The Yum Yum Factor

I enjoy the challenge of offering a vegetarian version of dishes I serve that are an equally delicious version of the meal that the carnivores are going to eat instead of completely different plate. I wanted to put  Aguadito do Pollo  on an upcoming menu and I knew I wanted to feed the vegetarians something that will have the same flavour profile and so I tried a few things. Aguadito de Pollo is a traditional Peruvian meal that is often served for breakfast after a big party aka for a hangover, making it a staple for New Year's Day or after a big wedding or party. Adding tofu was okay but not great and I also didn't feel like the Jackfruit worked - I wanted something that would really add some heartiness and also have the soft texture of the pulled chicken and neither of those options did that for me. Using a small white bean -either cannellini or navy beans- hit all the right notes. Other than no crispy chicken skin, I didn't feel like I was losing anything by replacing th...

  More adventures in adopting a more heart healthy diet mean more vegetarian meals with less sodium, healthier fats and a soupçon of cheese to punch it up. We have been having a lot of braised beans like the braised romano beans on polenta that I did for Ontario Beans. these beans have become a weekly thing in our house I know that all kinds of beans are now approved so it was time to move onto lentils. My favourite lentils are either Beluga or Du Puy but I haven't been able to find those on any of my online ordering platforms and I have been using plain old green lentils and, rest assured, they work just fine. Just don't use the red lentils because they disintegrate into mush, which is delightful in other recipes, but not in this one. If you use low sodium broth, use less kosher salt. If you use a salt free broth, you will have to up your salt a bit but the roasted tomato/feta and chili oil add so much flavour and saltiness that you don't need as much as you might normally...

One of my husband's favourite things to eat is pasta with bolognese. Normally, I make it with Italian sausage, ground beef, tons of kosher salt and olive oil. Clearly, my much loved version would not, in any universe, by considered "heart healthy" even with a bag of magic beans but a life without bolognese is not a life worth living.  We have not had any beef or real pasta in a month so I decided it was time to healthify our sauce and because every whole wheat pasta I have bought has been soundly PooPooed, I cut the difference with fibre enriched white pasta and we will just eat smaller portions, less often.  This was my first try and I don't think I am going to change anything, to be honest. I added in a bit of carrot and fennel to make up for the lack of fennel seed etc in the sausage and give it a bit more flavour and pretty much replaced half the ground beef with ground mushrooms a la my usual Blend and Extend mushroom magic . You can cut the fat in this recipe ev...

  I have been taxed with the task of making our food more heart healthy and although I have always assumed that we already eat very well, thank you very much, I have been shocked by how much sodium we consume. SHOCKED, I say. One of our favourite things to eat is ramen and when I did some digging, I realized that each bowl of delicious spicy miso ramen had over 3000mg of sodium and that isn't even accounting for some of the add ins. This will not do. I have spent weeks working on my favourite recipe and I have managed to get it down to under 700mg of sodium per bowl, which is still a bit high but nothing close to what we were used to. There is also some disagreement about how we process the sodium in miso and although it is significant, a traditional Japanese diet which is high is miso and soy sauce does not result in any sort of widespread heart disease and, in fact, may actually be considered part of a heart healthy diet. I am trying to cut the difference and not worry too much a...

Lamb chops, bit of olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper 145F for medium rare preheat for a couple minutes at 390F cook for about 8-10 minutes I had an air fryer once before. It was the size of a small spaceship so, even though it worked just fine, I had where to put it, it didn’t fit in any of my cupboards and I had to keep it in the garage. That means I never used it and to be honest, at that time, I thought they were only good for fries and chicken wings.  Gadget maven that I am, I also have a CrispLid for my Instant Pot and I love it too, although when I need to make, say, enough chicken wings for the three of us, I have to cook them in a couple of batches but for doing veggies, browning something I just pressure cooked (like a bread pudding or a whole chicken) and when it’s just one or two of us, the CrispLid is perfect. I didn’t even know I would want a larger capacity air fryer until I was offered a Ninja Air Fryer . I love my Ninja blender with a fierce, burning love and bec...

  I tried to make shakshuka for five days.  Day 1: ordered all the ingredients I needed online for delivery. Shit, can't get it til tomorrow. No problem, we will eat something else tonight but super excited for tomorrow's dinner Day 2: groceries come! Time to start.....oh, wait, what? You feel like ordering Thai? But I was...okay, Thai does sound like it would hit the spot. Shakshuka tomorrow, FOR SURE Day 3: make the shakshuka tomato/red pepper sauce in anticipation of tonight's shakshuka. Sit outside with my neighbours for a glass of wine and the next thing I know, we grab The Kid and venture on down to sit on the patio at The Pub. It's the only place that will let us take a table for 8 so we can sit at opposite ends of the table and their salt and pepper wings are really delicious..... Day 4: TODAY IS THE DAY. WE are making this damned shakshuka if it kills me, but first, a visit to drop off something to friends we haven't seen since January. Go to drop it off on...

Hello, fellow home sheltering peeps. It's been a looooong couple months, hasn't it? Where are we now, anyway? Is sourdough over? Have we started canning and panic buying all the Bell jars and pectin yet? I know that finding vegetable plants for me wee, city garden is probably going to be a hellscape, but hey, what can you do when you live in a shoe?  Aaaanyway, I have a few processed foods that I unabashedly love. I LOVE good instant ramen. I love to soup it up with poached egg, chili sauce, vegetables, leftover meat or seafood. Love it. I also love Campbells Everyday Gourmet Sweet Potato Tomatillo Soup. A big bowl of that with a grilled cheese to dip into it...ahhh. For some reason, and this precedes the pandemic so I know it's not soup panic hoarding, I haven't been able to find it for months. I had thrown some canned tomatillos in the freezer a few weeks ago and decided to try to recreate it at home. It's very weird for me to want to create a Campbe...