Easter Lamb

Mom made this for Easter dinner. It was really delicious and not too heavy, as some lamb recipes can be. It's a boneless leg of lamb, that is rolled with fresh herbs and a little bit of feta. I thought that a feta and lamb recipe would be really fatty, but the leg of lamb does not have as much fat as other cuts and there is only a bit of feta, it just adds a nice flavour. It went very well with the Indian potatoes and spinach. Sorry for the horrible picture above, the quality of this blog is really going down!

The recipe can be found at:

http://food.chatelaine.com/Recipes/View/Fresh_herb_and_feta_stuffed_leg_of_lamb

Some Recipes From Julie

Julie is one of my favourite cooks, and soup is her specialty. I'm sure this soup is amazing!

Sweet and Spicy Potato and Nut Soup

1 diced onion3
crushed garlic cloves
olive oil
1/4 inch piece of ginger grated
4 fat carrots, peeled and diced
1 or 2 sweet potatoes peeled and diced
1/2 litre or so of stock (veg, chicken or anything really)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons peanut butter (or fresh ground peanuts if you are being fancy)
Juice of a lime
Teaspoon Spiracha sauce or any hot sauce
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Fry onion in a little oil, add garlic and ginger and fry for a few minutes. Add carrot, potatoes and stock, bring to boil and simmer 25 minutes. Add all other ingredients and blend. Serve with chopped cilantro and a few nuts sprinkled on top. Also good served chilled in Summer!



Spicy Cantaloupe Salad a' la Moosewood(Great with fish dishes)

1 ripe cantaloupe peeled and cut in small chunks
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon (to taste) cayenne
salt and pepper
russet lettuce or endives


Prepare cantaloupe and wash and cut lettuce, not shredded but smallish. In a jug mix all other ingredients, place lettuce or endives on plate or in individual bowls. Arrange cantaloupe on top and then drizzle over the dressing. Top with a nice crumbly goat's cheese for decadence.

Thai Mango Salad

A good Thai restaurant is hard to find in my opinion. And now that I'm living in NDG, I am very Thai food deprived. I'm not a fan of the Thai place on Monkland, though some plates are good, they don't have great selection and their salads are very mediocre. So, time for some DIY... This salad is very tedious and messy and takes a while to make but I will say, it is so worth it! I used palm sugar, because I had some, but I'm sure it's fine with regular sugar too. I would suggest tasting the dressing first, you may want to add a little more sugar depending on the sweetness of your mangos.

The recipe can be found at:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Thai-Mango-Salad-204483

Bitter-Sweet Salad

This one's for you Dana since you seem to think I have some salad recipes!

I don't usually do much planning in terms of salad, I usually just throw stuff together and drizzle some balsamic vinegar and olive oil on top. But I am very much in love with endive and radicchio (maybe it's the liver cleansing properties) and I think they deserve some special attention. This salad has it all, it's sweet, sour, bitter, slightly salty and the crunchy texture of all the ingredients makes this salad extremely satisfying.

Bitter-Sweet Salad

Salad:

15 radicchio leaves
1 endive
1/2 apple sliced(peeled or not peeeled- you decide)
1/3 cup of walnuts (broken up a bit)
garnish with finely chopped scallions

(though I haven't tried it yet, I'm sure some crumbled blue cheese or small cubes of old cheddar would be good in this salad)


Vinaigrette:

3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp mustard powder
pinch of salt

(I can't be so sure of the exact proportions of vinegar and olive oil, so taste the dressing before you put it on the salad, it may need a little more vinegar)

Tuesday Night

Last night we had one of my creations. I made this recipe once before but this time I improved it. Though I used the internet for some inspiration- this recipe is mine. The chicken turns out great but I still think the pistachio coating needs another spice- let me know if you find the missing ingredient!

Pistachio-Encrusted Chicken Breasts with Goat-Cheese Stuffing

The coating:

1/2 c unsalted pistachios

pinch of coriander powder

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp of cumin

salt and pepper

4-5 chicken breasts

The stuffing:

goat cheese

dried cranberries (some cut up fig would be good too)

honey

mint

Preheat oven to 375 F

Grind the pistachios in a coffee grinder- do not grind too long, you want some bigger crunchy bits in there and you don't want it to turn into a paste. Put the ground pistachio on a large plate and add the spices. Mix and set aside.

Fold a piece of saran wrap in half, place your chicken inside and grab a hammer or a mallet and pound away. Make sure to think of someone when you're doing it. Make sure you the chicken is thin enough that you can roll it up, the maximum thickness is probably about 3/4 of an inch thick, stop pounding if the chicken starts breaking apart. Get a baking pan ready (you may want to put aluminum foil underneath). Cover your chicken with the crust and lay it out on the pan. Take a bit of goat cheese and put it in the center, place about 10 cranberries on top of the goat cheese on each piece of chicken, top with some fresh or dried mint and draw a line of honey across your filling. Roll up and fold in the ends of the chicken, you may want to hold them together with broken up skewers but you don't have to.

2 on the left are the chicken before folding

1 on the right after folding

Bake in the oven for 20-25 and then broil them until they are nice and brown on top- this doesn't take long so keep an eye on them!

Enjoy! And let me know if you've improve the spice mixture!