicious I am sure. Not only did I not get to use my artichoke this week but most of my meals consisted of grilled sandwiches and kale chips. I am glad my super busy week is over and I can resume to cooking up some new recipes, when I return from Montreal of course.

I will hopefully have some excellent food experiences in Montreal that I will share upon my return, or maybe even mid trip.

I've been busy but not too busy to cook!

Looking at my photo albums in iPhoto today made me realize how much I have cooked lately. I have been pretty busy with school and when I come home I am usually starving. Anything that slows down the time it takes for me to eat (aka. taking pictures/writing down quantities) has been cut from the routine. This week is equally busy so I will make this post relatively quick. Showing some pictures of my latest creations and either a link to a recipe, or a quick recap of what I did.

A while back my Nonna made me a pasta dish with no sauce, and was dressed with some olive oil and canned clams. I LOVED it! I made it once after that and then totally forgot about the potential of canned clams. They went on sale at the grocery store a couple weeks back and I remembered how much I loved them. I sauted up some garlic, chili pepper, onions, mushrooms, and broccoli, and then added the drained canned clams. Once all the veggies were tender and the calms were hot, I added some cooked rice noodles and tossed until mixed well. Any noodle would work well here but I liked the tenderness of the rice noodle.

One night a couple weeks ago I knew I wanted to use up some lentils so I did the usual search on Google Reader. I came across this recipe for a Vegetable Pie With Cornbread Topping from Seasonal Ontario Foods blog. I made some substitutions with vegetables I had on hand and I was a little disappointed. I definitely didn't like the pepper and I could have done without the eggplant (my substitution for zucchini). I liked the combination of the cornbread with the lentils (mostly because I LOVE) however and see a lot of potential in this one! I think next time I would use my personal favourite cornbread recipe.

I have been big into making baked fries lately. I make them about once a week, with sweet potato or regular potatoes. I love changing up the flavours using different spices to toss the taters in olive oil with, but one of my favourites is this flavour combination by Dani Spies, Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges With a Garlic Yogurt Dip.

On the weekend of Thanksgiving I found stewing lamb at the grocery store. Now I love lamb! It is by far my favourite meat. The best peice of lamb that every graced my lips came straight from a pot of sauce my Tatone was making. So I knew for sure I was cooking this lamb in some tomato sauce. I cut off as much of the lamb from the bone as I could. I then browned the lamb, as well as the bones with meat still on it, in a sauce pan, and then added onion and chopped portabello mushrooms. Once the veggies were cooked I poured on the strained tomatoes, added some basil, oregano, garlic powder, and 2 bay leaves. I let this simmer for about 45 minutes covered, and then allowed to reduce for another 15-20 minutes. I served it over cooked spaghetti squash, a great alternative to spaghetti! The sauce was delicious becuase you could taste the flavour of the lamb in each bite.

I am off to Montreal next week :) but I will be sure to write a real post before then. I bought myself an artichoke on the weekend and I am going to find out how to use it.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!...and Pumpkin Spiced Cookies

Today is officially Thanksgiving so Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had our family dinner on Sunday and it was delicious! I am actually writing some of this post ahead of time so I am still nursing quite the food baby. I know for some people Thanksgiving is all about the turkey. Not so much for me. I am all about the sides. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, peas and mushrooms....drool. I look forward to these classics every year.

Thanksgiving dinner this year was at my Aunt's house in Waterloo. They live in a beautiful neighbourhood with lots of very large old trees. This makes for beautiful scenery for a Thanksgiving feast. It was so warm out so we got to sit outside. The sun was shining and there were barely clouds in the sky! Here are some pictures from our day of thanks...

I am thankful for figs.

I am thankful for those who can carve a turkey


I am thankful for my aunt and cousin for cooking all the delicious food!




I am thankful for roasted red peppers from my Tatone's garden.

I am thankful for calorie induced comas (not really actually).

I am thankful the live music at every family gathering.

I am also thankful for cookies!

We had vegan chocolate raspberry (by cousin Diana)

Oatmeal, biscotti, pizzelli (by Nonna), and pumpkin spice cookies (by me). The pumpkin spice cookies was a hybrid of two recipes. The cookie was very soft and almost muffin like. I would love to play around with the recipe some more to make a crispier cookie which I much prefer. Here is the recipe as it stands so far.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies adapted from the Voracious Vegan and Vegan by Valerie

¾ cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

½ cup wheat bran

1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1/4 cup butter
¼ cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar

granulated sugar for coating cookie

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 cookie sheets.

2. Mix dry ingredients.

3. Mix wet ingredients. It is difficult to mix the butter well into the wet ingredients.

4. Mix wet ingredients into the flour mixture in two portions. Mix well until fully blended. The batter is pretty sticky and wet (kind of like cake batter). It also tastes delicious by the way.

5. Roll into 1 inch diameter balls and roll lightly in sugar. Place on cookie sheet and flatten with a fork in a crisscross pattern.

6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool before removing from the pan.

These cookies are chewy and soft, if you are into that sort of thing. Next time I am going to cut back on the oil and butter and see where that takes me. I will let you know how it turns out. Since I have so much leftover pumpkin puree I may just make another batch this week ;)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!

Pizza on the BBQ

For the past few days I have had a craving for pizza. Finally tonight, that craving was satisfied. I made a last minute decision to go home earlier than I had planned to spend more time with my family. When my Dad asked what I wanted to have for dinner, obviously I could not have said pizza fast enough. On the BBQ? Of course! It was such a beautiful day today which was perfect. While driving home up the escarpment in Hamilton this morning it sunk in that autumn was here, which even with a cool wind makes me feel warm inside. I have a soft spot for leaf senescence.

Now onto the pizza. I have yet to tackle making my own pizza dough. One day I will attempt it but for today Fortinos fresh whole-wheat pizza dough did the trick. Store bought pizza sauce would do as well.

1. Fire up the BBQ and let it get really hot!

2. Roll out the dough into preferred thickness and size.

3. Place onto hot grill.

Once the bottom is cooked, the outer edges are almost cooked and the middle is still soft, remove the crust from the grill, uncooked side down (rotate halfway through cooking time).

4. Place your toppings onto the grilled side. We added sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, veggies (green pepper, onion, mushrooms, hot peppers), then Romano cheese.

5. Put pizzas back on the grill and close the lid to allow the cheese melt while the bottom is cooking.

Once the cheese is melted and the bottom has the desired colour, it is done!

While the sauce was a little bland, the pizza was delicious and satisfied my desire for some cheesy pizza.

Since it is Thanksgiving weekend there is a whole lot of food fun going on. Tomorrow I am heading to my Aunts for Thanksgiving dinner and will definitely be a meal to write about. I am baking a special treat which I will be able to share with you as well (through pictures and words only unfortunately).

Eggplant Parmesan

Get ready for lots of pictures. As I loaded up my pictures to iPhoto I realized how much has happened in the last week. This happens to me every week when I go to write a new post so I shouldn't seem so surprised every time. The main recipe for this post was inspired by 99 cent eggplant at the Hamilton Farmer's Market and a bunch of tomatoes courtesy of my Tatone :D
You will also notice the lack of measurements. This is due to the fact that I was hungry and impatient, what else is new.

Eggplant Parmesan

1 very large ripe eggplant
salt
oil
breadcrumbs
quick rolled oats
basil
oregano
parsley
garlic powder
salt
pepper
1-2 eggs

Slice the eggplant into thick pieces (3/4 inch?). Layer slices in a colander sprinkling with salt in between layers. Place a heavy item on top and allow to sit for 30 to 60 minutes to draw out any excess water. Wipe slices dry with paper towel. Lightly grease a baking sheet with oil and preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix together about 1:1 of breadcrumbs to oats. (I only added oats becuase I ran out of bread crumbs but it turned out quite nice). Sprinkle basil, oregano, parsley, garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste.

You can hardly see the spices in the mix there and I would probably add more next time. I would say 2 tsp each (basil, oregano, parsley) if you use 1/2 breadcrumbs and 1/2 cup oats. Whisk the egg until mixed. Dip each side of eggplant in the egg and dredge through the breadcrumb mixture to coat well. I didn't bother dipping the sides of the slices (I was trying to conserve breading mixture). Place on the greased baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 7-10 minutes on eat side. Watching carefully that they don't burn.

While this was all happening I was also making some sauce. Very similar to the recipe I posted a while back (found here). With these soft delicious eggplant slices you could layer with some sauce and parmesan and bake some more, OR you could make a sandwich.

The sandwich consisted of whole-wheat toast, eggplant slices, fresh tomato sauce, and parmesan cheese. Adding the cheese to the hot eggplant and sauce allows it to melt without toasting the sandwich further (another time saver). I loved this sandwich and loved how the eggplant turned out. The leftover eggplant was good on its own with some sauce and cheese. If you are wondering, on the side there I had some chicken and roasted red peppers cooked in red wine and balsamic vinegar, probably one of my favourite food combinations.

Now as promised, here is a series of pictures from the past week.

Jenna's Birthday celebration


Carrot Spice Birthday Cake (made by me..isn't it pretty?! haha)


Sweet Potato Quesadilla's from the Bean Bar


BFT....Bacon Fig and Tomato Sandwich

Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken cacciatore is one of my favourite dishes. I have never been 100% sure what it is exactly but as long as it is a stew with chicken and tomatoes I put it into the cacciatore category. This past weekend I was at my Nonna and Tatone's (Italian Grandparent's) house for dinner and I had mentioned that I had made some cacciatore. "Cacciatore? What made it a cacciatore?" They were interested to see how "Americanized" my version was. I told them how I did it and they nodded in semi-approval. At this point I was really interested as to what authentic cacciatore was. So I asked.

Cacciatore in Italian means "hunter" and chicken cacciatore means a chicken dish prepared hunter style. This dates back to when hunters would go out for days on end to hunt for meat. Their meals would consist of meat cooked with whatever vegetables they could gather and of course, wine. I would say my recipe is quite authentic in this case...minus the hunting part. This makes me happy. I just wish my Grandparent's could have given it a taste, as I thought it was delicious.

This recipe is very easy, so some of the quantities are vague becuase I just threw stuff in. There is a lot of wiggle room here. As long as you use quality ingredients you will get quality results. This is especially true when it comes to the tomatoes.

Chicken Cacciatore

3 ripe plum tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
cm of chili pepper
2 cloves of garlic
2 small leeks
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
1 small chinese eggplant
roasted red peppers (I used about 1/3 of a ziploc bag full - about 3 Shepard peppers) *
red wine

To remove skin and seeds from tomato:
Bring a pot of water to a boil, leaving enough room for tomatoes. Make very shallow slices all around the tomato to make a cross shape. Add tomatoes to boiling water. Boil until skin starts to peel back, a minute or two. The riper the tomatoes are, the quicker this will happen. Remove from water and allow to cool. Peel off the skin and cut off the tough stem areas.

Cut into quarters. Remove seeds and put into a fine strainer over a bowl. Cut remaining tomato flesh into bite sized pieces. Once all the tomatoes have been seeded, move the fleshy seeds around in the strainer to remove all the juices. Add these juices to the diced tomatoes.

Heat olive oil in saucepan over medium-high heat. Add pieces of chicken breast and cook for 5-8 minutes until almost cooked through.

Add chili pepper and garlic and saute for 3 minutes. Add leeks, carrots, celery, and eggplant.

Cook until vegetables are beginning to brown. Add tomatoes and roasted red pepper.

Once simmering, add a splash of red wine and stir.
Allow sauce to simmer for about 20 minutes, until desired consistency is reached.

almost there...

This can be served on it's own or with any kind of bread or pasta. I had it on couscous with Asiago cheese on top. Delizioso! (yes I had to use an online translator for that)

Walnut Lentil Burger

Last weekend Jenna and I decided to make dinner together. and to make something new. Trying out a new veggie burger is always fun so that is what we did. This time it was Lentil Walnut Burgers by Angela from Oh She Glows.

Yet another successful veggie burger. Because of the walnuts, it is very moist and has a great texture. Crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. We made smaller, "slider" sized burgers to have on small pieces of ciabatta bread. A great choice of bread I must say.

This gave us the opportunity to experiment with different toppings.

left: tomato and guac*; right: tomato and pickled banana peppers

* Worst guacamole ever. The last two avocados I have bought have been watery and not oily. MAJORLY lacking in the avocado flavour/texture I love so much. This made the guacamole oh so disappointing. I imagine that real guac would have tasted fantastic on the lentil burger.

I loved having the sliders but next time I would make large full size burgers I think.

Again, I did not change this recipe at all so I wont repeat it here. You can find the full recipe here. I used a real egg not a flax egg (for a vegan option).

With not living at home anymore I can't just walk outside onto the porch and into the garden to get fresh veggies. However, I have been lucky to receive some deliveries. Just yesterday, I got a ton of pears, tomatoes and figs from my Nonna and Tatone's garden. Looks like I will be making some more tomato sauce!

I am beginning to grow quite fond of figs. I never used to like them but this year I have found them quite delicious. I am lucky to have access to such fresh figs that aren't imported from California. I have been eating them raw but have also enjoyed them on bread with cheese as well as in yogurt. Here is a snapshot of my use for figs.

sliced ciabatta bread with asiago cheese and balsamic vinegar*

If I had the time I would have made a balsamic reduction. I will be making some to have with my current batch of figs that is for sure.