Salad Toppers

Have you ever tried corn nuts? I haven't until now and I am surprised to say that I like them. They look a little like the corn I used to buy from vending machines at farms to feed to the animals, but they taste like crunchy, salty, bites of goodness. And they are great as salad toppers!

The best thing I found about corn nuts is that they taste great on top of any salad I've tried so far. But I have to say that the salad I'm sharing today is pretty fantastic when topped with corn nuts.  Maybe it's the vinegary bite of the pickled beets with the salty corn nuts, creamy avocado, earthy lentils, and sharp green onions, but I think it's a great pairing!

Homegrown Lettuce

It's August and I think this is the first year I've kept my resolution all the way to the eighth month of the year! I promised myself that I would try one new food each month for all of 2014 and I'm proud that I've actually kept it up.

This month isn't quite as adventurous as other months, but it did take a lot more work than just pursuing the isles at the Bulk Barn. This month I tried homegrown lettuce!

I have grown lettuce before but for some reason it's always been a little too bitter for me to really enjoy. But this lettuce is different; it's tender, sweet, and a real treat to eat.

I paired my homegrown lettuce with some other yummy summertime ingredients - barbecued peaches, a light lemon vinaigrette, salmon, and blue cheese. I think I came up with a winning salad, but read on for the recipe to see if you agree.

Summer Salad Frenzy

I have truly enjoyed finding one new ingredient to try using each month of 2014 and I am proud to say that July's ingredient was something I grew in my garden. It's pineapple mint.

Pineapple mint tastes exactly what you would expect a mint and pineapple fusion to taste like and I have no idea how anyone could have made it happen. It's fresh, bright, and delicious. And you might not believe me, but it's perfect with seafood.

The dish I made to first taste pineapple mint is a fresh summer salad and I know it's going to find it's way back onto my dinner table throughout August. It's too simple and perfect to serve on a warm day.

Wheat Berries for Canada Day

I love being Canadian and I love sharing my love of being Canadian through food. Every year I create fun red and white dishes for Canada Day and this year I started a little early so I could share it with you now.

I decided I wanted to try wheat berries for my dish and I'm happy to say they turned out great. I learned a lot of them too.

1. Wheat berries are similar to farro, but much less expensive.
2. They can be toasted in the oven prior to cooking them but they have a nice nutty taste even if you don't do toast them first.
3. They need to be cooked for a really long time, about 50 minutes or more.

Ready for my newest dish, Wheat Berry and Grapefruit Salad? Read on for the recipe.

Baby Beluga

I tried caviar once, but it wasn't for me. The texture was too weird and each mouthful was too salty for me to enjoy it. I'm just not that fancy a girl.

But when I heard about beluga lentils, I knew I'd love them. I love everything about lentils and a special lentil with a name that attributed to caviar? I am completely on board with that. It took me awhile to find beluga lentils (I found them at Bulk Barn, which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows me), and I discovered I do love them. 

So for May's new ingredient of the month, here's a new recipe starring beluga lentils - Sweet and Spicy Sweet Potato and Beluga Lentil Salad. 

Puffed Quinoa and Goji Berries

Do you ever make NewYear's resolutions and wonder why you ever thought you could keep them going strong throughout the year? I think that around April every single year.

In January, I decided to try one new food per month for all of 2014. I'm still keeping my promise, in fact this month I actually tried two new foods, but it's much harder than I expected because there are only so many foods in the world to try!

In January I finally tried chia seeds and made a yummy chia seed pudding. In February I tried something I had never heard of, amaranth, and made a note worthy amaranth porridge with strawberries. And in March I tried raw cashews and made a truly delicious pasta dish with a vegan raw cashew sauce.

This month I was walking around the Bulk Barn, because that's where I've been finding all my new foods to try so far, and was worried that I might run before December. Then I decided to throw caution to the wind and made a yummy salad topper using two new foods for April. I realized that if I run out of new foods to try at the Bulk Barn, I can just head over to China Town or my Farmer's Market, it might get a little harder in December but if I keep trying I can fulfill this set of resolutions.

Read on for my recipe for Roasted Cauliflower and Sausage with Puffed Quinoa Salad Topper. It might sound a few bit familiar if you read a recipe I shared a few days ago for Puffed Quinoa and Peeps Tarts with Lemon Curd and that's because I used my Puffed Quinoa Salad Topper for the tarts! It turns out that a salad topper makes a pretty awesome tart!

Raw Cashew Love

As you might reminder, I told myself that I'd try a new food each month of 2014. I've done well so far and don't plan on giving up. So this month's new food is raw cashews.

Raw cashews are something you wouldn't want to snack on because they aren't roasted and salted into the cashews we typically know and love. But raw cashews are truly perfect for making a cheese-less cheese sauce and that's something worth talking about.

I learned about raw cashews and vegan cheese sauce from the Oh She Glows blog and cookbook and knew that I had to give them a try. I love cheese but scrubbing a pot from a cheese sauce is tiring and there's only so much cheese a girl should eat.

My recipe is inspired by Oh She Glow's Smoky Butternut Squash Sauce with Pasta and Greens, but I think the "secret" ingredients I added takes the sauce up another few notches. But you should try both recipes to know for sure.

Red and White Breakfast

It's February so, if you remember my New Year's resolution to try one new food a month, that means it's time for me to bring you something new. This month my new food is amaranth seeds and, in a weird way, the new recipe I made with them is bringing back some old childhood memories.

I was inspired by a recipe for Amaranth Porridge that I saw in Pinterest and one taste of it made me remember sitting in my Nana's kitchen and asking for big bowls of cream of wheat. These memories set my dish up for something special, but when you factor in that amaranth is full of protein and other healthy benefits, it's a real winner.

Plus, I top my Amaranth Porridge with beautiful red strawberries and tasty white coconut and yogurt covered raisins, so it's perfect for serving on Valentine's Day and for cheering on our Canadian Olympians!

New Year's Resolutions

For this month's Canadian Food Experience Project, we were asked to share a post on our resolutions. Every year I make resolutions, but I don't usually finish the year having kept them.

After spending a bit of time thinking about it, I think I know what my problem is. I think it's that my resolutions are usually too big and too difficult to keep. Or are something I just don't enjoying doing...

But I know this year will be different because I am only resolving to try one new food each month. That's just 12 new things and I can surely do that! I'll be posting about my new foodie finds each month and I hope that you'll be interested in trying a few of them along with me.

This month I am starting off by trying chia. I bet you once had a chia pet, one of those little terra cotta animals that you would scoop a little pile of seeds onto, water it, and then get to watch the plants grow? Well I had heard that chia seeds were really good for you and tasty too. Now I know that whoever said that was right!

Read on for my recipe for Chia Puddings, inspired by one from Giada's new cookbook, Giada's Feel Good Food.  I used fruit fitting for a Canadian winter and made a few other changes as well.