The Food Box Chronicles

Ooops, I forgot to take a picture of my complete food box this time around and I can't remember everything I got. However, I am sure that it contained (at the very least) apples, pears, bananas, sweet potatoes, turnips, onions, swiss chard, garlic and potatoes.

I had planned to make pasta with kale pesto, but when swiss chard arrived as a replacement, I ended up with swiss chard pesto instead. Definitely different than traditional basil pesto, but a good use for those greens!

I also made my ever-favourite Botanical Burgers. However, in this case, I replaced the beets with sweet potatoes. This worked out pretty well although I think I prefer the beet version for the texture the beets provide. Regardless, this recipe helped me to use up my sweet potatoes, turnips, onions and some potatoes. I added some baked potato fries on the side.

Lastly, my best new recipe find was Vanilla Roasted Pears from Smitten Kitchen (love this site!). These pears make a delicious dessert or healthy treat. I even used them on top of french toast for breakfast. I foresee myself making these with every pear delivery (in fact I've already made them again!). Yum!

Pizza Party

Two friends and I got together for a pizza/martini party a few weeks ago. One friend made the crust and all of us brought together our favourite ingredients.

The results:

#1 "The West Coast" was topped with parboiled yams, soft cheese curds, basil and tomato sauce.

#2 Half "Traditional", topped with basil, tomato and mozzarella on tomato sauce and half "Emerald City", topped with pine nuts, basil, grated green apple and dates on pesto sauce. There were caramelized onions somewhere in here too, but I am not sure what pizza they ended up on.

Orange Blossom Martini

.5 oz simple syrup

1 oz lemon vodka

1 oz Cointreau

Juice of one orange + a bit of pulp

Shake with ice and enjoy!

Along with a viewing of "Shakespeare in Love" it was a fun night with the girls :)

Christmas Recovery Program

Oh dear, I seem to have gotten off track with my blogging. I've been cooking a lot and taking lots of pictures . . . but not making it as far as the final bloggy step. Life has been uncomfortably hectic lately for no apparent reason. I can't explain it, but I hope it stops.

In any case, the cooking part of life has been going well. I went home for Christmas and, while I NEED to be home for Christmas, it always takes a bit of recuperation after the fact. So, on New Year's weekend I had a major cleaning, cooking, baking fiesta of self care!

First, I made my last batch of Christmas cookies. It just had to be done:

Mmmm. Pecan Snowballs. Next, I baked some Cheesy Pull-Apart Bread. I just followed my standard whole wheat bread recipe, cut it into chunks after the first rise and tossed in about 1 cup of dill havarti. It turned out well, but I would add more cheese next time.

Finally, I made my absolute favourite soup: African Yam Peanut.

Self care complete!