Vegetable

Summer Grain Salad

May 29, 2016

It’s the unofficial start to summer and you know what that means: dining alfresco! Whether it be picnics, backyard BBQ’s or lunch hours outside on a bench while soaking up a little sunshine, this grain salad with it’s rainbow of colors has you covered.

It’s the perfect time of year to enjoy nature’s bounty of fresh vegetables. If you are trying to eat a little cleaner and healthier, grain salads are for you! The satisfying chewiness of whole grains, the crunch of fresh veggies, the freshness of herbs and the zing of red wine vinegar make this salad a home run.

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Veggie Cakes

March 11, 2016

Cooking for people who don’t particularly care for vegetables can present a challenge. Do you know anyone like this? I have a number of clients are who aren’t huge fans of vegetables, so I have to think of ways to make them appealing. You could pull a tomato off of the vine and hand it to me with dirt on it and I’d eat it without protesting, but I love vegetables… …

Pickled Vegetables aka Curtido

February 11, 2016

I have been waiting for this supposed “cauliflower shortage” to work itself out because I have been craving these pickled vegetables and I was not about to pay $7 for a head of cauliflower… Call me crazy.

I had completely resigned myself to the idea that I was not going to fulfill my craving anytime soon because the price of cauliflower was not budging and i just could not bring myself to pay three times the normal price. However, that little (ever-present, annoying, extremely loud) nagging voice in the back of brain said “Hey, let’s just walk over there and check”. Gah, I hate when she’s right… well, maybe just this once it’s okay.

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Rajas #SundaySupper

January 31, 2016

This is officially my first post for the Sunday Supper group and it is rather serendipitous the way things work out. You’ll see what I mean in a second… The theme this week is “The Big Game” and everyone knows what game I’m referring to: Denver Broncos vs Carolina Panthers. My other half is a HUGE Denver Broncos fan, so this game is a Very Big Deal.

Last year, we spent a few days in Denver and I needed supplies for a quinoa salad I was making for about 100 people so we stopped into a local restaurant supply store. In front of the store were two lovely Mexican women making gorditas. I struck up a conversation with them and found out they were mother and daughter. We had quite a lovely chat about Mexico and I must tell you, they made the best gordita filled with rajas that I have had since living in Guadalajara. It was the perfect amount of heat. The peppers were charred to perfection, the gordita was filled with gooey queso and I had fresh salsa verde on the side.

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Poutine Napoleons for #SundaySupper #FWCon

January 25, 2016

Once again this year, I will be attending the Food Wine Conference (#FWCon) in Orlando where I get to see many of my blogger friends and attend workshops and learn about everything from improving photography to being a better writer. We gather from May 13th – 15th at the beautiful Rosen Shingle Creek for a weekend packed with fun, learning and of course lots of good food.

There are several contests associated with #SundaySupper and the Food & Wine Conference, this one being for poutine using Idaho Potatoes. The requirements were fairly straight-forward: create a unique dish using Idaho potatoes. That’s fairly easy, right? The contest didn’t BAN French fries, but putting a different spin on a traditional poutine was the basis of the contest. I have had a long-standing love of the dish and if you have never heard of the gastronomic bliss that is poutine, THIS will help.

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Soba Noodles and Stir-Fried Vegetables

December 30, 2015

Soba noodles with stir-fried vegetables is a quick, easy and delicious healthy option for meatless Monday, or any day of the week. Soba noodles cook in a only a few minutes, the veggies get a quick sauté and dinner is done. From fridge to fork in less than 20 minutes – faster if you prep vegetable the night before.

It’s another New Year and once again, after the gluttony that was Thanksgiving and Christmas overindulgence, it’s time to rein it back in. One way that we have decided to do that around here is sticking to a “meatless Monday”.

While we were whooping it up in Vancouver a few months ago, we had a warm soba noodle appetizer at our favorite sushi restaurant. It was loaded with seafood and unbelievably delicious. I wanted to have something reminiscent of that salad, but suitable for a vegetarian dinner. The only restriction I gave myself (aside from the seafood) was that I had to use what I had in the kitchen. It wasn’t like there was a “rule” in play… I just didn’t feel like going to store. Out of sheer laziness, deliciousness was born!

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Freekeh Salad with Fruit, Nuts and Veggies

November 14, 2015

Freekeh is an ancient grain that is nutty, chewy and delicious. If you haven’t heard of it before, let me introduce you!

Let’s Get our Freekeh on!

No, this is not a new Missy Elliott song, but it is all about that grain.

Freekeh is one of those grains that gets overshadowed by the “in” crowd… You know the cool kid of the grain world at the moment: quinoa. I love quinoa, I’m not bashing it AT ALL, but there is a whole world of grains that people have never heard of, including myself until about 15 years ago. Freekeh has a wonderfully nutty flavor and a chewy texture, similar to barley or other hearty grains.

I absolutely adore grain salads. During the heat of summertime, they are chock full of bright red tomatoes and crisp cucumbers, but as we move into fall they transition to root vegetables, dried fruits and nuts.

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Kung Pao Green Beans

September 3, 2015

As a proclaimed lover of vegetables, I can’t quite understand anyone over the age of 8 wrinkling their nose at the sight of them. That being said, I have a few clients who fall into that category and it is my job to come up with recipes that will entice them into eating something green.

I’m not a parent, so I can’t imagine what it is like on a daily basis but I can tell you that once a week I find myself trying to figure out what I can cook for vegetable-hating clients that will actually end up on their plates. This one came to fruition solely based on the fact that one of my clients loves anything spicy. I figured if I disguised the flavor of the vegetable with chilies and garlic, maybe I’d have a hit on my hands.

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Mango Lime Quinoa

August 14, 2015

Welcome to the first installment of “Client Food Fridays”. Every other Friday, I’m going to share recipes I cook for clients in hopes that you can expand your weekly repertoire and incorporate some new dishes into the rotation. We all fall into cooking ruts, ALL of us. It’s so easy to make the same things over and over because we can do it by rote memory. And let’s be honest, sometimes that’s exactly what we need after an exceptionally long week. But then, there are those days when we are feeling good and we are totally in the mood to try something new (whether or not anyone else in our house is on board is not an issue… picky eaters, beware. we’re coming for you).

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Shrimp & Slaw

April 9, 2015

Recently I posed a question on the Facebook page asking what people wanted to see and one of the requests was “a meal that can be made in about 30 minutes, when I get home from work”. I get it, life is crazy busy and the last thing most people (most sane people) want to do after coming home from work is stand in front of a stove for any length of time.

This is a meal I made for a client of mine and it took well under 30 minutes to make, she loved it and requested I make it again. I probably need to get in the habit of sharing what I cook for clients…

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