The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

Saturday lunch during the spring and summer months is my favorite meal of the week. It rivals even the prized boozy Sunday night dinners at my parents place. Though arguably lighter and without the wine parings these lunches are always pretty fantastic and inspired by the farmers market. They are also extremely simple, usually no more than just a few ingredients.

I had been meaning to write up one of these for some time now so I’m glad I’m finally getting to it. It might become a tradition, well see. This week, like most, I was drawn to the greens and decided to whip up a salad from a mix of pea shoots, pepper crest and another delicate green that I think was called something like Cresh. I’ll confirm that next week. Regardless though the result was pure perfection. The sweetness of the greens with the salt of the anchovies was amazing and surprisingly these greens though delicate were not overpowered by the anchovies. I was pretty happy with myself about that.

There are many things I love about quinoa but the best thing by far is that it fills you up for a long long time. I’m not sure exactly why that is, someone mentioned to me recently that they thought quinoa contained more protein than other grains, I’m going to run with that theory as it makes perfect sense to me.

So I’ve gradually started to make quinoa in the place of other grains and pastas. I never thought it would stick for more than maybe a few dinners as I was anticipating serious opposition from my husband. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to never take rice away from an Indian! Not that I was actually trying to make him stop eating rice, I was just trying to find something that we could occasionally replace the all the basmati rice with.

Have you ever had basmati rice at an Indian restaurant? Or maybe you have a fabulous Indian cook in the family too? Ever wondered why the rice is so freaking never-want -to-eat-anything-else-EVER-again good? I’m talking about the kind of rice that makes you completely forget about that incredible piece of naan bread laying next to your plate AND the butter chicken you ordered.

Can you guess the answer?

Here’s a recipe that will make you feel a little fancy on a Tuesday night. I almost can’t believe I’m writing a post about artichokes as they were one of my most feared food items as a child. I’m not quite sure why anymore, I think it had something to do with a period in my life where my mother made them a lot, beyond that I can’t remember any details.

A few years ago after seeing baby artichokes make there way into Vancouver markets, I decided it might be worth giving them another shot. They are small and seemed like the perfect entry level artichoke to tackle as a former artichoke hater. Plus I had them once being served as part of an amazing antipasti platter and I completely fell in love with the way they  complimented everything both aesthetically and with their woodsy flavor.

These artichokes apart from the cleaning process are extremely simple to prepare. Really it’s just a few tablespoons of olive oil, lemon and any variety of strong hard cheese you have on hand. They are a perfect snack or accompaniment. I served these roasted as is but I suspect they would be fabulous if you had some kind of simple sauce like an aioli to dip them in. My behind is starting to look like an Easter ham so I decided to skip that part at least this time around.

I think Chicken Paillard might be the only chicken recipe where I can support using boneless skinless chicken breast. It’s inadequacies are well documented, but to put it in a nutshell, boneless skinless chicken breast has the power to turn even the most ardent meat lover into a vegetarian. You know that staunch type that would sooner do something incredibly barbaric like open up a can of spam than eat something completely vegetarian? Or maybe like me you have some experience with someone in your life who repeatedly proclaims the unpalatable piece of petrified leather on his plate (in the name of cutting back on fat or something equally obnoxious) to be the best tasting piece of meat they’ve eaten in ages. Seriously, if boneless skinless chicken breast was the only available meat it would have even these people begging for a tofu turkey before you know it.

I’m not going to pretend there aren’t those out there who actually do like such things because experience has taught me that there are. Experience has also taught me that these aren’t the kind of people I want to cook for me. I have a tendency to think that they are members of that paradoxical group who view food solely as fuel (shudder). Or that other group that have some major psychological issues with a little thing called fat. Ok I know there are people who for serious health reasons limit their fat, but they are not the ones I come across in my life, so to be clear those aren’t the people I’m talking about.

This salad was one of those unplanned surprises. I had intended on using up all of the asparagus I had purchased from the Farmers market in my chicken salad and was a bit alarmed when I realized I would only need about half. It was one of those weeks where I had planned almost every meal and I absolutely hate the possibility of having something go to waste.

Fortunately, being the over-eaters that we are, it wasn’t particularly difficult to find a way to add an additional course into one of our meals. Never is come to think about it. This might be the reason why I am not fitting into my jeans the way I used to and have been wearing leggings almost exclusively for the past month. I might have to look into that. Oh well! Never trust a skinny cook, right?

I’ve been seeing all kinds of shaved asparagus salads over the past month and so I was immediately drawn to this when trying to think of creative ways to use up the rest of mine. Seriously though, this salad is another one of those extremely easy ways to impress. Aesthetically its almost perfect and will take you about 10 minutes to prepare. Also, the taste of raw asparagus, thinly shaved may even have the power to win over those asparagus skeptics in your life. I know it did with mine.

There really is nothing that pleases my hubby more than some open face sandwich action. It’s among his top 5 favorite things to eat and I would bet that it might actually be in his top 2. It doesn’t really matter what you put on the bread, as long as it’s piled high, it could be almost anything that you fish out of the fridge and it would still be “the best thing he’s ever tasted.” Men are funny.

Because of this we tend to eat bruschetta a lot or some other variety of sandwich fare. More often than not these also end up to be quite simple, as they are usually the result of random items left at the end of the week. After being away for a few weeks on vacation with my girlfriends, I was feeling generous and decided to plan his favorite and perhaps more lunch appropriate meal into our dinners for the week.

After 2 weeks of eating white bread for almost every meal, I haven’t been able to eat anything but fresh vegetables since I got home. I know it seams a bit simple to be posting a recipe as basic as an heirloom tomato salad, but this is what I’ve been eating so tough! Ha! No in all seriousness there were some amazing looking heirloom tomatoes at the farmers market this morning and I just wasn’t strong enough to leave without a few of them. For the most part I’m powerless against these, when I see some good ones I just can’t walk away.

This salad is so simple and really needs nothing aside from some ripe heirloom tomatoes and maybe a bit of olive oil and some sea salt. I added in the pea shoots and thought the sweetness really complemented these amazing subtle tomatoes, but of course they aren’t necessary.

As some of you may know I’ve been in Egypt for the past 2 weeks. Sneaky I know. Just when you think I’m at home making macaroni and cheese.

There really is no need to to state how amazing it was, so I thought that while I get myself straightened out and back in this timezone I would post a few pictures that for me highlight our trip.