Jitters...

After an exhaustively long "morning" (it is now 2:18, and I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch), I am taking a quick break to blog about a dinner I'm hosting tonight for some of my students. One of the shifts that has taken place for our house is the "vegan thing". I love having students out to the house - especially as they are getting more stressed as exams loom. Having said that, I am literally nervous because of the distintively non-meaty offerings tonight. I didn't want to completely abandon my ways of eating (which I will Zuber moot till the cows come home is healthier than any other way of eating, bar none!) but I don't want to impose them on everyone either.

In any event, tonight's dinner is stuffed baby peppers with a jalapeno corn polenta, a maquechoux (which is a delicious New-Orleanian corn tomato and green pepper dish, which I augmented with some brown rice for both heft and cost savings), an herb and garlic roasted filet of salmon, some sauteed lemon garlic rainbow swiss chard, and some carmellized sweet potato wedges with the most delicious sweet and spicy BBQ sauce imaginable. I may do an apple and pecan spinach salad if I get out of the office on time. To open, I'm serving a steaming bowl of coconut tomato soup, which I developed on the weekend and made a second batch of last night.

Finally, I'm making classic Beignets for dessert because - for all the health merits of 8-9 servings of veggies over the course of dinner, something deep fried SHOULD be a treat.

Photos to follow, and I sure hope everything comes out OK...

Creamy Coconut Tomato Lentil Soup

Here's another recipe where the title is the directions! I love those.

This soup was something that came together out of a weekend of fast and furious housecleaning. We are almost up on the holiday season, and there was some final cleaning and unpacking that just needed to get done.

I had a can of San Marzano tomatoes and was reaching to make a soup with some leftover leek stock that I had in the fridge. I didn't really want to slow down, but I was hungry. Right next to this can was some coconut milk.

If you've never tried coconut milk, or coconut oil in your cooking, you should. It is one of the most beautiful flavours, for sure! In addition, consuming it (in my experience) actually has a slimming effect. It is really quite amazing, since it is a saturated fat, but true. Plus, my skin always brightens, hydrates and clears within a day or two of coconutting.

So, feeling a bit too chunky from my work related indulgences recently, I dumped both cans into a soup pot with the leek stock (which is so mild that I really could have used water).

Did you know that tomato is a fruit? It made perfect sense as the lighter qualities were complimented by the coconut milk. It goes with pineapple, with mango, with everything tropical, really. So why not the fruity tomato?

I added salt and a bit of pepper, and a cup of red lentils for some body and their heartier flavour.

Not since I combined roasted beets with chocolate cupcakes have I felt such a zing of inspiration in the kitchen. I like being inspired by TV and cookbooks, but I really love coming up with something on my own that tastes this good. The coconut gave the soup that creamy texture that is often missing in vegan cuisine. The lentils steamed beautifully, added nice protein and heft, and the tomatoes were just gorgeous! I took them out once the cooking had started and pureed them in the magic bullet, but could just as easily have left them to mash up with a fork or potato masher for some chunks of tomato. Either way, this combo of ingredients was extraordinary!

Bob Blumer's Shredded Tomato

I've been out of town on business for the past two days, worked late into the evenings M T W of this week, and had business entertaining all last weekend. Suffice it to say that I am exhausted!

It is Saturday morning, and there will only be leftover bits of building blocks in my fridge. Today is one of those opportunities to plan meals for the week with a list, shop for what is in season and actually looks good in the store, and maybe do a little long-term preparation as I go about my Saturday to-do list.

I went to see Jamie Oliver in Toronto on Thursday night. He was nicely introduced by Bob Blumer (my culinary crush). What a fun evening! Bob is one of the only men who shows up in my dreams, but I am quite sure that it is probably because I've fallen asleep watching one of his shows! In any event, both men were really great to see live.

Bob did a cooking demo with a quick pasta, interestingly enough, something I often pull together at home. It takes a lot to surprise me, but he did it. He took a huge beefsteak tomato for a quick sauce and after sauteeing some garlic and shallots SHREDDED it into the pan! Now, I have grated and shredded a lot of things in my life - even a few hearts - but NEVER a tomato!!! Talk about a quick cooking trick. Seriously, it made me wonder - why didn't I think of that before!

I tried to download a number of photos of what's been cooking for the past month, but didn't quite make it. More soon.

Risotto Tuesday and Marilyn Monroe

I am really loving risottos right now, with the change in weather turning cooler. Even if you enjoy meat, or chicken or seafood, the basics are the basics - so add what you want.

Risotto Tuesdays have become a "thing" in our house. It is a great antedote to the proverbial question "what's for dinner".

Mushroom risotto was on the menu last week, but yesterday I had some beautiful red peppers and some red onions. Harrison wanted to help (mostly to make 'tofu calamari', but I talked him into helping with both) which was great.

I always find it cute to see newbies holding knives. Harrison has been able to hold a knife - and I mean a "that's a nIIIIIIfe" knife (insert Australian accent here) - since he was young. I want him to respect the sharpness and the safety issues for sure, but I also trust him and want him to be comfortable around cooking utensils. (A person I know actually locks up their cheese grater for fear that one of their little people in the house will scrape themselves. Really? When I was a kid, I didn't go around accidentally grating my fingers, but I digress...)

So he slowly took apart a red pepper, discarding the stem and seeds after slicing the whole thing in half. Then he took down the onion, taking off the top and bottom, peeling off the outer layer and cubing both into manageable chunks (the size of toonies). We added some olive oil to a big soup pot instead of a shallower pan.

When I cook with my son, I do like to build in some splatter protection when working with hot oil, hence the deeper pan.

We sauteed both till soft after salting them slightly, and then blended the mushy mixture in the magic bullet blender with some water.

Olive oil goes back in the pan, with some ARBORIO rice, enough oil to coat the kernels. Then add stock in batches, and stir with a flat utensil of some kind, slowly adding stock for about 18 minutes.

After the rice was getting nice and creamy, after approximately 10 minutes, I added the red pepper and onion mixture back into the pan.

Finished the cooking/stirring process for the next 8 muinutes, grabbed plates, some Frank's Red Hot and some sea salt.

Checked the risotto to see how it tasted, and as Julia Child would say "corrected" the seasoning. All this means is that you check to see if it needs more salt;)

When Bill walked in the door, I was on the couch, happily watching Chef At Home. Harrison was at the island nibbling his potato chip crusted fried tofu, which he thinks are better than Calamari, dunked in toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and hot sauce, and watching Spongebob.

I was able to hand him a red pepper risotto for dinner after a long hard day at the office...

Marilyn Monroe said once that she didn't mind being in a man's world, as long as she could be a woman in it. Truth be told, and as non-PC as this may sound, I LIKE being able to pull a satisfying dinner together for him, EVEN if I have worked as many hours as he has that day.

Whether dinner was easy or not is our little secret....