Food Time – A Many Mushroom Risotto

I don’t know if you knew this about me but I LOVE mushrooms. I think they are one of the greatest things out there, cooked, raw, mashed into a paste anyway you can think it up I want to eat them. So a couple of weeks ago during a meal prep day I decided to make some delicious Many Mushroom Risotto, and it was so tasty!   Just for the fun of it I made this one vegan and trust you don’t lose any of the delicious creaminess or flavour you would get had I used butter and cheese, plus it cuts the fat/calorie content so it ends up being a super healthy meal.

Enough talk, I am sure you are all salivating so here is the recipe, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Many Mushroom Risotto:

Serves 8-10 as a main meal

1.5 cups Arborio rice
2 tbsp oil (I used grape seed oil it’s better for frying)
4 cups Vegetable stock (I use homemade, but if you need to get store bough get organic)
1 small Yellow Onion, diced
3 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
3 Leeks, white and light green parts chopped
1 Tbsp fresh Lemon Juice
4 sprigs of Thyme, finely chopped
1 Portobello Mushroom, diced
*4oz (250g) Cremini Mushrooms, diced
*4oz (250g) Oyster Mushrooms, diced
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Prepare all ingredients so that you can easily toss them in, a lot of stirring is involved and you don’t want to let your risotto burn because something wasn’t already chopped up.

2. Heat half the oil in a large skillet or stew pot.  Once oil heats up add in all of your mushrooms, cook them down until they are soft 5-7 minutes.  Once cooked remove and set aside.

3. Add other half of oil to pan and heat, once heated add in leeks, onions and garlic cook for 2-5 minutes until the onions become soft and translucent.

4. Add in arborio rice stir in dry rice for about a minute to coat with all the juices that are going on in the pan.  Add in 1 tbsp of lemon juice, stir until evaporated.

5. Add 1/2 cup of broth to the rice mixture and stir until completely absorbed, then add in another 1/2 cup of broth.  Continue this until all of the broth is gone, stirring constantly. This should take 20-25 minutes and is a great arm workout, for one arm at least.

6. Once all broth is added into the mixture add the cooked mushrooms, fresh thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Stir until well combined and serve immediately.

*these sizes are just one prepackaged container of mushrooms, also if you want to add more go for it, it will be super delicious!

Let me know what you think of this recipe.   I hope to be back blogging on a regular basis shortly.  School is starting to calm down (not really but I keep telling myself this) and my work and life schedule is starting to actually find a nice balance.  I hope to bring you more updates, workouts, yoga routines and recipes soon.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Food Friday – Flat Bread

It is Friday! It seems that the second the weather starts getting nice it’ becomes painful to be locked up on the 18th floor of a concrete building for 9 hours a day. So today I am so happy to be getting to post this from my backyard.  My deck is probably the best office I have ever had, you get to feel the wind and sun, hear the kids in the school yard across the street and just be outside it is pretty glorious.  But today is about food so let’s get down to business.

Before I dive into the recipe I want to talk a bit about meat.  With the farmer’s market in full swing, I do my best every week to have my meals planned out so I can buy local, antibiotic free meats.  This past weekend at the farmer’s market I lucked out and was able to get a giant grass fed organic flank steak (this cut is so hard to come by for whatever reason).   Seeing we were having a BBQ this week (last night to be exact) I figured it would be great for the evening. However as the evening got closer my husband and I became concerned that we wouldn’t have enough meat for everyone so we picked up another flank steak from the grocery store. We then figured this would be a great opportunity to do a taste test.

I have known for some time now that picking organic, antibiotic free and local meats is the healthiest choice, if you can make the financial commitment, but I had never actually taken the time to see if there was an actually difference in flavour.

So we did them up in the same marinate and grilled them, we kept them separate and had our guests test out a bit from each steak and it was unanimous the grass fed, local, antibiotic free beef was the hands down winner. It was more tender, thicker (it didn’t shrink up as much in the cooking process) and was so much juicer.  Also for an extra 4$ a pound I would say 100% worth it.

Now onto the recipe.  I have been toying with the idea of creating a gluten free dough for a while now, however working with gluten free flours can be pretty intimidating if you don’t have a lot of experience with it.  But I figured that seeing how I am trying to reduce the amount of wheat in my diet, it was time to suck it up and just give it a try, I mean really the worst thing that could happen is that it doesn’t work out.

So this week I set out to make a dough, I wanted it to be something I could use for flat breads but could also be used for pizza if the mood hit me.  I was actually quiet surprised and satisfied with the results and best of all it was husband approved. So here it is:

Flat Bread/ Pizza Dough:

1 1/4 cup All Purpose Gluten Free Flour or Brown Rice Flour
1 cup Coconut Flour
2 tbsp Tapioca Startch
1 tsp dried Oregano
1 tsp dried Basil
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup Coconut Milk (you can use any milk that you perfer)
2 tbsp Organic Honey
2 tbsp Avocado Oil or Olive Oil
4 eggs

1. Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Whisk them together until they are blended.
2. In a small bowl mix together the coconut milk, honey, oil and eggs. Add wet ingredients to the large bowl of dry ingredients.  I would recommend using an electric mixer for this mainly because it will be faster and easier on your arm.
3. Mix all ingredients together until it is no longer lumpy and everything has been blended. Use a spatula to help you form a bit of a “dough ball” then cover with plastic wrap and set it aside for 20 – 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
5. If making flat bread, divide the dough ball into four equal parts and roll it out in between parchment paper or plastic wrap.  The dough is very sticky and will stick to your rolling pin otherwise, even if you dust the pin with flour.  If you are making pizza you can divide the dough in two for two personal size pizzas or leave it as one for a large sharing pizza.
6. For cooking use a cookie sheet or pizza tray without any holes. Line the tray with parchment paper and place dough on top.  Top with your favourite toppings, I choose to make two flat breads the first was an arugula, peach and prosciutto combo and the second a tomato, basil and feta.
7. Pop the flat bread or pizza in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the crust begins to golden. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes, then enjoy!

Note: the dough will look very moist, do not continue adding flour, the dough will not look similar to dough made with wheat flour so just go with it, it will cook up great. 

Now let’s all just hope for some nice weather and think some really loud positive thoughts to make the chances of thunder-showers for the weekend disappear. 

Happy Friday everyone. Have a great weekend. 

Lemony Chicken and Quinoa

Last night I was on my own for supper and when that happens I normally end up treating myself to something my husband isn’t particularly fond of; like anything with rice, quinoa, beans or lots of veggies. Last night was no exception, I broke out the quinoa and got pretty excited that it would be on my plate for supper.

I have made several variations of this chicken marinade but yesterday I am so happy I measured everything out because it turned out so delicious!

Lemony Chicken and Quinoa

Serves 2

Chicken:
2 chicken breasts diced
1 lemon juiced
1 shallot diced finely
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp Italiano seasoning
Dash of cayenne pepper (more or less to your liking)
2 cups broccoli chopped

Quinoa:
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup organic broth

1. Place diced chicken in a Ziplock bag. Mix oil, lemon juice,shallot herbs, and cayenne pepper together.

2. Once blended added to the bag of chicken. Massage the marinade into the chicken. Let sit for at least 30 minutes. You can let it sit over night if you plan ahead.

3. Which the chicken is marinating rinse the quinoa thoroughly. Place rinsed quinoa in a small sauce pan with the broth (I used vegetable). Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer. Continue cooking until all liquid has evaporated. Fluff with a fork and turn off heat. Cover and let sit until the chicken is finished.

3. Heat a large frying pan to medium high heat. Once heated place chicken and chopped broccoli. Cover for approximately 3 minutes to allow the broccoli to begin turning a bright green. Remove lid and continue to cook until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink inside.

4. Place quinoa on a plate an top with chicken. Serve and enjoy.

Food Fridays – Just a bit late

Hello everyone, sorry for the delay, besides some technical difficulties it was my mom’s birthday yesterday so I was pretty busy helping her celebrate yesterday and didn’t have the chance to get close to a computer.

This week’s food addition was inspired by this recipe posted on Epic Fitness Ottawa’s blog earlier this week. I have full intentions of testing out the Epic recipe I just didn’t have some of the ingredients and figured “Hey I have part French Canadian I can figure this out” so I looked in the fridge checked out what I had and started creating, the results were pretty delicious.

Sweet Potato Pâté Chinois

Serves 6


2 lbs ground veal
3 Medium Sweet Potatoes
2 tsp coconut oil
4 Sprigs Fresh Rosemary whole
2 Sprigs Fresh Rosemary finely chopped
1 Yellow Pepper diced
3 Stalks of Celery diced
3 Cloves of Garlic crushed
2 tsp Chili Powder
1 1/2 cups Peas
5 Mushrooms diced
1 medium Onion diced

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Melt coconut oil in a small bowl in the microwave.  Wash, peel and dice sweet potatoes into 1 inch cubes.  In a large bowl coat the sweet potatoes with the melted coconut oil.  Layer on a baking sheet and lay whole rosemary over the sweet potatoes.  Potatoes will cook for 30-35 minutes, flipping halfway through.
3. While sweet potatoes are cooking, in a heated dip lipped frying pan add half of the diced onion, celery and sweet pepper.  Cook until onions begin to soften, about 2-3 minutes, once onions have started to soften add chili powder, stir and cook for another minute.  Add in veal cook until veal is no longer pink.  Once veal is cooked layer the bottom of a 2.75 liter or 8×8 (slightly smaller) casserole dish with the mixture.
4. In the same pan used to cook the veal add the other half of the diced onion, mushrooms, and peas. Cook until peas and onions are cooked through, approximately 5 to 7 minutes.  Once pea mixture is cooked layer on top of veal mixture in the casserole dish.
5. Remove fully cooked roasted sweet potatoes from the oven, place in a large bowl and mash.  Once thoroughly mashed place potatoes in the casserole dish as the top layer.
6. Place the casserole in the oven and cook for 20-30 minutes to set in the flavours.
7. Serve hot.

Happy Saturday!!!!! 

Jumpin’ Beans!

Since cutting down on meat I have found that my new best food friend is beans.  Besides the fact that they are totally delicious, they can add much needed protein to pretty much any dish.  Not only has it been fun to explore different foods, but it has also been so much fun switching up the variety in what I eat.

This past week I was wanting to make a large batch of something, so that I could freeze it and eat it later on when I was feeling particularly lazy and not much like cooking, winter is coming after all which means hibernation mode is about to kick in, so like a squirrel I try and store food for the colder months.

While attempting to think up a recipe that would fit this bill, I suddenly got a craving for some Mexican fair, and that settled it. Burritos it will be.   I did some looking around on the internet and as long as the burritos are wrapped up in some tin foil they will freeze well and come back to life just as delicious as the first time you ate them, also you can cook them from frozen, which is a plus.

So here it is my recipe for:

Vegetarian Burritos:

Makes 6 Burritos

For Rice:

1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 cups homemade or low sodium vegetable broth
2 tbsp chili powder

Bean Mixture:
1 tsp olive oil
4 tbsp chili powder
1 dash of cayenne pepper
1 medium onion chopped
1 medium yellow or green zucchini chopped
1 can black beans
1 large or 2 small tomatoes diced
1.5 cups shredded cheese of choice
6 large tortilla wraps (I prefer whole wheat but corn, or any other wrap would probably work fine).

1. In a rice cooker combine rice, broth and chili powder.  Cook rice (approximately 40minutes).
2. Preheat a skillet, warm up oil with pan.  Once heated add in onions and cook for 3minutes until they begin to turn translucent and then add in chili powder and cayenne, cook for another 3 minutes to release the flavour of the chilies.
3. Add zucchini, black beans and tomato to the skillet and cook for another 7-10 minutes allowing all vegetables to cook together, remove from heat and cover until rice is finished.
4. While waiting for the rice to finish cooking, shred the cheese.
5. Once rice is finished cooking mix it into the bean mixture. Ensuring the tortillas are soft enough to wrap without breaking begin wrapping the burritos.  If the tortillas are stiff put them on a plate and cover with plastic wrap, microwave for 10 seconds, this should soften them up enough to wrap them.
6. Place cheese and rice and bean mixture into the tortillas and wrap.  If you have a grill this would be a great way to go about cooking them, if not preheat the oven to 350degrees and lightly spray a baking sheet and place burritos (that you wish to eat immediately) on the sheet, and bake for 10-15minutes until the shell starts to brown.
7. Wrap the left over burritos in tin foil and allow them to cool before storing them in the freezer.  I placed the wrapped burritos in a large ziplock bag to protect them a bit more from possible freezer burn.

Serve burritos with salsa and guacamole on the side. This a very filling supper.

Do you have a favourit Mexican food?

Have a wonderful Friday everyone! 

Backyard Patio Veganfest

Last night I had some amazing ladies over for what will hopefully not be the last patio party of the summer. The weather turned out amazing, the company was great and the food was phenomenal!
To keep the evening easy we all opted to make some appetizers for sharing so we could test out new recipes and share old ones. It turned into an amazing outdoor veganfest and boy was it tasty. With appetizers like homemade hummus, summer rolls (or rice wraps), spinach dip, mushroom olive tapenade and fruit salad for desert we all ended the night feeling extremely stuffed, but the evening felt exactly like summer should and I am so sad to see this season slowly fade away.

One of my contributions to the evening was a vegan spinach dip. It was a bit of a Frankenstein creation, where I pieced together items that I figured would probably go well together and it really panned out, so I am so excited to share! This dip was delicious cold but I have a feeling it would also be amazing if it was baked, so next time I will test it out.

Spinach Dip

Makes 6 servings – 25.3 calories – 0.7g fat – 190.0mg sodium – 3.7g Carbs – 0.9g Fiber – 2.6g Protein

1 package of extra firm silken tofu
1 bouillon cube veg. GF
1.5 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp braggs soy sauce
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper*
2 green onions diced
1/2 cup diced and steamed spinach
2 tbsp lemon juice
Black pepper to taste

Steam chopped spinach. You will need at least twice as much raw spinach, if not more, to yelled 1/2 cup steamed. Set aside to cool. If you are pressed for time chopped spinach from the freezer section works fine, but be sure to drain the liquid.

In a blender mix together the first 7 ingredients. While they blend squeeze 2tbsp of fresh lemon juice and dice the green onions (white and green parts).

Place tofu mixture in a medium bowl and fold in lemon juice and green onion. Once nicely mixed together add in the cold steamed spinach mix vigorously to make sure the spinach breaks up and is evenly distributed in the dip.

Chill for an hour to let set. Serve with rice crackers, pita bread or vegetables.

*with 1/2 tsp of cayenne the mix is pretty very spicy. If you or your guests are spice adverse I would recommend lowering this amount to 1/8 tsp.

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all have great plans for the weekend. Mine include running and organizing the house – so excited!

Just a heads up I have updated the Snacks and Desserts page. 

Taste of the Summer

So yesterday after a quick nearly 4k run with my running buddy I hurried home to start getting supper ready. My running buddy was coming over for some post birthday and post run, delicious outdoor suppers.

Being obsessed with Pinterest I had several delicious summery recipes pinned off and waiting for me to try. With a fridge full of super fresh Farmers Market ingredients I was so excited to make a somewhat fancy snacks and main dish for my guest. On a side note if you are interested in seeing some of the delicious meals I have been pined, or fun workouts I have found please follow me on Pinterest, just click the button below!

So for supper last night we started with some delicious corn and cilantro crostini, followed by a wonderful roasted honey jalapeno squash, and a fresh garden salad. My only modification to the squash recipe was I had a mystery squash and not an acorn squash but tasty none the less.

As for the corn and cilantro crostini I made some modifications, most were based around me bing extra vigilant to be sure I am getting enough protein after cutting meat out of my weekday diet, and because I just didn’t have some stuff. The recipe still turned out super delicious.

Corn and Cilantro Crostini
Serves 4

Recipe modified from – Epicurious

1 small baguette
2 corn on the cob
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste (I used sea salt I am not a fan of table salt)
2 clove of garlic cut in half
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
4 tbsp light feta
Lime Wedge

Preparing/Cooking:

1. Preheat BBQ to medium/high heat.
2. Brush corn with 1 tsp of olive oil and flavour with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Place corn on the grill and cook for about 15-20minutes (depending on your BBQ) until there are some nice chard marks on the corn. Be sure to watch because chard can turn to completely burnt very quickly.
3. While corn is cooking place greek yogurt and feta in a food processor and blend together, set aside.
4. Once corn is done remove from grill and allow to cool slightly. While corn is cooling put sliced baguette pieces on the BBQ and grill until nicely toasted. Once they are toasted, remove from grill and rub garlic cloves on one side of the bread.
5. Slice corn off of the cob.

Assembling:

1. Spread greek yogurt and feta mixture on each piece of crostini, place corn and cilantro on top, and finish with a squeeze of lime. Plate and serve.

 

A special thanks to my dinner guest for taking pictures of the food the other evening.

Hope everyone has been having a great week so far, and is looking forward to the long Labour Day Weekend, I know I am!

What are you plans for this long weekend?

Plant Based Eating

So I have been watching a lot of food documentaries as of late, and being generally interested in what the food I put in my body does to my body one documentary that seriously sparked my attention was Forks over Knives. All I am going to say about the film here is that it is about plant based nutrition, the food pyramid, and maintaining a healthy life style. So if you are interested in these topics I would recommend checking it out.

We all know fruits and veggies are good for you, and how important fiber and vitamins are to sustaining a happy body, and how important protein is for our muscles, but how do we go about getting them. There are so many lifestyle diets out there and it is hard to pick one or a couple of them that are going to work for your body type, because unfortunately there is no cookie cutter way to eat for everyone. Every person has a different body type, food sensitivities, allergies, and metabolisms and what may work for one person might be awful for another. That being said I would be hard pressed to find negatives about eating a balanced clean diet, but that is a discussion for another time perhaps.

For a while now I have been cutting back on meats. Trying to purchase them mostly direct from local farmers or even making my way down to the butcher shop. But I must admit I do still purchase chicken breast from Costco, it is just so cheap and in such large quantities it is hard to say no.

I wasn’t really raised on meat, so really my meat education as a child mostly consisted of chicken and perhaps pork from what I can remember. It really wasn’t until I moved in with my now husband that I started eating large quantities of red meat, and as delicious as it is I have to be honest my body isn’t always a huge fan of it. This introduction to veal, lamb, steaks and roasts was a tough one on my stomach but my mouth was enjoying it so much I ignored the digestive pains that occurred afterwards.

Now I am not saying I am going vegan or vegetarian for that matter, I do still really enjoy fish and I sometimes just can’t say no to an old fashion burger, but I do think I will be more vigilant in cutting out animal and animal bi-products, and doing my best to replace them with delicious veggies and fruits.

So for the next three weeks I have a bit more reign over the kitchen, and I will be attempting to drastically increase my plant based nutrition. I probably love vegetables more than a regular person so I don’t see that part being difficult, although I know myself and sometimes when super rolls around it is easier to toss in a handful of shrimp or cook up a tilapia filet for some protein, so it will definitely be a challenge.

Now I am not going 100% vegan over the next three weeks, but I am hoping to strike up a bit of a balance between vegetarianism and veganism during on week days and I will be a bit more lax on the weekend. Seeing I am still a meat eater I will probably still have the occasional hamburger, or shrimp cocktail, but I want to see if moving to a more plant based life style is something for me, and kind of becoming a week day vegetarian. I am very interested in seeing what it does for my eczema and other aliments.

Luckily for me I had completely stocked up on veggies and fruits at the farmer’s market this past Sunday. So yesterday I began my experiment journey by cooking up one of my favourit things…squash! I started out making this dish thinking I was going to make a regular warm salad with roasted veggies and spaghetti squash, and then inspiration struck and something completely different came out.

Spaghetti Squash Casserole
6 servings – approx. 70minutes to make

Ingredients:

1 medium sized spaghetti squash
2 tsp peanut oil
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic salt
Pepper to taste
1 medium tomato diced
1 medium red onion diced
1 small orange pepper diced
2 large handfuls of baby spinach chopped
4 large brown mushrooms
1 large zucchini
1 cup chopped green or yellow beans
1 cup Daiya cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place whole spaghetti squash in a baking dish and place in preheated oven for 40 to 50minutes.

To check if the squash if done poke the outter skin with a knife, if the tip pierces the skin with little effort it has finished cooking. Using oven mitts or a drying cloth hold the squash and cut it in half, set it aside and let it cool.

While squash is cooling in a large pan cook heat oil, and add in all other vegetables. Once the squash is cool enough to handle scoop out the seeds and shred out the squash “meat” into the pan with the other vegetables.

Take an 9×13 casserole dish and spray with oil or pam. Place squash mixture into the dish and top with Daiya cheese. Place in oven and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then serve.

 

For something made up on the fly it was definitely delicious. I have some left overs for lunch and I am definitely looking forward looking forward to filling my belly with it.

And just a little note to anyone in the Ottawa area tomorrow, Lululemon is putting on their “big one” event on parliament hill. I know I talk about PHY all the time but tomorrow they are hoping to get 5 thousand people out to fill up the entire lawn, if you are in a position to join you should treat yourself to a lunch time of free yoga!

Something’s Fishy

So as I had mentioned I started this whole Insanity business. To be honest I am normally not a workout in my living room type of gal. I always start get about two days in and then figure “yeah, I am fit enough I can just take a break today I mean I already worked out two days”. Just ask my 30 Day Shred, or my Yoga Booty Ballet DVDs they probably feel extremely neglected.

(photo credit dvdstreets.com)

With Insanity so far so good though. I am only on day 5 but I have been stoked to get to it every day so far. To date my favourit day was the cardio recovery workout, which I don’t think is much of a surprise. The workouts are tough brutal, they seem nearly impossible at times, but I have really been enjoying the challenge. Today was Pure Cardio, and all I kept thinking was “who thought this was a good idea?” But now that the workout is completed I am stoked, full of energy and still sweating an hour later (gross I know, perhaps an over share?)

There are two things that came with the program that are really helping me to stay motivated so far the calendar that comes with the program, and the suggested meal plan. (Please note I haven’t gotten to the two week hump, which is when a lot of my routines end up going out the window…so stay tuned for my sentiments at the end of next week)

The calendar has been great for me because it tells me what to do and when. It also gives me that satisfaction of crossing off days. It is like a to do list, you get to see it become shorter and shorter, it just feels good. I enjoy this because there is no humming and hawing at 5am or 5pm about what muscle group to workout or what type of cardio activity I should engage in. Taking some of the thinking out it makes it that much easier to just jump into for me.

And the meal plan. Now I haven’t been strictly following it, but it has been great to give me ideas for balance. I have a tendency to do all or nothing when it comes to most things, so it is nice to have the guide to provide some direction on what to eat and the approximate nutritional information for said meals. That and a lot of the options in the book are completely delicious, I mean a BLT?!? How delicious is that? and normally something of that nature would have fallen into the “unhealthy don’t touch” category. So basically when feeling a bit discouraged about my food options the guide book has been helpful in lifting up my spirits and helping to show me that eating healthy doesn’t mean giving up delicious foods.

Enough about Insanity, lets get into some food I have made over the past couple of weeks. I have been attempting to increase the amount of white fish in my diet, normally I would reach for rainbow trout, salmon, or tuna (because to me they are the most delicious) but I have been trying to throw in some more tilapia into the mix. Normally I avoid fishes like tilapia because honestly I have a hard time making them taste like anything and it is extremely discouraging to me, but this week I found something that worked, was delicious, completely moist and still just as tasty and moist for lunch the next day.

Spicy Southern Tilapia:

(this recipe has been modified from a Whole Foods recipe)

4 Fillets of Tilapia (about 4-6 oz each)
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 Lime cut into wedges
Olive Oil (I use a manual spray container, if you don’t have one PAM would work fine, or about 1tbsp of oil split in half).

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and spray with oil. If you don’t have PAM or a manual oil sprayer spread half of the Tbsp of oil over the tin foil.

On a plate mix together garlic powder, chili powder, black pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper together, spread it over the plate evenly. Coat both sides of the tilapia fillet in the spice mixture, then place on the cookie sheet.

Once all fillets have been coated spray the tops of the fillets lightly with oil, once again if you don’t have a sprayer evenly distribute the last half Tbsp of oil on the fillets.

Place the fillets in the oven and cook for 7 to 9 minutes. Plate and serve with a lime wedge.

This dish is great with some grilled summer squash, or green beans. It also goes great with a nice fresh salad.

If anyone is interested the oil sprayer (yes I am sure that is the technical term) I use, looks like the following:
It is great, and it feels nice to not be spraying my food with something that has been sealed up in an aerosol can. It works with any liquid oil, but I normally keep olive oil in it seeing that is what I use most of the time for cooking.

Happy Friday Everyone!!!! I hope you all have great plans for the weekend!

In Just a Couple of Days

So we are down to the last few days.  Tying up lose ends, wrapping up little projects, making sure everyone knows what is going on.  But it is all very encouraging, it seems as though everything is really coming together, and thank goodness, with 5 days to go (not counting the actual wedding), it is nice to know that things are starting to fall into their places, and there are fewer and fewer questions.

I can’t wait for all my family to get here and to get to have some quality time with them in between everything, basically I am just excited to make this picture come true again.

In the mean time while waiting for this recreation I will be making my way to yoga as much as I can drag my heels there, and I will be attempting to make healthy style meals, as I have been seriously missing them yesterday.

Last night for supper we BBQ’ed some salmon and veggies (from the local farmers market) and it totally hit the spot.

Here is the salmon recipe I used, it’s an adaptation of a recipe a friend of mine introduced me to some years back.

Bruschetta Salmon:

4 5oz Salmon Fillets
2 medium tomatoes diced
1-2 shallots minced
2 cloves of garlic crushed
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup cilantro
Salt and Pepper to taste
Lime or Lemon Juice (optional)

Mix diced tomatoes, minced shallots, crushed garlic,cilantro, vinegar, salt and pepper together in a bowl.
Pat salmon dry and place on a sheet of tin foil.  Top salmon with tomato mixture and wrap with tin foil making a little pouch.
cook on medium high heat BBQ for 20-30minutes, depending on the thickness of the salmon.
Remove from BBQ and serve immediately.  Lime or lemon juice added at the end right before serving really brings out all of the fresh delicious flavours.

Happy Monday…Lets all collectively wish for nice non-rainy weather this weekend!