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Ratatouille
One of my favorite recipe when the huge zucchini start showing up in our garden. A hearty meal in itself that can also be served on pasta with cheese on top for a ratatouille au gratin!
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 large eggplant cut in cubes 1 inch size.
- 1 extra large zucchini or 2 medium ones cut in cubes same size.
- 1 red pepper diced
- 1/2 long hot pepper diced
- 2-3 cooking onions diced
- 5 garlic cloves minced
- 12 fresh plum tomatoes diced up or a can a diced tomatoes (San Marzano if available).
- 2 tbsp of tomato paste.
- 3-4 tbsp of fresh basil (one branch from your garden) chopped
- 1-2 tbsp of fresh thyme chopped
- Olive oil
The order in this recipe is important.
In a Large Dutch oven, follow these steps and do not wipe the pot between each steps.
1- Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil, place the eggplant in the pan and season with 1/2 tsp of salt. Cook for about 10-12 minutes (still all denté). Remove from the pot and set aside.
2- Keep the remaining oil and add one more tbsp. Add the zucchini and cook for 3 minutes or until soft but still al dente. Add 1/2 tsp of salt, remove from the pot and set aside in a separate bowl.
3- Add another tbsp of oil and add the onions and peppers cooking for 2-3 minutes, then the garlic cooking for another minute.
4- Add the tomatoes, thyme and tomato paste and cook for 10 minutes or until the tomatoes break down.
5- Add the eggplant back to the pot and simmer for 10 minutes or until the eggplant is soft. Add the zucchini and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add the basil and simmer for another minute et Voilà!
This dish is excellent the next day and freezes very well.
Cream of brocoli (vegan)
I love the creamy texture that can be achieve without any cream!!
Ingredients
- 2 very large bunches of brocoli cut up (peeling the stem before cutting)
- 2 medium onions
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 medium sized carrots peeled and sliced
- 3 large potatoes cut in pieces
12 cups of broth
- 2 tbsp each garlic salt
- 1 tbsp of Himalayan salt
- 1 tbsp each dried basil and dried thyme
- 1 tsp of celery salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Heat up a Dutch oven saucepan or large saucepan.
Turn the heat to medium and place the onion in. Add about 1/4 cup broth and let it cook for 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes, adding broth as needed.
Add the rest of the vegetables and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the broth and the spices and bring to boil.
Turn the burner to simmer, add the herbs and cover the saucepan. Let it simmer for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked.
Let it cool down and put the mixture through the blender to achieve a creamy consistency.
Return to pot and adjust seasoning to taste as needed.
Mom’s vegetable soup
Ever since my boys were little, I have been making a completely vegan vegetable soup. This was one of the puréed food I fed them when they were babies, albeit with less spices 🙂
Now that they are away, they are looking to reproduce this recipe. Well here it is!!
You can be creative with the vegetables, adding or omitting with what you have in your fridge. This is a catch all soup 🍲!!
Ingredients
1st batch:
- 2 small cooking onions diced
- 2 large garlic cloves minced
- 4 large carrots sliced or cut in chunk as you prefer
- 2 branches of celery sliced
- 1 zucchini cut in half and sliced
- 2 big handful of green beans cut in 1 inch pieces or 1 cup of frozen green beans Optional:
- 2 cups of frozen peas
- 2 cups of chopped spinach
2nd batch:
- 8 cups (or 2 litre) of vegetable broth
- 750 ml tomato sauce (or 1 mason jar)
- Optional Add 2 cups of broth after pasta/rice is cooked to thin the consistency.
3rd batch:
- 1 can of white kidney beans (or romaine beans)
- 1 cup of rice, orzo or small pasta
Spices
- 2 tbsp of garlic salt, celery salt, onion powder
- 1 tbsp of black pepper
- 1 tbsp of parsley, dried thyme and/or basil
Use a large pot or preferably a dutch oven. Spread 1 tbsp of grapeseed oil and heat. Add the onion and caramelized them for a few minutes. Add the rest of the vegetables from 1st batch EXCEPT the optional ones if you are using them. Cook for 7-8 minutes.
Add ingredients from the 2nd batch and bring to boil.
Add ingredients for the 3rd batch as well as the spices and herbs and reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 30 minutes.
Add the optional vegetables if using and cook for another 15 minutes or until the vegetables and rice or pasta is cooked.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
This makes a large pot of soup. At least 22 cups of soup. A typical bowl of soup (serving) is 2 cups.
Adjust the recipe according to the number of servings you would like to make.
Veggie-Egg Stack Sunday brunch
Before leaving for our long snowshoeing hike in our beautiful wood at our cottage, we need some fuel.
Today I improvised a new egg stack without any bread. Yummy and no carbs!!
Ingredients for 2 servings
- 2-3 eggs depending if someone wants 2 eggs (my husband)
- 2 leaves of romaine lettuce
- 2 thick slices of tomatoes
- 6 slices of cucumber
- 1/3 cup of shredded old cheddar
- Half a small onion diced
- 1 clove of garlic minced
- Salt and pepper
Steps to make the recipe
Sauté the onion and the garlic in a bit of butter until softened.
Meanwhile, lay out the lettuce and top with tomatoe and cucumber. Add salt and pepper.
Spread the onions on the stack and use the same pan to fry the eggs over-easy (you could also poach the eggs if you prefer ) .
Spread the eggs on the stack and add salt and pepper to taste.
In the same pan, toss the shredded cheese and melt for a minute.
Top your stack with the cheese et Voilà!
Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Bacon
I have started using cauliflower more and more in my recipes. It is a great source of vitamin C, combined with manganese which makes it a good antioxidant. It also contains a good amount of Fibre as well as several other vitamins. I am discovering that it is very versatile and am finding new ways to use, such as in my brunch recipe where it is used as the anchor for a healthy stack to replace bread. Since I love making and eating soup, this was perfect for me.
During one of my cleaning of my recipe folders, I came across this clipping from several years ago. I decided to try it and adapt it to suit our taste.
This is a great meal for lunch!
Ingredients
- 1 medium size cauliflower cut into florets
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- 3 slices of bacon, cut into pieces
- 1 tbsp of butter
- 1 onion
- 1 potato, peeled and diced
- 1 bay leaf, 1tsp of dried thyme
- 5 cups of chicken or vegetable broth
- 1/2 cup of evaporated skim milk
Toss the cauliflower florets with oil as well as salt and pepper to taste and spread on a cookie sheet to roast in the oven at 425F for 10-15 minutes.
Cook the bacon in a large saucepan until browned and then remove them and discard all the fat except for about 1tbsp.
Add the butter and then toss in the onion, the potato, the herbs and salt and pepper to taste. Sauté over medium heat for a few minutes.
Add the cauliflower and the stock (I used my homemade stock from the freezer which I freeze in bags of 4 cups). Bring to boil and cook for 10-15 minutes.
Discard the bay leave, add half the bacon and purée the soup in your blender.
Return to saucepan and add the milk (you can substitute with half and half cream for a richer soup), gently re-heating. Adjust seasoning to taste.
Decorate with the reserved bacon, some fresh parsley or croutons as you wish.
Yummy salmon filet on The BBQ….or not, with asparagus and light creamed spinach.
Tonight’s special at the Rock on Sparrow Lake, Muskoka was salmon. I prepared dinner in under 20 minutes while hubby was reading his newspaper on the couch in the Muskoka room….Life At The Cottage!
No carbs tonight but a full filing meal. The secret to the light creamed spinach is light herb and garlic cream cheese 🙂
I marinated the salmon about 2 hours before cooking but 1 hour would have been sufficient.
Here is the 1st step:
Mix together:
- 2tbsp of olive oil
- 1tbsp of lemon juice,
- 1 1/2 tbsp of Dijon mustard,
- 1 1/2 tbsp of soya sauce (optional),
- 2 tsp of dried dill,
- 1 garlic clove,
- 1/2 tsp of black pepper.
Place the salmon fillet meat side up in a container or aluminum foil and spread the marinade on the salmon. Put in the refrigerator for 1-2 hour.
About 20 minutes before dinner, start the BBQ or the oven at 425F
.
While you wait for the BBQ to heat up, break off the end of a bunch of asparagus and place in aluminum foil.
Drizzle with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sprinkle salt and pepper. Close up the aluminum to make a bundle ready for the BBQ. If you are cooking the salmon in the oven, place the asparagus in a cookie sheet and drizzle the same way. They will go in the oven for 10 minutes.
Once the bundle of asparagus is ready, the BBQ should be hot. Place the salmon filet on the grill. 
Meanwhile, prepare the creamed spinach.
Put about half the container of light Philadelphia herb and garlic cream cheese with about 2 tbsp of lemon juice in a saucepan.
Heat at medium on the stove until cheese is melted and add a whole package of spinach. Heat for about 2 minutes, turn the burner off and leave the cover on to finish cooking.
Now back to the BBQ. Add the asparagus bundle to the grill and close the cover. Leave everything in there for about 8 minutes depending on the thickness of the salmon. Time for an apero and a book 🙂
8-10 minutes later, check the doneness of the salmon using a fork to see if it will flake up.
Once ready, dish out the spinach first.
Place the salmon in the plate, leaning it on the spinach with the asparagus besides. Add a wedge of lemon and a tbsp of caper sprinkled on the salmon. Remember that how it looks is almost as important as how it taste!
Pour wine and go down to the lake to watch the sunset. Why would we travel anywhere in the summer!
Easy smoothy
I have been making these for my boys since they were little. They are super easy to use and best of all, you can use any left over or bruised fruits you may have so no waste!
When you see a fruit is getting overripe, cut it up and freeze it in a ziploc. You can mix and match fruits. Bananas are the key ingredient here to make it “smooth”. The more brown and overripe, the better. Again, when some fresh bananas are turning, freeze them whole, you don,t even have to peel them, how easy is that! The other important part is to have some frozen fruits on hand so don’t be shy, freeze up peaches, melons, any berries, apples etc… The recipe here only uses strawberries but basically any mixture of fruits will do.
Ingredients
- 1 whole container of 750 g plain yogourt. If you need more protein in your diet, use greek yogourt. You can use flavoured yogourt but then you should omit the maple syrup and it will overpower the fruit.
- 3 tablespoon of maple syrup. We are lucky to have our uncle’s artisanal syrup from Quebec, so it is the best sweetener but table syrup will do. You can adjust the quantity based on how sweet you would like it!
- 1 ripe banana, the browner the better, frozen or not
- 1 cup of mixed fruits, here we used strawberries. Whatever you have frozen or you can buy frozen fruits.
- 1 tbsp of flaxseed. I add flaxseed because it is good for you but several other seeds can be added as well. They also can be omitted as it does not affect the taste, just the “goodness” level 🙂
- You can add a bit of milk if you want it less thick.
From the Webmd.com website:
Although flaxseed contains all sorts of healthy components, it owes its primary healthy reputation to three of them:
- Omega-3 essential fatty acids, “good” fats that have been shown to have heart-healthy effects. Each tablespoon of ground flaxseed contains about 1.8 grams of plant omega-3s.
- Lignans, which have both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities. Flaxseed contains 75 to 800 times more lignans than other plant foods.
- Fiber. Flaxseed contains both the soluble and insoluble types.
This recipe’s main cost is the yogourt since you should have frozen your fruits as you had them and saved them from being thrown away 🙂 The syrup and seed you can buy one time and use them for several months. This recipe will make 4 serving cups for the young ones and young at heart 🙂
Here are the very simple steps:
- Put all ingredients in a blender. I usually put the yogourt last to make sure the fruits get well pureed.
- Hit the puree settings and let it fo its work for about 2 minutes
- Serve
How hard was that!! And very yummy
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