Marinated Vegetable Salad

I'm forever in search of new ways of preparing vegetables.  New salads, fritters, breakfast options, you name it I try them all.  The find this week is a marinated vegetable salad from The Seasoned Mom.  Hmmmm, marinated vegetables sound interesting to me.  I like the idea of putting on a dressing (marinade), putting in the fridge and have it taste better after it sits for a while.  Sure beats soggy salads.

This variation looks like an old family recipe and when mom passes it down to daughter, there's something that makes it more interesting.  The best - it takes 10 minutes to put together and lasts a few days in the fridge.

Ingredients

3/4 cup slice mushrooms
3/4 cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes
3/4 cup sliced zucchini
3/4 cup peeled chopped carrots
1 small sweet bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup broccoli florets
1/2 cup cauliflower florets
1/2 tsp minced garlic (I used a little more)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp chopped fresh chives
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil

Instructions

1.  Place all vegetables in a large bowl
2.  Place all remaining ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake until completely combined.
3.  Pour dressing over vegetables
4.  Refridgerate salad at least 2 hours (or overnight)

Fresh, addictive and healthy

Roast Chicken and Spinach Panini

Not that long ago Psychgrad and "R" were having visitors for a few days.  I was asked what an appropriate gift would be for them.  Who knows??  But ... rather than ask them which is probably what I should have done in the first place, I said "get them a panini press, I'm sure they'd love it".  This was not a "my bad" situation but rather one of those moments that I probably should have thought about whether or not they had the space to store another appliance.  What I thought about was how simple and yummy it would be to create new flavours rather easily and open up a new sandwich world.

Well, I wasn't wrong!  "R" seems to have taken to panini making rather passionately and tells me that he's already made  Prosciutto and Pesto , Pear and Brie , Toasted Whole Grain Apple and Cheddar , and  Roast Chicken and Spinach

To me, the beauty is really in the flavour - choosing great combinations, putting them on wonderful bread and letting the magic create.  Ultimately, don't they all pretty much look alike?  I can't usually tell an Italian panini from a Cuban sandwich in appearance, but taste, well, that's a whole other story.

"R"'s Roast Chicken and Spinach Panini  looks absolutely "to die for".  I'm really not sorry I suggested this gift since I am planning a trip in the not to distant future and would be more than happy to have "R" demo several different sandwiches for my eating pleasure.

I want this right now!!!

Steak Fajitas

My Pinterest boards are beginning to overwhelm me.  I love going through it all the time and finding dishes that I would, under normal circumstances, not think to cook.  I'm also not a big fan of beef but when I happened upon a recipe for Steak Fajitas by Apples and Sparkle, I had an inspiration and memory of smell that motivated me.

Do you ever go to a restaurant, wonder what to order and then see a server walk by with these sizzling fajitas that smell so delicious?  More than once when I didn't order the fajitas I thought I really should have and tried to think of what made me change my mind.  I don't have an answer other than it felt safer to stick with what I know.  Not this time.. I took the quantum leap and decided to give it a shot.

1/3 c. canola oil 1/3 c freshly squeezed lime juice 1/3 c. low sodium soya sauce 3 cloves of garlic, minced 2 T. brown sugar 1 t. cumin 1 t. chile powder about 2 lb. skirt steak or flank steak 2-3 bell peppers, ends trimmed, cored and seeded, cut into a couple large pieces 1 large white onion, peeled and cut into 1/2-3/4-inch slices (keep the slices intact) 18 6-inch flour tortillas lime wedges  toppings of your choice such as, cilantro, salsa, cheese, sour cream, avocados or guacamole 1. Get the marinade prepared: Whisk together the marinade ingredients in a small bowl. Reserve about  1/3 cup of marinade for the vegetables. Place the steak in a gallon-sized ziplock bag. Add the remaining  marinade. Seal the bag, pressing out any excess air, massage the marinade into the meat a bit. Refrigerate  anywhere from 3-10 hours.  2. After meat has finished marinating, remove steak from marinade and wipe off excess marinade with paper towel. (I also cut the steak into a couple of more manageable sized pieces, for easier turning on the grill). brush the vegetables with reserved marinade. Heat your grill to high. Scrape the grill grate clean  and oil the grate. Add the steak to the super hot grill and grill, covered about 2 1/2 minutes per side (for medium/medium-rare), or until steak reaches desired doneness. Remove steak to a clean plate and cover with foil ,let rest for 10-15 minutes. Why was I so reluctant to make these at home?  They're so delicious and just as good as leftovers. 3. Add the peppers and onions to the grill and grill, turning occasionally until cooked, peppers should  take about 5 minutes and onions will take about 10. Remove from grill. Briefly add the tortillas to the grill,  a couple at a time and grill until warmed and lightly charred around the edges. Wrap the tortillas in foil  to keep warm.** ** I put them in a cast iron skillet to brown (vegetables too) and then into the oven for 10 min. at 425 F) 4. Thinly slice the steak, against the grain. Slice the onions in half and

Passover Mandelbrot

Passover, like most holidays seems to creep up quietly and then all of a sudden it's busy kitchen to the power of 10.  I really love this holiday but honestly, it's alot of work.  Anyone who tells you differently isn't the one doing the cooking.  Thank goodness for my sister (aka Auntie Takeout) who's stepped forward and is taking on alot of the work.

We cook at our own homes and then do the schlep to baba's place.  It's actually easier to do it this way than try to bring my mom to one of our homes.  It also leaves baba with enough leftovers for a week's worth of meals.  This year I'm doing the sides and desserts.
One of the desserts this year is mandel brot.   This recipe is a first timer for me and until now I had no idea how simple it is to make and I know baba will love these cookies.  They're really like a smaller and softer version of biscotti.  You also don't need a mixer for these - easy to put together by hand.

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 cup cake meal
1/2 cup potato starch
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Line cookie sheet with parchment paper
Whisk eggs and add sugar, continue whisking until well blended
Slowly incorporate oil and then both cake meal and potato starch
Stir in chocolate chips
Let mixture sit for 15 minutes
With oiled hands form 3 long logs (the mix will be sticky)
Bake for 30 minutes.  Take out logs and cut into approximately 12 slices per log and return to oven for 5--10 minutes to dry.

Fantastic!

Lemon Cranberry Muffins

Why am I craving lemons?  It was a total mystery to me but I went a couple of days wishing I had something with lemon in it. After doing some reading about lemon cravings and quickly ruled out pregnancy I read that it's not uncommon for people who have difficulty sleeping and/or not enough magnesium to have this craving.  Interesting, no?  I've always had to take magnesium supplements so maybe there's something to it.

I stood in front of the open fridge and just took a mental inventory of what was there and I had some lemons and also some fresh cranberries.  Hmmm... now what?  I found a recipe for Lemon Cranberry Muffins.

I can't believe this was the first time I'd ever made this variety of muffin.  It's easy (my favourite), you do it all by hand and it takes 5 minutes to put together.  That's a good recipe!

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup (I used more) fresh cranberries
1 cup milk (I used 2%)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil

Preheat oven to 400 F

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together

In a separate bowl mix sugar with lemon zest mixing well to incorporate zest to sugar, add to flour mixture

In a measuring cup pour in milk and lemon juice; allow to sit for a few minutes (it'll look like buttermilk)

Add egg and oil and whisk all together  

Make a well in the dry ingredients, add liquid and stir only until blended, add cranberries

If you have large muffin tins, spray one tray of six with non stick and scoop even amount to each one. The smaller muffin tins (12/tray) will work also, just adjust baking time accordingly.

Bake large muffins for 23 minutes (depending on your oven); mine were done in 20 minutes 

NOTE:  These muffins are so good and I'd compare them to any good lemon cranberry muffins anywhere! They're not dry, cake like with a twist of tang.

Strawberry Muffins

My wanderings on Pinterest brought me over to a new to me blogger who goes by the name of  No Fear Entertaining.  She talked about strawberry muffins and how good they were and of course I needed no further prompting.  She described them as good, very very good and I totally agree with her.  They're moist and light and so welcome with a cup of tea.

preheat oven to 375°

Ingredients

• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt  (I used Greek yogurt)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups coarsely chopped fresh or frozen unsweetened strawberries

Directions

• In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, yogurt, butter and vanilla. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in strawberries.
• Fill muffin cups coated with cooking spray or lined with paper liners two-thirds full. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm. Yield: 1 dozen.

I actually doubled the recipe and made a batch of regular sized muffins and some larger muffins.  I think I like them better in the larger size (for obvious reasons).  

Citrus Granola Parfait

Are you on Pinterest? If your answer is "no", you probably need to be checking it out. I love being able to go to an online resource that allows me to create virtual "boards", label them according to my own personal interests and when I'm surfing the internet for interesting things in line with my interests, I can save them (pin them) to my boards and have the original source to link to. This can be a recipe, a product, a hairdo or even just a great piece of photography. The options are broad and the site is so easy to maneuver. I'm so hooked. I've found new blogs and a wealth of creativity and inspiration.

I could eat breakfast for every meal and be entirely happy. Breakfast for snacks works too. One of the recipes that I pinned this past week was a citrus granola from The Tolerant Vegan that she featured as a parfait coupled with yogurt. I'm not so sure where this compulsion to "make this as soon as possible" comes from but I suspect if you're reading this you totally get it.

This recipe made enough to make 4 generous parfaits but now that I've made it and tried it, the next batch will be multiplied to have enough around to last for a month.

Recipe adapted from Oprah.com

zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lime
zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons grape seed oil
4 tablespoons orange juice
4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoon lime juice
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup raw walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup almonds, chopped
1/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1/4 cup flax seed
1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/4 cup dried cranberries
16 ounces yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees fahrenheit.
Combine all of the ingredients except the yogurt together in a large bowl Spread in a 9x13 pan (or cookie sheet)

Bake for 15 minutes and give it a stir. Bake for another 15 minutes. Cool completely. To make

parfaits, layer yogurt and granola finishing with the granola. I love the fresh taste of the citrus in this granola. The lime especially comes through - it'll put a smile on your face and leave you wanting more.

 

Fresh Eggs A Sign of Spring for the Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club

It's really hard to believe that it's March already. I'm not exactly sure how it happened but I think that while I was sleeping someone pulled a fast one, changed the clocks and calendars and made me believe that it'll be spring in a few short weeks. One of the first signs of spring for me is a dessert made with spring produce. One of the first things we see at the markets in spring is rhubarb ... add some farm fresh eggs and you've got the start of rhubarb custard bars I think a better name for these low fat treats is "Won't Last Long Rhubarb Custard Bars". It went so fast that I couldn't even get a clean shot without a piece taken out of it.

Ingredients

Crust:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
Cooking spray
Filling:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups 1% low-fat milk
3 large eggs
5 cups (1/2-inch) sliced fresh or frozen rhubarb (unthawed)


Topping:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) block-style fat-free cream cheese
1/2 cup (4 ounces) block-style 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed
Mint sprigs (optional)
Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

To prepare crust, lightly spoon 1 1/2 cups flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt in a bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press mixture into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

To prepare filling, lightly spoon 1/3 cup flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine 1/3 cup flour and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a large bowl; add milk and eggs, stirring with a whisk until well blended. Stir in rhubarb. Pour rhubarb mixture over crust. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until set. Cool to room temperature.

To prepare topping, place 1/2 cup sugar, cheeses, and vanilla in a bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Gently fold in whipped topping; spread evenly over baked custard. Cover and chill at least 1 hour. Garnish with mint sprigs, if desired.

Blueberry Meyer Lemon Muffins

Bonanza this week at the supermarket. Both meyer lemons and blueberries were on sale. While shopping I remembered seeing an interesting looking lower fat muffin recipe so I picked up both ingredients, checked back in my saved file and found them again at Heather's Dish .

First time trying a recipe I generally stick to the recipe as written and I did just that. Muffins are generally pretty simple and the results usually predictable. For some reason that I'm still trying to figure out, mine didn't really resemble Heather's.

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup yogurt
1 egg
4 Tbsp canola oil
zest of 2 Meyer lemons
1/4 cup juice from Meyer lemons
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a muffin pan or line with muffin cups. In a large bowl combine the sugar, sour cream, yogurt, egg, oil, and lemon juice. Add the dry ingredients and gently stir till just combined. Fold in the zest and the blueberries.


Scoop into a standard muffin pan, about 1/4 cup of batter per muffin cup.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.


The taste is really good and I didn't feel at all guilty having 1 or 2. The texture seemed heavier than I expected so I'm convinced I missed something along the way.

President's Choice Holiday 2011

I recently received the holiday package of samples from the Holiday Insider's Report . How beautiful is the container the PC products came in? Kudos to the marketing team that put together this campaign - it's brilliant!


It made me think about those timeless memories that we all have about the anticipation of holidays. Sit back and think about what those are for you. Do you remember your growing up years and the etched in stone traditions of the holidays? Do you have young children that you're creating new memories with? Wouldn't you love to just be able to put time in a bottle?



The rituals of the holidays include family, friends and equally as important is the food we enjoy and share. I don't know about you but for some reason, this year feels like it was a total blur and I can't figure out how it's getting to be Cbanukkah and Christmas again. Every year I make myself entirely crazy over prepping for the holidays. Not doing it this year. Well, at least I'm going to enlist some help. I'm thankful to be able to have a large variety of food products available at reasonable prices that are either ready to go or require minimal preparation.

So many delicious looking new and tested ideas for entertaining. When I'm going through new products to review I generally like to take everything out, check each item individually firstly for how appealing it is to me and would be to my family and secondly (and equally important) I check the ingredients. While I was doing that I came upon one item that it been the only product I'd received, I would have had a smiling girl for the whole day. For those who don't know me, I have a wierd and wonderful connection to all things peanut butter. I'm wierd and the peanut butter is wonderful.


Peanut butter pretzels with white candy topping - oh my gawd!!!! In my opinion, this is a treat that should be available to everyone during the holidays and beyond. I know it will be in my home.
The second thing that immediately caught my attention was a bottle of Memories of Morocco.
I like to buy chicken when it's on sale. I marinate and freeze it in zip lock bags and defrost it in the fridge with the marinade day before. Memories of Morocco is an ideal marinade for this. The combination of sweet and spicy with the fragrance of Moroccan spices is hypnotic. I shared the bottle with a neighbour who is from the Middle East and her evaluation was the same as mine. Her comment to me was "why bother making it at home; this is terrific". That's the whole message with the new PC products; if you've got a product that's not hard on the wallet and fills a need while saving you your precious time I can't find an argument to not buy it. See how easy it is to put together a great meal in minutes.

I'm happy to share some of the newer branded PC products with you;
Do you enjoy a dark roast cup of coffee?

or a decandent Dulche de Leche decaf

or try something you might never have even thought of ...

Looking for some quick and easy appetizer ideas? How about Blue Cheese with Walnut Canapes?




Timeless melba toast that works with so many toppings:

with Goat Cheese and Cranberry (my personal favourite)

or just plain Goat Cheese

While you're busy in the kitchen and wrapping gifts, don't forget to keep yummies on hand for the kids;

Give yourself some munchie treats while you're at it.

You're not going to stop creating old family favourites but instead of slaving over so many different varieties, give yourself a break with some of these ageless treats AND get the kids to chip in - isn't this what memories are made of?







Who says you can't add chocolate chips :)

Now if I could find an elf that would wrap everything for me, life would be complete. There are the gifts for the concierge, the mailman, newspaper boy/girl, friends down the hall, teachers and hairdressers to name just a few. Who wouldn't enjoy some of these'




(I love that the biscotti has a COR that makes it kosher/dairy. A fabulous Hanukkah gift.








I can see this post is getting very long but I still have much to share. Stay tuned for further posts on making memories with President's Choice.

Burekas

A few months ago I was inspired to experiment with hand pies, both sweet and savoury. It is, after all the Year of the Pie . Hand pies are not new but of late I've noticed a huge revival of their popularity. Different doughs, different fillings, various cultures with their own form of pie and each has its own identity.

While travelling through the middle east years ago I was introduced to a savoury form of hand pie called Burekas; flaky and delicious and found made by home cooks, restaurants and street vendors. I was so hooked it was ridiculous. I couldn't pass a street vendor without buying one. I know, I'm sad. With the aid of Tenderflake Puff Pastry I can now whip up a batch in short order or freeze for a later date.

There are a multitude of fillings one can use but my very favourite is a combination of feta and mozarella cheese.

1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1 cup grated mozarella cheese

2 eggs

1 pkg. Tenderflake puff pastry

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten

1/4 cup sesame seeds

Turn oven to 350 F

Roll out each piece of puff pastry separately to cut 6 even squares. If you prefer a thinner pastry, you could roll it thinner.

Place 1 heaping Tbsp of filling to the center of each square bringing two opposite points together; pinch. Using a floured fork pinch all the way around the joined area.

Place bourekas on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Brush tops with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

OMG, I'll bet you can't have just one.

Note: If you don't want your burekas to be too salty, rinse feta before crumbling and add more mozarella to offset the saltiness.