Soup for a Dark Day

Is it just me or did it just get super dark in the mornings all of a sudden? I wake up, I look outside, it's dark, and it's 7:00am? It feels like a prank, but sadly it's not.

These dark days make me yearn for hot, silky, creamy soup. The kind full of goodies and deliciousness. The kind of soup that makes you want a second bowl. Maybe the kind with a little heat in it, so you don't feel cold anymore. Do you know the kind I mean?

If you can't put your finger on the kind of soup I'm talking about, don't worry. I have your back. It's the kind of soup I'm sharing today - Thai Coconut Noodle Soup. It's perfect for the days you want to stay in bed, and the other days too.

Carrot Fever

Now that it's almost (gulp) October, I am doing my best to eat up all the veggies left in my garden. This means that all carrots I pulled and am featuring in today's recipe are a little bit less than perfect looking.

But looks say nothing of their taste! They taste fantastic! For this recipe, I merged together two of my favourite things, gingery carrots and my old favourite sauce for chicken or turkey. Now I know this sauce goes perfectly well with carrots so I think I will try it with tofu next!

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.

Thai-ed Up

After I get home from work I have had days where I am completely exhausted. It's hot out, I've had a busy day, or I just don't feel like cooking. But I usually want to eat something healthy, so I'm not ordering a pizza.

Those are days I hope I remember this Peanut Butter Thai Noodle Salad recipe. This dish is no-cook, quick, healthy, and yummy. Plus it makes enough for leftovers for the next night and that's always a plus - if the dish is good!

Grapefruit and Wasabi

I don't know about you, but when I think about wasabi I think solely about sushi and grapefruit never crosses my mind. So when I heard that Dawn from Spatulas on Parade decided on wasabi and grapefruit for May's Crazy Ingredient Challenge, I felt a wee bit unsure about what to make.

At first I thought about making a new kind of sushi that featured grapefruit, but couldn't come up with the right concept. Then I thought of trying to make a grapefruit dessert with a spicy wasabi glaze, but I got scared off that idea before I started experimenting.

Finally I decided on reinventing one of my favourite side dishes, Miso Garlic Asian Greens. I subbed in wasabi for the red pepper flakes, grapefruit juice for the water, and made a few other small changes to make it unique. And who would have guessed it, but I came up with a dish that features wasabi and grapefruit and still manages to taste great!

Say Cheese!

I love going to Farmer's Markets and seeing what amazing vegetables could be featured on my plate in the summer, but right now Farmer's Markets are filled with mostly cheese, eggs, preserves, and baked goods. While I am a little less excited about baked goods and preserves because I love to make my own, choosing a special piece of local artisan cheese is worth the trip to a Farmer's Market in a colder weather. 

This month's Canadian Food Experience Project challenge is to write about a Canadian farmer or producer and I can't think of any local producer better that Salt Spring Island Cheese Company. They make handmade goat and sheep's cheeses and each bite is worth every calorie. Their chèvre is particularly delicious, but I love putting out a cheese board filled with a few of their cheeses so I can sample a taste of everything.

I love to enjoy a bite of Salt Spring Island Cheese with nothing more than a cracker, but I think even just a few small pieces enhance a dish and makes it even more special. Why not try some with my Carrot Gnocchi recipe? It would make a great Easter treat this year!

Veggie and Potato Pie

When I was small, my mom actually had one of those dinner bells. I think it was more for decoration than for practicality, but she still rang it from time to time to get us home for dinner. I'm not sure why, but today's recipe reminds me about that dinner bell.

I think I'm reminded about the dinner bell because today's recipe is a homey kind of dish. It's a vegetarian pie topped with mashed potatoes and full of a delicious vegetarian gravy. I can almost picture my mom making this dish for me. 

Read in for my recipe for my Veggie and Potato Pie recipe.

What's Better than a Stuffin Muffin?

I know most of my posts this month have featured healthy recipes, but I still pine for hearty comfort food too. I love a good stick to your ribs, make you feel warm, or take you back to Mom's house kind of meal.

For me, that kind of meal almost always comes out of an oven. It almost always involves roasted veggies and hopefully some of kind of baked bread, bun, or bread pudding. Some of you might choose to serve a roast chicken with your meal and I think that today's recipe would go perfectly with one.

Today's recipe is a Stuffin. They are muffins made out of stuffing. I don't want to pretend that I made them up, I thought I might have but I looked up a stuffin on the Internet and found out that they sadly already existed, but the recipe I came up with is pretty darn delicious. They're quicker to make than a big casserole of dressing so they feel a little less thanksgiving and a little more weekend comfort food.

Read on for the recipe!

Mexican Winter Food

I find that one of the best ways to deal with Christmas being over is to eat spicy food. Bright and spicy Mexican dishes with toppings galore always make me happy on a dreary evening in Janaury.

Today's recipe is one from Chatealine, but I've topped their Mexican Lentil Soup with a delicious medley of treats that I think would make even the darkest night fun. Toppings make this soup interactive and can also make eating the soup into a game of who-can-make-the-best-topped-soup? 

That's not just a game at my house, is it? If that's not the game for you, try your chance at my current giveaway for Team Canada 2014 Olympic Gear! 

Crazy Ingredient Challenge - Onions and Gingerbread Spice

This month's Crazy Ingredient Challenge was the craziest yet. I love the holidays and I love gingerbread cookies, but when we were asked to pair gingerbread spice with onions, I almost didn't take part in the challenge. I couldn't come up with anything besides cookies to make with gingerbread spice and I knew that I did not want to try adding onions to cookies!

But then a month-before-Christmas holiday miracle happened and I came up with something delicious that I'll be making again before the holidays are upon us. And the gingerbread spice mix works surprisingly well in the recipe too.

My new Samosa Wonton Cups are perfect finger food for a holiday party and they're just as tasty as their more time consuming cousins too! Read on for the recipe!

The New Bolognese

I used to love a rich and hearty Bolognese sauce. I loved smelling it simmering on the stove and anticipating how comforting and delicious it would taste. And I thought that love affair was over when I stopped eating meat. Thankfully I was wrong. 

I just discovered this amazing recipe for a lentil Bolognese that is relatively quick to prepare and tastes just as good, if not better, than other beefy recipes I use to make. It was always slow cooking the veggies in the sauce that gave the best flavour, so I really shouldn't have been so surprised. 

The craziest part of this successful recipe is that I never thought I'd like lentils paired with pasta, I thought that any recipe that paired the two would be far too heavy. But I was again proven wrong, lentils and pasta are a match made in heaven. 

Don't believe me? Read on for the yummy recipe inspired by one from Clean Eating magazine.

Harry Potter Pumpkin Pasties and a Giveaway!

My post on Harry Potter Butterbeer Cupcakes was so well received that I just had to create a second dish from my favourite movie franchise to share with everyone as a thank you! And if you read on past the recipe, there's a little giveaway opportunity at the end of this post too.

I absolutely love pie so choosing my second Harry Potter themed dish to share with you was incredibly easy. I always envisioned the Pumpkin Patsies sold on the Hogwart's Express as little Cornish Pasties style pies stuffed full of pumpkin. And if those pumpkin filled treats were good enough for Harry, I knew that they'd be perfect for me too.

I know they sound simple, but the magic created when these Pumpkin Pasties bake is truly amazing. But of course we all already knew that because they weren't featured in Harry Potter for nothing!

Monster Mash

Is it just me or does everyone want to start bobbing their head, dancing about, and smile when they hear the words to the "Monster Mash"? I don't think of myself as a great singer, or even a not bad singer, but I can't even help but to start singing along when I hear that song.

At least Halloween is supposed to be scary, right?

To get in the Halloween spirit this year, I'll be sharing fun Halloween themed dishes in each post from now until the Big Day. The first one is my version of Life Made Delicious' Spooky Shepherd's Pie.  Life Made Delicious' version is perfect for a family that loves ground beef and my version is a great option of a vegetarian family. Other than that, the main difference is that ghosts haunt Life Made Delicious' version and green monsters are mashing on top of mine.

Kitchen Sink Soup

I know I am ready for winter when I start filling my grocery cart and fridge with more food than I can possibly eat in one week. I just see yummy looking ingredients, detour from my carefully planned list, and fill up my grocery cart. Doing may make me seem like part squirrel, but it also has helped me to come up with really yummy recipes. 

Today's recipe is compliments of my having binge bought far too much kale, leeks, and carrots at the farmers market and from having stock piled too many dried beans in my cupboards. And I'm happy it happened because this soup was delicious! 

Beet It, Stains

I love eating beets. They can be sweet, earthy, or pickled and they add a beautiful rich hue to my plates. But I don't love the stains they leave when one when accidentally falls off my fork, tumbles down my blouse, and lands on my pants. In fact, I hate beet stains.

But I've learned how best to go about beating beet stains, and before I share one of the best beet salad recipes I've ever had with you, I'm going to share a couple of tips about getting rid of beet stains.

I've tried two methods and they've both worked pretty well. The first method sounds a little crazy, but I use it if I'm out of my favourite stain remover. Just soak a piece of bread in cold water and use it to sponge away the beet stains, then wash the clothes as usual. My second method is to run the fabric under cold water right away, pretreat the stain with my favourite stain remover, and then wash as usual. I'm always interested in learning about new ways to get rid of stains, so if you have other tested ideas, I'd love to hear about them.

I'm going to post my tips about getting rid of beet stains on Resolve's new Resolve Tip Exchange website. It's a great new site to learn about getting rid of stains, all from readers like you and me!

One of the ways that Resolve is encouraging us to enter tips is by offering 12 weekly prizes of $250 and a grand prize of $5000! Each week we can submit a tip to earn a ballot in the draw for the prizes and that's sure got me thinking of tips I'd like to share!

So far I've sent in tips for removing butter and red wine from clothes, but you'll have to head over to Resolve Tip Exchange to find out those tips! For now, since you don't have to worry about permanently staining your clothes from beets, read on for an amazingly tasty Beet and Carrot Salad recipe!

Sweet, Sour, and Summery

I bet when some of you looked at this picture of this salad you thought, oh great another simple salad and now she's adding radishes....

Well if you did think that I'm happy to you that you're half right, but you'll hopefully also be pleasantly surprised. This is another simple salad and I am adding radishes, but it's much more than that too. Today's salad is slightly deceptive, but in a good way. All the veggies, except for the lettuce, get marinated in a sweet and sour mixture that makes this salad special and bright. 

I think this salad will reign supreme at my house this summer with many different veggies taking the starring role. I hope you all love it too. 

Hay and Straw Salad

First off, don't worry because this salad doesn't actually contain straw or hay. I just am borrowing the term from a pasta dish that contains long strips of regular and spinach pasta because both the pasta dish and my salad have long strips of bicolored edibles that look like straw and hay. 

Secondly, if you've read Smitten Kitchen, you might have seen something that looks a wee bit like this salad before. However, I've made my version entirely different by taking out the original yummy salad dressing, adding in a new fabulous Asian Pineapple salad dressing instead, and changing a few other bits as well. I can not put into words how delicious this salad dressing is other to simply yell out the word YUM! 

Ok, I'm getting hungry. Let's not waste another moment, read on for the recipe! 

Rainbow of Delights

I love noshing on colourful food because it looks so beautiful. And I love serving colourful food to my friends because it makes everyone smile and smiling is important when you want to enjoy what you're eating. 

Today's post might be simple to make, but it's also simply beautiful if you ask me. And I love to spoon up some of this puréed carrot sauce, inspired by a recipe from Martha Stewart's Meatless, and pour it into my summer rolls. Delish!

Faux Pho

Pho is a Vietnamese dish where I just don't see the appeal. I like everything that goes into it on its own, but I just don't like slurping up long dripping noodles from a bowl of broth. 

Since I do like to eat Wonton Noodle Soup I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, but there's a difference between the two soups. Pho has really long rice noodles and they're super slippery. Wonton Noodle Soup has a different kind of noodle that's much easier and less messy to eat. 

Alright, that's a big stretch. They're pretty much the same. But since my honey loves them, I keep giving them a try. 

Here's my first successful version of a Pho. Mine's a Faux Pho as it has fish instead of beef and I have to admit that I like it. Somehow it feels less uncomfortable to eat a drippy soup in the comfort of my own home! 

Carrot Cake in a Cup

When I serve dessert, I love to serve individual portions. Individual portions always look prettier and we eat with our eyes first, so looking good counts for a lot. 

Today's dessert recipe is a new version of one of my old faithful desserts, my favourite recipe for Carrot Cake and I added in a fruity banana frosting to make it extra special. I think my dessert looks yummy and I know you'll agree after just one bite!