Veggie Omlette

Due to my new budget there will be a lot of eggs featured in this blog. Eggs are cheap and easy, and you can do a number of things with them. This time i made a yellow pepper omlette.

I also had some tomatoes and mushroom.s

Ready to make the omlette.

Butter Tofu Nan Pizza

Okay, okay - i know i've been terrible with updating this blog. I am citing stress of grad school, new computer and eating only fried eggs. I do have some pictures which are lost on my "blue screen of death" computer - but i did promise this one - the butter tofu nan pizza. I will totally brag about this meal because it was AWESOME. Make it and people will be pretty impressed.

I used some extra firm tofu and used that bottled PC butter chicken sauce (the blue menu one, since that stuff is pretty rich). I sliced it into half inch rectangles and marinated it in the butter chicken sauce for about an hour. Rotating and reapplying - at room temperature. I then grilled it on the bbq, cooking it slightly, but more giving it marks and heating it through. I don't mind eating tofu raw, so i didn't grill it too much, since i think the marinade is more important, but you could bake this too.

Once the tofu was done, i spread more of the sauce on the nan, then topped it with thinly sliced mushroom, these little orange tomatoes and some red onions. I then cut the tofu into smaller pieces and added them to the nan along with a bit more sauce.

I did this one on the bbq, but i think it would be quite good if you did it in the oven (along with doing to tofu that way). Not to brag but this was a really good meal. I did have a lot of the butter chicken sauce left over - so i think this might be a great way to use up any extra sauce you might have after making butter chicken. You could also substitute chicken and bake/bbq it like i did the tofu.

See this entry was worth the wait!

Roadside Deep Fried Mushrooms

Its always bitter sweet when i'm leaving the cottage - but nothing perks up the ride home like something deepfried and originating out of a trailer. I have my favorites, but i thought i woul try a place i always pass, and looks good, but never have. I was so happy to find out they serve deep fried mushrooms - something i used to always get at the Royal Winter Fair, but hadn't seen in a while!

They had a nice breading that had some chopped herbs in them and they served it with a great ranch sauce for dipping which i thought was a nice addition.

This place has a "functioning" lighthouse

A little too close to the eating area for my tastes

Monday Dinner - Mushrooms and Eggs

There are some days - especially mondays, where i am less than inspired, but as i'm trying to save some money and eat a little better i push myself to eat at home. This monday i didn't get in until later, but i had gone grocery shopping, so i decided to make Mushrooms On Toast, with simple white mushrooms, but thought for a little protein i would add a poached egg.

I used the ceramic poacher, and perhaps wasn't paying attention as i should have, so the eggs were't as runny as i had wanted, but they were still good. As i've mentioned before, this recipe is a family favorite, but sometimes i like to switch it up - different bread, fancy mushrooms or the addition of a poached egg. For this one, i also added some spinach and arugula mix for extra veggies.

The ingredients

(excuse the low light - i have a few out right now)


Last bites

My plate f0r ready for eating

Mixing the mushrooms

Hot Water and Steak Dinner

Cottages are great fun, but they are also a lot of work, particularly when you're opening them. This year we got a surprise that the hot water tank was kaput - hence forcing my family to install a new one. On a rainy and cold saturday the men-folk spent the afternoon under the cottage installing a new one.


Not to be embracing cheesy gender roles, but i thought it would be a great opportunity to cook a stellar meal - because honestly i would rather be in the kitchen than in a damp spider filled hole under the cottage. When i was in town at the grocery store (while the men-folk were digging a ditch) i picked up some pretty good filets, and then i spotted fiddleheads, which are a lovely spring treat that one cannot pass up the opportunity since they are only around so briefly.


I went a little veggie crazy, but i managed to use up the leftovers in the following breakfast and lunch.

The menu:

Bruschetta and mushroom tapanade on crostini

Fiddleheads (which i parboiled then sauteed)

Fried mushrooms

Grilled asparagus

Grilled endive

Steak filets with a home-made rub

Roasted mini potaotes with rosemary and garlic

Cherry pie with chocolate ice cream from the Kawartha Dairy

Bruschetta, mushrooms, goat cheese and crostini

freshly rised fiddleheads

My plate

making the bruschetta

Top: Cherry pie and ice cream

Good Friday Dinner Part 3 - the sides

As i've already told you - Jarred and I really cheffed it up on Good Friday, and along with the burgers, fries, grilled veggies and Apricot tart i also made a caesar salad and a selection of dips (or for some burger toppings). I used to, many moons ago, work for a great caterer who always did an amazing bread and dip station that was so lovely and a total crowd pleaser. This was my inspiration for the dips. I made a guacamole, a bruschetta-esq topping, sauteed some finely diced mushrooms, onions and garlic and there was some hummus in the fridge

I had also gotten it into my head to make a caesar salad - of course it turned out that we didn't have a number of the usual ingredients - red wine vinegar, worschester sauce or anchovies - or a blender, so i had to do some improvising. I had always seen on cooking shows people making their salad dressings in mason jars and shaking them vigorously - i used to be a bartender so i used my skills from making martinis to blend the dressing. I also mixed white vinegar and balsamic to replae the red wine. I am the Macgiver of cooking!

I used the baguette that i purchased at Ma Maison, which was phenominal by the way, to make the crostini for the dips. The baguette was quite slender, so sliced them on the bias into small thin pieces. Unfortuantly, as i mentioned, the knives left something to be desired, so this was something of a challenge. Once cut, i lightly seasoned them and brushed them with olive oil and put them into the oven. They came out really well, and i will definitely be going back there to get more Baguettes.

And there is the final installment of the Good Friday Meal - told you it was epic!

Grilled Veggies for Easter Weekend

I have recently been terrible about updating and cooking - don't know what has gotten into me, but this long weekend i went out of town, and did a bunch of cooking and picture taking, so i'll have a ton of material for the next few weeks. On Good Friday, i went up to Mike's cottage and Jarred and i cooked an epic dinner - which there are so many things i realized that i would actually have to write a couple different blogs about since there were so many things and so many pictures.

I'm starting out with the grilled veggies we did for the dinner. When i was driving up on Friday, none of the grocery stores were open, and since i hadn't really been cooking, i actually didn't have that much to bring up - luckily there were a few fruit markets open on Bloor West so i picked up a ton of veggies for the meal. Now as i may have mentioned in another post, these boys are pretty serious about their meat so i always like to add some veggies, plus it gives me something to eat.

For the grilled veggies i marinated huge portabello mushrooms, a couple eggplants and of course some asparagus. We cooked them ahead of time, since the rest of the meal actually required the grill, and served them at room temperature. I dressed the eggplant and mushrooms with a light balsamic dressing before we served them, and dusted the asparagus with Parmesan.


Above:

The veggies on the table (with my favorite wine)
Portabellos ready for the grill
Ingredients
Plate of veggies
Jarred doing the eggplant

Staycation Cooking - Lady who lunches

Well its quite a start to my week of "staycation", after a couple weeks of glorious weather, it turns rainy and cold for day one. I had already planned this as a domestic day, so i wasn't that devastated, but a little sun would have been nice.

After finishing a few errands i decided to indulge in a late lunch. I wanted something a little decedent, not something i would scarf down at my desk. I didn't have a whole lot of ingredients, but the weekend previous i had poached eggs and they were a little overdone, so i thought i would give that a try again. (i'll blog that meal later)

I know that poached eggs are actually quite tasty over salad, so i opted away from the carbs and decided to do a poached eggs over salad. The bar/restaurant in my building does a spinach salad with hard boiled eggs and beer braised mushrooms - i had a few cremini left in the fridge and thought they would be a nice addition. I didn't have any beer or wine open (no vermouth even) so i improvised and used sake. I also added some tarragon - since i look for things to add tarragon to!

I thought i would dress it with a creamy, yet healthy dressing to go with the yolk of the egg. I have been obsessed with honey dijon - and decided that was what was going to go with. I simply combined some lemon juice, olive oil, dijon, honey and sour cream.

After blanching the asparagus, i poached the egg and assembled the salad.

Late lunch, even with the weather was pretty sweet. (too bad someone stole my newspaper again!)

Above:

Lunch
Ingredients
Dressing ingredients
Mushrooms
Cracked poached egg salad

Goat Cheese Pesto Quesadillas

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In university i worked at a really cool bar/lounge in the east end called 2066, and we had some very interesting food on the menu. One of my favorites, and definitely a really popular item were the goat cheese quesadillas. The ones on the menu also had grilled chicken in them, but i omitted the chicken since i don't eat it, but a lot of people really liked it with chicken.

The real key of the dish is the goat cheese pesto - its super tasty and gives it a unique tang. They made it at 2066 with goat cheese, cream cheese and pesto. I didn't have any cream cheese, so i just made it with the the basics. This is also a nice spread for a sandwich, in particular with grilled veggies.

As for the toppings you can use whatever you want, but i stick to the version that they made at the bar - sliced mushrooms, tomatoes, roasted red peppers and red onions. You simply spread the tortillas with the goat cheese mixture, then top with the ingredients, fold the tortilla in half if you're using a large one, or as i only had small ones, i topped it with another tortilla, and a bit of the left over mixture.

You can bbq these, and they were made on the grill at 2066 - in my case i simply baked them, flipping them half way through so that both sides firmed up. Its best to serve this with salsa and sour cream and a salad. I made a fresh avocado salsa for mine.

Above:

Quesadillas
Ingredients
Assembling the quesadillas
Two quesadillas
(i added the red peppers after this pic - i forgot)

Easy Thin Crust Pizza

Reading one of those ladies magazines at the gym (yeah all i think about is food while working out). I saw a recipe for pizza done on a flour tortilla. I am not a real pizza fan, only if the crust is really thin am i even remotely interestd - so i though that i would give it a try. It had been in the back of my mind for a few months now, and so looking at the groceries left over in my fridge i thought i would give it a try.

I didn't have any tomato sauce, and i'm not that big a fan anyway, but i thought that i could roast some cherry tomatoes and garlic in balsamic to make a nice base for the pizza. I also always have pesto in the fridge, and i love pesto on pizza so i thought i would add those along with some mushrooms, green onions and a bit of leftover cheddar i had in the back of the cheese drawer.

I put a little olive oil on the tortilla before all the toppings, and cooked it at 400 degrees. It was surprisingly crisp considering all the toppings i had on it, and was quite good. I would totally make this again, maybe with more sophisticated ingredients next time like buffalo mozzarella.

Above:

Pizza
Ready for the oven
The ingredients
Tomatoes to be roasted

Mushrooms on Toast - Saturday Night

The person i cook for the most of, excluding myself is eric, unfortunately he doesn't like mushrooms, and since a lot of my favorites involve them, i don't get the opportunity to cook them as much as i'd like. In particular, one of my family favorites is mushrooms on toast. (see Family Favorites) I only end up eating them with my family, but considering how easy there are, and since i had a bunch of left over mushrooms from my hot pot experiement, i thought i would treat myself with a nice sautrday dinner of one of my favorites.


This is quite an easy recipe, and you can really put a lot of it together before you cook it, and finish off the whole dish in like ten minutes. I usually serve a caesar salad with it, but for one that seemed a little too much work, so i used some of the last of the asparagus and tossed it with olive oil and balsamic, and baked it while i cooked the mushrooms.


I honesty usually use regular cremini or buttom mushroms and it is delicious just like that, but since i had all those exotic mushrooms i used them.



Mushrooms on Toast


2 lbs of mushrooms - use whatever kind you want, the smaller the better, or cut them
2 tbs of olive oil
2 cloves of garil chopped


Combine these together and you can let them sit for a while or cook right away. The original recipe calls for parsley, but i HATE parsley so i omit it.


Heat a little butter in a skillet and when melted add the mushrooms, cook for about 5 mintues until they begin to liquidfy. Add the juice of a lemon, 1 to 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar and a handful of chopped cilantro.


At this point i usually throw the bread into the toaster, usually dark rye of pumpernickle, something that can stand up to some moisture


Cook the mushrooms for another five minutes. Don't cook it until all the liquid has evaporated, part of what makes this good is the sauce! Once ready, place the toast on the plate and top with mushrooms and sauce.



Voila - mushrooms on toast!



Above:



Saturday night dinner

The ingredients (ignore the bok choy - that's another entry)

Adding the lemon juice

Putting the mushrooms on the toast.

Multi-Mushroom Soup

As you may have guessed, i'm pretty into mushrooms. Basically being a vegetarian most of my life, they became something of a staple and they have a wonderful density and flavour that really appeals to me. I also enjoy how they can hold up to a fair amount of cooking. I had actually never made mushroom soup and had spotted a recipe that appealed to me. Mushroom soup isn't in many ways the most appealing looking soup, but this one was a very delicate and elegant soup - i think it was sort of wasted eating solo, but i would consider making it for a dinner party or guests.

Mushroom Soup


2 cups coarsely chopped portabello
2 cups coarsely chopped shitake
1 cup coarsely chopped crimini
1 medium onion diced
1 large shallot, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups chopped leeks (white and light green)
3 cups of veggie broth (low sodium)
1 cup half and half (it says heavy cream but....)
1/2 cup white wine (i used vermouth)
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp red chili flakes
olive oil
salt & pepper


In a large pot saute the garlic with olive oil over low heat for 3 minutes. Add the onions and shallots, turning up the heat to medium and saute until wilted. Add chili flakes and thyme. Saute for two minutes and add leeks. Saute for another 5 minutes.

Next, add the mushrooms to the pot. (i need to add more olive oil at this point). Season with salt and pepper. Once the mushrooms are tender, add the stock, white wine and cream. Mix thoroughly. When the mixture comes to a boil and turn down the heat to a simmer.

When the pot is simmering, use a hand blender to puree the mixture.

And there you have it.

Postscript - This was even better the second and third day. I actually didn't mind eating this one for a few days!

Soup
All the onion types
Mushrooms
Chopped ingredients