Wasabi Lime Dressing

Whooooooaaaaa momma!!! Eat this if you have a cold. Ai-yai-ai! This will definitely add some kick to your salad. So easy to make, just like the other 2 dressings she's got. This makes about half the amount of dressing of the other 2 but that's because you need just a little. I'm the kind of person who likes a good healthy portion of dressing on my salad. But I had to keep a light hand with this. Right after I made it I dipped a slice of cucumber into the dressing for a taste test and my head nearly popped off my shoulders. It was from this experience I wisely chose to hold back on the dressing for the salad.

The whole time I ate my salad I'd get these infrequent nasal cleansing that were intense. But the flavour was good enough that I kept going back for more. If you can't handle spicy keep well back of this recipe but if you are looking for something a little different then make sure you try this!!!

Sake Sea Bass and Wilted Greens

This recipe I was excited about...then lost my excitement...but then when I ate it I was brought back to my original excitement. The whole thing started with a trip to the farmer's market. I went there this morning to get an organic fair trade cappuccino. But then that stand wasn't set up when I got there. So I decided to peruse the veggies. I had in the back of my mind that I would make this recipe next and I thought the farmer's market would be the perfect place to get me some greens to wilt. The swiss chard looked really good at one of the stands and I hadn't had swiss chard since I was young and I decide this might be a good time to try it again.

So that was how I decided to make this tonight. I had to pick up the fish on the way home too. Big surprise that Metro didn't sell fresh Sea Bass. I picked up a fillet of Snapper in it's place. Preparation of this meal is really simple. This recipe does make 4 servings and I was only cooking for one tonight so I didn't make a whole fish like Nigella suggests. I used a single serving fillet and therefore reduced the cooking time dramatically. For the whole fish it's 25 minutes. I cooked my piece for 10 minutes.

Then for the wilted greens I washed the chard and chopped it down to more manageable pieces and sauteed them in the anchovy and garlic oil. I also decided kinda last minute to toss in some marinated artichoke hearts too. The end result was some perfectly cooked and seasoned fish and I've become a fan of swiss chard. Which is great because it's soooo healthy for you. I'm feeling pretty good about this recipe because it is so fantastically healthy and delicious meal!

Warm Potato Salad

Potato salad is such a summer staple. When you think summer BBQ or summer picnic I bet potato salad is one of the first 5 foods you think of. I've gotta tell you I've never had a warm potato salad before so this was a nice change. The thing that I really liked about this one was that it's not a mayonnaise dressing. This salad has a vinegary-mustard dressing which i found very pleasing. I had a sous-chef help me make this tonight...my 1.5 year old niece. so I'm thinking that if she can make this you should be able to also.

I recommend this one. Give it a try at your next BBQ.

Chocolate Mint Cookies

Nigella may want to reconsider naming these Diabetic Coma Cookies. OMFG I felt a cavity forming when I bit in. These are WAY too chocolaty and WAY too sweet for me. Husband will have his work cut out for him eating these. I'm sure it's a task he's up to though...he is cookie monster afterall. He's been begging me to make these all night. I promised him yesterday that I would make him cookies tonight and I think he might have divorced me if I didn't come through. He seemed very nervous when after dinner I sat on the couch to relax a bit (I do work all day)but he looks nervously about and says "You're gonna make those cookies right???" I reassured him that I was going to make them...so there was no getting out of it. This man takes cookies more seriously than our wedding vows I think.

Amazingly enough though Husband is now in a canundrum of his own making. This man never eats lunch so he comes home famished then shovels food in his mouth (think cookie monster style) and 15 seconds after his orgy of eating looks at me and says "uggggg I'm soooo full" to which every night I say "So don't eat so much..or try eating lunch so you're not so starved". This is our daily routine. Now he's stuffed himself so full that when I say the cookies are ready he says to me "I can't eat a cookie. If I do I'll either puke or have a heart attack." Ah, well there's always tomorrow's binge for them to be had. But I won't be eating anymore that's for sure. Chocoholics may want to add this to their list of will do's. And I'm pretty sure that when cookie monster comes home from work tomorrow he'll suck back a few of these no problem.

Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad

This salad looked to me like it would be either really really good...or really really bad. Turns out for the positive! Husband ate left over ragu for dinner tonight and I got busy making this salad for myself (along with bbq artichoke). To make this recipe by the book you use 2 whole cucumbers and it serves 10-12 people according to Nigella. So I thought "I'll just make half a cucumber. Then half the ingredients for the dressing. Sure it's gonna be a bit much dressing but I'll cope." As it turns out I'm not sure who exactly these 10-12 anorexic people Nigella served but I ate half the damn cucumber and didn't really have much of a dent in my hunger situation. I moved onto the artichoke and was a little more satisfied but I had to make a veggie dog to really end the screams for food coming from my stomach. But back to the salad. It's delicious and tangy and you just kinda gobble it up..or at least I did. Perfect for a hot summer day like today was. I spent the entire day cooped up in my air conditioned office and wasn't really dressed for the summer. By the time I got home in my jeans and t-shirt i couldn't get the jeans off fast enough and actually thought about walking around pant-less for the night. Then I pictured my newly single neighbour on the one side and my older gentleman neighbour on the side happening to peak out the window while I bbq'd in my unds and thought better of it. So I put on a pair of short shorts and decided they were slightly more decent to be seen in while grilling in the back yard. Anyhow, eating this salad after being so hot was quenching really. It was like eating a glass of water after a big bike ride or something active like that.

It's dead easy to make and while Nigella says 10-12 I'm thinking those people sure aren't eating much...I'd say the whole thing, 2 cucumbers and all would serve 6-8. Or 2 people who LOVE cucumbers. Like me.

Rapid Ragu

There's a fly in my house and it's driving me bonkers!!! Zoom, zoom, zoom and I can't grab a hold of it. I hate having flies in my house. It makes me think of my old apartment I had long ago on the wrong side of the tracks. Things started out good there but then they went terribly awry. We used to have a piece of cardboard and a disco ball in the living room and we would have these amazing "dance partys" with 4 people at the most. We would have a dance off like you wouldn't believe on the cardboard. It was so much fun...that was when it was good. Lemme tell ya about when it got bad. First - my sister and I (who I lived with) went to Florida and we came home to find that the man that lived above us had spent the week creeping about our apartment. The Landlord came by to check the place for us and found him in our kitchen!!!!! How effing creepy is that??? What then was the straw that broke the camels back was shortly after that we found a bunch of maggots under our kitchen sink. Even now bile comes up my throat just thinking about it. That was a good 1o years ago and I'm still effected by it. This is why I'm freaking out about this one fly. Flies in my house give me the heebie-jeebies!

Despite the fly I managed to make Husband a meat laden dinner - which he loved. I thought this meal looked kinda gross - but Husband seemed to find it appealing. Perhaps I'm too far removed from the time of meat-eating but this had zero appeal to me. I don't know what to say about this really...mostly because it didn't look good to me..but sometimes taste and looks aren't related. Husband cleaned his bowl up and remarked that it was good. So it's a bit of a coin toss for me here. Obviously it must taste decent but the look just wasn't appealing. If you like chili con carne you may wanna try this but just remember I warned you it doesn't look a peach.

Now where did that fly go....

Clafoutis

Today I reached a milestone...I now have under 100 recipes to make...I feel like I'm on a big countdown. It's like I'm half way up Mount Olymus and I can actually see the peak at the top. I'm pretty freakin' pumped about this. I still haven't made 100 recipes..but having over 100 to make felt like a weight on my chest...this feels so much more managable. The truth is I have many ideas what to do with this blog once I'm finished this first project but I have to finish this before I start that..and so I'm beginning to feel as though the end is in sight.

Now the clafoutis, I was 100% set to make this recipe and was pulling ingredients left right and centre when I pulled the milk I discovered we had a pitiful amount left. Immediately I regretted my bowl of cheerios for breakfast, shoulda had the yogurt...No what was I to do without enough milk??? I'd put my PJs on as soon as I got home and didn't really wanna get dressed again...was too lazy to go to the store. But I did have some rice milk. So I wondered..can you replace dairy milk with rice milk when making a custard type dessert???? I googled it, and found enough confidence on line to give it a whirl.

The custard turned out pretty good. I wasn't sure how much I liked it when I ate my piece. So I decided, strictly for research, I'd have to have a second. After my second piece I still didn't know what to think. This clafoutis is perfectly enjoyable..but I can't really think the perfect occasion to serve it. To me this isn't really a show stopping dessert. hmmm I guess this is just the kind of treat to make for yourself. Something to make your Sunday cuppa a little more special perhaps. Or maybe something to serve for a very casual type of afternoon entertaining.

This recipe isn't glorious except in the fact that I'm that much closer to reaching my goal. But perhaps it can make a Sunday afternoon a little more glorious for you.