Stuffed Zucchini Au Gratin

Here's what's up: melting cheese on things. It's a well-known fact that melted cheese can make almost anything better. Just try and think of one thing that some kind of cheese is not good with. My love of cheese is what fueled yet another recipe. This week, I decided to take a standard stir-fry mélange of ingredients and put them inside a zucchini, then melt cheese on top. Thus: stuffed zucchini au gratin.

What I used:
3 zucchinis (Hillcrest Farm)
2 maple sage pork sausages (Getaway Meat Mongers)
1 diced tomato (Noggins Corner)
1 diced onion (Noggins Corner)
1 large hunk of cranberry cheddar (Foxhill Cheeses)
1 large sprig rosemary (Hillcrest Farm)

How I made it:

I began by boiling the pork sausages until the casings turned white, so that the meat would stay intact when I cut them into small cubes. It took a lot of will-power not to eat them right off the bat, as I have a very dangerous love-triangle involving pork and maple. After an epic inward struggle, I managed to pre-heat the oven to 350 and got started on the zucchini. First, I washed and trimmed them. Then I scooped the soft seeded middle out with a spoon, setting the zucchini shells aside on a baking sheet. I then diced the insides and put them in a bowl. Into the bowl went the onion, tomato, rosemary and sausage. I gave that a good mix, then piled it high into the zucchini shells. Then I put the wonderful little mounds of goodness into the oven for about 25 minutes. I then removed them from the oven just long enough to cover them with a thick blanket of grated cranberry cheddar. Back into the oven they went, for about 3 minutes. I then took them out of the oven, let them cool for a minute too and mowed down. Om nom nom.

Back-To-School Quinoa Salad!

When I was a kid, opening up my lunchbox to see what kind of tasty things my mom had prepared and packed was one of my favourite parts of the school day. I loved the fresh and tasty creations she cooked up for me, and was always impressed with her creativity and ability to make new and interesting things every day. Now, living away from home, I'm responsible for my own lunches, but as classes are starting again, at first it seemed like a daunting task to emulate her wonderful lunchboxes. However, with a little thought I've come up with a fast, tasty and healthy portable lunch that's perfect for parents packing lunches or students grabbing something for between classes. The best part is that you can find all these ingredients right here at the farmer's market, which makes for a fresher taste and a cleaner conscience.

What I used:
3 cups dried quinoa (The Grainery)
1 cup diced tomato
1 cup diced cucumber
1 large sprig of parsley

How to make it:
Soak quinoa for an hour. This is a good time to dice vegetables, make some phone calls, check the mail or finish that paper you've been putting off. Drain and rinse the quinoa, then place it in a pot with a 3:1 quinoa to water ratio. Heat the pot up on the stove to medium or medium-low. Stir frequently. When all the water has been evaporated or absorbed into the quinoa, remove it from the heat and place in a glass container to cool. When it has cooled, season the quinoa with equal parts olive oil and balsamic vinegar to taste, if you have some at home. If not, make this quinoa your own! Its flavour is very versatile so get creative. Let it cool in the fridge overnight. In the morning, right before sending your kids to school, or heading to class yourself, stir in your diced vegetables, stick the mix in a portable container, and off it goes. It keeps well, tastes great and is easy and fast to prepare. Take a little stress out of your life and try this recipe! Om nom nom.

The Acadian, Eh?

I have two confessions. The first is that I am French Canadian, and that, consequently, I love cheese and anything maple in a bad way. In fact, I am even known to combine the two in beautiful and sometimes alarmingly delicious combinations that make my mouth water even just thinking about them. Cheddar and maple crepes? Nom. Maple and cheese danishes? Been there. Maple grilled cheese? Yeah. That just happened. Here's how to make a kick-ass French Canadian grilled cheese.

What I used: 

Five-Grain Honey Bread from Mary's Bread Basket

Damafro Brie

One Noggins Corner Farm Macintosh apple

Linda's Corner maple syrup

Butter

How I did it:

Heat up a pan to medium and peel, core and slice your apple. Slather two slices of bread with butter. Apply one layer cheese, one layer apple, and one more layer cheese just to be safe on the unbuttered side of one of the bread slices. Put the other slice on top, buttered side facing out. Throw it in the pan and cook until bottom side is crispy and brown. Flip and repeat. Drizzle some maple syrup on top right before serving and eat that sucker up, eh? Om nom nom.

Potato Pancakes!

One of the easiest and tastiest local meals to date have been some crunchy-on-the-outside soft-on-the-inside potato pancakes with green onion. I first saw a variation of this on a Food Network special about left-overs, and have been making them ever since, changing the recipe and toppings according to what's available at any given time. Basically, It's a pan-fried hash-brown with some tasty vegetables cooked right into it. I really love this because they're perfect for when you have leftover potatoes and odds and ends of vegetables left that you don't know what to do with. I call them portable potato pancakes because they can easily become ideal picnic food, if you pack them chilled and bring toppings. Here's how I made them this time:

Start with: 

Potatoes (pre-cooked and cooled or raw) 

One green onion (finely chopped)

Olive or canola oil

From there:

Roughly grate your peeled potatoes into a bowl, and mix in the onions with your hands, being careful not to smush the potatoes too much. Heat a little oil in a pan at about medium, or a little higher. Next, you're going to want to make a potato-ball in your hand, about the size of your palm (but, once again, try not to smush it too tight. You want it to be a fairly loose ball). Now place the potato ball in the hot oil and press down with a spatula so that it becomes flatter, but leave it so it's about half an inch to an inch thick. If you're doing this with cooked potatoes, then you're  just going to have the watch the colour forming around the bottom edge of the pancake. When The edges have turned nice and brown, you'll want to check it. You can do this by flipping and checking to make sure that the colour is even. When the one side looks nice and brown and crispy, it's time to cook the other side, so flip it over so the not-browned side is on the pan. For people using raw potatoes, you'll have to watch the colour changing throughout the pancake. So watch for the brownness creeping up the side of the pancake, because even though the flat of the pancake might be brown, the inside might still be raw potato. When the pancake has cooked about halfway up, flip the pancake and watch it until it's cooked through. It's important to have a plate ready with paper towel to absorb the extra oil, because the pancakes will initially be pretty greasy when you take them out of the pan. So before you serve them, lay them on the paper towel and allow the grease to get absorbed. From there, you can top it with almost anything. Two of my personal favourites are topping it with sour cream, chives and smoked salmon or a simple soft-poached egg on top, with salt and pepper. Eating local is so good to me. Om nom nom.

Ludicrously Easy Pickled Lettuce

Hello again! Still don't have internet in the apartment, so I'm writing from the Wired Monk cafe and sipping some matcha (tea was one of the things we absolutely could not give up while eating local, along with salt, pepper and olive oil) So, last week Stu and I had our friends Torin and Anna over for dinner, and we decided to wow them with our mad culinary skills. So we got some fresh trout from the market, some arugula, some spinach, some rainbow carrots, some lettuce and some onions to make a tasty trout-topped salad. We were feeling pretty adventurous though, so we decided to step the salad up by pickling the lettuce! This seemed like a daunting task at first, pickling being somewhat foreign to Stu and I, but after a little brainstorming and experimenting, we found a seriously easy and delicious formula for perfectly sweet and tart pickled lettuce. Here's how we did it:

Start with:

A head of lettuce (we used iceberg, but other kinds would probably work as well)

A cup of water

Two tablespoons salt

Two tablespoons unpasteurized honey

Six tablespoons vinegar (we used apple vinegar for the sweetness, but balsamic or just plain white can also be used)

From there: Wash, drain and rip lettuce into desired size of pieces, and set aside in separate bowl. Mix all other ingredients in a pot and boil very briefly to make sure all the ingredients combine nicely. Allow the mixture to cool, then pour it onto the lettuce, mixing it all together with your hands, making sure every leaf is bathed in the mixture. Let it sit for about half an hour, then pour it into a jar or whatever closable container you have lying around. Stick it in the fridge. Optimally, you want to let it sit in the fridge for a day or two, because then the lettuce has time to really absorb the pickling juice. From there, use it on salads, in sandwhiches or really wherever you would ordinarily use pickles! My favourite part of this recipe is that once the lettuce is gone, the pickling juice makes a ready-to-use salad dressing. Om nom nom.

Fresh Start!

Welcome, and thanks for reading! I've just moved into my new apartment and decided that this would be a great time to start something new. So this week is my first week of eating strictly local, apart from what supplies I had left over (which, of course, I'm not going to waste) After combing various grocery stores in the area, I have a fairly decent stockpile of fresh and local produce that I can't wait to start playing with.  My first local meal was a delicious stir-fry, made completely of local ingredients!

Springtime in Halifax Stir-Fry:

A few handfuls of (leftover) chick peas
One whole onion, diced finely
Three leaves of ripped up baby bok choy
Few sprigs of parsley
A handful of (leftover) pasta
A spoonful of salted butter
Lots of medium aged gouda (flavoured with local herbs)

Cook chick peas until soft, if bought dry, and cook pasta al dente in a separate pot.  Drain and cool both when cooked. Heat up a pan to about medium heat (we don't want to burn the butter) and sweat the onion in the butter. When the onion has begun to caramelize, throw in the rest of the greens and cook them all down together, allowing the flavours to mix nicely. The best part about using baby bok choy with butter is that it absorbs the tasty butter flavour while still staying relatively crunchy, adding a nice texture as well as the pretty leafy look. Now, add in the pasta and chick peas to warm them. Ideally, the chick peas will lend a meaty texture to make the stir fry a little more satisfying. Toss the whole mix a few times, and serve in a bowl or large plate, with or without rice. I didn't use rice and it was perfectly filling. Generously grate in the gouda (or whatever salty cheese you have around) while the stir-fry is still hot and toss the whole thing a few more times. The cheese should be melty and delicious when you serve the stir-fry. Nom nom nom. Delicious.