A little while ago I was contacted by Mushrooms Canada to come up with a recipe using mushrooms for their upcoming Mushroom Masters contest – a little friendly food competition where each week this month 3 food bloggers battle it out with their own unique recipes. I was picked for the button mushroom round and came up with these tasty mushroom empanadas. The mushrooms are sauteed with garlic, fresh herbs and a splash of wine and cream and then wrapped in a beautiful and flaky whole wheat pastry.

You can find the recipe over at the Mushrooms Canada Blog and you can vote for my little pocket pastry empanada to win over at Tastespotting. Voting closes soon, so please go and vote today! I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was paid a fee for my recipe and photos.

Possibly related posts:

• fresh from the market: portabella mushrooms in a balsamic glaze

This is something that a mom would make, except that mine never did. Not that my mom had anything against a dish like this because she did make a very similar pot roast recipe involving beef. But this dish has chicken which is way better in my opinion.

This meal will make your place smell fan-freakin’-tastic. One magical sniff is all that it will take to make this the very best thing to have happened to you over the course of a very rainy and dreary Labour Day Monday. And a plateful is so good that it will almost cure your hangover. Almost.

I didn’t really measure anything for this meal and I think you can go carefree with the amounts and still come up with something awesome. Despite not having any liquid in this recipe, when I opened the pot, there was a delicious gravy. It’s all part of the magic I guess and it made me very, very happy. So happy that I didn’t bother to take a photo. And it was too dark anyway with it being September and rainy and all, so instead you get a weird speedy drawing of colourful blobs to represent this deliciousness.

how to make a really awesome chicken dinner for a rainy day.
Preheat oven to 400F. Cut up a few potatoes into quarters or eighths and put them into a large oven ready lidded casserole dish (I use my thrifted old Le Cruset dish because I’m lucky like that). Cut half a large onion into quarters. Chop 2 carrots into 1-2 inch bits. Throw into pot. Add in 2 handfuls of sungold tomatoes too. Sprinkle with kosher salt, hammer it with freshly ground pepper and rosemary. Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil over top, 4 if you’re feeling fancy free. Toss everything.

Take 4 bone-in chicken thighs and remove skin. season with salt, pepper and rosemary. In a heavy skillet, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil add brown chicken thighs on both sides. When they have a nice colour, place them on top of the vegetables along with the pan juices, put on the lid and put the whole shebang into the oven. Bake for about 45 minutes to an hour. Halfway through cooking time, stir things around a bit so all the vegetables cook evenly, but keep the chicken on top. Remove lid and cook for another 15 minutes.

Possibly related posts:

• sexy beast: blood orange & rosemary roast chicken with roast vegetables
• birthday break: balsamic chicken

While my husband was away for his two-week bicycle adventure, I was left at home to make do with our CSA share. For the past 2 years, we’ve shared our farm share basket with another couple, as one whole share is just too much for a couple. It works out great. But for two weeks, I was going to be the only one eating those organic vegetables. So what’s a girl to do with a gigantic haul of vegetables carried by bike & stuffed into 2 panniers back to her kitchen?

While I did pass a few cukes off to a neighbour and had a bunch of friends over for a “Help Me Eat Up My CSA Haul Luncheon”, I still had a lot on my plate, so to speak. I quickly realized that often by the end of the day I’d be sacked and poking around the vegetable crisper for ideas could result in popcorn for dinner just to make things easy. So one morning, I just decided to put together a bunch of random veggies in a bowl and call it breakfast.

I had some great local corn and fresh dill (not from our CSA) and diced up some green beans, broccoli, mizuna, chard, garlic and red onion. I wanted all the vegetables to cook at similar rates and wanted everything to be about the same size as the corn. I sauteed everything in a bit of olive oil and squeezed lemon over everything when it was almost done. I also had a few remaining drops of heavy cream in the fridge, so that went in as well.

My huge bowl of summer vegetables was tasty. Everything was local and fresh and the corn provided such a great amount of natural sweetness and the dill was the perfect herb here. I called this breakfast, but it would be best as a fantastic side dish – perfect alongside some roasted chicken, a tomato-corn biscuit pie or a black bean burger. And because the taste is reliant on fresh and local, use whatever you’ve got on hand. Zucchini, summer squash or your favorite garden herb would be smart additions. Whatever you’ve got lots of in your garden or CSA share, throw it in!

Elsewhere: Hankering for cake? Try this simple Swedish Visiting Cake recipe over at Poppytalk.

big bowl of summer vegetables
1 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/4 lb green beans, cut into 1 inch dice
1/4 head broccoli, diced (stalks included)
large handfuls each of mizuna & chard (remove bottom stems), cut into ribbons and then cut into short bits
2 cobs of corn, kernals removed
1/3 c fresh dill, roughly chopped
juice from 1 lemon
kosher salt & pepper, to taste
2 T heavy cream (optional)

In a large skillet, heat olive oil and add onions and garlic and let wilt, about 2 minutes. Add in green beans and broccoli and stir around for about a minute or two. Add in the mizuna and chard and do the same. Add corn along with the lemon juice. Sprinkle in some kosher salt and a good grinding of fresh pepper. Toss, add in the heavy cream (if using) and toss again. Remove from heat and serve.

Possibly related posts:

• summer in a bowl: colourful chopped vegetable salad
• quick summer squash & pea saute

I’ve been giving my grill pan a real workout lately. You might think that I’m just making do with indoor grilling because I don’t have a bbq, but the truth is, I really love my grill pan. It’s true that I can’t cook outdoors because I live in an apartment with a tiny balcony – barbecuing would be too dangerous of a risk. But I’m happy because I can get that charred flavour I love plus the grill marks that make my meals seem a bit more exciting.

My husband bought me this pan on our very first Christmas together back in our dating days. Obviously, things were meant to be. Now on with this chicken! This is an easy to whip up kind of dish. While it isn’t the most authentic teriyaki recipe, it can be made with ingredients you’ve probably got on hand right now. It’s sweet and tangy and salty which means that it’s perfect (as long as your taste buds are anything like mine). And look at those grill marks! I used skinless organic chicken thighs here because they manage to stay moist even without skin,they have great flavour and thighs get bonus points for being cheaper than their white meat counterparts.

Elsewhere: Oh boy, do I have some catching up to do! Over at Poppytalk, I make the perfect late summer lunch: zucchini & sweet corn fritters with a fresh cucumber-tomato relish. And I write about all the cool cookbook trailers that seem to be spilling out over at ReadyMade.

I served this chicken with the quick summer squash & pea saute and a beet & daikon radish slaw. The slaw, while pretty in pink, wasn’t perfect so you won’t find the recipe on this blog yet.

quick grilled teriyaki chicken
1/3 c honey
3 T soy sauce
2 limes, juiced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T fresh ginger, minced
1/4 t cayenne pepper
4 skinless chicken thighs

In a small bowl, combine everything but the chicken, whisking so everything is incorporated. Add chicken thighs into a large ziplock bag along with the marinade and let sit for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400F. Heat up a cast iron grill pan (or a plain cast iron skillet). When pan is hot, add chicken. Grill for about 5-8 minutes and then flip.

Meanwhile, add marinade into small saucepan and bring to a boil. Let boil for a few minutes and then simmer over low heat.

Place chicken in oven and bake until chicken is cooked, about 15 more minutes, brushing occasionally with marinade. Serve chicken with reserved marinade if desired.

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• my lazy sunday: lemon & garlic grilled chicken + brown rice curry salad

It took me a long time to get the hang of making pie dough. Then l I discovered the beauty of a galette: no shrinkage, no worries about rolling a perfect circle and no pie weights needed when baking. A  charmingly rustic freeform galette wins over a pie in my books – at least when I’m baking. So when I decided I wanted to try my hand at tart dough, I started to sweat.

Tart dough should be a bit sturdier and thicker than the average pie dough. I wanted to create something more akin to a buttery sugar cookie, so I headed online to see what I could find. I landed on David Lebovitz’s easy jam tart recipe that seemed ideal for my purposes: I had jam + I had nectarines. I also found Deb’s great unshrinkable sweet tart shell recipe and that suited my ingredient list a bit more, so I borrowed here and there and got to it. The resulting dough came together easily and it was buttery and tasted like an almond cookie (the almond extract I added was a nice touch). However, after the dough chilled in the fridge, I closed my computer and decided to pursue the rest of the recipe on my own. That’s where things started to go wrong.

Instead of following one of the tart recipes to the end, I went solo and blind-baked my tart dough which is where things got a little too golden and way too dark too quickly. Maybe my oven was too high or maybe I should never had pre-baked this tart dough to begin with. Maybe you’ve got the secret to a great tart and trust me, I’d love to hear your secrets. I removed the much-too-golden crust from the oven, brushed it with some of my favorite raspberry jam (warmed up to make the brushing easy), I laid some sliced nectarines over top. Ideally, I was hoping for a pretty circle of perfectly aligned fruit, but things just got higglety-pigglety and I let the nectarines fall. It’s rustic, right? I brushed the tops with more warmed jam and back into the oven it went.

Maybe I could have saved everything if I had the kind of kitchen that stocked aluminum foil. I rarely have aluminum foil and I was thinking of banning it completely from my kitchen since it’s just so disposable*. It could have been that all I needed was a small square of the shiny stuff so that the delicate edges wouldn’t have born the brunt of my intense oven. Maybe.

About twenty minutes later, when I removed this thing from the oven, I was crushed. But my husband, always the dessert trooper, was keen to dig right in. So how did it taste? Well the crust was overdone, obviously. It was too sturdy and too hard and it just wouldn’t cut easily with the side of a fork. However, the flavour was bang-on, minus the burnt bits. And the nectarine and jam topping? Perfect. Of course we finished the tart. Nothing a giant floppy dollop of bourbon & honey cinnamon whipped cream and a few ripe blackberries couldn’t handle.

So what did I learn from all of this? Follow a recipe through before improvising – at least when it comes to precise things like baking. Also, blind baking isn’t always necessary. And most importantly, watch your crust & use aluminum foil (or a pie shield) to prevent the tart edges from burning. Burning a tart is a sad, sad thing but look on the up-side because there’s always whipped cream.

burnt nectarine tart (but not on purpose)
your favorite tart dough (try this or this or this)
3-4 ripe nectarines, pitted & sliced
1/2 c your favorite raspberry jam (I love Bonne Maman)
2 T bourbon (or water or orange juice)
whipped cream & berries (optional as a topping, but highly recommended)

Make your tart dough, following the recipe carefully. Blind bake or not blind bake, that’s up to you. Next time, I’m not going to pre-bake the tart.

Heat up jam and bourbon in a small saucepan until the mixture is warm. Generously brush onto pastry, reserving a few tablespoons. Add nectarines in a pleasing pattern (or don’t). Brush remaining jam over top of nectarines. Bake for 20 minutes or until nectarines are slightly wrinkly and the jam is bubbling. Beware burning crust!!

* I should note here that I have successfully stopped using plastic wrap! I’m pretty happy about this. When I’ve got a plate or bowl of something I just use another plate upside down as a lid. Works like a charm. Look ma, less plastic!

Possibly related posts:

• move over pie: raspberry, black currant & nectarine galette
• tart it up: simple tomato phyllo tart

I don’t write about sandwiches often enough – funny for a blog with the word sandwiches in the name. Truth is, I’m really picky about sandwiches and I’m often disappointed with a plain ol’ sandwich. However, when I spied a nice looking portabella mushroom cap at my local Saturday morning farmers market, I knew it was destined to turn into a mighty fine sandwich.

One of the great things about portabella mushrooms is that they are very meaty and even people who can get squeamish about mushrooms will usually love these giant caps. Just remember to remove the dark and muddy gills from the underside of the mushroom (think of it as a fungus Brazilian – a mushzilian, if you will). The gills generally just make things muddy and don’t have much in the way of nutritional value. Once prepped, the mushroom soaks up the garlicky marinade, giving the ’shroom great flavour. Add some grilled red onions and a quick rosemary-garlic mayo and this sandwich makes for one killer lunch.

Because apartment balconies and fire do not mix very well, I use my beautiful Le Creuset cast iron grill pan which creates those coveted grill marks and helps to give that bbq taste. If you don’t have a grill pan, a cast iron skillet works just as well (minus the grill marks, of course). Want to make this meal gluten-free? Use your favorite g-f bread.

garlicky grilled portabella sandwich
1 large portabella mushroom
2 T olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar
1 fat clove garlic, minced
salt & pepper
1/4 red onion, sliced

2 thick slices of your favorite rustic bread
1 small ball of fresh mozzarella (bocconcini), sliced
a thick schmear of garlic-rosemary aioli
lettuce leaves

quick garlic-rosemary aioli
2 T ready-made mayonnaise (store bought is fine)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T fresh rosemary, minced

1. Prep your mushroom by using the tip of a spoon to scrape off the dark gills on the underside of the mushroom. Remove, peel and slice the stem.

2. In a bowl, combine the oil, vinegar, garlic and a sprinkle of salt & pepper. Add the mushroom top and stems, along with the red onion slices into this mixture and let sit for 5 minutes. Flip and repeat.

3. Wipe your grill pan with additional oil (if needed) and heat over med-high. When hot, add the mushroom cap, stem slices, and red onion, and grill for about 3 minutes per side, brushing with any additional marinade. Remove portabella and slice into thick slices.

4. Toast bread under a broiler. When toasted, spread aioli on bread, add mushroom and red onion slices to one side and top with slices of fresh mozzarella. Return to broiler to melt – about 1 minute. Remove from broiler, top with fresh lettuce and the remaining aioli-smeared toasted bread. Makes one sandwich.

Possibly related posts:

• fresh from the market: portabella mushrooms in a balsamic glaze
• quick grilled teriyaki chicken

What a bright and delightful part of the meal this dish was! I’m looking back on this meal fondly because right now with my husband away on a 2 week bicycle trip I’m doing a lot less eating and hardly any cooking. The other night I ate a bag of Cheetos and drank a Coca-Cola and called it dinner. I had the bright orange fingers to prove it. The next night, I ate a pathetic salad made up of weird waxy lettuce from our CSA, fresh corn, red onion, fresh dill, cottage cheese and dressed with balsamic vinegar. It was a strange salad and something I would have probably never made if there were two of us in the house. My solo eating habits are downright wonky. I can blame the heat-wave that Vancouver is currently in the midst of, but I can also blame lack of interest. Part of the fun of cooking, at least for me, is cooking for someone else. I want to share the joy of my meal with someone by my side and Chuck Bass* just doesn’t cut the mustard. But I’m out riding my bike more, going out for long walks and meeting up with friends. Not a bad trade-off, I guess!

But I made this dish as part of a meal when Cornelius was still very much in town. Previously, I had made a great side dish involving zucchini, almonds and parmesan cheese and I wanted to replicate it with the abundance of fresh peas and summer squash that I had going on in the fridge. I shelled a gazillion peas, chopped up the squash and got cooking. This side dish was ready quickly and was not only pretty on the eyes but super tasty to boot. I was really surprised at how delicious the almonds, peas and squash worked together. The lemon added a spark and the garlic created a nice mellow depth. Originally, I had loved how the Parmesan cheese helped to add flavour, but in the midst of getting the rest of our dinner together, I completely forgot to add it here. No matter, because this dish was still very delicious without the cheese. But if you want to add some in, go right ahead, it will be lovely.

Elsewhere: Check out my most recent ReadyMade post about Panzanella Salad. It was one of the best salads I’ve made. Bread, fresh summer tomatoes and I even squeezed in a little summer squash! Delicious. Over at Poppytalk, I posted about some blackberry-lime popsicles just in time for whatever heatwave your currently suffering from. And last week I wrote about a delicious meal I made from fried chickpeas with broccoli & fresh peas.

* Yes, my solo dinner companion is watching Gossip Girl on tv.

quick summer squash & pea saute
1/3 c raw almonds, roughly chopped
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 crook neck summer squash, sliced
1 patty pan squash, sliced
1 lb fresh peas, shelled
1/2 lemon, juiced
salt & pepper
parmesan cheese (optional)

Heat a large pan and add in the almonds and dry-toast them over medium heat until they start to get slightly dark and fragrant. Toss often. Pour in the olive oil and garlic and saute until the garlic gets soft, about 2 minutes.

Add in the squash and toss about for 2 minutes before adding in the peas. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and the lemon juice. When the peas get warm (another 2 minutes), remove from heat. If you choose, sprinkle some parmesan over top before serving.

Possibly related posts:

• big bowl of summer vegetables
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Years ago when I still lived in Ontario I met someone who would eventually turn into one of my closest friends. We worked in the same record store, listened to the same music and wore the same thrift store clothes. One day she invited me over for dinner and we ate make-shift fajitas filled with stir fried onions and peppers and piled with ungodly amounts of sour cream, hot sauce and cheese. It was such a simple meal but I thought it was fantastic. A year later, we moved to Vancouver together, were roommates for a few years (where we worked in opposing record stores) and still remain great friends.

And while we’ve gone through more boyfriends and apartments and jobs than I’d care to admit, I’ve always carried this stand-by meal close to my heart. This dish is a cinch to prepare and it’s spicy and creamy and cooling all at once. I love how the hot sauce mingles with the cold sour cream and the vegetables leech out their delicious juices into the perfect bite. The base is just peppers and onions and this is my favorite way to eat this fajita wrap. But I’ve also thrown in green beans, broccoli, zucchini and whatever vegetable happens to be lingering in the fridge. I’ve added chicken & sprouts and wrote about it once too.

I made this meal a few weeks ago and my friend had called up that very night. I told her how I had made the fajitas and how much they brought me back to those good old days of our twenties and how we had struggled with bills and crazy romances and late night rock shows. I’m through with crazy boyfriends and drama, but I’m happy to have this simple and quick meal in my back pocket.

pepper & onion fajita wraps
1 T olive oil
2 large peppers (different colours look best here), sliced lengthwise
1 red onion, cut in half & sliced lengthwise
1 t cumin
1 t chili powder
1/8 t cayenne pepper
juice of 1/2 lime
4-6 large flour tortillas
toppings: hot sauce, salsa, sour cream, grated cheddar cheese

In a large pan, heat oil over med-high heat and add in peppers and onions, sauteing until
some bits are slightly scorched yet making sure the vegetables have reached the desired slightly crisp/slightly soft doneness. Squeeze with lime and remove from heat.

Warm tortillas over a gas flame or heat using a separate pan until warm and bendy. Place a portion of the vegetable mixture in the middle of your tortilla and pile on the toppings. Fold by flipping up the bottom and folding in the sides into a nice little package. Eat and repeat. Makes 4-6 tortillas depending on how much you fill them.

Possibly related posts:

• easy (& kinda healthy) fajita wrap
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Simple is best. In life I waver on that: sometimes I pile things on, speed up and go for the gusto. But then there are other times when I take my time and go slow and breathe a little deeper. This salad is a perfect example of the latter. It takes that gloopy potato salad and reigns it in to the barest essentials. Brand new potatoes, creamy and mild, are flavoured with olive oil, red onion, lemon juice and cumin. And a hammering* of flakey salt and pepper, of course. Oh, and there’s parsley from my balcony garden for colour. It’s simplicity and it’s a joy, pure and simple.

After my first bite you could see my smile. I was giddy. This potato salad made me laugh out loud. It seems silly, but it’s the truth. I was taken aback at how wonderful it was and how the brightness of the lemon and the earthy cumin mingled and sank into the creamy potatoes. I ate this salad barely warm with a piece of salmon for dinner. Later that night, I opened the fridge and snuck an icy potato from it’s hiding place, dusting it lightly with flakey salt before gobbling it up and licking my fingers. It was one of those Nigella tv moments where time stood still, just me and the potato and the white glow from the fridge. The next day, we ate the remnants for lunch and it was cold and refreshing and just as good and maybe just a smidge better.

Me and this potato salad? We’re going to be best friends.

simple potato salad with cumin
(inspired by the kitchn)
1 lb baby potatoes
1/4 c olive oil
1 1/2 T cumin seeds
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly
juice of 1 large lemon
small handful of parsley, chopped
kosher salt & pepper

Scrub and rinse potatoes, cutting any large ones in half or quarters. Boil in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat olive oil until hot. Add in cumin seeds and red onion over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Pour oil mixture over drained potatoes, add lemon juice, sprinkle with a good amount of freshly ground pepper and kosher salt, throw in the parsley, and toss gently to coat. Serve warm or cold.

* Tracy from Amuse-Bouche for Two left me a comment once about hammering her penne carbonara with pepper. Hammering! I loved that term, I’m using it here and I’ll probably use it in real life too.

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Slowly but surely, the zucchini in our CSA share have been growing by the week. It was easy to deal with the cute little patty pans, the small heirloomed striped zucchinis, and the lovely crook-necked yellow squashes. I was adding them to scrambled eggs, sautéing them with garlic, and happily managing the slow-build of summer squash that was entering our kitchen. Then came the big guns: large, unwieldy dark green and bulbous zucchinis….and I was a little bit frightened.

You see, my husband and I aren’t huge fans of summer squash. While I’m coming around to actually starting to like zucchini (a huge step in my personal development), my husband’s smile wavers when there’s some zucchini staring up on his dinner plate. He’ll eat it but he isn’t happy about it. However, he does like zucchini bread. In fact, the loves it. When I made some chocolate zucchini muffins a few years ago, he went crazy for them. So I figured that the easiest way to deal with one of the monster squash was to grate it into a pile and make zucchini bread.

This recipe makes 2 loaves of the quick bread which is perfect. Cornelius is heading out for a two week bike tour next weekend which will take him and a friend up to Nelson and Kaslo and the surrounding area. One of the loaves will be eaten this week and the other one will be frozen so that he can take it with him in one of his panniers. I’m sure he’ll be very happy to tuck into a slice or two of homemade zucchini bread while resting from the hilly ride along the Crows Nest highway.

While I didn’t stray to far from the original recipe posted by Elise, I did make a few changes. I subbed in roasted walnut oil for the melted butter and added a couple tablespoons of molasses because I was worried from the comments on her post that this loaf could be dry. My zucchini yielded just over three cups so instead of saving the small amount of zucchini for another use, I just stirred it all into the batter. I also added in ground cloves since I thought it would go nicely with the rest of the spices in the recipe. No harm done whatsoever. This quick bread had great flavour and I loved the buttery crunch from the walnuts. The loaf was moist without being greasy and despite the added molasses, this bread wasn’t too sweet at all. It was zucchini bread perfection.

And just a reminder to those using the roads and highways to keep an eye out for cyclists and give them plenty of room when you pass! And this goes out especially to those RV drivers who seem to love to hug the shoulder. Thank you.

walnut & cranberry zucchini bread
(recipe adapted from Simply Recipes)
2 large eggs
1 1/3 c sugar
2 T molasses
2 t vanilla
3 1/3 c grated zucchini
2/3 c roasted walnut oil (or melted unsalted butter or another oil)
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t nutmeg
2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1 c chopped pecans or walnuts
1 c dried cranberries or raisins

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine the eggs, sugar, molasses and vanilla together until well creamed. Stir in the zucchini, oil, salt and baking soda. Add in the flour, a cup at a time, until well blended. Sprinkle in the spices and fold in the nuts and the cranberries.

Butter and flour 2 loaf pans. Divide the batter between the two pans – each will be about half full which will give the loaves room to rise. Bake for 1 hour or until the done – when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then invert them onto racks until throughly cool. Makes 2 loaves.

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