A delicious meal from a few weeks ago and some other stuff

First thing’s first: a satisfying meal I made early this summer with green pea couscous, a thyme roasted tomato, some creamy humus, and an awesome seared fennel dish with radishes, olives, red onion, feta cheese, raisins, fresh parsley and lemon juice. I served this with a nigella seed pita bread, which is so good. I need to learn how to make different breads…

I’m currently listening to Michael Pollan, of The Omnivore’s Dilemma fame on Heritage Radio Network, a great radio station that focuses on “the full breadth of the food industry.” Their shows hosts range from chefs, to critics, to farmers, to influential food and agriculture advocates; it’s amazing.
Check it out: http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/

A bit of culture:

Last night I watched the Polanski film Carnage. The film is based on a play that was written by the writer Yasmina Reza, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Polanski.

I was going to add a link to the trailer but I think it reveals too much. It’s better to watch it without any knowledge of what the movie is about. The acting and script are phenomenal. It might not pack quite the punch it would like to, but it’s nonetheless a well developed satire about 2 deliriously entertaining couples trying to arrive at a mutual understanding over a violent even that took place between their sons. I, personally, was mesmerized by the unfolding action and the actors. Jodie Foster in particular is a knock out. It’s fun, short and unlike anything I’ve watched recently.

What I’m eating

I really need to take my camera out of the cupboard… Having an Iphone has made me lazy about my food photography. Apologies for the following lackluster pictures. I thought I’d post a few pictures of meals I’ve made recently. Nothing too complicated, nothing heavy-it is the summer after all-and mostly locally sourced ingredients.

I’m becoming less moderate about my eating choices. I can’t continue learning about the food industry without make personal changes to what and how I feed myself. I’ll be elaborating on some of these thoughts over the coming weeks and months: suffice to say, it ain’t pretty. Environmental degradation, animal abuse, increased risks of viruses and diseases, waste, corruption, profit over human rights; the list goes on and on.

I’m taking a serious step in reducing my meat intake(including fish). I plan on only buying from sources I know provide acceptable living standards for their animals, and I will do my best to only frequent restaurants that do the same, unfortunately, there aren’t many. I will occasionally make exceptions, but my hope is that within a few months I won’t have to do that anymore. We’ll see how it goes. To a certain extent, to anyone who knows me, I’m reverting to my vegetarianism. Oh boy… I guess I’ll be cooking more than I already do. Hosting parties will have to be more frequent as well.

I bought porc and beef sausages from Valens farms, a cooperative of smaller farms that is doing its best to provide Quebecers with healthier and ethically superior food options. There were 3 small sausages, but that was enough to last me for 3 meals. One advice I always give to people who are considering cutting down on their meat intake is to prepare dishes where less is needed.

Here are a few things you can easily make at home:

1. A peach, arugula and goat cheese salad. We’re getting Ontario peaches in Québec at the moment and they’re wonderful. Mixing them with peppery arugula, adding a few crunchy and spicy slices of radish, and a tart goat cheese and you’ve got something that’s absolutely delicious. There are some toasted almonds in there too, for extra protein, and the full bodied nutty flavor it adds.

peaches, arugula, goat cheese, radishes

2. I bought these corn tortillas at the supermarket last week. They come in packs of about 30 and I’ve had to eat at bunch of different kinds of tortillas recently. The corn that they’re made of is also problematic, as it’s most likely a GMO crop… I’d rather avoid supporting the companies that produce such products, but I succumbed to my desire for something I hadn’t eaten in a long time. Anyways, these tortillas were filled with brown rice mixed with fresh organic corn I bought from a small farm just outside of Montreal, black beans, the above mentioned sausages, tomatoes and some coriander. The spicy paste I made with dried chipotle peppers I had that I soaked in rhum, and blended with tomatoes, roasted garlic, coriander and cumin seeds and some other things that escape me now. Tasty.

tortillas with spicy paste, and a filling of sausages, corn, black beans, tomatoes and coriander

3. This is a salad I was very pleased with. Simple but the ingredients worked very well together and its acidity provided the refreshing quality I was looking for after a sweltering day biking around town. I sliced apples, let them soak in a bit of lemon juice, added redcurrants, olive oil sauteed pieces of bread, sauteed slices of the sausages, sliced Parmesan and mixed all of it with an arugula and endive lettuce blend I prepared. The dressing was a mix of lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, honey, grain mustard, and sunflower oil.

I was quite pleased with this one: arugula, endive, redcurrants, apples, homemade breadcrumbs, Parmesan and sauteed sausages

4. I wish I had had more Feta for the following dish. It was a quick take on a greek salad: dried oregano, tomatoes, olive oil sauteed bread, red onion slices, kalamata olives, capers and the last remaining feta.

Wish I had had more Feta… pretty good anyways

Protein rich salad with Gizzards(optional ;) )

Lunch!

Ingredients:

Mixed salad greens: ideally something peppery and bitter
Sliced cherry tomatoes: seasoned with capers, salt and pepper, thinly sliced onions and olive oil
Boiled and butter and fresh rosemary sauteed cauliflower pieces
Large Parmesan slices: the bigger the better!
Toasted almonds
Boiled quinoa
Hard boiled egg

Option: thinly sliced confit gizzard. I highly recommend this but they’re not always easy to find, so an alternative of confit duck legs, sauteed chicken livers, braised lamb would work. A rich, full flavored and aromatic meat is best; especially if you find some nice bitter greens like dandelion leaves…

Vinaigrette:
Teaspoon dijon mustard
A bit of fresh thyme
About a tbls of sherry vinegar
About a tbls of olive oil
About 2 tbls of sunflower seed oil

This is a fresh but nutrient rich salad. Even without the meat, there’s more than enough protein in here to please your appetite. I’ve been exercising a lot lately and am looking for simple and fresher alternatives to heavier foods. This was a perfect lunch.

Gizzards:
Part of the digestive system in fowl, it’s an organ that’s not very common but seriously tasty. For those who’ve never tried it, the confit gizzards that I added to my salad bore no organ flavor that might dissuade some from enjoying them. There was none of that metallic and farmy flavor that’s sometimes found in kidneys and livers. They’re a richly flavored meat that’s nicely textured. Explore!

Picture taken from Paprikahead site. Thanks.

Yummy veggie lunch fix

I’ve been quite good at eating less meat recently, and especially good at avoiding meat from large producers where antibiotics and hormones are used, and where the animals suffer in what I feel are unethical environments.

However, I’ve noticed that I haven’t been posting any of the tasty vegetarian food I’ve been eating. So, in the spirit of healthy eating and veggie food, here’s what I ate for lunch.

spinach salad and veggie patty humus cracker

orange, almond, sun dried tomato, spinach salad

I’ll start with the salad because it’s more straight forward and doesn’t need much preparation time.

The salad consisted of:

Spinach
one large orange, cut into wedges
3 pieces of sun dried tomato, thinly sliced
toasted almonds
aged cheddar(a softer cheese like fresh ricotta, cottage cheese, or a less powerful Parmesan would have been better)
Sherry vinegar
Dijon mustard

I used the orange juice that had emerged from the wedges for a vinaigrette base, in which I added sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, a tiny amount of Dijon mustard, some dried marjoram, and finally olive oil. The rest involves mixing in the rest of the ingredients, aha. Not too hard. It’s a really nice salad, that would be better as mentioned above with a cheese that is softer on the palate than an aged cheddar.

The cracker on the side had a humus spread, caramelized onions and vegetarian patties I had made the previous nice for dinner.

The patties consisted of:

Short brown rice, pre-cooked
Black beans, boiled and ready to eat
A small grated carrot
A small grated parsnip
Pumpkin seeds
Wheat bran
A few dried dates
one egg
salt and pepper

The ingredients for dish were inspired by leftovers and pragmatism… There are unlimited ways to make a veggie patty, and this is just one of them. In fact, I’ve never made any that were remotely similar to these ones.

The brown rice was a leftover, and the black beans I had soaked and boiled for dinner didn’t appeal me as is. Both ingredients, together, contain the necessary amino acids(the building blocks of proteins) to create a full protein, which I wanted for dinner. To this, for some extra vitamins and minerals, I added the grated carrots and parsnip. I added the pumpkin seeds for more protein and for their high content of iron. They also would provide a textural element. Finally I added about 3 seedless dates and an egg for binding purposes. When roughly blended in the food processor I noticed that my mix was too moist. To rectify this I could have used a number of different solutions, popped amaranth for example, but instead chose to add wheat bran as an experiment. It is an ingredient rich in dietary fiber, essential fatty acids as well as protein, vitamins and dietary minerals. It’s also dry, which is what I needed. I shaped the patties, slowly fried them in a small quantity of sunflower oil in a non-stick skillet and finished them off in the oven. They have a really nice texture and taste good.
Today, cold, combined with the humus and caramelized humus, they tasted even better.

Together, the 2 dishes provide a healthy meal that is easy to digest and cheap to make.

Simple navy bean veggie salad

navy beans, sage, tomatoes, leeks, capers, olive oil,

*The radicchio was not yet added in this picture.

Here’s a quick salad recipe that I made last night. We ate it with some leftovers.

Here’s the ingredient list:

Navy beans
tomatoes
capers
sage
leeks
radicchio
olive oil
sherry vinegar
bay leaf

I put the beans in water when I woke up yesterday morning and let them soak for the day. I gave myself about an hour to cook them in simmering salted water in which I added a large bay leaf and a sun dried tomato for additional flavor.

I thinly sliced the whites of leeks and gently fried them in olive oil. When slightly golden I took them out and added sliced radicchio that I cooked and then added to a small amount of salted boiling water with about a tbls of sherry vinegar.

I added fresh sage to the frying pan, using the oil that was leftover and let the herb cook and develop a bit of crispness. When almost ready I added a small quantity of capers to the pan and sauteed them for a moment with the sage before adding both to the beans that were now ready.

I gently squeezed out the boiling liquid from the radicchio and added them to the beans. To finish it off, I seasoned it with salt and pepper and liberally added a high quality olive oil I only use occasionally. I also sprinkled a touch of lemon juice.

The whole thing was surprisingly delicious!

With a bit of organizing I quickly and simply made a healthy and cheap dish that is easy to refrigerate and yummy.

A pasta salad, an espresso and the lachine canal

Things have been moving along at the same moderate pace on the home-front. We’ve gone back to eating without restrictions, which hasn’t been all that unhealthy. It’s simpler to eat out and I’ve spent less time in the kitchen recently, which is a good thing being that the weather has decided to cooperate in the best of ways recently. Warm, sunny and dry. Never overwhelming. Lovely.

I finished the Pablo Neruda biography by Adam Feinstein and started a university history textbook on Latin America, as well as a Julio Cortazar book entitled “Los Premios”, or, in English, “The winners”. I’m reading it in French though, so I’m actually reading a book called “Les gagnants”!

Julio Cortazar in one of his better looking photographs

The textbook is dense and boring but it’s an accurate, researched and as close to objective as can be resource. My plan is to finish it and follow it up with a book I recently found about the fight for aboriginal rights in South America. Sounds interesting. The Julio Cortazar book is what I get to read before going to bed, and occasionally, during the day, when the dense account of 3 centuries of history becomes unbearable.

Anyways, this post is not about books, or reading, or history: it’s about a nice salad and a wonderful day.

Spinach pasta salad

A quick recipe:
1.Spinach pasta– In our case, store bought but fresh.
– Boil, rinse, and let it cool down with some extra virgin olive oil
2.Carrots
– Grate. 🙂
3.Red Cabbage
– Thinly slice
4.Parmesan
– Grate.
5.Olive oil and seasoning
– sprinkle.

That’s it, and you know what, it was great.

Now on to the wonderful day Carolina and I shared on Sunday, when the sun was shinning, the breeze was gentle and the air refreshing.

We woke up early to explore a neighborhood we rarely set foot in called St-Henri. A new coffee roaster, named after the neighborhood, has opened there and I was excited to discover the coffee and space.

Find out more here: www.sainthenri.ca

The space is simple and elegant; with church pews and cute wooden chairs playing off the charcoal and grey tones of the wall, floor and ceiling. The roaster is one of a new wave of coffee makers popping up around North America. Hip, experimental and passionate, groups of (mostly) younger coffee aficionados are going about producing a mini coffee revolution; establishing an alternative to the large corporate hegemony that developed North America’s love for coffee during the 90s and 2000s. More involved in the roasting and picking of the beans, these artisans are offering exciting new options at small coffee shops around the continent. This is the first one of this kind that I know of in Montreal, and they are slowly developing their coffee. It was better this weekend than when I had tried it some weeks ago at the restaurant I work at. Good to see it improving.

Not my picture

Here are a few that you should look into:

Ritual– from San Francisco

Forty Ninth Parallel – From Burnaby B.C

Metropolis – From Chicago

Stumptown – Brooklyn, NY

There are a great many more, but these are a few you can look into.

So, on to the Lachine canal. Running through Montreal, weaving an imperfectly parallel line with the St-Lawrence, is a canal that was used for a number of different purposes over the last centuries. It’s an inland waterway, on which you can plan water activities such as kayaking, and which inspired the creation of a 15 kilometer bike path that follows its gentle meandering current. What a joy. I’m ashamed to say that I had never followed the bike path before, but oh-so pleased to know that it is there for my enjoyment. On Sunday, I felt liberated. I swooned over Montreal and it’s many treasures and I rejoiced in my discovery. One must absolutely bike down the Lachine canal on a nice day. Bring some food, a book, a sporting good, whatever, but make it a mission for yourself. You won’t regret it. For those of you from out of town, there are bike and boat rental stations, as well as small restaurants and a harbor near the end of the bike ride where you can relax and enjoy life. aha. It’s also very family friendly.

a statue at the parc towards the end of the ride

babe

historical leftovers

happy, happy

Food Detox day 3

Day 3 was a good day!

I managed to work on some video projects, make boiled buckwheat, a roasted garlic black bean dip, a tomato, green pepper and fennel salsa and babaganoush! I also made a lovely fennel salad for lunch, and a berry quinoa salad for breakfast.

I’m missing pictures of the breakfast(I seem to remember taking them, but my camera doesn’t…) but it wasn’t that complicated. I had made a vegetable quinoa salad on day 2 of the detox and had kept quinoa on the side to make another salad for both Carolina and I. So, yesterday morning, having bought great big quantities of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, I mixed them in with the quinoa, some mint, grated ginger(too much actually, aha), freshly ground black pepper, some lemon juice and olive oil. It was a nice way to start the day; with some complete protein and minerals in the form of the quinoa and lots of antioxidants and vitamins from the fruit.

Before going off to edit some video footage I put an eggplant in the oven at 350° for about 45 min for it to roast while I did some work. I also put in a head of garlic covered in some olive oil and wrapped in aluminum foil in order to roast that as well. I simmered some dried black beans and made sure to check on everything every 15 minutes or so. (I once left a pot of boiling barley to cook while I left the house and almost burned the place down…)

Having done some work and snacked on an apple, I went to prep for lunch and dinner. While the eggplant and garlic cooled down, I cut tomatoes, green pepper, fennel, onion, garlic, parsley and toasted cumin seeds for the salsa. I cut it into small even pieces because I prefer the texture that way. I also took out the moist interior of the tomato and put it aside to be used in one of the dips. If you don’t do this I find the salsa contains too much liquid.

I then boiled some buckwheat at a 2 to 1 ratio of water to buckwheat and found out that buckwheat cooked this way really isn’t that great… haha. **It’s been growing on me since, but I’ll need to find some new ways of preparing it. This took not time at all and I left it to rest while going about other business.

I cut my eggplant in half and took out the flesh using a spoon. I squeezed some of the sweet roasted garlic into my food processor, added the eggplant, sunflower seeds, parsley, toasted fennel seeds, chilli powder, turmeric, paprika, lime juice and lots of olive oil. Blended, it made for a sweet and nutty dip with a touch of middle eastern flavors.

After having taken out the eggplant “babaganoush” of the processor, I added the rest of my roasted garlic and added the black beans I had boiled earlier. I also put dried ancho and chipotle peppers in half a cup of boiling water in order to add it to my black bean blend. I added parsley to this as well, some fresh garlic, and the moist tomato insides I kept. Blended, this is my favorite of the dips or salsa I made yesterday. It’s got a biting hot finish from the dried peppers that really complements the pungent roasted garlic that is kept in check by the soft neutrality of the blended black beans…

To all of this I added some store bought humus that fit the parameters of my diet, and I had a wonderful but “mooshy” dish of different foods to feast on. I kept this for dinner at work, where I brought it in a large Tupperware and enjoyed it throughout the dinner service(for those who don’t know, I’m a waiter).

For the fennel salad, I took out my prized sharp chef’s knife and thinly sliced the fennel. I also sliced paper thin pieces of fresh rhubarb and some apples. I toasted some walnuts and mixed all of the ingredients together. I finished it off with fresh mint, some parsley, lemon juice and olive oil. I made myself a dish of the fennel salad, the vegetable salad from day 2, and some of the boiled buckwheat that I had.

Before going to work, I prepared my dips and buckwheat, enjoyed a berry smoothie and had some toasted almonds for good measure. One of the benefits of eating the dips, and things like smoothies are that their soft and liquid forms accelerate the calorie intake and facilitate the body’s use of its energy.

Next up, day 4!

Broad beans, tomato and quinoa salad with veggie pate on toast

I’ve got a quick and light lunch alternative on the menu today.

Carolina bought broad beans( also known as fava beans) recently: a bean I rarely use because of its “offaly” flavor. Broad beans are a staple in a number of cultures because of their ease of growth and ability to suffer through harsh climates. They offer an interesting health mix, with a large amounts of thiamine, potassium, and folacin. They also provide protein, fibers and vit. C.

It was nice to have something different in the house, and I had somewhat forgotten what they tasted like so it allowed me to adjust my recipe accordingly. I steamed the whole pods and took out the beans where I covered them in olive oil and lemon juice. I tasted them, and realized they would be better paired with strong pungent tasting ingredients such as mustard and herbs.

broad beans and tomatoes

I cut some grape tomatoes, green onions and boiled quinoa, while making a vinaigrette that would highlight the earthiness of the beans while providing a nice contrast.
The vinaigrette was simple, a simple mix of red vinegar, dijon mustard, dried herbes de provence, seasoning, and olive oil.

I toasted some multigrain bread and spread store bought vegetable pate on top, mixed the salad ingredients and added some thinly sliced fresh parsley for some brightness.

There you go: a lunch high in protein, vitamins and minerals, and fibers that is very light on the stomach and will keep you going for the rest of the afternoon.

Enjoy.

hamburgers, carrot and apple salad, spinach, and a vegetable indian soup

What a strange cold I have. A slight runny nose on Monday, general physical exhaustion, minor muscle pain, slight feverish deliriousness but no heat to go along with it, allergy related symptoms like itchy eyes and sneezing, ahah.. Whatever, this is not very bad at all if it’s going to be my annual winter cold. Odd nonetheless.

I took a long nap yesterday evening, and essentially woke up to make an elaborate dinner for Carolina and I while listening to CBC’s Jian Gomeshi‘s yearly Canada reads competition that was followed by a wonderful interview of author David Grossman by Michael Enright. Haven’t read any of his work but I’ve heard a great deal about him over the last year and am very interested in doing so. I’m currently reading my 1st Milan Kundera novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which is more of a collection of short stories and portraits than a novel. I am only 42 pages in, so I’ll keep my thoughts for a later date, but will say that I’m enjoying the content more than the writing itself.

Dinner turned about to be delicious. I made burgers. I never make burgers. My choice of organic, hormone free meat was poor, but the lean ground meat I did buy was very flavorful.

I mixed the meat with some freshly grated parmesan, finely chopped yellow onion, added a touch of turmeric, cumin, store bought garam masala, and olive oil.

As an accompaniment I made a salad and some steamed spinach. For my salad I grated some carrots, thinly sliced an apple, toasted some pumpkin seeds, added lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning, and finished it off with some fresh mint. Very refreshing…

spinach and carrot, apple, pumpkin seed salad

I served the burgers with tomatoes, and bought these amazing multigrain thick pitas that, when heated, puff up and are easy to cut open into a convenient pouch where you can put your burger and whatever condiment you’d like to have with it.

Now, before preparing our dinner, I decided to make a Indian curry soup with vegetables that I had in my fridge. I evenly cut 2 yellow onions, grated 3 garlic cloves and a large chunk of ginger, which I proceeded to sweat down in a pan over medium heat. I made myself a quick mix of spices that contained turmeric, cumin, coriander, fennel, cinnamon, cloves, paprika, chili powder, and cayenne. When the onion, garlic, and ginger was cooked down to a mush, I added my dried spices to the oil and let the spices cook for about 30 sec, making sure they didn’t burn. I then followed by adding the vegetables and enough water to cover the vegetables. I let that simmer while making the rest of dinner. After having eaten, I put the soup into a a few smaller tuppers, some of which I put in the freezer and 2 that I saved for tonight’s dinner.

Ok, that’s it for now. I have a video project to make tonight.

See ya

Quinoa salad, pita chips, humus and leftovers…

homemade pita chips, humus, brown rice, squash and cabbage leftovers, quinoa salad with cherry tomatoes, blue potatoes, green beans

I was alone for dinner last night and needed to use up some of the vegetables we had bought during the weekend. A short jog where my throat and lungs burned of cold convinced me to cooking with what was available at home. I’ve always approached assembling dinner by thinking of my protein, my carbs, and my ‘healthy’ vegetables(more often than not, the green ones…). I think this is a result of my mother’s influence. Whatever the case, I think it is an efficient way of making sure you’re properly balancing your diet. However, sometimes I find it constrictive. I fall into the boring habit of developing my meals around the meat, fish, or vegetarian alternative as the center piece. Often, it’s simply very convenient. Sear, sautee, bake, roast your protein; bake, boil, mash, steam the rest… Simple, quick, and if done well; tasty. ( I really need to take a class on using punctuation… I’m an ok writer but my use of punctuation is cringe worthy.) What also happens when you cook this way is that you’re guaranteeing yourself at the very least two distinct flavors. A salad, stew, sautee, and so on, will have distinct elements within it, but they will combine with the other ones to create a new one. My gluttonous self loves variety so when I make these types of dishes, I usually prepare something else to go with it, and that can take up too much of my time.

This is when leftovers are good to have. I decided to make a quinoa salad because of its high content of quality amino acids, i.e the building blocks that make up proteins.

**I’ve described the benefits of quinoa before but will quickly go over them again, as they are a fantastically healthy food to eat. Quinoa is one of the rare plant foods that contain all of the essential amino acids, and is thus a complete protein. It is high in magnesium, dietary fiber and iron, is simple to make, relatively cheap and easily digestible. **

I had some blue potatoes, cherry tomatoes, onions, chives, green beans in the fridge and decided to build my quinoa with the aforementioned ingredients.

I boiled the quinoa, while I cut the potatoes and green beans into smaller pieces so that I could steam them quickly, and I went about mixing my halved cherry tomatoes, finely chopped onions, and chives with red wine vinegar, olive oil and seasoning. When both the quinoa, and the potatoes and green beans were ready, I let them cool down, and mixed them with the tomato mix, adding more olive oil, vinegar and seasoning to taste.

red quinoa, blue potatoes, green beans

To make my dinner more exciting, I made pita chips with stale pita bread I had, by cutting it into slices, mixing it in olive oil, paprika, garlic, chives and thyme. I baked it in my toaster oven for around 10 minutes at 400°.

pita chips

I made a plate with some leftovers from the other night: braised squash and cabbage, brown rice, the quinoa salad, humus and the pita chips. Not bad for a simple meal after a long day. I got my protein, lots of fiber, and a host of other important minerals and vitamins without too much work involved. The meal was light and I easily digestible. It contained a good mix of simple and complex carbohydrates and thus left me feeling energetic and alert for the rest of the night.