Cabbage and apple salad

This weekend is thanksgiving in Canada, and there are many family recipes and traditions that surround this celebration.  For one of my best friends it would not be a turkey dinner with out this salad that her mother used to make, so I asked her to write it up to share.

Gillian has asked me to be a guest blogger to feature this family favourite so here goes.

We all have some tradition that we bring to our festive meals.  My signature dish known to all who shares my turkey dinner has been this salad, which has been passed down by mother, and I believe my grandmother.  The crisp texture and fresh taste an excellent complement to the comfort flavours and soft textures of a turkey dinner.  The other bonus is that this salad is equally good for at least the next day or two.

The salad is generous portion that is perfect for the extra meals the next day.  While proportions can vary I suggest the following ingredients.

• 
  
• 1 medium green cabbage, chopped 
• 2 apples, firm varieties i.e.: granny smith, Spartan or 1 of each
• 2 stocks celery, diced
• 4 green onions, chopped
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, chopped, with some sprigs for garnish
• Optional:  ¼ cup toasted almonds and/or ¼ cup dried cranberries

Dressing

• 1 lemon
• Mayonnaise, ½ cup
•         ½ tsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
• Salt, 1 tsp.
• ½ tsp. curry power
• 1 tsp. sugar

Simple tomato soup and grilled cheese

I am wallowing in the glut of tasty fresh tomatoes this fall.  I have been canning and freezing enough tomato puree and roast tomato sauce to get me through the winter.  But last weekend I needed some lunch and really wanted to enjoy some of these wonderful tomatoes in season instead of just putting by for the winter. So I made my husband and I some fresh tomato soup and used up some left over brie to make a grilled cheese accompaniment, because tomato soup does love cheese sandwiches.

To make enough for 4

• 1 tablespoon of garlic
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 1 garlic clove thinly sliced
• 6 large tomatoes cut up (I do not bother to peel)
• 1 handful of fresh basil chopped.
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 1/4 cup of cream or milk
• Salt and pepper

Cook the garlic and onion in the olive oil in a large pot on medium heat until the onion is transparent. Add the chopped tomatoes, basil and stock.

Vij's grilled tamarind marinated chicken

My Father came in to meet me for lunch the other day and we went to one of our favourite Vancouver restaurants Rangoli's.  This is the casual cousin to Vij's restaurant on West 14th.  The food is every bit as good and if you arrive just before 12:00 noon you can usually get a table with no problem.  We both ended up ordering the same dish, tamarind marinated grilled chicken, which we also both really enjoyed.  So when I looked on Vij's website and found that they had a recipe for this dish I had to try it.

So Sunday night dinner I cooked an Indian meal with this as the star.  One of the main ingredients for this dish is tamarind paste.  You could of course buy tamarind pods, peel them soak them and push the pulp through a sieve, or you could buy a pot of tamarind paste. I think you can guess what I did, you can pick this up at any Asian market and it keeps for a long time in the fridge.

Feeds 4

• 8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 3/4 cup of plain low fat yogurt
• 1 tablespoon of tamarind concentrate
• 1 large garlic clove grated or finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of cayenne 
• 1 tablespoon of ground cumin

Borlotti bean soup

When shopping at the Red apple on Hastings I came across these very beautiful beans and had to buy them.

They have several different names, depending where you come from, the Italians call them borlotti beans but they are often called cranberry beans in North America.  I suspected (and was correct) that like purple beans they loose their colour and beauty when you cook them.  I decided to make soup as this seemed to be the way that they were often cooked when I researched them. The shells are very hard so you have to shell them first before cooking.

I also picked up some beautiful local red chard as I thought these two flavours would go very well together.

1 small onion chopped
1 clove of garlic thinly sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 cups of chicken stock
1 bay leaf
A sprig of rosemary
A sprig of sage
2 cups of hulled borlotti beans
1 bunch of red chard

Lighter chicken parmasan

I am again trying to eat lighter and exercise more, this is almost an annual thing for me, as I have a tendency to gain weight and after all I love food, and would rather eat and cook than almost anything else. I committed to lose 8 lbs before going on my next big trip in late October, 3 weeks in and I am down 3lbs with 5 more to go in just over 4 weeks. So comes the challenge to create tasty food that is low in calories and fat.

I saw the idea for this on pinterest, but the version there was using prepackaged items and was not particularly healthy so I have changed it up a lot and came up with a dish that fits my brief of using fresh ingredients, and I will definitely make it again.

For 4

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in to quarters
• 1 bunch of fresh basil
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 cups of tomato puree or tomato sauce
• 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs (I used panko)
• 1/4 cup of grated parmasan cheese

Place the basil, garlic and olive oil in a small food processor.

Wizz up to make a nutless pesto.

Spread all this mixture on the bottom of baking dish.

Green tomato chutney

My house faces due south and therefore my back yard is due north, in the middle of summer this is often a good thing as there is always some shade and it does not get too hot.  On the other hand it means that it is not very good for growing vegetables, especially tomatoes. My front deck however is not only good for growing tomatoes, it is also a good place to display my first jar of green tomato chutney.

As well as facing south there are no trees shading it, and the glass front on the deck shelters all the plants and works almost like a mini green house.  This extends the growing time as well as the sitting out time to almost any sunny day in the year.

Up to now I have grown only cherry tomatoes, but this year I bought a plum tomato plant as well as some other variety of larger tomato.  The plum tomato plant has been very prolific and I will certainly plant more of these in the future, I have eaten many beautiful red tomatoes off it this summer, but now in late September I am afraid those green tomatoes are never going to ripen.

So fearing the worst, Connie I decided to turn the remaining unripened tomatoes in to green tomato chutney. I have never made this before so I had to hunt on the Internet for a suitable recipe. I found one on the River Cottage website which is from England and is all about less dependence on the outside world, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce.

All the green tomatoes left on the deck

I have changed the recipe a little as I wanted more spices and I did not have enough raisins or malt vinegar, but any way this is what we did and it turned out beautifully. We made 4 times the recipe, but I have given the ingredients for the original quanaties.

Curried chicken and grape sandwich

I needed to make some lunch, and there was some left over cooked chicken sitting in my fridge, and a fresh loaf on french bread on the counter, oh happy day.  I am trying to eat a little lighter at the moment in order to lose a few pounds before a big trip, so I wanted to make a lighter chicken salad for my sandwich.  I cut the the mayonnaise in half and substituted plain yogurt.

Chicken sandwich for two

1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

1 tablespoon of plain yogurt

1 teaspoon of curry powder

1 cup of cooked chicken cut up

About 8 large green grapes halved (or you could use raisons or dried cranberries)

About 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro

Combine the yogurt, mayonnaise and curry powder and chicken together and mix.