Coconut lime salad

We went to a restaurant called KoKo last night (www.kokomontreal.com) and had a salad that was truly memorable. While it was still fresh in my mind, I wanted to try to re-create it. Here is what I came up with:

Dressing:

2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk

Grated zest of 1 lime

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

2-1/2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1/4 teaspoon chile oil

Sea salt

Toasted sweetened coconut (2 tablespoon ish)

Salad:

2 cups baby arugula

1/4 cup green onion, cut to about 3/4 inch per piece

1/2 (over flowing) cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped

1/4 - 1/2 cup cilantro leaves

This is definitely a keeper. I'll probably play around with the ratios, but love the overall combination.

Gold or silver?

I just saw this beautiful gold flatware posted on www.apartmenttherapy.com and wanted to talk about it. It seems like silver has been the 'gold standard' in flatware forever and I think it's high time we shake things up. Personally, I really like the warm look of gold and brass (and polished nickel!!). In fact, I sometimes wonder why shades of rose gold aren't more popular in jewelry.

My mother gave me my great-grandmother's silver for a wedding gift and I love it. I want to use it everyday but have grown afraid to do so. Afraid of the time it would take to hand wash it and afraid of the tarnish that the dishwasher would cause it. As an experiment I selected a 'sacrificial spoon' and have forced it to mingle in the drawer with a lower class of everyday cutlery. I treat it just like the others. It's used with the same frequency and casualness as the rest of the cutlery, and I have run it through the dishwasher countless times. The result? It's tarnished, but the colour is lovely - I almost prefer it to the predictable silver. Charlie has assured me that if I ever grow to hate the colour, we can just polish it and it will return to it's original silver. If this is true, then why is everyone so afraid to use the good silver everyday?? I'm totally going to.

Oh, and why not grab some mismatched vintage silver from the flea market? It's a bargain and I bet the low price would take the sting out if it does get tarnished in the dishwasher.

BTW, more details on the gold flatware are here:
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/prod.jhtml?itemId=prod35280165&srccode=cii_16776730&cpncode=00-1543496-2&ecid=NMCIProntofeed&003=5839538&010=H1HPB

Carrot Ginger Orange Coconut and Thyme Soup

This soup was the product of leftovers. It was pretty easy and it has an unexpected flavour, although I would tweak it here and there if I made it again. Actually, if I read the title of the soup I would think it was going to be really fruity and almost thai or tropically influenced. But not really...it's a bit more savoury than that, with just hints of the flavours in the title (um, maybe I should have called it something different??).

Obviously, depending on amounts used, the balance of the flavours can change to suit your mood.

here is what i did:

- Chopped 4 medium carrots and sauteed them with 3 chopped shallots and half a big yellow onion (in a hot pan with oil). I didn't peel the carrots, i washed them but left the peels on. Totally due to laziness.

- Added half thumbs worth of chopped ginger and two cloves of garlic once the onions were a bit translucent

- threw in 2 tbsp dried thyme and continued to saute for a bit

-added 2 cups of water, 2 veggie soup cubes, juice of one orange and the zest of one orange. Let it boil and them simmer for a while (30 mins maybe)

-Add 1/2 cup coconut milk and juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper to taste

I always feel kind of nervous about posting my own recipes...what if it's like having kids and how you can't really tell if your kids are cute? Maybe I can't tell if my food is good!?

On a totally unrelated note, I watched an episode of Mad Men last night that had clips of Ann Margret singing 'Bye Bye Birdie' - my god that is not something you want in your head for hours on end while you're home alone. I think that might just be what it sounds like to lose your mind.

Favourites from the past

This is a cake that Charlie and my sisters go crazy for. it's a vegan pumpkin cake with a 'cream cheese' frosting. I'll definitely post my recipe for this sometime soon.


A vegan lavender lemon 'cheesecake', which looked much prettier than it tasted.

This was a 'Black bottom silk peanut butter pie' from Vegan with a vengeance

Clearly not vegan, but a yummy breakfast we made in Italy and I like the photo.

A cranberry sauce in the making from this last Thanksgiving. I took a basic recipe and added some fresh squeezed orange juice and red wine - zest too. I like to add zest ALL the time.

Also not vegan. Shortbread with chocolate drizzle and salted pistachios. Kind of time consuming but good. I'm actually planning to play around with a gluten free shortbread, so stayed tuned. It should be easy to come up with, as traditional shortbread already turns out better with a fine grain rice flour (in my opinion).

A gluten free chocolate cake I made for a friend's son who is on a gluten free diet. I made Sponge Bob from Fondant that i coloured. The frosting is not vegan - it's butter cream. Generally, I like to use salted butter with these frostings, as I'm a big fan of adding unexpected salt to baked goods. For kids though, I'd go more lightly on the salt. They want the sugar.

Too many vegetables, too little time

Our dream of eating lots of organic produce is turning into a nightmare! Every time the organics box arrives it reminds me of all its rotting friends in the fridge. The guilt has driven me to try to menu plan a bit better. By the way, that picture of my fridge is before I finished loading the organics box - it got way worse!

Right now there's a boat load of carrots, a bunch of celery, two heads of lettuce, cabbage, 9 minus 3 kiwis (just threw 3 away), parsnips, apples, oranges, onions, kale, avocado, mint, cilantro, parsley, thyme, shitake mushrooms...what to do with it all?

I imagine you all screaming at your computer screens 'make a soup! make a soup!' and I guess i will, although I'm not really thrilled about it for some reason.

Last night's meal just killed me on the curry front, and I want to make a soup that will be a departure from those flavours. Maybe an orange carrot coconut soup? I've come to believe there will always be a can of coconut milk lurking in the back of my cupboard. I hope so!

Beyond the soup I'm thinking smoothies or kiwi muffins, an apple/cabbage salad and perhaps wrapping the tofu from last night in lettuce, with some other things thrown in? Or maybe I'll just go watch back to back episodes of 'a baby story' and make compost instead :)

Vegan Springtime Fettucine

Nothing says autumn like a springtime pasta! This vegan dish uses tahini for the sauce base and was, in my opinion, pretty darn good. Unfortunately, I discovered a bit late in the game - long after asking Charlie to check if we had a cup's worth of tahini - that he hates the taste of tahini!

I modified the sauce to de-tahini it a bit and next time will swap some soaked cashews for the tahini...

This recipe called for either fiddleheads or asapragus and I used the latter. I sort of kicked myself later when I realized that I had preserved fiddleheads in the cupboard. How often do you need fiddleheads?? I missed my big opportunity! Next time I'll create my fiddlehead opportunity, rather than passively waiting for one to come along.

Here's the Spring noodle recipe (jae steele):

Oh and by the way, you should feel free to use soba or udon if you prefer them to fettucine

- Boiled asparagus (to your own desired consistency). Pour cold water over them once you strain them.

- Cooked pasta (8 oz)

Sauce, comprised of the following:
1 cup tahini
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 mellow miso paste
4 med garlic cloves
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 cup water

* I modified the sauce by adding tamari (i had no miso, inexplicably, as it literally vanished and I've come to accept that I'll never know what really happened to it). I also added extra cumin, cilantro and lemon juice and one less garlic clove. As mentioned, next time I'd use cashews. I think the cashews are just as fattening as the tahini, if that's a concern for you.

Toss pasta and asparagus with sauce and garnish with black sesame seeds

You'll definitely have extra sauce (unless of course you like your pasta heavily sauced) and it makes a great veggie dip.

I also made steamed kale with enoki mushroom, shitakes, garlic, ginger, onions and tamari.

Curried eggplant & tumeric tofu triangles

There was a lot of orange on our plates tonight! After deciding to try to make my way through an entire entree section of a jae steele cookbook, I followed the authors suggestion and paired the items mentioned in this blog title. I absolutely adore jae steele's dessert recipes, but am sort of lukewarm on these particular entrees...

The tofu was crispy and nicely coloured, although it was kind of bland on it's own. I decided to take the extra tofu marinade and mix it with some vegan mayo and lime rind to make a sauce for pouring over the triangles. This proved to be the key to making the dish pretty tasty.

The curried eggplant was decent but a little heavy on the curry, although I suspect my particular curry may be to blame here. It's a really bold little blend and doesn't take kindly to playing second fiddle to anything else!

Tumeric Tofu Triangles:

Cut one block of extra firm tofu into half inch triangles
Marinate (15 mins - as long as you want!) in the following marinade:
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 Ttbsp tamari/soy sauce
1 tsp curry
2 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 large clove crushed garlic

Fry the triangles on medium high heat in 2-3 tbsp oil until slightly browned and a bit crispy (4 mins on one side and 2-3 on the other)

Curried eggplant

Cube one big eggplant, toos it in the strainer with some sea salt and let sit for 20 mins

Heat oil in large skillet (2-3 tbsp)
Throw 2 tbsp curry powder in until fragrant, 30-60 secs
Add one med chopped onion and saute til translucent
Add eggplant for 4-5 mins
Add chopped tomato and 1/4 water, cover and simmer for 7-8 mins