Weather or not…

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

There are times when everything lines up and comes together for a flavourful experience. And when the weather behaves so it makes sense for this meal, well life is really good. November can be really dreary up here. The autumn colours are long gone, the city has picked up the leaves, days are no longer crisp and clear, no beautiful snow shots at the moment to ease the cold. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anxious to start shoveling the white stuff. But this past Saturday? Gorgeous. Bright sun with a warmth in the air. Salad weather if you can believe it.

Which is just what I wanted. I had several ingredients that would make a perfect salad but it is soup weather. So Saturday was a real treat. I had posted about pomegranates and two bloggers gave me a great idea to use in salads. First Richard from REMCooks mentioned his wife likes the pomegranates in a salad and then Claire from An Eye For Food mentioned pomegranates with smoked salmon. Plus I had figs to use up. Perfect! 🙂

I made a quick fig jam, very rustic but very good. I chopped up the figs and in a small saucepan heated them up.

I mushed them as they started to heat up and added about 1/2 cup of organic apple cider. While that was cooking I started plating the salad. I used mixed spring greens, yellow and orange peppers, smoked salmon, goat cheese, pomegranate seeds, and then once the jam was done I spooned that round. Finished with a lemon chive dressing. I confess, I bought the dressing. But it looked good and it was. 🙂

This was the best salad I’ve made. All the flavours came together so well. It was, I fear, the last hooray for salads until spring now. This Sunday we’ll wake up to temps of 10F/-12C with wind that will keep us in the negative wind chills most of the day. I have a feeling the snow pants will be making their first appearance when we walk the dogs.

It’s all Greek to me….

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

15 years ago I actually got to say that in Greece. 🙂 I was navigating the drive and trying to give directions but as everything was in the Greek alphabet (go figure, I know) I threw my hands up and said “I don’t know it’s all Greek to me!” Things like that just crack me up. It was an amazing trip and I would love to go back. And of course, the food! So I thought I would do a Greek dinner. I had a bit of lamb shoulder and some gorgeous veg from the garden. I made a marinated grilled lamb with tzatziki sauce and a Greek salad. A real Greek salad. No lettuce allowed! Not sure how lettuce snuck in over here but the greek salads of my youth, you know the one with the iceberg lettuce, were anemic compared to the ones you get in Greece.

For the lamb marinade I used inspiration from the Barefoot Contessa. However, as her marinade was for 4-6 servings I definitely had to make it my own. To start I was making dinner for two. And as we don’t eat a ton the piece of meat we were sharing was just under 1/2 a pound. I needed to pick out a good dry red wine for this so I decided to use this wine from Spain.

Next in a bowl I added 2 cloves of garlic chopped, a sprig of rosemary chopped, a good sprinkling of dried oregano, just over 1/8 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, and 1/4 cup red wine.

Place the lid on the bowl and give a good shaking. This would be made easier with some good tunes. 🙂

Next season the lamb with salt and pepper. Sea salt or Kosher salt is best.

Place it in the marinade and set aside. I did this about an hour ahead. Next I made the dressing as I wanted it to have time for the flavours to meld. Again I used Barefoot Contessa as a guide for this one. In a small bowl mix 2 cloves chopped garlic, a small spoonful of stone ground mustard, 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, and some salt and pepper. Whisk it well.

Then while continuing to whisk add olive oil until you have the consistency you want.

Set aside in the fridge until it is time to serve. I waited to do the tzatziki sauce until I had the lamb cooking on the grill. I slow cook the lamb on the grill so it doesn’t come out tough. For the sauce I chopped up a large clove of garlic, no vampires with these dishes, and added it to a bowl with chopped cucumber. I used about a 1/2 cup of cucumber for this.

I added a healthy drizzle of olive oil and a few squeezes of lemon juice. Then I chopped up about a tablespoon of dill and added salt and pepper. To bring it all together I added a cup of Greek Yoghurt. I used fat free for this and it still came out thick and creamy.

Now it is always important to clean your recyclables. With yoghurt pots I have a team to help me. Guinness always gets the pot so poor Murphy has to settle for the lid. He doesn’t agree with this as you can see from his face.

About this time I check on the lamb as I don’t want it to overcook.

Making the salad is incredibly easy. The veg is chopped so it is nice and chunky. Except for the onions, I don’t like big chunks of raw onion so I do slivers. We have a few varieties ripening in the garden for our tomatoes so it makes for great flavour and colour.

I also chopped cucumber and peppers. I garnished with the feta cheese and kalamata olives. By this time the meat was done and rested and it was time to serve.

I was very pleased how all the flavours came together and it was a great pairing with the Spanish wine. It was a good dry drinking wine. 🙂

Cheddar Cheeseburger and Grilled Onions

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

We have a small farmer’s market here in town. It’s basically fruit and veg with a bit of meat thrown in here and there. We are getting to the time of year where there is more variety though this growing year has been tough. Too much extremes with heat and rain so the farmer’s have been struggling to grow enough to sell. The thing I like about some of the farmers is that if you have any questions on how to grow your own food they don’t hesitate to tell you their methods. It’s wonderful. And as they mostly follow organic practices it fits right in with our garden. Turns out we’ve been doing garlic all wrong! So this fall we’ll be doing it right. 🙂 Apparently we weren’t nearly patient enough!

I found some wonderful fresh garlic and sweet onions that I thought would make for a lovely cheeseburger. I’m loving our co-op for local organic meats so we had some ground beef on hand. I know, I should really grind the meat myself. I’ll get to that at some point!

To start I minced a few cloves of the garlic and mixed it in with the meat with salt and pepper and some Worcestershire sauce.

Then I grated some Irish cheddar. I didn’t really measure anything, just eyeballed it. I then mixed in the cheese. Of course, given the nature of the cheese it clumped up so I had to “shred” it a bit with my hands. It’s important to mix well but not to overwork the meat.

I formed them into patties and set aside while I prepped the onions.

These were small onions but I sliced them about 1/4″ thick, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and drizzled with olive oil.

Then I kept my fingers crossed as the last time I attempted to use the grill it would barely get warm. Have no idea why though we speculated it may have been to humid. Whatever the reason, it worked. Yay! The way I do our burgers is I put them on the grill for a few minutes to brown then flip again and cook for several minutes. I do one last flip and melt the cheese on it to finish off. Never press the burgers as you don’t want the juices disappearing.

Halfway through cooking the burgers I start grilling the onions. Just until they have a bit of charring and they have softened.

I was talking with my doctor this week saying how it is harder to lose weight now that I’ve joined the 40’s. I don’t have a lot to lose but it’s annoying that I’m eating less and exercising more and the scale just likes to stick to a certain number. Granted I’m gaining muscle but it should be shifting! She mentioned that there has been research into the method of eating your carbs in the morning and scaling back by evening. Because you need some carbs for fuel. Though potatoes are wonderful if you keep the skin on. Actually helps fight fat. Anyway, I opted to have my burger sans bun. We served them with a lovely salad and it was just the right amount to eat. Though I didn’t have room for our gooseberry apple crumble. Which is a shame.

Overall it was a juicy yummy burger and a very good balance with the salad!

Bacon Dressing and the Revolutionary War

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

Are you a loyalist or a patriot? We were asked that when we went to the kids camp for lunch. Little did he know! My husband said pacifist but apparently back then if you said that people just assumed you were a loyalist and were treated with suspicion. Now my husband doesn’t have any American history in his family but I do. My mum is American and people have been coming over nearly every generation in this family since the early 1600’s. Including me. So it makes for an interesting genealogy. There was a good number of my family that had to high tail it to Canada as they were loyalists. They came back down about fifty years later. You know, when it was safe. 🙂

Not sure if the gentleman playing the father of the camp noticed my Union Jack on the back of my phone! But we were served anyway. Lucky us as the kids did an amazing job. They made blueberry jam, butter, cornbread, pickles and soup. The soup was tasty but a bit much on a very hot day. So I was wilting a bit at the end. Loved the butter and the jam. So yummy. We were impressed with everything they did. And it was hard work keeping the fires going so they could boil the water and keep the tavern guests fed.

After a hot lunch it seemed like a good idea to do a cool dinner. I had some bacon to finish up. I know, tough problem to have. 🙂 But didn’t want it to go to waste. I thought I would have a go at some bacon dressing. Once I started cooking the bacon the dogs got very focused on what I was doing. Boy were they optimistic!

To make the dressing I scraped the bacon fat into a bowl and added some olive oil and white balsamic vinegar. I think I put a bit too much vinegar in. It was tasty but either less vinegar or more bacon drippings. Which would mean cooking more bacon. But it had a brightness to it that went well with the salad.

The genius of salad is you can tailor it to the individual taste. My husband likes beets and onion on his and he’s not a fan of blue cheese. So for his I added some jarlsberg. I love blue cheese and bacon together. A great combo.

Very filling on a hot day and I just love all the fresh flavours of the veg.

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

Tag Archives: salad

Weather or not…

It’s all Greek to me….

Cheddar Cheeseburger and Grilled Onions

Bacon Dressing and the Revolutionary War