Search Results for: salad

tabouli

November 12, 2011 By Fareen Leave a Comment

When putting together the menu for hubby’s party, he requested tabouli for the salad course. Tabouli is a popular salad in the Middle East predominantly made with bulgar wheat and parsley. When searching for a recipe, there were so many variations! I finally settled on one from Guy Fieri, from one of the drive-ins he visited for his show, “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives“.

This was a refreshing salad and it provided not only a refreshing side for our arabian feast but also a great leftover lunch.

Tabouli1 cup water
1 cup fine cracked wheat
1 cup minced fresh parsley leaves
1/2 cup minced fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
3 tomatoes, diced
2 cucumbers, seeded and diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste
1 teaspoons sea salt

In a large mixing bowl, pour the water over the cracked wheat and cover, let stand about 20 minutes until wheat is tender and water is absorbed. Add the chopped herbs and vegetables and toss with the mix. Combine the oil, lemon juice, and salt in a separate bowl. Add to wheat mixture and mix well. Chill. Serve and enjoy.

mini pink cupcakes with chocolate icing

August 4, 2011 By Fareen Leave a Comment

We are slowly recovering from my sister-in-law’s week long wedding extravaganza. It was a great week spent with close family and friends. It was also a week surrounded by lots and lots of food!

Most of the cooking was done by family and they fed crowds of up to 500 people! I tried to do my part and made items such as quinoa salad, couscous salad, kulfi and smores on a stick. One favorite were these little pink cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing. They were really supposed to be red velvet cupcakes, like the ones I had made last month for my sister’s birthday. In my hurry though, I forgot to add the cocoa and out from the oven came these little pink morsels. I figured since I missed out on the chocolate in the cake, we must add some on it.

Congratulations to R2. Wishing you both a lifetime of happiness!

Mini Pink Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup homemade yogurt
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 tablespoons red food coloring
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven at 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla extract, and red food coloring. Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg beating until a creamy texture. Add 1/4 of the flour and mix, then add 1/3 of the buttermilk mix .

Continue adding the flour and the buttermilk until all the ingredients are mixed.

Use two teaspoons and carefully scoop the batter into cupcake papers, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Transfer the baked cupcakes to a wire rack to cool. Chocolate Buttercream Icing

6 tbsp. butter
1 cup powdered sugar
4 tbsp. cocoa
2 to 3 tbsp. milk

Cream butter. Add sugar and cocoa mixture to butter and mix again. Add milk to the butter mixture until a proper consistency is reached.

potluck at julie’s

June 1, 2011 By Fareen 1 Comment

This weekend, we attended a community potluck at Julie’s house. Inspired by a potluck she attended in Tofino, Julie, from Dinner with Julie, bravely invited the internet (!) to her house for a fun little get together.

Julie and her husband Mike were gracious hosts and made everyone feel welcome. It was great to meet her devoted readers and eat their delicious assortment of food. It was also nice to catch up with fellow food bloggers, Cheryl from Backseat Gourmet and Gail from The Pink Peppercorn.

Q had a lot of fun with the kids in the back yard and hubby enjoyed himself as well. The food was amazing! Ranging from cookies, salads, vegetables and even fresh bread, it was nice to try a little bit of everything. I especially loved the quinoa salad which we made tonight and had for dinner. It will definitely be a regular at our house!

It was hard trying to decide what to bring to a potluck, and at Julie’s house no less. I brought along dhokra, savoury steamed cakes made with wheatlets. I figured it was something different for everyone to try. I also made some red pepper shrimp which I stuffed in to puff pastry shells. For those that asked, the recipe for the shrimp can be found here. For the shells, I cut little squares of ready made puff pastry which I put into muffin molds and baked at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes until they were golden.

Thanks again to Julie for the great gathering!

anniversary dinner at teatro

May 25, 2011 By Fareen 1 Comment

Hubby and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary last month. We never got around to going out for dinner though. It had been a busy few weeks and weekends never seemed to be working out. We had planned this dinner so many times but something always came up.

Maybe not planning dinner in advance is the way to go. We decided in the afternoon that it would be the perfect evening for date night and our belated anniversary dinner. We had a voucher (yes, I love my deals) for Teatro and I had been itching to use it for a while. I had been to Teatro once before but it had been so long since I had been there, I was looking forward to going back.

Our wonderful server Mitch started our evening off with an amuse-bouche, tuna tartare. The tiny morsel tasted fresh and left us wanting more. We were also served little chewy focaccia buns that we devoured with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

We chose to go with the Alberta Bison Tartare for our appetizer. Topped with a quail egg, this was served with a tiny crostini with triple creme brie as well as a small arugula salad. The flavours of the bison were incredible, especially paired with the arugula. Our only complaint was there wasn’t enough of the crostini to eat up all the tartare with. Mitch happily brought us some focaccia bread which was a great accompaniment.

Our next course was also a sharable – the Pappardelle. Noodles coated with a green curry mayo, tossed with avocado and topped with grilled lobster. This was an amazing dish but very spicy. Even hubby who can actually eat spice found it quite spicy. The taste was amazing though and it would be a dish I would have again.

By this point, we still had our main course to eat, but we were completely stuffed. For my main, I went with the Honey-Rosemary Seared Duck Magret. This was served with polenta verde, caramelized cippolini, and fig fricassée. There was also supposed to be some pancetta which they happily left out for me. This dish was so delicious! The duck was moist and the flavours were incredible. The pesto in the polenta went really well with the duck. I was very happy with my choice.

Hubby went with the Milk Fed Veal Striploin alla Milanese. This was served with creamy spaetzle, green olive, spicy rapini, and fried capers. The meat was moist and the tasted amazing. We found that this tasted even better the next day. Of course, there were leftovers!

Despite the fact that we were full, we couldn’t leave without having dessert. Tempted by the creme brulee, we decided on chocolate instead and shared the Chocolate Varieta. This dish had chocolate three ways with chocolate marquis, milk chocolate semifreddo, and a cocoa ginger madeleine. You have to love chocolate to enjoy this dish. It was a great way to end a fantastic meal!

kale chips

December 6, 2010 By Fareen Leave a Comment

After reading about it on blogs, twitter and even watching it on television, I had to see what all the fuss was about. People seemed to be raving about kale chips. I couldn’t understand how so many could get excited about greens. Well, I understand it now! I made a batch last week and hubby and I polished it off in minutes. I made a couple more batches on the weekend for family and everyone loved it. The tough greens when tossed in oil and seasoning and baked turn into paper-thin morsels that just melt in your mouth. Check out recipes on the following blogs: Backseat Gourmet, Dinner with Julie, Gluten Free Girl as well as Giada’s recipe on Food Network. Great served with Basil Mayo (mayo, basil, 1 clove garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper).

greek chicken kabobs

July 28, 2010 By Fareen Leave a Comment

We finally had a fabulous hot weekend and it was the perfect weather to enjoy the Kensington Sun and Salsa Festival. We tried many different salsas – spicy, cool, red, green – but my favorite was Broken Plate’s greek salsa made with feta. It was delicious and I was inspired by the mediterranean flavours. I had thawed chicken breasts waiting for me at home for the next day’s dinner, the perfect canvas to play! A little of this and a little of that and I came up with this tasty marinade that left the chicken flavourful and juicy.

Greek Chicken Kabobs

1 cup plain yogurt (Balkan style or homemade)
1/4 cup seasoned feta cheese
2 TB greek seasoning (I used Club House)
2 cloves of garlic
Zest of one lemon
Juice of half a lemon
3 chicken breasts, cubed

In a bowl, mix first 6 ingredients. Add the chicken and marinate overnight. Skewer the chicken and bbq. Perfect with salad and grilled smashed potatoes.

good food, good friends…dinner at olive garden.

April 7, 2010 By Fareen Leave a Comment

It had been a while since we had spent time with some of our dear friends. Life just seemed so busy and weekends were filled with errands and family commitments. Tuesday was the perfect day to get together for dinner at Olive Garden.

It had been a while since I had been here and I had forgotten about the wait there always seemed to be for a table. I guess our 35 minutes wasn’t as bad as another group who had been given an estimate of an hour and a half!

We started off our meal with warm breadsticks and the signature salad. Q was all over the breadsticks and loved the tangy dressing on the salad.

Hubby and I shared the lasagna frittas to start – parmesan-breaded lasagna pieces, fried and served over alfredo sauce, topped with parmesan cheese and marinara sauce. This appy was delicious but also very rich, we couldn’t finish the serving.

Our main meal was the new grilled steak fonduta – Grilled lightly seasoned steak medallions topped with caramelized shallot-butter, served with curly mafalda pasta tossed with balsamic onions in a four cheese fonduta sauce. This dish was delicious!! The steak was wonderfully seasoned and the cheesy pasta was the perfect accompaniment.

Our friends had the stuffed chicken marsala and the chicken and gnocchi veronese – both of which looked delicious.

Sadly I forgot my camera but managed to capture a few fuzzy shots on my blackberry.