Haddock and Shrimp Empanadas with Honeydew Salsa

Posted by CK in celery, cilantro, easy, haddock, honeydew, onion, parsley, recipe, salsa, shrimp

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Ever since amanda and I did our first wine tasting when we reviewed Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World's Best Bar Wines, we've been having monthly wine and food pairing evenings. The experience was so amazing that we had to recreate it again and again.

We've already looked at wines from the 4 corners of the world, including South Africa, Portugal, Australia, and Canada. Argentina was up next on the list and I was to bring a meal paired with white wine. I picked the Etchart Cafayete Torrentes (suggested by either the SAQ or LCBO quarterly magazines - honestly can't remember which one). The SAQ website suggested pairing this wine with the empanada recipe that I'm about to describe. With a few adjustments to make it healthier, as well as to use up ingredients I already had at home, the following is what delighted all guests:

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped cooked shrimp
• 1.5 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 tbsp cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp red onion, finely chopped
• 1.5 cups cooked haddock, shredded
• 2 heaping tbsp greek yogurt
• 1/3 cup milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb pie dough

Salsa

• 2 cups chopped honeydew
• 2 tbsp each: red onion, parsley, cilantro - finely chopped
• 2 tsp lime juice (add more if you like it very tangy)
• pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a bowl, mix the first 5 ingredients and set aside
2. In a smaller bowl, mix the yogurt and 1/4 cup of milk until you get the consistency of cooking cream (add more milk or yogurt if necessary)
3. Mix in 3 tbsp of the yogurt mixture to the fish stuffing
4. Pre-heat your oven to 375 F
5. Roll out the pie dough and create 8 circles approximately 6 in. in diameter
6. Put fish stuffing on one side of the circle and fold the other half on top. Seal your dough using a fork. Use the same process for the remaining 7 circles and place on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet.
7. Brush the empanadas with the remaining milk and bake for 20-30 minutes (until the crust becomes golden brown)
8. While your empanadas are baking, mix your salsa ingredients and place in the fridge until ready to serve.

This is an excellent recipe for left over white fish + it's great comfort food! I served these as an appetizer to our meal (1 empanada per person). You could also serve these as a main course (2 per person). Amanda had prepared a delicious pesto that she served with fettuccine, paired with a Pascual Toso Malbec.

Although I haven't tried, I bet these empanadas would be a great freezer meal. I'll keep you posted on how that goes :)

Enjoy!

- CK

Sparkling Summer Salad: Or, How I learned to stop slicing and love the mandolin,

Posted by amanda in apple, budget, celery, cilantro, cucumber, healthy, lemon, quick, recipe, salad, summer, vegan, vegetable, vegetarian

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I get a terrible feeling when I come to the end of a recipe I have all the ingredients for (ish) only to read the final instruction: crockpot-ing, immersion blending, dutch oven-ing...or any number of other final touches for which I don't have the right kitchen tool (yet!). So, having recently acquired a very handy mandolin from the previous owners of my new house (when someone leaves something in a cupboard still in the box, that's a housewarming gift right?), I've spent the better part of the afternoon julienning everything slice-able in my fridge (which is more than you'd think! Skinny cheese sticks anyone? Strawberry stick-men? Long long banana slices? No?).

The very tasty outcome of this little experiment is a pretty awesome summer salad: it's crunchy, tart, filling, and refreshing, and above all, easy (especially if you have a mandolin or any other kind of slicing tool).

You're gonna want:
A large bowl
A little bowl
A mandolin (you lucky duck)

In your big bowl toss together:

3 stalks of celery, sliced thick
half a cucumber, julienned
2 large carrots, peeled and julienned
2 granny smith (or other tart) apples, julienned [to do this, cut the apple into 4 sides, then attempt to slice - I kept the peels on)
l large handful of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

In your small bowl mix:
1/2 cup lemon juice
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
1 tbsp sugar (also optional - i wanted my dressing a little sweeter than lemony)
large grain salt to taste (I used a citrus chili salt mix and it was perfect)
cracked black pepper to taste

Drizzle the dressing over your salad mix and stir around until well distributed. Cover and keep in the fridge for an hour to let the flavours combine if you have the time, or serve fresh immediately!

Kick Up Your Coleslaw

Posted by amanda in brocolli, budget, carrot, celery, coleslaw, daron richardson, do it for daron, easy, mayonaise, mental health, salad, vegetable, vegetarian, zazaza

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Tangy and tasty!

There's this little place in my neighborhood called Zazaza, and they make the tastiest, most creative pizzas I've ever had the pleasure of getting my paws on. While this isn't a story about them, you should totally check them out for eat-in or take-out. They're also great supporters of the Do It For Daron initiative involved in raising awareness about, and transforming the experience of youth mental health issue, born out of the tragic death of 14-year old Daron Richardson in November 2010.

So, Zazaza is a great community restaurant, full of great people, supporting an even better cause that warrants all the attention it can get in this difficult times for teens.

In addition to these excellent things, Zazaza serves a ridiculously delicious coleslaw with their pizzas. I don't even LIKE coleslaw, and I LOVE this coleslaw. I think it has to do with their dressing, which is the part I usually don't like about the average 'slaw (since from this blog, I'm sure you can deduce that I am seriously into vegetables).

My take on their dressing is as such..in a bowl mix together:

1/4 cup mayonnaise (or miracle whip or sandwich dressing or whatever you're into these days)
1/2 TBSP Apple cider vinegar (any other vinegar would also work, but would alter the flavor slightly, so experiment!)
1 TBSP whole grain mustard (my mustard option of choice, though I'm sure others are tasty...a spicy mustard would probably be divine!)
1/2 TBSP Brown sugar
1 TSP red pepper flakes (more if you're REALLy into kicky cole')
A couple of good cracks of black pepper

Spoonful by spoonful I used this to dress: [you're basically looking at being able to dress 6.5-7 cups of veggies  all told, so divide up as you like)
2 large celery stalks sliced thinly
2 large carrots sliced thinly
roughly 11oz of carrots (julienned), broccoli stalks (julienned) and red cabbage (sliced thinly)

I love broccoli coleslaw, so usually go heavy on it..of course proportions here are up to you, but this is the quantity of slaw content that the dressing is proportional to.

Tasty additions would be:
-dried cranberries
-flax seeds
-toasted almond slivers or slices

Cold Quinoa Salad

Posted by amanda in budget, celery, cucumber, dressing, easy, healthy, quinoa, recipe, salad, tomato, vegetable, vegetarian, yellow pepper

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The finished product~

After all that holiday cheer (turkey pies, bacon based salads, and wines of all kinds), it might be time to get back to basics...like vegetables, and primary colors. This cold quinoa salad has both of those things, and is really easy to make. Though he might just be trying to placate me, M said he liked this one too. I adapted this recipe from a recipe on a box of Casbah quinoa...it didn't look like it would have enough crunch or flavor as it was originally intended, so I adjusted some quantities and ingredients to make up for that:

Fluff your quinoa to give it texture and to
make it grainy

First, cook up your quinoa (225g, or 1.5 cups):
To do this, bring 3 cups of vegetable broth to a boil.
Then add your quinoa to the broth; stir, and reduce the heat to low. Allow this to cook for between 15-20 minutes: you want the water to be completely absorbed by the quinoa.
When cooked, fluff the quinoa with a fork.
Let the quinoa cool while you prepare the rest of the salad ingredients.






In a large bowl combine:

Half a cucumber (I prefer skin intact) - thickly sliced and quartered
3-4 stalks of celery  - sliced
1 quart grape tomatoes - halved
1 yellow pepper - roughly chopped
(half a red onion would probably delicious chopped into this, though I didn't do so myself)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (you could up this even, especially if you love parsley, and go to 1/2 cup)









In a small bowl, whisk together:

Apple Cider Dressing

1/4 cup virgin olive oil
4 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1.5 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp red pepper flakes
3 or 4 good cracks of black pepper



Once the quinoa has cooled, combine it with the vegetables. Drizzle the dressing over the mixture and let sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavours settle.

A nice touch would be to add 2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach to the mix before serving.

Cottage Component 1: Picnic-Perfect Summer Salad

Posted by amanda in budget, celery, cucumber, dill, dressing, easy, feta, healthy, onion, pasta, pasta salad, pepper, quick, recipe, salad, spinach, tomato, vegetarian, yellow pepper

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It's summer tiiiimmmme and the cooking is eeeeaasy here at Stute-kitchen :) Team Stute has returned from a fantastic weekend away at a cottage with good friends, gorgeous weather, and GREAT food. Combining our forces we came up with a delicious cottage-time lunch: pasta salad and barbecued skewers. Fresh ingredients and a new spin on these old classics takes traditional summer food to a new level of goodness.

You're gonna need:

• Roughly 2 generous cups of uncooked shell (conchiglie) pasta
• One yellow pepper, seeded and cut into slim chunks (or however you like your pepper in a salad), if you go really chunky, use 2 peppers
• Half a cucumber, sliced into half circles
• 2-3 stalks of celery, diced roughly
• 1 pint (usually a container) of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 of a sweet onion (though any kind would likely do, this salad gets more onion-y the longer it exists, so choose wisely), finely chopped
• 3 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
• 3-5 generous handfuls of baby spinach (mixed greens will do in a pinch, but they don't keep as long once the dressing is mixed in).

Dressing: Whisk together...

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 heaping  tbsps Red Wine Vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
Ground Black Pepper to taste

Topper:

Roughly 1.5 cups of light feta cheese -though really, add as much or a little as you like - , rinsed, dried, and crumbled (my new technique is to rinse the block from the brine, and then squeeze the liquid out in my fist, over the sink - this dries and crumbles simultaneously, then you can just brush your hands off in the salad)

To assemble:

1. Cook the pasta (roughly 8-10 minutes to get it al dente), rinse in cold water, and set aside.

2. Combine all your veggies, except the spinach, in a large bowl, using your hands to mix gently, being
sure to distribute the dill.

3. Add pasta to veggies, again, stirring with hands.

4. Add spinach by handful, assessing how much or how little you will want personally. Mix with hands (this avoids breaking the pasta shells)

5. Pour dressing over pasta and veggies (if you don't like getting oily, use a utensil here, but I swear, hands is the way to go)

6. Chill.
7. Crumble feta into salad before serving. Mix.

This makes roughly 10 servings, depending on the appetites in the room. Be sure to wait 20 minutes or so before hitting the lake!!!
-A

Chunky Meaty Fantastically Easy Pasta Sauce

Posted by CK in beef, carrot, celery, mushroom, pasta, peppers, recipe, sauce

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Everyone has their personal recipe for a deliciously meaty pasta sauce. When I was still living with the 'rents, I used to LOVE how my mom always made her sauce so chunky! Once I got my own place, I wanted to get the taste of this delicious and easy meal but always failed at making it as good as my mom's. In search of a great recipe, A's mom gave me her family recipe and with a little personal touches, this recipe turned out to be so delicious, I can almost say that it's better than my mom's!! (sorry mom). It's perfect to freeze up, and it's got all kinds of good vegetables in there!

Once you're done with this recipe, you'll want to eat it up with a spoon, forget about the pasta and eat more for lunch the next day. Feed it to your boyfriend before they go out and play sports and they will be on adrenaline! Here's what you need to do to get your (and your man's) taste buds going:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 table spoon of olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1 lb ground beef (you can substitute this with turkey or half turkey and half beef)
• 1 yellow or orange pepper (or both, or a different colour. Whichever one you prefer really)
• mushroom (as many as you want, I usually take about half of those white mushroom boxes)
• 1 large celeri stem
• 1 large carrot
• 1 medium can of Aylmer Tomato Soup (sometimes I use a can of diced tomatoes, but the soup tastes better)
• 1 small can of tomato paste (preferrably plain - without any added spices)
• 3/4 table spoon of oregano
• 3/4 table spoon of thyme
• salt and pepper to taste

Putting the deliciousness together:

1. Chop your onions is small pieces and caramelize them in the olive oil in a large pot on medium-high heat. Add your crushed garlic into the pan and stir.
2. Add your meat to the onion mix and stir to make sure that all the meat cooks well.
3. Cut up all your vegetables and add them to the meat/onion mixture. Stir for another 2-3 minutes. *Note: it's easier if your vegetables are prepped beforehand, but I often simply chop them while the meat is cooking.
4. Add your tomato paste and tomato soup. Stir well for the sauce to cover the entire mixture.
5. Add your oregano, thyme, salt and pepper. Stir very well.
6. Cover and let simmer for at least 2 hours (longer if you have time). Stir once in a while.

That's it! :) The long part is the simmering, but it's sooo worth it! The sauce comes out chunky and meaty. If you like it more liquidy, you can add some water. Also (although I haven't tried it yet), perhaps some tempeh or tofu would be a good substitute for the beef for vegetarians out there.

Enjoy and feel free to play around with this recipe!! Let me know how it turns out! :D

-CK