Big Boss Dijon Salad Dressing

This is my first post inspired by my recent to trip to Paris and Menton (a town on the French Riviera).  Before you go thinking I am J. Lo here jetting off to the Riviera, we did a home exchange 3 years ago where people came to stay at our place for 2 weeks and we stayed at thier place in Menton for one week.  We were owed a week and cashed in over March break holiday.  A trip report complete with pics is in the works.

I find that when I travel, after a few days away from home, I am craving vegatables.  Brocolli stir fry and carrots with dip run through my thoughts.  Don't get me wrong I love a good French baguette.  When travelling with my girlfriends after university I would buy one for myself almost each day.  Luckily we were walking alot which counteracted the baguette obsession:)

Kale Pesto Sauce

Egg noodle tagliatelle with garlicy pesto sauce, mushrooms and chicken is pasta heaven for me.
Now, given that I am not a fan of cheese or cream sauces, I find store bought pesto sauces never suit my tastes. I found a recipe a few years back for an easy, basic pesto and it has been my go to. For a few years the Hamilton Farmers Market had a stall where they would sell huge bunches of basil for two bucks. I would stock up, make a bunch of sauce and freeze it. Unfortunately, said stall no longer exists. So this leaves the options of buying basil at the grocery store (can be pricey) or growing my own. Grow my own, sounds easy...not so! I have tried to grow basil for the past two summers with no success. A colleague at work, who is a gardening guru, has since filled me in that pinching the flowers off the plant is the key to big leaves. Crossing my fingers that this summer, third time will be a charm.

I decided to give my go to recipe a whirl with another leafy green...kale. Another twist was using walnuts instead of pine nuts (also pretty steep in the price department). Are you getting the hint that I am kinda cheap? Friends say frugal which is a nice way of putting it ;)

Coconut Caramel Corn

I love popcorn. I have it at least twice each week as my evening snack. Usually I air pop and go with a tiny bit of butter and salt. Sometimes, I dash some Chili Lime Franks Red Hot sauce on. Other times, I'll satisfy a chip craving and use salt and balsamic vinegar.

My dad is a ninja at the stove popping method. It really does taste so much better. I tried it once and made serious mess of my pot. To this day the bottom it is still stained slightly black with burnt on popcorn.

Tonight I was feeling like dessert but had baked cookies a few nights earlier. I baked them to send to my sister and after much container decorating and parcel taping, they turned out to get delivered to the wrong address! I'm sure some stranger....albeit a lucky stranger... in Missisauga is enjoying my peanut butter chocolate chip cookies as I type. This is where my caramel corn idea comes in. I pretty much took the sticky portion of my energy bar recipe (brown rice syrup, brown sugar, salt and vanilla), drizzled that over air popped popcorn, and mixed in the coconut.

Faux Pho

This recipe for a version of pho (Vietnamese soup) is the result of a dinner gone wrong the night before.

I guess it wasn't a total failure. I had a plan of making a nice Sunday dinner of roast chicken. Now, it is important to note that on this particular Sunday the Oscar's were on.   I love this night. I take over the TV at 6pm to watch the red carpet show on E!
Being a rookie when it come to roast chicken, I put it in the oven way too late. At 6pm (I know, shouldn't I be on the couch by now) I take the chicken out, check internal temperature and determine it done. I throw my two sides into the oven (both of which were really tasty and I will post about later). We are now at 6:30... sides are done, let's carve this chicken. Upon the first slice into the chicken it was apparent it was NOT ready! At this point all I could think of were the celebs and dresses I was missing on the red carpet so I loaded my plate with my sides and headed to the TV.  Long story short, I roasted the breast and legs for lunchtime sandwiches and made stock out of the carcass.

Back to my faux pho. This isn't so much of a recipe as an idea.

Energy bars

These are my Mocha Macademia Madness energy bars. They won first prize for taste...and second prize for appearance...at a prestigious energy bar making contest held at a friends house last weekend.

Every Sunday I make a batch of these. I bring two in my lunch each day and they make a great mid morning and afternoon snack. On a 90 minute run the other day I brought half bar and it went down easy. The espresso adds a nice boost:)

I originally found a recipe for Big Sur Powerbars on the 101 cookbooks site. I made that version a few times then decided to branch out. I have a bunch of ideas for different varieties and will post when I test them out. My next trial will be Apple Chai Spice.

Asparagus "Risotto" with Barley

I love risotto. It is often my meal of choice at an Italian restaurant. However, I never make it at home. It is pretty labour intensive with adding the stock one ladle at a time. Just enough work to deter me on a weeknight.

I picked up some barley on the weekend. Although not terribly exotic, it is new to me! I am trying to experiment with new grains. I have been stuck in a rice and pasta rut and am blown away by the number of interesting grains you can get. I came across some recipes that substituted pearl barley for Arborio rice and thought about taking a risotto recipe and trying it with barley.  I settled on an asparagus and lemon risotto.  Once neat trick to use when preparing asparagus is that it has a natural break point.  This is where the woody part of the speer separates from the more tender part.  If you just bend it near the bottom of the speer, it will break at a given point