I love carrots

Carrots?  Yes carrots.

Not always, but recently, I've become carrots biggest fan.  Cheap, cheerful, and organic.  Carrots just take a little creativity to get away from everyday steamed or roasted carrots.

My solution?  Grate them!

It is extra easy and quick with a food processor, and it takes just the wink of an eye for the carrots to cook.  The best part is how they make this beautiful orange oil, and it's beyond delicious too.

Grated carrots are an easy way to eat fewer noodles, less meat, and more vegetables.


I tend to like my grated carrot creations with XO sauce. Thanks J&C! Sriracha is hip too.


A little meat, a little extra cilantro, cucumber, and green onions never hurt much either. I had these Vietnamese-esque beef and pork kebab type bits in the freezer. It made for quite the perfect pairing!


Vietnamese-esque Lemongrass Kebabs

2 pounds ground beef
2 pound ground pork
2 eggs
1/2 cup water
4 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
10 leaves fresh mint, finely chopped
2 tbsp finely chopped lemongrass (tender parts)
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3. Lightly beat the eggs. Combine all the ingredients.
4. Shape the meat into patties, or kebab shapes.
5. Bake until the internal temperature of the meat is 170 degrees F, or approximately 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

Carrot Noodles

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5 carrots (preferably organic)
1 red pepper
1 tbsp freshly ground ginger
1/3 cup miso paste
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
16 oz, 454g, wide rice noodles
(optional serving accompaniments - green onion, thinly sliced cucumber, chopped cilantro, XO sauce or sriracha)

1. Boil a large pot of water, and cook the noodles according to package directions. Drain.
2. Clean the ends off the carrots, and section the red pepper. Using a food processor with grating attachment, grate the carrot and red pepper.
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add the carrots and bell pepper. Let sizzle for a couple minutes, until a nice orange oil appears. Stir in the ginger.
4. Whisk the miso with a 1/2 cup of water, and add to the carrot mixture.
5. Turn off the heat. Add the cilantro and the noodles. Enjoy!
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dinner in 16 minutes?

I dare you.

Mango. I love, love, love mangoes. And shrimp? Match made in heaven. Don't even get me started about it on a pizza. With brie. I know, I know, you're thinking I've seriously lost my mind. But it works. Mango is just so darn buttery, and sweet. Certainly, brie is too. Shrimp could usually use a little bit of fattening up anyways. Wait a second, I'm supposed to be talking about a salad.

Here it is -


See, it's not that pretty, but the 16 minutes included taking a couple photos.

I really did make dinner in 16 whole entire minutes, and it's healthy too. Baby even got his mango cut just for him, a little beef and saucy green beans warmed up too (babies don't eat lettuce or shrimp).

It also helps to have a few bags of frozen raw peeled shrimp on hand to rush the process along. Just try to defrost it in advance; the one thing I often forget.

Mango Shrimp Salad with Mango Dressing - In a Hurry!

Serves 2

For the salad:
454 gram bag of raw-peeled shrimp
extra virgin olive oil
1 large ripe mango
1 carrot
1/4 red pepper
salad greens


For the dressing:
1/4 cup mango
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup blackberry vinegar (balsamic would be fine)
thumb nail-size chunk of fresh ginger
squirt of honey

1. Pre-heat a sauté pan with a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Cook the shrimp until pink. Let cool as much as possible before adding to the salads.
2. Wash the carrot, mango, red pepper.
3. Place salad greens in the bowls. Grate the carrot, and chop the red pepper. Add to the bowls.
4. Remove the flesh from the mango. Place 1/4 cup in a small blender jar. Dice or slice the rest, and add to the salad bowls.
5. Make the dressing: Place all of the ingredients in a small blender jar, and whizzz!
6. Add the shrimp to the salad bowls, and drizzle with the dressing. Serve immediately, and enjoy!
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incredible olive oil french fries

These are truly incredible.  My seven year old niece was skeptical that I was making fries.  "In the oven?", she asked.  Later she said, "They smell like real fries."  And at dinner, she said they tasted like real fries too.  Then, I knew they were truly good.

Don't worry either, they don't have a distinctly olive oil flavour.  They just taste like utterly fantastic French fries.  Yes, you would pay money for them, and be quite happy about it.  And probably even happier if you watch your pennies, because a sack of potatoes is infinitely cheaper than the cost of soda.

I wish I could tell you that this recipe will make a big greasy mess, and that you have to find a particular kind of oil, and a particular kind of pot.  But you don't.  In fact, not even close.  Unfortunately, you do need a convection oven.  Okay, so there is a hitch.  Honestly though, until now, I have rarely used the convection features on my oven.  There just aren't many baked goods that I prefer burnt on the outside, but raw in the middle.  For fries though, convection is truly perfect.


There are two convection features on my oven, and I have found that the one which circulates the most air takes significantly less time, so not all convection is necessarily created equal.  Essentially, potatoes contain a tonne of moisture which the convection helps to dry out, and crisp up the outside of the potato all at the same time.

What? No time to go to the spa?  Prepare for a steamy potato-like facial upon opening the oven door.  Watch your eyes.

Olive Oil French Fries

Ingredients:
Yukon gold potatoes - enough to not quite fill a cookie sheet
extra virgin olive oil - a couple tablespoons
sea salt

1.  Pre-heat the oven on convection to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cover a cookie sheet in parchment paper, or a silpat (just means a bit of an easier clean up;  I like to spend my time cooking, not cleaning).
2.  Wash, dry, and slice the potatoes (preferably with the peel still on), to a thickness you desire.  I liked about a centimeter thick, give or take.
3.  Place the fries to-be, on the cookie sheet, and spread evenly.  Drizzle with a couple tablespoons of olive oil.  If you're skeptical, you can always add more later.
4.  Place the cookie sheet in the oven, and leave it alone for at least 20 minutes.  Then, check it and carefully turn the fries.  This will help to spread the oil even more.
5.  Keep the fries in the oven until the top begins to look golden brown, then give them another turn.  Put them back in, and continue to bake until they are as crisp and as golden as you like.  This might be 45 minutes - 1 hour.  That's it.
6.  Oh right, sprinkle with salt immediately upon removing from the oven.
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Korean or Hawaiian or Confused Beef

Yeah, so it doesn't really know its true identity. But who truly does? Apparently, ancestry isn't as true as it one thinks if you go back 1000 years either. Pretty neat when you figure we are all much more connected than we even thought. Things to figure out one day.... This beef is pretty darn good however, and of course, I wouldn't want to disappoint you by making something tremendously difficult these days. There's always time for that later. The best part is that it is easy to make the beef in a large batch, and freeze most of it, or even half of it in the marinade, and cook up the goodness another day. Just be forewarned that the salty-sweet-heat combo is extremely addicting, so you might or might not end up with leftovers. Do be sure to freeze the flank steak for a while, or thaw it for awhile, before slicing it into thin pieces. It makes it a lot easier to work with, and effortless to slice it thinly. It should be virtually frozen, but not quite hard as a rock. It is absolutely stellar when paired with my Chinese Five-Spice Rice, and given a healthy bit of Sriracha on top, much more than pictured above for sure. As my cousin Leanne said, who was over for dinner, "you haven't put enough until your nose is running." So get squirting that stuff, because it is certainly enlivening, and awesome to have at home, not just at restaurants. GO GET SOME. Check out the cool broccoli. Flowering already, but still good. Anyone know its true name? It was grown by Thompson Small Farm, who are weekly at the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmers Market. I owe my thanks to Cheryl Arkison, of Backseat Gourmet, for it, who offered up her Community Supported Agriculture Box last week. What fun! I also got a chance to meet Jenn Chic, and pick up a few cookies and a sticky pecan bun for Jeff. Yum on both accounts! Korean or Hawaiian Style Beef Serves 10 6.5 lbs flank steak, thinly sliced 1.5 cups soy sauce 1/4 cup sesame oil 3/4 cup brown sugar 2 tbsp fish sauce 2 tbsp red wine vinegar 1 tbsp white vinegar 2 tbsp minced ginger 5 cloves minced garlic 1. Divide the flank steak among large bowls, or zip bags if it is to be frozen immediately. 2. Combine the soy sauce through garlic and mix thoroughly. 3. Spoon or ladle the marinade over the beef, and allow to marinate for at least 2 hours before cooking. Freeze most of it, unless you have a lot of friends or a large family! 4. To cook, pre-heat a cast iron pan, griddle, or wok on the barbecue or stove, on medium-high heat. Add the beef in batches, so as not to steam it, but to give it a good brown colour on both sides. 5. Serve immediately with rice, a green vegetable, and some sriracha hot chili sauce on top.
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Tuxedo Pasta Salad

Finally, I think I am no longer required to wear wool socks for the entire day, although I do love the cozy comfort they bring. Now I'm all about sandals, and sunshine; we really don't have four seasons in Calgary, but essentially go from winter straight into summer within a few short weeks. It takes awhile, but at least we do get there (hooray!). I find summer so glamorous. Sunglasses. Sundresses. And salads? Ok, perhaps all three don't work for you. But hopefully this pasta salad will, especially since it's cook once, and then enjoy it's glory for a day or two. Depending of course, how many friends you plan to share it with; you might suddenly find you have many friends which seemingly continue to multiply. Oh darn. I did just get back from a three-day field trip with my junior high band students. So this dish will help me to get back on track after three days of fast-food, and not sleeping that well. I can thankfully say that the trip went fantastically well, no problems. And the only person who bled was the other teacher on the trip, and he didn't even notice! Phew! Now, I have time to obsess even more about the upcoming trip to Italy. I really do love to plan things. It's not like I have a list of 30 restaurants in Rome that I can't decide between. Oh, and we are in Rome for just three days. I am super-excited about the Mercantia festival in Certaldo, total mayhem, I love it! Tuxedo Pasta Salad 1 - 500g (1.1lb) package bowtie pasta Extra virgin olive oil 1 - 19 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained 1 red pepper, chopped 1 yellow pepper, chopped 1 cup broccoli florets (bite-size) 1/2 long English cucumber, chopped (2-3 cups) 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar sea salt, or kosher salt to taste (1 to 2 tsp) 1. Boil a large pot of salted water. Under cook the bowtie pasta; not quite al dente. The dressing on the pasta, and the liquid of the vegetables will cause the pasta to swell even more. Taste the pasta frequently, the middle should seem almost uncooked. 2. Drain the pasta, and drizzle a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into the colander. Shake the colander to spread the oil around. Allow the pasta to cool, but do not let it sit too long or it will dry out. Do not rinse the pasta with cold water, unless severely undercooked. 3. Chop the vegetables into bite size pieces. Rinse and drain the beans. 4. Combine 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, and 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar into a liquid measuring cup, and whisk. (I prefer a little bit more acidity in this dish than oil, so the proportion is not the usual salad dressing ratio of 2:1) 5. When the pasta is cool, toss with the vegetables. Add the balsamic dressing by the spoonful, being careful to stir the pasta and vegetables inbetween. Stop when the salad seems to have enough dressing. Hint: add the dressing at the last minute, and use less if the pasta iss overcooked. 6. Add salt to taste, I liked a teaspoon. Enjoy!!
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cinnamon & pistachio black quinoa

Simplicity is a virtue. Almost every aspect of our lives can be simplified if we think about it, and this never holds more true than in the kitchen. Cooking doesn't need to be complicated, time consuming, or require extensive exotic ingredient lists for every dish. Not only do my favourite dishes allow for a certain margin of fixable error, but also allow me to substitute ingredients ad hoc. Inevitably, there are only a few ingredients. The best dishes hardly ever contain more than three ingredients. The more I read, watch, and experience, the best things are truly basic and elemental in nature. Insalata caprese of tomatoes, mozzerella, and basil, a nearly holy trinity requires ingredient quality. Like a perfectly cooked steak. Not only is the cooking process important, but the cut and quality of the beef easily supersedes all else. Similarly, a gorgeous handmade pasta is truly rare, but contains only a few ingredients, which must be combined in correct proportions, and also worked together in a nearly magical way. Pasta such as this, needs only a simple sauce, if not just butter alone. Certainly, there are exceptions, but isn't there something to be said about the poetic beauty found in a combination of skills and ingredient quality? While I can't always find time to work out my frustrations in a golden-hued pasta dough, I can always try to highlight the flavour of foods by keeping ingredient combinations as simple as possible. Then I have a chance to truly savour the unique flavour of each ingredient, as simple and earthy as it may be. This dish full of healthy antioxidants, fiber, and protein. It works well as a side dish, or as a main salad for lunches. The cinnamon creates a slight exoticism, and I like to think about the travels of Marco Polo, and how exotic and unusual this spice must have first tasted to Venetians. Black quinoa is available at many health food and gourmet stores, although regular quinoa can also be used. Cinnamon & Pistachio Black Quinoa 1 cup black quinoa 1.5 cups of water 1 cup raisins 1/2 cup shelled pistachio's, roughly chopped 2 tsp cinnamon 1. In a medium saucepan with a lid, bring the quinoa and water to a boil. Once boiling, lower the temperature to medium-low, allowing the quinoa to continue to simmer for another twelve minutes. 2. Stir in the raisins, pistachio's, and cinnamon. Add a touch more water if necessary. Cook for approximately another three minutes. 3. The quinoa will be cooked when the rings around the middle are just beginning to loosen themselves from the rest of the grain, or cook to taste.
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