O.J.'s and Soy Chicken

Soy chicken at Original Joe's restaurant? What a pleasant and unexpected surprise!

So I was in Saskatchewan for a few days this week visiting family. During my visit, I went to Moose Jaw for the afternoon and I was excited to check out the town... city? I have always driven through Moose Jaw on the way to Gravelbourg where some family resides, but I haven't really hung out in M.J. After parking across the street from the famous spa there, I walked down main street. To my surprise, I found a Tutti Frutti! I have a small obsession with Tutti Frutti, and I really was not expecting to find one in Moose Jaw. I grabbed some angel food cake, kiwi and mango flavours and my toppings were cheesecake bites, maraschino cherries and fruit loops! Much better toppings (in my opinion) than what the Tutti Frutti found on Taylor offers. At that location, I usually pick up some pineapple and peanut M & M's since it seems that most of the toppings they offer are jellys, which have gelatin in them. A limitation for vegetarians. At least I can add fruit right? Boring....

After grabbing my treat, I was hoping to find a bookstore or a fun gift shop. I ended up finding a coffee house that roasts their own coffee beans. I tried a house decaf which was delicious! For some reason, when I was talking to the barista, I remembered an episode of "You Gotta Eat Here" where the host went to Moose Jaw for a place that are famous for their wings since they offered over 30 flavours or something ridiculous like that. The reason why I remembered that particular episode (besides the fact that I was in Moose Jaw) was that they also deep fried pickles. I wanted deep fried pickles! The barista knew exactly what I was talking about, and she told me that the restaurant was called Deja Vu. Sure enough, when I walked in there were a few posters promoting that the restaurant was on the Canadian version of "Diners, Drive-in's and Dives" show. I grabbed a menu hoping to entice the company I was with to eat there for supper. Unfortunately, my 90 year old grandmother was more interested in going to that place where they had that really good beef dip. So, off we went to O.J.'S (Original Joe's) as she calls it.

Of course I was disappointed that I would not get my deep fried pickles with the famous house ranch dressing, but I was okay with the idea of having a veggie burger. I usually do not have high expectations for variety at chain restaurants, but, that turned around quite quickly. I noticed that the menu had been updated (since last year, I am guessing since that is the last time I went) and they had a Jalapeno Mac and Cheese option with panko and parmesan baked crust available. What I was not expecting while perusing the menu was the option to add soy chicken pieces for $2.50. SOLD! My meal was excellent but I was quite concerned that I was eating actual chicken (I couldn't remember the texture or taste). The waitress assured me that it was soy since she checked three times with the kitchen citing how it's not a common order.

With my fancy mac & cheese and a pint of Original 16, I was a very happy lady.

Cheers!

Food Math: Veggies + Eggs= YUM!

We sometimes have difficulty getting rid of that last bit of produce in our fridge at the end of the week. Trying to use some vegetables on the verge of going bad in a creative way can be a challenge especially when you want an instant meal at the end of a long week. This is one of our go-to-recipes. This recipe is a play on an omelette. I fine that the prep work is no more effort than making an omeltte but the cooking time is much longer (45mins- 1 hour). That being said, this recipe is very much worth it! My best friend shared this recipe with me that was passed on to her by her aunt. It's actually a cost effective recipe since you have control over what type of veggies to add and how much or little cheese you want to add and as a bonus, it looks impressive... well... more fancy than an omelette!

Here is the finished product:

I also steamed some brussel sprouts and made pearl couscous!

Fancy Omelette:

Ingredients:

1 cup of carrots of grated carrots

1 cup of chopped celery

1/3 cup of onions

1/4 cup of butter

1/4 cup of flour

1/2 tsp of salt

1/4 tsp of pepper

1 1/2 cups of milk

1 cup of grated marble or cheddar cheese

1/4 of wheat germ

1/2 cup of chopped pecans

3 large beaten eggs

Directions:

• Grease baking dish using butter (additional to the ingredient list) The baking dish must be rectangle shape, large and shallow. Place parchment paper in the greased dish. There should be enough paper to hang over the dish as shown in the picture above.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Using a large frying pan, bring it up to medium heat and saute the onions, carrots and celery in butter for 8 minutes or until soft.
• Add flour, salt and pepper while mixing constantly.
• Lower the heat to medium-low heat and add the milk. The mixture should start thickening within a couple minutes.
• Add the cheese to mixture and mix until it melts.
• Remove the pan from heat and add the wheat germ, eggs and nuts and mix. 
• Place the mixture in the baking dish and place it in the oven.
• Will be ready in 45 minutes to an hour! You will know that it's ready when the dish no longer jiggles and that the egg is cooked through in the middle of the dish.

Here is a picture of the mixture I made in my frying pan.

As you can see, for this recipe, I used some red pepper and broccoli that was on the verge of expiring. That is what is so great with this recipe! You can really adapt it to your taste. I have never tried it with some squash but I want to the next time I make this. 

Sage Garden

It's that time of year where most start buying their herbs and plants for their gardens. I love to garden. Nothing beats grabbing fresh produce or herbs from your backyard. At my old apartment, I had a balcony and managed to grow some sage, thyme, mint and tomatoes!

Now living in my current apartment, with no balcony, our choices are limited to what we can grow. Our larger window faces directly face South so most of the time, even for plants who love the sun, ours end up dying because the apartment gets too hot. M and I decided to try growing plants by our East facing window, hoping that our plants survive this year.

We decided to go to Sage Garden on St. Mary's to pick up a couple herbs. We found some marjoram, pineapple sage (yes, you read that correctly) and Moroccan mint! I have no idea how to use this type of sage, what type of recipes that it will complement, but, I will have a fun time figuring it out! I am thinking salads and pizzas!

We picked these specific herbs because they grow well indoors and work well with moderate to full sun.

Here is a shot of our little garden. From right to left, we have an orchid, Moroccan mint, bamboo, sage, marjoram. 

If you have never gone to Sage Garden, you should really check it out. Here is their website: http://www.herbs.mb.ca/. It is a little more expensive ($16 for all three plants) but come on! Where else are you going to find pineapple sage?

Birthday Pizza

It was my life partner, M's, birthday a few weeks ago and traditionally whomever's birthday it is, picks any meal they want to be made. The Birthday Boy wanted pizza.

I went to De Luca's on Portage to pick up their whole wheat pizza dough ($3) and other ingredients. I found some roasted red pepper in olive oil, kale, and various cheeses like feta and mozzarella. 

Tip: Do not freeze their pizza dough. It does not stretch out nicely when it defrosts. 

I could have made the pizza dough but I haven't been able to make a good whole wheat one and M asked for a whole wheat crust.

Here is his birthday pizza with sauteed kale, cauliflower, broccoli and red pepper with feta and marble cheese.  

 Sooooo good! 

We sometimes go to Superstore to pick up their three cheese pizza for $5 and pick up our other ingredients. Sometimes we buy Yves pepperoni. It's a quick meal and somewhat healthy. haha!

mmmmeatloaf!

I don't think I have ever had meatloaf. Maybe when I was younger, I was offered a piece but most likely the gray coloured meat would have turned me off so much I may have stuck out my tongue. Apparently I was a very picky child and I didn't really eat much meat. My father who was a cattle farmer at that time should have figured out my future veggie path at that point. Luckily, I didn't grow up with meatloaf. So, why am I talking about meatloaf you may be asking yourself? I promise, there is a point to my story.

Last week, I had a few days off work and I wanted to go to one of my favorite hang outs; Mcnally's Bookstore in Grant Park Mall. One reason was to look for a new cookbook and another reason was to try a brie grilled cheese that I read up on the Prairie Ink Cafe menu. It was going to be a perfect morning. The reason why I wanted to pick up a new cookbook is because I noticed that I have a very heavy set vegan theme going through my cookbooks. That is not necessarily a bad thing but when I want actual milk or cheese the ratio doesn't always work out when I decide not to use almond milk or Daiya cheese. I found the cookbook "more peas, thank you" and I was sold. The author is also a fellow blogger who found her way to be a vegetarian... I think. Her recipeas (haha! get it? she uses this pun often) are more vegan set I find but she does offer the ratio for using milk vs soy milk for example  Then, when I was flipping through the book it landed on a meatloaf recipe that looked AMAZING. The consistency is based on black beans, oat flour, flaxseed, various italian seasonings, liquid smoke, vegan Worcestershire sauce, mustard and of course, ketchup. She suggested organic ketchup and since I never use or eat ketchup I didn't feel like spending the extra $3 at Sobey's for a product that has been manipulated every which way that I really don't think the "organic" factor holds up. For this recipe I needed to pick up some flaxseed and it's not exactly cheap for something I am not entirely sure how often I will use. I know that it's good for me so maybe this will push me to experiment more with this ingredient. It was something like $9 at Costco for a 900g bag. Really, it's not bad, but it's not something I use often which brings me to my next fairly expensive (for me) ingredient; Worcestershire sauce. Finding Worcestershire sauce is not difficult but to find a vegan kind (the only vegetarian option) is difficult and pricey. I found my bottle of Wizards Organic Gluten Free- Vegan Worcestershire sauce (jeez!) at Vita Health on Osborne and that was the only option. I kid you not. I think I originally bought it for 1 tablespoon over a year ago and this is the second time i've used it. The price of this wonder stuff is $7 for 251ml. Yikes! Next is the liquid smoke which I use a couple times a week. Go to any Safeway and they will have mesquite or hickory flavour ( I use hickory most often) and it's only $3!

Unfortunately, I cannot share the recipe (sad face!) but here is a look at some of the ingredients:

And... here is the mmmmeatloaf! Look at all that ketchup!

Comfort Greens

I was flipping through my Chatelaine and found a recipe for spinach and kale hand pies. There are three great reasons why you should try this recipe.

1)  I try and incorporate kale into our dishes because kale is a great leafy green for that has a high content of iron and folic acids.  Kale is anti-oxidant rich and contains calcium, potassium and vitamins A,C and K.  Perfect for vegetarians. For this specific dish, having both the spinach (also high in iron and anti-oxidants) and kale makes this a super terrific iron enriched dish!

2) Kale and spinach is inexpensive and can go a long way in almost any dish.

3) This recipe called for me to make individual hand pies but I needed to clean out the almost freezer burned vegetables I found so I purchased phyllo pastry instead. With phyllo pastry you can make a fatter stuffing because the pastry stretches, so, you can go through your fridge and stuff anything in this recipe that's about to go bad. In my case, I used up some corn, frozen and fresh spinach that I had.

I tweaked this recipe quite a bit.

Kale and Spinach Hand Pies

Chatelaine: April/ 2013 issue 

Ingredients ( for filling only)

• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 small red onion, sliced
• 1 1/1 tsp of curry powder
• 1/4 tsp of red peper chili flakes
• 1/4 tsp of pepper
• 1 small punch of kale (stem and ribs removed) should make about 4 cups
• 171 grams of spinach
• 1 cup of frozen corn (or 1/2 of frozen corn and 1/2 of frozen peas)
• 1 egg beaten (and 1 egg for egg wash)
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of feta
• Frozen phyllo pastry that has been thawed in the fridge over night. 

Directions:

• Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. 
• Add oil, then the onion. Sprinkle with curry powder, chili flakes and pepper. Cook until the onion starts to soften, about 2 minutes. 
• Add the kale and cook until it wilts which should take 4 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook until spinach wilts, 3 minutes. I would then mix in your frozen veggies for two more minutes and then remove from heat and cool. 
• Drain any excess liquid, then stir in beaten egg, cinnamon and feta. 
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Remove the dough from the fridge. Flatten out where you can evenly cut two large rectangles.
• Which egg yolk with one tablespoon of water for egg wash. Take a pastry brush, dip it in the egg wash and start brushing the outer edges of the pastry but only on one side as you will be folding the rectangle together with the stuffing. 
• Put half of your mix and place it near the edge (where you put the egg wash) and then fold the other half of the rectangle on top of the egg wash side. You would then either take a fork and press down the sides or roll up the sides as I did to secure your stuffing and then brush more of the egg wash on top of the now make log. You would now cut three slits on top of the log. 
• Do the exact same as described in the previous step for the second log. You should be able to place both on the same baking sheet.
• Bake for 25 to 30  minutes and let stand for 10 minutes before serving. 

Before the spinach wilts

Once the stuffing has been put into the puff pastry. You can see how I twisted the opening closed and then put on the egg wash.

Finished product!

Coming soon! My adventure making a meatloaf, pumpkin muffins and a birthday pizza!