Zucchini pasta with turkey meatballs

I love the idea of pasta, and I love the sauces that go with pasta, what I do not love is pasta.  Don't get me wrong if you put a plate of pasta with a nice sauce on it I will happily eat it, I just would not cook it for myself.  Because of this I am always looking for substitutes for the pasta. In the past I have used shredded cabbage quickly cooked and spaghetti squash, but I have been wanting to try zucchini as a substitute.  My husband currently is in Europe waiting for me to join him, so I am on my own for dinner, it was time to experiment.

I am trying to lose that last couple of pounds before leaving for my vacation so a light meal was in order and as I was on my own a one dish meal was also the order of the day.

Turkey meat balls

Feeds 4

1lb of ground turkey
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon of chopped mint.
2 tablespoons of fine breadcrumbs.
1/4 cup of finely grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together then form in to balls about the size of small walnuts.  Place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.

Place in a preheated 400 oven for between 15 and 20 minutes until they are just cooked through, you do not want to overcook and dry them out.

I used a 1/4 of these for my dinner for one and will use the remainder this week for dinners and lunch.

Barbecued rack of lamb

The first night on the Sunshine Coast found just two of us for dinner, so we hunted and gathered down at the local IGA and found a lovely fresh looking rack of lamb.  It was a beautiful evening, so there was nothing to do but barbecue it.

I decided to do the simplest way that I could using traditional flavours that go so well with lamb, mustard and rosemary.  I cut the rack into cutlets, then smeared with Dijon mustard and chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper.

Deconstructed ratatouille

To go along with the leg of lamb we decided to make ratatouille, but I wanted to use the barbecue to roast the vegetables rather than cooking them on the stove, so stopping me from slaving over a hot stove on a very hot day. I bought the mini peppers which are so prevalent here at the moment, they are so sweet and full of flavour, and I wanted to serve them whole. So we came up with the idea of just combining the ingredients that usually make up ratatouille and calling it deconstructed, which is very trendy these days.  Never let it be said that I am not on the cutting edge of food trends.

To feed 13

2 bags of mini peppers
1 large eggplant sliced
4 zucchini sliced
20 small tomatoes halved

First I roasted the mini peppers whole, until they were slightly charred but not too much.

Almost ratatouille

We came home from a hard day's shopping in Watford looking forward to moules marinier and french fries, a quick easy dinner to make, especially as Jacky's husband was making the fries.  So we did not really start thinking about cooking until very close to dinner time.  The fries were cut and soaking in water time to prepare the mussels.  Horrors the mussels were past their due date and not looking as healthy as they should and none of us wanted to take a chance, so plan b it was.

Jacky produced some chicken breasts and assorted vegetables from the cellar, we perused the ingredients and we came up with roasted ratatouille (substituting the eggplant with mushroom) chicken in home made barbecue sauce, green salad with warm balsamic dressing and of course french fries.

Jacky took on the chicken and salad, Howard the fries and I was responsible for the roasted vegetables.  I had

• 2 portabello mushrooms, 
• 2 red peppers, 
• 2 zucchini (courgettes), 
• 2 small red onions 
• a box of cherry tomatoes

I quickly chopped all the vegetables up through them in a roasting tin added the tomatoes and drizzled on some olive oil, and threw them in a 400 oven.  These cooked for just over half an hour which was the time it took to prepare the remainder of the meal. The vegetables were soft and just turning black on the edges, absolutely perfect.

Roast yellow zucchini

At the Farmers Market on Sunday my friends daughter bought some beautiful yellow squash and since she and her parents were coming for dinner she asked if I would cook them for her. I had intended to roast them with parmesan but unfortunately I was completely out of parmesan cheese.  Plan b make a mixture of breadcrumbs and fresh herbs to top them with, but I was completely out of breadcrumbs and no spare bread to make any with.  Plan C it would have to be.

Plan C was a handful of stoned wheat thin crackers wizzed in a small food processor with fresh basil, parsley and some course salt.

I sprinkled this over the top of the zucchini then drizzled with olive oil.

Urban dinner downtown - Halibut cheeks with baby vegetables

My good friends daughter who is my adoptive daughter, just moved into an apartment on the 29th floor down town Vancouver. Her Mother and I decided to visit and cook dinner for her and her boyfriend.  First we went to Granville Island to hunt and gather, one of the best places in the world in which to do this.  Sadly I did not take any photographs, but here is the view from her brand new apartment.

Her apartment is brand new and very beautiful, but very small so we picked up some very small vegetables, actually we picked them up because the looked so cute and tasty. This picture really does not show the size as there is nothing for scale, but the zucchini were about the size of my finger.

Very tiny vegetables on very beautiful granite top

We were feeling like fish so we picked up some halibut cheeks at the market, the cheeks really are the best part of the halibut. She had some little potatoes as well so I decided to make a light warm potato salad with those, and to roast the vegetables.