Quinoa Salad is Berry-licious!

                                                                                 

I really have no excuse for not posting too regularly except for the fact that I have been enjoying some much needed alone time.  How is this you ask? For one, I am on holidays from work until September.  Two, Hubby has been working during the day, as per usual. Three, the Boy is on a fantastic Me to We adventure in Ecuador building a school, playing games with kids, and having a blast. (He's a keeper!)

Not to brag too much, but I have been sleeping in, watching Netflix, and hanging out in the garden.  Nothing too exciting but seems to be just what I needed.  That being said, many apologies if I haven't kept in touch. I must also admit to spending a good amount of time browsing Pinterest.  I love seeing the ideas and thing people come up with and sometimes it inspires my own thought processes.

I found some salads featuring quinoa and berries.  The dressings didn't seem to appeal to me so I figured honey and lime always go well with berries and boom....there you have it. 

Berry Quinoa Salad with Honey Lime Dressing

4 cups mixed berries 

    - I used a mixture of blueberries, cherries, raspberries, and strawberries

1/2 cup un cooked quinoa

1 cup water

Slivered almonds, toast almonds in a dry pan until slightly golden and allow to cool.

Honey lime dressing

1/4 cup lime juice

2 tbsp honey

3 tbsp oil (use a neutral tasting oil such as canola)

Pinch of salt

Combine the quinoa and water in a pot.  Bring to a boil, slap a lid on it, reduce the temperature to low and set the timer for 15 minutes.  When the timer dings, take it off the heat, fluff it with a fork and set it aside to cool.

Wash and dry the berries, cut up the strawberries, pit and halve the cherries, and put it all to the side.

Combine the dressing ingredients in a jar and shake it until everything is combined. Give the dressing a taste to see if it needs more honey, or lime, or salt.

Once the quinoa is cooled, combine it with the berries, almonds, and the dressing. Chill until serving time.

This salad was divine....Hubby gave it rave reviews!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.

Comfort Food for Finals

Oh my!! Where has the time gone! I cannot keep making excuses for abandoning my blog and my precious readers.  We have been doing our darnedest to get back into the swing of things after the holidays. January has been cold and busy here on the prairies. I have kept up going to the gym 3 to 4 times a week and feel great!!

I miss Hawaii sooooooo much!

Unfortunately my sun kissed glow from my holiday trip to Hawaii has faded. The new freckles stayed though!  We have sort of settled in to a sort of winter routine here. The Boy is busy with all things studying, baseball, and now, drivers' education.  That's right. You heard me. The Boy is learning how to drive....ACK! I can't be old enough for this! He can't be old enough for this! Am I ready for this? I am going to have to be.
This past week was exam week at the high school and while he won't admit it, nerves played a role.  To help get him through,  I made a couple of the Boy's favourites for dinner.  Nothing like a little comfort food to get  you through!  Chicken Fingers and fries.  He asks for homemade chicken fingers every time I buy boneless chicken breasts!  Of course, this can be a messy undertaking because you need to dredge the chicken strips in flour, dip them in egg yolk, and then in the bread crumb mixture but it is so worth the effort!

First start your french fries!! Heat the oven to 400F and scrub 3 large russet potatoes. Line a baking sheet with a layer of tin foil or parchment paper. Cut the potatoes into fry size sticks.  Toss the fries with 2 tbsps oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt. Place the fries in the oven.

Chicken Fingers

• 3 or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 4 strips each
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
• 1 cup panko 
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• salt and pepper

Take out 3 dishes or pie plates.
In the first dish, toss in the seasoned flour.

In the second dish, beat the eggs.

In the third dish, mix together the panko, Parmesan, garlic powder, onion powder, a big pinch of salt and a healthy grinding of pepper.

Get a baking sheet ready with either parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet.

Now, first all of those strips of chicken need to be dredged in the flour and shaken off.

Next, plunge the flour coated chicken into the beaten eggs and let the excess drip off.

Plunk the drippy chicken into the panko mixture making sure to coat the entire piece of chicken in crumbly goodness.

Place the strips onto the prepared baking sheet and slide it all into the oven with the fries. You can flip the fries over if you want, I never do and things always seem to turn out just fine.

Once the chicken strips are in the oven, everything should be cooked in 25 to 30 minutes.

The fries and strips should both be golden brown when done.

Homemade honey mustard.

• 1/2 cup mayo
• 2 tsp mustard
• 2 tbsp honey

Mix all three ingredients together until thoroughly mixed.

Serve with chicken fingers.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.

A Trip to the Farmers' Market

Hi, my name is Lori and I am addicted to Farmers' Markets....whew....that is a load off!  Hubby knows me a little too well so Saturday morning when he was still snoozing, the words "No worries, I can go to Lac du Bonnet by myself" got him out of bed and dressed so fast, you'd never know it was before 9:00am!  Apparently I am not to be trusted at the farmers' market alone. Even a small scale one such as the Lac du Bonnet market. I tend to get over excited, spend more money than I should on things we don't need.....I like having a 3kg tub of honey to use for baking!!  Now I wonder what would happen if I attempted the St. Norbert Farmers' Market....

 
Produce is finally starting to pop up at the local farmers' markets and I couldn't be happier!  While my garden is doing fairly well, especially the tomato plants which have become too heavy for the cages, I don't have room to plant everything I wanted. On the same note, not everything I planted is thriving.  Luckily we have some amazing markets to help pick up the slack!

Last weekend, the only thing I really wanted from the market was some local honey as I was all out! I found a vendor selling honey and honey products (YES!) They didn't have the 3kg buckets yet but I am happy with my 1kg jar of unpasteurized honey!! ($7.50).  We also purchased a small jar of habanero pepper jelly.  This stuff is sweet with a big kick!

This sounds like the makings of a marinade.....hmmmmm.  I have since used this on both a whole chicken and on chicken pieces!!





Habanero Honey Dijon Marinade

Equal amounts of:

• runny honey
• habanero pepper jelly
• Dijon mustard
• olive oil

So if you use 1 tbsp each of everything, you will have a 1/4 cup of marinade

Mix in a pinch of salt and pepper.

Pour it all into a zip top bag, add your meat (I used chicken for this one and I had no zip top bags so I mixed it in a bowl!)

Pop it into the fridge to rest for at least 4 hours or overnight.
(Alternatively, you can rub this all over a whole chicken and pop it into the oven to roast....make sure to get some of this goodness under the skin as well)

Chicken pieces doused in this marinade grill up perfectly on the BBQ!

Some more sights of the the Lac du Bonnet Farmers' market

Pickles, relishes, mustard....

More fantastic honey products!

Tree saplings

Of course the Car B Cue was there!

 Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Honey Dijon Chicken

So I had a slight panic attack tonight....it all started with an afternoon snack with the Boy.  We noshed on some fabulous garlic sausage (from HMG Meats and Deli), cheese, and pickles....oh those pickles.  The pickles were in a bowl....somehow the bowl wound up upside down on my laptop with pickles and pickle juice all over the keyboard.  Ack!!  The Boy should just be kept away from electronics!! It was a complete accident.  What to do, what to do??  First I turned the power off (I am told to take the battery out but I couldn't get the battery out) then put the keyboard portion in rice.  That's right, rice.

Things seem to be working well.  There was one moment of panic when I first turned it on and every now and then the keys won't move too easily but then a piece of rice pops out.  I am still finding some pieces of rice here and there but all is working!!  Whew!!

FYI, this rice trick also worked when my Blackberry fell in a puddle!!

Tonight's easy peasy dinner involved minimal dishes and the BBQ again!

Honey Dijon Chicken, adapted from Food Network.  You will need:

• Dijon mustard
• Runny honey
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
• zip top freezer bag for marinating

First:  In a zip top freezer bag mix equal parts Dijon mustard and honey.  Add some salt and pepper and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Mix it all up and add some chicken pieces, seal up the bag and move everything around so the chicken gets all covered in saucy goodness.

Make a foil pouch and drizzle in some olive oil.  Toss in some veggies.  Tonight I had some baby potatoes so I used those.  You can use carrots, beans, asparagus....whatever you have.   Add a pat of butter for good flavour and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Toss it all on the grill.

I do love a Monday night BBQ....it means I can get my toes in the grass and enjoy some time outside.

It's a new BBQ so I am still learning the hot spots.

Yummy!!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!!

Honey Cinnamon Peaches

Not too long ago, I made an oh so yummy batch of honey vanilla plums and it did not last very long (I do have some everyday with my vanilla yogurt)! Yesterday while Hubby and I were grocery shopping, we happened past some peaches.  The lovely, sweet, peachy smell was intoxicating!  I just had to buy some.  Today I decided to savour that peachy goodness by revamping the honey vanilla plums into honey cinnamon peaches!!!

Honey Cinnamon Peaches

Wash and chop:

• 4 large, sweet smelling peaches

Place the chopped peaches into a pot on medium heat.

Let the peaches cook down for a few minutes allowing the juices to start flowing.
Add to the pot:

• 1/4 to 1/3 cup of honey
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Continue to cook the peaches until they are soft.
Mash the peaches slightly, leaving some luscious lumps of peachy goodness.

From here you can either spoon into hot sterilized jars as per canning guide lines or allow the sauce to cool and store in the fridge.  As with the honey vanilla plums this goes great with:

• vanilla ice cream
• vanilla yogurt
• with granola
• on pancakes or waffles
• in a peanut butter sandwich
• by the spoonful

How to fill your house with the aroma of fresh baked bread

I doubt there is anyone around who doesn't LOVE the smell of fresh baked bread wafting through the air!  I absolutely LOVE the smell of baked bread so this morning I baked some fresh buns.  I have made this dough a few times over the past month.  Buns go into a zip top bag in the freezer and get used with supper or to make sandwiches for lunches.  If I decide to make loaves they get sliced (after they have cooled) and put into a freezer bag.  The slices are great for toast or sandwiches.  Homemade bread has no preservatives so it can go mouldy if you don't eat it or freeze it fairly soon after you make it.  This particular recipe I have adapted from Gordon Ramsay's 'Healthy Appetite' book.  !  People who know me know that I have trouble following instructions so many recipes I use are generally altered to suit my failure to follow along.  
As usual, I have doubled the original recipe.  If you are going to mess up the kitchen, you may as well make it worth your while!

Seeded Honey Loaf or Buns
In a bowl combine,

• 4 1/2 tsps yeast
• 2 1/2 cups warm water 
• 1/4 cup honey
• 6 tbsp olive oil

While this mixture is working to get a foamy, in the bowl of a stand mixer combine:

• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 1/2 cups white flour                 
• 2 tsps kosher salt

You can play around with the ratio of whole wheat flour to white flour.  You can replace up to 1/2 of the white flour with whole wheat without sacrificing the texture too much.

Add aproximately 4 tsps of each of the following:

• poppy seeds
• sesame seeds
• pumpkin seeds
• flaxseed
• sunflower seeds
• milled flaxseed
• handful of wheat bran

This is the part where you can alter what you add.  If you don't like one of the items, swap it out for another item!

 

 

Mix the flours and seeds to combine.

Add the foamy yeast mixture and keep mixing with the dough hook.

As the dough comes together, you may need to add more flour. Depending on many different reasons, you may have to add up to 1 more cup of flour.  This is fine and will not alter the dough.  The dough will be soft but shouldn't be sticky.  Knead for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Knead the dough around with your hands for a couple of minutes and form it into a ball.  

Place the dough ball into an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and allow to rise to double. This will take about an hour.

 

Punch the dough down!  Get those frustrations out!

To form into 4 small loaves, divide the dough into 4 equal portions and shape into oval shaped loaves.  Place loaves on a parchment lined baking sheets.  Cover with a clean tea towel and allow to rise until double, about an hour.  Bake at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes.  Fully baked loaves will be a dark golden brown and sound hollow on the bottom when tapped.

To form buns, measure out pieces of dough into approximately 100g portions.  I generally go for between 98 and 102g portions.

 Shape these portions of dough into balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Cover the buns with a clean tea towel and allow to rise until double, about another hour.

Preheat the oven to 400degrees F during the last 15 minutes of the second rise.

Bake for 17 to 18 minutes until a nice golden brown on top.

Honey Vanilla Yummy Plums

While cleaning up after dinner, I saw my pail of honey sitting on the counter looking sad and lonely.  When I say 'pail of honey', I am referring to the 3kg pail of honey I picked up at the farmers' market last weekend.  I started to rustle through my cupboards to see what I had on hand that I could pair with the honey.  Low and behold I found my vanilla beans!!!  Knowing I had plums in the fridge....I decided to make some honey vanilla plums.  I guess it is really a compote or a plum sauce.  Three simple ingredients!!

• plums, washed, pitted, and chopped (leave that skin on!!! It gives a great colour!)
• honey
• 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Place the chopped plums in a pot on medium heat.  Add the seeds from the vanilla bean and the pod.  Drizzle on 1 or2 tablespoons of honey.  I used 1/4 cup of honey tonight but this all depends on the ripeness of the plums and your personal tastes.  Let the plums cook down, stirring occasionally.  The plums will break down and become a luscious and yummy sauce.

****One of my favourite uses for honey vanilla plums is to stir them into yogurt!!