January 8th: Avocado Toast, Chicken Pot Pie Soup + Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

Last year, early summer, I was googling how to roast a pepper, a seemingly simple task that I always manage to botch. My searching brought me to The Wednesday Chef, and I fell in love. With the website, with the chef, the whole thing. Check it out. She's a beautiful person, a great writer, and has some really good food on her blog. If you'd like to know how to roast a pepper, click here; her instructions are spot on. After mastering that task, I also spent time trying out a recipe here and there, including one for Avocado Toast, which became my go-to breakfast and lunch of Summer 2013. Feeling a little nostalgic and very hungry today, I made one up for lunch and mm mm good. It hit the spot. Feel free to pop over to The Wednesday Chef for Luisa's instructions on how to perfect avocado toast. I've played around with it, and my favourite way is simply 1 piece of toast, with tonnes of mayo, topped with one avocado mashed with lemon, salt, pepper and sriracha. When that's not quite enough, I make a second.

For supper, I returned to last year's other favourite discovery, Skinnytaste. It's been freezing and I mean freezing cold in Ottawa recently. -30°C pretty normal. My car slid on ice and I rear ended a moving truck today, but that's another story... So it seems my timing was impeccable in choosing warm soup and biscuits for a chilly day. I modified two recipes from Skinnytaste: Chicken Pot Pie Soup and Garlic Cheddar Biscuits. They were both yummy and enjoyed by the whole family!

Chicken Pot Pie Soup

Ingredients

2 cups chicken broth, divided
4 cups milk
2 stalks celery, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1 medium onion, diced
227 g sliced mushrooms (white, cremini, portobello)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
pinch dried thyme
2 medium potatoes, diced
handful green beans, diced
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup frozen peas or corn, or both
salt, to taste

Directions

Combine 1 1/2 cups chicken broth with milk in a large saucepan and set over medium. Allow it to come slowly to a simmer. Meanwhile, prep all vegetables and chicken. When liquid is hot, add celery, carrot, onion, mushrooms, pepper, and thyme. Partially cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add potatoes, green beans, and chicken, cover again and simmer another 10 minutes. Combine the remaining 1/2 cup chicken broth with flour and whisk thoroughly. Slowly add to soup, stirring constantly. Add peas and cook soup another 5 minutes. Add salt to taste and serve.

Makes 6 servings.

Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups flour
4 tsps baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
pinch salt
2-4 cloves garlic, divided, minced
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and half the minced garlic. Cut in unsalted butter, then stir in cheese. Whisk egg into milk, then add mixture to dry ingredients. Stir until it just comes together. Turn out on floured surface and knead about 20 times. Roll out to 1/2-1 inch. Cut with biscuit cutter. Bake for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt butter in skillet over low heat. Add remaining minced garlic and sauté about 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Remove biscuits from oven and drizzle garlic butter over them. Return to oven for 5 minutes.

Makes approximately 9 biscuits.

September 2nd: Tuna wrap

This is a perfect at-home lunch (I find it doesn't pack well): filling, delicious, nutritious. From July 2009's Chatelaine: Avocado Tuna Wrap.

August 29th: Mexican pasta salad

My pasta and tomato crazy family went nuts for this. I thought it was pretty good too. From August 2009's Chatelaine: Mexican pasta salad.

March 3rd: Corn and Black Bean Salad

I already have an amazing corn and black bean salad recipe, courtesy of Kelly, courtesy of her fitness instructor, courtesy of Women’s Health magazine. Here's my version:


Black Bean Salad
3 cups frozen corn, thawed
1/2 cup sun-dried tomato vinaigrette
1 can (19 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 tsp ground cumin
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 oz mozzarella, diced
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, quartered
2 avocados, coarsely chopped
1 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro


Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add corn and pan-roast, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.


In a large bowl, combine corn with remaining ingredients and toss together. Chill until ready to serve.


Makes 4-8 servings 


However, that salad makes a big bowl (perfect for a potluck). This week, I wanted a simple corn and black bean salad that I could take for lunch, and save myself the $5 I spend on corn and black bean salad at Green Rebel. Every time I eat one, I think, this can’t be that hard to make. It’s not, but it is a little time intensive; however, it's not too bad if you spread it over a couple of days, as I did. The genesis of the recipe came from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, but I altered it slightly.

I started Tuesday night with 1 cup dried black beans. Boiled in an open pot for 2 minutes, covered and left to sit off heat for 2 hours, salted and then gentled simmered, partially covered until done, checking for doneness every 15 minutes (it took 30-45 in total). Once done, I measured out 1 ½ cups cooked beans for this recipe, then refrigerated the rest, in its own soaking water, for another purpose, yet to be determined. From there, on Wednesday night I made the salad:

Corn and Black Bean Salad

2 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

2 cups frozen corn, thawed (I left them sitting on the counter top for a couple of hours while I made supper, ate, and put O to bed)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1-4 garlic cloves, to taste, chopped

1 ½ cups cooked and cooled black beans

1 tomato, chopped (optional)

1-4 tsps minced jalapeno, to taste

2 tbsps freshly squeezed lime juice, or more to taste

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

½ cup finely chopped cilantro

1 avocado, diced

Heat oil in a large skillet over med-hi heat. Pan fry the corn, sprinkled with some salt and pepper, until it starts to get charred and crunchy to taste, 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and stir for 1 more minute. Remove all to a large bowl.

To the bowl, add the beans, tomato, jalapeno and lime juice. Mix all and adjust seasoning to taste. I found I wanted more lime juice, 1 tbsp of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Gently stir in cilantro and, if serving immediately, avocado. Serve warm or at room temperature. If you do refrigerate it, try to allow time for it to come back to room temperature before eating.

Serves 1-4, depending on what else you might have on the go.

On Thursday, when I ate the salad for lunch, I diced up the avocado and stirred it in at the last minute. So yes, I ate this whole thing in one sitting, which I didn’t think would happen, but it was pretty good.

For future versions, I am thinking of adding diced sweet pepper and red or green onion. Of course, the more I add, the less likely I am to be able to eat it all in one go. Hm.

And, so sorry, but I didn't even think to take a picture. How about a picture of my beautiful kid playing with dried beans instead? These are old ones, from about a year ago:

February 24th: Fiesta Potatoes

I'm not sure how I've come 6 months through this blog without making and posting about Fiesta Potatoes, one of my favourite recipes. It is something we make a bit more often in the summer, so that must be it. All it is, is baked potatoes topped with an avocado salsa. A few diced veggies, lots of lime juice, plus a splash of oil and yumminess ensues. This one comes from January 2003's Chatelaine and I make it several times a year. The only change I make is reducing the salt by a lot. Also, we eat this whole recipe between the three of us. When we used to be a family of two, we would eat it all then too. Not that you need to; it's filling. It's just so very good. I also prefer a big russet potato rather than the wee Yukon Golds recommended.

This weekend I'll be spending most of my time at the gym in training, learning how to take my instruction to the next level. Therefore, I don't expect to be cooking much. We'll see what my husband pulls together for the fam. No pressure, G.