Guilt Free Comfort Food

Sometimes I find myself craving some of my childhood favourites – chicken fingers, mac ‘n cheese and the #1 culprit is always pizza. Recently I decided to make some homemade chicken fingers – this doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a fancy adult meal in the process! I breaded them with italian style crumbs, some parmesan cheese and thyme thrown in. With little to no effort, I have some tasty chicken nibbles!

The guilt-free part comes with a huge side helping of veggies. I love small sweet tomatoes mixed in with savory mushrooms. I simply fried these up with salt and pepper. Delish!

Honeydew Smoothies

My favourite treat is a really good smoothie! Since we had way too much ripe fruit lying around I decided to make this very different smoothie. Of course it needs to be served in my very favourite mug. :)

This was quite simple but delicious and refreshing:

That’s it! I prefer not to add banana to this because it would be very overpowering and I wanted to taste all that delicious mild honeydew.

Learning Japanese the Right Way

I‘ve always been a huge advocate of learning a language from native speakers. More importantly, immersing yourself in their culture. Go to countries where they don’t speak any english and you will literally be forced to learn the language properly. This method isn’t for everyone and sure – it can cost a lot to travel; but the gains you will receive far outweigh the downfall of hefty airplane ticket prices.

As a young girl, I grew up going to french school and was immersed in the language at home as well. When I entered my second high school there were no french programs available. But as I was in 10th grade and fluent in french I cleverly set out to take a grade 13 french class in order to “breeze by” in my transition into the new school. What I saw in that class was a nightmare. Young students eager and willing to learn and who thought they were quite advanced at speaking and comprehending the language. But they were barely scraping by on elementary grammar lessons and simple comprehension quizzes. The part that saddened me the most was they believed they were learning something useful and were proficient in the language. This wasn’t their fault however, they were just in the wrong environment.

Now, back to Japanese. What is the right environment, short of flying to Japan and talking to people yourself? Well here is a very great resource for beginners and even higher levels of learning.

Erin’s Challenge! (by The Japanese Foundation)

You can watch real life situations through their videos – including subtitles in kanji, hiragana, romaji and english! It’s all native speakers and the subtitles can be changed on the fly. I’m having a lot of fun watching the videos lately. They’re followed up by vocab with large printed text for easy reading. Even a manga section included if you can’t watch the videos!

Have fun learning!

Probably the best pizza ever!

Just a quick post to show the best pizza ever! My friend Ema and I made this one night after talking about it the previous day. She made the dough from scratch and it was delicious!

Zuchinni, Tomatoes, Serrano Ham, Sundried Tomatoes, Olives, Parmesan, Fresh Mozza

Cornmeal Chicken & Roasted Peach Salsa

I‘ll be the first to admit that I made this recipe for the sole purpose of eating roasted peach salsa. In my opinion the salsa is the star on the plate and the chicken is just something to go undernearth it. Having the chicken breaded in cornmeal makes it pretty tasty though! You could eat this with plain grilled chicken and it would be just as good. Serve with a baked potato, sour cream and a simple salad.

Peach Salsa

- 1/2 cup chopped fresh peaches
- 1/2 cup chopped roma tomatoes
- 1/2 small red onion, chopped
- 1 jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped
- 1 tsp fresh lime juice
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (fresh! don’t skimp)
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper

I planned to roast the peaches whole on the BBQ beforehand but we ran out of propane. I cut the peaches in half and cooked them in a pan; It didn’t have the same flavour but it still worked.

Barley Risotto with bacon & thyme

This is now my favourite comfort food in a bowl! It was a very delicious dinner but had a long cooking time for a weeknight like tonight. I’m saving this for special occaisions from now on. I was pretty excited to try this recipe so here it is!

Ingredients

From Chef Michael Smith’s The best of Chef at Home:
8 cups chicken broth
8 slices bacon, thinly chopped
2 or 3 onions, peeled and chopped
4 or 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup white wine
a sprinkle or two sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 cup grated Grana Padano Parmesan cheese

Pour the chicken broth into a stockpot and bring to a very slow simmer over medium heat.

Meanwhile, in another saucepan, fry the bacon over medium-high heat until it is crisp and golden brown. Pour off about half of the fat. Add the onions and garlic and sauté them for a few minutes until they’re translucent and soft.

Stir in the barley and continue cooking, stirring constantly until the grains are well coated with oil and slightly toasted, about 3 minutes.

Pour in the wine and continue stirring as the barley quickly absorbs the liquid. Begin adding the heated stock, 1 cup (250 mL) or so at a time, stirring constantly to allow each addition of the liquid to be absorbed by the barley before adding more. Because the broth is already hot, the temperature of the barley will stay consistently hot, which, along with the constant stirring, encourages the release of the starch in the barley. In turn, the starch thickens the surrounding liquid and makes it creamy.

Continue stirring in the hot broth until the risotto is tender and creamy. Taste frequently to judge the doneness of the barley grains. It will take about 45 minutes from the time you add the first broth until the rice is done.

Season with salt and pepper and stir in the thyme and cheese. Serve immediately.

Mojito? Yes, Please!

This will just be a quick post just to show you my favourite drink which is probably the most refreshing drink for summer – perfect with BBQ’d food or just leftovers..

Mojito!

The recipe I used is from rumdood.com – an amazing recipe site decided to all things rum.

2 oz White Rum
1 oz Lime Juice
.75 oz Simple Syrup
10 Mint Leaves
2 oz Soda

Pour soda into a Collins glass (in my case, a Pom glass) and set aside. Add all but soda to a mixing tin. Use a muddler to bruise the mint. Whip ingredients without ice (dry shake) and dump on top of the soda in your glass. Add ice and garnish with freshly spanked mint.

Pictured here and also garnished with a cute umbrella. :)