Antipasto Pasta Salad

I raided my pantry to throw this together because my fridge was empty and company was coming in an hour. The salad turned out amazing and it was ridiculously quick and easy.

Ingredients

1lb rotini pasta cooked al dente

6-8 large olives sliced (I used kalmata and green olives)

5 sun dried tomatoes rehydrated and chopped

3/4 can artichoke hearts quartered

2 tbsp chopped red onion

2 tbsp sun dried tomato pesto

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Toss everything into a large bowl and serve cold.

Ravioli in cream sauce with wilted spinach and toasted walnuts

Cold night + creamy pasta = comfort gourmet

Ingredients

1 package of your favourite ravioli

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1/3 cup cream

1/4 cup milk

handful grated Parmesan cheese

dash fresh grated nutmeg

2 cups baby spinach

handful walnuts toasted in a dry skillet

Directions

Boil ravioli according to package directions in a large pot

Meanwhile, heat butter small saucepan on medium low heat. Add the flour and stir until you get a sandy texture. Slowly add cream but do not allow to boil. Add milk if you need to thin out the sauce. Add nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. Once the sauce is at the desired thickness (coats the back of the spoon), remove from heat, stir in parmesan cheese.

Pour sauce over cooked ravioli and immediately stir in spinach. Sprinkle toasted walnuts over top.

Easy Jambalaya

I'm always in the mood for something spicy. Tonight I made some Cajun shrimp jambalaya. To cut time in half, I cooked the sauce in a skillet and the rice in a rice cooker.

Ingredients

1 onion diced

1 rib celery diced

1/2 red pepper diced

4 cloves garlic minced

2 cups cooked ham/kielbasa/chorizo

1 can diced tomatoes drained

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp Cajun spice mix

10-12 large shrimp, peeled and de-veined

2 cups rice cooked in 2 cups chicken stock

2 green onions sliced

Directions

Cook the rice in a rice cooker with chicken stock.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil on a skillet and sauté onions, celery, red pepper and garlic until softened. Add ham/kielbasa/chorizo and brown. Add spices, tomatoes and simmer until sauce thickens. Add shrimp and cook through. Once rice is cooked, pour jambalaya mixture in and mix through. Scatter green onions on top.

Five ingredients! Tilapia with Cherry Tomatoes and Anchovie Sauce

I would have taken pictures of this dish but it looks much better in person. You'll have to try the recipe and post your pics. :)

This is one of Steve's favourite dishes, is so easy to make and has only 5 ingredients!

You'll need:

• Tilapia fillets
• Anchovies in the oil
• 1 full packet of cherry tomatoes
• 1 to 2 cloves of chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp of olive oil

In a pan over very low heat, pour entire content of anchovies and oil. Let anchovies melt. This should take about 12 minutes or so. If you cook the anchovies at a high heat, it will splatter everywhere. Big mess! Stay low!

Throw in garlic, all cherry tomatoes and olive oil. You can toss these ingredients in while the anchovies are cooking.

Let entire sauce cook for a total of 20 minutes or so.

Put tilapia fillets in sauce and cook for about 10 minutes or until fully cooked through.

Serve cherry tomatoes on top of tilapia fillets. Drizzle with leftover sauce.

Steve loves having this dish with fresh bread to sop up the sauce.

So technically, this dish has six ingredients. :)

Balsamic vinaigrette glazed vegetable pita

Ingredients:

• 1 green pepper julienned
• 1 red pepper julienned
• 1 cup asparagus
• 1 medium onion thinly sliced
• 2 tomatoes finely chopped
• Pitas
• 4 tbsp balsalmic vinegar
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
  

Saute all vegetables with vinegar and brown sugar until soft. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in pitas topped with chopped tomatoes. This is a great Lenten meal! Steve loved it.

Spaghetti with chickpeas, cherry tomatoes & spinach

I think a sign of success of a good vegetarian meal is if I can get my husband to eat it without noticing he's missing meat. ;) We both LOVE chickpeas, and I could snack on them like chips. This recipe was super easy and tasty and all the ingredients are of things I always have in the pantry or fridge.



Ingredients
Dried Spaghetti (cooked al dente - 10 1/2 mins)
1 can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
1 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
2 cups fresh baby spinach
6 or 7 cremini mushrooms
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp hot chili flakes (for a milder dish, use less or omit, but I like things SPICY!)
parmesean cheese

Directions
While pasta is boiling, heat up olive oil in a large skillet.
Saute garlic until fragrant. Add mushrooms and continue to cook until softened, about 3-4. Add tomatoes, chickpeas and hot pepper flakes. Allow to heat through until tomatoes release their juices and become slightly wrinkled. Ladle some boiling water from the pasta pot into the sauce, and season with salt and pepper.
Drain spaghetti, and toss with sauce and spinach. Spinach will slowly wilt from the heat of the spaghetti. Top with parmesean cheese and enjoy!

Lobster Roll

I saw this on the Food Network and have been craving to make it! Steve thought it tasted exotic!

It was a very easy, quick and light dinner.
I think I would have used more lobster though. Maybe after the recession ;)

Ingredients

• 1 cup Greek yogurt or plain
• 1/2 cup finely chopped celery
• 2 tablespoons green onion
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 hotdog buns
• Salt and pepper to taste
• **2 lobster tails

** I used 1 lobster tail.

I bought frozen lobster tail yesterday and thawed it over night in the fridge. Today, I steamed it for about 7 min until the tail curled.

In the meantime, I mixed the yogurt, mayo, celery, green onion, lemon juice and salt and pepper together.

Once the lobster was done, I chopped up into fine pieces and folded it into the above mix.

I toasted the bread, spread the mix on and served with some tomatoes on the side.

"Lobster roll"http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/lobster-roll-recipe/index.html March 2009.

Jerked Pork Tenderloin with Rice and Peas

I happen to love the 'Memories of..." sauces from Loblaws. I know I usually like to make sauces from scratch, but I have my exceptions, especially on weeknights. For this quick and easy Caribbean supper, I picked up a 'Memories of Montego Bay' jerk sauce and marinated a 1.25lb pork tenderloin with it in a large Ziploc bag. I baked it for 45 minutes in a 375 degree oven. I served this with some rice and peas cooked in the rice cooker. Here's the recipe for the EASY rice and peas.

(I didn't really plate this nicely because I was hungry and in a rush!)


Ingredients
3 cups of rice
1 can of kidney beans
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 chili (You're supposed to use a habanero pepper, but I only had a thai chili, so I used that)
2 tbsp minced onion
1 cup of coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of black pepper
2 teaspoons of dried thyme

Put everything into a rice cooker and wait until the light goes off!
I would have served this with some fried plantain if I had more time.

Baked Maple Dijon Salmon with Tomato Rice Salad

I am definitely not a picky eater, but for the longest time, I did not like salmon. But I kept on trying it because it looks so beautiful and appetizing on a plate. One night we went to our friends' Sam and Jeff's house for dinner and Jeff cooked maple glazed salmon on the BBQ. I loved the sweet maple taste and found it toned down the strong flavour of the salmon. Amanda still laughs at me for this because when I was at her house for a bbq one summer, I poured maple syrup all over the beautiful salmon she made. Luckily the taste of salmon has grown on me a little more and I won't have to drench it in maple syrup. Here's a more sophisticated way to eat salmon with maple syrup. It's super quick and easy too!



Baked Maple Dijon Salmon

Ingredients
2 fillets salmon
1 tsp Dijon mustard
3 tsp maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp light soy sauce
freshly ground pepper
sesame seeds

Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Lay salmon on foil lined baking sheet skin side down.
Mix Dijon mustard, maple syrup and soy sauce together in a small bowl and brush mixture over salmon.
Sprinkle with pepper and sesame seeds.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.

Tomato Mushroom and Rice Salad

Ingredients
2 cups leftover cooked rice
6 small button mushrooms diced
1 tomato diced
2 tbsp minced onion
juice from 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp dill
salt and pepper

Directions
Mix all ingredients in a bowl. (If it has the chance to rest in the fridge for a little bit, all the better.) Serve alongside baked salmon. Enjoy!

Baked Salmon with Vegetables in parchment paper or Salmon en papillote

Look familar.. :)

Thank you Kimmeh for showing me this wonderful recipe on one of the most memorable nights of my life.

This dish will always remind me of that and for that I feel grateful. I felt nostalgic making this tonight and missed you.

xoxoxo


For my dish:

Ingredients:

• 2 salmon fillets
• 1 red pepper julienned
• 1 yellow pepper julienned
• 1 cup of sugar snap peas
• 1 cup of asparagus spears
• Lemon slices
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

You can also add onion too.

To cook:

• Preheat oven to 400f
• Lay two large sheets of parchment paper on a baking sheet and place salmon in the centre.
• Arrange vegetables around the salmon, creating a square.
• Top with lemon slices, olive oil and salt and pepper
• Fold up sides of paper to make a package
• Cook for 20 minutes, depending on thickness of fish. You'll know its done because the packages gets puffy and brown.

Creamy orzo (sans creme)

My secret ingredient with cooking orzo is leaving the pasta water in! By not draining it and leaving the orzo once you turn the heat off, the orzo sucks up all the water and becomes so creamy!

So, cook the orzo, turn off the heat, leave it in the pot for about 10 minutes and you are guaranteed creamy goodness!!

Monte Cristo Sandwiches

I LOVE sandwiches, and i could probably dedicate a whole blog to the delicious and endless combination of ingredients that can go in between 2 slices of bread. Sharl thinks I make the best sandwiches and it warms my heart every time he tells me so as he bites into one of my creations.

I had a sandwich similar to this in Paris in le Marais (called a croque monsieur), but the one I loved most was actually served at Fran's on College St. in the TDot. Basically it's french toast made into a sandwich. It's super easy and really delicious. I decided to re-create it to the best of my memory for dinner last night and it took less than 15 minutes. It's gooey, melty, cheesy, crispy eggy goodness. My recipe serves 2, naturally...;)


Ingredients
4 slices Bread (I used whole multi-grain bread)
Dijon mustard
6 slices Black forest ham (you could also use turkey)
2 or more slices of cheese (I used marble cheese, but you can use what you like)
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 tsp of butter

Directions
Assemble sandwiches with mustard, ham and cheese.
Dip the sandwiches into the beaten eggs so that both sides are well coated.
Melt 1tsp of butter in a skillet under medium-low heat and brown the sandwiches until eggs are cooked, cheese is melted and bread turns golden (about 4 minutes per side)

I served this alongside a simple salad of arugula, tomatoes and cucumbers in a homemade honey-dijon vinaigrette.

Fried Rice

Fried rice is probably one of Sharl's favourite comfort foods that I make. I usually use whatever I have on hand to make fried rice. Today it was shrimp, eggs, asparagus, celery, carrots and onions. You can always use chicken, Chinese BBQ pork (cha-siu), ham, shrimp, or any combination of meats and vegetables that you like.



To make Chinese food at home, you should always keep the following key items (at a minimum) in your pantry:

Light soy sauce (I use Pearl River brand)
Chinese cooking wine
Oyster sauce
Sesame oil
Red Vinegar (not used in this recipe)

Ingredients:
10 small shrimp defrosted
1 celery rib diced
6 baby carrots diced
6 asparagus spears cut into 1cm pieces
1/2 small onion diced
2 cups cooked rice (day old rice is best)
2 eggs lightly beaten

Directions:
Chinese food is cooked on high heat, so ensure that all of your ingredients are prepared and set aside ready to throw in the hot wok/pan.
Heat 1-2 tsp cooking oil in a large frying pan or wok on high heat until smoking.
Throw in the chopped veggies and stirfry until softened. (2 mins)
Add shrimp and cook until they turn pink (1 min)
Add about 1 tbsp of chinese cooking wine and continue stiring until the wine starts steaming and evaporating.
Add rice and mix everything together.
Pour eggs over the rice and keep stirring so that everthing gets coated and the eggs cook through.
Add soy sauce to taste (about 1 tsp)
Add about 1 tbsp of oyster sauce.
Mix well and season with salt if needed.
Turn off heat and drizzle with sesame oil before giving the fried rice a final stir.