Epic Cabbage Rolls!

So, when my mood is in the crapper food, eating, meal planning, cooking, and grocery shopping all become very challenging for me. The last bout left me scrambling for meals and it wasn't pretty, so I decided during a sunny spell of three days and the resulting lift in my mood to get organized, get prepared, and start stashing meals in my trusty new freezer so that the next time I don't feel great, I'm not living on scrambled eggs and oatmeal and junky stuff that's easy to grab off the grocery store shelves.

Enter the humble cabbage roll. Actually, enter that show we get in Canada every afternoon called Best Recipes Ever. I was flipping around recently and decided to watch this; I'd kinda turned my nose up at it before because it's a Canadian Living thing and I already get the magazine and the subject matter is...well...cue the snoot...simpler than I prefer in a cooking show. But, there really was nothing else on so I gave it a go. And the chick made a vegetarian cabbage roll recipe that triggered some memories. My mom used to make killer cabbage rolls when we were kids, and also, my good friend and fellow foodie Mr. Anchovy, also posted eons and eons ago his mother's cabbage roll recipe. Mr. Anchovy comes from a Polish background and he has been known to post delicious recipes from that culture from time to time. A quick email to him asking about the cabbage roll recipe resulted in a quick response and a trip to the grocery store after the next pay day. All of that resulted in an epic cabbage roll afternoon.

It was as lot of fun, and in the end, after a few hours, I got 46 cabbage rolls, which for me turned into about 15 meals. Total cost of the meal = $15.21! So, my budget was pretty happy, too.

There were a few issues. I ran out of cabbage, so I froze the leftover filling I had for another time. Also, I got long grain rice from the bulk bin at LOGS because I didn't want to use a whole bunch of my pricey scented jasmine rice in this, and the rice was terrible. I have no idea what happened to it, but it cooked up into a pile of mush, and when the cabbage rolls were cooked, the absorbed so much liquid from the sauce that the rice went even mushier in the roll. That was disappointing. I seem to remember my mom using raw rice in her filling, but I need to confirm that. Certainly, I'd do that the next time given this experience.

I made a few amendments to Mr. Anchovy's recipe. His mom used salt pork, but I didn't want to go around looking for something like that in the boonies, but I did have on hand some fatty home-made bacon my dad's friend smoked for him and so I used that instead. Also, Mr. A's mom used to put a pork rib on the top of her cabbage rolls, but I didn't do that either (not really a fan). Also, the original recipe called for ground veal, pork, and beef, but I'm not a fan of veal, and while I was looking for a lot of cabbage rolls, Mr. Anchovy's claim that this recipe makes enough for the entire Polish army wasn't far from the truth, and I didn't quite need that many cabbage rolls. So, I stuck with only ground pork and ground beef). My mom used to put green peppers in hers, so I added some to mine, too.

So, here is the adapted recipe I used. And yes, that is a gigantic turkey roasting pan!

Epic Cabbage Rolls

2 - 3 cabbages
1lb each ground beef & ground pork
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
2 cups long grain rice, cooked
1 - 2 cans (the big ones, 1.36L) tomato juice
2 chopped onions
1 chopped green pepper
salt & pepper to taste
ground basil & dried thyme

OK...This really is quite simple!

Take your cabbage, and dig as much of the core out as possible without de-leafing it. Steam until soft - about 15 - 20 minutes. Now, I had to keep steaming the farther into the head I went, so you might have to do that, too. Alternately, I've heard of people freezing their cabbages, then as they thaw the leaves come right off. Keep some of the cabbage leaves to line the bottom and sides of your pan.


Brown all meats with onion & salt & pepper to taste. Add to rice and mix until combined.

Now make sure everything is cool enough to handle, because this is where the hands-on part begins. Trim the fibrous spine out of the cabbage leaves. This helps flatten them & makes them easier to roll.

Make your rolls like you would a burrito (this is how the host of Best Recipes Ever described the process). Take a small amount of filling in your hand, put it at the top of the cabbage leaf, roll, folding in the edges. Then place seam down in the pan. Repeat. Layer the cabbage rolls at will. Repeat.

I sprinkled the seasonings and chopped green peppers between the cabbage roll layers.


When you're all done rolling, pour the tomato juice right over top. Make a lid with cabbage leaves, which will help keep things nice & moist. I ran out of cabbage leaves...


Bake long & slow: 325F for 2 - 3 hours, or until nice & boiling hot. Mr. A says it's OK if the leaves on the top & sides start to brown; they are caramelizing & turn sweet. Mine didn't do that; my oven was very slow and I actually wound up cooking the whole thing for about 4 hours in total. Keep checking for dryness. If your rolls are looking at all dry, just chuck in more juice. Bear in mind that you are braising here, so you'll need plenty of liquid.

And, voila!

These freeze excellently...Here are all the fruits of my labour...

Woo-hoo! I am so set!

Full Flickr set here.

Many thanks to Mr. Anchovy for the recipe & the advice!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #21: Chicken & Pesto Pizza

Before I get to the main part of this post, I have something to say. I am going to be making my posts short & light for the coming while because I'm planning on doing my own version of NaNoWriMo next month; you can read about my amendments & reasoning behind them here. Obviously, I still have to eat, so I'll still be posting regularly, but my posts will be shorter than usual and I might be spending less time going around to visit you all. I'm trying to schedule as many posts to publish for me automatically as I can. So, if you don't hear from me as much, it's not that I don't love y'all! I just want to focus on this other goal for a month and see how it goes. Wish me luck!

OK...Onto today's topic...

I had a hankering for pizza the other day. I also had some leftover chicken from my spatchocking experience in the freezer, and I needed to find a way to use a decent chunk of my boring pesto. I've used pesto instead of pizza sauce before and it works really well. I got some naan from the grocery store, and I was set!

Super easy, super quick, really delicious!

Chicken & Pesto Pizza with Olives

1 piece of flat bread - naan, or pita, or whatever
pesto sauce
leftover chicken, cubed
1 slice of Black Forest ham, chopped
mozzarella cheese, shredded
pitted Kalamata olives

Assemble & bake until browned & bubbly.

Enjoy!

Easy Dinners

I started a new medication regime that has had an interesting side effect: appetite suppression. I just don't feel like eating a lot of the time; I get hungry, but food isn't appealing. Some days, I only eat two meals, with a snack in between. Sometimes I really have to force myself to make something for dinner because I just don't feel like cooking. So, I haven't been busy in the kitchen lately, cooking or baking-wise. It's hell on the food blog, that's for sure.

I've been eating salad quite a bit because my iffy tummy seems to be able to handle more vegetable fiber now for some weird reason, and I've been eating a lot of ham & cheese sandwiches. Sometimes there are days when all I fancy is a bowl of cereal, so I eat a lot of cereal meals. I'm not complaining; I want to lose a whole bunch of weight, and if there were any side effects I'd love my meds to give me, this suppression of my appetite would be at the top of my list! So, I go with it.

I've been keeping dinners simple. The Rosemary & Lemon Roast Chicken is a good example: serve it with some potatoes and a veg, and it's easy and healthy.

I've been eating quite a bit of salmon. It's easy, quick, and healthy. I don't feel like doctoring it up a lot, so a sprinkle of some lemon pepper is enough, as with this meal...
I did find some Tequila Lime marinade at the local overpriced grocery store today - Barefoot Contessa brand, and it was on sale for $2.99 in the reduced bin! Woo-hoo! Normally it's like $8.99. I used some tonight and BBQed a piece of salmon...I used foil because I'm not sure the rack on the BBQ is spaced close together enough to facilitate easy fish BBQing - and the clean-up is easier. I always have a bag of frozen beans around. The marinade was pretty good, though it had jalapenos in it which I hate, but I picked them off and it wasn't too spicy. I cooked the rice with some beef boullion.

And then there is pizza casserole. Oh, how I love this stuff! And I got the KD for 50 cents/box in the reduced bin, too! This pan makes me about 5 meals and it's so good! Topped with my fave pizza toppings: ham, feta, and olives.I feel my posts over here have been really blah lately, and I apologize for that. Now you kinda know why. I'm going to try to keep coming up with stuff to post, but it's been hard lately...

Aromatic Pork Burgers

I dreamed this recipe up after being inspired by two things: a burger feature in an issue of Canadian Living last summer that had a nice-looking pork burger in it, and the recipe for Aromatic Lemongrass Patties from the Hot Sour Salty Sweet meal I made for my family last month. Those patties were fantastic and at the time I thought they'd make great burgers. So, I created these. They were delish! I served them with Monday's failed Hush Puppies and a lemon garlic mayonnaise I made by mixing some low fat mayo with a few drops of lemon juice and half a clove of garlic, grated.

Aromatic Pork Burgers

1/2 lb ground pork
1 1/2 tsp lemon grass powder
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 tsp soy sauce

Combine all ingredients well, form into two patties, and grill. It's not quite BBQ season here, but until it arrives I made do with my roommate's mini George Foreman grill. It works.

Lemongrass powder is my new favourite thing. As I wrote in the HSSS post, our local overpriced grocery store sells it in the bulk bins, and though I'm sure it's not as punchy as real lemongrass, it's still very tasty - and it's much easier to work with.

These burgers were lovely, as I said, and the flavoured mayo was an excellent accompaniment.

Enjoy!

Firefighter's Chicken Mutz

Donna - FFW of Tasty Treasures, a blog I love, posted this recipe for Chicken Mutz on Sunday. It looked so good and simple to make that I was immediately inspired to make it, and I did so tonight. (I also had some left over mozza to use up, though I had to scrape the mold off...) I cut the recipe down to a single serving, and as I had no bread crumbs, Italian or otherwise, I used a few crushed triscuits - a tip I picked up from my roommate. The result: excellent!

Chicken Mutz (a la Coyote)

1 chicken breast
2 - 3 strips of mozzarella cheese
3 Triscuits, crushed
1 tbsp low fat mayo
1/8 tsp each paprika, basil, and garlic powder
salt & pepper

Season chicken with salt & pepper. Cut a pocket in the chicken breast and insert the mozza strips. Place chicken in a baking dish and close the pocket as best you can. Spread mayo all over the chicken and then sprinkle the crushed Triscuits over the top. Sprinkle with spices. Bake at 400F for 20 25 minutes or until done.

I served mine with some roasted nugget potatoes and some stirfried bok choy that my roommate had offered me. It was a great dinner. Thanks Donna - FFW!

I encourage you all to check out the original post for the mouthwatering photos!

Eggs in Purgatory

Who could resist a dish with that title?

Last week, I treated myself to the latest issue of the Food Network Magazine. I'd never seen it before on my local magazine shelves, and I was intrigued. Overall, it was OK but not something I'd go out of my way to purchase again. It did have an interesting section called "50 Things to Make With a Jar of Pasta Sauce" and this dish with the cool title caught my eye - purely because of the title. So, I made it for dinner the other night.

And it was good! It was strange, but it worked!

Eggs in Purgatory

1 cup pasta sauce
2 eggs

Really, this is ridiculously easy: simmer the sauce in a frying pan until bubbly, then add eggs and cook to desired doneness. (I like a runny yolk.) Sprinkle with a bit of cheese. I covered the eggs with a lid to keep the heat it because this actually took longer to cook than I was expecting. I served it over penne, but you don't have to; you can have it on its own or with some crusty bread, or whatever.

Bon appetit!

Curried Veggie & Chicken Pasta

A couple of months ago, I had a really tasty curried pasta dish with chicken and veggies at The General Store Restaurant, located in the Hume Hotel in Nelson BC. It was part of a lunch buffet they were putting on while their kitchen was being renovated. The dish was really excellent and I wanted to try to replicate it at home. Here's what I came up with. (It might have had coconut milk in it, but I can't remember exactly...)

Curried Veggie & Chicken Pasta

1 zucchini, diced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced
2 cups penne, cooked according to package directions
about 1 tbsp curry paste (I use Patak's), or to taste
3/4 cup light sour cream
a couple squirts of lime juice
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

While pasta water is coming to boil and while the pasta cooks, saute the chicken in a little oil until done. Remove it to a plate or bowl, and add a little more oil, then add the veggies. Saute them until tender and have released most of their liquid. Return the chicken to the pan. Add the curry paste and stir to combine. Add the sour cream and lime juice. Drain the pasta and add the chicken mixture to the pasta. Add the cilantro and stir to combine everything. Serve.

Well, this wasn't as good as the Hume Hotel's version, but it wasn't bad, either. I like the combination of pasta and curry; I'm so used to curry served with rice and this made a nice change.

Scrambled Egg Quesadilla

Why was I craving eggs the other day? Who knows. I actually wanted to make Huevos Rancheros but when I researched a few recipes, it seemed too complicated to do in a short period of time and I didn't want to have any more beans that what I'd been having recently. So, I decided to make a scrambled egg quesadilla using ingredients I had on hand. Here's what I did:

I fried up two slices of bacon and a bit of red onion. I scrambled two eggs and added a chopped sundried tomato to the egg mixture. I cooked the eggs as you would an omelette, but didn't flip it in half. I wanted the egg to come out the same size approximately as my tortillas. It was a tad tricky to flip, but worked out in the end. I slid the eggs onto one tortilla, then put the tortilla in the frying pan. I sprinkled on top of the eggs the bacon & onion mixture, which I totally forgot to add Mexican seasonings to! Ah well! I sprinkled grated cheddar on top of the whole thing and put on a second tortilla (whole wheat, no less!).

I fried the quesadilla on both sides until hot through and the cheese had melted, and I served it with salsa & sour cream.

It was pretty good, actually, and hit the spot with my egg craving! Next time I'll have to remember to add the seasonings, though I'm not complaining about this at all. This was kinda like an omelette between two tortillas instead.

Mango Curry Chicken Wrap

Well, this is a little bit hypocritical after my post last week on homemade chicken strips. Lured by laziness and a nice coupon from my latest Canadian Living, I purchased a box of Jane's chicken strips. I feel totally evil for doing this. I rarely buy processed foods and I know how terrible these things are - really! But the coupon was too good to pass up, I'm craving crap, and, as I mentioned, I'm feeling lazy.

Man, these were really, really good!

To assuage my guilt, I purchased, on sale, a mango. I've been craving curry for some odd reason. This equation added up to the inspiration for this dinner.

Mango Curry Chicken Wrap



First, I put the chicken on. Then, I mixed together 1 tbsp light mayo, 1/2 tsp curry paste, and a squirt of lime juice. I peeled, cored, and sliced a mango. I shredded some lettuce and chopped some cilantro. I got out a whole grain tortilla.





I spread on the curry mayo and laid down the mango, cilantro and lettuce, then put the cooked chicken on top.






This is where the "wrap" part turned a little sour. The tortilla was too small to wrap up all the filling, so I wound up with a roll instead. But still, it tasted seriously yummy and it was a really tasty, quick dinner.





I hope I will be forgiven for using purchased chicken strips! Feel free to do this meal with my homemade chicken strip recipe, though!

Homemade Chicken Strips

Since I'm trying to eat up things that have been kicking around my freezer for a while in an attempt to not spend as much money on food during this expensive month, I took out to thaw a boneless, skinless chicken breast yesterday. The plan was to make fajitas, but when the time came to make them, I found I wasn't in the mood. The question became What new and exciting thing can I do with a chicken breast? I also had some nugget potatoes hanging out in my fridge. The lightbulb went on, and the inspiration to make chicken strips was born!

My dad regularly makes chicken strips, and he bakes them in his toaster oven. They're always a hit, so I decided to replicate his recipe, though both the toaster oven and main oven were in use (the nugget potatoes were in the toaster oven and my roommate was making a veggie lasagne in the regular oven). So, I decided to pan fry mine. Here's what I did.


I cut my chicken into thin strips, and into a bag I chucked some cornmeal, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a bit of Jo-Jo Spice. I shook the chicken around in this bag of coating until it was all coated.





I heated some olive oil in a frying pan and cooked my strips until they were nice and crisp and done in the centre.






I served the strips with a salad and the roasted potatoes, which were done with the same Jo-Jo seasoning as I put in the chicken strips. My roommate donated some sweet & sour sauce to my cause so I could dip the chicken in it. All told, a fabulous meal that totally hit the spot!

Tuna Melts

I have to be in a really specific frame of mind to enjoy something made with tuna.

When I was in university and weight-lifting, I did a tuna & rice cake diet, which, while it worked great, made me rather sick of tuna pretty quickly. My ex husband was a body builder and he practically lived on tuna, eating at least a tin a day. It would be pretty off-putting for my readership to learn the ways in which he ate the tuna, but let me just say that combined with my tuna overload in uni and his bizarre addiction to the stuff, I eat very little tuna nowadays.

But once in a while, I get a weird hankering, and last night one came upon me. I decided to make a tuna melt, and I totally enjoyed every bite.

1 tin tuna, drained
2 tbsp low-fat mayo
2 green onions, sliced
1 bagel, split (I used one of my homemade bagels, but you can use an English muffin if you'd like, or a bun, or a couple of slices of bread, or whatever)
1/2 cup grated mozzarella or cheddar

Do you really need instructions?!

I could totally have gone for some fries with this, but I instead had some roasted nugget potatoes. It was delish!

Magazine Monday # 8: Shrimp in Ginger Butter Sauce

Ivonne is back from holidays, so Magazine Monday is back too!

Tonight's edition features one of my favourite things, shrimp. I always have frozen, zipper back shrimp around the house. They became a staple when I was on Weight Watchers a few years ago, as they are low in fat and high in protein. Oh, the shrimp dishes I made as I shrank! After kicking WW (long story), I kept the shrimp around. They aren't terribly expensive and as a single gal one 1lb bag goes a long way.

As I've mentioned before, I have a subscription to Gourmet, which I really enjoy. They have a monthly segment featuring dinners for one or two and in the September 2008 issue, the Shrimp in Ginger Butter Sauce recipe caught my eye. The ingredients were simple and on hand, and the method was easy, too.

This recipe is a keeper! I substituted some dry white wine for the sherry, and I served the shrimp with yellow beans and carrots from my own garden that I sauteed with some olive oil and garlic. The ginger butter sauce was a perfect compliment to the shrimp, but also tasted great with the veggies. And you can never go wrong with cilantro, in my books. The entire meal was delish!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #9: Mexican Chicken Salad

I have a feeling this is going to be a long series...

Anyway, I concocted this for my dinner tonight, wanting to do something different with your average, every day chicken salad. And it was yummy!

Mexican Chicken Salad

1 1/2 cups roast chicken meat, diced
1/4 cup finely chopped red pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tbsp light mayo
1 tbsp light sour cream
1 tsp lime juice
1 tsp fajita or taco seasoning mix

Combine ingredients.

I made a sandwich with this using my fabulous sour cream polenta bread, and the combination was great.

Use whatever veggies work for you; I just used what I had on hand.

Enjoy!

101 Uses for a Roasted Chicken #8: Quesadillas

I made this dish the other night, after snagging a whole chicken on sale at my local overpriced grocery store. And just so you can see how gorgeous a home-roasted chicken can be, I decided to include in this post a picture of one of my own roasted birds. When I roast, I season the chicken with sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and I usually sprinkle on some garlic powder. But you can do all kinds of things with whole chickens. I often stuff the cavity with a handful of peeled garlic cloves and some fresh herbs, which makes for a stunning gravy. You can roast a chicken with lemon, which is also very tasty. The possibilities are endless!

As for the quesadillas, the possibilities are just as endless as they can be made with a variety of cheeses, veggies, and meats. In this case, here is what I used:

chopped mushrooms
sliced onions
sliced red peppers (also on sale at my local overpriced grocery store)
some taco seasoning mix
about 1/2 cup shredded roast chicken meat
about 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 large flaxseed tortilla
a few tbsp chopped cilantro
salsa & sour cream to serve

Saute the veggies until they are tender and have released all their water. Add the taco seasoning and chicken and mix thoroughly. Spread this mixture on one half of the tortilla and top with cilantro and cheese. Fold over the tortilla and grill in a hot frying pan until the cheese melts, the tortilla is toasty, and the quesadilla is hot through. I served this with a caesar salad.

Easy as sin, healthy, quick, and tasty!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #6: Panini Time

We make paninis at work: turkey, bacon, & provolone, and chicken, brie, and apricot salsa. Both are amazing, but my preference is the turkey one. We grill them to order on our Breville grill and I have one once a week for lunch. At home, I have access to my roommate's George Foreman grill, which is a very cool machine to have around.

It's been way too hot this summer to roast chickens, but it has cooled down recently, and whole chickens were on sale at the local overpriced grocery store this week. So I bought one, and made this sandwich.

Say what you want about grocery store bakeries, but Save-On Foods makes astonishingly great breads (the muffins aren't bad, either). After my passport clinic nuisance on Thursday, my dad took me to Nelson for lunch and for some grocery shopping. I bought a loaf of roasted garlic bread (also available in potato & rosemary, 2-olive kalamata, and another I can't remember right now) and the scent taunted me all the way on the hour's drive home! When I finally got to sink my teeth into it, it was divine. I must add also that Save-On makes one of the best ciabatta breads I've ever had. I often splurge if it's on sale, and they do a mini version, too, which is handy for the days Dad and I like to just have a picnic in the park.

Anyway, this panini. It would have been better with a milder, creamier cheese, as the cheddar didn't go well with the pesto, but as it was grilling, that scent of roasting garlic made my mouth water. This could have used some bacon, too - something a little salty to round out the other flavours. But, we live and learn, don't we? There was nothing wrong with this combination; it just could have used some tweaking.

If you don't have a panini grill or a George Foreman, no problem. Grilling this like your traditional grilled cheese would work just as well.

Enjoy!

Chicken & Pineapple Curry - Hold the Flies

I love pineapple - it's one of my favourite fruits. They had pineapple on sale at my local over-priced grocery store this week, so I decided to get one. I'm pretty picky when it comes to my fruit, and since it's sometimes hard to gauge the ripeness of pineapples in the grocery store, I kinda have to go with my gut. I picked on out and went with it. I sat it on my counter as I usually do, partially because I was too lazy to chop it up, partially because I was waiting to see if it would ripen any more.

What a mistake! Less than two days later, I caught a whiff of my pineapple at the opposite end of my kitchen and knew I had to take action. When I cut the peel off, I could see that it was way past ripe and verging on...yucky. I chucked what parts of it seemed inedible and chopped & refrigerated the rest of it. The scraps went into the garbage. This was yesterday.

Today, I have an infestation of fruit flies in my kitchen garbage can. They are feasting on pineapple cores and peels, and seem to be making their way around the house. My roommate has a fruit bowl well away from the garbage and there has been some action there. I have also noticed the buggers fluttering around my office - and there is no food up here.

Garbage day is Wednesday, and it's hot out. We have special bags we have to put our garbage in in this town in order for our garbage to be collected on garbage day. These bags cost $1.50 each, so we can't just replace the bag and put the old bag with the peelings in it somewhere else. We live in bear country, so garbage has to be kept under lock and key until the day of collection.

So, what to you do?

You make curry.

I have no idea what to do about the fruit flies in the garbage, but I do know that pineapple goes well with curry flavours. I happened to have a bottle of Maya organic curry sauce on hand that I got in the bargain bin at my local over-priced grocery store for $1.99. I had an onion. I had some chicken and some rice. I even had some wilty and nearly finished cilantro in my crisper.

I managed to use half of my fresh pineapple in this recipe. And it was a very good dinner, if I do say so myself.

As for the flies, there were no left overs for them, but I doubt they'll be any the wiser.

Chicken & Pineapple Curry (serves 2 or 1 hungry person)

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cups chopped fresh pineapple
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/3 cup (or to taste) curry cooking sauce of your choice (Patak's is my favourite brand, and you could use, instead of a curry cooking sauce, some curry paste, a bit of tomato sauce, and some sour cream or yogur to get a similar result)
basmati rice, to serve

Brown the chicken in a TBSP of olive oil. Add onions & pineapple. Saute for five or so minutes. Add sauce and garlic. Simmer another 5 - 10 minutes. Top with cilantro; serve over rice.

I suppose you could use canned chunks of pineapple if you really must - but there is no comparison between fresh and canned, in my opinion. Canned does have its place, for sure; I just prefer the fresh, and once you know how to peel and core it, it's very easy to just chop it up and put it in your fridge.

Also, pineapple contains an enzyme that helps the digestion of protein, so it's a good idea to have it with meat, actually. I could have made any number of desserts, but for some reason, this idea appealed to me the most tonight. And I have enough left-overs for a second meal tomorrow night.

Enjoy!

Greek Pasta for One

My husband was out for dinner tonight, so I was on my own. I whipped this up on spec, using ingredients I had around for another meal. Don't get too caught up with measurements; everything should be to your taste. The flavours are strong, so tinker with this at will.

as much pasta as you want, whatever shape you want
6 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
about 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1 generous tbsp oil packed sundried tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
olive oil & pepper
crumbled feta cheese

Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain it and return it to the pot. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, just to lightly coat it so it doesn't stick together. Add the olives, parsley, sundried tomatoes and garlic. Grind pepper over the top, to taste. Toss all this together, add more olive oil if necessary, and any of the other ingredients you think you want more of. Crumbe the feta cheese over the top and serve.

Notes to the readership

- you can use other fresh herbs; chives might be nice, as would a little fresh basil. Chop well with a sharp knife.
- you could use vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, red onions, and mushrooms as well. If using spinach, keep back a few tablespoons of the cooking water from the pasta in the pot and then add the spinach; toss until wilted. If using broccoli, cut it into bitesized pieces add it to the pasta pot in the last minute or two of boiling; you just want it to be bright green so don't cook it too long. Then just pour it out with the pasta into the colander.
- roasted garlic (see a few posts down) would be awesome in this, too.

Fast Salmon for One

For this recipe, which I just made, you should either have a fresh filet of salmon, or a frozen one that has been completely thawed beforehand. Don't thaw in the microwave; do it in the fridge or out on the counter (which is against Food Safe, I know, but one salmon filet will pretty much thaw on the counter in about an hour and a half). Thawing in the microwave often is uneven and you wind up getting a frozen centre and cooked edges, which is bad.

So...

• Take a salmon filet. Take a frying pan. Put some olive oil in the frying pan and crank up the heat. The pan must be very hot - the oil should just start to lightly smoke.
• Gently lay the salmon in the pan; season with salt & pepper. Do not touch the salmon for at least 1 1/2 - 2 minutes - it will still stick to the pan at this point and you'll get a mess. After the minute and a half, look at the cross section of the salmon and if it's cooked aobut 1/4 of the way or so, then flip the salmon and season that side. It shouldn't stick. Again leave it for about a minute and a half to two minutes.
• Deglaze the pan with a generous splash of white wine. Add some dried dill and a clove of garlic. You can also add a shallot or a leek, if desired. Sprinkle with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Let the wine reduce, uncovered, until there's only a bit left. Check salmon for doneness. Reduce the heat to low. Put the lid on the pan and let the salmon gently cook until done.
• You can serve it now or, if you're feeling decadent, you can finish this off with a couple of tablespoons of cream (which is obviously less diet-friendly).

Serve with a salad, and you have a quick, yummy, healthy meal.