Shrimp & Pasta Salad

Since my appetite has been all out of whack lately, I've had to resort to making total comfort foods! Terrible! Lots of toast, lots of ham sandwiches, even some ramen noodle soup, which is something I never eat unless absolutely desperate. Then there is pasta. I love pasta. I also have, in addition to all of my beans, a great crop of dill this year. Last year I had two bug-infested plants that gave me very little; this year, I have an entire row of as-yet bug-free dill, and I just love it. I came up with this pasta salad recipe after making a lemony potato salad recipe that will be featured in an upcoming post.

Shrimp & Pasta Salad with Lemon & Dill

1/2 lb short pasta (I used penne)
1/2 lb shrimp, shelled & deveined
1 orange bell pepper, chopped
1 handful fresh dill, snipped with kitchen shears
3 green onions, sliced
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cloves garlic, crushed or grated
1/4 cup light mayo
1/4 cup light (7% milk fat) sour cream

1. Cook pasta till al dente in salted water. In the last minute or so of cooking, add the shrimp. I roughly chop my shrimp so they go a bit further, and this cuts down on cooking time, too. Drain in a colander and run under cold water until completely cool.

2. Combine pasta & shrimp with remaining ingredients. Serve.


This was really good, and it'll last me a few days, too, which is just great. It could have used more lemon but that is easily enough improved upon. I just hope I don't lose my appetite for it, too...

Incidentally, I used the POM BBQ sauce from this post last night as stirfry sauce - I just added some cornstarch. MUCH better. Really good, in fact. Hmmm... POM stirfry sauces... Hmmm...

The Magical Fruit

This year is not only a bumper crop year for huckleberries, but my 8 bean plants appear to be on some kind of manic growing spree that is providing me with about 86 bazillion yellow wax beans. I am already sick of the sight of them. Yesterday alone I picked 1.25kg of the suckers, which is about 2.75lbs. It was the third picking - and there are so many more on the way.

The whole point of this garden is to help feed myself without depending on the grocery store, so obviously I had to do something to preserve my bean crop since becoming bored with them & letting them just rot on their stems would be counter-productive. So, I blanched & froze.

Bear in mind that I have no idea what I'm doing, OK?

Blanching involved boiling for a short period of time and then immediately plunging the veggie into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. The goal is to break down the cell walls of the veggie so that when the veggie is frozen, the water in the cells doesn't crystallize and expand, then rupture the cell walls, which is what causes a veggie to go mushy upon thawing.

So, here is what I did.

I washed the beans well & trimmed them. I then brought a large pot of water to a rolling boil and threw in a bunch of beans.After 2 - 3 minutes, I lifted the beans out & plunged them in an ice bath. (Yes, that is an ice pack; we have no cubes!)

Once the beans were completely cool... ...I packaged them up in small freezer bags, making sure to squeeze out as much air as possible, then I put the bags of beans in a larger freezer bag (double bagging like this helps prevent freezer burn). And into the freezer they went.

I suspect I'll be doing this a lot in the next few weeks...

More Awards!

Finsmom of Latest Addictions bestowed upon me these lovely awards today:


Thank you Finsmom - I really appreciate it!

I always feel awkward about re-awarding these because there are so many food bloggers out there I just adore and I hate to leave anyone out! So, I'm going to choose five random - totally random - food blogs I visit regularly.

Accountants Can Cook? (I love Cathy!)
My Tasty Treasures (combining sex & food like no other)
Curious Domestic (a fellow British Columbian)
My Year on the Grill (Dave is new to blogging - go say hi!)
Life in the Slow Lane at Squirrel Head Manor (Pierce is a good friend of mine and a great cook!)

Thank you to all my readers - old and new - for your continued support!

Easy Cookie Squares

It's cooled down - yay! I never thought I'd be so glad to see clouds, rain, and even fog! In celebration, I baked. I wanted to make something using my huckleberries, but I didn't know what. I got out my trusty Cookie Bible, which I seemed to recall had some blueberry squares in it that I could have made using huckleberries instead. I was right, there was one square recipe that would have been suitable, but it required a certain type of muffin mix I didn't have and have no intention of acquiring. But I did find this recipe for Easy Cookie Bars that looked pretty good, so I made them instead.

Easy Cookie Bars (adapted by moi)

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

1. Mix together butter & cracker crumbs. Press into parchment-lined 9" square pan.

2. Sprinkle the base with the coconut, chocolate, and nuts. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the top.

3. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or so, or until golden brown. Cool completely in pan.

OK. I had to adapt this recipe because the original wasn't going to work. The original recipe called for a 9x13" pan, but there was no way I was going to get that base into that size pan. I even tried pressing it into a 10" square pan and that wasn't going to work, either. I ended up using a 9" pan and that was perfect for the amount of base ingredients. However, I had to reduce the amount of coconut from 1 1/3 cups to 1 cup as the original amount would have been way too much. Now, because I was adapting on the go, I realized that I was going to have too much sweetened condensed milk for this size pan, too, but I used the whole amount as I didn't want just a little bit kicking around (that stuff is dangerous!). It was probably too much as the squares didn't set properly and didn't brown evenly.
The end result: a bit of a mess. The graham cracker base didn't stay together & disintegrated when I lifted a square out to taste. The squares were also quite gooey, and as I said, didn't set well. Taste-wise, they are very sweet, which is fine, but not terribly exciting.
I probably won't make these again. I won't say these are a waste of time & ingredients because I will find a way to freeze them, but even though there were super easy to make, they just didn't live up to my expectations. But, onwards & upwards, eh? At least it was cool enough to bake, and for that I'm very grateful!

Awards & Meme Time

Alrighty! Instead of providing you with a "real" post, today I take care of some administrative stuff.

Palidor of Crazy Asian Gal tagged me with this "7 Things"-type meme. If you haven't visited her blog already, I suggest you do so ASAP because it's really wonderful!


Rules:

1. Acknowledge the person who gave you the award (thank you very much, Palidor)
2. Nominate 7 other blogs
3. Share 7 personality traits.

My 7 personality traits:

1. Stubborn
2. Daydreamy
3. Honest (sometimes too much so)
4. Impatient (but I'm working on it)
5. Perfectionistic
6. Helpful
7. Determined

As for tagging seven others...I'm not going to do this, even though it's an official rule of the meme. I often opt not to tag, but rather invite those of you who would like to take this up to do so if they wish. So, if you do this, let me know, OK?

Secondly, Girlichef tagged me with a "Joy of Reading" meme. Here are the rules for it:

1. Collect the book that you have most handy.

2. Turn to page 161

3. Find the 5th complete sentence.

4. Site the sentence on your blog

5. Pass it on to 5 other bloggers.

OK, so the book I have most handy is You Know You're a Writer When... by Adair Lara. It's a cool little book that my friend Charlie sent me recently after he reviewed it on his blog. Unfortunately, this book is only 90 pages long, so I guess I can't use that. So, the book second closest to me is a novel by Elizabeth Haydon entitled Rhapsody, which I recently reviewed here. Great book, especially if you love fantasy fiction. Here is the requested sentence:

Grunthor plucked a long dagger from behind the small of his back and presented it to her with a deep bow.

So, there you go!

Again, I won't tag anyone, but if you'd like to participate, let me know.

Thanks guys!

Huckleberry Time!

On Saturday, I got to go out into the bush and pick huckleberries. You can read more about that here.

I got 10 cups of huckleberries! So, now what? Well, yesterday morning I made huckleberry pancakes, using Nigella's homemade pancake mix. The pancakes were totally excellent and I still think this recipe makes the best pancakes I've ever had.

So, now what do I do with all these other remaining huckleberries? Yeah, there's muffins and pies...But I want to do something different.

Hucklberries are quite tart in comparison to blueberries. I'm thinking goat's cheese; I'm thinking pork loin; I'm thinking spinach!

Any ideas? Let me know!

Full Flickr set from the berry-picking spree is here.

Magazine Monday #44: Reprise

I've been a bit lax with Magazine Mondays for the last few weeks, mainly because it's been too hot to bake or cook and I've had some trouble motivating myself to participate in MM. But, things are about to change, as I will be hosting Magazine Monday from August 17 - September 14 inclusive because our regular host, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, will be on holiday. For those of you not familiar with the concept of Magazine Monday, Ivonne started it off just over a year ago as a self-help tool to aid those of us who clip and save magazine recipes but have problems actually getting around to making the recipes. Thus, we accumulate tons of recipes, never knowning whether they are worth the space they are taking up.

For the four weeks I'm hosting, if you have made a magazine recipe of any kind, send me an email (wandering_coyoteATyahooDOTca) with a link to your post and I'll post the link in my own MM post.

For this week, I offer you all a reprise of a recipe I posted way back in May of 2006, before the creation of MM: Pumpkin Orange, and Raisin Muffins, courtesy Canadian Living.

Pumpkin, Orange & Raisin Muffins

2 cups flour
1 cup raisins
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
1 egg
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree (not pie filling!) - this equals 1 can (398mL) pumpkin
2 tbsp orange zest
1/2 cup orange juice (I zested two large naval oranges and juiced them both, and this worked fine)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

1. Sift together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl, and add to the dry. Add raisins. Mix until it just comes together. Don't overmix.
3. Bake at 375F for 20 - 25 minutes, or until done.

This should yeild 12 muffins.

So, I hope to hear from you next week with your MM recipes, and I will be back in full form with new MM posts of my own then!

Enjoy!

Saturday Laugh

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #17: Mexican Chicken Soup

OK, so it's been hot out and I haven't been cooking or baking much. So, what do I do? I make soup.

Yeah!

Well, actually, I have about 80 billion yellow beans growing in my garden and I wasn't sure what to do with them all, so it made sense to start making stuff to put them in, since steaming them and having them as a side dish is going to get boring really soon.

Throughout this series, I've made all kinds of soups: Thai, Indian, Italian...Mexican is just another ethnic cuisine that lends itself well to using up chicken carcasses (I just found another carcass in my freezer tonight, actually...What's next?) To be honest, I'm getting a bit souped-out, so I needed to be particularly creative this time.

And so the Mexican Chicken Soup was born last night just in time for dinner (for which I had no appetite when it came to eating it...damned these pills I take!).

This soup is so healthy it will make you sick!

Mexican Chicken Soup

4 - 6 cups chicken stock (I made homemade, of course, using this method)
1L home-canned tomatoes
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 carrot chopped
a whole bunch of yellow beans, chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed & drained
1/2 cup barley
1 bunch cilantro chopped
a few squeezes of lime juice

Bring stock, tomatoes, spices, onion, chipotle & carrots to boil. Add barley & simmer until nearly done. Add yellow beans. Add black beans. Season to your taste - you might like way more heat than I do. When veggies are tender and the barley is done, add cilantro & lime. Serve.

This was really good, but like I said, I had no appetite once I sat down to eat. It's weird how that works for me. But, I have lots of leftovers, and I portioned most of them out in individual servings to freeze so I can enjoy this later on.

More Shrimps on the Barbie

OK, last night I was bored & peckish, but only wanted something quick & light after my meal at The Sunshine Cafe. I also have little fridge room right now and needed to start using up some of my POM juices. So, I decided to experiment with a POM BBQ sauce for some shrimp.

This needs some tweaking, but it was a tasty start:

POM Asian BBQ Sauce

1/4 cup POM juice
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 garlic clove, grated or crushed

Whisk together. Brush on shrimp on the BBQ.

Like I said, it needed some tweaking. There was something missing, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Luckily, I have some left over for another night, so maybe I'll come up with something in the meantime.

I also made a drink with some of my POM juice. I love the POM iced teas, so I decided to mix some POM pomegranate & tangerine juice with some good old fashioned Nestea iced tea mix, and it was pretty good. While I'm generally liking the stuff I make with the POM juice, I'm not keen on the juice itself; it's really strong for me. But it's fun to play around with!

The weather has cooled somewhat, but it's still hot and the cool weather we were promised hasn't materialized, and according to the forecast, it's going to get cooler, but not as cool as we were led to believe, and not quite yet. What is the point of a forecast when they can't get it right? Why do I even listen to the weather guy?

The Heat is Still On...

The heat is still on and I haven't been doing any cooking or baking, though I have put some chicken stock on in my crock pot for a meal tomorrow. The heat wave is supposed to break tomorrow, though it is about 7C cooler today than it has been for over a week. These oven-like temperatures have seriously impinged upon my favourite creative outlets, and this blog!

Today I had a special treat: one of my bestest friends ever and her sister came through town and we were able to have a really nice visit and lunch together. I haven't seen this friend in two years, though we are in touch over the phone & email. It was great to see her! I recommended the Sunshine Cafe for lunch, since they are so reliable and decently priced.

As usual, I had the clubhouse with fries - excellent as always!

My friend had a chicken burger, but dug in before I could get a photo; she ordered it with the salad of the day, which was spinach with bacon & sauteed mushrooms with blue cheese dressing. She was really happy with it. My friend's sister opted for an all-day breakfast item: omlette with chorizo and some other stuff, served with toast & homemade hashbrowns. She was also happy. So, more Sunshine Cafe converts...if only they lived closer!
Hopefully, regular posting will resume shortly.

Brisket Sammie

Have you seen this Quizno's ad for their Toasty Torpedo sandwich? If not, I highly encourage you to take 30 seconds out of your life to do so! It's one of the most brilliant pieces of food advertising I think I've ever seen.



I have yet to make it to a Quizno's to have a Toasty Torpedo: the nearest one is in Castlegar and a half-hour drive away, and if you're going to go all the way out there, you might as well just go to Chopsticks.

Anyway, who says you can't have a homemade version of the Toasty Torpedo? I used some of my brisket leftover from the other night and made myself a pretty fancy sammie last night, with sauteed onions & mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. I had plenty of the pomegranate sauce left over, so I dipped the sandwich in that. I toasted it all up under the broiler, and voila!
Pretty nice, eh? Thank God for toaster ovens that don't heat up the kitchen like...an oven.

Apparently the heat is supposed to break on Wednesday. I hope I survive until then!

Lunch at Leo's Taverna

It's so hot here I can barely breath and function, so posting might be a little light until I can get back into the kitchen. Meanwhile, my dad and I went to lunch the other day at a great spot in Nelson called Leo's Taverna. They make Greek & Italian food, the portions are generous, and the price is very reasonable.

We had the Corfu Platter for two. This includes, Greek salad, rice, chicken souvlaki & beef souvlaki, hummus, pita, tzadziki, and dolmades. I don't like Greek salad, so my dad ate that while I had the rice. The souvlakis were amazing & cooked perfectly. I don't care for dolmades, either, but my dad hates olives, so it all worked out. The hummus is chunkier than most hummuses, but very well-balanced in flavour. For dessert there wasn't much on offer. My dad was really looking forward to some baklava and I would have had some tiramisu if they had it, but alas, they were out of both. So, Dad ordered a slice of Black Forest Cake, and I had a couple of bites. There are way better Black Forest Cakes our there, but this did in a pinch.

It was a great lunch and I came away really full!

Sunday Smile

Pomegranate Vinaigrette

This is the salad dressing I made to go with the salad that went with the brisket that also had a pomegranate sauce. It was really delicious! Again, it was a recipe I totally made up on spec and that I needed to tweak a bit before getting right.

Pomegranate Vinaigrette

1/2 cup POM Wonderful Juice pomegranate juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic, grated or crushed
1/2 - 1 tsp or to taste lemon grass powder

Put ingredients in a jar, shake the crap out of it, and dress salad!