Best summer dinner ever

This recipe was given to me by my friend Sara; it's simply amazing, and very versatile. Here's the basic idea, followed by alternatives. I get most of these ingredients fresh from the farmers market each week. So yummy, so easy.

INGREDIENTS: (for 4 people)
Italian Turkey Sausage (optional) - 4
Red, green, or yellow pepper - 2
Yellow Onion - 1
Tomato - 1
Bite-size perogies - 1 package
Salsa - 1/2 a jar or so (use medium or hot, however you like it)
Sour cream (optional)

1. Dice all the veggies, keep onions aside. Boil water for perogies.
2. Heat up a pan for the sausage. (I personally push mine out of the casing - it turns out in nice little crumblies. But you could also just cut into slices if you prefer.)
3. Fry up the sausage. Once cooked, dump in the onions. Make sure you don't forget about your boiling water, stick those perogies in there!
4. Add diced veggies to sausage and onions. Throw the salsa in there & mix around.
5. After frying for 5 mins or so, turn to lower heat & simmer.
6. Once perogies are done, add them to frying pan with other stuff. Add more salsa if you need to. Stir.

Serve with sour cream and a nice green salad. Maybe some crusty fresh bread. Delicious.

ALTERNATIVES:
- Use bruschetta, tomato sauce, or pasta sauce instead of (or with) salsa. Add herbs/spices for fun!
- Use pasta or sliced potatoes instead of perogies.
- Use whatever root veggies you like!

Julie

Vegan Lemon Cake

This lemon cake is perfect for summer - a fresh zing of lemon with a hint of sweet.
(I personally make it with cream cheese icing, which is obviously not vegan, but it can be iced with whatever type of vegan icing you like. I'll post both options.

CAKE:
2 large lemons
1 1/2 cup flour (I use all whole wheat, but you can use whatever)
3/4 cup raw sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vinegar
3/4 cup water
3 TBSP oil (I use canola/olive blend)
3 TBSP applesauce

MIX the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Grate lemon till you have 2 heaping TBSP of rind. Then squeeze all the juice out of them in a separate bowl, add 4 TBSP of juice to the rind and you can save the rest for the icing if you're making the vegan one. Add the vinegar, vanilla, oil, and applesauce to the rind/juice bowl. Mix with whisk. Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff, mix with whisk. Pour into greased cake pan (8" round or square) and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, check with toothpick. Let cool completely before icing. 

ICING:
a)Vegan - 2 TBSP lemon juice and 3/4 cup confectioners sugar OR...
b)Cream Cheese - 1 block soft cream cheese, 2 cups icing sugar, 3/4 cup softened butter, 1 splash vanilla

I like to cut the cake in half, ice the middle layer and all around, then slice up a lemon into really thin quarter slices (like a tiny triangle) and decorate around the edges. But do whatever the heck you want! It's an easy, inexpensive and yummy cake to share with friends. Enjoy!
Julie

Granola

I realized that my organized life of cooking relies on the fact that my husband does not usually work late, my kid is not usually sick, and I do not usually spend weekends out of town. Combine all these three variables and I find myself eating ice cream out of the freezer on a tablespoon for supper.

This week, being one of those weeks, I forced myself to steal away an hour or so to make up a big batch of homemade granola, so at least when I'm faced with unpredictabilities in life I can sit down to a healthy snack once in a while. or for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I found even the process of making this up was therapy to me...playing with a traditional recipe and testing the bubbling hot syrup on the stove, then pouring it in the big punch bowl full of oats. stirring by hand and "snitching" the uncooked oats coated in sweet deliciousness. inhaling the homey smell as it baked in the oven.

Granola is so fun to play with, you can make it 100 different ways.

This was adapted from the more-with-less cookbook, the recipe for Koinonia Granola...

preheat oven to 350

wet ingredients:
melt together in a saucepan:
1/2 cup oil
1/2 lb margarine
2 T molasses
1 T Vanilla (or any type of extract- maple, almond...)
1 C brown sugar
1 C honey, (or corn syrup, or 1/2 and 1/2)
1/2 t salt

when mixed, let it cool slightly and pour it over the dry ingredients:
about 6 cups of rolled oats
2 cups whole wheat flour
and however much you want of any of the following:
raisins
dried cranberries
shelled sunflower seeds
almonds
coconut
wheat germ
flax seeds
pumpkin seeds
have fun with spices! i like to add lots of cinnamon.

when wet and dry ingredients are mixed together,
spread out thinly on greased cookie sheets and bake for 20-30 minutes. peer in every 7-10 minutes or so and mix the granola around to dry it out evenly and make sure it's not burning.

when the granola is nice and brown and all dried out, take out of the oven to cool. combine it in a large bowl as this recipe makes about 4 pan-fulls. as each pan comes out of the oven, dump it into a big metal bowl and stir it around. it will start to get its crunchy texture as it cools. put your face over the warm steaming bowl and smellllll.....take a deep breath.

enjoy with plain yogurt and a dab of jam, and some fresh fruit if you please!

Sweet Chili Chicken (or Tofu) - the easy version

My meals have been less than inspiring over the past couple of weeks. I am constantly feeling that life is always overtaking my best efforts, and no matter how hard I run to catch up - I'm never quite keeping up when it comes to keeping house and feeding my family and myself!!

So it stands to reason that sometimes I have to make something quick and easy. Here's one of my favourites lately. It's great with chicken, but you can always substitute tofu - I haven't tried it yet but I think extra firm would work the best. Someone try it and comment for me. :) I created this recipe from a few different ones I liked. Some use honey instead but I find the brown sugar makes it nice and caramel-sweet with that fiery spice behind it. Mmmmm.

Sweet Chili Chicken

1/2 cup sweet chili sauce
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon of brown sugar (taste it - add more if you like it sweeter)
1 Teaspoon lime juice
Chicken Breast or thigh pieces (or one block extra-firm tofu)

Directions

Mix Sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce and brown sugar together in bowl.

Add chicken or tofu and refrigerate for 2 hours

Cook in over at 350 degrees for 45 minutes (cover with foil until last 10 minutes). Don't overcook.

Alternatively, for a REALLY quick supper, just throw in a frying pan on medium-high. Or you can thread the chicken pieces with red/green peppers and onions on a kebab for the BBQ.
                                                                                                                                                          julie

Gado Gado

this recipe is easy, fresh, and versatile as you can eat it over rice, in a wheat or lettuce wrap.
soooo delicious. I loved it so much I was trying to eat it whilst breastfeeding and chunks of carrot were falling on my son's face.

2 carrots, sliced
1/4 of a cauliflower, in small pieces
1 cup snow peas
1 cup bean sprouts,
4 cups of lettuce, shredded or use it for wraps
2 hard-boiled eggs
2 ripe tomatoes, cut into pieces
-you can throw in other veggies, like cucumbers, sprouts, lemon/lime wedges, garnish with cilantro, chuck in some potatoes if you want!

sauce:
1 T veg oil
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 t sambal oelek (or hot sauce and minced garlic)
1 t lemon juice
1 T kecap manis (optional)

-tomato or whole weat tortilla wraps
-lime wedges, cilantro

make:
-steam carrots and cauli. after a few minutes add the snow peas and cook until they are hot but still crunchy. add bean sprouts and cook for appx 1 minute. Remove the mixture from heat and set aside to cool.
-turn the oven on to 250 F and put the tortilla wraps in just to heat up a bit
-sauce: heat oil in a saucepan. cook the oinion until soft. add peanut butter, coco milk, sambal oelek, lemon juice, kecap manis, and 1/4 cup water. stir. boil and stir, then simmer for 5 minutes until the sauce is thick.

place the wrap on a plate. add veggies, including the tomato, cucumber. cut the eggs in some pieces and add in. drizzle sauce, squeeze lime juice on and throw some cilantro on top. wrap up and....mmmmmmm....                                                          marcie

Apple Quinoa Salad and much much much much more.

Apple Quinoa Goodness.

This week was interesting. My Mom and Grandma came to stay. Mon and Tues was just my Mom and so I was able to cook the first 2 things on my meal plan: Monday night was Sweet potato and Sage Risotto (we all decided this tasted like an old english meal, that reminded you of green pastures and sheep, for some reason); Tuesday: Roast Chicken and Saag.

Then on Wednesday my Grandma came to stay and voila, she turned the place into a delicatessen! We now have about 5 different types of cold cuts, four different cheeses and 2 different breads. I kept telling her I had a meal plan and would like to eat more than open faced buns please (Did I mention I'm breastfeeding??)! But she didn't seem to follow.

Friday night after the third night of buns in a row, I cooked a secret Mexican enchilada dinner for Carm and I (We pretend our kitchen table is whatever type of Cafe we feel like that day. So we spent Friday night in a Mexican Cafe').

We kind of ended up having Marcie and Grandma fusion food: for example, Saturday for lunch we had sweet potato and banana curry soup over noodles with farmer sausage.

Saturday night was our friend Keegan's 25th birthday. I offered to bring something and ended up making up an Apple Quinoa Salad which was the perfect refreshing compliment to the main dish which was a spicy Thai soup. Once again I got the recipe for that Salad from here: http://www.cooksrecipes.com/salad/apple_quinoa_salad_recipe.html

While assembing the salad with a dear friend and salad guru, Brittany Bax, we laid down some hard rules when it comes to salads: #1: add everything. #2: keep it crunchy. That way you will always end up with a salad that is POSH (Pimped out SH**).

So, in the spirit of making this salad POSH, I added a can of chickpeas, sprouts and a pinch of smoked peprika....because it makes everything better.

Today Carmen and I went for our usual Sunday shop, and I found a jewel: a 21 oz package of whole indian spices (Garam Masala). They are so beautiful! For $6.99. Yes. One more reason to love my neighborhood.

(http://www.orlandosidee.de/Fotos/Gewuerzmischungen_Miscela_di_Spezie_Seasoning/Garam%20Masala.jpg)

So, that was my week for food. Quite a mixed bag.                                                        marcie

this is for everyone

hey guys please e-mail us your recipes so we can share. with all. much love.

Deliciousness this week

Dinners this week went something like this:

Mexican Fiesta Potluck, Eggplant curry, Pesto Fettucine Salad, Red Thai Curry with Pork, and (take out) Butter Chicken Pizza.

My two favorites this week: My addition to the Mexican Potluck was a Mexican Chocolate Cake. The other winning meal was the Pesto Fettucine Salad. Both so easy and delicious. So here are the recipes.

Mexican Chocolate Cake with Spicy Chocolate Ganache:

I just used a no-name chocolate cake mix that was for a single layer cake. I pre-heated the oven to whatever the package said. I poured the mix into a bowl and added about 3/4 t cinnamon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. The cake mix called for 1/2 cup of water. Instead I added 1/4 cup sour cream and 1/4 cup water, and of course an egg. Because the batter looked a tad thick I splashed in a bit more water until it looked right, and a pinch of baking soda, even if just for good luck! I poured that into a oiled and floured bunt pan and stuck it in the oven.

Mexican Chocolate Ganache:
This was the clincher! Just heat one cup of milk on the stove. Stir in 1 T of vanilla or 2 T rum. Pour 1 cup of chocolate chips into a bowl and set aside. When the milk is ready to boil turn off the stove and slowly pour 3/4 of the milk into the bowl with chocolate chips while stirring. It should look thick and syrrupy. Put that in the fridge for 20-30 min. When ready, mix in the rest of the milk to your liking. I like this to be the texture of butter but sometimes it turns out a little more runny. You can stir in 1/8 t of Cayenne pepper for a little warmth.

This combo turned out delicous and I'm sure going to make it again.

 My other favorite this week was the cold salad: Pesto Fettucine. I got the basic recipe from here:
http://www.cooksrecipes.com/salad/spinach_and_pasta_salad_recipe.html

The only difference: I didn't have a red onion and I don't like the other ones raw. I also didn't have pine nuts. So I sauteed one small white onion with some cashewnuts and added that to the mix instead. For some protein I boiled up one can of chickpeas and threw them in too. I added about 1/4 cup of feta and a little more lemon juice. Then I tasted it at the end and decided an apple would just throw this off the hook. So chopped one up and threw it in. I also added a little more fresh ground pepper.

I found a lot of other great ideas from http://www.cooksrecipes.com/ when I googled "entree salad recipes."

Not only are these great for dinners, they are great to take for work the next day because they are meant to be cold.

Yay for delicious food!!                                            marcie

Marcie's introduction to kinfood.

"When we cultivate food in our backyards, we nurture it; in return, it nourishes us. Food is an integral part of our lives--not just at mealtime. Food is natural and unaffected.


In contrast, modern North America reduces food to a commodity that is manipulated, genetically engineered, irradiated, manufactured, or enriched and fortified. Food is fast-fast-food resteraunts, meals in minutes, instant this and instant that. We fill our physical fuel tanks with as much abandon as we fill our car fuel tanks--fast and full--and sometimes at the same stations.


When we make food in integral part of our lives and our homes, it becomes a part of our theology. We are connected to our food--cultivating it, preserving it, and preparing it. We are nurturers instead of consumers."

-Mary Beth Lind, pg viii in More with Less

For me, to eat better and to appreciate food more, I needed to understand some stuff.

More with Less, by Doris Janzen Longacre, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan really helped to blossom that understanding, and give me and my husband an idea of how to think like global citizens when it comes to eating.

Also, I travelled the world, tasting different cusine from India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam. That also helped with the global citizen thing.

Also, we moved to BC, where plums and figs and pears grow on neighborhood trees, clustering so thick that the branches hang into alleyways, the fruit growing so succulent and juicy, until it splats on the pavement below, unless you valiantly intervene! Where blueberries and apples and peaches and rasberries have fertile soil and lots of rain to help them grow. BC should really be called Eden.

I think before we can answer the big question "what to make for dinner" we need to take a few steps back and fall in love with food. Real food. Not the way advertizing tries to make a burger look good. We need to be in awe of how many things you can do with a tomato. Or the way a carrot tastes fresh out of the garden. Or the way grain fields look in the prairies. Or how hundreds of countries around the world are doing different things with the same things, and this has been happening for thousands of years.

Next we need to start salivating over cookbooks. Go to the library and pick out ones with pictures. Make yourself a cup of tea and leaf through the pages. Make a list of the things that really stand out. Then when you head to the market it does not seem so overwhelming.

I like to organize my cooking like this: monday is crockpot day; tuesday is casserole/curry/stir fry day; wednesday is leftover day; thursday is try-and-use-something-from-the-freezer-day; friday is salad-as-entree day; and weekends I don't cook. And all the weekdays usually get mixed up...but I need something to work with, and this helps.

Lastly, when you cook, love yourself. Do it as a gift to yourself. When you sit down to eat, remember that you are nurturing your body. Chew slowly. Enjoy every bite.

So, those are Marcie's food thoughts in a nutshell.

Valentine's Day cupcakes

Valentine's day - love, flowers, and of course, chocolate. I was going to have a little party with some friends but unfortunately came down with some mysterious illness yesterday, so had to cancel. But I'm still going to make the cupcakes. Just for me and Max. And maybe we'll share with Aaron. :)

This is my adaptation on the all-time favourite wacky cake recipe. It's sooooo easy, moist, and yummy. I have changed it a bit to make it mini-cupcakes, lowering the cooking time and adding a bit of a different flavour twist by using pure almond extract instead of vanilla. (note of warning. My husband, who likes things "the way they should be" didn't like the almond flavour. So use vanilla if you are married to that kind of person.) Usually I like to make cream cheese icing but don't have any cream cheese here today. So plain old buttercream it is. Failproof. I added some raspberry jam to give it that valentine's pink - yummy! (I am not a fan of food colouring.)


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or, use half whole wheat and half all purpose.)
1 cup organic cane sugar (I always use it in place of white. But use white if you must.)
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
A few shakes of salt
1 tsp pure almond extract
1 tablespoon vinegar
6 1/2 tablespoons oil (vegetable or canola)
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water

Icing:
1/4 cup butter, soft (not melted. leave it out all day till it's SOFT.)
2(ish) cups powdered icing sugar
1 tablespoon whipping cream or milk
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1 tablespoon raspberry jam

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all dry ingredients for cupcakes in a big bowl. Make three little wells in the ingredients, pour the almond extract in one, the vinegar in another and the oil in the third. Pour water over all of it. Mix thoroughly, pour into mini-cupcake trays lines with liners. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Whip together icing ingredients. Ice cupcakes once they have been cooled.
Pictures to follow.                                                                                                   julie

What is kinfood?

When my sister Marcie called me from Vancouver the other day, holding her new baby Spencer, she pitched a question my way. "I don't know quite how to word this, but - what do you make for supper? How do you find the time? Can we somehow share recipes and ideas to help each other with this?" I immediately responded with a yes - I've been thinking of trying this for some time, to start collecting and sharing favourite recipes. We asked our friends if they would like to share our idea - and they do. So here we go. Start your ovens. Day one.