When making Martha Stewart’s recipe for lemon garlic chicken, omit the garlic or reduce the amount of lemon.  The acid in this recipe turned my garlic turquoise!  While safe and edible…  turquoise garlic on your chicken breast isn’t very appealing.  Sorry Martha, this one gets an F!

Just a little restaurant review quickie…  last week I was heading back to work after my monthly checkup (it was the glucose test appointment and I was a little buzzed - I’m not big on sweet drinks, pop etc.  Suffice to say, I had the munchies.)  Now, I work in an area of Hull that lacks well..   pretty much everything except for cubicles.  I knew I needed to pick something up on the Ottawa side or I would be beelining to the snack table (our version of a vending machine).  And chips and junk food was not exactly what I needed after drinking sugar slurry.

For the remainder of my ride back downtown on the #85, I mentally filed through quick and healthy options in the downtown core that wouldn’t require too much of a detour.  I had come to the conclusion that Bridgehead was probably my best bet, but then I remembered the Scone Witch!  Ding!

Ok, so the scone option probably isn’t as healthy as a tuna sandwhich with sprouts, but I figured it would be quick and hello… scones.  MMM.   Also, I hate tuna.  It also meant less walking.  Yay! Everyone wins.

I ordered the BLT with pesto “sconewhich” on a cheddar scone.  I made it to the bus stop before ripping open it’s little wax paper wrapping and there I sat in scone bliss as I waited for my chariot to Hull to arrive.   So delicious.  I think I’ve had scone-brain since then.

This is one of the definining recipes in our household.   I made it for my “new boyfriend” over three years ago and today we are celebrating our one year wedding anniversary!  This recipe works.  Miracles.  The clincher for us was sending the boy off with an extra slice for his lunch the next day.  It was the classic boy trifecta “trap”:  cheese, meat and pastry.

The funny thing is - it’s so ridiculously easy.  (Unlike finding a date in Ottawa!)  So, if you think you’ve found a “keeper”, whip up this meal and let the cheese do the work.  It’s a pretty flexible recipe - this time I added some leftover asparagus and back bacon.   Sometimes, I add onions, spinach or broccoli.  Use what you’ve got.  It all tastes like cheese and nutmeg in the end.  MMM.

Boyfriendly rating:  Off the scale.

Ingredients: 

• 1 - 9″ pie shell (the frozen kind will do)
• 4 eggs
• Slices of crumbled bacon (I used Canadian back bacon.)
• Toss in optional veggies: spinach, asparagus, broccoli etc…
• 1 cup of evaporated milk
• 1 cup of shredded Guyere and Swiss cheese
• 3-4 green onions
• 3/4 tsp nutmeg
• Dash of salt and pepper

Whisk eggs, millk, onions, meat and spices together.  Pour the liquid mixture into the pie shell. Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes.  I like to place the quiche on a baking sheet, just in case there’s some bubbling over.

I’ve had this recipe for rhubarb crisp bookmarked for a couple of weeks and I finally got my act together and whipped it up yesterday.  It’s a bit healthier version of crisp - it has a lot less sugar and includes whole wheat flour and wheat germ in the crispy topping.  Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste like some sort of crazy health-guru-granola recipe.  I was pretty sure, it was going to be really bitter with a crispy topping that tasted of cardboard.

Of course, a recipe cooked in our household wouldn’t be complete without a few substitutions:

First, I swapped dried cranberries for raisins.  Raisins do NOT belong in baked goods.  YUCK.  (Unless, it falls under exemption #124 - Subsection: Butter Tart.  That is the ONLY exception.)   The second change, was an addition.  I chopped up about a tablespoon of candied ginger to add to the rhubarb mix.  Why?  Because rhubarb and ginger are meant to be together.  Why deny them??

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5  “Five cups is a lot of rhubarb - make sure you have lots.”

My littlest tenant (not Orville) is a bit too fond of my cooking and has been hoovering my food at an alarming rate this month. Tonight, I needed to put my foot down and cook the healthiest, most granola dinner I could think of and use up the bits & bobs from the fridge at the same time. After  googling random keywords like: chickpeas, asparagus and every sort of healthy whole grain I had in my pantry (quinoa, millet, couscous etc), I came across this brown rice and asparagus meal from 101 Cookbooks. PERFECT.

I set the brown rice on the stove as soon as I got home and let it cook away for 40 minutes. Heidi suggests using frozen brown rice - I have *never* seen that in a grocery store.. and frankly, ick. While the rice cooked away, I blended up a batch of gazpacho, prepped the veggies and whipped together the dressing for the rice.

Everything came together really nicely. I think there’s a little too much lemon juice in the dressing recipe or else I over-zested it - I needed to add a bit of honey to balance out the tartness. Other than that - I would definitely make the asparagus and brown rice dish again. Take that my little tenant/hoover.

Boyfriendly rating: 4/5 “Go easy on the lemon juice / zest”

Must run, my freeloading fur-tenant, Orville, just crashed into something. Cats are supposed to be graceful, no?

The good news is our air conditioner works.  The bad news?  The cat is scared of it and he pouted all.day.long. on Sunday.  Even ice cubes in his water bowl didn’t seem to cheer him up.  Too bad he couldn’t enjoy these kiwi lime coolers like we did.  Um..  how did we go through the ENTIRE pitcher in one day?

I had a recipe clipped from Delicious magazine, but I did a few substitutions - I always find there’s too much sugar in homemade iced teas and drinks so I reduced it by half.  And you know what?  You’d never know.  Also, their recipe didn’t call for any green tea and I thought it would make the drink taste a little more grown up and less like … well… kiwi juice.  And it worked!

Boyrfiendly rating: 5/5  “Yum!”

Ingredients: 

• 6 green kiwis
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1.5-ish cups of boiling water
• 1 green tea bag (I used Tazo “Zen”)
• 1/3 cup lime juice
• sparkling water (I used lime flavoured)
• Fresh mint

Boil water and add tea bag and sugar.  Stir to dissolve sugar.   Let tea steep for 5 minutes.   Remove tea bag and add roughly chopped kiwis and lime juice.  Using a hand blender, blend the mixture until smooth.  Add ice cubes or let chill in the fridge until cool.  When ready to serve, pour about half of the kiwi mixture into a glass and then top up with your sparkling water and fresh mint.   Relax!

Oh, how I wish I had taken a photo of this soup before we hoovered it down for dinner last night.  The basic recipe for this soup was in the most recent issue of Delicious in the ‘Tuesday night cooking’ section.  We made it on a Wednesday.  No matter.

I think the recipe from the magazine was a little sparse and called for a only single can of diced tomatoes.  There was no way the basic recipe was going to tide us over for dinner AND lunch the next day (especially when one of us has a little tenant moocher).  And, so the recipe took a Jamie Oliver-esque twist and I started adding extra tomatoes and herbs and reducing other things - like chicken broth.  No one like watery tomato soup.  Yuck.

This is a super quick, easy and healthy meal.  We even crumbled some of our homemade ricotta on top.  Mmm.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5  “Just make sure you aren’t wearing your brand.new.shirt when puree-ing the soup.”

Ingredients 

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cans diced tomatoes (798ml).  Preferably the no-salt added variety.
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 cloves garlic - chopped
• 12 sundried tomato slices
• 1/2 tsp each of thyme, basil, oregano
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste
• A few stems of fresh basil
• Package of cheese or meat tortellini

How to:

1. Boil water in a kettle and soak the sundried tomatoes for 5-10 minutes until they are soft.
2. In a pot, add the olive oil and chopped garlic.  Stir-fry for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, herbs and broth.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil and cook the tortellini.
5. Add the sugar, salt and pepper to the soup.
6. Use a hand blender to puree the soup until smooth.
7. Chop and add fresh basil to the soup, but reserve some for garnish.
8. Spoon soup into bowls, add tortellini and garnish with basil.

Serves 4 as a main course.

I was cutting out recipes from a stack of cooking magazines this weekend and came across Donna Hay’s method for making your own ricotta. I had also cut out a recipe from Martha for a grilled asparugus and ricotta pizza. Why not try to make the ricotta for the pizza?

Now, Donna Hay’s version seems to call for 6 cups of whole milk - because I guess down in Australia they sell milk in 1.5 litre bottles?? Who knows… but I know I didn’t feel like buying two litres just to please Donna.

To make the ricotta, you place your 1 LITRE (take that Donna) of milk in a saucepan and heat until it reaches 80 degrees Celsius. Remove the pan from the heat and add vinegar. I used 1.5 Tablespoons of cider vinegar. Of course, if you’re following Donna’s recipe, she uses 2 tablespoons.

Donna’s version calls for white vinegar, but I didn’t have any on hand. I must have used it all when I was cleaning our windows in the spring. (I bet Donna doesn’t have to clean her own windows!) Anyway, I used cider vinegar and as you can see, it still turned out.

Next, you need to carefully scoop the curds out of the saucepan into a strainer lined with muslin. Donna makes it very clear that you can’t just POUR the curds into the strainer - no no - this will ruin their delicate curdiness. So we scooped. But you know what? We totally poured the last bit into strainer.

And it strained. *whistles*

And now we have about a cup of homemade ricotta just waiting to get smeared onto a pizza.