Grilled Garden Vegetables

When the vegetables in the garden are fresh, they don't need much help to taste delicious.  I like to put them on the grill and dress and season them lightly. Most vegetables grill fairly well - as long as they're big enough not to fall through the grate.  Here, I'm using bell pepper, long beans and aubergine.

First, I like to coat everything lightly with olive oil and season with salt.  It tastes great and keeps things from sticking.  Then I like to get a good char on the peppers so that the skin slides off easily.  The beans and eggplant need to grill just long enough to become tender - not mushy.

Plate it up fancy!  So many vegetable dishes tend to be simply piled on the place.  Take a moment to arrange the ingredients to be visually appealing.  I like to serve it with fresh tarragon, basil and cherry tomatoes.  Then, drizzle a bit of aged balsamic and olive oil for extra flavour.  Happy Summer!

Fresh Courgetti Salad

I just got a Spiralizer! I love it.  Here's a light and flavourful dish using summer squash from the garden.

Start with a couple medium sized courgettes (zucchini) and run through the small spiralizer blades.  Halve, or quarter, a dozen cherry tomatoes.  Dice half of a small red onion.  Add all the ingredients to a mixing bowl and season with salt.  Squeeze the juice of a lemon over the mixture and toss lightly.

Garnish with fresh herbs: parsley, tarragon and basil.

Sesame Soba with Bok Choy

This is a quick and easy dish.  It's fresh, it's filling and it's great comfort food. Begin by preparing soba - a buckwheat flat noodle - by following the directions on the packaging.

While that's cooking, prepare the bok choy and mushrooms by slicing them and sauteing over high heat with a bit of sesame oil.

Add together the cooked noodles, bok choy, sesame, a whisper of grated ginger tamari sauce and mushrooms.

Plate the noodles with fresh sliced tomatoes.  The whole dish is ready in about 10 minutes.  It's a delight.

Gazpacho

Gazpacho has the reputation of being an awkward dish.  It's not always well received - after all, it's cold soup.  The first time I tried it, I was in Paris and decided, "I'm never coming back to this place!  They can't even heat up soup properly."Thankfully I got over my Parisian aversion and I learned to actually like gazpacho!

I started with tomatoes, red onions, bell peppers, chili pepper and basil - all harvested from the garden. First, peel, half and remove the seeds from a medium cucumber.  Then coarsely dice the cucumber, tomato, onions and pepper.  Be sure to very finely mince the chili pepper - any remove the seeds unless you're really a fan of spice. Pile it all in a food processor with the basil, a bit of salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Blitz it up until it's soupy, but not a fine puree.  There should be a bit of texture.

I find it's best to serve chilled, but not ice cold.

Summer 2014 Garden Progress

Butternut squash, watermelon, corn, tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, cucumber, melons.

Pan-seared Polenta with Chèvre and Thyme

Polenta has a reputation of blandness.  It's a well earned reputation, so you have to build flavour into the dish.

First, bring salted water to a boil.  You can also use veg stock to provide more taste.  Polenta varies in terms of firmness.  Since this will be fried, this dish needs enough cornmeal so that it's not porridge.

Slowly add the cornmeal to the boiling water while stirring.  Or, if you're crazy enough to try to hold a camera and take photos while cooking, you'll need to whisk the mixture to remove the lumps.  Boil for about a minute or two, until it's thick and begins to "blurp."  Then allow to cool and set firm.

Once cooled, remove from the pan and slice into workable chunks.  (It helps to wet the knife before cutting.)  Sear both sides of the polenta in olive oil.

Garnish and serve with flavourful pairings.  I chose the creamy sharpness of goat cheese; the also tangy, yet sweet, aged balsamic; savoury, bright tomatoes and the mildly pungent thyme.

This can easily be made vegan by substituting or omitting the chèvre.  Mixed olives would be an ideal alternate.

Bulgar? Bulgar!

One of the most simple and tasty foods I sampled in Turkey: Bulgar.  It's a type of wheat that's been parboiled and dried.  There are several ways to prepare it, but my favourite dish was a simple vegetable and bulgar casserole.

It's fairly easy to make and it's delicious.  Start an assortment of veg.  I used carrots, onions, peppers and sauteed them for just a bit of colour.  Then puree them with a can of stewed tomatoes.  Add seasoning: salt or soy sauce - something to give it a good savour.

I rinsed the bulgar and added the wheat to the veg puree and simmered the mixture until thickened.  It's ready when the wheat is tender - like brown rice.

This is a perfect dish for chilly evenings and is full of vegetables, fibre and energy.

Breakfast Wraps

The perfect weekend food - breakfast wraps.  Full of veg, egg scramble and hashed browned 'taters, these wraps start your day off right!

First, start the tater tots, or any hashed potatoes, baking.  Make sure they're crispy to give a satisfying crunch.  Then sauteing mixed vegetables: zucchini, onions, tomatoes, peppers and carrots.  Once they're tender, set aside and keep warm.  In the same pan, add beaten eggs and a hearty spice blend: sriracha, onion powder, smoky paprika, turmeric and salt.  Some fresh spinach completes the dish, but any lettuce will do.

Wrap it up and enjoy!

Gluten Free, Vegan Mac & Cheese (that actually tastes good)

I thought it couldn't be done - vegan cheese that isn't massively fake and processed or gluten free pasta that's not chewy or slimy.  Cashews and brown rice pasta make this an incredible dish.

Like usual, I didn't measure anything - pure chaos cooking.  All the same, here's the process:

• Cashew butter (blended cashews) seasoned with nutritional yeast, onion powder, salt, turmeric and lemon juice.
• Puree it in a high-speed blender with twice as much water.
• Bring to a boil on the stove - it will turn lumpy as it cooks.
• Return to the blender to liquify - sweet merciful creamy goodness.

Mix it up by adding tomatoes:

Thai Lettuce Wraps

So many of my favourite textures and flavours in one dish.

Start with base flavours: onions, sweet peppers, carrots and celery.  Saute until lightly caramelized.  Allow to cool.

Prepare the lettuce.  Romaine works well:  it's crunchy and its shape holds the filling well.

Fill the lettuce leaves with the sauteed vegetables, tofu and fresh veg. Julienned fresh carrots, tomatoes, bean sprouts and Thai basil complete the flavour and texture palette.  Served with a peanut dipping sauce:

Chopping the lettuce and mixing all the ingredients makes for a perfect spicy salad.  Add cashews for extra protein.

Yellow Salsa (Grilled Peach)

This summer I was inspired by friends to make salsa.  As the summer winds down, here's a perfect dish to enjoy with the lasts of the summer produce.

Select yellow salsa ingredients, yellow tomatoes, peaches, corn, yellow onions and peppers.

Coat the peaches and corn in olive oil and add some colour and char on the grill.

You don't want to cook the peaches to a mush, just sear them well.

Mince the ingredients and stir together with a bit of salt, cumin and chipotle (for that nice kick and extra smokyness).  Garnish with parsley or cilantro and serve with your favourite tortilla chips.

Grilled Courgette with Spaghetti and Vegan Cream Sauce

Fresh from the garden grilled zucchini snuggling a nest of spaghetti.

First, cut strips of, and grill, the zucchini.  Not too long on the grill - just hot and fast.  Be sure to take the nice even strips from the middle of the zucchini.

Hack up the remainder of the zucchini and add whatever else you've got: a few green beans, tomatoes, onions, peppers.  Caramelize over medium-high heat with a bit of olive oil and salt.

Deglaze the pan with water and allow the mixture to cool slightly.  Then add soaked walnuts and the veg mixture to the blender and puree until creamy.  Season to taste.

Arrange the plate with the cream sauce as a base, followed by spaghetti (seasoned with salt and olive oil) and wrap with the grilled courgettes.

Baked Summer Squash

A delicious, fresh from the garden and vegan dish; baked and stuffed summer squash.  Many squashes, scallop, patty pan, rond-de-nice, don't slice well.  Rather than chunking them in a stew, this preparation provides an elegant presentation.

Select the chunky and round squash.

Slice the bottom to flatten it, scoop out the insides with a melon-baller and save them for the filling.  Then coat each of them with olive oil and bake at 35oF.  To keep them from moving, ramekins or muffin tins can be used.  Thirty minutes is usually long enough - just make sure they're tender.

While they're baking, saute a mirepoix (carrots, celery, onions), adding tomatoes, peppers and the scooped out parts of the squash.

When it's reduced, it should nice and thick.

Spoon the filling into the squash and garnish with fresh herbs.

Pasta and Vegan Cream Sauce

Made from scratch pasta and a vegan cream sauce that doesn't taste like puke!

Start making the pasta with equal parts of semolina and spelt flour.  Add in water, olive oil and a bit of salt and knead until it forms a ball.

Let is rest for a while; wrapped in cling film or under an inverted bowl.

Puree soaked walnuts, sauteed onions, peppers and celery along with stewed tomatoes.  I used cashews in this recipe and was slightly disappointed.  It just made the sauce too sweet.  Since the vegetables have already been cooked (sauteed and stewed) the sauce is ready at this point.  Simply warm it if needed.

Shape the dough into the desired shapes.  I'm a fan of fettuccine.

Serve with the sauce - a tasty and authentic vegan dish.  It's simple and, although it's a "cream sauce," it stands on it's own rather than merely imitating a dairy version.

Everything is Math

λ ≃ 400nm-700nm (with a few gaps)Art, meet gardening, meet science.

Fresh picked from the jLAmode garden.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Sauteed sweet potato gnocchi served with spinach, basil, tomatoes and balsamic "caviar."  Here's the link to how to make the "caviar"

Boil and rice the yams:

Add flour, salt and mix:

Roll, cut and boil the dumplings.  Then pan-fry.

Chopped Salad with Carrot Ribbons

Red bell pepper, carrots, tomatoes, cauliflower and basil. Dressed with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt.

I used these peelers to make the carrot ribbon:

Garden 2013 - fruit on the vine

First rose of 2013

Peaches

Blueberries

Tomatoes

Lemon

"Wonder Lemon" blooms

Yerba Maté

Spring garden updates [2013]

The garden is coming to life! Blueberries in bloom:

Lettuce - survived the winter:

Shallots:

First rose bud:

Asparagus:

Potatoes:

Tomatoes - hiding under buckets for frost protection:

Pfingstrose (Peony):

Watercress:

Grapes:

Veggie Bars

First, bake the crescent rolls - flat.

Mix ranch dressing powder in unflavoured Greek youghurt.

When cooled, spread the crescent rolls with the youghurt mix and top with fresh veg: alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, carrots, green onions and tomatoes.  Top with pistachios.