On their own, the super foods are fighting a losing battle against refined crappy crap. But when they join forces their powers combined make an unstoppable health benefit for fighting the evil toxins in our intoxicated bodies. Combine the colourful forces of these classic and trendy superfoods to make a bright, light salad that is full of goodness and great taste. It’s loaded up to make a complete and balanced meal.

Mega morphing salad 

Black

1 bunch of black kale, leaves finely shredded 

Red

1 cup water

1/2 cup red quinoa ( you can also use red or regular)

pinch of salt

Pink

1 pink grapefruit

300g Cunningham smoked trout

Yellow 

Juice of 1 lemon

¼ cup Highwood Crossing organic canola oil

½ cup Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp yellow mustard

1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger

salt to taste

Green

3 cups (approximately) of mixed greens 

To make the vinaigrette. Put all the ingredients into a large glass jar with a lid. Close the lid up tight and give everything a really good shake. Set vinaigrette aside to get happy for a little while.

To cook the Quinoa. Bring water to a boil. Stir in the quinoa and reduce heat to low. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Remove lid and cook until the water evaporates. Pour the cooked quinoa out of the pot onto a large plate or baking dish and spread it out while fluffing it with a fork. Let the quinoa dry out a bit and cool to room temperature while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Cut off the top and bottom of the grapefruit. Place a flat side down and use a knife to cut away the peel. Once all the pink skin and white pith are cut away, you can start to remove the pieces of grapefruit supreme by cutting wedges out as close to the thin connected membrane as you can manage. The technique is called ‘supreme’. For detailed instructions on how to ‘citrus supreme’ check out swervecalgary.com and search “Citrus Supreme” for a how-to video.

To shred the black kale, remove the tough stem by cutting down each side. Save the stems for a stir-fry. Collect all the leaves into a neat and tidy pile and hyper-thinly slice until you’ve got a springy pile ready to get dressed.

Get dressed. Dress each item individually to ensure everything is distributed evenly.

Start with the mixed greens and kale together. Dressing sparingly and to your personal taste with the vinaigrette and use your clean hands to toss the leaves. Divide into two bowls.

Now toss the grapefruit supremes in vinaigrette until nicely coated. Arrange the grapefruits into and around the nest of greens.

Now dress the quinoa with vinaigrette. Be sure it doesn’t end up getting too sloppy. Scatter the quinoa on and around the mixed greens. Carefully arrange pieces of smoked trout on the salad.

Any left over vinaigrette can be saved for future salads.

Serve forth and prosper.

Scarborough Fair was an annual raucous medieval festival of merriment organized to conduct a little bartering. This pleasant peasant party lasted from The Feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary (Aug 15) until the Feast of St.Michael (Sept 29). Raise thine flagons of good-cheer beer and snarffle down a herby minced meat hand-pie whilst thou sing a classic ballad in honour of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Scarborough hand pies

Makes 4 handpies, the recipe is easily doubled

Hot water crust

1 ½ cups flour

pinch of salt

1 egg

1/3 cup water

1 stick of butter, cubed

filling

150g (approx ½ cup) Spragg Meats Ground pork

150g (approx ½ cup) Spragg Meats breakfast Pork sausage

¼ cup of raisins or currants

2 sprigs each of parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (leaves only)

egg-wash

1 beaten egg for brushing and sealing

Sift flour into a large bowl.  Make a hole in the middle and toss in the egg, cover it with some flour.

In a small pot combine the water, salt and butter, bring to a boil until the butter is completely melted.

Pour the hot water into the dry ingredients and use a table knife to mix it all together until you form a dough ball.

Gather the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and blap it all into the fridge to chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile prepare your meatballs.

Combine the finely chopped herbs with the meat and divide the meat into 4 equal balls. Roll them tightly.

Cut off 1/3 of the dough ball and set aside for the lids. Roll out the remaining dough until it is ¼ inch thick. Cut out 4 5-inch circles using a bowl as a cutting guide.

Roll out the remaining 1/3 of the dough ball to ¼ inch thick. Cut out 4 3-inch lids using a smaller bowl as a cutting guide.

Brush beaten egg around the edge of the 5-inch disk of dough.

Place a meatball in the center of the disk of dough and pull up the sides to form an open pocket around the meatball. Now place a lid on top and crimp the edges to seal, pinching and crimping all around to form a seal. Now poke a small hole in the top to vent and brush the tops with the remaining egg wash. If you like you can cut out some little leaf shapes from the remaining dough to place on the top of the pie. So ornate!

Pop them back into the fridge for 20 minutes to firm up.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375˚F.

Place the pies an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 375˚ for 15 minutes, take out the pies and reduce the heat down to 325˚F for 15 minutes or until golden brown and beautiful.

Set them on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes before eating one with a nice flagon of ale.

For some pictures on shaping handpies, check out an older post for Plumpies

As seen in Swerve Magazine…

Life isn’t all peaches and cream, but sometimes it can be.

It’s the truly perfect peachy micro-moments of unquantifiable bliss that make life worth living. Don’t get caught up in trying to beat the monotony of life with canned peach-attempts at happiness, pick the perfect moments and savour the sweetness while it lasts. Enjoy those juicy bursts of peachy perfection that give us the real warm, fuzzy navel feeling inside.

Peaches and cream chilled soup perfection

6 very ripe peaches (can also be over ripe, or slightly bruised for this recipe)

1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger

2 Tbsp runny honey

500 ml 2% or homogenized milk

250 ml of whipping cream

pinch of salt

honey as needed

Get a large pot of water on to boil.

Meanwhile fill a large bowl halfway with ice and add enough cold water to fill the rest of the bowl ¾ of the way up. Leaving enough room for the peaches to fit in the bowl.

When the water is boiling rapidly, drop all the peaches in at once. Careful not to get splashed with hot water.

Boil the peaches for 30-60 seconds to loosen the skin and then  scoop them out with a slotted spoon and dunk immediately into the ice bath to cool for 1 minute.

Use your fingers to peel away the loosened skin and discard. If the skin does not come away easily simply pop it in the boiling water for another 30 seconds and back into the ice bath to cool.

Now you can tear open the peaches using your fingers and discard the pits. Pile all the peaches in a medium pot and add the milk, honey, pinch of salt and fresh grated ginger. The whipping cream goes in much later.

Over medium heat bring the pot to a bare simmer. When you see little bubbles forming quickly around the edges of the pot and some steam rising from the middle you can remove it from the heat and get ready to purée the soup.

Using a stand up blender and blending while hot makes your soup super smooth, much better than a hand blender. However, puréeing hot soup in a stand up blender requires kitchen know-how so you don’t end up splatter painting your kitchen and face with the hard to colour match “peach explosion”.

Remove the little plastic thingy center hole from the lid of your stand up mixer, and cover the hole with a folded dry tea towel. (This stops it from being airtight, which would cause an ugly kick at the start—although the steam can sometimes get slightly warm on your hand.) Fill up your blender only half way and do batches. Start on low, and build up the speed incrementally.

When the soup is looking smooth, turn it off.

Pour the soup into a container, wrap the top tightly with plastic wrap and get it into the fridge to cool for at least 2 hours.

When you are ready to serve get a large bowl and a big whisk and beat the whipping cream until it is nice and thick. Soft peaks if you want to get technical.

Add 1/3 of the whipped cream to the peach purée and mix it in until smooth. Add another 1/3 of the whipping cream and mix in. Now add the last of the whipped cream and stir it all until smooth.

To serve, simply pour the thick creamy soup into lovely chilled bowls or teacups. You could also add a splash of champagne to each serving or dig out that bottle of peaches schnapps.

As seen in Swerve Magazine…

Wanna look good in a bikini? Quit stuffing yourself with fettuccini. Instead stuff yourself with slimming summer squash transformed into a very satisfying zucchini linguini. Or for the gentlemen you can just put a zucchini in your bikini…

zucchini linguini

Serves 6 for a taste or 4 for a course

pesto

1 bunch fresh parsley

a large handful of arugula

1 clove garlic, grated or finely minced

1 cup walnuts

zest and juice of 1 lemon

salt to taste

1/2 cup olive oil

zucchini

2 large zucchinis

pinch of salt

scallops

12 large (U-10) scallops

garnish

½ bunch of chopped fresh parsley

fresh cracker pepper

really good olive oil

To make the lemony pesto

Combine all the pesto ingredients in a food processor and blend until mixture is consistently smooth. Scrape down the sides if needed. Use what you need for the past, and save the leftovers in the fridge topped with a lid of fresh oil and some plastic on top for up to a week.

To make the zucchini pasta.

Get a good vegetable peeler or a mandoline and start trimming off long ribbons of zucchini. Once your peeling hits the zip-strip of seeds in the center of the zucchini, rotate and peel the other side until all you have is the center core of seeds. Pile a couple of the ribbons on top of each other and slice them lengthwise into the desired thickness.

Get a large frying pan on the stove and let it warm up for 5 minutes. Dump all the zucchini into the pan, scoop on lots of pesto all over and toss to coat. Put a lid on and cook for 3 minutes to warm it through.

For the scallop

Get a large frying pan on high heat. Preheat the pan for 5 minutes.

Place all the scallops on a plate lined with paper towel. Lay some more paper towel on top and pat the scallops dry.

Get a small plate with oil ready. Dip the scallops lightly in the oil before placing them into the dry pan starting at 12-oclock (clock-face location) and make your may around clockwise. That way when you start flipping the scallops you can do them in order.

Cook the scallops until the bottoms are brown and seared, about 3 minutes. Flip and continue cooking the other side for 3 more minutes. Serve immediately and don’t let your scallops get over cooked.

Discard the dipping oil.

To serve

Serve up six piping hot bowls of zucchini ribbons and top each pile with a bit more pesto and two or 3 big scallops.

Crack on loads of pepper and a drizzle of good olive oil.

Serve zucchini linguini with a martini in your bikini.

All the exotic chicks are flocking back to show off their tanned plumage. Even though chickens have been a steady winter staple doesn’t mean you have to ditch the old bird for the new birds of paradise. Give the familiar chicken a refresher with a little spring makeover that will have everyone clucking for more.

Finger lickin’ Spring Chicken wraps

2 Chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes

Yogurt Marinade

Pinch of salt

Fresh cracked pepper

½ cup greek or Balkan-style yogurt

2 cloves garlic, grated

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 Tbsp tomato paste

zest of 1 lemon (save juice for the sauce)

Yogurt sauce

Pinch of salt

Few cracks of pepper

1 cup yogurt

½ cucumber, peeled and seeded

1 clove garlic, grated

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 sprig of mint or basil leaves, rough chopped

juice of 1 lemon

Lettuce cups

2 heads of butter lettuce or 1 head of iceberg lettuce

Start by preparing the marinade. Place all the ingredients for the marinade in a large bowl and mix it all up. Dump the cubed chicken into the bowl and toss in the marinade until the chicken is thoroughly coated. Set aside for ½ hour to get lovely.

While the chicken is marinating, mix up your yogurt sauce. To do the cucumber, first peel it, then split it lengthwise. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. Grate the cucumber into a separate bowl and squeeze out most of the water before adding it to the mix. In a clean bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix it thoroughly.

Preheat the oven on Broil and make sure the rack is in the middle of the oven.

Get a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper and start placing the marinated chicken on the tray. Keep the chicken evenly spaced. Top each chunk of chicken with a little more marinade and then get them into the oven to cook.

Bake for 7 minutes, then flip all the chicken pieces over. Bake for another 7 minutes. Cut the largest piece of chicken open to see if it is done inside. If not quite done, pop it all back in the oven until the chicken is cooked through and the meat is not pink.

Separate all the lettuce leaves and arrange them on a platter. Top each leaf with a nice scoop of the sauce and plop a piece of hot chicken on top.

Grab it like a taco and eat it while the chicken is still warm.

Coronation Chicken

Listen to the radio spot

Coronation chicken is a classic homage to the Royal Family on the brink of the impending wedding of P. Willy and K-Midz. Dice 1 cooked and cooled chicken breast. Place in a bowl and two big scoops of mayonnaise, a little scoop of mango chutney, 15 raisins and a tsp of yellow curry powder. Feel free to add more curry if you like more. Season to taste with salt and serve on really nice bread with some watercress or arugula for a great Coronation Chicken Salad Sandwich.

DAB DAY

Today is International “Draw a Bird” day. Spread the joy by doodling a little birdie while you enjoy your chicken wraps and whistle a happy little tune. You can even submit your drawing to www.dabday.com

The grown up hippies are thinking less about scoring and more about cholestrol. Here’s some real flower-powered savoury granola made with heart-friendly canola oil that will get your motor humming along to the song. Live longer and stick it to the ‘man’ by using Highwood Crossing local, organic, non-gmo canola oil. Canola is also used to make bio-diesel so you can finally dust off the old shaggin’ wagon to offset your carbon footprint.

Savoury Canola Granola

Dry stuff

2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal

3/4 cup whole raw almonds

2 Tbsp canola seeds

1 Tbsp mustard powder

1 tsp paprika

¼ tsp cayenne

Wet stuff

3/4 cup tomato, V8 or carrot juice

¼ cup honey or maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 275°F.

In a big bowl, mix all the dry stuff together, then add the wet stuff, and mix with your hand. Don’t freak out because it looks like slop. The liquid will all evaporate during baking.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Plop little globs freely all over the baking sheet. Just let it plop, and don’t muck with it—the more you muck with it, the more it will glom together.

Blap it in the oven. Every 20 minutes, take the tray out and with a spatula flip the granola while breaking it up into slightly smaller pieces. By the third flip (60 minutes of baking), the pieces should be ever so slightly damp and bite-sized. Then blap it back into the oven for the last time, baking for 20 more minutes. Without opening the oven door, turn the oven off, and leave the tray in the oven for 2 hours. Cooling it this way is crucial to get the granola crunchy.

Once cooled completely put the granola in a sealable container, and add your nut medley. Shake it all up and you’ve got savoury granola.

Serve it on plain yogurt, or sprinkled on a fresh salad, or munch it straight from the container.

Makes about 3 cups of granola.

For more info about Canola,

go check out the rest of my article at  SWERVE.

Kitchen Scraps won big time at the Canadian Food Blog Awards in the Best Professional Food Blogger category. And in my humble Canadian way I would like to say thank you to Beer and Buttertarts.

Along with the Canadian spirit here is a great Canadian recipe excerpted from Kitchen Scraps: A Humourous Illustrated Cookbook.

It’s ripe with innuendo

LumberJack Flap Jacks

Perhaps the wood is always best first thing in the morning, because nothing gets lumberjacks up faster than morning wood. But what keeps lumberjacks going all day long? Light, fluffy pancakes, full of hearty energy to keep their axes swinging from morning to night. And if you want to go at it all day like a lumberjack, here is a lunch recipe to keep you going all day.

BMP: Bacon and maple syrup on pancake

Pack a hearty lunch with your leftover pancakes. Just slap a couple pieces of bacon (the regular kind or Canadian bacon) and a swizzle of maple syrup between two pancakes, and voilà, you have a pancake picnic. Also try adding lettuce and tomato and a gloop of mayo for a hearty BLT.

The life of a gypsy is a colourful patchwork of adventure. Constant change is the spice of life for these ragamuffin nomads. Salmagundi, sometimes abbreviated as Salmi, is derived from the old French word Salmagondis which means a mismatched medley of unrelated objects, people or ideas. The concept of a collective chaos works perfectly in a salad bowl and the variety will keep you salad interesting and always fresh.

Salad-magundy

I cup diced, cooked meat: Ham, chicken, hardboiled egg, canned tuna, cooked shrimp, etc

½ cup fruit, fresh or dried: strawberries, blueberries, figs, tomatoes, avocado, mango, olives, etc

½ cup vegetable: grated carrot, thinly sliced celery, cauliflower florets, pickled beets, roasted vegetables, sliced onion, blanched green beans etc

¼ cup toasted nut: toasted walnuts, pecans, crushed peanuts, slivered toasted almonds, pumpkin seeds, etc

¼ cup cheese, crumbled or grated: blue cheese, feta, chevre, cheddar, etc

4 cups leafy salad greens: romaine, mesclun mix, arugula, iceberg, etc

Vinaigrette

1 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup red or white wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon or grainy mustard

salt and pepper

1 clove of garlic

Start with making the vinaigrette. Get a clean mason jar with a tight fitting screw top lid. Place all the vinaigrette ingredients in the jar and give them a good shake.

Leave it to let the flavours infuse. The mixture will separate over time, but all you need to do is give it a good shake before using. The dressing will keep in the fridge for 1 month.

You can assemble a composed salad in a few ways.

Tossed salad: Place all the ingredients willy nilly in a large bowl. Drizzle some of the dressing around the outside and carefully use your finger tips to toss the salad making sure each and every bit of salad is nicely coated with dressing, but drenched. You can always add more dressing, so start with less than half the dressing and add more as needed. After it is tossed you can transfer it to a clean serving bowl or serve it on individual plates.

Pros: fastest and easiest technique. Cons: the good stuff tends to settle on the bottom of the bowl and is poorly distributed.

Layered salad: Fill a large serving bowl with the lettuce of choice. Give a light drizzle of dressing all over the salad. Scatter on the salad topper ingredients and drizzle on a little more of the dressing.

Pros: Good distribution of the high-profile ingredients. Cons: Sometimes people just grab all the high profile stuff from the top and leave the lettuce in the bottom.

Composed salad: Get a large bowl and place some of the dressing in the bottom. Toss the lettuce to coat lightly with dressing. Use your fingertips and allow any excess dressing to fall off the leaves before placing on a plate. Now toss each ingredient individually in the bowl before placing on a plate in a designated spot or dispersed on top of the lettuce. Dress the meat, then the fruit and veg. The nuts and cheese don’t need to be dressed, but can be scattered on top.

Pros: equal distribution of ingredients, especially good for individually plating, even dressing coverage. Cons: takes more time.

Suggested servings

By definition a Salmagundi is an assembly of things that don’t necessarily go together. But with these mix and match options you’ll be able to concoct tasty new salads all the time if you mix it up. For those who are afraid of the unknown here are some nice combos to start with.

Kinda Cheffy: Ham + tomatoes + thin sliced celery + toasted slivered almonds + grated cheddar cheese + iceberg

Sorta Cobby: Chicken + Avocado + roasted veggies + crushed peanuts + chevre + romaine

Slightly Californian: Shrimp + sliced strawberry + sliced red onion + toasted pecan + Blue cheese + arugula

Mostly Nicoise: Canned Tuna + hardboiled egg + olives + blanched green beans + pumpkin seeds + mesclun mix

fresh pick

When picking heads look for tightly packed heads with clean, firm leaves. No soft spots, brusing or moldy bits.

Wash and dry the leaves only when you are about to eat. Tear with your hand, don’t cut with a knife or you risk bruising the leaves. Be very gentle with the little gems.

If you buy the pre-boxed salad mixes rinse them gently in cold water and dry the leaves in a salad spinner before eating.

Check under and around the box for signs of spoiling, once spoiling starts it won’t take long for the whole box to spoil.

quick fire

Sautéed greens. If your box of mixed greens is starting to show signs of spoiling you can still save it if you act immediately. Pick out the most offensive leaves and rinse the rest thoroughly. Get a large frying pan with a lid on the stove over high heat. When the pan is hot toss in the washed greens and put the lid on it.

When the greens begin to wilt and soften, toss in some bits of butter, a splash of balsamic and a good pinch of salt. Or better yet, you could use any left over vinaigrette to add flavour instead of the butter and vinegar. Serve with some nice cracked pepper and enjoy this nice alternative to sautéed spinach. Eat immediately.

nerdbyte

‘Salmagundi’ can also refer to a disparate assortment of foods and recipes including a hodge-podgey pirate’s stew, a Jamaican Fish Paste (Salomon Grundy) or a cocktail of apple juice mixed with champagne.

However, from a definitive point of view any non-sequitorial combination of ingredients could be called a Salmagundi.

This dude is kicking butt!

Chuck Hughes was just in town to talk about the success of Chuck’s Day Off, cooking with kids and trying to get a day off.

Chuck is the host of the increasingly popular show Chuck’s Day off. The show in which the tattooed and charismatic chef Chuck enjoys his day off by cooking in his restaurant, Garde Manger in Old Town Montreal. The second season just started on Foodnetwork Canada last week. But the big news is Chuck’s Day Off has broken into the highly coveted US television market along with fellow Montreal native Nadia G from Bitchin’ Kitchen.

He made a recent private appearance here in Calgary at Kulinary Kids as the faceman for the Hellman’s Real Food Movement. He easily juggled the media and worked smoothly with the little bundle of kids. There were some seriously big laughs and the kids had a total blast. He even managed to whip up a bunch of sandwiches on a gibbled leg (he just had a cast removed and is adjusting to the new metal-work in his ankle).

With his genuine enthusiasm and joie-de-vivre he is destined to take Canada far in the world of food celebs.

After the quick tour of Canada with Hellman’s Chuck will be back to work running the restaurant, doing a promotional tour of the US and if he actually does get a real day off you’ll probably find him at Garde Manger putting in a new tile floor.

boB’s first words were ‘moM’, ‘daD’, and ‘kayak’ which did nothing to arouse any suspicion. Even when he blurted his first sentence “So many dynamos!” nobody could have guessed at his condition. But when boB exclaimed ‘repaid!’ when he filled his diaper, his concerned parents consulted the family doctor who diagnosed him with bassackwarditis.

Inspite of his affliction boB grew up to be as normal as might be expected. He works the night shift at a daycare center, reads Swerve Magazine from back to front (some might argue that the best stuff is in the back), is devoted to his doG and his favourite food is grilled-cheese sandwiches… and if you think grilled cheese doesn’t sound backwards, it’s cause you’ve never tried boB’s grilled-cheese sandwich.

It’s a big piece of crunchy, golden gooey grilled cheese served up on soft, fresh bread with sweet grilled veggies. And you’ll agree it’s not a banana baton.

boB’ grilled-cheese sandwich

batter

2 eggs

½ cup flour

½ cup milk

pinch of salt

pinch of cayenne

4 ½-inch slices of Kefalotiri, Kefalograviera, Vlahotiri

canola oil for frying

grilled veggies

1 red peppers

1 yellow pepper

2 small zucchini

¼ cup olive oil

1 clove garlic, grated

1 tsp dried oregano

salt

pepper

juice of 1 lemon

4 slices of bread or 1 big baguette of choice: A fresh French baguette from Manuel Latruwe, Kettle Loaf from Lazy Loaf & Kettle or sourdough from the Rustic sourdough.

PROCEDURE

Start with your veggies. Split the zucchinis lengthwise down the middle. Remove the seeds from the peppers and leave them in as big a piece as possible. Toss the veg into a plastic baggie with olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Let it marinate while you go fire up the grill. Grill the veggies over high until they soften and get some nice grill marks.

Set them aside to cool. When they are cool, slice it all up into thin strips and toss the whole mess in a bowl for later.

Now whip up the batter by whisking the flour, eggs, milk, salt and cayenne in a large bowl. Make sure there are no lumps. Set this aside for 10 minutes to relax.

Get your frying pan onto the stove over medium heat and leave it to get nice and hot for 3 minutes. If you have an indoor grill pan, it would work nicely.

You can attempt to cook the cheese on the barbecue, but you risk losing most of the batter through the grates and making a mess.

Dip the cheese into the batter and get it nicely coated on all sides.

Add enough oil to the hot pan so that it generously covers the entire bottom of the pan.

Now lift up that big piece of drippy cheese and lay it into the hot oil carefully, tilting it away from you so if the oil splashes out of pan, it won’t splash you.

Fry that chunk of cheese until it’s beautifully golden brown. Once again be careful when you flip it not to splash yourself with oil. Flip and fry until the other side is golden and the cheese it nice and soft.

Get your bread ready by loading on some of your lovely soft grilled veg. Quickly place the hot crunchy, gooey cheese on the grilled veg and serve hot.

You’ll love the hot gooey crunchy cheese with the softness of the fresh bread and the sweetness of the grilled veggies.

Enjoy it for dinner, lunch or breakfast.