Greek Salad and Pitza

One of the great things about the Farmer's Market is the samples. If there is something I love more than food, it is free food. I could have spent about an hour at the Happy Camel stand, doing some sampling. The Happy Camel is a Mediterranean pita bakery and deli in Edmonton. I had tried the greatest feta dip while I was there, but I figured that I would pick some up later at their store. This turned out to be a mistake, since the store didn't have any while I was there.

I did, however, get some hummus since they have one of the greatest ones I have tasted. I also picked up a package of their Sesame Za'atar (or flatbread), to make pita pizzas, or pitzas.

My original plan for the pitzas was to have the feta spread as the "sauce". Since I didn't get any I skipped having a sauce altogether, and just made them as follows:

Rebekah's Pitzas

(Serves 4)

1) Take two chicken breasts and dice them. Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet, add the chicken, and cook until browned, about two minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and a tsp of dried oregano. Remove from heat.

2) I took four pitas and divided the chicken on top them. I topped each with a handful of sliced grape tomatoes, some feta that I had cubed, and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. I placed them in the oven at 350 F for roughly five minutes until the parm cheese had melted.

3) Once I removed them from the oven I sprinkled some slivered fresh basil on top.

They were very tasty, though I still would have preferred to have the feta spread on them as well.

To go with the pitzas I made a Greek salad. While some Greek salads contain olives, mine does not because I am not a big fan of olives.

Rebekah's Greek Salad

1) In a bowl combine:

half of an English cucumber, diced

half of a red onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, also diced

about half a cup of feta that has been cubed (though feel free to add more, feta never hurt anybody

half of a pint of grape tomatoes. I sliced mine, but you can leave them whole or halved

the juice of 1 lemon

about 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

about 1 tbsp of dried oregano

2) Stir together, and let sit in the fridge for a half hour before serving

To drink, I made a flavored club soda. In a glass I placed a sliced lime, a handful of fresh mint leaves, and some raspberries. I filled the glass with club soda. Really easy, and tastes really fresh.

Gnocchi Fail

This past weekend I had one of the greatest Saturdays I have had in a long time. The weather in Edmonton has been miserable lately. It's been grey, cloudy and rainy. Then on Friday, it all cleared up and it was bright, sunny and beautiful. I am using my awesome skills in Paint to really show you.

Wow, I am so talented.

I got a message late last week from my friend M, who was wondering if I would want to go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. I was ecstatic, I love the Farmer's Market! So Saturday we drove down to Whyte Ave to go to the market, and after that we enjoyed lunch on a patio. Did I mention it was 26 C outside? We spent all of the day on Saturday outside, and it was absolutely fabulous. Aside from the sunburn I acquired on my arm. Small price to pay though!

Yesterday I was trying to decide what to do with my goods I purchased from the Farmer's Market. I had the great idea to make gnocchi. When we had lunch, M ordered gnocchi and I tried it for the first time in my life, and wanted to have it again.

Since I was making the sauce to go on top, I thought I would be lazy and just buy packaged gnocchi. I have heard horrible things about gnocchi that is packaged to sit on a shelf, so I looked for frozen or fresh gnocchi and couldn't find any.

I made the decision to just make the gnocchi myself, rather than to buy the kind on the shelf. The ingredients for a basic gnocchi are flour, potatoes, and an egg. You cook the potatoes, allow them to cool, and push them through a food mill or potato ricer. Then you add flour and an egg. Problem, I was out of eggs. I googled egg less gnocchi, and found a recipe that included just flour and potatoes. I made the dough, and cut the gnocchi and went to boil them.

After pulling them out of the water, instead of ending up with a delicious little potato dumpling, I got a mass pile of wet potato and flour. It was so gross.

At this point the roasted tomato sauce was almost finished. I had taken 5 Roma tomatoes (from the market, they were so red and so fresh), and cut them in half. I also took a medium Spanish onion, and sliced it very thinly. In a shallow baking dish I lined the onions on the bottom and tossed them with extra virgin olive oil. I placed the tomato halves on top (insides facing up), and scattered garlic cloves around them. I left the garlic in the peel, could not be easier! I drizzled a bit more oil on top and seasoned with salt and pepper. This went into a 350 F oven, for roughly 45 minutes to an hour.

Upon removal from the oven, I allowed the dish to cool a bit, then I emptied the contents into my blender. (First squish the garlic cloves out of the peel, and discard the peels) I blended it until smooth, though if your prefer a chunky sauce, you can either mash it, or only blend it a little.

So I had a disgusting glob of wet mashed potatoes, and a sauce that smelled like Italian heaven. Luckily I keep a disgusting amount of dried pasta on hand and quickly put some in a pot to boil. Once the pasta was cooked, I poured the sauce on top and added some fresh basil. The basil from the Farmer's Market is a magical thing. A bag will cost roughly $4, and you get a bag full of fresh and beautiful basil. Not a tetra pack of brown basil that costs $2. 99 at the grocery store.

I topped the pasta with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

The sauce tasted so fresh. There is really nothing that compares to produce and herbs that are bought at a farmer's market.

I had also bought a bag of mint from the Farmer's Market, and I made a POM Mock-ito to go with supper. I sliced a lime and placed the slices in a glass. To that I added a handful of fresh mint, and about 3/4 cup of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. I topped it off with club soda.

Mmm this was good!

Clam Chowder

I have been to Disneyland and Disneyworld several times. The first time was when I was fourteen, and since then I have been to each a handful of times. I remember one time being in Disneyland with my dad, sister E, Tante, and my cousin E. The four of us, excluding my dad, ended up talking in fake British accents for most of the trip. Until my dad got very frustrated and snapped at some point and told us all he had enough.

This was the same trip in which we did not load onto the Matterhorn properly. My sister and cousin are the two skinniest people I have ever met, and we put them in one seat. And my aunt and I ended up squishing into a seat together, and it was most uncomfortable. (But we made good timing jah?)

So you get an idea of what the bobsleds look like.

There was another time that I went with Tante, my cousin E, and my friend D. It was the time we had the best burger I have ever ate. I actually talk about this burger so much, that one of my sisters can tell the story word for word. We woke up at about 3 am to catch our flight. At that time there is nothing open in the airport, so our only chance to get food was on the plane and they only gave us a muffin. By the time we got into the hotel, and to the parks it was 1 pm, and since 3 am we had only ate a muffin. So the first place we went was the Taste Pilot's Grill. We all got a burger and waffle fries, and there was total silence at our table as the four of us demolished these burgers. (I would give my right arm for one of these right about now)

One of my favorite things to do in Disneyland is at the California Adventure park. They have a tortilla factory and a sourdough bread factory there. You take a tour in each factory, and at the end of both tours they hand out fresh samples. So delicious.

Also delicious, is the clam chowder at the Pacific Wharf Cafe. It is served in a sourdough bread bowl, and it is the greatest clam chowder I have ever ate.

I made clam chowder last night for dinner. Edmonton can't seem to get rid of the chilly, rainy weather we have been having, and it just seemed like a good afternoon for chowder. I made it loosely based on this Cooking Light's recipe.

The first problem with this recipe is it's supposed to serve 12 people. And there is only 2 slices of bacon in it! I made mine with the following:

-3 slices bacon

-1 medium onion, chopped

-2 stalks celery (practically minced, so there wasn't large chunks of it)

-1 clove garlic, minced

-1 tsp dried thyme

-1 bay leaf

-2 baking potatoes, peeled and diced

-1 bottle of clam juice

-2 cans of baby clams

-1/4 cup flour

-1.5 cups of skim milk

The recipe also called for crisping the bacon and removing it from the pot, to add to the bowls of soup upon serving. I minced the bacon into small pieces, and once crisped, I added the onion and celery to the pan, keeping the bacon in there for the entire cooking process.

Clam chowder is usually made with a lot of cream. The flour and skim milk mix thickened the soup extremely well. I didn't miss the cream, and the finished result was thick, not watery. I really liked it. I have made chowder before, using the cream and way more bacon than just 3 slices, and I found it plain and bland. This was really good.

Sandwiches

A couple weeks ago I mentioned how much I love Frank's Buffalo Wing Sauce, when I made buffalo chicken wraps. I used the sauce the other night to make Buffalo Chicken Burgers. If you love buffalo wings in any way, you must buy this sauce, and make these burgers.

Rebekah's Buffalo Chicken Burgers:

1) Take a lb of ground chicken, an egg, and a 1/2 cup of panko breadcrumbs and mix together in a large bowl. You could also add a bit of diced onion, or some seasoning (I used about a tbsp of Clubhouse's Tex Mex seasoning) if you like.

2) Split the mixture evenly into four. Flatten into round patties.

3) Heat a small amount of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium high. Add the patties, cook for roughly four minutes on each side. Before removing them from the skillet, cut into the middle of the patty to make sure the chicken is cooked through. (The meat should be white, and the juices should be clear!)
If you notice the chicken is browning too much you can turn down the heat, or slide the skillet into the oven and finish it off by baking at 350 F. Make sure your skillet is oven proof, of course.

4) When the chicken is finished, add 1/2 cup of Frank's Buffalo Wing Sauce to the skillet, and turn the patties over so they are completely coated in deliciousness.

5) Place the patty on the bun of your choice. I used whole wheat, and I had toasted it in the oven while the burgers were cooking.

The burgers can be topped with lettuce, or blue cheese, but I chose to just spread some ranch dressing on the bun. (I used Renee's Buttermilk Ranch, the half fat version). I served the burgers with carrot and celery sticks. Delicious and healthy!

A while back I made the following sloppy joe, and I got the recipe off of sparkrecipes. Sparkrecipes is a database of healthy recipes, and they have quite the amount. I had a craving for sloppy joes and when you search their website for sloppy joes the top recipe is Diet Coke Sloppy Joes. The main ingredients are ground beef, Diet Coke, reduced sugar ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, white vinegar and mustard powder. To make the ground beef is browned in a skillet, then the rest of the ingredients are added and cooked together for 30 minutes.

I used Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke, and regular ketchup instead of the reduced sugar variety. I will make these again, because they were quite good, but I would add some chopped onion to it. And maybe some garlic. Even though it was good, it was kind of plain.

I served the sloppy joe with a spinach salad. I just piled raw spinach leaves on the plate and topped it with Everyday Food's Shallot Vinaigrette. It is one of my all time favorite homemade salad dressings.

Stir Fries/Frys?

Today is Friday, and not only is it Friday, but it's also my friend K's birthday! If there's something I love more than Friday, it is birthdays. And if there's something I love more than birthdays, it's eye candy. Today I combined them:

Nice. Although it kind of looks like he went swimming in the Gulf that BP is ruining.

Recently I have made two similar dishes from Everyday Food. First up is Sweet and Sour Pork. The basic ingredients are pork tenderloin, canned pineapple, bell peppers, broccoli, green onions, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. I know some of you are like "WHAT? Rebek you hate broccoli!" It's true, I do. So instead of broccoli, I used sugar snap peas.

According to my sister roommate, she said that this sweet and sour sauce was better than some of the ones she tried in China. I can't confirm if this is true, but it was really good. (The picture of this dish is at the top of the post).

Next up, Stir-Fried Honey Ginger Chicken. The ingredients for this stir fry are chicken breasts, bell peppers, garlic, and ginger. The sauce is made with honey, soy sauce and rice vinegar. There is a lot of ginger in this stir fry, and I am not crazy about ginger. I like it in small doses, but I made the stir fry according to recipe, and it was delicious.

Both of these were really quick to put together. When making any stir fry, it's important to assemble the ingredients before starting the cooking process. Food doesn't take long to cook this way, and you don't want to be stuck chopping up an ingredient while another burns in the pan.

Overall, both of these were great, though that isn't a surprise because Everyday Food has yet to disappoint me.

Manicotti

I am still hitting the gym on a regular basis. Now, I am not one of those people who is all "the gym is soooo fun! I LOVE working out". The gym is not fun, it's grueling, tough and sometimes painful. It's because of that, that I drive not to the gym that is seven minutes from my house, but to the one that is thirty minutes away.

I know you are thinking, how does that make sense? You see the gym by my house is set up like this:

Meaning that if I am on a cardio machine, all the eye candy is BEHIND me. And if I'm going to suffer at the gym, I might as well have something to look at right? So I go to the gym set up like this:

This way if I am on a cardio machine, I can slyly look over and see all the eye candy using the weights. Both diagrams were made in Paint, using my awesome Paint skills.

Now the problem with the gym, is it's hard to look attractive. I was born with very fair skin, and after about five minutes on the treadmill my face goes from being the color of carefully applied foundation and blush to the color of a hothouse tomato in season. My favorite color for everything but skin. Then we have my hair. I can either pull it into a ponytail and secure my bangs back with a headband, or leave some of it down with my bangs pulled back. Problem. I hate my hair in a ponytail, I think it makes me look like a boy. If I leave some of it down, it looks good for all of ten minutes. After that, it starts to get sweaty and clings to my neck, making it look like I'm being choked by seaweed. This is not a good look for me, and I have resigned myself to the fact I will probably not be getting hit on at the gym.

As you can see, there is pasta in this post. I realize this three pasta entries in a row. I haven't been on a pasta binge, but it's just the way that the posts have worked out. I have a backlog of food to talk about, and today I feel like writing about the manicotti.

I served the manicotti with a spinach salad. Of all the salad greens in the world, I would have to say that spinach is my favorite.

Rebekah's Spinach Salad (serves 4)

1) in a dry skillet on medium heat, toast 1/3 cup of pine nuts. The pine nuts are toasted when they turn a golden color, and smell nutty.

2) Divide roughly 4 cups of spinach leaves into four bowls.

3) Thinly slice 2 shallots, and divide between the four bowls

4) Divide the pine nuts between the four bowls

5) In a bowl combine 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, and 1 minced clove of garlic. Whisk until combined. Drizzle dressing over salad.

Mmm, I love balsamic vinegar!

Rebekah's Manicotti (Serves 4)

1) Put a large pot of water on to boil. Once it's boiled, add some salt, and 8 manicotti shells.

2) Meanwhile, make the filling. Combine an egg with a cup of ricotta cheese and roughly half a cup of grated mozzarella cheese. This is the basic filling. To the one I made in the picture I added some pepper, red chili flakes, and thin strips of spinach leaves. I have previously made manicotti with chopped sun dried tomatoes and canned artichokes (amazing), or you could add grated carrot, onion, and broccoli that has been cut into small pieces. Sky's the limit.

3) Take a jar of spaghetti sauce and place into a saucepan. Add some water to the jar, shake it up, and add it to the sauce. Heat the sauce until it just starts to boil, then remove from the heat.

4) When the manicotti has softened, but is not yet cooked to al dente, pull them out of the water. To make them cool enough to handle I run them under some cold water (which I realize rinses the starch off of them, and I would never recommend rinsing pasta, but for this sometimes you just have to deal with it)

5) Spoon the filling into a piping bag. Or if you don't have one, a plastic freezer bag. I do not recommend using a sandwich bag as they aren't sturdy enough. Cut a corner off the bag, and use it to pipe the filling into the noodles. Like this:

6) Take a cup of the sauce and pour it into a baking dish large enough to hold the manicotti. Shake the dish so the sauce covers the bottom. Layer the manicotti in a single row on top of the sauce. Pour the remaining sauce over the manicotti and top with another half cup of mozzarella cheese.

7) Place in an oven that has been preheated for 350 F for 30 minutes, covered. After 30 minutes remove the lid, and let bake for another 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven.

Carbonara under 500

I am having the most fantastic day. I was headed for church this morning and I was taking my sweet time getting ready, and I was running late. Too late to grab a coffee. Magically, by the time I got close to the church I had time to spare to go to the Starbucks across the street. When I pulled up to the window I went to pass the Starbucks boy my debit card and he said "Don't worry about it, coffee is free for ridiculously good looking people". Ha! In actuality it was free since the car in front of me placed an order that took FOREVER and I was waiting for a very long time. Patiently. (another joke, I was not very patient) After church there was a barbecue, and if there's something I love, it's free food. I went the the gym from there, and my favorite eye candy was also working out. I also went to yoga today and not once did we have to do child's pose, which is my least favorite.

However, Sunday night is fast coming to a close, and it means that Monday morning is coming fast. I do not like Monday mornings...

A while back I made a spaghetti carbonara using a recipe by Nigella Lawson. While delicious, it's completely indulgent. (And if you didn't make it the first time you read about it on my blog, what the heck are you waiting for? It's really fantastic)

Since it is indulgent, I have to consider it as a luxury. And luxurious, it is. The sauce is made from pancetta, cream and cheese. When watching one's waist and heart, the indulgences must be few and far between. I love carbonara though, and when I saw a recipe for a healthier version of it, I had to make it. The recipe comes from Cook Smart for a Healthy Heart. I made it without the roasted tomato salad, those of you who clicked the recipe link.

The recipe replaces pancetta or bacon with proscuitto which is dry fried (without the aid of oil) until crisp. They also replace heavy cream with reduced fat cream, though I went so far as to replace the cream with skim milk. The sauce is given texture with the aid of some ricotta cheese, which I love. One of my most favorite carbonaras comes from a restaurant called Chianti's, where you can order it dry (not creamy and saucy) and I think it's so good this way, and the ricotta in the recipe is reminiscent of that.

Since the sauce is light, I didn't use whole wheat, I used Catelli Smart spaghetti instead. And even with proscuitto, eggs, cheese and pasta a hearty sized serving comes in at 471 calories. Amazing.

Though it isn't nearly as good as Nigella's version, I did find it incredibly good and a decent substitution.