Spring Roll Salad

The things we do for food...

There is something so fresh tasting about cold spring rolls. And there's something very addictive about peanut sauce. Together, they're great as a no-cook summer dinner. In fact, we like them so much, we once drove around town for 5 hours looking for rice paper. That's how determined we were to make them.

So, I had the bright idea of throwing all the ingredients together in a salad - the veggies, the wrapping and the sauce.

It's delicious and very filling. Be careful. I may have eaten too much.


Spring Roll Salad
Serves 4

1 package rice noodles
2 carrots
1/2 cucumber
1/2 red pepper
2 green onions

Dressing:
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (peanuts only!)
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup water
1 clove of garlic
1 teaspoon of chopped ginger
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon lime juice
red pepper flakes to taste
sea salt
dash of sesame oil
dried basil leaves (fresh if you have it)

Soak noodles completely in boiling water for 15 minutes until soft and then rinse in cold water. Set aside.

Grate carrots, chop green onions, slice cucumber and red peppers.

To make dressing, put all remaining ingredients except basil and sesame oil in a bowl and mix well. Heat in a saucepan on low, or microwave on high for about 1 1/2 minutes, until well combined.

Add veggies and dressing to noodles in a large bowl and toss well. Drizzle with a bit of sesame oil and basil and toss again. Chill and serve.

Apricot Pumpkin Walnut Muffins

Sunday Morning Muffins...

It's getting warmer, which in my house means that baking days are numbered. There comes a time when the little window air conditioner just doesn't cancel out the heat of a gas stove and so recipes will slowly shift towards the no bake/no cook variety. In the meantime...I made some fresh muffins for Sunday breakfast. This recipe is adapted from one in the cookbook "Lean, Luscious and Meatless" by Bobbie Hinman and Millie Snyder.

Apricot Pumpkin Walnut Muffins
Makes 10 muffins

1/2 cup spelt flour
1 cup of whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/16 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon orange extract
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 egg whites
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil muffin pan. In a large bowl combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Mix well. Mix in apricots and walnuts. In another bowl combine remaining ingredients and mix until blended. Add to dry mixture and blend just until combined. Pour into muffin cups. Bake 15 minutes. Remove muffins from pan to cool. Leftovers can be stored in the freezer and thawed in the microwave in less than a minute.

Fettuccine Alla Norma

Baskets of tomatoes...

So, it may seem as though we're eating a lot of pasta, but I've been making my way through the huge basket of grape tomatoes I bought at the farmers' market. Tonight's dinner is an adaptation from a recipe in Jamie Oliver's book "Jamie's Italy".


Fettuccine Alla Norma
Serves 2

1 medium eggplant
olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon of dried basil
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
2 1/2 cups of grape tomatoes, chopped in a food processor or blender
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
whole wheat fettuccine

Chop eggplants and place in colander in the sink. Sprinkle them with salt and let them rest for 30 minutes until they start to 'sweat', then rinse. This will draw out any bitterness.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a large cast iron pan and sauteé the eggplant until golden on all sides. Add the chopped oregano and cook for another 2-3 minutes. If you like your sauce spicy, add the dried red pepper flakes. Turn heat down, add a bit more oil if needed and add the garlic and the basil. Cook and toss occasionally for another 3 minutes. Add the vinegar and the tomatoes and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Cook fettuccine according to package directions, drain, and then toss with sauce over heat. Drizzle with olive oil and season with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Salmon Cakes

Here...fishy, fishy, fishy.

This is one of my favorite "I don't know what to make for dinner!" recipes. Keep a can of salmon in the pantry and you can have a delicious and somewhat elegant meal in a matter of minutes.

For this and many other recipes, I like to cook with grapeseed oil. I learned about it a couple of years ago after my mom told me she uses it for salad dressings. And, I've noticed it popping up more on supermarket shelves in the last few years. It is less likely to burn than olive oil, and has a mild, neutral flavour. 

Salmon Cakes

Serves 2

1 can of wild pacific salmon
1 chopped green onion
1/3 cup of whole wheat bread crumbs
1 tablespoon of Miracle Whip*
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1 egg white
sea salt and black pepper
1 teaspoon of parsley (use fresh herbs if you have them)
grapeseed oil

Blend first 8 ingredients in a bowl and form into 4 patties. Heat grapeseed oil in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Cook patties for about 5 minutes until lightly browned and patty feels firm. Flip and brown the other side, about another 5 minutes.



I served the salmon cakes over quinoa with roasted asparagus on the side.

*For better or for worse, Miracle Whip is a prairie staple. If you know of a prairie cookbook that doesn't use it in at least one recipe, I'd like to hear about it! Substitute mayonnaise or another type of salad dressing if you prefer.

Brown Lentil Pasta with Tomatoes & Peppers / Macaroni with Tomatoes & Pesto

Fast and fresh...

My weakness when shopping for food is vegetables. I have a habit of buying too much produce and then frantically whipping up three different kinds of soup on the weekend in order to use everything up before it spoils. Lately, I've been trying to buy less, use it up sooner and get creative with what's in my fridge, rather than feeling the need to have everything on hand all the time.

This weekend I shopped at a farmers' market. It was a fresh, sunny day and the veggies were colourful, shiny and all very tempting. Luckily I could only take away what I could carry...a useful limiting strategy. And, this week I've tried to make fast, easy meals with just a few flavourful ingredients. It's amazing what a basket of fresh grape tomatoes can do for pasta.

Brown Lentil Pasta with Tomatoes and Peppers

Brown Lentil Pasta with Tomatoes and Peppers
Serves 2 + leftovers 

brown lentil pasta*
1 white onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic
1 red pepper
2 carrots, peeled and chopped thinly
1 1/2 cups of grape tomatoes
olive oil
sea salt and black pepper

Bring water and salt to boil in a medium pot. Add pasta, bring to a boil again and cook for 2 minutes only. Remove from heat and allow to sit in hot water for 10-15 minutes until tender. In the meantime, make the sauce.

Sauteé the first three vegetables in about 1 tablespoon of olive oil until tender. Add tomatoes and cook until they look swollen and ready to burst. Turn off heat and very carefully pierce tomatoes releasing juice.

Drain pasta and add to sauce. Toss with sauce, a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

*Brown lentil pasta is not widely available, but a real treat if you can find it. It has a similar texture to rice pasta, so it's essential that you don't overcook it, or it will be sticky. It's got a slightly nutty flavour, is a good source of protein and has exactly one ingredient: brown lentil flour. I bought mine at Maria's Home Made Noodles. 

Macaroni with Tomatoes and Pesto
Serves 2 + leftovers

1/2 box (170 grams) of dried whole wheat macaroni
2 cups of grape tomatoes
2 tablespoons of basil pesto*
1/3 cup of cheddar rice cheese ^
sea salt and black pepper

Cook macaroni according to package directions. Microwave tomatoes in a casserole dish with a lid for about 4-5 minutes. Very carefully pierce tomatoes to release juice – be careful not to burn yourself. Drain macaroni and add to tomatoes. Toss and add pesto and cheese. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, until cheese is melted. Season with salt and pepper.

*My pesto had basil, sunflower seeds, and garlic. But choose any pesto you like.

^ I don’t eat cheese, so occasionally, I buy cheddar rice cheese when a recipe needs a little something. It melts well, tastes and feels much like cheddar, and is soy, dairy and gluten free. If you eat cheese, choose your favourite.

Spaghettini with Rapini and Walnuts

Grown-up greens...

Rapini, also known as Broccoli Rabe, is delicious, but it can be very bitter. However, I’ve discovered that if it doesn’t smell bitter, it doesn’t seem to taste bitter. It may be a matter of buying it in season, and since it’s a cool weather crop, in the Northern Hemisphere that means fall to spring.

My dad grew up eating rapini, but he called it “greens” so I didn’t realize they were one and the same until a few years ago. He boiled it, which meant that as a kid, (even a kid who liked vegetables), I thought that it must be slimy. And, I assumed I wouldn’t like it. I can’t believe what I was missing.


Spaghettini with Rapini and Walnuts

whole grain pasta of your choice
one half of a head of rapini
1/4 cup of walnuts
2 cloves of garlic, minced
olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook pasta according to directions. Wash, chop coarsely and sautee rapini in olive oil with garlic until wilted, but still a bit crisp. Add walnuts and toast as rapini cooks for another 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Drain pasta and toss with rapini and walnuts. Drizzle with olive oil and toss again. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Beet & Acorn Squash Dip / Potato Hummus

Dipping into my roots...

I was born and raised on the prairies. Although I grew up in a prairie city, the prairie landscape was never very far away. I still marvel at the beauty of a golden field shining under an immense blue sky and idealize the notion of growing your own.

I have wonderful childhood memories of food - green onions snatched and eaten raw out of the backyard garden (I didn't think my mom would find out, but she had a nose for these things...); raspberries that my grandmother served every time I visited the farm (she knew they were my favourite – I still think they smell like roses); soup full of vegetables grown high in my other grandma’s mountain village garden. No wonder I came to appreciate the incomparable goodness of freshly picked food. Now, I look forward to the bounty of my mother-in-law’s harvest, which she shares year round.

Tonight I made two different dips using root vegetables. I made use of vegetables that I’d roasted or cooked ahead of time.

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, recipes on this blog serve two really hungry people. (or two regular people with some leftovers)


Beet and Acorn Squash Dip

5-6 beets
1 acorn squash
sea salt & black pepper
1 teaspoon butter or olive oil

Roast vegetables in the oven until soft. Peel beets and scoop out squash. Mash them up together and add salt, pepper and butter/olive oil to taste. Eat hot or cold.

Potato Hummus

This is a bit like the Greek potato dip Skordalia, a bit like cold garlic mashed potatoes. Rather than add almonds, I added organic tahini (sesame paste).

5 cooked white or Yukon gold potatoes (leave the skin on for extra fibre)
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon of tahini
1 teaspoon of olive oil
sea salt & black pepper
fresh oregano (optional for garnish)

Mash everything together with food processor or hand blender. Chill and serve with toasted rye bread.

Welcome to my blog

Happy Accidents...

As often as I can, I make something good to eat. Sometimes I experiment and invent something new. Sometimes I start with a recipe, which I almost always change.* This means that a dish rarely tastes the same way twice. It's too bad, really, because when it works, I would like to be able to re-create it and serve it again. But without documenting the process, I simply don't remember what it was that made it so good.

So begins a repository of ingredients, photos, recipes and notes on the things I make to eat with the aim of learning more about food while capturing and sharing some delicious recipes worth saving.

*(How I start off making a turkey dinner and end up with an apple pie, I'll never know.)