pot luck dishes

I recently went to a pot-luck and decided to bring a salad and dessert...healthy for the former and decadent for the latter :) I found a grain salad recipe in the Stop cookbook (I have not yet found a recipe I don't love from this cookbook!). The options for ingredients are pretty much endless and I used quinoa and bulghur as the grains, sweet red pepper, carrots and cucumber for the veggies, cilantro and parsley the herbs, cumin, curry and paprika the spices, grapeseed oil with lemon (yum!) for the oil with cider vinegar and cranberries, pecans, pumpkin seeds and dried apricots....it made a large bowl and was absolutely delicious as well as colourful and of course very healthy. It is one of those dishes that I can feel my body saying thank you for.

The dessert I decided upon was for a chocolate pie. I got the recipe from the internet which included an oreo cookie crust. I wanted to make the filling from scratch of course and used a high quality chocolate. It was well worth it and while a bit like a pudding filling rather than a solid pie, it got raving reviews. I used an organic cane sugar for the sweetener. I intend to experiment with agave soon, not in this recipe but perhaps for granola...who knows???

Sis' granola

A while ago (months actually) my sister gave me her recipe for home-made granola and I have just made it for the first time.....it is absolutely the best, most nutritious granola I have ever had. Thanks Sis!!! I had a blast buying various types of grains and nuts to try and then mixed and matched when it came to putting it all together. As I love cranberries and dried apricots, these were the fruits I chose to add...As it makes a large batch I am hoping that it won't get stale before I eat it all, if I decide not to give any away, which I may. I am thinking that I will post the recipe at the local bulk store where I have made friends of the owners and they are teaching me some of the business, as well as bring some in for them to try. The world can only get better with happy thoughts and bodies, fueled by good, healthy food...YUM!!!

...best ever zucchini loaf

I actually have been both baking and cooking over the last couple of weeks and just haven't made the time to post. I am the proud owner of an amazing cookbook from The Stop, a community kitchen in north-west Toronto. In fact, I was so blown away by most of the recipes in this book, I took the folks there a Christmas braid as a treat. As my sisters will testify, these braids are a family gift tradition that are usually reserved for good friends. The recipe for zucchini loaf has cranberries and pecans as well as being sweetened with mostly apple sauce. It was a huge hit at my 'condo-warming get together, as was the delicious minestrone soup from the same cookbook. The soup had fennel, beans not too much tomato....YUM!!!