bread and salad

August 20, 2010

Two in one week?!?!? Shocker I know! Well I'm actually excited because I made something today, and it wasn't a veggie dog in the microwave, like legit went out and bought ingredients!

Let me explain my motivation behind this... haha. So my cousin is visiting from Calgary with his family this week, and after meeting up with them this morning for the parade they invited me to dinner tonight out at their cabin, well of course I couldn't go empty-handed so I thought of my favorite pot-luck dish, which also happens to be my mama's favorite dish to take too! (Where do you think the recipe came from?)

And yes, I am aware that I already have a pasta salad on my blog, but this one's mamas specialty! and I apologize now for sharing the super secret (easy) recipe!

Ingredients:

• Fusilli
• One whole red pepper
• olive oil
• pepper
• cherry tomatoes (my own addition)
• Crumbly feta cheese
  

Okay to start I boiled off a box and a half of rainbow fusilli and let that cool down a touch then I sauteed the pepper in olive oil until just tender and put some fresh ground pepper on that.
Then sliced all the cherry tomatoes in half tossed it all in with the pasta and crumbled cheese over it all. Done!

So I also decided to take some garlic bread and my hand was hovering over the pre-made one at sobey's but I grabbed a loaf of french bread and did it myself.
To make the garlic butter I took 4 or 5 cloves of garlic threw them in the magic bullet with a cup of butter and bam! Garlic butter. Then, smear it all over the bread and pop in the oven and broil it until it's golden!

And that's all I have for you today, hopefully this makes up for my 2 weeks of silence. Hehe

In other news... 5 SHIFTS LEFT!!!!

Iced Coffee

August 18, 2010

Hello blog readers!

So not a very exciting entry this week, but I just made a great little concoction in the kitchen and felt the need to share.

Iced Coffee!

Haha, I know, I know. Not really pushing many boundaries this time, but seriously, this took me 3 minutes to throw together and it is refreshing and delicious!

So to start out, put your favorite coffee on to brew. Whether it's your old drip standby, or making your favorite french press, OR throw the kettle on and make an individual cup of instant coffee.

Now, once your coffee is brewed add about equal parts ice to it. Believe me it cools down quicker if you pour the coffee over the ice rather than just tossing ice cubes in on top.

Next toss it into a blender (I used my magic bullet) and top it off with your favorite additive. I used chocolate milk, but you can use cream, milk, soy, or whatever you want! Blend for a few seconds and serve. Delicious!!

Now for some coffee suggestions! When I made mine today I used Starbucks Via Instant Coffee, and before you think ew, Instant! Five it a try. It's a micro-ground coffee so it's not full of chemicals and it dissolved right into the hot water. It's definitely a quality product.
Now if you're not on the instant bandwagon, my favorite coffees are as followed (you might see a trend here): Caffe Verona- which is a Bold coffee from Starbucks, it's so delicious, and compliments chocolate to a tee. Next, Gazebo summer blend, from starbucks. So tasty! And it's only available in the summertime so i definitely suggest it. And finally Cafe Estima, another Starbucks product, it's another of my favs.

So anyways, give this treat a try and throw in your favorite modifications!

See ya later bloggers!

Stacy

Summertime quick meals

August 2nd, 2010

Rather than apologizing for not updating in a while like I normally do I'm going to just ignore the fact that I am clearly a big lazy bum and continue on as if nothing is wrong.

So to begin my post I would just like to start by wishing my mama a very happy birthday! it was her bday yesterday and I wasn't there to share it with her, but I was thinking about her! =)

Onto the food! I'm going to post share a couple of my newly found summer favorites. They are all quick and super easy. I find it really hard to cook for myself in the summertime because it's either too hot, or I'm just too lazy so these meals pack a lot of punch and get me through the day. Here goes...

Taco Salad- for lack of a better name

Ingredients:

1. Romaine Lettuce
2. Tomato, cut into chunks
3. Avocado, cut into chunks
4. Corn kernels, cooked and cooled
5. Black beans, if using canned rinse!
6. Grated cheddar cheese
   
7. A handful of tortilla chips or a flat tortilla
8. Salsa
9. Salad dressing of your choice (optional)

Okay, so to begin just toss everything in a bowl, you can either crumble the chips over top or leave them whole, your call. Or if using a flat tortilla, brush with oil and season with a little cayenne and toss it in a 400degree oven for hmm.. 5 minutes, check on it frequently. You'll end up with a hard tortilla that you can just break up over the salad.
I also tend to put salad dressing on mine, but that's totally optional. I use a blue cheese yogurt dressing that surprisingly mixes well with everything in the salad.
I am also known to do a fridge raid for any produce looking a little limp and chop that up and add it to the salad.

My next "recipe" I guess you can say is my new love of baked potatoes.

Take a baking potato and scrub off any dirt you see, then pierce it all over with a fork.
Now there's 2 ways to bake the potatoes now. If you've got all the time in the world you can throw them in a 400degree over for a good hour until they're soft and mushy, or if like me you decide you want a baked potato 20 half an hour before work toss those bad boys in the microwave for 6-8 minutes.

I know, I know.. I went to culinary school and I 'bake' potatoes in the microwave, shoot me haha.

So once my potato is baked, I cut an ex in it and put a dollop of vegan margarine in it, and I mean very little, but it does give a creamy, buttery texture that is too good to pass on.
Next I grate a little cheese on, then I put a heavy spoonful of salsa on it. I've been using fresh local salsas from the farmers market and it just adds such a punch to an otherwise plain baked potato.
Of course there's so many choices for baked potatoes. try the classic green onions and sour cream, or saute some mushrooms and onions (tried it, SO good) Or broccoli and grated cheese. Just about anything under the sun works on baked potatoes so get creative.

Also, for those potato-phobes out there. They are GOOD FOR YOU! Potatoes are knows as a resistant starch, in other words is not a simple carb going straight to your muffin top, they are actually keeping your weight in check!
As for a medium potato with the skin on, you're looking at only 100 calories with more potassium than a banana! They keep blood pressure in check and fight of heart disease, not to mention keep you full longer. Potatoes are a super food!

And finally my treat of all treat foods.. Green Onion Cakes!
Might possibly be the easiest recipe ever too.

Start with a 3:2 ratio of flour to HOT water and mix in slowly to make a ball of dough. Wrap in plastic and chill until you plan on using it.
Next roll out the dough (using additional flour if needed) Sprinkle sliced scallions (green onions) and then fold cake over on itself and roll out again, making sure onions are evenly dispersed.
In a large frying pan, heat canola or part canola and a sprinkle of sesame oil over medium-high heat and then drop cake into pan. Brown evenly on both sides.
Blot cake with paper towel and sprinkle with salt before cutting into triangles and serve with your favorite chili sauce for dipping.
Ahhh my favorite!

Anyways, that's all for now, I hope everyone's summer is going fantastic. Mine has definitely been interesting. I've been running out in the sun a lot, and going to early morning aquafit, as well as relaxing on the beach whenever I have a spare moment. Right now I have a pretty red sunburn. Oh well, that'll teach me!
See ya later crocodiles

Stacy

peanut butter noodles

July 14, 2010

I am the worst. I apologize it's been over a month, and I have been seriously lacking motivation and also my culinary adventures consist of cereal, and lots of it.
So since my diet has not consisted of me cooking very much I'm going to post an old favorite of mine. It's my go-to for quick and easy, and it's definitely a comfort food for me.
Peanut Butter Noodles!
Okay, I know how filthy that probably sounds, but surprisingly so delicious!

Ingredients:
Vermicelli Rice Noodles
All Natural Peanut Butter (the Kraft kind comes in a brown container)
Chili Sauce- I use
Green Onions
Sesame Seeds
Peanuts
Broccoli

1. Start off my taking some lightly simmering water off the stove and soaking your rice noodles in it OFF THE HEAT. They'll take anywhere from 4-8 minutes to soften up, but don't leave them too long or they'll get all gummy and gross.
2. Next, steam off your favorite vegetable, I use broccoli most of the time but I've used Asparagus a couple times and it's really a whatever-you-have kind of deal, just make sure it's not too overcooked.
3.In a wok or frying pan toast up some sesame seeds and peanuts on medium heat.
4. Add a good spoonful of peanut butter to the pan and let it melt down. Then add a generous drizzle of chili sauce, the more the better if you're like me =)
4. Next toss the strained noodles to coat them evenly with the sauce, and finally toss in the steamed veg and a few slice green onions.

I normally then dump them into a bowl and eat with chopsticks, but I'm sure a fork works fine too. I'm the biggest weirdo when it comes to chopsticks and I'm not sure how I do it, but I manage to get all the food in my mouth but I'm definitely not using them correctly.
Here's a short video on how to properly use chopsticks...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8mw8SWS5nM

So I'm going to try realllllly hard to keep regular updates coming, I may have to lock myself in the kitchen and start using up the contents of my cupboards for inspiration, but I'll do what I have to do.

Until next time, happy eating!

Stacy

Veggie Burgers.

June 10, 2010

Wow, I am the worst at this! Sorry for the delay, I've just been incredibly busy with moving into a new apartment and getting settled in (sitting on the couch all the time watching tv) and busy working 2 jobs (Representing the green apron(s) haha). Anyways enough about why I am too lazy to post a new recipe, yet have time to check facebook, oceanup, youtube and twitter on a daily basis.

Okay, on to the recipe. Today is Lentil Burgers. I had a recipe a few years back for curried lentil burgers, I believe it came out of Canadian Living at least 3 years back, but I've tweaked and changed a couple of things here and there to make it how I like it.

Ingredients (for about 4 patties)

• Can of lentils, mostly drained of liquid
• a cup of mushrooms, I use baby 'bellos
• 1/2 a small onion
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup cashews
• veg oil
• bread crumbs
• red wine vinegar
• salt/pepper

1. Begin by sauteing the mushrooms, onions, garlic and then toss the cashews in to toast them up
2. In a blender, puree the lentils with a bit of vinegar, then puree the mushroom mix, until somewhat smooth. (don't over do it)
3. Next mix the bread crumbs in, until the mixture is no longer sticky. Form into patties and fry on moderate to high heat in a couple tbsp of oil, let them brown a teence.
4. Either eat them on their own or on a bun with your favorite burger toppings.

This recipe is so diverse, I make it probably once a week (sometimes more) but I am constantly changing it up. For example today I had no cashews so I used walnuts, and we tried it with balsamic vinegar and some wilted spinach in the patties. I eat mine on skinny buns with grainy mustard, a drizzle of hot chili sauce and tomato and avocado. SO GOOD

Anyways, until next time... Happy Cooking!

xo- Stacy

Loaf

Okay, so I'm going to try to update about once a week, and I've been trying to think of a couple more recipes to start trying out over the next little while. Before I completely forget though I'm going to post my loaf recipe.

I often talk about loaf when I call home, and every time my mom says to me 'what is loaf?' Well I guess you could call it banana loaf, but bananas barely even make an appearance (and half the time don't even make their way in at all). Another name would be vegan loaf I guess. So here goes...

• 2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/4 cup-1/2 cup of sugar (not always necessary, although it does moisten the loaf)
• 1/2 cup of water or soymilk

Those are the basic ingredients that make up the base of the loaf, now the flavors can be anything you want... For example:

• Moist fruit: a couple mashed up bananas/pureed pumpkin/apple sauce/grated carrot- frankly it can be anything that adds a decent amount of moisture, and a good rule of thumb can be 2:1 flour to fruit
• 1/4-1/2 cup of berries (I use whatever is in the freezer) or dried fruit (something I tend to avoid because I'm allergic to cranberries and raisins)
• a handful of chopped nuts- your call
• Flax seed*, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds etc
• Vanilla
• Spices- Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg etc
• 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter

Now that you have your ingredients assembled:

1. Begin by preheating your oven to 350F. In a mixing bowl combine your sugar and your moist fruit (and peanut butter or vanilla if using).
2. Next, in another bowl (or just on top of your first mixture) combine flour, baking powder and soda, nuts, seeds, spices, and frozen/dried fruit.
   
3. Using a wooden spoon, mix until just combined. It should look rather dry, so now you add you water/soymilk to moisten up mixture.
4. Give your loaf pan a good spray with pam, then dump that hearty loaf in and toss 'er into the oven for mm let's say 1 hour.
5. Check with a skewer inserted in the center, should come out clean, then using a knife, go around the edges of the pan to loosen the loaf, and dump it out and let it cool. Ta-da! Loaf!

*Just a quick side note, I put the star next to flax seed above, flax seed mush be ground before being added. Reason being the seeds are not easily digested in their whole form. I use either a coffee grinder or my magic bullet to grind them up, or they can be purchased already ground!

To store loaf, wait until completely cooled, then wrap in plastic wrap or in an air tight container. It can also be frozen, just double wrap it. To thaw it out, throw it in the microwave or set it out overnight.

Well that's about it for now!
Loaf,

Stacy

pasta salad.. if you can call it that ;)

Gooood afternoon,

So as promised I'm keeping up with this blog and I figured I would share with you my -interesting- supper that I threw together today.

So I guess you could call it a pasta salad, it included pasta anyways! So I'll give a quick run down of the ingredients first.

• Rainbow Fussili pasta
• Baby eggplant (canadian grown)
• Red Pepper
• Vine tomatoes (canadian grown)
• Garlic
• Spinach
• Olive oil
• Chili flakes
• Goat cheese
• Balsamic Vinegar

Okay so now for some steps:

1. Put water on to boil, and remember always salt it! The a couple drizzles of olive oil in an already preheated frying pan. I then threw in some chopped pepper and eggplant and 1 clove of garlic just roughly chopped and sauteed those bad boys up. And not for too long either, I didn't want to brown them, just soften them up some. (ps this is all on medium heat)
2. I dumped the remainder of the pasta in the box into the boiling water and simmered that for 7 minutes. I was pretty upset when I realized I had maybe 1/4 cup of pasta left to cook tonight, so it got bulked up with all the veggies instead!
3. In with the veg I dumped.. I would say about a cup and a half of spinach, then turned the heat off all together. It wilted down in no time and then I added a handful of chili flakes some s+p and chopped tomato.
4. When the pasta was al dente I strained off the water, dumped the pasta into the veggies, mixed that up, then crumbled some goat cheese over top, and finished with a light drizzle of balsamic. Ta-Da!

Okay, so that was supper tonight, it sounds a little like leftover soup, but it actually turned out alright! All the flavors I threw in there easily complimented each other, and it was a healthy alternative to a rich mayo based pasta salad that's for sure.

If I were to make it again... I would maybe use a salty feta or mozzarella over goat cheese. Also maybe chop y garlic a little smaller, biting into a chunk was not the highlight of my meal, haha, but it wasn't too bad seeing as it had the chance to cook off a bit with the eggplant and peppers.

Anyways, that's all the foodie blogging I have for today, onto current events. I got a job.. at the grocery store... not too sure how I'm feeling about that one still. Maybe holding out for something else? is that awful. Anyways another quick rant-y moment.. It drives me CRAZY when people have massive discussion/arguments in a status update on facebook. Okay seriously, seriously? It's just a bit of an annoyance right now. Like what is chat, inbox, heck wall-to-wall for? status updates... little juvenile.

Okay, I'm done now. I've got quite a sore throat today so I think it might be time for me to have some juice and snuggle down with the cat for a nap. Talk soon!

Stacy

Where to next?

May 14, 2010

Oookay, so it's been a while since I last updated, but I've just had another epiphany telling me to blogblogblog. So here goes attempt 617940.

Alright, so as of my last entry I was still in school, well I'm all finished now and I am searching for work for the summer. I'm not sure what I want to do so I'm pretty much keeping my options open. I'll letcha know when something is more definite.

So onward, I've decided to start sharing some recipes, and some cooking tips of the trade on here (That should fill up a bit more space, and keep me more updated). But have no worries it's not going to be a lame "add cinnamon to batter" kind of thing, I'm talking legit recipes, also I'm not looking for praise, in fact, more than likely some of my -recipes- may sound a little less that delicious (Peanut butter noodles for instance) but oh well, not like anyone reads this anyways =) haha

Well until we meet again xo
Stacy

Bonjour.

Dear world of bloggers,

Okay, here goes. This is probably my 4th attempt at starting up a blog in the last few years, this time maybe, just maybe I'll keep it up.
So to start out let me introduce myself somewhat. I am currently a culinary student in my final year (like 2 more months to go, ugh) and don't get me wrong I LOVE to cook. I adore being in the kitchen and creating and plating and serving to others, buuut I'm not at all interested in working in a kitchen of a restaurant ever again. Also I might mention now that I'm a vegetarian and have been now for over 7 years. I am now also dabbling in vegan diets. For the past few months I have slowly been trying to ween myself off of dairy and eggs, and I have to tell you that it has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Cheese of any kind is pretty much calling my name and I have to force myself away from it. Also soy milk is great in Chai Lattes and in baking and such but having it with my cereal in the morning or the thought of potentially drinking it straight gives me the willies.
So on with the introductions. I am very young and some people may say I'm naive and immature, but it's all in perspective and opinion. I am young and am lacking in life experiences that's for sure but I'm not the dumb blond that many take me for.
I am also a die hard fan of figure skating. I was a competitive skater more than half my life, and only recently have I begun to get back into it. I love the feeling of being out on that ice. It's great for the body and also such a relief to me to go out every saturday morning after a rough week at school. And with the olympics going on right now I am glued to the TV watching all of the skating events.
Watching Shen and Zhao win their gold medal on monday night was beautiful! I am so happy for them, and I can't believe how amazing they are, at their age too. They definitely deserved the Gold. Congrats to them!
As for the mens short program last night, it was a very tight competition, man those scores are close. Evan Lysacek is my favorite and I'm secretly rooting for him, although watching Plushenko power out those quads is amazing, too bad he doesn't have the spins, footwork, and program components to match those powerful jumps.
Well enough about skating, down to the real reason I've started this blog. As mentioned above I'm about 2 months shy of graduation, and also said I'm not interested in working in a restaurant kitchen, so I have a couple tough decisions to make in the next few months... And so I'm going to look into all aspects of what I could potentially do.
Here goes, wish me luck!

Stacy