Tag Archives: salad

Midnight Salad in the Garden of Blueberry

7 Feb

I don’t usually recommend late night snacking… however, last week after an unusually long day a tasty little salad did not seem too much of guilty pleasure. Late night snacks have their downfalls, the main one is that sometimes the ingredients necessary to make that perfect recipe are just not in your fridge or pantry. This recipe was the result of such a situation. Sometimes food made from scratch just tastes great!


Midnight Blueberry Salad
Ingredients
I package of baby spinach (about 4-5 cups)
1 cup of Blueberries
1 cup of crushed walnuts
1 cup of crisp bacon bits
2 TBS of apple cider vinegar
1 TBS of Dijon mustard
1 clove of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
lemon zest

Directions
1. On medium low heat cook bacon, until crisp on the edges;
2. While bacon cooks, in a large salad bowl combine blueberries and spinach;
3. In a small mixing bowl mix the pressed garlic, mustard and apple cider;
4. Once the bacon is cooked, remove and place on a separate plate (DO NOT THROW OUT DRIPPINGS!!);
5. Cut the bacon into small pieces and then add the garlic to the remaining bacon fat;
6. Let it cook for about 2 minutes or until you can smell the apple cider;
7. Toast crushed walnuts in oven at about 350 F until you can smell them – about 2 minutes;
8. Add bacon, walnuts and dressing to spinach and blueberries…and VOILA!

You can definitely change this recipe to your liking. This is one of the reasons it is so great. Varying a couple of ingredients keeps your taste buds happy. For example, if you don’t like mustard you can leave it out. This will make the taste of the dressing milder. Or if you prefer almonds throw some in. The flavors that make this interesting are the blueberries, the bacon and the tart flavor of the apple cider and garlic. Anything else can be switched… maybe some fresh blackberries? Mmmm sounds good!

If you have any questions drop me a line. In the meantime enjoy my Midnight Salad in the Garden of Blueberry .

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Teo’s Terrific Tuesday’s- Beets two ways….

29 Jun

Some more great food ideas from Teo!

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If you’re anything like me, beets are far from your mind in the
spring/early summer. Beets belong in the fall with all the other root
vegetables: boiled, roasted, pickled…served up with gherkins and
cocktail onions alongside your grand maman’s tourtière. But I can’t
stop seeing them these days. Tiny, bright beets at the tips of
ginormous veiny leaves, alongside decidedly summer fare like
cucumbers, tomatoes, and new potatoes. And after all, why the hell
not? Tiny, little, succulent, tender-as-they’ll ever be beets. Sign
me up.

Now, many people are not beet fans. It’s alright. I must admit that
I wouldn’t touch them myself until my late teens. And then, I
suffered through them for a while, convinced that–given their colour
and weird-ass taste–they had to be good for me. But now I love them.
And you should too.

These are two of my favourite beet recipes. If you are a tentative
beet-er, you may want to start with the cooked salad. If not, go
ahead and try the raw beet one. Either way, you’ll get lots of iron,
potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, and vitamins A and B. Beets are an
excellent detox-booster, as they tone blood and feed red blood cells.
Enjoy!

Beet slaw

For this recipe you will need
ingredients
5-9 beets, depending on the size
2-3 limes, depending on how many beets
1 carrots (optional, for colour)
1 clove of garlic
3-4 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt and pepper
1-2 avocadoes, ripe

Directions
1. Do not peel the beets if you can help it–the skin has most of the
fibre. Scrub them well, and maybe peel them a bit towards the top
(where the root meets the stem) and the skin is thicker. Peel around
any bumps and rought spots, but otherwise leave the skin on.
2. Grate the beets using the bigger setting on a cheese grater (I
have a flat handheld grater and it is a god send). Watch your
fingers. Try to grate directly into the bowl or you will have a
purple kitchen.
3. Grate the garlic into the beets. Raw garlic is an excellent
antimicrobial (ie, a yeast killer, it rids the intestines of bad
bacteria to leave room for the good ones to grow) and this is an easy
way to get some in. But if you are not a raw garlic fan you can skip
it here to no great harm.
4. Grate your carrot in for colour. I mean, the whole thing will be
purple, but some people like shades.
5. Squeeze your limes and toss the juice in with the beets.
6. Drizzle in the sunflower oil and toss well. Season to taste.
Place salad in serving bowls.
7. Cube your avocado and serve on top. Try to get a chunk of avocado
with each bite. Awesome…

Beet and corn salad

For this recipe you will need
ingredients
5-9 beets, depending on the size
1 red onion (or half if very big)
2-3 handfuls of frozen corn (ie, 1/2 to 1 cup), thawed
1 bunch of parsley, I prefer flat leaf (ie, Italian) in this recipe
but there is absolutely no reason why
3-4 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper
Sunflower oil

Directions
1. Cook your beets. It takes a long-ass time. Be patient. When a
fork can make some headway in but they feel like they would still
crunch a bit, they’re ready.
2. Rinse your beets and soak in cold water. Peel them (the skins
should just rub off, but sometimes a little help from a knife is
welcome).
3. Cube them. You are going for bite sized pieces. Don’t chop too small.
4. Slice your red onion THINLY. You are going for quasi-Goodfellas
slivers. Toss them in with your beets.
5. Wash and coarsely chop your parsley, toss it in.
6. Drain your corn and toss it in.
7. Salt and pepper to taste.
8. Add vinegar. Drizzle with sunflower oil. Toss. Toss again. Eat!

PS. Beet greens are a whole other level of adventurous. Try
sauteeing them or steaming them. The trick is to cut the bitterness,
so add a little bit of orange juice or, oddly enough, balsamic…and
lots of salt and olive oil.

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A Lovely Montreal Lady & A Singing Spring Asparagus Salad, what a duo.

29 May

This lovely Montreal lady is a good friend of mine and the one who introduced to me many recipes. This lady and I love going to the Jean Talon market to buy some market fresh seasonal ingredients. We make it into an adventure whenever we go, ask her about the time we bought some pepper plants! Her name is Teo, she is a fearless cook, who can throw herself into any recipe with a sense of enthusiasm and adventure that is almost enviable. I have invited her to share some of her recipes and she so graciously agreed! Here is Teo’s Singing Spring Asparagus Salad.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Wild rice is actually a seed, not a grain, so it’s a great go-to for
those of you eating paleo or staying away from refined carbs. [So is
quinoa, actually, but more on that later if Helen wants to invite me
back.] Asparagus is synonymous with spring, and whenever I see it in
big bunches at the market I get a little giddy. It’s everywhere now,
so try to get your fill before it’s gone. If you go to the Jean-Talon
market, there’s a man selling bunches of wild Québec asparagus, for
pennies (South side, next to the fresh eggs and where, later, the
awesome garlic will be). Mental. If you get wispy thin stalks
(smaller than a pencil) then you should chop them in
two-centimeter-ish long pieces. Anything little-finger sized and
bigger should be chopped very thin. You might want to do them on the
thickest setting of your mandolin, if you have one…ie, about the
thickness of an earlobe would be good. Enjoy!

For this recipe you will need
Ingredients
4-6 leaves of fresh sage, slivered (tarragon would be good too)
1 french shallot (or a few tablespoons of onion), diced very very finely
1 bunch of asparagus, sliced as per headnote
1 handful and a half of hazelnuts
1 to 1 1/2 cups of wild rice
1-2 lemons, juiced (depending on how juicy your lemons are and how
tart you like your dressing)
1 small dollop of dijon mustard (3/4 of a teaspoon-ish)
Salt and pepper
Touch of maple syrup, agave, or raw honey
4-5 tablespoons of sunflower oil (or olive, if that’s what you’ve got)

Directions
1. Cook the wild rice, with a ratio of 1:3 rice:water. You might
want to do this the night before, it takes a while. Let it cool.
2. Roast your hazelnuts for a few minutes under the broiler or in a
pan. Once they darken, you can remove them and roll them around in
your hands if you want and the skins will rub right off. Not
necessary, but its up to you. This is especially good if you are a
notorious forgetter of nuts under the broiler, like I am. If you’ve
all about the raw, you can skip this step…but you’re missing out on
a little flavour.
3. Crush the nuts. If you’ve got a mortar, bust it out. If not, put
the nuts in a sandwich (or vegetable) bag, place it on a cutting
board, and hit it with a knife handle until you get the right
consistency. You are going for pumpkin-seed sized pieces. Stop or
you’ll get to flour.
4. Toss the salad ingredients together. Enjoy the colour combo.
5. Whisk your lemon juice with the mustard until frothy. Add your
sweetener. Your goal is to take the edge off, here, so be careful and
just use a touch. You don’t want to taste it in the final product.
6. Season to taste. Add the oil and whisk some more. Sunflower is
preferable because it is lighter and has a more muted flavour. Since
the flavours in this are subtle, you want to let them shine as much as
possible. But olive works, so don’t worry about it if that’s what’s
on hand.
7. Toss it all up! It’s a good idea to let this sit for a few
minutes before you eat it. The time to pour yourself a drink or get a
good book to read in the sun while you eat…

Enjoy! And thanks for having me.

Variations: if you’ve been to the market and have found some fresh
sweet green peas, you might try tossing them in here. If you do, I
recommend skipping the sage and opting for fresh mint instead. Fresh
mint and fresh peas is a marriage made in heaven…

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The Kale Salad of Awesome

18 May

This salad is definitely a healthy treat. Last summer I had the chance to have some of this great salad when a friend of my mine passed down the recipe. WARNING, this is a hearty filling salad and may become addictive, that is why I call it The Kale Salad of Awesome.


For this Recipe you will need
Ingredients
1 large bunch of Kale
1 one medium/large ripe avocado
2 carrots
1 lemon
1 garlic clove, or more if desired
Olive oil
salt

Directions
1. de-stem Kale ( remove all the tough spines on the leaves)
2. Pour olive oil on kale ( be generous)
3. massage bit size leaves with olive oil until all the leaves are coated
4. let it soak up the oil while you…
Wait about 15 minutes. Time you can use to prepare the other ingredients.
5. cut up the carrots julienne style
6.cut the avocado in two halves cut lengthwise and crosswise incisions into the meat
7. juice the lemon
8.press the garlic
9. Salt the kale leaves generously and TOSS
10. Add lemon juice, avocados and carrots
11. TOSS TOSS TOSS

This salad is awesome for many reasons:
Reason number one, the ingredients are super healthy ! Kale is amazing, I usually buy mine at Rachelle Berry, its fresh and organic and yummy. Reason number two with regards to awesomeness, is the textures in the salad the ripe avocado and the hearty kale leaves are a great contrast that is enchanced by the garlic and lemon. Reason number three, the salad will not wilt even with the dressing after a night in teh fridge. So you can definitely make this salad to have the next day.

If you have any questions drop me a line!

Have a happy kale time !

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