July 18th: Family Steak and Vegetable Platter

From Foodland Ontario calendar, recipe for month of July. SADIE ATE EVERY SCRAP OF FOOD ON HER PLATE. Including potatoes. And tomatoes. I will make this recipe every single day from now on...

Family Steak and Vegetable Platter

1 lb (500 g) boneless Ontario Beef Top Sirloin or other grilling steak, 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick
1 lb (500 g) small Ontario Potatoes, scrubbed
8 oz (250 g) Ontario Green Beans, trimmed
2 Ontario Tomatoes, any colour, cut into wedges
2 Ontario Green Onions, thinly sliced
4 cups (1 L) torn mixed Ontario Salad greens

Dressing:
1/4 cup (50 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp (25 mL) balsamic vinegar
2 cloves Ontario Garlic, pressed
1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped fresh Ontario Thyme
2 tsp (10 mL) Dijon mustard
1 tsp (5 mL) Ontario liquid Honey
1/4 tsp (1 mL) each coarse salt and ground pepper

Dressing: In small bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, garlic, 2 tsp (10 mL) of the thyme, mustard, honey, salt and pepper. Remove 2 tsp (10 mL) and brush one side of the steak with half. Place steak, dressing side down on greased grill over medium-high heat. Brush with remaining half of removed dressing; close lid and grill, turning once, until medium-rare, about 8 minutes, or until desired doneness. Transfer to cutting board and let stand for 10 minutes before thinly slicing across the grain.

Meanwhile, in large pot of lightly salted water, bring potatoes to boil; cook until just tender, about 10 minutes. Add green beans; cook for 5 minutes or until beans are tender. Drain vegetables and run under cold water; drain well.

Cut potatoes into quarters or halves (depending on size); arrange in section on large platter. Fill rest of platter with sections of beef, beans, tomatoes, onions and lettuce. Sprinkle with remaining dressing and with thyme; toss gently to coat.


Serves 4.

I skipped the platter presentation and did individual plates. I added watercress and radish to our plates, and for our dressing, I used Liquid Gold's Honey Ginger White Balsamic Vinegar. Delicious!

January 28th: Garlic and Lemon Roasted Chicken and Veggies

I've made similar recipes in the past, but have never made this one before. With lemon, garlic and olive oil making up the base of the flavour, it was delicious. From the GoodLife Fitness blog.

Garlic and Lemon Roasted Chicken and Veggies

6 tablespoons olive oil
2 lemons: 1 thinly sliced and 1 juiced
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 pound green beans
8 small-medium red potatoes, cut into large chunks
4 chicken breasts, with bones and skin

Preheat oven to 450°F. Coat a large baking dish with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Arrange the lemon slices in a single layer in the bottom of the dish.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper; add the green beans and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the green beans and arrange them on top of the lemon slices. Add the potatoes to the same olive oil mixture and toss to coat. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, arrange the potatoes on top of the green beans. Place the chicken in the same bowl with the olive oil mixture and coat thoroughly. Place the chicken, skin-side up, in the dish. Pour any of the remaining olive oil mixture over the chicken.


Roast for 45 minutes. Stir once, if desired, partway through cooking time. Let chicken rest 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 servings.

Greg found the green beans a little strongly flavoured with lemon. I suppose you could put the lemon slices on top of the chicken instead of under the beans. Then the chicken would be strongly lemon flavoured. What's wrong with lemon?!

September 11th: green beans amandine

My comments from the first time I made this: "I loved it. Greg was indifferent." This year, second go-around, he is on board. He says it's because I cooked the green beans so perfectly this time. I recommend upping the almonds to a 1/2 cup for the full recipe (I made half the recipe). I loaded my serving with extra lemon zest and lemon juice and it was oh so tart and delicious. The toasted nuts give it a lovely - nutty - flavour. Will do again, especially since I have buy-in from the fam now. From May 2010's Today's Parent: Green Beans Amandine.

September 9th: salmon niçoise platter

We had friends over for dinner. One is a chef. A little intimidating, since I claim to be all good on the food-making front, but have no credentials to back me up. I decided to go simple food, simple to prepare, and hope for the best. Worked out perfectly. From August 2009's Chatelaine: Salmon Niçoise Platter. I make a few adjustments: cook 1 egg per person and reduce the capers by half. Of interest to me is the fact that the picture on Chatelaine's website is nothing like the one in the magazine, on which I modelled my presentation, although I don't have a platter big enough to hold all the food. I made the full recipe (6 servings) for 4 adults and 1 child and there was not much leftover. That, and we had two small baguettes on the side. And room for dessert afterwards. I take the "6 servings" suggestion with a grain of salt.

Top: roasted salmon.
Bottom, L-R: potatoes, green beans, eggs, marinated artichoke hearts, smoked salmon.
Not pictured, but also served: tomatoes, olives, baguettes.

June 3rd: green bean & soft boiled egg salad

Good to be home. It's nice to visit other places and it's nice to attend meetings where I learn information to help me do my job better, but the travel, the hotels, and the food get to me. I had some yummy food in Edmonton, but I'd still rather eat at home!


I planned this weekend's meals before I left so I wouldn't have to expend any brain power upon my return. That was a smart thing to do because I had to drag my exhausted body across the finish line teaching BODYFLOW this morning, then buy groceries with a pounding head (my head hurt too much for me to remember the Tylenol in my bag), and after sleeping away the afternoon, I was happy to make a simple, healthy meal for supper tonight.


From June 2011's Chatelaine: Creamy bean salad with soft-boiled egg. I roasted some red peppers, loaded in the goat cheese, and doubled the eggs to make the salad more filling. Wow, soft boiled eggs are a lot more delicate to peel than are hard! We enjoyed this salad, but not quite enough to keep the recipe. I served it with delicious Art-is-in rosemary-garlic bread (and for dessert, amazing croissants from the same locale; I LOVE the Ottawa Farmers' Market, Orleans location!).

February 21st-22nd: 5 Bean Salad

As part of my plan to increase our meatless meals, I have set a personal goal of learning how to cook beans and lentils in tasty ways. I figure it shouldn’t be too hard; I regularly pick up delicious bean, lentil, quinoa and grain salads for lunch. However, cooking out of my head isn’t one of my stronger talents. I rely on resources at my disposal, including How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.

This excellent book describes what a multitude of food items are (kasha what now?), how to cook them, and tasty ways to create meals with them. Hence, for my first self-assigned project (multi-bean salad), I turned to HtCEV. Turns out, you don’t have to soak beans for a day, as I’ve been doing with my chickpeas. Apparently, a 2-minute boil followed by a 2-hour soak in the boiled water equals an 8-hour soak in cold water. Who knew? I created a 5 Bean salad, including red kidney beans, Romano beans, black beans, Adzuki beans and green beans. Here’s the recipe, plus some thoughts I have for improving it in future:


Part 1: Cooking your beans


Pick over and rinse 2 cups dried beans, any variety. Place in pot and cover with water by 2-3 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat and boil for 2 minutes. Turn off heat, cover pot and let sit for 2 hours. Add a large pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper, bring the pot back to a boil and boil, partially covered, over med-low heat, checking tenderness of beans every 10-15 minutes.


The trickiest part is that some beans cook through more quickly than others. In my case, the kidney beans were almost mush by the time the Adzuki beans were tender enough to eat. I'm wondering if I should cook all my beans separately next time? Perhaps. I could do a large batch of each; apparently to store them you freeze them in some of their boiling liquid.

I couldn't get a picture to do justice to how cool these beans looked while cooking. The water was completely black.



Part 2: 5 Bean Salad

2 cups dried beans cooked as per the above, still warm

2 cups green beans, cooked to tender-crisp

1 tbsp red wine vinegar or lemon juice, or to taste

2-4 tbsp minced red onion or shallots

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more to taste

1/4-1/2 cup finely chopped parsley

While the beans are cooking, stir the vinegar and onion together in a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir in the olive oil. Drain both types of beans and add them to the bowl with the dressing while they are still hot. Toss gently until the beans are coated with dressing, adding more oil if you like. Serve at room temperature or cold, stirring to distribute the dressing. Stir in the parsley just before serving, and adjust the flavour to taste.

I think you need more vinegar than listed, but I love tang. I think if you are going to use shallots (as I did), you need more, as the flavour is subtle. Not sure if using red onions. I used frozen green beans; they're not very good, but what are you going to do in February? I pulled this all together late Monday night and ate it for lunch Tuesday (and likely, Wednesday and Thursday...). Good stuff.



January 2nd: Roast beef dinner

Fear not! The vegetarian recipes for 2011 are coming. This week, though, I am heading out of town and need to leave my little family some leftovers to eat. We got in the habit of eating too much processed meat towards the end of 2010 and I'm scaling that way back now. Thus, cooking a roast to provide sandwich meat for the week. On the menu: Sirloin Roast, Caramelized Onion with Tender-Crisp Green Beans, and Parsley, Currant and Pine Nut Pilaf. This is a shortened version of the Classic Holiday Menu found in December 2010's Canadian Living. I made a few minor changes: sirloin roast in place of standing rib roast, and raisins in place of currants. My green beans were not the best, but that's what you get for buying so-called fresh green beans in January. One change to the recipe that I would make: no need to add salt to the beef gravy; I did and found it too salty. Olivia must have liked it though; she ate all the meat off her plate before touching the rest of the food; this NEVER happens. Greg swore this was the best meal he'd had in ages, and I loved it too. The rice was surprisingly delicious. All will be tried again!

December 15th: Southwest Salmon & Green Beans Amandine

Keepers! Keepers! Keepers! How I love you! Two keeper recipes tonight for supper: From March 2006's Chatelaine: Salmon goes southwestern and from May 2010's Today's Parent: Green Beans Amandine. Both recipes are heavily flavoured by citrus: lime for the salmon and lemon for the beans. The salmon recipe is written for 1 serving, so simply multiply by the number of people you are serving. Two changes to the bean recipe: I would up the almonds to 1/2 cup and reduce the salt to 1/2 tsp. Other than that, yum yum yum! I served this meal with quinoa on the side.