Ugh. I've been heinously sick all week, so simple food is king this weekend. Tonight I'm doing thinly pounded, salt-and-pepper seasoned sauteed chicken, topped with apples sauteed in some butter and a splash of white wine, with baked potatoes on the side. It should take all of 15 minutes to throw together, which is about the amount of time I have the energy to stand!

I am in chef school at The Natural Gourmet in NYC and tomorrow will be baking all day so I am preparing a Thai inspired cold salad of mango, zucchini, carrots, and red peppers with some quinoa.

Tonight: asparagus and pea risotto, creamed spinach, and garlic bread. I'm making extra-large batches of risotto and spinach because this is one of those meals where the leftovers are even better: crispy risotto cakes (with plenty of extra asparagus, a handful of cheese, and an egg beaten in, then pan-fried) and spinach gratin (plenty of creamed spinach, a beaten egg, and a topping of breadcrumbs spiked with smoked paprika). I'm also making a batch of blueberry liqueur: blueberry-infused vodka mixed with some blueberry simple syrup.

It's my son's birthday so we'll have 22 people here for a cook-out before heading to the dirt track for racing (my husband thinks it's a great amusement to try to indoctrinate me in Southern ways...). Tomorrow black bean enchiladas for lunch and my mom's family's traditional Sunday night supper: banana bread with peanut butter and bananas and cinnamon sugar, yogurt, popcorn and apple slices. Comfort food!

Last night kept it simple with roasted sweet potato, black bean and avocado salad, topped with an egg. Thinking about chipotle rhubarb pasta with sauteed kale for dinner tonight.

I made these delicious vegan cherry chocolate chunk muffins! http://www.theppk.com/2007/06/vegan-culinary-activism-in-10-yummy-steps/

For breakfast this morning, sliced bananas and nutella between two pieces of just made french toast, the tops dusted with powdered sugar. For dinner we're making pizzas cooked on the grill with no knead pizza dough I made a few days ago and our own home made pizza sauce. Desert is home made fresh strawberry ice cream that I churned this morning. The infrared thermometer we ordered arrived yesterday so we're going to have alot of fun with it today.

I made fish hash last night out of leftover fish 'n' chips, an onion, and some frozen corn. It was amazing. And it stretched one serving to two.

Sweet potato cake later. Maybe. Nothing tomorrow as I have to go to a conference. But have to cook something tonight so the boy will have something to eat for the next three days! Maybe overnight crockpot beans tonight...

My comment seems to have disappeared . . . anyway, I made cheese enchiladas and a corn and bean salad last night. Today will be leftovers for lunch, then we'll go out to dinner. Sunday, we're having a bunch of cyclists over for a pre-ride breakfast, so I'll make a strata with homemade wheat bread, eggs, cheese, veg, and homemade sausage; there will also be potatoes, bacon, and some bars with almonds and freezer jam (I must remember to label freezer jam in the freezer so I don't have to taste everything and guess what's in it!) Dinner will be veg samosas and Nigel Slater's chicken curry, with the lemon yogurt tart for dessert.

Fried rice (aka clean out the fridge rice) last night. Kielbasa, German potato salad, homemade red cabbage tonight, and venison and Italian sausage chili tomorrow. Greatest accomplishment this weekend - grinding beef with a borrowed kitchen aid grinding attachment! Gotta get me one of them!

I will be baking a Yoghurt Cake! A traditionnal french cake that we all use to make when we were kids, and just delicious. I wrote the recipe and images here: http://apetitpoisdesign.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/from-app-kitchen-classic-yoghurt-cake.html if you want to have a look!
Bon Appetit!

Ever since our new kitchen is finally finished I've been pretty much cooking up a storm. We started today with a full breakfast with a couple of friends with some delicious eggs out of the oven, pancakes, homemade smoothies and more. Now I am going to make a grilled veggie sandwich for lunch and there is quinoa on the menu for tonight! Plus I made these earlier this week

I made whole wheat strawberry muffins yesterday, which were fabulous except for one minor glitch: in an effort to make a pretty presentation, I put a whole frozen strawberry in the centre of each muffin. While the strawberries melted down into little jammy cores of delicious, sadly they also fatally compromised the muffin structure, i.e. as soon as they were taken out of the muffin tin they fell apart and had to be eaten with forks.

I had plans to try a recipe for fried rice from Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking tonight, but (after discovering that we seem to have no hot water in our apartment when I tried to shower), I managed to blow a fuse while making coffee that a) cut off all the power to our kitchen and bathroom and b) can't be fixed until tomorrow because the downstairs tenant has sole access to the basement and is closed on Sundays. Hmph. So, apparently it's take-out night tonight.

Last night a quick whatever-is-in-the-fridge couscous salad with steak, feta, spinach, bell pepper which turned out surprisingly tasty.

Today we've been out most of the day in Richmond Park and have come home to get a roast chicken going asap! Just the thing. Now being tormented by the smell while drinking tea and feeling smug watching the rain start pouring.

Yesterday was a veggie frittata, three bean salad, pasta salad and BBQ chicken. So far today I've made a strawberry rhubarb pie with struesel topping, a spicy carrot salad with harissa, mint and feta & garlicy sesame broccoli salad. My goal is to cook this weekend so that lunches are already made for work next week.

Made Greek Burgers (on pita with feta and tapenade) Friday (with broccoli and roasted red potatoes). Tonight we're having steak salad with bleu cheese dressing (a recipe from "Almost Meatless"). I also made Andrea Nyguen's Sag Soy Paneer ahead of time for tomorrow's dinner. Saturday, post yard sale - pizza night!

Tonight: my sister's BBQ chicken on the grill, potato salad, english pea salad and my baked beans. Delicious!

Went out for a fabulous brunch on Saturday - amazing Belgian waffles with white chocolate pistachio rose water topping! Brought crab stuffed mushrooms caps to a party Saturday night. Today I hosted the girls for brunch - I made my favourite frittata, freshly baked croissants with jams, a lemony arugala salad, fruit salad, coconut nanaimo bars, artichoke dip, and of course mimosas! I just finished throwing together a bean and noodle soup for lunches this week as well as some ginger-scallion--srirracha soba noodles for tonight. Now the boyfriend just has to grill up the miso black cod thats been marinating since friday and were all set :)

Shutterbean's cream cheese cinnamon rolls! Make em Saturday, eat em Sunday morning. So impressive looking and delicious!

I was away, but I roasted up some garlic and made some roasted garlic crostini. So delicious!

This past weekend, I did not cook, but I did eat AMAZING food during a Cooking class/demo with Chef Fabio Viviani from Top Chef while in LA. It was SO MUCH FUN! And, we ate the most amazing butternut squash ravioli in a brown butter, safe, cream sauce... the ravioli had crushed up amaretto cookies in the filling!! Yea.... I could die a happy girl. Also, the class was amazing... Can't wait to do it again and Fabio was so funny and super friendly!