Archives for July 2017

Roasted Chicken & Veg Penne

July 19, 2017 By Caroline 2 Comments

Roasted vegetables, balsamic chicken and penne make for a great pasta salad you can enjoy hot or cold. A favorite I make often over the summer, it makes four generous lunch servings that taste great cold the next day. Or, if you’re looking for a quick weeknight dinner, grill and enjoy immediately.

A big timesaver when it comes to grilling is using an olive oil spray bottle—I prefer to buy the bottle and fill it with my own olive oil so I know exactly what’s in there. I fill it up with just a regular olive oil (saving the extra-virgin for drizzling or making dressings where you can savour the difference). The bottle I have has a pump in the lid so you can remove the air, allowing it to spray into a fine mist perfect for lightly coating the vegetables in this recipe.

I used to toss this pasta salad with a pesto, and that works out ok, but I’ve come to prefer this grainy mustard dressing. It coats the pasta and lightly dresses the vegetables without overpowering the dish.

I have a love-hate relationship with roasted red peppers. It took me years to figure out how to roast them to get the skins off. Unless you really, really blacken the skins like the pepper lid top right, it’s pretty tough to remove the skins. So, depending on my mood (and whether I forgot about the peppers and left them on the grill too long!), I either just under-roast the peppers a bit and leave the skins on (remove them before they get papery), or really blister them for deeper roasted peppers where the skins come off. Or sort of go half-and-half, like the peppers shown above, removing the blackened bits that come off easily.

Marinating the chicken briefly in balsamic vinegar and olive oil gives a great flavour and depth of colour when grilled. I separate the tenders and slice the chicken breasts to flatten them, so that the thickness is more even. that way they cook through quickly and won’t dry out. You’ll want to pull the tenders off earlier as they will cook more quickly than the larger pieces.

The final plated pasta topped with fresh ground pepper and some crumbled feta. You can always mix it up with this recipe: try it with mushrooms, goat cheese, asparagus or toss in some spinach while the pasta is hot to wilt it.

Lunch feasts packed up and ready to go. A great and healthy way to fuel your week at work.

Roasted Chicken & Veg Penne

Pasta, peppers, zucchini and mustard dressing come together for a quick and healthy meal.

Course Lunch, Main Course

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

Pasta

3 cups whole wheat penne
2 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil + additional for veggies
salt
freshly ground pepper
2 red peppers tops cut off, seeds & ribs removed
2 zucchini sliced in half lengthwise
3 green onions
100 g crumbled feta cheese (about 1/2 cup)

Grainy Mustard Dressing

1 1/2 tbsp grainy mustard (medium hot)
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt
pepper, freshly ground

Instructions

Combine olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a dish large enough for the chicken. Prep chicken breasts: remove the tenders, and slice into the thickest part of the breast, opening it up like a book. Set chicken breasts and tenders into the prepared dish and marinate for 15–30 minutes.
Heat grill to 400°. Prep vegetables: spray lightly with olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
In a small bowl, combine the grainy mustard dressing ingredients.
Cook penne according to directions, drain and place into your final serving bowl. Add a few tbsp of the dressing to keep it from sticking while you prep the remaining ingredients.
Grill vegetables to desired tenderness. If you're in a hurry, grill the red peppers lightly so you can leave the skins on and simple dice and serve. If you have a bit more time and prefer to roast them fully, blister the skin so that you can more easily remove it before chopping and adding to the pasta. When the vegetables are cooked, chop them up and add them to the pasta. (Discard the green onion ends, and just adding the chopped roasted bulbs)
Lightly oil the grill; place the balsamic chicken breasts and tenders onto the hot grill. After 2 minutes, reduce heat to 350°. The tenders will cook more quickly, check them after about 8 minutes and remove when cooked through. Continue cooking the breasts an additional 5–6 minutes until cooked. Remove to a cutting board and chop, adding to the pasta bowl.
Add remaining dressing to the pasta bowl, season with additional salt and freshly ground pepper to taste if needed. Divide among serving plates, and top with crumbled feta.

Simple Summer Sides: Grilled Baby Potatoes

July 12, 2017 By Caroline Leave a Comment

Summer is all about taking it easy, recharging outside and soaking up the long days of sunshine. The last thing you want to do is spend all day in the kitchen. What you want are simple, delicious meals that are perfect enjoyed on a patio with a glass of wine. These potatoes deliver. Crisp, flavourful young potato skins pop with hits of coarse kosher salt that brings out the natural sweetness of the creamy potatoes. Rosemary adds just a hint of colour and delicate flavour.

I grow the Rosemary right on my patio. I love rubbing a leaf between my fingers and taking in the scent. You just need a few sprigs, finely chopped, as your seasoning along with the kosher salt. I really prefer the coarse texture of kosher salt for these potatoes, to deliver a hit of flavour on the skins.

To start with, par-boil the potatoes for 8–10 minutes until they are starting to soften, but not fully cooked through. Don’t overcook them or your final product off the grill will be mushy.

Drain the potatoes and transfer to a bowl. Add the olive oil, salt and rosemary. Stir to combine.

Next, toss the potatoes on the grill. I find the top rack works well to get a nice golden skin and soft, perfectly cooked insides. Once ready, transfer from the grill into the same bowl you seasoned them in, and toss them around in the olive oil and seasoning that’s left to give them a nice finish. Enjoy (careful, they get pretty hot right off the grill—cut one open to test before popping a whole one into your mouth) you’ve been warned!

Grilled baby potatoes

Simple perfection, just four ingredients to bring out the natural sweetness and beautiful texture of new baby potatoes.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 3 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 23 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

1.5 lb Baby Potatoes (680 g)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 sprigs Fresh rosemary finely chopped
Kosher Salt

Instructions

Scrub potatoes and set into a large pot filled with cold water. Bring to boil over high heat and cook for 8–10 minutes until they are partially cooked. (Overcooking here leads to a "mushy" texture after they are grilled. You are looking for a softened, but still firm, cook on the potatoes)
Drain potatoes and transfer to a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil. Add rosemary, and sprinkle with kosher salt to taste. Stir.
Add potatoes to hot grill (400°). Grill until golden and skins are crisp, approximately 10 minutes. Test to ensure the potatoes are soft and fully cooked through—insert a sharp knife to the centre to ensure they are soft.
Remove from grill back into the bowl, and stir to coat with a touch of olive oil and rosemary remaining in the bowl. Serve.

350-350-350 Lemon Cake Squares

July 4, 2017 By Caroline 1 Comment

This post marks a big first—the cake recipe was passed on to me by my very special Grandmother-in-law, who was nick-named “Grandma Shots” by my husband. (We’ll leave the story of how that name came to be for another time 😉 ) Grandma loved this cake and told me I should learn to make it because it’s simple, quick and turns out great every time. She was so right. This is the first of her recipes I will share.

Her recipe was in metric, and she told me that it was commonly known back home as the “350 cake” because the main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar) were all at equal amounts of 350 g. The cake is baked on a sheet pan, it is iced with simple lemon icing, and you cut it into squares. Whether you want a snack to take to work, something kids would enjoy or a sophisticated dessert to serve company, this cake does the trick nicely.

The batter looks slightly curdle-y once all the eggs and sugar have blended in, but it smoothes out once you add the flour, for a very light batter.

Spread the batter evenly over the baking sheet. It doesn’t come up very high in the pan, but it rises up quite a bit while in the oven.

While that’s baking, you can whip up the icing, it couldn’t be more simple: lemon juice and icing sugar. It makes for a very thin, tangy glaze that adds a tart layer of sweetness to the top of the cake squares.

The finished squares are great cut right out of the pan. But if you wanted to turn this into an elevated dessert, read on.

A basil strawberry compote adds flavour dimension and plays well off of the lemon in the cake. It’s really easy to make—just combine a simple basil syrup with freshly cut strawberries, and roast in the oven to bring out extra depth from the strawberries.

To serve, stack the squares and top with the strawberry basil compote, letting the juices run over the sides of the cake, soaking into the bottom layer. So good, you’ll want to lick the plate after!

350-350-350 Lemon Cake Squares

A great basic cake, easily remembered by those using metric for baking based on the key ingredients: 350 g sugar, 350 g butter, 350 g flour.

Course Dessert

Servings 10

Ingredients

350-350-350 Lemon Cake Squares

1 2/3 cup white sugar (350 g)
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter (350 g)
2 1/4 cups flour (350 g)
6 eggs
2 zest of 2 lemons
3 tsp baking powder (14 g)

Lemon Icing

1 1/2 cups Icing sugar
1 Juice of one lemon

Roasted Strawberry Basil Compote

1 quart Fresh strawberries
1/2 cup Fresh Basil leaves, packed
6–8 Fresh Basil stems
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup water

Instructions

350-350-350 Lemon Cake Squares

Lightly butter and flour an 11 x 17" baking sheet. Preheat oven to 350°.
Using a hand mixer, beat butter until lightened in colour. Add eggs one at a time, alternating with sugar. Combine flour and baking powder, gently mixing in by hand. Add lemon zest.
Spread onto prepared baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes, until top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool.

Lemon Icing

Make lemon icing: combine icing sugar with lemon juice, stir to combine well pressing out any lumps. Spread evenly over the lemon cake.

Roasted Strawberry Basil Compote

For a special presentation, stack lemon squares and top with Roasted Strawberry Basil Compote. To make compote, combine sugar, water and basil stems into a small pan. Heat on high and bring to boil. Stir for one minute until sugar has dissolved, and remove from heat. Add basil leaves, stir to cover with the sugar syrup, cover and set aside to cool.
Hull and slice strawberries into an 8x8 glass baking dish. Once basil syrup has cooled, discard basil leaves and stems, and pour syrup over the strawberries. Place into a preheated 350° oven for 50 minutes, shaking the pan once or twice to prevent strawberries from drying out.
Remove compote from oven and allow to cool completely. Top Lemon Squares with compote immediately before serving.

Recipe Notes

Cake freezes well for snacking on later.