Working from home means three things:
1. Brain stops working at 11:30
2. Stomach starts growling at 12:00
3. Nap is in order after a lunch moment by 12:30
A lunch moment with mustard herring fillets and white asparagus - all from cans and jars, but it is a workday after all.
A sweet lunch moment with Trafiq pumpkin loaf and a cup of Shaktea Organic Cinnamon Swirl Rooibos tea.
A lunch moment with a bowl of leftover Mom's Vegan Lentil Soup made with kale instead of spinach and served, as mom always recommends, with grilled pita bread.
Another sweet lunch moment with leftover home made knefeh from the night before (now one really needs a nap after this moment).
And sometimes one is out and about. But that does not mean ignoring the lunch moment, specially with Fraser Park Restaurant close by - a moment with a German Schnitzel sandwich.
Those beautiful hands belong to a beautiful person.
A person who never forgets a birthday and will make sure, however late it is, that a home made dinner is delivered, prepared and served.
How lucky I am to call you a friend.
Course 1: A beautiful lox appetizer platter served with cream cheese, goat cheese, capers and mini bagels.
Course 2: A ground chorizo and ground turkey home made pasta sauce served over linguini.
Course 3: Home made roasted chicken with east European spicing; served along with a carrot noodles side.
Course 4: A palate cleansing tomato and onion salad.
Course 5: A birthday apple pie to wrap up the evening.
Thank you MG.
A cauliflower head is always a challenge to cook.
Tired of fried cauliflower (click HERE for recipe), I pulled out this cook book and found a perfect simple way to make cauliflowers.
The cauliflower is cooked in butter to start, then covered with jardin green herbs and the dish is done.
The recipe calls for one ingredient though that I missed - szechuan pepper.
But with lots of herbs and regular freshly squeezed pepper, the cauliflower was ready and delicious.
It accompanied a nice home roasted chicken - very warm dinner indeed.
After a week of heavy carb, fat and cholesterol recipes (read Heavy Yummy Penne and ABC) it was time to go to another extreme - vegan recipe.
My buddy Claudia Roden came to the rescue with her book, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food and a recipe for Turlu, a Turkish dish.
It is a perfect winter dish, simple, healthy and, if you care, completely vegan.
And easy to make...
Chop one onion and fry in 0.25 cup olive oil until golden.
Add chopped vegetables - 2 medium new potatoes, 1 large carrot, and 1 medium celeriac which I could not find and replaced with this beautiful looking locally grown 'chocolate' pepper.
Add 5 scallions chopped, 3 garlic cloves (or more accoding to Claudia Roden) and "barely" cover with water.
Add salt, pepper and 1 tsp sugar. Bring to boil and simmer until all vegetables are cooked and the liquid reduced to a sauce (hours, not minutes).
Once vegetables are cooked, add 1.5 cups of already cooked white beans. Sprinkle with 0.25 cup olive oil and let all heat up together for few minutes.
All ready to serve. Garnish with parsley and eat with some middle eastern fatayer.
I am catsess (princess in mew language). I kicked away human highness and took over blogging one Wacky Thursday last month (Read Wacky Catsess Reporting).
A month later, I return, impressing thou loyal readers with a diary of my food.
My esteemed rescuer, VOKRA, says thou shall eat Wellness wet food and only that. Catsess does not like to be ordered. Catsess likes food.
After eating trial and tribulations, Catsess ascertained no more Wellness paté.
Catsess allowed Wellness minced canned food on one condition - mix up the flavours; Catsess wants them all.
Catsess likes toys, lots of toys to go with lots of food.
And Catsess is very smart one and plans her battles like Napoleon was never able to.
Observe how accurately I lined up my toys one night. Humans thought a high spirit, maybe not a friendly one, occupied me. They even invited priests to bless the house.
But no, this was a simple maneuver that got me privileges to (I) eat on a table like a Catsess should and (II) get my own iPhone.
iPhone came in handy to order my treats online. But this was a battle, Catsess admits, that was lost.
Catsess negotiation skills, though, reached a perfect treaty - if you want me to take my vitamins and supplements every morning, you mix them with treats. I love my morning snack!
Catsess also likes the sound of the word "outside".
Catsess prefers to eat "outside" the dish of food (maybe if I am served food on China worth my highness I will shed this habit).
But what Catsess prefers the most is eating "outside" food "outside".
My paws hurt from the blogging. Time to put human to work and take back my preferred supervisor status.
It is Fall. Rainy and Cold. A perfect excuse for another heavy carb meal this week (Read yesterday's Heavy Yummy Penne); this time from The ABC Of Cheese Cookery.
The recipe is easy enough and worth sharing. Start by frying, in 3 Tbsp olive oil, 0.5 kg sliced Italian sausage, 2 chopped onions and 3 garlic cloves (Dad will love this).
Stir in 1.5 regular sized cans of tomatoes and 0.75 cup water. Boil and simmer for 2 hours until sauce is thickened. Now the recipe will sound too much like a lasagna recipe, but using broad noodles instead.
Mix 0.5 Kg ricotta cheese with 3 Tbsp water. Grate 0.5 Kg Parmesan cheese. Grease baking dish. Add a layer of cooked noodles, a layer of the tomato sausage sauce, a layer of ricotta and a sprinkling of Parmesan. Repeat. Bake in 350 oven for 40 minutes.
Another exceptionally delicious, high fat content meal - I promise the next recipe will be a healthy vegetarian one.
This heavy yummy recipe comes to us from Kootenay Savings selection of its employees recipes.
Chicken Peppercorn Penne starts with frying 0.5 chopped onion and 0.25 kg chopped bacon until bacon is crispy. Add 1 Tbsp crushed peppercorn, 2 cloves garlic, fry a bit and remove.
And if this isn't fatty enough, add to the bacon fat 2 Tbsp butter, melt and whisk in 2 Tbsp flour to make a roux.
Add 1.5 cups chicken broth, whisk and simmer for 2 more minutes. Bring back the bacon and onion mixture and let all simmer until sauce is thickened.
It is probably tasty enough by now, but you still need the final touch - Asiago Cheese.
Quoting the employee submitting the recipe, "don't skimp". So lots were grated.
Mix the sauce with the already cooked penne, add the cheese and serve with grilled chicken on top.
It is exceptionally tasty.
But beware of fat content of cheese, bacon, butter, bacon fat and chicken broth.
I considered making a low fat version of it, but that idea lasted for 3 seconds. Glad I stuck to the original recipe.
