A platter of fun!

Its been so hot that I decided to do a play on little plates , tapas. The croissants were fresh from Zerelli's Mediterranean Market that I got that morning. The first tapas I had was marinated cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and evoo. I added chopped fresh basil and red onion and topped it with lovely creamy goat cheese! Oh this combination is always a winner. The second tapas was garlic crimini mushrooms with butter and olive oil. This was lightly sauteed and served as is. We had this for lunch and it hit the spot nicely.

Chicken Alfredo

I've been craving something creamy and I instantly thought about Spaghetti Carbonara. But those of you who know how it is made would know it is full of fat! All that bacon and heavy cream, tasty as they are, I thought I'd better make something a little healthier.

Chicken Alfredo isn't too much better but I used half and half instead of heavy cream. Start with boiling water and cooking your pasta. As always, I sauteed a little bit of minced garlic in some evoo. Then I added left over roast chicken from the local deli and strips of back bacon. Then the half and half plus frozen peas. Let this simmer for a few minutes to reduce the sauce. Add some parmesan cheese to the sauce to thicken and add flavour. When your pasta is ready, drain well and add to the sauce and toss till coated with the sauce. Serve immediately with more parmesan cheese and or freshly ground black pepper. It helped curb the craving for now. Hopefully this will carry me till October since I only try to make Speghetti Carbonara for Reno Man's birthday. It is a favourite of his.

Zerelli's Mediterranean Market

A lovely day for a walk to Elgin Corners and a visit to Zerelli's Mediterranean Market to get freshly baked bread for lunch. The market is quite large for a little neighbourhood mall. Its filled with lots of goodies from greek salads, assortment of cheeses and meats to sweet treats to olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The bread featured here is foccacia. Made fresh everyday. Aside from bread, we also bought some very nice and lean capicolo and a piece of baklava.
I was starving and quickly slapped these sandwiches together and put them in a make shift panini press. I used a regular non-stick pan on the heat, put the sandwiches on that pan and used a cast iron pan to press the sandwich.
One sandwich had roast beef with jalapeno Havarti and organice greens. The other had capicolo, goat cheese and organic greens.
Both turned out pretty yummy. Perhaps next time I might not turn the heat on so high as to not scorch the bread.

BBQ Chicken & Mixed Veg

Very simple but healthy lunch. This time I grilled the chicken we got from Costco and didn't burn it. I used, cauliflower, broccoli, red pepper, mushrooms, carrots for my stirfry with a healthy dolop of minced garlic and evoo(extra virgin olive oil). Yum. No seasoning necessary. So far I have posted our meals. I wonder what other home menus are out there. I would love to hear from anyone out there! BTW, anyone interested in attending EAT-VANCOUVER, the food festival with me?

Spaghetti Meatballs

I am certainly finding that I am not very inspired to do anything fancy on the days I work. So last night, I got my hunny to get dinner together. It was really very good though none of my pictures turned out. That's from trying to take macro pictures with my phone that has only 1.3 MB capacity. He made us a lovely tomato and red onion salad marinated in balsamic vinegar and extra vergin olive oil then topped with crumbled goat cheese served with freshly baked bread. Yum! Its one of our favourite salads. Renovation man also grilled 2 pre-marinated ...chicken breasts from Costco which was very tasty. He actually enjoyed making dinner this time. I think this was so because everything was very tasty. Hopefully this will inspire him to cook more often eh?

Today's lunch was spaghetti meatballs with brown mushrooms. Surprisingly enough, it turned out tastier than I was anticipating. The only difference that might have changed the taste was the addition of a packet of beef stock from OXO. It just seemed to bring out the meaty flavours in the sauce. I could have had this with just the sauce and pasta.

Smokies with potatoes and broccoli

Totally uninspired, I resorted to just throwing a bunch of ingredients together resulting in something I call Smokies with potatoes and broccoli. First, boil ...

6-7 small red potato nuggets till tender, slice and set aside. Brown

3 sliced Bavarian smokies with a little canola oil, then add

1 large onion sliced, saute till softened. Add

1 head of broccoli cut into bite size pieces. Lastly, add

1 can of Campbell's broccoli and cheese soup with

1/2 can of water. Stir till heated through and well mixed. Cover and simmer till broccoli is a little tender. Serve with freshly ground black pepper.