My Favourite Salad

About five years ago I went on a weight loss journey. A major weight loss journey. 80 lbs later here I am a fitter, lighter, happier version of my former self. I blame good foods and no self control for all the extra weight I was carrying. The thing was, most of the foods I was eating regularly didn't even taste good to me any more.  They were satisfying my fat and salt cravings and they were really easy to make.

This salad became part of my weight loss repertoire. I made and ate this salad for days on end and never tired of it. It's salty, it has healthy fat, it's crunchy, and most importantly it's tasty! With very little prep you can have a weeks worth of lunches and sides for supper in your fridge. It takes the pain out of deciding what to eat for healthy eating.

One of the key components to this salad is the dressing. You can find the recipe here. This recipe makes a lot of dressing. Make it in a jar and keep it in the fridge. I use this dressing on everything, it's that good.

Healthy olive oil makes this recipe good for you and satisfying.

Shake it up and keep it in the fridge. Shake it gently or the oil will solidify. If that happens to you just be sure to take your dressing out 10 minutes ahead of serving to let the oil warm up to room temperature again.

This salad is usually made with cabbage but I'm using romaine this time.

Now the veggies. Use whatever you have. I like to make this to the recipe but the dressing is really what makes this. The salad is just there because drinking salad dressing is gross. Haha. One thing to be sure to get is the bean sprouts and red onions. The rest is very flexible. If you are making this salad for the week keep back the watery veggies like the bean sprouts and tomatoes. Add them just before you eat to keep your other veggies from getting soggy.

This salad is tasty, beautiful, and HEALTHY. It is surprising how good it is for you.

I would normally eat this salad as a meal or with lean protein. I served it along side Sarah's Slow Cooker Pork for a fresh hit of clean flavours. The salad dressing is even good on the rice. Seriously, you will find so many places to use the salad dressing, it really is the star of this salad.

Veggie Pancakes?

When I was staying with John and Chrystal last year, John's mom came to visit. She cooked some really great food. This dish was my attempt to recreate one of her dishes. I didn't even come close but this still tasted pretty good. I will get the real recipe and try again some day but these satisfied my itch for them for now. 

Scrumptious. Salty, savoury, soft and chewy, crispy, and fresh. This dish is a sensory overload.

When this dish was made for me it was done with shrimp.  It was so good but alas, no shrimp in my house at the moment so I went straight up vegetarian.  I'm sure you could put anything in these and they would be tasty but I wanted to keep it kind of simple.  I only used mushrooms, green onions, zucchini and bean sprouts.

Now, this is where I went awry. I could not remember what was in the batter except cornstarch so I basically altered my crepe recipe. One egg, milk, and flour.  I wanted a really loose batter so it would be thin and cook quickly.

Cornstarch gives a really good crisp crunch in batters so it was the star here. I ended up using about two Tbsp because that is what pouffed out of the container and into my bowl. It worked for me.

If I remember correctly these were served with fish sauce and soya sauce. I like heat so I set out chili flakes so I would remember to add them. The fish sauce portion of this dish might have been mixed with something else. I am really not sure. My memory is my weakness.

To test my batter I fried a bit in some hot oil. It was sure crispy. I thought it would do.

Time to get cracking. Add oil to your very hot wok, throw in your veggies. Cook stirring constantly until they start to soften.

Pour your batter right on top. Shake and tilt the wok so all the 'raw' batter from the middle goes to the edges to be cooked. It will form a big crepe looking pancake thing. Very technical.

Now the hard part, flip that whole thing before it burns without it falling apart. Cook the other side for a minute or so, checking often to be sure the bottom is not burning. Partially remove from the heat if your pancake is cooking too quickly.

Turn it out onto a plate and eat immediately. This was really fun to cook because I stopped to eat every one while it was hot. While it is still hot, splash soya sauce, fish sauce, and chilis on top then eat and enjoy. Add more sauce as required.

Because I was eating every pancake as I was cooking it, I experimented a bit to see if I could improve my technique. I tried batter in first and batter on top. Batter on top was definitely best. Plus, the veggies developed more flavour getting to cook a bit on their own first.

John's mom also made this really wicked curry soup and I still need to get the recipe. I love trying new foods, especially when they are this yummy!

Amazing Quinoa Burgers

I have been late joining the Quinoa movement.  I don't have special dietary needs, I'm not gluten intolerant, not vegan or vegetarian or likely to be the first to jump on new health trends.  That being said, I have been trying to find recipes that use quinoa because I enjoy it.  This is one recipe that introduced quinoa to me.  My sister discovered this recipe as a meat substitute and as meat eaters Chris and I enjoyed it and didn't even miss the meat.  These are so versatile, they are flavourful and have a hearty texture that make them sturdy enough to act as a meat patty.

Quinoa cooks sort of like rice, sort of like pasta.  You measure the water and quinoa like with rice but you treat it like pasta.  Use double the amount of water as quinoa and you are golden.  

I used one cup of uncooked quinoa for this recipe.

Two cups of water.

1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Bring to a boil, turn it down and simmer until the germ part of the seed separates a bit and becomes visible.

Set aside to cool.  This calls for eggs and we don't want scrambled eggs in our patties.

Next, gather your ingredients, three eggs will do.  The recipe also calls for cottage cheese but I didn't have any.  I was going to substitute cheddar and mozza but decided I didn't want the extra fat.

Grate some carrot.  Alternately, you can add grated zucchini or a mixture of both.  Really anything goes.  Just make them in small enough pieces they will cook quickly within the patty.

Now this is where you have options.  I followed the recipe as it is found here but you can really personalize this.  Because of the eggs you will need something to hold the patties together.  The recipe calls for flour or rolled oats as a gluten-free alternative.  I have only made these with flour, personally.  Also, we love cumin so we are happy to stick to the recipe there as well.

The recipe calls for green onions but, again, I didn't have green onion so I diced up yellow onion.  That the great thing about cooking, it is very flexible.

Throw everything into a bowl and mix.  I used my stand mixer for this because it it easy and I'm lazy.

Plus, why have awesome appliances if you don't use them??

It should be completely blended, pretty loose and moist.  Add cheese at this point if you want.

Oil a baking pan.  The recipe calls for these to be fried but I like to start them in a pan and finish them in the oven.

Get a 1/2 cup scoop or measuring cup for portion control.

I use my electric breakfast grill here.  Scoop out your patties, they will cook in the shape you set them in so they are pretty forgiving.

Now squish them into patties with the back of the spatula.

Brown well on both sides.  Then, onto the prepared baking pan so they will continue cooking in the oven.  Be sure they get a good crust before you try to flip them or they will come apart.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 375F.  They will be moist inside, a bit crunchy around the edges and firm enough to be treated as a regular burger patty.  These can definitely be finished in the pan instead of in the oven but I like not having to watch them too closely.  I served these with a nice fresh salad and some left over ham warmed up.  They were excellent with ketchup.  The next time I make them I will be mixing up the seasoning to try a different taste.

After supper, I was having a serious sugar craving so I mixed up a mug cookie.  I'll be sharing that recipe tomorrow.  So. Damn. Good. Seriously!

Fruit Smoothie and Don't Throw Out Your Celery Root

One of the things that I find myself having a lot when I want to be health conscious is fruit smoothies.  I have made them many different ways and included things like protein powder when I workout really extensively.  This is my latest favourite.  It is tasty, easy, refreshing, and a great way to get your water in!  All you need is fruit, water, and some sort of blender.

The sweetness or tartness obviously depends on what you put in your smoothie.  I have a lot of grapefruit at the moment and I love the tartness so I peeled and segmented a grapefruit.  I seen a really easy trick to get the biggest segments out.  After you peel the fruit, use your knife to cut into a section as close to the membrane as you can get and into the center.  Now don't remove your knife, cut from the inside to the outside to free just the juicy pulp.  Repeat until all the segments are free.  Now if you aren't super good at this, like me, you will have missed some thin bits along the membranes.  Just use your knife and scrap from the inside out.  The bits will come off but you won't get any of the bitter membranes! Great right? I think so.  

This is what you will have left.

This is the reward of your efforts!  You should have just the tart flesh of the grapefruit and some juice like this without the bitter pith or membranes.

Get some ripe bananas, as many as you like.  They say you should always eat bananas once they have spots.  I hate the texture of bananas when they are this ripe so this is the best way for me to eat them.  If you don't want to worry about the long seed things inside, peel your bananas from the end instead of the stem.  The stringy bits tend to stay with the peel better this way.

Also, I also just learned a trick for keeping bananas ripe longer.  Apparently, if you wrap the stems in plastic wrap it will slow down the ripening.  They should keep for up to two weeks.  I'm definitely trying it with my next bunch of bananas!

Toss in the bananas and whatever other fruit you have.  I keep a bag of frozen berries for making muffins and smoothies.  I use at least a cup of berries.

Now fill up with water.  I have used milk, yogurt, and even ice cream.  They can get pretty calorie packed really quickly if you add dairy and also get too sweet and rich.  I like lots of water best.  If you want to use water but want it creamy then just add about 10 dates or as many as you want.  They really sweeten up the smoothie as well.

Now the easy part, blend until smooth.  I like my blender for this but I have used a hand emulsifier for years and it does just as well.  Be sure to leave room in the top for the smoothie to rise while blending or you'll have a smoothie explosion.

Doesn't that just look refreshing to you?  This is so nutrient rich, packed with vitamins, loads of water to re-hydrate you, and the frozen berries chill it all into a cool flavourful drink.  I just love these!  If you want to make more of a slushie just replace half the water with ice.

This is a great way to use up ripe fruit, get it all into your system, and have a great drink all at once.  In total there was 1 grapefruit, 2 bananas, and 1-2 cups of frozen blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries with about 4 cups of water.  I drank two cups full and Phoenix had one.

Due to laziness I just happened to have the bottom of a big hunk of celery in my fridge.  Before using my celery I soaked the whole bunch in cold water then washed the inside of the stalk ends as best as I could without taking the bunch apart.  I have been just using the tops off my celery instead of taking off entire stalks.  This makes for very quick prep as you just pull it out, chop off what you want, and stick it back.  It's already clean and there is no waste to deal with.

I have to thank my sister for this trick.  She seen somewhere that you can regrow celery so I tried it.  Look at my little celery shrub!  I should have used more of the celery before I put it into water but I was too eager.  You just put it in water, it is that simple.  I trimmed a bit of the dried stem off the bottom to give it the best exposure to the water and look at it go!  This has only been about three days in the water.

I love spring and watching things grow in the spring is very soothing.  It reassures me that the cold and snow are leaving and that the sun will be returning.I have garlic and ginger root that have started growing that will be getting planted today too.  Bring on the summer!

Chris and I will be planting all sorts of things once our yard thaws so stay tuned for how we do with a garden in a smallish space.  At least we have a yard now, before we were just planting on a long balcony.  I think we are both excited to have a garden this year!

My Staple Salad

The weather is getting warmer and I'm more and more aware of how much tighter my clothes are fitting after this long cold winter.  The more the sun shines the more I want to get outside running and then lying in the sun whenever possible.  It is officially time to smarten up on the food front and get in shape for summer.  I always end up getting itchy feet this time of year and launch into full fitness and health awareness so you can expect more of that to come.  Also, here are some pictures from my adventures yesterday.

This was taken outside of the Square One shopping center.  Cool right?  I navigate around town by the location of those towers, I swear I can't be the only one.

Then this happened, can you see the geese stopping traffic on the crosswalk? #CanadaProblems

Gather everything that is going into your salad.  This pretty much includes everything in my fridge except mushrooms.  I don't like mushrooms in my salad.  Yuk.

I keep a tub like this in my fridge with "open" veggies.  I try to use them daily so they spend only about 12-24 hours in the fridge like this between supper and lunch.

I'm also an avid fan of the trash bowl in my cooking area.  This one was a camping cooking pot and has a lid so I can just pop the lid on when I'm not using it.  We recycle and compost in our house so I do have to be careful to keep my recyclables to the side to pick them out before they hit the compost bin.

So to get started, I chopped up some lettuce, whatever I have.  I have used mixed baby greens, spinach, or as in here romaine.  I tend to have iceburg a lot but that does get boring after awhile.

Now chop up your toppings.

Toss them in on top of the lettuce.  Now some people will start tossing at this point, not me.  It goes to the table like that.  You know where the lettuce is, you can dig to it, you can see the toppings and pick according to your tastes.  I like choice.

Get your dressing.  I have often had just balsamic vinegar and olive oil but I'm sick of it and Catalina is my favourite.

I never put the cheese into the bowl with the main salad.  There is always the chance that we will have leftovers and I'm the one who will end up eating them.  I often do this with the tomato too.  Soggy cheese and water logged salad? ... No thanks.  Then I just drizzle lightly with dressing and you're are one step closer to a healthier lifestyle.  I have also added boiled eggs and/or pickled chilis to this salad other times but I skipped that today.

As I was putting this together today I remembered I have Craisins in the cupboard.  It makes me sad that I forgot to add them in here but they would be wonderful.  I have also completely adopted Greek salads and lettuce-less salads.  You don't have to have lettuce, it's Ok to skip that part.  I do feel like I get overwhelmed by some of the more inventive salads out there sometimes and just want to get back to basics, that is this salad completely.  Enjoy!