White Pizza topped with Spinach Salad and Prosciutto

Things that keep me up at night:

1. Lesson planning for math class
2. University students who are living in apartments - on their own for the first time - drunkenly singing songs from the Lion King
3. The realization that we eat pizza in some form multiple times a week.

Okay, maybe the last one doesn't keep me awake at night, but I was struck by that realization of just how much pizza we eat each week. It's not usually a cheese and meat laden extravaganza - in fact, I think variations of the vegan Thrive Diet pizza are probably the kinds that we eat most frequently.

But, there is something about having pizza that makes the weekend feel like the weekend. And, if you make an extra large batch of dough one day and store the remainder of the dough in the freezer, it feels like you've barely put any work into a homemade pizza dinner.

And personally, I like that feeling.

I tried something I haven't done before with pizza the other night - forgo the sauce and the cooked toppings.

Instead, the base was baked with a brush of truffle oil and a mixture of mozzarella and blue cheeses. Once pulled from the oven, I topped it with a dressed spinach salad with prosciutto.

So, it's more salad than pizza... right?


White Pizza with Spinach and Prosciutto

(serves 4)

Ingredients

pizza dough (I used the half I'd set aside from this recipe)
1 tbsp truffle oil (you could use any flavoured oil in its place - garlic oil would be particularly delicious)
1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
½ cup crumbled blue cheese
4 cups baby spinach greens
2 oz thick cut prosciutto, chopped
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place pizza stone in a cold oven. Turn oven on to its highest setting (500º-550º) and preheat stone for an hour. Half an hour into the preheating process, turn pizza dough out onto a floured surface (a pizza peel would be perfect here. Otherwise, use a piece of parchment paper. This will allow you to transfer the dough to the hot stone with minimal fuss. Please note that using the paper will prevent the same kind of crisp browning you would usually get) and shape into the size you want it to be. Cover with a tea towel and let rest for 20-30 minutes.

2. Brush dough with truffle oil and sprinkle cheese over surface. Bake in oven for 12 - 17 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and golden. Remove from oven.

3. While crust is baking, whisk together olive oil, vinegar, mustard and salt and pepper. I like to throw dressing ingredients into a small mason jar and shake them up. I find it emulsifies much better that way. Place spinach and prosciutto into a bowl and toss with dressing. Place spinach salad on top of pizza and serve immediately.

The spinach closest to the crust will start to wilt slightly in the heat. Can you say yum?

Roasted Cauliflower, Chickpea & Wheat Berry Toss

There are never enough hours in the day to get everything done. It feels like the instant my head hits the pillow, I'm already asleep. And when I wake up in the morning, I'm bleary eyedly stumbling towards my coffee.

So I'm all about getting as much shut-eye as possible. And that's where easy lunches come into play.
I refuse to give up sleep to prepare food, so I always put my lunch together the night before. Leftovers play a big part in what I eat for lunch, so I'm always looking for meals that are brown bag approved. To me, that means if I have to use cutlery to eat it, I'm only required to use a spoon OR a fork. And, preferably, it can be eaten at room temperature without causing too much of a mess.

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know that I have a deep and abiding love affair with legumes - and the mixture of legumes and grains always strike me as a perfect combination of ingredients for a packed lunch.

This recipe was adapted from the fabulous blog No Recipes. I tarted mine up with more ingredients and reduced the oil but, I must say the dressing is just killer! I hesitate to say it, but it was even better day two.

Roasted Cauliflower, Chickpea and Wheat Berry Toss

(lightly adapted from No Recipes)

Ingredients

2 cups uncooked wheat berries
1 head of cauliflower, stalks discarded and florets cut into bite sized pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
2 red peppers, roasted, peeled, seeded and diced
1 15 oz can chickpeas
1 tbsp capers, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp parsley, chopped

dressing

3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp truffle oil (if you have it, if not, use some more olive oil)
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
2 tsp sesame oil
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook wheat berries according to manufacturer's directions. When finished cooking, place in a large bowl.

2. Preheat oven to 400º. Toss cauliflower florets with olive oil and place on a large baking tray. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until lightly browned, stirring once or twice. Add to wheat berries. Stir in peppers, chickpeas, capers and parsley.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together all ingredients. Pour over wheat berry mixture and toss to coat.

The Last to Catch On

Do you ever feel like you're the last person to catch on to a trend? I've been reading about people combining watermelon and feta to make a salad for years now, and only did it myself last night for the first time.

The contrast between the salty feta and the sweet watermelon is dynamite. I through in some chopped parsley, Hawaiian Haleakala sea salt (it's an earthy red), freshly ground black pepper and some olive oil. And voila! Done!

I can see using some mint in there as a great addition too.

A Cool Salad of Herbs and Yogurt with Honey Sriracha Tempeh

I love, love, LOVE it when leftovers from dinner provide the perfect next-day lunch. Last night, we chowed down on Bon Appetit's Yogurt Marinated Chicken and Cucumber-Mint Raita from Epicurious. Both were amazing, and highly recommended. I set aside one of the two chicken breasts that I'd grilled last night for today's lunch.

Originally intending to make a sandwich with the chicken and raita, I found myself wilting in the heat and instead cravings something fresher. So, a salad it was!

I marinated a package of tempeh in sriracha, lime, honey and shallot to play off the balance of cool herbs in the raita. Grilled and served opposite the cold chicken, the salad totally hit the spot.

Hello summer! Aren't you looking colourful? Heirloom Ontario tomatoes, carrots, snow peas, lettuce, cucumber, romaine and butter lettuce, plus fresh mint to garnish. Man, oh man, was this some seriously tasty stuff. I'm planning on making a massive batch of raita up to dip veggies in this week.

Honey Sriracha Tempeh

Ingredients

1 block tempeh, cut into 16 slices
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp sriracha
2 tbsp lime juice
1 shallot, minced
¼ tsp kosher salt


Directions

1. Whisk together honey, sriracha, lime juice and shallot. Place in a ziploc bag with tempeh. Marinate in fridge for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight.

2. Remove tempeh from marinade. Sprinkle with salt and grill over medium heat for 2 minutes on each side, just until grill marks form. Cut into chunks and sprinkle over salad.

Is there anything more beautiful than summer's produce? I think not.

Cucumber and Radish Salad with Lemon Dressing

I'm so glad the most recent issue of Cooking Light arrived before the postal strike began! It has some great recipes in it.

After all the heavy food (read: fast and deep fried) I ate on the Ottawa-Montreal trip, I've been in serious need of lightening things up. I'm paying off the sins I indulged in at Frites Alors!

It's T-6 weeks until Hawaii, and I'd love love LOVE to drop those 10 pounds that I've struggling with the past 2 months. Plus, one of my students (who we're pretty sure has Aspergers) announced very loudly that I have a "fat ass".

And when even the Aspergers kid notices, you know you've got to take action.

So here I am. Taking some action. Even though I'm not a huge fan of either cucumbers OR radishes, something about this salad spoke to me.

I'm pretty sure it was saying: I'm what your body needs right now. Crunchy. Cold. Vibrant.

I really enjoyed this salad - some fresh dill in place of the parsley would be totally delicious and highly recommended. Plus, although I'm unabashedly trying to lose weight, this salad doesn't feel like deprivation. It feels like the antidote to a scorching summer day.

If you have a mandolin, be sure to whip it out for the radishes and cucumbers. That will make your life SO much easier.

Cucumber and Radish Salad with Lemon Dressing

(from Cooking Light)

Ingredients

½ cup thinly sliced radishes
2 cups thinly sliced cucumber
¼ orange pepper, finely chopped
¼ cup parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
½ tbsp olive oil
¼ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp black pepper

Directions

1. Gently toss radishes, cucumber, pepper and parsley together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Pour over cucumber mixture and gently toss again. Let flavours meld in fridge for an hour.

Also, it's a tasty accompaniment for grilled steak, or as a side on some kind of Middle Eastern plate (baba ghanoush, hummus, pita, tabbouleh).

Wheat Berry and Chickpea Salad

The other night, we had one of my good friends for Ottawa over for dinner. Poor guy is stuck in Cambridge during the week living in a hotel.

I may have forced an experimental ice cream on him.

He only made a few faces.

That's one of the risks of eating chez nous. I tend to want to try things out.

One of the experiments that did work, however, was this wheat berry and chickpea salad.

Like most of my recipes, proportions are guidelines at best. You could add in zucchini, tons of additional herbs, some tomatoes, garlic... the list just goes on and on. And isn't that the best part about recipes anyway? The adaptability?

Wheat Berry and Chickpea Salad

Ingredients

1 cup wheat berries
1 19 oz can chickpeas
1 cup chopped parsley
½ cup finely minced onion (red would be pretty if you have it)
½ cup chopped parsley
1 roasted red pepper, chopped
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1½ tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp capers, rinsed and coarsely chopped
2 oz crumbled feta (remove for a vegan option)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Bring 4 cups water and wheatberries to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 70 minutes, or until wheatberries are tender. Drain and rinse to stop cooking and place in a large bowl. Toss in remaining ingredients and let sit for at least 30 minutes to allow flavours to come together.

If you're not a fan of raw onion, soak the minced onion in some cold water for 10-15 minutes. This will draw out some of the sharpness and mellow them nicely.

A Smoky Chopped Salad for a Hot Day

Last week, the temperature in Toronto hit a brutal 40º C with the humidex.

Let me be clear on one thing: I am not one of those Canadians who sits around dreaming of the scorching summer sun. I like the heat; I hate the humidity.

Perhaps it's the fact that we have no outdoor space in our apartment (which means all cooking gets done inside), perhaps it's the lack of central air to cool ourselves off at night, perhaps it's the memory of the smell of the summer when the garbage collectors went on strike. Whatever the reason, I really, really dislike Toronto when the heat and humidity hits.

This is one of those recipes designed to embrace the flavour of the heat and humidity, but to avoid heating too much up in the kitchen.

The whole thing comes together really quickly, and you can keep any extra salad dressing in the fridge for 3 days.

Chicken & Chickpea Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing

Ingredients

Dressing

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 smashed clove garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp ancho chili powder

Salad

2 romaine hearts, washed, dried and chopped
2 cup mixed sprouts (pea, sunflower, radish, etc)
½ lb grilled boneless, skinless chicken thighs
½ 19 oz can chickpeas, rinsed
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 oz blue cheese, crumbled
½ pint cherry tomatoes, halved
½ avocado, chopped
5-6 cremini mushrooms, sliced

optional: pickled jalapenos or green beans (I love Toorshi Hot and Savoury Green Beans)

Directions

1. Whisk together all dressing ingredients. Set aside and let sit for an hour so the garlic can infuse the dressing.

2. Toss together salad ingredients. Discard garlic clove and dress the salad. Serve on chilled plates.

That was dead easy, wasn't it?

My Favourite Chickpea Salad Sandwich

Most of us, at some point in have had an egg salad sandwich or a tuna salad sandwich or chicken salad. Now, I love a good tuna salad as much as the next person, but sometimes, you just want something with a little more oomph, and a little less slathered in mayo.

Enter Fresh's Chickpea Salad. Smashed chickpeas, carrots, celery, green onions and dill pickle... it's got all the right stuff going on. Pumped up with dijon mustard and honey and a mere tablespoon of mayonnaise (I've recently swapped this out for vegenaise because the latter just tastes SO much better), this is a friendly riff off of a classic comfort food.

Chickpea Salad Sandwich with Avocado and Pea Sprouts

Chickpea Salad 

(from Fresh at Home)

Ingredients

1 19 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large carrot, shredded
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 green onion, minced
1 large dill pickle, minced
1½ tbsp dijon mustard
½ tbsp honey (or agave)
1 tbsp vegenaise/mayonnaise
1 tsp lemon juice
kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Break up chickpeas in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Alternatively, you can mash them with a potato masher.

2. In a large bowl, mix together chickpeas with remaining ingredients. Mixture will keep for 3 days in the fridge.

Makes enough for 6 sandwiches. I like topping mine with avocado, roasted red peppers and some alfalfa sprouts.

Caramelized Onion Galette with Sour Cream Pastry

There are a lot of things that I'm terrible at in the kitchen and pastry is resoundingly one of them. Pies are the bane of my existence.

In my defence, there are lots of things I'm good at too. Like dirtying too many pots.

Galette style pastry is far more up my alley. Its free form shape is forgiving to those with clumsy, rough hands such as myself. I've made many of these throughout the years, and always chalk the cracks and leaks up to the fact that it's supposed to be rustic.

That's what I tell people anyway. They seem to believe me.

Although, perhaps they won't now that I've confessed my secret.

... I probably should have thought this through.

I will admit, I love this galette. The sour cream makes the pastry fairly strong. The trade-off, of course, is less flakiness, but I'm just happy to have a dough I can work with. Plus, it's a tangy so it plays off the onions really well.

The directions look long, but this doesn't take a lot of effort to pull together, I promise.

Caramelized Onion Galette with Sour Cream Pastry

Ingredients

Dough

1 2/3 cup pastry flour (or all purpose if you don't mind a sturdier [read tougher] crust - it still tastes great)
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp chilled, cubed, unsalted butter
½ cup sour cream
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1-3 tbsp ice water

Filling

1 tbsp olive oil
1½ lbs peeled and sliced sweet onion
2 tsp dried thyme
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup crumbled feta cheese (I use Ewenity sheep's feta)
¼-½ cup shredded P'tit Basque sheep's cheese (or use a good melting cheese like gouda or fontina)
1 egg, lightly beaten.

Directions

For Dough

1. Combine flour and salt in food processor and pulse to combine. Pulse in butter until mixture is coarse. In a separate bowl, stir together sour cream and lemon juice. Add to food processor and pulse again, until mixture is just incorporated. Add ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time. Pulse until mixture is moist and crumbly, but don't go so far as to let it form a ball.

2. Dump mixture onto a piece of plastic wrap and pat gently into a 5" circle. Wrap tightly and refrigerate until ready for use, at least 20 minutes. (Now is the ideal time to start the filling.)

3. Slightly overlap two sheets of plastic wrap. Place dough circle on top and cover with two more sheets of overlapped plastic wrap. Roll the dough, still covered with plastic wrap, into a 12" circle. Place on baking sheet and put in the freezer for 5 minutes, or until plastic can easily be removed. Remove top sheet of wrap and place dough, wrap side up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Remove remaining plastic wrap.

For Filling

1. Preheat oven to 425º.

2. In a large frying pan, heat oil over low heat. Add onions, thyme, salt and pepper and cook gently, stirring occasionally, over low heat for 20-30 minutes, or until caramelized. Remove from heat.

3. Sprinkle feta cheese over centre of pastry, leaving a 2 inch border around the outside. Top with onion mixture. Sprinkle P'tit Basque over top. Fold edges of pastry up to partially enclose the filling, pleating as you go. Brush pastry with egg. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

I highly recommend serving this with a tart salad, something with arugula and either a lemon vinaigrette or something with sherry vinegar.

I mixed 1 tbsp hazelnut oil, 1 tbsp canola oil, 1 tbsp sherry vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon mustard with a pinch each of sugar and kosher salt for an easy vinaigrette. With mixed bitter greens, toasted hazelnuts and more sheep's feta, the salad was the perfect accompaniment to the sweet galette.

A Bright and Springy Flageolet Salad

I have no idea what the weather has been like near you lately, but for us here in Toronto, it's felt like winter is just dragging its feet on the way out the door. Last weekend, the rain put me into a continuous funk that I didn't get out of until I was met by the sunshine today.

It probably helped that I got to get up at 9:30 as well. Usually I'm up 3 hours earlier.

I had great dinner plans with a friend for tonight that totally fell through in the wake of her work deadlines, so I found myself scrambling for something to make for dinner. I'd gone grocery shopping earlier in the day, but most of my meals had been bought with dark and dreary weather in mind, not the lemon sunshine and azure skies kind of day like we had.

Over the winter months, my cooking incorporates a lot of legumes. I love how hearty and stick-to-your-ribedness they are. I also love how much using them reduces our meat consumption and (by extension) our grocery bill. But, legumes aren't just for those pork rich casseroles, they also make great foils for bright flavours like lemon, capers and parsley.

 

Flageolet Salad with Lemons and Capers

(adapted from Nigel Slater's Real Food)

Ingredients

300 grams (about 2/3 of a pound) dried flageolet beans,
                  broken ones picked over and discarded
1 lemon, scrubbed and cut in half
1 whole head of garlic, cut in half horizontally
1 stalk celery, cut into 4 inch hunks
3 bay leaves
kosher salt

4 tbsp capers, rinsed
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
a palmful of parsley leaves (20-30), coarsely chopped
4-5 mint leaves, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place dried beans in a non-reactive container. Cover with cold water and let sit overnight. Beans will swell in size.

2. Drain beans from their soaking liquid and place in a large non reactive pot with lemon halves, garlic halves, bay leaves and celery.

DO NOT add salt at this point. Doing so will toughen the skins of the beans. Cover with plenty of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat and cook, continuing to boil gently for 35-60 minutes (cooking time will depend on the freshness of your beans). Once beans are almost tender (45 minutes for me), add salt to cooking liquid. Continue to cook until completely tender.

3. In a food processor, pulse too mix together capers and garlic. Slowly add in oil, pouring through tube. Continue pulsing to add in lemon juice, parsley and mint. The mixture will resemble sludge, but you're actually aiming for that!

4. Remove celery, whole garlic, lemon halves and bay leaves from beans. You may also need to fish out some garlic skins. Drain beans and place in a large, non reactive bowl. Pour dressing mixture and toss gently to combine.

This salad needs a least a half hour to let the flavours combine and take the edge off the dried garlic. Feel free to let it mellow overnight. Be sure to leave it on the counter for at least a ½ hour before eating so the olive oil is in its liquid state.

Disaster in the Kitchen

I stumbled across the blog Oh She Glows over Christmas via another blog I like to read (and be totally intimidated by) No Recipes. I really liked Oh She Glows, not just because The Bachelor is back on and Kat and I have resumed our weekly cooking fest, but also because the author was local to Toronto, like me!

Keepin' it local. It's something I enjoy.

Anyway, we opted to try two recipes: Spicy Rainbow Rice and Bean Salad and Clementine Smoothies. Let's just say one of these ended with a total knockout victory and the other, tragedy.

We did a double recipe of both and wound up with a TON (like 12 cups worth) of the bean salad and 4 servings of the smoothies.

Rainbow Bean Salad

We replaced the peas in this recipe with edamame beans, both because I like edamame better and also because I was out of frozen peas. I also forgot to throw the earth balance in at the end, and the whole thing certainly didn't suffer for it.

Verdict: Delicious (even as leftovers!)

Now. The Smoothie. You can probably see where this is going, given that I said one recipe was a disaster.

The smoothie called for frozen banana and avocado chunks, which was all fine and good until my blender decided it didn't like the frozen banana chunks.

Which is weird, because, you know, it's a blender. It really shouldn't have issues with them.

There was a grinding sound. Then a whirring sound.

Then smoke.

Yep, the part where the motor attaches to the canister cracked in half, shaving off a ton of plastic while it was at it.

Sigh. So much for that wedding present. This is why I can't have nice things.

You might be asking how we sampled the smoothies then. Thankfully, I own an immersion blender (actually, I own two). We let the fruit warm up a bit, then pureed it.

I was still so frazzled from the broken blender that I forgot to take a picture.

Although I enjoyed the smoothie overall, I'm still not totally convinced about the inclusion of avocado in desserts. Something about it throws me off.

Verdict: Eh (complete with shoulder shrug). It was good, but not worth the destruction of my blender good, you know?

Spinach Salad with Raspberries and Candied Almonds with Poppy Seed Dressing

Yesterday, I threw this picture up, and I wish I'd waited until today, because now I have the recipe to go with it!

This is one of my all time favourite salads... a HUGE Canadian Living winner from the late '90s (at least I think it was Canadian Living - there are no online traces of this recipe anywhere). It's my Mum's go to potluck salad contribution, but she reminded me this morning that I was the first one to try this recipe out about 10 years ago.

If I remember correctly, I made it for a Canada Day do in which I totally overestimated my own abilities and passed out instead of going downtown for festivities.

Now, the funny thing with this recipe is we lost it for a few years - until Mum remembered that she'd given it to a friend. So, Mum got the recipe sent back to her and we're back in business! This friend serves the salad as part of her family's French Canadian traditional Christmas Eve feast, so it seems only appropriate to include it in this week's collection of recipes.

Baby Spinach Salad with Raspberries and Candied Almonds 

1/2 cup    slivered almonds
1 tbsp.     corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp. granulated sugar
Pinch      each salt and cayenne pepper

12 cups   baby spinach
1 cup      fresh raspberries

Dressing:
1/4 cup  vegetable oil
2 tbsp    granulated sugar
2 tbsp    raspberry vinegar 
1 tbsp    sesame seeds, toasted, or poppy seeds 

Directions

In a small bowl toss together almonds, corn syrup, sugar, salt and cayenne until coated. Spread in single layer on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake in 325 degree oven, stirring occasionally to break up clumps, for about 12 minutes or until golden and sugar is bubbly. Let cool completely on pan on rack. Break into pieces. 

Dressing: In small bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, vinegar, sesame seeds, salt and pepper.

In bowl, toss spinach with dressing. Sprinkle with candied almonds and raspberries.  Make 8 (large) servings.

Moroccan Flavours

Welcome to your two-for-one deal, and my last post of November!

This weekend, Kat came over (with an AMAZING fruitcake recipe that I'll share with you tomorrow) and I whipped up (read: spent an hour and a half preparing) Spicy Moroccan Chickpeas with bulgur and Moroccan Carrot Salad.

I almost forgot to take a picture... so this was hastily done!

Spicy Moroccan Chickpeas

(Cooking Light)

Ingredients

1/4  cup  extra-virgin olive oil
3  large garlic cloves, peeled
2  cups  thinly sliced red onion
1/2  cup  dried apricots, sliced
1  tablespoon  ras el hanout (Moroccan spice blend) or garam masala
1  teaspoon  salt
3/4  teaspoon  black pepper
1/4  teaspoon  crushed red pepper
1  (3-inch) cinnamon stick

1/2  cup  water
1 1/2  teaspoons  grated lemon rind
1 1/2  tablespoons  fresh lemon juice
2  (15-ounce) cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1  (28-ounce) can no-salt-added whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped
6  cups  escarole, torn into 1-inch pieces

1  cup  cilantro leaves
1/4  cup  mint leaves
1/2  cup  roasted whole almonds, coarsely chopped
4  cups  hot cooked bulgur or couscous

Preparation

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add garlic; cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove garlic from pan using a slotted spoon; discard or reserve for another use. Add onion and next 6 ingredients (through cinnamon stick) to pan; sauté for 7 minutes or until the onion is lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 cup water, rind, juice, chickpeas, and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Stir in escarole; simmer for 1 minute or until escarole wilts. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with cilantro and mint; top with almonds. Serve over couscous.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

(Bon Appetit)

Ingredients

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch of ground cloves
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup fresh orange juice

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

1 pound carrots, peeled, coarsely grated
4 cups mixed baby greens
1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced

Preparation

Whisk first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Whisk in oil, lemon juice, orange juice, and mint. Add carrots and baby greens; toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Top with onion and serve. Adapted from Taste.

Bulghur Salad with Cranberries and Cucumbers.

This was my first time using bulgur, and it's something I definitely plan to use again in the future. I brought this salad for lunch twice this week, and I really found that it gave me a lot of energy throughout the day... so if you're brown bagging things as I do, but haven't cooked with bulgur before, this is a great intro recipe to a really tasty grain.

Day three in the fridge, just as tasty as day one!

Bulgur is a wheat cereal - though different kinds of wheat can be used to make it. Most commonly, durum semolina seems to be the wheat of choice.

A close up

 I've based this recipe on one from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry called Grainman. My measurements are usually pretty loose... so although I've given exact ones here, you should feel more than free to play around with them.

Ingredients

1 cup orange juice
1 cup bulgur
½ cup cranberries
½ cup each diced celery and diced cucumber (I used a baby cuke)
¼ cup chopped almonds
2 tbsp chopped chives
one handful chopped fresh parsley
half a handful chopped fresh mint

1 tbsp walnut oil
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
zest from one lemon
¼ tsp each salt and pepper

Directions

Combine orange juice and 1 cup water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to low and add bulgur. Simmer, covered for 5 minutes, then remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 20 minutes or until bulgur has absorbed all that delicious liquid.

While the bulgur is doing its thing, mix cranberries through nuts in a large bowl.

Once the bulgur has absorbed everything, add it, along with the remaining ingredients to the bowl. Stir well. Taste and check seasonings. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Salad will keep, covered in the fridge, for 3 days.

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad and a Cottage Saturday

Part of the annual Thanksgiving weekend tradition involves all the people on the street taking the docks out of the water. There's a lot less enthusiasm for this activity (versus putting them in on the Victoria Day long weekend), mostly because the water is so much colder. 

Dad walking down the street wearing hip-waiters.

I see my role, as official photographer, to be a pretty damn important one.

The beach, with more than half of the dock gone.

You see, there are dogs that need portraits done.

Promptly after running into the water.

And... well... do you want to go swimming at Thanksgiving?

Yar. Look at that strength!

After everything at the beach seemed under control, Jenn and I took a walk down towards Snake Creek.

More milkweed pods!

And, you know, because we were tired after that, we sat around reading at the cottage.

The living room

Phil and I took a quick walk before dinner just up and down River Road.

River Road at Murray Hill

I love autumn up here. I swear, no one does autumn like Ottawa-Gatineau.

View from another beach.

And what would the cottage be without eating? Nothing, I tells you.

Yum!

See the plaid shirt I'm wearing? I wore it practically every day in grade 8 (it was the grunge era). Now I reserve it for fall at the cottage, where it's kept permanently!

We're eating a poorly plated, but totally delicious Roasted Butternut Squash Salad recipe. I swear, it's the best dish ever.

Well. best dish for fall anyway.

Roasted squash, red onions, bacon, melted goat cheese, walnuts, maple... this salad has a whole lot of awesome goin' on!

Mmm. Beer.

Have I mentioned the Beerbistro? If I haven't told you about it in person, let me explain to you why I love this place.

Brace yourselves.

Everything is made with beer. No. Seriously. I mean everything.

Pizza? Stout Crust
Sour cream? Has Gueze in it .
Ice Cream? They call it Beer Scream.
Bacon? Cured with beer.
Salad dressing? White beer & truffle oil.

They have a cellar with 200+ bottles of beer... some of which cost hundreds of dollars. It's beertastic!

Last night, Phil and I got together with another one of my friends from high school and her husband. They live (relatively) near by (and by that I mean an hour+ by car or train), and it's always good to see them. I've known my friend since grade 9! Back then, she wanted to be a doctor. And guess what? Unlike just about every other teenager who wants to be a doctor, she actually is one! You have no idea how proud I am of her for sticking to it.

I'm digressing. Later this week, I'll be whipping up a batch of beer scream (or strawberry beer sorbet), but for now you'll have to settle for a lunchtime recipe that doesn't involve beer at all.

What? I needed to detox. All those beer samplers add up, you know?

Don't be turned off by the word detox. The salad is really good!

C'mon. You know you want some. Look at those gorgeous olive oil dressed beans. Parsley! Lemon Rind! Capers! Sea salt!

It's a total winner.

Weekend Cooking

I wish I'd thought to take pictures of the dish I made for a dinner party we went to last night. Fine Cooking's Summer Wheat Berry Salad was a hit with everyone, even though I made it with pot barley instead of wheat berries. One of the advantages of using the barley was it cut the cooking time dramatically - it only took 30 minutes. I subbed the barley in at a one to one ratio, and didn't leave it to cool in the cooking water. You can find the recipe for it after the jump!

A quick note: the dinner party was so lovely! We got to meet up with some of my husband's Tumblr friends, drank copious amounts of wine, ate some seriously delicious pork tenderloin. I don't think I've ever had a moister tenderloin in my life. I think our amazing host, Robin, braised it with figs and shallots. Oh, it was sooo good! It was a totally lovely evening - there's nothing like good company!

Today I've been puttering lazily about the kitchen. Earlier, I whipped together some almond-basil pesto for tonight's pizza (I've got to use up the leftover roasted red pepper and artichokes from last night's salad).

I love five minute recipes! I just had to throw the <--------ingredients in the food processor and voila! Pesto complete!  ------>

Now I'm contemplating how I'm going to use up the five stalks of rhubarb I bought mid week. I think it'll probably end up being Martha's Rhubarb Upside Down Cake (but a half size version, because I don't own a 9" cake pan).