Last Taste of Summer

Here's what happening this week:


Vegetarian Summer Rolls with a chickpea & cherry tomato salad
Scalloped Potato Gratin*

Did I mention I'm making those yummy Strawberry & Banana muffins again? Because they were that good!

*Unlike Chef Michael's picture, I sliced my potatoes even thinner, using a mandolin. I'll let you know how that works out.

Dessert/Snack

I have two official snacks per day, on a weekday:
between breakfast and lunch
between lunch and dinner

You know, they say eating often is good for your weight, so... Normally, the first snack is walnuts. It brings an element of protein, and I don't get bored of them. For the after-lunch snack, I prefer something sweet. In fact, I sometimes eat that snack as dessert, if I think it will be filling enough that I will not get hungry again until dinner.

I used to buy yogurt granola bars, but started finding them pricey for such simple products (at $3 for six bars). Plus, as anyone who does a lot of their own cooking may agree: you don't *really* know what's in anything unless you make it yourself!That's when I started making my own make-ahead dessert/snacks. I have a great recipe for Jam Bars that I'll share in the future, but today I'm trying this one, from the Food Network:

Strawberry Banana Muffins

Pescetarian

I can live with the fact that some vegetarians, and certainly all vegans, will steer clear of this one:

Pangasius with a Cauliflower Sauce on Wilted Spinach

But for anyone without major reservations about eating fish, I can perhaps persuade you by pointing out that Pangasius is on SeaFoodChoice.org's Yellow List, which means only "some concerns", versus all those tasty fish you've been eating off the Red List, such as Chilean Sea Bass. To go "Green", use a different white fish, such as Pacific Cod. Just make sure it's caught by longline, not trawler, if you can. Otherwise,  you're back in the Yellow with me and my Pangasius friend. And for God's sake, no Atlantic Cod or David Suzuki will come get you in your sleep!


I've been meaning to cook a fish recipe for a while, but for some reason find it more complicated that carb-packed dishes. Not the cooking; the planning. Obviously not a good choice for out-of-home lunches, if you care about your co-workers, you will only eat fish at home. This is my week's make-ahead (and reheat) dinner recipe.

I promise, this is the only "meat" I will ever cook for myself. There will never be chicken, or deer, or beef, or any of their land-lubbing, flying relatives.

Vacation Hiatus: Ragout!

I should have said before that I was going on vacation. It was a wonderful week in the Laurentians, boating, tanning, hiking, feeding ducks, shopping, sitting by the campfire, roasting marshmallows, eating soft serve ice cream and Cheetos.
But now I'm back!

And... can't find the camera so I'm afraid I couldn't take pics of this week's lunch and dinner menus. I will just say that RAGOUT is the meaning of Summer. Everything that's at the market these days, from eggplant to tomatoes (field tomatoes!) goes in here, it's easy to prepare after some chopping, and it smells amazing.

Penne with Summer Vegetable Ragout

The other recipe I made this week, for lunches, is from the magazine Coup d'Pouce, but the particular recipe isn't online (couldn't find it).

Things should be back to normal next Sunday!

How It Went: Quiche

AWESOME quiche. Maybe it's the pepper. Maybe it's the arugula. It's the best quiche ever made.

Quiche

This is what's cooking for the week of August 16:

Tomato, Corn and Arugula Quiche 
Green Bean, Zucchini and Potato Stew

Quiche is a great way to get protein from eggs when you don't like "eggs". I have personally never been able to consume an "egg" if it wasn't mixed up in a recipe as just another ingredient. Quiche is as eggy as I get. The other great things about quiche are how quick and easy it is to make, and its reheatable nature. Perfect for the microwave at work, or a toaster oven. Also pretty sturdy, with or without a crust. Martha Stewart has an easy crustless broccoli and cheese quiche, if you don't want to bother with the crust.

The recipe linked above calls for store bought frozen pie shell, but I had some Tenderflake lard (thas right, lard!) in my pantry. Plus, making dough is so easy: it took me 15 minutes to make the shell for this quiche.

Corn and tomatoes are super in season right now. Here's an idea of how much we spent on this recipe:
2 ears of corn (from a dozen): $0.67
1 pint of cherry tomatoes: $2.50
1 cup of arugula (bought in bulk at the market): $1
1 tomato for decoration: $0.78
flour for dough (bought in bulk):  $0.50
Not accounted for: leftover Parmesan cheese and eggs, seasonings

And look how fresh!

It has since been covered in the egg/ricotta mix and is waiting for me in the oven!

How it Went: Three-Cheese Mushroom and Spinach Calzone

So here's what happened:
Overall, it went well and I have had two tasty lunches. However. I messed up on a couple of things:
A. I mis-read the recipe (I was tired! and hungry!) and forgot to add some of the cheese inside. That's why you see these baked calzone's have cheese on top. I used the "leftover" bit of cheese. I also left out the chili pepper flakes on three out of four of them, again, for no good reason.
B. The recipe calls for an amount of pizza dough by weight, but most pizza dough recipes are by number of pizzas they make. Does not compute. So I think I used a teensy bit more dough than I needed. Next time, I will weigh the dough ball and take off however much I don't need.

Tonight: the salad!