Breakfast Smoothie

I'm the kind of person who, if I really like something, I can eat it day after day for months and not get bored of it. Excluding weekends, here's my regular morning breakfast. It's a tasty smoothie that gives me all the antioxidants I need to ward off colds. It also gives me the energy I need to bike to work and fuels my brain productivity, until about 10am anyway.

What you’ll need

Mixed frozen berries

Banana

Plain yogurt

Vanilla hemp milk

Green tea powder

Ground flax

Orange juice (and/or any other juice like pineapple or grapefruit – if you use grapefruit, add some honey)

What to do

Blend it all together and enjoy. YUM! 

Steak with Balsamic Glaze

Since summer ended we haven't eaten much beef. When BBQ season starts so do the steaks and burgers. I briefly worry about my health and then I just say screw it and enjoy every minute, it only lasts so long after all. The rest of the year is spent mainly with chicken and fish. Except the odd occasion, like tonight. My husband made a savory sesame encrusted steak with a balsamic glaze and served it alongside a yummy mesclun mix and mâche salad with blue cheese dressing. Blue cheese and beef have to be the best combo. If you're not a fan of blue cheese, start off slowly, it's an acquired taste. The first time I ate it and enjoyed it was in a pasta combined with steak. Now, I love it, on anything or on it's own with a glass of red wine.

What you’ll need

Steak

Sesame seeds

Balsamic vinaigrette

Sherry

Honey

Garlic

Chili flakes

Soya sauce

Mesclun mix

Mâche mix

Green onions

Blue cheese dressing

What to do

Coat steak in sesame seeds and fry. Set aside. Fry up some garlic and add the sherry. Boil off the sherry (reduce it), then add the other ingredients in the same pan and heat. Spoon over the steak and serve with salad.

Sausage and Five Cheese Multigrain Pizza and Spinach Salad

Ok, so this is partially a packaged meal. BUT, no matter what it is we eat, packaged or not, my husband always makes it so much better than I ever would. How? By either adding ingredients to the packaged food or adding an awesome side dish. This McCain pizza looks all fancy schmancy next to this delicious spinach, onion, olive, sunflower seed, toasted walnut and balsamic vinaigrette salad. Amazing what a little bit of effort will do – my husband excellent at making good things great. These types of meals are the best for evenings when you don't get home until 8:30 or so. 

Grey Cup Dinner at Donnie’s

I almost didn't write about this because I was an idiot and didn't bring my camera with me last night. But despite the lack of visual stimuli, I felt it was important to keep it in my food diary. I don't blog on everything I eat. I usually leave out the meals that are at restaurants i've already blogged about, meals we've already had that were similar or details about specific meals that would just get too confusing to start going into detail about. For example, my weekend at Zoya's – the reason we had two soups was because her other friend Rachelle whom I met that night, and who also loves food, and a lot of other things I love (we hit it off really well), her daughter made the delicious sweet potato with peppers soup, but if you view the post and it's complexity, you'll see why I didn't go into detail.

Ok, enough rambling. I'm happy to say that this is the third male in my life who cooks for me. And yes, I do love to rub that in. I feel truly blessed with the friends I have and every single one of them, whether they cook for me or not, are the best people in the world. We all headed over to Donnie's for dinner and the Grey Cup on his giant TV. He started us off with an amazing ratatouille – tomatoes, garlic, onions, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers with apple cider vinegar. This was served along side our choice of veggie, chicken or beef samosas (thanks Eric!). Then for our main, we had an awesome curry chicken and veggie dish served on rice. 3 people actually brought dessert too, so by the end of it all, I was stuffed. The walk home was very pleasant and very much needed to help digest everything we ate. Thanks Donnie!

I'm adding onto this post because I just received the recipe for the ratatouille so I thought i'd share.

What you’ll need
1 Aubergine
Salt
1TBSP Olive Oil
1 Onion sliced in strips
1 Green Pepper sliced in strips
3 Cloves Garlic
1-2 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar
8 tiny fine tomatoes (cut in half)
mixed ground peppercorns
sprigs of oregano for garnish (didn't have, couldn't find any)

What to do
Cube aubergine and place in a colander and sprinkle with salt, let stand for 20 mins then drain and rinse.
Heat oil and sautee pepper and onion and garlic. Then stir in aubergine and cook on high heat for about 5 mins. When gold in colour, add vinegar. Remove from heat. Add tomatoes and let cool. Chill in fridge until cold. Garnish with Oregano.

He also doubled the green pepper and used a big eggplant. Enjoy!

Mamma Teresa

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We used to live three doors down from this restaurant and would often go here for dinner with a group of friends before a late night out. It's warm and has a more formal dining atmosphere inside, but is not a fancy restaurant by any means. A huge percent of their customers are political folk, and the wait staff know just what to say to make a woman feel good. The service is impeccable and the dishes, although pretty standard with no presentation, are consistently very good. Last night a few of us went for a late dinner (they're one of the only restaurants in Ottawa who still serve food after 10pm on a Friday night – sad but true). We ordered the house Sangiovese and Smelts to start. I love their smelts, we get them every time – they melt in your mouth. For our mains, my friend ordered the Pesto Linguini, I had the Lobster Ravioli (big surprise) in a rosé sauce and my husband ordered the Cheese Tortellini with Cream Sauce, Mushrooms and Prosciutto. Mine was good, my husband's was great, it had way more flavour. I didn't scan the prices on the menu to do my price range because I assumed i'd be able to find it online, but it's not. From what I remember, I believe the apps range in around the $10 area and mains from $15 to $30. They also offer frozen take out on a few dishes and some fresh sauces.

www.mammateresa.com

Grouper with Basil Vinaigrette

I had a bad day at work today. After arriving home late and walking my dog, I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only was my husband cooking dinner for me tonight, my friend Dino was also over and doing his share of what was to be an incredible meal. I sat down at the island to chill out and watch them. Dino was making a salad with romain, carrots, red onion, goat cheese and pancetta bits topped with a marvelous homemade dressing. My husband was cooking some garlic infused wild rice and grouper, a fish similar and from the same area as red snapper, only meatier. The preparation was not complicated at all, but the end result seemed elaborate (my husband says the best recipes are the simple ones). He topped this with a tangy basil vinaigrette. I thoroughly enjoyed every single bite. 

Given our dinner tonight was impulsive, we didn't buy any wine. We did however, have a bottle in the liquor cabinet that we purchased this past summer to use for sangria. And the only reason I am mentioning this wine is because I was pleasantly surprised by it's rich flavour. If you're on a budget, this Two Oceans cab/merlot from South Africa should fit the bill. 

What you’ll need

Fish:

Grouper

Fresh basil

Lemon juice

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Rice:

Wild rice

Chicken stock

Garlic

Salad:

Romain lettuce

Sliced carrots

Pancetta bits

Red onion

Goat cheese

Dressing:

Olive oil

Truffle oil

Lemon

Balsamic

Dijon 

Garlic

Whole wheat baguette

What to do

For the salad, mix all the ingredients together except the pancetta and cheese. While you're frying up the pancetta, set the goat cheese on top to soften it.

Afterward, add the pancetta to the rest of the salad. Mix together all the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad. Top with some of the softened goat cheese.

For the fish, mix together the basil, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over the grouper and broil for 10 minutes. When you cook the rice, cook it in chicken stock and add in some chunks of garlic. It will add some wonderful flavours to your rice.

Serve with whole wheat baguette.

Total time, approximately 45 minutes.

Herbed Chicken Tofu on Ceasar Salad

Tonight's dinner was fabulous. (did you expect anything less?) My husband picked up some Louisiana corn chowder and La Soyarie herbed tofu from Herb and Spice and served the tofu on a bed of romain and arugula greens with his amazing homemade ceasar dressing and croutons.

To the salad he added some chopped cucumber and green onion. For the dressing he mixed together egg yolks, olive oil, garlic, anchovy paste, a bit of tabasco, pepper, lemon juice and his secret ingredient – Dijon mustard. The croutons were made with garlic, oil, oregano and chili flakes on toasted bread then cut into cubes. Delicious!