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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.
“No-beef” and Barley Soup
Ingredients
Batch 1:
- 2 shallots or 1 Spanish onion diced.
- 2 garlic cloves
- 4 large carrots diced
- 3 branches of celery diced
- 2 cups frozen green beans
Batch 2
- 2 cups homemade tomato sauce or a can of diced tomatoes
- 8 cups of vegetable broth
- 1 cup of barley
- 2 tbsp of fresh parsley or 2 tsp of dried parsley
- 2 tsp of dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp of black pepper
- 1 tbsp of Himalayan salt
Batch 3
- 2 cups of frozen green peas
- 1 small can of black beans and white kidney beans (398 ml)
Instructions
In a large Dutch oven or saucepan, put a few tbsp of vegetable broth with the onions and the garlic. Cook for 5 minutes watching to ensure there is still some liquid, otherwise add some as needed. Add the remainder of the ingredients from Batch 1. Cook for another 5 minutes continuing to ensure that there is liquid at the bottom of the pan.
Add ingredients from batch 2 and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until the carrots and the barley are cooked.
Add the ingredients from batch 3 and continue simmering for 5 minutes.
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.
Vegan Black Bean Stew
Black bean stew.
In a large dutch oven, cook:
- 2 tbsp grape seed oil.
- 2 medium onions chopped.
- 4 garlic cloves minced.
- 2 large carrots diced
- 1 branch of celery diced
- 1 large red peppers diced
- 1 large green peppers diced
- 1/2 tsp jalapeño pepper diced
Once all vegetable are soft then add:
- 2 cans of black beans
- 1 can of 14 oz diced san Marzano tomatoes
- 2 tbsp of tomato paste
- 1 tbsp of honey
- 4 tsp Chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp oregano
Cook for 40 minutes or until water evaporated.
Once cook add:
- 1/4 cup of chopped fresh cilantro
Add cilantro and stir for a few minutes.
Garnish with green onions, shredded cheese and sour cream as you like.
Tomato, cucumber, avocado salad
This is my go to lunch, particularly late summer when tomatoes are fresh! In this case I added chickpeas to add proteins but I make different variations of this. For example, replacing the chickpeas by adding pitted kalamata olives and Feta cheese (which makes it vegetarian) will create a lovely Mediterranean salad. I often pair it with my green soup which I make regularly.
Ingredients
- 2 plum tomatoes cut in chunk
- ½ english cucumber peeled and cut in chunk (I slice them in half lengthwise and then in half again, then slice them about 1 cm wide)
- ¼ cup diced red onion
- 3 tbsp chick peas
- 1 tbsp caper (or sometime I use green or black olives)
- ¼ avocado cut in chunk
Dressing
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- Juice from ¼ of a lemon
- 1 tsp of Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp of seasoned salt (I mix my own. I will post a recipe shortly)
- 1 tsp dried basil
- ½ tsp of dried thyme
I make a few variation of this dressing depending how I feel. Replace the Dijon and lemon juice with red wine vinegar for example.
The key for this salad is to make it at least half an hour before eating it so that the juices all mix together, creating a marvelous sauce! Place all the ingredients in a bowl, then mix the dressing in a separate bowl. Add to the salad and let it sit for a bit.
Lunch for 2
Home made spaghetti sauce
Spaghetti sauce is one of the first thing my mom taught us how to make when I was a teenager. I have added some must-have ingredients to her recipe, mainly from cooking with friend’s over the years, but the base is still the same.
From time to time, when my boys were younger, I have added ingredients such as grated carrots and zucchini to “hide”more vegetables in the mix, but now I just dice them up and add them in plain sight 🙂
Ingredients
I make my own tomato sauce from Italian tomatoes that i buy at the farmer market every fall. I can it in 1l mason jar but you can substitute with store bought. Just check how much salt has been added!
- 2l tomato sauce
- 2 cans of tomato paste (5.5ml)
- 1 can of diced tomato or 3 large tomatoes peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 bottle of chili sauce
- 2 pounds of ground beef
- 1 large sweet Vidalia onion chopped
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 large green pepper chopped
- 3 celery branches chopped
- 1 zucchini chopped
- dozen mushrooms quartered
- Half a bag of spinach chopped
- 2 cups of sliced mushrooms
- 2 tsp each garlic salt, celery salt, onion powder
- 1tbsp each of fresh basil, oregano, parsley and thyme (or 1 tsp dried)
- 1 tsp of crushed chili pepper or to taste
- half a jar of green or black olive cut in half (optional)
- 1 tbsp of crushed chili pepper (optional)
The first step is to decide whether you will make meatballs or not. I usually take half the meat and form it into meatballs that I bake in a cookie sheet at 375C for about 15minutes. I drain the fat from it before adding them to the sauce. The other option is to brown them in the pot before cooking anything else but this requires more supervision 🙂
Sprinkle about a 2 tsp olive oil in a thick Dutch oven (I use my large Creuset pot for this recipe). Caramelize the onion a few minutes or until golden. Add the garlic and all the other vegetables. Sautéed until soft and remove from the pot.
Add the ground meat (not the meatballs) to the pot and cook until browned. Return the vegetables and add the tomato sauce, the paste, the chili sauce and the tomatoes. Stir until well mixed. Add the spices and bring to boil. Reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for 40 minutes. Add the meatballs, the herbs and the optional ingredients if using and cook for another 20 minutes. Adjust the seasoning to taste and voila!!! This recipe will make a large batch, enough for several family supper or a couple of meals and some sauce to make a lasagna 🙂 Serve with spaghettini noodles. parmesan and crusty bread…..yummy!!!
Crème de citrouille de maman / Pumpkin soup from my mom
I added a category for recipes from my childhood where I will share recipes from my family, my heritage in the kitchen.
J’ai créé une nouvelle catégorie pour les recettes de mon enfance où je partagerai les recettes de ma mère et de tante Lucille, Claire etc..enfin mon héritage dans la cuisine.
As long as I can remember, my mom pureed the pumpkin after halloween and made a soup. Years ago when I asked her for the recipe, it was something like “well you should put 1/3 of tomato for the pumpkin you have and the 1/4 of milk of whatever tomato you put etc….”. Soooo, I experimented over the years and these are my proportions and my twist to it. Basically the more you like the pumpkin taste, the less tomato you put. My sister tells my mom is now putting NO tomatoes and just a bit of milk so basically anything goes 🙂
Mine here is more red because I felt like it. When I make some after halloween, I will upload a more orange picture so you can see the variety!
Depuis que je suis toute petite, je me rappelle ma mère et tante Lucille qui préparaient une crème de citrouille. Lorsque je lui ait demandé la recette, il y a plusieurs années, la réponse fût: “Ben tu mets 1/3 de tomate pour la quantité de citrouille que tu as et puis à peu près 1/4 de lait pour ce que tu as mis de tomates etc…” Donc, au fils des années, j’ai expérimenté et adapté les proportions selon mon goût. En fait, plus vous aimez le goût de la citrouille, moins vous mettez de tomates. Ma soeur me dit que ma mère cette année, en a fait en mélangeant simplement sa purée avec un peu de lait….donc à peu près n’importe quoi!
La mienne est plus rouge ici car j’avais un goût de tomate mais je mettrai une photo de ma prochaine recette après l’halloween qui sera plus orange pour bien démontrer les possibilités de variations!
Ingredients
- 6 cups of pumpkin puree (which I will show how to make in a future post. Do not buy cans!) / 6 tasses de citrouille en purée (sera démontré prochainement, n’achetez pas les conserves!)
- 1 1/4 cups of crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce. I put my homemade tomato sauce because I prefer the tomato taste so my soup is more red 🙂 / 1 1/4 tasse de tomates écrasées ou sauce tomate maison. Je mets ma sauce tomato car je préfère le goût des tomates 🙂
- 3 cups of milk / 3 tasses de lait
- 4 cups of chicken broth (which I often omit) / 4 tasses de bouillon de poulet (que j’omets souvent)
- Nutmeg, salt, pepper, fine herbs to taste (I put a few teaspoon each) / muscade, sel, poivre et fines herbes au goût (j’en mets quelques cuillers à thé)
- 2 onions / 2 oignons
- 3 garlic cloves / 3 gousses d’ail
Add a little oil in your pot and fry diced onions and minced garlic. Add the rest and heat through.
Faite revenir les oignons hachés avec l’ail émincé dans un peu d’huile. Ajouter le reste et réchauffer jusqu’à ce que les goûts soient bien mélangés.
I add either a dollop of plain yogourt to the bowl or grated parmesan. Eat with Ace cheese crackers…Yum!
Je rajoute une cuiller de yogourt nature au plat de service ou du fromage parmesan râpé au goût. Déguster avec les craquelins Ace au fromage….délicieux!
Tomato Avocado salad with anchovy dressing
Here is an easy and excellent salad that can be prepared with very few ingredients and served at a fancy dinner as well as a casual night with a few friends….or just for you 🙂
Ingredients
- 2 tomatoes ripe
- 1 avocado
dressing
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 4 tsp anchovy paste
- 2 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 small clove garlic minced
- pinch salt and pepper
- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Cut the tomatoes in thick slices starting with the bottom of the tomatoes. Discard the stem. Then cut each slices in 2 and arrange on a rectangular platter.
Cut the avocado in 2 from top to bottom and remove the pit. Thinly slice the avocado lengthwise without breaking the skin. With your fingers, slide the peel away and pop the wedges out. Arrange on the platter on top of the tomatoes.
In bowl, whisk together all ingredients except the oil, then add the oil slowly as you whisk until thickened and well mixed.
Sprinkle on the tomato-avocado mixture and you are done!
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