Kale Pasta w Creamy Avocado Tahini
I had less than thirty minutes and needed a healthy, filling, dinner.
Instead of doing what we all wish we could do every night (duh, order pizza), I decided to whip up this simple pasta dish.
It’s also spring and I really enjoy cold pasta dishes (at least the healthy ones), so I cooled off the leftovers and guess what?
Oh, and there’s like, 0.5 ingredients. There’s really no excuse.
Make this because: Eating pasta with pasta sauce from a jar doesn’t cut it anymore. You’re better than that.
Ingredients:
2 servings of a small Pasta
1/4 bush, Kale
1 Avocado
4 T, Tahini
1/2-1 Lemon (or lime if thats what you have)
2 cloves, Garlic
4 T, or more, Water
S&P
(optional) sprinkle of Chili Flakes
(optional) Olive Oil
Directions:
Cook pasta as per instructions.
In blender, mix everything else (minus Kale & chili flakes)).
Add water, S&P as needed, until you have a nice creamy mixture, with a garlicky bite.
Once pasta is done, strain and return to pot with a small drip of olive oil. Add in sauce and stir, keeping pot on low.
Cut the stems from your kale and discard, then cut leaves (make sure they’re washed), into small, bite sized pieces.
Add to pasta and mix well. Top with a sprinkle of chili flakes if you want. I always do, and I’m awesome.
Now for the fun part.
EAT IT!
Or chill the whole darn thing. Whatever makes you happy, bb.
Enjoy!
Dave
SPICY GREEN WINTER SOUP
I’m going to Austin, Texas next week to take part in the annual SXSW music festival. While the main portion of the week will be spent working (trying to find clients for my new, super-amazing job at Ticketfly), I plan on partying hard and seeing as many bands as possible. More importantly, I will be enjoying the beautiful weather. And I’m sure you can relate. The winter here in Toronto has been less than hospitable and I’m ready for some sun!
Which brings me to my latest recipe. A thick, hearty, vegan soup, made out of only a few ingredients, which only took me about 30 minutes to make. Because it may be cold, but we sure as hell don’t have to be.
Sound like your kind of meal? I thought so too.
Make this because: We all need an excuse to vigorously blend things once in a while. Plus, you can have 1,000 pieces of bread with it and nobody will judge you.
Ingredients:
1 head, Cauliflower
1 head, Broccoli
1 Shallot
3 ounces, Spinnach
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 cups, broth (low sodium if possible)
1/4 Cup, Nutritional Yeast
1.5 Cups, Unsweetened Rice Milk (or alternative)
1 Avocado
1 t, nutmeg
2 T, Vegan Butter
1 T, Red Chili Flakes
1 T, Flour (omit if GF)
Cracked Black pepper
Directions:
On low heat, melt butter. Add chopped up onion and garlic and sauté for a good few minutes. Once translucent, add pepper and nutmeg, and stir it in.
Cook for another minute before adding your flour, Spinach, Cauliflower and Broccoli. Mix well, and raise heat to med. Add broth and cover for 10-15 minutes or until the veggies are nice and soft.
Add milk, chili flakes, nutritional yeast & remove from heat.
So far, we’ve spent a total of 20-25 minutes in the kitchen.
You’re doing great.
Now, you can either hand blend this, or use a traditional blender. But whatever you do, make sure you only pulse it, and never fill your blender to much because soup is hot and it will explode.
Trust me.
Now, pour your soup back into your giant pot to heat, carve some bread, and get ready for a delicious homemade meal. Garnish with more pepper and your avocado (and vegan sour cream if you so desire).
For my cheese loving friends. You might not have Nutritional Yeast on hand, or you might just prefer real cheese in your soup. If that is the case, you can omit the N.Yeast and at the very end, add a few cubes of mozzarella. It will melt and be all gooey and you’ll be all like, “daaaaaamn.” or whatever your popular catch phrase is this week.
Enjoy, lovelies.
Quinoa Breakfast Wraps
How delicious does this sound?
I used to make these all of the time at my old place but forgot they existed until this past weekend. Jer and I whipped these up for our final morning at the cottage, and both agreed that they were unbelievable (especially because they were so easy).
The ingredients are simple, the outcome is dangerously good, and the ability to switch things up makes these wraps perfect for anybody. In fact, you could make a ton of this stuff, keep it in your fridge, and simply spoon some out onto a wrap every morning for a week. In fact, in a few weeks, I’m going to see just how many people I can satisfy with this recipe. I’ll let you know the results (i’m hoping 20+).
Quinoa is super healthy for you, so don’t be naive. Go buy some, cook it up, and then write me a really nice email thanking me for posting this recipe. Remember; Manners first.
Okay okay okay. Let’s blog.
Ingredients:
1 tbls, Paprika
1 tsp, Cumin
1 tsp, Garlic powder (you can use real)
1 tsp, Onion powder (you can use real)
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 cup, Quinoa
2 cups, broth
1/4 cup, Nutritional Yeast (optional for vegans to substitute cheese)
1 can, Organic beans of your choice (I used Pinto, but black beans work too)
Whole wheat wraps
Lettuce, Avocado, Salsa, Green onion, other toppings of your choice…
Directions:
Gently toast the Quinoa in a heated pan for 5 minutes.
Add broth and continue cooking. As water starts to evaporate, add spices, Nutritional Yeast and beans.
Continue stirring as Quinoa needs a little love and attention. It’s needy like that.
Cut up your lettuce, veggies, etc.
Once water has completely evaporated, add the lime juice (add more if needed), spoon into wrap, add your toppings and eat up.
I have just made this so incredibly easy to do. In fact, if you were to make this before going out Saturday night, your ‘stay in bed’ Sunday would be that much more impressive. Imagine taking a big bite from a healthy, tasty, wrap, as soon as you can stomach food. Cold crisp lettuce, warm quinoa and spicy salsa. It would melt your heart and cure what ails ya. No joke. Eggs are good, but they’ve got nothing on this wrap.
Enjoy
Dave.
CHARCOAL + MAPLE-WOOD SMOKED PIZZA
Yes. I get it. Every second post has something to do with pizza.
I should have called my blog “Pizza Love Affair” - but I didn’t. So you get to deal with all of the different ways I try and create my fav food.
Luckily, I’m at a cottage and have a sweet charcoal bbq at my disposal, meaning I’m cooking pizza on that bad boy. Fire FTW!
I know you’ll be near a BBQ sooner or later, so bookmark this one for later. Your friends will thank you.
Oh, and if you don’t want to bbq it, just use this recipe to make dough and sauce from scratch. Easy peasy.
Dough:
4 cups of white sifted flour
1 1/2 cups, plus 2 tbsp of water
2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of dry active yeast
Mix all ingredients by hand until dough forms.
Leave for 1.5 hours, covered. Once done, make into smaller balls (one one large one if you want a giant pizza) and let rest for another 30.
While this is going on…
Sauce:
6 Roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup of tomato puree
1/2 white onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp of smoked paprika
1 tbsp of ground pepper
1 tsp of salt
2 tsp of chilli flakes
1 tsp of marjoram
1 tsp of sage
2 tbsp of italian blend herb paste (contains basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme)
Sauté onions and garlic until soft. Add the tomatoes and tomato puree and cook until soft. Add all the spices and stir. Use a hand blender or standard blender to mix all ingredients. Then heat on medium low to allow sauce to thicken (the key difference between pizza and pasta sauce is that pizza sauce is much thicker).
Once the dough has risen, roll out into whatever size you’d like your pizza to be, remembering to use a little bit of flour on the bottom so it doesn’t stick. Also, make sure you toss it in the air at least once, or else. I know you want to do it, and anyone that tells you not to, should be kicked out of your kitchen. Immediately.
Now for the fun part.
Toppings:
We used spinach, onion, sundered tomato, mushrooms, smoked tofu and red peppers. But you can obviously use whatever you’d like.
On our bbq, we warmed the charcoals and added small pieces of maple to really get a smokey flavour. This is unlike any pizza you will ever have in your life. The smokiness really punctuates all of the different toppings we chose and gave our crust a nice finish.
Some tips, if you do use a bbq:
- Wrap your pizza sheet in tinfoil, and expect that you may have to throw it away after this experiment. We definitely ruined our pan.
- Do not build a normal fire. Build a very small, modest flame. We also burnt our first pie because of this.
- Do not put the lid on until the end. If you do, the top will cook much faster than the bottom, and nobody like an uncooked crust (or burnt toppings).
- Try not to consume too much alcohol while doing this. It does make it much more entertaining but you get sloppy. See the points above.
Next up, we’re making breakfast burritos with some quinoa.
Heck ya, Cottage Life.
Oh, and Jer (the dude who came up with this great idea), finally started his blog.
Dave
Stuffed French Toast
This morning has been brilliant so far.
The winter surroundings are peaceful and beautiful, and yet it’s only -1, meaning we can enjoy it without freezing to death.
We had the privilege of cooking for Jer’s folks, Lisa and Larry Tompkins, who were happy to sit by the fire and read while we prepared our feast.
Instead of rubbing in how epic this weekend has been so far, let’s get right to the recipe, created by Jer and I. And as promised this morning, I have made it as easy as possible.
Ingredients (serves 4):
2 eggs each person
1 tsp, vanilla
2 dash, cinnamon
Brie
Pears
Nice uncut loaf of bread
Butter for the pan
Maple Syrup for plating
Directions:
Heat your frying pan and turn your oven on low (175).
Cut a slice of bread but not all the way. Leave a half inch uncut from the bottom.
Now cut another slice all the way (just past the first cut) so you end up with two slices, attached at the bottom.
Crack two eggs in a bowl with vanilla and cinnamon. Mix well.
Fill your bread (kinda looks like a sandwich, but attached at the bottom) with thin pear slices and a few healthy slices of brie.
Dredge carefully in mix and place on frying pan. Cook both sides as you would French Toast.
Now, place in oven and let cook slightly as you prepare the next piece. This ensures that if some mix soaked through the bread, it cooks before consuming. Not a big deal, but it adds to your overall experience when eating.
Repeat this process as needed, for however many people you are cooking for.
Garnish with butter & syrup, and serve with grapefruit.
Next up, Jer and I are going to refill our beer supply, prep some quinoa for our wraps, make fresh pizza dough, and debate whether we want to make pasta or play pool and darts. You know My vote.
Dave.
COTTAGE MORNING: DAY 1
The cool breeze from the cottage lake pressed itself against the big bay windows of the Tompkins ‘home away from home.’
I slept right through the night and was peacefully awoken by the welcoming winter sunrise. And here starts our day.
I warmed up a cup of tranquility tea and set out onto the frozen lake. For breakfast today, we will be making Pear and Brie grilled cheese sandwiches. But we aren’t there yet.
To start, we are going to grab all of our ingredients including a nice fresh loaf from the local grocer; I have an inkling that there are some mighty fine homemade delicacies to be had up here in Carnarvon (Haliburton County for those who know it).
As i’m sure a lot of you were out late into the night for Songs: A Dance Party, hosted by the YLMC, I will make sure to make this breakfast as easy as possible. And no, I can’t deliver food to your bed while you hide under the covers and curse the world for making you feel so crummy on this Saturday.
Instead, I will leave you with a tune to help you start your day.
I’m off to grab groceries.
Dave
To The Cottage we go!
I’m getting out of Toronto for the weekend.
My iPod is full, my onesie is packed, and my grocery list has been written. First stop, the Beer Store.
Over the next 2 days, I’m going to be in the great white North (errrr, Northeast), cooking up a storm. You can expect some great recipes and pics.
I’ll be doing some live tweeting (follow me here) and of course, updating this tumblr as I go. Oh, and if you’re on Instagram (or want to see my picks), you can follow me at DAVELOCKAB, or just click here.
Feel free to pop in at any time - or wait until I get back and get it all first hand.
Rough Outline of the Recipes for this weekend:
Quinoa Breakfast Wraps
BBQ Charcoal Pizza
Kale Chips
other…..?
Have a great weekend, y’all.
“Go Stuff Yourself” Shells
It is freezing cold. Last night we all gathered together to watch the winter classic and instead of taking the streetcar home with two borden babes, I decided it would be a good idea to get some exercise and walk (Front to Bloor on Spadina). Needless to say, it was a terrible decision. Today was no different. I walked home from work in minus 1,000,000 degree Toronto weather with no gloves (why?) and no scarf (why?). Dumb.
But when you’re in that kind of cold, you start to think. And I was thinking about dinner. Something hot. Something new. Something filling.
I didn’t want to make a soup, and I didn’t want to spend my night in the kitchen.
So I decided to go sans recipe and make stuffed pasta.
This is incredibly easy to make (do all the steps at once) and didn’t take me more than 40 minutes (rice takes time, ya know).
Make this. My new roomie Kate was super impressed.
Ingredients:
2 cloves Garlic
Half Onion
1/3 green pepper
One Carrot
3/4 cup rice (add water and cook per instructions)
Half pack of Yves ground round
One Pack of Giant shells
One Jar, pasta sauce
Lemon Juice
Goat cheese (optional)
Avocado (optional
Directions:
Boil pasta, cook rice. Preheat oven to 350.
Once pasta is done, run under cold water and separate all shells. Leave to cool.
Heat oil in a frying pan, sauté onion and garlic.
Add Grn pepper, Yves ground and carrot. Once rice is done, toss it all in and add lemon juice. Just enough to give it a taste. And salt if needed.
Fill each shell with 1 tablespoon (approx) of mix and add sauce to top. If you are using avocado, add a slice to the top of each.
Place on baking sheet and bake for ten minutes.
Remove and cover with more sauce (if needed) and goat cheese.
Eat them up. Eat all of them up. Maybe share them if you’re a nice person like I am. But if not, just eat them all up.
