All posts filed under: Dinner

Oktoberfest Recipes: Spaetzle & Pork Schnitzel/Jägerschnitzel

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I am very happy that fall has finally arrived! By far, fall is definitely my favourite season of them all since it comes with warm drinks, cozy sweaters, and new delicious produce (think apples, cruciferous veggies, squash, pears) that make the perfect cozy and warming comfort foods. It also means that since it cooler and you are wearing warmer sweaters, there is a greater opportunity to make a bit of extra room for some tasty desserts! Haha 🙂 As I alluded to, fall is all about hearty, soul-filling comfort foods for me. Everyone has them—that special dish that makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. For me, this includes hearty soups and stews, meatballs that have simmered all day in a big pot of tomato sauce, mac and cheese (and other carby casseroles), spiced cakes and sweet desserts. The list could literally go on and on….and trust me it does. The list is so long that I have enough recipes to share with you for the next 3-4 years, so it’s safe to …

Blueberry Stuffed Chicken

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Blueberries are getting the royal treatment today on the blog with this elegant recipe for Blueberry Stuffed Chicken! We are in the fourth day of #BCBlueberryWeek here on the blog and I am excited to reveal this recipe to you. Not only did I work really hard on the food styling (I feel so professional) but I also worked hard on the recipe too! It had many similar components as my Blueberry and Grilled Chicken Salad that I posted a few days ago- chicken, goat cheese and blueberries (of course)- but these flavours just go so well together! The only thing that’s different is how I prepared and presented them! Stuffed chicken breasts are a mid-week favourite around here. I stuff chicken with spinach and cheese, sundried tomatoes, cheese and ham, rice and spinach- you name it! But I particularly love stuffed chicken breasts because they are so versatile! You can take them from a humble mid-week meal to a star main course at a dinner party in no time! I definitely think that stuffing …

How to Throw the Perfect Summer Picnic

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Warmer weather calls for some al fresco dining. Whether in the park, on a beach, or just in your backyard, packing the perfect picnic means having food that travels well and tastes delicious. I’m here to give you some great tips, recipes and a styling guide on how to host the perfect summer picnic. Equipment The Picnic Basket (and alternatives) Let’s start with the basic equipment that you need for throwing your summer picnic. First and foremost, you will need something to carry all of your food, drinks, dishes and servingware in. If you want to look sophisticated and have everything in one place, a fully-outfitted picnic basket is the way to go. I love the look of the traditional weaved straw basket, the leather handles and the hunter green fabric on our basket. I also love that it comes fully loaded with all the dishes, glassware and plates that we need for a picnic plus some bonus items like a wine cozy, a wine opener, and mini salt and pepper shakers! Of course, you …

Steak Salad with Roasted Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette

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Summer is the best time of the year to eat the many varieties of tomatoes that are out there-whether they are cherry tomatoes, beefsteak, heirloom, zebra… the list goes on and on! Those sweet, juicy, plump colourful gems taste absolutely delicious after ripening outside under the sun. This gives them a deep and rich tomato flavour and makes them taste incredibly sweet. I also love the texture of tomatoes that have been grown in the summer as they are juicy and yet still firm and not ‘mealy’ like the tomatoes that you get during the winter! While I can go on and on about the reasons why I love tomatoes and tell you about all the different varieties that are available, I will save that for a later post. For now, I would like to share a delicious recipe that uses my favourite tomatoes of the season: cherry tomatoes. They pack an incredibly sweet punch (for a tomato, that is) and just burst open with flavourful juices once you pop them in your mouth. If …

Pork & Sambal Green Beans

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It has been a scorcher here in southern BC for the past few weeks and with a west-facing apartment, temperatures inside our cozy home have easily reached 100 degrees in the evening. Rather than avoiding turning on my stove and sticking to no-cook recipes like salads and sandwiches, I fired up the stove to make a hot dinner; hot in the sense that heat was used to cook the food, and hot in the sense of spice. I was drawn to make some spicy food during this heat wave to test the theory that eating spicy food when it’s hot outside actually helps to cool you down. I never really tested this theory before as I have lived in a cool Canadian climate my whole life (or have had air conditioning to compensate those few hot days we get up here); but I heard that this theory actually works and has worked for people who live in perpetually hot climates for hundreds of years. So since we were stuck in this heatwave and sans air …

What’s In Season: A Guide to Steak

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There’s nothing like chilling outside in the sun with an iced drink, listening to some funky music, and grilling up a fantastic meal. Luckily, as temperatures rise and the days get longer, we inch closer and closer to these days that I live for. I really enjoy this slow-paced, relaxed and somewhat primal form of cooking as it’s quite different from my every day kitchen-bound cooking. You get to hear different sounds, smell different mouth-watering smells, and feel different textures and sensations. Plus, barbequing is relatively effortless. All you really need is some good, high-quality ingredients to start out with and the grill will take care of all that intense flavour building. To kick off the start of barbeque season, I thought I would provide a thorough overview of how to make the most popular barbeque food: steak. There are so many ways to cook a steak, but in my opinion, grilling the steak is your best bet at getting that delicious, juicy, beefy steak flavour. But before we get into the cooking methodology, it’s …

Toum ~ Creamy Garlic Sauce

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You may not have known the proper name for this tasty sauce before reading this blog post, but I can guarantee that you have had this before if you eat a lot of Lebanese or Middle Eastern foods like shawarma or falafel. Toum is a traditional creamy (and dreamy) Lebanese garlic sauce that is often added to grilled meats or is served as a dip. In Lebanese, “toum” or “toom” translates directly to mean “garlic”. This sauce is aptly named as there is LOTS of garlic in this recipe- 30 cloves! Yeah, you read that right- 30 cloves of raw, fresh, mouth-tingling, gut-friendly garlic. Luckily, the garlic flavour is complimented by lots of clean tasting canola oil, tart lemon juice and some salt and mellows out the longer it sits in the fridge. This sauce has the same consistency as a homemade mayonnaise or aioli and is made in the exact same process of emulsifying the ingredients together very slowly to form a thick, stable, and creamy sauce. Now it took me a few tries …

BC Spot Prawns with Bagna Cauda Butter

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It’s that time of year again, people! Spot Prawns are back in season and they are more sweet, succulent and juicy than I remembered <3 Spot prawn season typically begins in early May and lasts for about six to eight weeks. Spot prawns are delicious, sweet prawns that are orange in colour and have little white spots on their bodies, mainly around their heads and tails. They are harvested just off the coast of BC during the prawning season using baited traps and are the largest variety of prawns that are harvested in BC. The cold, nutrient rich waters of the BC coast make these prawns sweet, succulent and very clean in taste compared to the typical frozen Tiger Shrimp variety. The meat is very tender and juicy, and has the texture of both a lobster tail and a shrimp combined. Sounds amazing right?! A squeeze of lemon brings out all the fresh flavours in these BC Spot Prawns! Since the season is so short, I love to eat as much spot prawns as I …

Maltese Stuffed Artichokes

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Of all the delicious spring vegetables that are in season right now, the gorgeous globe artichoke is one of my favourites. Not only do they taste amazing when cooked, I love the springy, flower-like look of them in general. When uncooked, the tightly packed, overlapping leaves on the artichoke looks like a budding flower, and then when it’s all cooked, the leaves open up and it looks like it has magically bloomed. So cute! If you have ever heard the saying “With every rose comes its thorns”, this definitely applies to the artichoke…almost literally. The most prized part of the artichoke is the heart. When cooked, it is soft, creamy and meaty and is definitely the reward of the vegetable. But in order to get to the heart, you have to get passed the prickly leaves and spiny thistle inside of it. At the center of the artichoke, there is a thistle called the “choke”. My grandma (who is Maltese) always used to say that if you ate the “choke” you would choke. I was …

Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Chicken & Cheese

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Cinco de Mayo is just a few days away and to celebrate, I have come up with a fantastic recipe that is perfect for the occasion: Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Chicken and Cheese. This recipe is my take on Chiles Rellenos, a classic Mexican dish made with cheese-stuffed Poblano peppers that are breaded, deep fried and topped with a luxurious red salsa. While I absolutely love Chiles Rellenos (and order them from restaurants every time they are on the menu), they are quite a bit of work to make at home with all the breading and deep frying. This recipe lightens up the classic Chiles Rellenos recipe by avoiding the breading and deep frying, so it’s much healthier for you and is a great keto meal! If you have never had Poblano peppers before, you are missing out! These large, dark green peppers are very common in Mexican dishes and are mildly spicy. They are much less spicy than a jalapeno, but are a bit spicier than a regular sweet bell pepper. They are also …