Spring Lunch Potato Mushroom Tart & Shaved Asparagus Mimosa Salad

It's back to being a rainy grey May day here... but yesterday was fabulous.  I love sunny Sundays... with nothing to do but spend a lazy morning in the kitchen leisurely preparing lunch to enjoy with family.  Somehow sharing a lunch on Sunday seems more restful and relaxed than any other meal of the week.  No racing off to work or doing errands, no coming home after a hard day and whipping something up to nourish the body without actually touching the soul.  No looking at watches to see where we have to be next and how much time we need to get there.

Meatless Monday Mushroom Quinoa Risotto

Actually this particular "Meatless Monday" dish happened on Saturday, and tonight I have a vegetarian curry in mind - Cauliflower, Sweet Potatoes & Swiss Chard with some Jalfrezi paste.  But I'm getting ahead of myself... as usual.

Everybody seems to be getting on the "Meatless Monday" bandwagon.  And even we carnivores recognize the value in eating less meat.  But in our house it's a challenge.  I need to CHEW!!! and somehow vegetarian dishes don't usually do it for me.

Since I do love the "meatiness" of mushrooms and when I saw this recipe in my latest issue of  Food & Drink (one of my all time favorite food magazines, beautifully put together by LCBO (Ontario's Liquor Board) I knew I had to try it.  And after just a minimal tweaking,  here's my version...

Mushroom Quinoa Risotto

and it was fantastic!  BTW, my Honey loved it cold today for a packed lunch!  It was so good I had to share with Hey What's For Dinner, Mom? link up.   And perhaps, we'll have more than one meatless meal this week.

How often do you go meatless?

Perfect Pasta = Chicken, Mushrooms & Creamy Sherry Sauce

Last week was the big Presto Pasta Night 4th birthday bash and some lucky people won great gifts. In fact, one of the gifts was a copy of Pasta - 40 Recipes for Fine Dining at Home. It's a small but very tasty book, filled with awesome pasta dishes from Chefs across the Maritimes. Lots of my favorite restaurants and inns are mentioned. And since, the publisher sent the copy to me to forward on to lucky Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe in Melbourne, Australia...how could I not take a quick peek!

Don't worry Johanna, no cookbooks were stained in the making of this positively, sinfully delicious dish. I took a photo with my trusty iphone...

Farfalle with Chicken Pollo & Mushrooms in Sherry Cream Sauce

I didn't have the Port the recipe called for, but sherry was a great second choice... very mellow and ... what can I say... we had seconds!

I'm sharing this with Sarah of Maison Cupcakes for this week's Presto Pasta Night. If you have an interesting pasta, send it to her at sarah (at) maisoncupcake (dot) com and cc ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com by Thursday, March 10 .

I'm also sending this to Hearth & Soul Recipe Hop.

A Comforting Way to Start 2011

The holiday season is over and winter is definitely here, so what better way to usher in 2011 than with healthy, hearty, comforting soups. My father's favorite was my mother's bean & barley soup. He said it "put hair on your chest", which, frankly freaked me and my sister out.
Soup and especially meaty soup has been on my mind since my visit to Toronto and, more particularly Nortown Butchers and my very favorite soup meat - flanken or short ribs, staring back at me from the the case. The ones above are really for marinating and grilling, but cut about 1" thick, they are perfect for soups & stews.
On returning back to Halifax, I momentarily forgot my obsession with flanken. I went to the Seaport Farmers Market looking for scallops, baguettes and winter greens. It was the Wednesday before New Year's Eve... and it was quite quiet. Not much fresh fish... I was hoping for scallops but the bad weather meant the boats wouldn't be out until January. The bread folks Julien's Bakery were taking the day off, too... but Chris & Leonie de Waal of Getaway Farm were manning the fort and, although I was too late for beautiful roasts and steaks, these two beauties - beef shanks, caught my eye and brought me back to dreams of hearty soups. Even without the short ribs I found at the bottom of my freezer, they would have made a perfect base.

And flipping through a great cookbook I've written about before - Kitchen Sense I came across a soup I had to make my own... Mushroom, Beef, Barley & Lentil Soup. Just the smell of it cooking, took me to a Zen place.

So my New Year's wish for everyone... may your "Zen" place be always at hand. And if you need a little help, try the soup! I'm sharing it with Hearth & Soul


You can find out how to share your hearth & soul stories & recipes from the wonderful moderators - GirliChef, Hunger & Thirst, Frugality & Crunchiness,

Chef Craig Flinn's Awesome Roast Garlic & Cremini Pappardelle

A little over a year ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Chef Craig Flinn of the award winning Chives Canadian Bistro for Foodtv's Food For Thought - a very cool guy. At the time, he was writing his first cook book, Fresh & Local, which is finally in print and naturally I had to have a copy!

The book, subtitled - "straight from Canadian farms to your table", like the restaurant menus, focuses on using fresh, in-season, and local products. A quote from their website says it best...

"Working closely with the farmers and independent producers of Nova Scotia has
been the foundation of our reputation for serving the best food to our restaurant guests, we will continue to use locally raised and grown products, in-season and at the peak of freshness. Memorable meals are seeded this way".

But more about the book (and the next recipe I try - Root Vegetable Tart - after all it is winter here in the Maritimes) another time.

This time I wanted to make sure I had my pasta dish ready for Presto Pasta Night this week hosted by Ben of What's Cooking. Not the prettiest picture, but the pasta was fantastic.

Roasted Garlic & Cremini Mushroom Pappardelle with Roast Chicken

You still have time to send your tasty pasta treats to Ben by email: ben(dot)herrera (at)whatscooking (dot)us . Please cc me: ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot)com as well.

Pantry Supplies

I recently bought a stash of magazines...Bon Appetit (even though I'm still working my way through the last one with all those glorious stews and pot pies), Delicious - Australia (with another gorgeous stew to hook me in), Saveur (the ribs on the cover got me instantly), EatingWell (for those asparagus - I'm craving Spring so badly) and the latest Donna Hay Magazine (just because I can never resist anything with her name on it.)...surprise, surprise!

I noticed that a couple of them had articles on pantry staples....so perfect for this time of year when at least the Northerners among us are often house bound due to winter weather. We've come a long way since I grew up when the only boxed anything in my mother's pantry was Kraft Dinner and canned...well we did have Campbell's chicken noodle soup and cream of mushroom that my mother used for her awesome Creamed Salmon on Toast. My mother really did have to make just about everything from scratch. I know, it was a different, slower time, but still... I want the home cooked flavor but faster!

And a couple of weeks ago I was sent a giant box full of goodies from the latest President's Choice and Blue Menu line to try and if I liked them, to share my thoughts with you.

Before I tell you about any of the products, let me state up front that:

1. I do not get paid for mentioning any of the items you read about anywhere on my site;
2. I am not a dietitian or nutrition expert, so I will never tell you how good something is for you, but like many an art lover, "I know what I like";
3. I remember the lessons my father and mother taught me - "If you have nothing good to say...say nothing" and "never tell a lie" (which in my mother's mind was the very worst offense because who knew what world of crime it would lead to);
4. I really only use this blog to write about things that make me happy, and frankly, I don't have enough time to even do that well;
5. I've loved and used President's Choice products for years, and, naturally was excited to have them contact me and ask me to sample their newest goodies. (An aside: When my daughter moved to Chile to teach English for a year or so, one of her first emails was to tell me how thrilled she was that there were PC products in the grocery stores there!);
6. Lastly, while I do love to cook (obviously), I also like to take short-cuts and thus having my fridge, pantry and freezer stocked with staples... (like those magazines suggest- like jars of marinara sauce, tapenade...) lets me experiment and play whenever the mood strikes me regardless of the weather or anything else that seems to get in the way of preparing a meal.

My latest favorite (not part of my new stash) is from their line of fresh pastas, imported from Italy...Trentino-alto-adige (Porcini Mushroom Tortelloni) that I made with a creamy sherry sauce(and more mushrooms, naturally). The only complaint was that I should have made more.

I am, however, sipping some very delicious Fair Trade medium roast 100% Arabica coffee from Africa that was in the package and enjoying every mouthful.

Yesterday was one of those days...feeling achy (but that's another and very uninteresting story) and not wanting to leave the house. Plus I was busy making tonight's dinner (another great slow braised short rib recipe from last month's Bon Appetit that needs overnight in the fridge before the final cooking) and a Cassata alla Siciliana . By suppertime, I had to scrounge around the kitchen. Okay, not totally true, I've been meaning to try the box of Barley & Mushrooms from the Blue Menu which the box says is high in fibre. (Note: All the Blue Menu items tell you what they're good for...like the Omega oil that's a good source of omega 3 & 6 polyunsaturates, and the On track plus protein cereal with 13g of protein per serving, but you do have to read the nutrition facts on the back - some have lots of sodium).

Back to last night's delicious dinner....the barley & mushrooms took about 30 minutes (one minute to dump the contents of the box and some liquid into a pot and the rest left to bubble on the stove to soften the barley). Although there was plenty of dehydrated mushrooms in the package, I can never have enough, so I sauteed some sliced cremini and shitake mushrooms in a little olive oil and added them to the mix just before serving. I also used low sodium chicken broth instead of water - just because, that's what I always do.

Sitting on top of the barley & mushrooms in the photo above, is what looks like potato latkes (pancakes), but are actually Quick Chicken Cutlets that were prepared in less time than it took for the barley to soften. In other words, a perfect dinner - delicious and very little effort.

Thank goodness for handy ready-to-use staples! What's your favorite time saver, always on hand staple?

Porcini Stuffed Tortelloni -Who Could Resist?

First of all, let me explain why I would be making a "last" minute pasta at 8:30 in the morning.

It's Thursday and tomorrow is the big Presto Pasta Night Roundup, hosted this week by Theresa, The Food Hunter's Guide to Cuisine, so it should be wonderful.

It's Thursday and I still haven't made pasta this week!

It's Thursday and I have a date with a very busy two year old, so I won't have any time to cook one up, take a photo or write about it here. Any time someone heads over to the computer, the expectation is that we play Thomas the Train games.

I have a package of gorgeous fresh Trentino-Alto-Adige Porcini Tortelloni that President's Choice sells. If you know me, you know I love mushrooms, love to eat stuffed pastas, but not so in love with making them unless I'm spending time with my daughter. The bonding is worth it all. We actually made our own Mushroom Ravioli with a Creamy Mushroom and Sherry Sauce one Sunday afternoon.

So you can imagine how happy I was to discover these ready made treasures. And today I did a slight variation so that hopefully my lunch date - Boaz, will enjoy it too. I left out the sherry, sauteed cremini & shitake mushroom slices, and added some frozen peas, because I know he likes those...at least he did last week.

Don't forget to email your entries for Presto Pasta Night to theresa (at) foodhuntersguide (dot) com and a cc to me ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com

Soup, Soup and More Soup

Many of you south of the Equator must be tired of us Northerners complaining about the cold and you probably aren't that interested in our hearty, body and soul warming dishes these days, and frankly, I for one, am jealous of your hot and sunny days and salads.

That said, this is definitely a time for rib sticking dishes that start to work way before we ever put the first spoon to our lips. A pot of slow cooking goodness fills the room with warmth of both the physical - "heat-up-the-room" kind and emotionally as well. Nothing warms me up more than inhaling all those herbs and spices that do their magic to the ordinary. I mean, no matter how much you love root vegetables in November, by now ....well...as my niece used to say when she was four "I got enough!" Plus, there's nothing like holding a hot bowl of steaming goodness to warm your hands and your heart.

The other day I "threw together" a tasty Bean, Sausage & Mushroom Soup by just opening my fridge and checking my pantry. Last week's star soup was Roasted Butternut Squash & Garlic that was amazing.

And last night's winner...from Rouxbe.com was an amazing version of Mushroom & Barley Soup...a real "stick to your ribs" meal all by itself. In fact, I actually made some Cod Provencal (also from Rouxbe.com) that will have to wait until tonight....the soup was perfect all by itself.

Now that I've used up all my chicken broth (my own and boxed variety), it's time to replenish the fridge, freezer and pantry.