Tag: Vegetarian

Creamy Mushroom Soup, the Perfect Cold Day Meal

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Creamy Mushroom Soup

Print Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Course Main Course, Soup
Servings 4 Servings

Ingredients
  

  • 4 cloves garlic (minced)
  • 1 bunch green onions (chopped, some of the greens separated for garnish)
  • 2 Tbsps butter
  • 900 g mix cremini and oyster mushrooms (32 oz; chopped)
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • 1/4 tsp oregano
  • 1 Tbsp dried dill
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 cups broth (beef, chicken, mushroom or vegetable)
  • 1/4 cup cream cheese (cut into small chunks)
  • salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions
 

  • Place a medium to large pot on medium-high heat. Add butter, garlic and the green onions (except small amount of greens reserved for garnish) to the pot, and sauté until fragrant.
  • Add the mushrooms, and sauté, stirring regularly, until mushrooms are fully cooked. By the time they are fully cooked, they will likely have released quite a bit of liquid in the pot.
  • Add the white wine, oregano and dill, stirring well. Allow the mix to cook for around 5 minutes before turning the heat down to medium heat.
  • Add the milk and broth. Allow the soup to heat up, then remove about a cup to a separate small bowl and add the cream cheese and stir until the cream cheese has mostly melted and become more liquid. Pour this mix into the soup and stir well until fully mixed into the soup
  • Taste-test and add salt and pepper to prefer taste. Cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat, and serve immediately, with reserved green onions as garnish.
Keyword Cream Cheese, Cream Soup, Cremini, Mushrooms, Soup

And now for the details…

Hi there friends! I am not sure about you… but comfort food is definitely where my brain and stomach seem to be leading me lately. Not sure if it’s the changing seasons (we are into November and here in Canada, and I am looking out my window right now at a light blanket of snow on the ground), the continued impacts of this pandemic on our work and personal lives, or just a phase of my body wanting and needing familiar food for my soul, but here we are and I wanted to share this with you in case you are feeling similar, and you find mushroom soup equally as comforting as I do.

I love mushrooms. Like. So much. I am pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, so I won’t wax poetic too much on the glory that are mushrooms, but dang, they’re good. High in umami, and with a slightly meaty texture when cooked, they provide a savoury bite that is hearty and satisfying. For this soup, I suggested cremini and oyster mushrooms in the recipe, but you can use a mix of whatever mushrooms you have available. Only have button mushrooms? Sounds great, this soup will be delicious. Have access to mushrooms a bit more on the pricey end, like morels, chanterelles or porcini? Toss them into the mix, they will be fantastic.

To get everything started, we are going to be chopping everything up. The garlic, green onions and mushrooms are all going to be chopped up to go into the pot. For the green onions, reserve some of the chopped green parts to the side to garnish the soup at the end. The primary reason I am using green onions in this recipe is I admittedly ran out of regular onions and shallots. So… green onions it was. If you don’t have green onions, you can instead use half of a small white onion or a shallot, minced fairly fine.

Place a medium to large pot on the stove and set it on medium-high heat. Add the butter, allow it to melt, and then add the garlic and the onions (less the greens you reserved to the side). Stir, allowing the onions and garlic to cook until they start releasing their delicious smells and the onions have started to soften. This shouldn’t take very long, a couple minutes at most.

Next, we add the mushrooms. You can add them all in one fell swoop, or add them a bit at a time, allowing them to cook down before adding the next bit. I like doing it the second way because it feels like I’m making better progress, but honestly, I think both methods take the same amount of time in the end.

As mushrooms cook, they release a heck of a lot of moisture. It doesn’t seem like they would when they are raw. They are kinda dry and spongey in texture. But when you cook them down they have a LOT of liquid to release. For this recipe, since our end goal is a soup, we are not as concerned with avoiding the liquid. Some recipes you see for sautéing mushrooms will advise to use a wide pan and not crowd it to avoid boiling the mushrooms. Well… we’re makin’ soup folks, so the liquid stays! When the mushrooms are cooked and there is liquid at the bottom of the pot, do not worry about draining it or cooking it off, that is just mushroom broth that will add to the soup!

The next step will be to add our spices (the oregano and dill), some salt and pepper, and the wine. We are going to keep the heat at medium-high for about five minutes to cook down the wine somewhat. Partially to help reduce it, partially to allow the alcohol to cook off before we add the broth. After five-ish minutes, turn the heat down to medium.

Next, add the milk and broth to the soup. Depending on whether the milk and broth were at room temperature, or if you brought them straight out of the fridge, you might have to wait a bit to have the soup heat back up. Wait for it to come back up to a simmer.

Different cream soups will use different methods of getting a creamy broth. Some will use flour, others will add heavy cream, and some will blend some of the mushrooms to thicken up the broth. In this case, we will not be going too thick with the broth and we will be using cream cheese to help provide a bit of body to liquid.

In order to get the cream cheese to blend well, we are going to try and dissolve most of it outside of the soup before adding it in. Cut the cream cheese into chunks to get it ready. Ladle some of the hot broth out of the pot into a small bowl. Add the cream cheese to the broth, and mash and stir it until the cream cheese has melted down some and the mixture is no longer lumpy. Add the mixture into the soup and stir in. If you want to just add the cut cream cheese right into the pot and skip this step and just wait for it to all melt and have the potential of a couple little lumps of cream cheese, have at ‘er. Admittedly, this is exactly what I did and just wanted to share a different option to you all that has a better result *eep*

Now is a good time to give the soup a quick taste-test and add additional salt to your personal taste (do I almost always add salt at this stage? Yes I do. Am I a borderline saltaholic? You know I am.) Allow the soup to come back up to a simmer after the addition of the cream cheese mixture, about another 5 minutes. Then ladle out the soup, top with the reserved green onions for garnish and serve immediately. I like serving this with a piece of crusty baguette to dip into the rich broth!

Happy eating.

Easy, Rich Tomato Bisque with Boursin Cheese

Tomato Bisque with Boursin Cheese

Print Recipe
Prep Time 30 minutes
Course Main Course, Soup
Servings 10 cups

Ingredients
  

  • 2 cans Italian tomatoes (796ml, 28oz)
  • 1 zucchini chopped in medallions
  • 2 garlic cloves peeled and minced (or 1 Tbsp freeze-dried garlic)
  • 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 cup fresh basil loosely chopped
  • 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 3 Tbsps Garlic and Fine Herbs Boursin cheese (or preferred flavour cream cheese)

Instructions
 

  • Add all the ingredients except basil, cream and cheese into a large sauce pan over medium high heat. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover the pot and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until zucchini are fully cooked and very tender. Add basil and cook for another 5 minutes.
  • Remove the soup from heat, and blend until smooth either with an immersion blender in the pot, or by transferring to a blender in batches. Return the blended soup to the pot and place over low heat, stirring in the cream and cheese until the cheese has fully melted into the soup. Serve immediately.
Keyword Basil, Cheese, Soup, Tomatoes

And now for the details…

Tomato soup is one of my favourite lunches. Pair it up with a grilled cheese sandwich, and for a few moments, while eating, I am in heaven. In this recipe I have paired up the tangy, umami-ness of tomatoes with the freshness of basil, the richness of cream and the salty, creaminess of Boursin cheese. The use of the pre-seasoned garlic and herbs cheese adds its flavour, eliminating the need to add much else in the way of herbs or spices. If Boursin is not readily available, using a flavoured cream cheese like herb and garlic would do in a pinch, and if you could even just go with plain cream cheese or marscapone, as the basil and tomatoes do not need much seasoning, as they do so well just on their own! I have also added some zucchini to the soup to provide some added veg content and to “beef up” the soup, so to speak.

The best part of this soup is how quickly it comes together. We are using canned tomatoes, and only loosely chopping the zucchini and basil. No need for meticulous preparation (aka high knife skills) of the different ingredients, since we will just be blending it all together at the end anyhow. I even took the let’s-make-it-easy approach a step further and ended up using freeze-dried garlic pieces rather than peeling and chopping.

So to get this soup started, place all the ingredients except the basil, cream and cheese into a large saucepan and put it over medium-high heat. Make sure to add the tomatoes with their liquid!

We are not going to be cooking at this higher temperature the whole time, just until we heat the soup up enough that it starts to bubble. Then, turn the heat down to medium-low. Here is where the magic happens, since we are just going to cover it up and can leave it to cook to get all soft. After about 20-25 minutes, we will add the basil in. You can just tear the leaves off and toss them in, or even loosely chop the leaves and the stalks together and throw everything in, as long as the stalks are not too woody. Cook the soup for another 5 minutes, just until the basil has wilted and spread its lovely scent into the soup.

Now its time to go on a blender. Remove the pot from the heat. There are two options for blending. If you have an immersion blender, you can do this right in the pot, stirring it regularly to make sure we get all the bits so that the soup is smooth. The second option is to transfer the soup to a blender to get a smooth soup. If using a blender, you will also need a second container, since the soup will likely not all fit into the blender at once, and we will need to blend in parts. As discussed in other soup recipes that needed blending, be careful in this step, as the hot soup might burst from the blender container if you overfill it or go to high speed right away. Fill the blender no more that halfway and start on low speed before increasing. When done blending, transfer the soup back into the pot.

Put the pot with the smooth soup over low heat. Add the cream and cheese (breaking the cheese up into pieces/chunks to allow it to melt faster) and stir, heating until it is at your desired temperature and the cheese is fully melted and mixed into the soup.

Serve immediately. If there are leftovers, allow them to cool fully, then transfer to a freezable container. This soup keeps in the freezer for several months and reheats really well. A great meal to keep handy for a quick defrost and reheat!

Happy eating.

Lightly Spiced Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

Print Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Course Soup
Servings 6 Servings

Ingredients
  

  • 1 medium onion peeled and diced
  • 2 garlic cloves peeled and minced
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 butternut squash peeled, cored and cut into chunks
  • 1 medium sweet potato (yam) peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1 large apple peeled, cored and cut into chunks
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • 1/2 Tbsp ground cumin
  • dash cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground pepper
  • 1/2 cup half and half cream

Instructions
 

  • Put a large pot over medium-high heat and add oil, onions and garlic. Cook for 3-5 minutes, or until onions become translucent. Add the wine and cook down until reduced by half.
  • Add all the rest of the ingredients except the cream. Stir well, pushing the veggies and fruit to be mostly under the liquid. Reduce the heat to just below medium, cover the pot, and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the veggies are fully cooked and starting to fall apart.
  • Blend the soup, either using an immersion blender in the pot, or transferring the soup to a regular blender in batches. Transfer back to pot once all the soup is blended and smooth. Place pot on low heat, add the cream to the soup, stirring well and heat to desired temperature. Serve.
Keyword Apple, Butternut Squash, Soup, Yam

And now for the details…

Hi there friends! Here comes a new soup recipe your way, this time using butternut squash. Does anyone else call butternut squash “buttnut squash” for short, is that just me and some of my friends? And yes, we giggle like 11-year-olds after we say it. I may technically be an adult, but that does not mean I have matured, people.

I love this soup because it is so easy. Seriously. The most difficult part of making the soup is peeling and removing the guts from the squash. And being a teensy bit patient while waiting for it to cook.

This particular recipe is one that I have been making for years. It is actually roughly based off a recipe I found online a long time ago. I went a-hunting to find that recipe to credit it, but could not find it anywhere. So here is my version; I hope you enjoy!

Butternut squash is one of my favourites. It is a great vegetable that keeps extremely well, even at room temperature. While it is technically spring, here in Canada, we are not quite seeing the spring veg roll in, so using a winter squash like butternut is still in full force. Why are they considered winter squash? It is definitely not because they grow in the snow! Winter squash have that name because they get harvested in late fall, and last through the winter while they are stored away in a cool, dark place. Rich, sweet and satisfying, butternut squash is great cut in pieces and roasted in the oven or made up into a mash. In this particular recipe, though, we are going to add a few more ingredients and turn it into soup!

One element I like about this recipe is the addition of the sweet potato. It gives the soup that bright, orangey colour, as well as adding sweetness. The apple balances out the flavour by providing a little tartness. Finally, we are not going to be adding a sweet spice like cinnamon or nutmeg, oh no! We will be spicing lightly with some cumin to get a hint of earthiness to round this dish off, and a lil dash of cayenne to elevate the heat-from-inside feeling, perfect for a chilly, slushy spring day.

To start off, we peel and chop all the veg. Like I said earlier, prepping the butternut squash is the hardest part of this recipe. The squash, though very soft once cooked, is quite firm when raw, and its skin is thick and hard as well. There a quite a few different tips and tricks out there on how to peel the squash, find one that works for you! Don’t forget to scoop and toss the guts 🙂 Cut the different veg into large chunks, maybe about 2-3cm in size.

I am extra cautious at this step of cutting the squash… A few years ago, I was cutting butternut squash and a piece fell on the ground. Our Scottie swooped in, grabbed the piece of veg, and raced off with his prize. I usually do not think twice when he does something like this. He eats raw veg all the time (fun fact: kale stalks are one of his favourite treats) and so when he ran off, I continued on with my cooking. Then, a few minutes later, I heard this soft, mournful croon from the other room that I had never heard him make before. When I went to check on him, he was lifting his little nose in the air, making the crooning sound, then would bring his head down and pant quickly, as if he could not breathe. I am not proud to say that I panicked. I was so worried he was allergic to the squash and his little airway was closing. Long story short… a bit of panic, a sleepover at the vets, and an expensive vet bill later, Moz got sent home in great spirits, with the unchewed piece of raw butternut squash that they had pulled out (it had lodged itself into his esophagus, just before his tummy). Thanks bud. CHEW YOUR FOOD.

Anyhow… back to the soup. Once the squash, sweet potato, and apple have been peeled and cut into chunks, it is time to start cooking. Start by adding the oil, onion and garlic to a large pot on medium-high heat. Cook until the onion has softened. Add the wine and cook until the wine has reduced by about half. Add all the rest of the ingredients except the cream, stirring to mix fully. Lower the heat to medium, cover the pot and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the veggies are cooked through and soft.

To finish this soup off, we will be blending it to get that nice, velvety texture. If you have one, you can blend the soup right in the pot using an immersion blender. If you do not have an immersion blender, you can blend in a regular blender as well. You will likely need to do the soup in batches if using a regular blender, as it is a lot of soup! Also, be careful when blending in a regular blender, starting off on a low speed and gearing up, or you and your kitchen may end up wearing more soup than you eat! (Speaking from experience? I don’t wanna talk about it…)

Once blended, add the soup back to the pot and put over medium-low heat. Add the cream, stirring in completely and bringing the soup back up to temperature. Serve immediately. I like garnishing using nuts of some kind, like walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts, and drizzling with sour cream or an infused olive oil.

Happy Eating.

Zoodle (Zucchini Noodle) Lasagna Stuffed Peppers

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Zoodle (Zucchini Noodle) Lasagna Stuffed Peppers

Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Course Main Course
Servings 6 peppers

Ingredients
  

  • 1 small zucchini
  • 6 medium bell peppers
  • 1 cup ricotta
  • 1 cup arugula or spinach (loosely chopped)
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (shredded)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 pinch ground nutmeg
  • 2 cups mozzarella cheese (shredded)
  • 3 mild italian sausage, uncooked (vegetarian option of 1-2 cups cooked orzo)
  • 2 cups pomodoro sauce
  • salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Trim ends from zucchini and slice into long noodles (zoodles) using vegetable peeler or mandolin. Cut top off peppers and scoop out any of the seeds/core. Remove sausage from casings and place in a frying pan and cook on medium heat, breaking the meat apart with a spoon as it cooks. Once cooked, add the Pomodoro sauce to meat, stir well until fully mixed and sauce is heated through, then remove from the heat and bring to prep area (vegetarian option: add sauce and cooked orzo to a pan, heat through, then remove from heat). In a small bowl, mix together the ricotta, parmesan, egg, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Fill the pepper in layers: start with a small layer of the meat sauce, layer of zoodles (1-2 thick, cut zoodle to size to fit), small layer ricotta mix, layer zoodles, repeat until pepper is filled. Fill all peppers the same way. Sprinkle top of peppers with mozzarella cheese. Place in oven for 40-45 minutes, or until heated all the way through and cheese has browned. Serve.
Keyword Lasagna, Peppers, Stuffed Peppers, Zoodle, Zucchini

And now for the details…

Have you seen the beautiful piles of peppers at your farmers markets recently?? Oodles of peppers of different sizes, shapes and colours. Everything from little globes of crimson cherry peppers, to the long pale chartreuse Hungarian wax peppers, to the little orange lanterns of habanero. Now for the people that know me well, this waxing poetic about peppers is going to come as a bit of a surprise. I don’t like peppers. Or at least I didn’t. But I have managed to expand my horizons.

What I don’t like? Green peppers. They’re like the bitter, obnoxious guest in your meal. From the first whiff of your food, they come barreling in with a distinct aroma and flavour. “HEY!!! I’M HERE! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!” There is very little room for pleasant or quiet conversation when the green pepper is invited to the party. They speak loudly, bowl over any other ingredient that is trying to talk, and they stick around to the very end, sometimes returning after you’ve ended the meal and everyone else has gone home (ever burped after eating something with green pepper? Blech.)

But I have come to appreciate the many other peppers out there that aren’t so boorish or demanding. Where the flavours are a bit more refined, sweeter, and nuanced. The peppers that compliment the other ingredients and make them better. And in the case of this recipe, those are the types of peppers I decided to pair up with the cheesy, tomatoey, unctuous flavours of lasagna.

This recipe comes together surprisingly quick. If you have more mouths to feed, or want to set yourself up for leftovers, you can easily size this recipe up (or down if you don’t want as much!) and since it reheats really well as leftovers the next day or day after, it’s a great weekday option!

First thing’s first: preheat your oven to 350ºF/175ºC.

We start the creation off by getting our fillings ready. The sausage/sauce is first. In this case, for the Pomodoro sauce, I had some homemade in the freezer that I pulled out for this recipe. If you don’t have any in the freezer, you could be extra and make some, as it does come together pretty quick, but a good can or jar of sauce goes over just fine.

Remove the sausages from their casings and place the meat in a frying pan. This might seem inherent to some people, but when I was first learning to cook, I did not realize that removing sausage from casings was something that could be done. The meal-makers of my childhood (predominantly mom, but also grandma’s and aunties) were all fabulous cooks, and we usually ate meats that they had prepared from scratch. The only sausage that I was familiar with was the occasional kubasa (Ukrainian garlic sausage) and hotdogs. I didn’t know that sausages came uncured and raw. For this recipe, when purchasing your sausage, make sure it is of the raw, uncured variety. You’ll be able to tell quite quickly if that’s true with a quick poke through the packaging. Raw sausage feels, well, raw. It’s soft and squishy, much like poking raw ground meat. To get it out of the casing, snip the tip off one end, pinch the other end tightly between your fingers, and then push the filling from the pinched end down, like you’re trying to squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube. Alternatively, there are some places (check out your local Italian market) that will sell the sausage loose, without the casings, if you feel a bit squeamish about handling the sausages.

In the pan, fry up that sausage over medium-high heat until slightly browned and fully cooked. In my photo here, I have coarse-ground sausage. Yours might be a bit finer, so don’t fret if is doesn’t look quite like the photo. Break apart the sausage as it cooks, to get smaller pieces of meat that will be easier to fill the pepper with (big chunks of meat will make the layering of the “lasagna” quite a bit more challenging). Once cooked, add that tomato sauce in, and stir well.

For the vegetarians in the crowd: you’re going to complete skip the entire meat-cooking step (okay, so that part is probably obvious). This fabulous idea for a vegetarian alternative came from my friend Zoe: cook some orzo according package directions, drain, return to the pot with the Pomodoro sauce, stirring well and heating until the Pomodoro sauce it heated through.

Next step is the ricotta cheese filling. In a small bowl, mix together the ricotta, arugula, egg, parmesan cheese, a pinch of nutmeg and some salt and pepper. This will seem like a shocking thing for a saltaholic like me to say, but don’t go too heavy on the salt. We are already getting salt in the dish from the sausage, pre-made Pomodoro and parmesan. If you’re worried about it, mix everything but the egg and give it a taste-test, then mix the egg in when you’re happy with the flavour.

The last thing to do before assembly is to make zucchini “noodles”, i.e. zoodles. If you have a fancy mandolin, you could definitely use that, or if you’ve got some serious knife skills and can cut the zucchini thinly, that is also an option. I went cheap and easy and used a vegetable peeler. If you’ve not made zucchini noodles with a peeler before, there are a few videos out there you can use as examples. Basically: trim either ends of the zucchini, and run the peeler down the length of the zucchini, and voila! You’ve made your first zoodle! Repeat the peeler step over and over until the zucchini has been converted to zoodles. A lot of the videos/blog posts will tell you not to use the center, but that’s probably because they are making a dish where they are sautéing the zoodles. In our case, the zoodles are forming the “noodle” layer of our lasagna and won’t be moved around during the cooking process, so the centre bits are a-okay. I like using the zoodles instead of pasta noodles to avoid the extra step of cooking regular lasagna noodles. And extra pot to clean and an extra cooking step? No thank you. Another advantage: any of the zoodles you don’t use can just be chopped up quick, thrown in a sealed container in the fridge and added to a sauce, soup or stew later that week.

Are we ready to assemble? Heck yeah!

Cut and core the peppers (thank you Martha!) and lay them in a baking dish. I did a couple different kinds of peppers here. For the typical bell pepper, just cut around the top (stem side) like you would with a jack-o-lantern and pull out the core. Turn it upside down and tap out any extra seeds, and if there is quite a bit of the white inner pieces, just tear them out with your fingers. I also did a long, sweet red pepper, and since it can’t sit upright, I cut out one of the sides instead of the top (the piece I cut off got chopped and tossed in with the sauce to avoid any wastage ;P).

Your first layer will be the sauce (add around two tablespoons per pepper), smoothing the sauce across the base as evenly as possible. Then place some of the zoodles over the sauce, then the ricotta mixture (again, a couple tablespoons per pepper and smoothed out evenly), more zoodles and back to sauce. To get the zoodles to fit, cut them to approximate lengths and layer them on top of each other so that they somewhat cover the layer underneath. We are working with weird shaped here, not a typical rectangular lasagna pan, so don’t worry about getting the layer perfect. Repeat the sauce, zoodles, ricotta, zoodles order over and over until you fill the pepper.

When you’ve filled the pepper, make sure a zoodle layer is the last, top-most one, then top with the shredded mozzarella. Put the peppers into the pre-heated oven for 40-45 minutes, or until the filling has cooked all the way through and the cheese is golden and bubbly. Serve immediately.

If you’re wanting some for leftover, let the pepper cool completely, then place in a sealed container in the fridge for up to three days. You could go through the effort of reheating in the oven, but to be honest, the microwave worked just fine for us.

Happy eating.

“Borscht” Pasta (AKA Deconstructed Borscht with Beet Noodles)

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Borscht “Pasta”

Print Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Course Main Course, Side Dish
Servings 4 people

Ingredients
  

  • 1 large beet (peeled and spiralized into noodles)
  • 2 garlic cloves (minced)
  • 3 Tbsps butter or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup broth (vegetable chicken)
  • 15 cherry tomatoes
  • 1 Tbsp fresh dill (chopped, or 1 tsp dried dill)
  • salt and pepper (to taste)
  • sour cream, for garnish (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Heat the butter or oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until the garlic is fragrant and is starting to brown. Add the tomatoes, and stir, cooking until the tomato skins blister and split. Next, add the beet noodles, stirring to coat the noodles with the butter/oil. Add the broth and cover the pan to allow the noodles to steam for about 5-8 minutes or until they become tender. Uncover and cook, stirring regularly, until the liquid is almost completely gone. Add the dill and stir. Serve with a dollop of sour cream, if desired.
Keyword Beet Noodles, Beets, Borscht, Tomatoes

And now for the details…

Beet noodles. No, not beet-infused pasta, but actual noodles made out of beets. You’re probably already familiar with zucchini or carrot noodles by spiralizing the vegetables, but how about spiralizing beets? The inspiration for this dish came while I was grocery shopping. The grocery store had beet noodles already prepped for sale and my first thought was “what the heck would you do with beet noodles?”

Well… my brain wouldn’t let it go and I felt the need to figure out what I would do with beet noodles. The earthy flavour of beets is quite pungent, so just throwing them in with any old dish as a pasta replacement would heavily change the flavour of meal. Besides, that beety flavour is so tasty, was there a way to highlight it and make the beet noodles the star of the dish? And then it came to me: a borscht-inspired “pasta” dish.

In order to minimize the mess at home, since I’d never tried spiralizing beets, I chose to use a golden beet instead of a purple/red beet. I can only imagine what the kitchen would have looked like after trying to do this with the deeply coloured purple/red beet. Dark red stains everywhere, it would heavily resemble the scene of a murder. So let’s avoid that and go with the golden beet, shall we? Same great flavour. Less mess. *cheesy smile and thumbs up*

When choosing a beet, try to pick one that’s a little on the larger side, between the size of a tennis ball and softball. In order to spiralize, we need to peel the beet first. Don’t worry about peeling off the bottom of the beet, that’s going to be anchored into the end of our spiralizer. The mistake I made here was to spiralize the whole beet without cutting the noodles as I went. This resulted in looooooooooong Rapunzel-like strands of beet noodles that were a little challenging to work with. I would suggest giving them a little snip with food scissors every 8″-12″/20-30cm as you spiralize to form reasonable-length noodles.

Next, we start cooking! Heat the butter or oil in a large pan/skillet over medium heat. Add your minced garlic and stir until the garlic becomes fragrant (is there a smell much better than garlic cooking in butter?) and add the tomatoes. Cook the tomatoes, stirring regularly, until the skin on the tomatoes blisters and splits open.

Add the beet noodles into the pan. Stir them well so they become coated with the garlicky butter/oil. I found the easiest way to do this was to use some tongs to pick up the noodles and shift them around the pan. Add the broth to the pan, and cover the pan, allowing the beet noodles to cook and soften. This will take about 5-8 minutes.

Finally, uncover the pan, and sprinkle with the dill, stirring well. If there is still quite a bit of liquid in the pan, keep stirring and cooking until most of the liquid has been absorbed/cooked off. Finally, transfer to a serving dish and serve with sour cream!

Happy eating.

Creamy Pumpkin Macaroni and Cheese

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Pumpkin Mac and Cheese

Print Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Course Main Course, Side Dish

Ingredients
  

  • 2 Tbsps butter
  • 2 Tbsps flour
  • 2 garlic cloves (peeled and minced)
  • 2-4 cups whole milk
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
  • 1+1/4 cup pumpkin purée (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
  • 1 pinch ground nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 115 g cream cheese (4 oz)
  • 1/4 cup parmesan cheese (grated)
  • 2 cups dry macaroni
  • salt and pepper (to taste)
  • 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts (chopped loosely)

Instructions
 

  • Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add the flour, and whisk to fully mix. Add the garlic, and continue to whisk until the garlic has turned fragrant and the flour as just started to turn golden brown. Add the milk in 1/2 cup portions at a time, whisking completely before adding the next amount. Add the milk until a cream sauce has formed, but not too thin. Cook until the sauce is thick enough to stick to the back of a wooden spoon. Whisk in the pumpkin, nutmeg and cinnamon, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the cream cheese and parmesan and stir until cheeses are completely melted and mixed into the sauce. Set a pot of heavily salted water to boiling. Cook the macaroni according to instructions. Drain the macaroni, then add to the pan with the sauce and mix well. Transfer to serving dish and sprinkle with hazelnuts. Serve.
Keyword Cheese, Cream Cheese, Macaroni, Pasta, Pumpkin, Sauce

And now for the details…

This dish could almost be viewed as an adult take on classic Mac and Cheese. Or, if you’re trying to hide fruits/veggies from your kids (or other members of your household… I do know some adults who aren’t fans of veg lol), you could tell them this is Mac and Cheese and not tell them about the pumpkin 😛 Although, if you are going to try and pull one over on your kids, be aware that the texture is a little less smooth than a typical Mac and Cheese because of the addition of the pumpkin, not to mention the addition of spices!

I came up with this recipe after I’d opened a large tin of pumpkin purée to bake muffins for my in-laws, then had a bunch of extra purée on my hands. I didn’t want to do more baking, so I figured, why not do a savoury take on pumpkin, and use it for a pasta sauce instead?

The cinnamon and nutmeg are subdued and delicate in the sauce, just a small addition to bring a teaser of pumpkin spice flavours. Then the addition of the cheeses brings this dish well into the savoury realm. The hazelnuts add a nice texture contrast, and I love their flavour up against the pumpkin cheesiness.

We are going to start out by making a béchamel, or white sauce. Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat. As soon as the butter has melted, whisk the flour into the butter, and add the garlic. We are going to cook this, whisking constantly, until the garlic has become fragrant and the flour/butter has just started to turn a golden brown.

Next we will be adding the milk. We add the milk in small spurts, about 1/2 cup at a time, and whisking the milk in. The whisk is very important here! This will be hard if you try to using a different stirring utensil. The first couple of additions might worry you a bit. It will be very thick at first, almost paste-like. Fret not! Keep adding the milk a little bit at a time, whisking to fully mix each time, and soon you will have a nice, creamy sauce. Stop at about 2 cups, and see if you need to add any more. If the sauce is quite thick (think yogurt consistency), then you need to add some more milk. If it is closer to about syrup consistency, you’ve got it about right. We are going to cook the sauce for a bit longer after we’ve added all the milk, about 3-5 minutes, or until the sauce coats the back of a wooden spoon. A good way to test it? Drop your wooden spoon in the sauce, then pull it out and run a finger along the back of the spoon. If the line you’ve drawn with your finger stays in place without the sauce running back through it, your white sauce is done cooking. Turn the temperature down to medium-low.

Now is about a good time to get your macaroni a-cookin’. Boil some heavily-salted water, add the macaroni, turn down the heat on the pot to medium, and cook according to the pasta package instructions.

As the pasta cooks, let’s get our sauce finished up. Add the pumpkin purée, nutmeg, cinnamon, cheeses, and broth. When adding cream cheese to a sauce, it’s fastest to break it up into small-dish pieces so that it with melt a little easier. Allow the sauce to heat up until the cream cheese is fully melted and the sauce just starts to bubble. By now, your macaroni should be almost done cooking. Steal 1/4 cup of pasta water and add it to the sauce before draining the pasta, mixing the water in. This is going to help the sauce stick a bit easier to the pasta.

Drain your pasta, then add it right into the pan with the sauce. Stir well until every piece of macaroni is fully coated. Do one final taste test here and add salt and pepper to taste. We waited until the last minute for this, since the pasta water, broth, and cheese will have added salty elements, and it’s best to wait until all those are melded before adding any more salt.

Pour everything into your serving dish of choice, and then sprinkle the pasta with the toasted hazelnuts, and serve.

Happy eating.

Radicchio-usly Easy Salad (with Bleu Cheese and Dijon Dressing)

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Radicchio-usly Easy Salad with Bleu Cheese and Dijon Dressing

Print Recipe
Prep Time 5 minutes
Course Appetizer, Main Course, Salad, Side Dish

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 head radicchio (core removed, cut into ribbons)
  • 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
  • 2 Tbsps olive oil
  • salt and pepper (to taste)
  • 2-3 oz creamy bleu cheese (e.g. Saint Agur)
  • 1/4 cup toasted walnuts (chopped)

Instructions
 

  • Place the dijon and vinegar in the bottom of the salad's serving bowl. Whisk with a fork until fully blended. Continue whisking as you pour the olive oil into the mix. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add radicchio to the bowl and toss with the dressing until coated. Pull the bleu cheese apart with finger into bite-sized pieced and sprinkle over salad. Sprinkle with walnuts. Serve.
Keyword Bleu Cheese, Dijon Mustard, Radicchio, Salad, Salad Dressing

And now for the details…

Oh MAN I love this salad. It comes together so quick and easy, I’m almost ashamed to share it. Almost. But it is also one of my favourite salads, so combine the ease of preparation with the satisfying tastiness of this salad, and it would be an absolute shame not to share it.

This salad was inspired by a similar salad we had in Paris at the Bouillon Chartier. Theirs uses endives, but… endives are expensive! The bitter flavour from the endives is mimicked here with the radicchio instead. Mix that bitterness with the salty, creaminess of the bleu cheese, the tang of the dijon dressing, and the crunch of the walnuts, and it is a match made in heaven.

Radicchio can be very bitter. It’s often roasted or grilled to soften the bitterness, or only added sparingly along with other greens for salads. In this case, though, we are embracing and celebrating that bitter flavour in it’s full glory, and pairing it with the other ingredients to provide nice contrasts of flavours and textures.

Without further ado, let’s make this salad! We are going to make everything in the same bowl out of which we will be serving/eating. This is the glorious part about this salad, it comes together so quickly and doesn’t dirty many dishes. It is one of my favourite lunches right now, since I can throw it together quickly, which is something important right now while I am working from home and need something in a hurry.

Start by placing the mustard and vinegar into the bowl, and whisking it with a fork (the same fork you plan on eating with? Why of course!) until the two are fully mixed together.

Next slowly pour the olive oil in with the vinegar and mustard, whisking as you pour, until the dressing is fully mixed and a homogeneous mix. Add salt and pepper to your preferred taste, and mix well.

Cut the core out of the radicchio and discard, then cut the radicchio into small bite-sized ribbons. Add the cut radicchio to the bowl, and toss with the dressing until the radicchio is evenly coated.

Tear the bleu cheese into bite-sized chunks and add them to the salad. This is not a place to be skimpy; use nice, big pieces, and make sure the salad is rife with cheese! Finally, loosely crumbled the toasted walnuts over the salad, and then it’s time to eat!

Happy eating.

Grilled and Garlic-filled Eggplant (Aubergine) Bruschetta

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Eggplant Bruschetta

Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Course Appetizer, Snack

Ingredients
  

  • 1 medium sized eggplant/aubergine
  • 2 garlic cloves (peeled and shredded)
  • 10 cherry tomatoes (cut into 1/8ths)
  • 1/4 cup basil (chopped)
  • 2 Tbsps olive oil
  • 1/8 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
  • salt and pepper (to taste)
  • Baguettes or crostini (to serve)

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the grill to medium-high heat (~400ºF/205ºC). Poke holes in eggplant skin, using a toothpick or skewer. Place eggplant on grill, and cook for 15-20 minutes, turning every few minutes, until eggplant skin has been blackened and eggplant is soft.
  • Remove eggplant to a strainer and allow to cool and any liquid to drain out while cooling.
  • Add the shredded garlic, tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and paprika to a bowl and stir.
  • Once the eggplant has cooled, remove and discard the skin. Cut the eggplant in quarters and place back int the strainer to drain for 5 more minutes. Slice the eggplant into small pieces, and add to the bowl with the tomato mixture. Stir, then season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with pieces of baguette or crostini.
Keyword Aubergine, BBQ, Bruschetta, Eggplant, Grill

And now for the details…

Oh the eggplant. Also know as aubergine and brinjal in different parts of the globe, this piece of produce is used in a variety of ways, all over the world. Some of us know this “vegetable” (it is actually technically a berry) as the emoji symbol that represents… not… culinary activities… But despite its phallic representation in more recent media, I have a more romantic view of this produce. Not that kind of romance…

Eggplants have such a variety of possibilities when it comes to cooking. Because they are fairly flavourless, but absorb flavours so well, they have an ability to be incorporated into so many different dishes in many different ways. The can be the star of a dish and be served up, lightly dressed, all on their own, or they can be added into sauces, curries, dips, soups, stir fries, and the list goes on…

The fruit itself has such an unusual look and texture. The skin is such a deep, vibrant, shiny purple, and then by contrast, the flesh is a bright, stark, and matte white. Add in the bright green foliage, and the fruit presents its own, unique colour palette.

While it is beautiful to look at, raw eggplant is a bit unpleasant to consume. It’s astringent, and has a weird, spongy texture. However, once cooked, eggplant loses a lot of the tannin-like taste, and the texture instead becomes soft and silken. We are going to use that to add a different textural “bite” to the bruschetta topping in this recipe.

Let’s get to cooking.

Start by preheating your grill. Set it to medium-high heat, so that the temperature will sit around 400ºF/205ºC.

Before we place the eggplant on the grill, we are going to poke holes through the skin all over the eggplant. This will allow the heat to get into the eggplant a bit more thoroughly, and provide a means for the water trapped inside to escape while the eggplant is cooking. You can use a skewer, toothpick, or even a fork to do this. Try to get a fairly consistent pattern of holes all the way around the eggplant, and they can be spaced about 2cm apart.

We are going to place the eggplant on the grill, and cook it for 15-20 minutes, turning every couple minutes to get the char and cook consistent around the whole fruit. Timing will depend on your grill (and its temperature consistency) and the size of eggplant you are cooking. The goal is for the skin to partially char the entire way around, and for the flesh to have cooked all the way through. How do you tell if it is cooked all the way through? You can make a good assumption that once it has gone from being plump skin and is springy to the touch to shrivelled skin and feels squishy that you have reached your end point. The photo below shows the eggplant when it has first started cooking versus the halfway cooking point. While the skin is shrivelled in the photo on the right, the flesh was still a bit springy when pushed, and so the eggplant was not quite done cooking yet.

Once the eggplant is done, remove from the grill, and place in a wire mesh strainer and allow the liquid to drain from the eggplant as it cools. We are allowing this drainage to happen for a couple reasons, one being that we do not want to bruschetta to have all that liquid… it will turn our bread into a soggy mess. And the second reason is that the liquid has a lot of that astringent/bitter taste, and we want to to drain that off. Now, admittedly, from what I understand, eggplant nowadays are not nearly as bitter as they used to be, and the draining is not as necessary as it once was, but there’s still reason number 1, so just let that sucker drain.

And now you have an… *ahem* flaccid… eggplant… Our next step will be to remove the skin and cut the flesh into little pieces. Thanks to all that cooking, the skin should peel off very easily. Cut the top off, and then peel and discard the skin. Cut the eggplant flesh into four pieces, and place back into the strainer to drain for a few more minutes while you prepare the rest of the bruschetta.

Cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Roma or beefsteak tomatoes can be used instead of cherry tomatoes; I used the cherry tomatoes because they were what I had available. Regardless of what kind of tomato you used, it should be about 1/2-3/4 cup of tomato pieces once they’re all cut up. Place the tomatoes, basil, shredded garlic, smoked paprika, and olive oil into a bowl, and mix well.

Finally, bring the eggplant back to the cutting board, and cut it into small pieces, about 1cm in size. Mix the eggplant in with the other ingredients, and add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, you can either split the topping between the bread or crostini and serve, or you can bring the bowl to the table and allow folks to scoop their preferred amount of topping onto their own bread or crostini. Technically, to be a true bruschetta, the bread should be toasted or grilled in some way, but I got super lazy with this one, and instead I just tore a few pieces of fresh, crispy baguette and in half, and scooped the bruschetta topping right onto the bread pieces and sprinkled with a little Maldon salt. It was delicious.

Happy eating.

Fresh Southwest Black Bean “Hummus”

Southwest Black Bean “Hummus”

Print Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Course Appetizer, Snack

Ingredients
  

  • 500 ml canned black beans (14 oz)
  • 3 garlic cloves (peeled and chopped loosely)
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro (loosely chopped)
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 lime (juiced)
  • 2-4 Tbsps olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions
 

  • Drain and rinse beans. Place beans, garlic, cilantro, cumin and lime juice in food processor. Blend until a loose mix has formed. Add olive oil and salt, and blend for several minutes or until smooth. Serve with veggies, pitas, or taco chips.
Keyword Black Bean, Cilantro, Hummus, Southwest

And now for the details…

Hummus enthusiasts may be horrified at the name used for the non-chickpea concoction that is this recipe… I mean, can it truly be called hummus when it contains no chickpeas? Well, probably not, technically, since according to my interweb searching, the English translation for the word hummus is… chickpeas. Ha! Whoops.

But.. don’t hate me… I’m not the biggest fan of chickpeas. They have a slightly grainy texture, even when mushed down into hummus, and that’s just not my cup of tea. Using black beans instead of chickpeas results in a different texture; I find the texture is silkier, smoother. And since we’re going so far off-base with the main ingredient of this hummus, we’re going to go even further by changing the flavour profile by adding in some southwestern tastes.

To get started, drain and rinse the beans under some cold water, then add them to your food processor or blender. Don’t have a food processor or blender to use? There are options: you could use a potato masher, or a mortar/pestle, but if you are going to go with a manual version, finely chop both the cilantro and garlic before you add them.

Next, add the rest of the ingredients to the blender/food processor. Only add about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil to start, we’ll reserve the rest of the oil in case the mix is a little too dry and need more liquid to blend properly.

Give the blender a couple pulses to start breaking up the beans and to get a little mixing action happening. Then, open the food processor/blender up, scrape down anything that’s collected at the top, back into the mix, and repeat until you stop getting loose bits fling up to the top of the food processor/blender.

Once the loose bits are back in the mix, blend the hell out of it until you get a nice, smooth texture. I blended mine for about five minutes straight. You could do more or less, depending on what kind of texture you want out of the hummus once it’s done. Now is also the time we will check in to determine if more oil is needed. If you do try to blend this, and it’s not quite “sticking” or become dip-like, you probably need a tad more oil to blend and bind everything together.

Once you’ve blended it down to your dip texture of choice, scrape out of the food processor/blender and serve! Anything you want to save for later keeps quite well in a sealed food storage container in the fridge for about a week.

For serving, you could go the healthy route and serve it with veggies, but my favourite thing to eat it with is taco chips!!!

Happy eating.

Brussel Sprout Caesar Salad (with Vegetarian Option)

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Brussel Sprout Caesar Salad

Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Course Salad, Side Dish

Ingredients
  

  • 6 cups Brussel sprouts (sliced thin)
  • 2 garlic cloves (peeled and shredded)
  • 1 tsp anchovy paste (optional if vegetarian)
  • 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
  • 2 Tbsps red wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (optional if vegetarian)
  • 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (about 1/4 lemon)
  • 4 Tbsps olive oil
  • 1/3 cup parmesan cheese (grated)
  • 3 slices prosciutto (optional if vegetarian)
  • 1 tsp capers, with brine, smashed into paste (if have omitted anchovy paste and Worcestershire)
  • salt and pepper (to taste)
  • 2 Tbsps parmesan cheese (for garnish)

Instructions
 

  • Slice the brussel sprouts thinly with a mandolin or sharp knife. Either in a blender, or a bowl with a whisk, mix the shredded garlic, anchovy paste, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire, and lemon juice (and capers, if you're going vegetarian). Whisk/blend until fully mixed, then slowly add the olive oil, mixing well as you add. Finally, mix in the parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper, to taste. Toss the sprouts with the dressing and set aside for 5-15 minutes. On a grill set to 350ºF/175ºC, or on a pan set to medium heat, cook the prosciutto pieces for approximately 3 minutes on each side. Remove from heat, let cool, then cut into small pieces. Add the prosciutto to the salad and toss. Top with parmesan flakes and fresh ground pepper. Serve.
Keyword Brussel Sprouts, Caesar, Salad, Salad Dressing, Vegetables, Vegetarian

And now for the details…

In my last post, we had a juicy burger… this post is the accompaniment to that burger. What goes really well with burgers? Coleslaw. But I didn’t feel like coleslaw at the time, and I had brussel sprouts that needed to be used, so instead, the brussel sprout Caesar was born!

The texture in this salad is more similar to coleslaw, but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite keep as one, as we unfortunately found out. The next day, the brussel sprouts had that limp, almost soggy texture that lettuce gets when it’s sat in salad dressing for too long. Not my favourite. So eat this salad on the same day to avoid that!

We start out with prepping the brussel sprouts. Mine were a little forlorn by the time I pulled them out of the fridge to use, so I needed to trim the ends and remove some of the exterior leaves that had gone a bit yellow. I used a sharp knife to get the brussels nice and thin. If you have one, you could use a mandolin. There’s always the option to use a food processor too, but I find the slice on those is much thicker, and not the texture I was going for.

Next we make the salad dressing. Mix the anchovy paste, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire, lemon juice and garlic cloves. If you’re making this salad vegetarian, skip the anchovy paste and Worcestershire, and instead add 1 teaspoon of capers with some of the brine, mashed into a paste. Whisk all the ingredients together until fully mixed. Alternatively, you can add all the ingredients to a blender and blend them together.

Once the ingredients have been well mixed, start slowly adding the olive oil, whisking constantly, to allow the dressing to become a homogeneous mix. The mustard acts as an emulsifier here, so it will help to ensure that the oil doesn’t start separating from the rest of the ingredients once the dressing sits.

Finally, we add the shredded parmesan cheese. If you ware whisking, give this a pretty vigorous mix to help break apart the parmesan a bit to get a slightly creamier texture to the dressing.

Wait until you have mixed in the cheese to add your salt and pepper, since the cheese, anchovy paste, and Worcestershire (or capers) are quite salty, so we want to wait until now to do a taste test, then add salt and pepper to your taste preferences, mixing well. Then, we add the dressing to the brussel sprouts.

Mix thoroughly, then set aside for 5-15 minutes to give the brussels some “soak time” in the dressing. While we are waiting, we can cook the prosciutto (obviously you’re going to skip this step if you’re going vegetarian). I cooked the prosciutto on the grill at medium heat (~350ºF/175ºC), since it was already going to cook the burgers, but you can use a pan on the stove heated to medium heat, and cook the prosciutto for about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the heat, then let the pieces cool, and cut them into small, bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle them and the parmesan flakes over the salad.

Give the salad one last toss, top with some more fresh ground pepper, then serve.

Happy eating.