Healthy lifestyle, week 1… it’s harder than it looks.

So I found out I have high cholesterol.  Great.  I can do this, lean meats etc.

But I forgot one thing: my family.

Family dinner, the night after I found I need a lifestyle change: spareribs in bbq sauce, mashed white potatoes.  No salad.  Clearly, I thought to myself, this will take some work.

Last night, we had my nephew’s birthday party.  He’s two!  And loves macaroni.  But my Dad was worried that the kids wouldn’t eat whole wheat pasta, because it’s brown.  So white pasta. And garlic bread, white of course.  And the sauce was complemented with prepackaged meatballs.  At least there was salad… it was caesar though, so that doesn’t help either.

And cake.

Well, I can’t complain about anyone else regarding the cake. It was an old-school hot milk cake, with plenty of whole milk and butter.  I baked it, I should know.  And homemade buttercream icing.  I spent the afternoon at Mom and Dad’s icing it, old-school star pattern.

Decorating in progress

Why yes, that *is* a Mickey Mouse cake.  The pan is from the 1970s.  So delightfully retro, I had great fun putting it all together.  Here’s the end result:

Mickey Mouse cake!

I am so pleased with how it all came together.  The lovely saturated colour on the buttercream is thanks to Duff’s gel colour (the Charm City Cakes guy!).  It turned out just like I had hoped.  My wee nephew loved it too, he was so excited to see Mickey.  Hot milk cake is perfect for an old-school birthday cake, it is moist and sweet.

Retro Hot Milk Cake like Mom used to make, and Grammie too.

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 vanilla extract or other flavoring
1 cup milk
1/4 pound (1 stick or 8 tablespoons) butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8- or 9-inch cake pans. THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE VERY THOROUGHLY. If you’re not using a shaped pan like I did, I would even take and cut out a round of parchment for the base of the pan, then grease and flour the sides.

Beat eggs well — until light (5-10 minutes). They should look lemony in colour. Gradually add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture and fold together.

Heat milk and butter in a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Add vanilla to the milk and butter. Add hot milk mixture and vanilla to cake batter slowly, in batches – you want to temper the eggs in the batter, not cook them – and stir until JUST combined, then pour into prepared pans. If you overmix, the cake will get too chewy.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or just until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Took me about 40 minutes for the large cake. Cool on a wire rack. Frost with favorite icing. I used a basic buttercream.

Makes two 8- or 9-inch layers, or one big ol’ retro cake pan as above.

The Ginormocake

It was my S-I-L’s birthday this past weekend.  Woo!  Too bad it was a snowstorm and she didn’t really get to do anything.  But, she had pizza and movies with my bro and their kids, and apparently that was enough.

We did family dinner on Sunday, pork tenderloin with an apple cream sauce from Best Recipes Ever (we adapted the recipe by substituting unsweetened apple sauce for apple cider, and it tasted like Normandy, so good) and I had made her a birthday cake.  I had asked what type of cake she wanted, and she didn’t really have any suggestions.  With my nephew still under 3, chocolate and nuts were out of the question (she’s pretty strict about that).  I checked Smitten Kitchen’s celebration cakes, and I found this recipe I thought would do… the pink lady cake.  Steph said it looked good, so it was a go!  Woo!

A pink lady cake, you may be aware, is what you get when you mix white cake mix and strawberry jello and then throw some strawberries into the batter, I mean what the heck.  This is not that cake.  This is better.

It was pink and buttery and delicious.

It was also ginormous.  I thought to myself “well, I’m making it in heart pans, maybe it will only take two”…  no such thinking.  it was a triple layer extravaganza.

pink-y goodness

This is where it gets comical.  First, I kind of overtrimmed the bottom layer.  Why I didn’t just flip the whole thing, I don’t know.  Anyway, there it was.  So the cake kind of perched drunkenly on the tupperware carrying case/serving board.  Which, by the way, it was too big for… I couldn’t snap the case shut, it would crush the cake.  This cake was so big that when I placed it on the table in front of my excellent S-I-L and her two kids, the kids’ heads disappeared behind the cake.  My brother has the video.  It’s hilarious.

So we were in good spirits, needless to say, and much laughter abounded.  What more do you want on a birthday, than laughter and delicious cake.

three goofs and a huge, pink, cake

I made this with a cream cheese icing that I adapted from the Smitten Kitchen website: it was two boxes of cream cheese, a stick and a half of butter, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, and a bag of icing sugar.  Tint to taste, thin if you need to with milk in order to write.  The icing was actually pretty thin itself, it’s a good thing I wasn’t doing any flowers.  I had to put it in the fridge to get it workable at all.  I used two shades of pink as well as white to get the decorations.

And now here’s the recipe for the cake, which I did not adapt in the least.  It makes a LOT of cake, if you are planning on doing this.  Probably best for a larger party.

Pink Lady Cake [Strawberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Filling]

from the amazing mind of Deb at  Smitten Kitchen

The cake recipe is adapted from Sky High, and the only thing I would change next time would be to add a drop or two of red food coloring because when cake is called Pink Lady, well, it should really be pink.  (note from mare – I did add food coloring, it was indeed pink.  Barbie-riffic.)

For the cake
4 1/2 cups cake flour
3 cups sugar
5 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups pureed frozen strawberries*
8 egg whites
2/3 cup milk
1 to 2 drops red food dye, if using (to make the pink color pop more)

For the cream cheese frosting  (note from mare: I adapted this recipe, see note above)
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks; 6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Make the cake
1. Preheat the oven to 350»F. Butter three 9-inch round or 8-inch square cake pans. Line with parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper. (note from mare – this really fills three pans!  easily!  it’s so much cake!)

2. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixer bowl. With the electric mixer on low speed, blend for 30 seconds. Add the butter and strawberry puree and mix to blend the ingredients. Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes; the batter will resemble strawberry ice cream at this point. (Deb note: I must warn you not to try the batter at this point. Not even a smear of it. How unbearably good it is will shock you, and lead to more dipping. Only you can stop this from coming to pass.)

3. In another large bowl, whisk together the egg whites, milk and red food dye, if using, to blend. Add the whites to the batter in two or three additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl well and mixing only to incorporate after each addition. Divide the batter among the three prepared pans.

4. Bake the cakes for 30 to 34 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the layers to cool in the pans for 10 to 15 minutes. Invert and turn out onto wire racks and peel off the paper liners. Let stand until completely cooled before assembling the cake, at least an hour.

Make the cream cheese frosting
5. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners’ sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

Frost and assemble the cake
6. Place one cake layer on a cake board or platter. Tucking scraps of waxed paper under the edges of the cake will protect the board or plate from any mess created while frosting the cake. (I forgot, as can be clearly seen above.) (note from mare – I never do this, but it would make it neater now I think on it) Spread about 2/3 cup frosting over the layer, spreading it to the edge. Repeat with the second layer. Add the top layer and frost the top and sides of cake with remaining frosting, reserving a small amount if you wish to tint it and pipe a decoration on the cake. If not, you can decorate the cake top with thinly-sliced strawberries. Remove the waxed strips to reveal and neat, clean cake board.

7. Serve with pink candles on pink plates to the sort of person who dreams in pink. I suspect you know at least one.

And so this is Christmas

Christmas, to me, has always been about family. Well, family, and the mellow song stylings of Mr. Bing Crosby. What can I say, it’s how I was raised.

I’ve had a lot to reflect on, these holidays: around the corner, my friend is recovering comfortably at home from receiving a new kidney and pancreas, but this means a family is having a first Christmas without their loved one; my academic supervisor’s mom passed away the week before Christmas; and a few time zones to the west I’ve two friends holding vigil by their good friend’s bedside at the hospice.

I think this year, with Mom having been in the hospital for three months and now confined permanently to a wheelchair, we’ve all come to appreciate what blessings we have.  Celebrating the simpler things in life, of being able to come together and share a meal.

And I was able to host that in my own home, including Mom in her chair – that was a treat for me.  I enjoyed decorating the table and making my home nice and cheerful for company.  However, I really, really, REALLY need a larger table and chairs.

All ready for guests.

I spent all day cooking.  No, literally, I was up at 7:30 making pie.

Nothing says "holiday meal" like pumpkin pie.

My brother’s mother-in-law makes THE BEST pumpkin pie.  When we do large family dinners, she brings it along and it is divine, I cannot describe.  She does this thing with the custard, it’s so creamy and sweet and deliciously decadent.  But they’re in Asia for a half year of travel and diving.  Just last week they were on the Great Barrier Reef: the shark pictures were astonishing.  Before they left, however, Barb very kindly left me two containers of her famed pumpkin custard, enough to make a pie.  So I did.  And it was awesome.  Thanks, Barb.

Whole lemon tart, sans vicar.

But one pie wouldn’t be enough, I knew.  In my family?  On Christmas?  No, sir.  We are pie fiends.  I wanted to do something a bit different, and seeing Meyer lemons at the Superstore the other day gave me occasion to do just that: Smitten Kitchen’s Whole Lemon Tart.  It uses the whole lemon, no lie!  Combined with her tart crust and it was a delightful dessert.  Tastes just like lemon squares.  And a bit like France.  So good, I would make this again in a heartbeat.  Not to mention it is all done in the food pro, so it’s very labour minimal.  Now I need a fluted tart pan.

As for the meal itself, here’s the menu:

• roast turkey, which I had brined Christmas eve, then stuffed with onions and clementines and with a generous splash of white wine in the bottom of the roasting pan.  I also used butter and various dried herbs on the bird (au revoir, fines herbes blend from France, I will miss you) with pan gravy.
• mom and dad’s stuffing.  They made that up.  It’s so good.
• cheesy mashed potatoes, which I made by mashing potatoes in butter, sour cream and a package of old cheddar cheese (the white stuff).  Yeah, these were awesome.
• carrots in a butter/clementine orange glaze
• haricots verts sauteed with shallots and guess what?  yup more butter.
• squash with butter, allspice, nutmeg and ginger.  I call it “gingerbread squash”, and it’s really tasty.

So it wasn’t a low calorie meal, it was deliciously awesome.  We paired it with some really delicious wine, too.  I had a kir royale before dinner with Jost’s PROST Acadie Blanc bubbly, and with wine we enjoyed a Cave Spring riesling.

Cheers to holiday eats!

I’m really lucky that I was able to share this meal with my family.  That’s the main thing.  Tonight I’m going to make a turkey soup with the leftover bones, and set that up for freezing. I’m enjoying the quiet things that make the holidays special, this year, while we’re all still here.  That’s what I’ve taken from 2011.

The festive baking extravaganza has begun

Yay, the holidays are almost here!

And since it’s my first time in my new house, I’m expecting I will have some visitors.  My family is like that.  They’ll wait till something happens before popping over.  And a new house, that’s a big something.

The house is starting to look good!  Nice and festive.  But there’s still much to be done.

And of course part of that is baking.  I can’t have people showing up without having something sweet on hand.  It’s JUST NOT DONE.

So today I made an egg nog bread.  I’ve made it before, it’s a nice little recipe. But I used paper containers from the Martha Stewart line, they are a bit odd to me.  These are for gifts, I’m making a bread also for myself to have on hand in case company pops by.

Egg nog loaf, so pretty in its wrappings.

The thing with using these paper containers is that they bulge out at the sides.  This was a bit surprising in the baking – the loaves didn’t rise as I had expected, they spread out instead.  So, that was odd.  And I was expecting them to take a bit more colour, but they stayed pretty bland-coloured.  Cooked through, though, I checked!

I’m pleased with the flavour of this bread.  I made a few slight changes to the recipe, because I found the original recipe to be a bit bland.  I also used rum instead of the rum extract that was called for.

Egg nog bread (slightly adapted from Taste of Home)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg (or fresh grated, which is what I used)
2 eggs
1 cup commercially prepared egg nog (I used Northumberland)
3/4 cup granulated sugar (I bet brown sugar would taste good too)
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp rum

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  In another bowl (or if you’re clever, a large pyrex measuring cup), beat eggs, eggnog, sugar, butter, vanilla and rum.

Pour into a greased loaf pan, cook at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a tester inserted near the centre comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes then transfer into wire racks.  Makes 3 mini-loaves, which was the initial suggested method, but it makes one just fine too.

But because I’m a keener, that wasn’t the only baking I did today.  I also made the basic Canadian Living chocolate chip cookie recipe which is an excellent basic chip cookie recipe.  It’s my go-to for chocolate chip cookies, it really is.

C is for cookie... nom nom nom

But I wanted to mix it up a little, so instead of using the traditional semi-sweet chocolate chips, I used dark ones, and I also used dried cherries to balance the sweetness of the cookie.  OH MY WORD these are good.  I have to get them into the freezer ASAP or I will eat them all.  So delicious.

Lots more baking to do between now and when people will start to come visit… I can’t wait to make and share these delicious treats!

Panzerbundt: because what else do you name a tank-shaped cake?

So here’s the thing.  My buddy in Warfare class, Sasha, challenged me to make a cake in the shape of a tank.  I don’t know how this came about, really, I was probably talking about how I like to bake, but anyway the gauntlet was tossed.  NATURALLY I could not refuse such a challenge.  I mean, how often to you get to make cakes in the shape of a tank?

Though now that I think about that, I study military history war and society so I probably would get to make a tank cake more than most.

In case you ever wanted to make your own Panzerbundt, this is how to go about doing it.

1. are you out of your damn mind?  don’t be silly.

2. ok fine.  better look up pictures of cake tanks online.  Most of them use fondant for coverage, which was my initial idea… until our prof made a face at the notion of fondant, a face which I usually only see on my 5 year old niece when faced with a plate of squash.  Or pickles.  Or anything she doesn’t want to eat, really.  I’m getting off track.  Fondant was out: buttercream was in, which is good, because I’m better at manipulating buttercream anyway.  But that also meant that I couldn’t just wrap a skewer with fondant and call it a cannon barrel, I had to come up with another method.

3. choose your cake.  Choose wisely, young grasshopper.  You want a good, dense cake.  I froze mine for easier carving, which also kept it moist for serving by the time it thawed.  PRO TIP courtesy my cake decorating mom.

Getting ready for the assembly of the cake.

This wonderful, rich, decadently chocolate cake is from the fabulous Deb at Smitten Kitchen, and here’s the link if you ever need to make a chocolate cake for a party.  This is the one to make.  One batch fills my 10×14″ sheet pan nicely, two layers of those make a very good slab cake.  I cut the layers in half for the tank base, and then trimmed a rectangular turret structure out of the remaining cake.  Then I made an extra cake for Dad.

I enjoy a literal decoration.

I also went with a ganache filling and used said ganache also as a crumb coat.  This was not as effective as I would have liked, because the ganache did not harden, but it did work perfectly serviceably.  Just not ideal.  You know what I mean?  I don’t have a recipe cause I kind of made it up.  Sorry.  But it also made the icing for Dad’s cake, when whipped.  Ah yeah, I whipped it good.

4. the icing is also important.  Since fondant was out, I needed something that would withstand an hour and a half up highway 7 (I was driving slowly so as not to destroy the cake!).  Mom does a very solid icing with shortening and confectioner’s sugar, but I find that is tooth-achingly sweet.  So I turned again to Smitten Kitchen (seriously, what would I do without Deb?) and this is what I came up with, Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

The wonderful thing about Swiss buttercream is that it's not chintzy with the butter

I’ve used this before, you may recall, on Nate’s first birthday cake and on Marijke’s dog cake.  Did I blog those?  Probably.  Anyway, this icing is surprisingly hardy, and has a pleasant mild custard flavour.  Just the thing when you’re dealing with a super rich chocolate cake with whipped dark chocolate ganache.

Mom supervises most attentively from her new chair

I used gel colouring, not paste, because I wanted to get a pretty rich saturation on the Sherman Tank green.

5. when you’re assembling, don’t forget the stability.  I used bamboo skewers to make sure it would stay put.  You want to carve the cake so that it has the approximate shape of the tank.  I had a couple of pictures of tanks from Normandy that I was able to use as reference, plus the initial reference photos.  This is a key step, and it helps if your cake is frozen.  It’s way easier to carve that way.  I wound up using a fillet knife for the sloping curves of the armour, because I wanted to get the edge just so.  Research is key before assembling.

6. ice, ice, baby.

It's really Sherman Tank green. Go, me.

See how the icing spreads so beautifully?  And it has a satiny sheen.  Swiss buttercream, you are my friend.

And then, before you know it:

Yup, it looks like a tank.

There she be.  One iced tank.

7. now, I know what you’re thinking, where’s the cannon barrel.  Well, that was a conundrum and no denying, until I was walking through the Superstore earlier this week and I came across the perfect ingredient for the cannon barrel, and it was entirely edible to boot.

Piroulines. OF COURSE. And wrapped in moulding chocolate, which is already green. GENIUS.

So, I made a chocolate coated pirouline, and used the extra chocolate bark cut with a cookie cutter to make the wheels for the tank (because those tracks don’t turn on their own, you know).

8. serve and enjoy all the compliments you are going to get, because this thing is crazy, yes, but crazy like the fox.  So tasty, so sweet, and still it’s a frickin’ tank.

DAS PANZERBUNDT is ready for action.

So I totally feel like the Cake Boss, except there is neither fondant nor rice krispie squares holding this thing together.  It is, with the exception of the skewers and the tray, entirely edible.  I must admit, I’m pretty impressed with myself.

And apparently the next challenge is a U-boat cake.

Yeah, that one can wait awhile.

Ratatouille, or, sharp things are sharp.

I love ratatouille.  It’s one of my favourite France dishes.  It’s so easy to make, and it’s just delightfully vegetably.  Yes, I know that’s not a word.  And when I started getting my Dave’s Produce Pack this year, I found I had a lot of veg and that such a dish might just be the ideal thing.

Mediterranean veg and a bit of soft chevre for tang. NOM.

But you know, ratatouille can be very thick and stew-like.  You know?  It’s the eggplant, I think.  It tends to break down a bit in the cooking, and traditionally I did this on the stovetop (which is how I learned). When I watched the movie Ratatouille years ago, I was struck by how delicious that ratatouille looked – you know what I mean, those light layers of vegetable?  I so wanted to try it.

So I bought a mandoline.

And I forgot about it.

And then when I bought the house and moved, I remembered it, and wanted to make this dish all over again.  So I brought out the mandoline, and decided I wanted to try this dish.  I was successful at chopping eggplant, zucchini, summer squash… and my thumb.

Yeah.  It’s really f***ing sharp.

I had to go to the ER, get a tetanus shot, and they couldn’t give me any stitches because I literally lopped off a corner of my thumb pad.  At least it was just skin.  But this morning when I tried to change the dressings, the gauze caught – OH MY GOD THE PAIN.   And don’t tell me to soak it in water, because that made me double over screaming.  I’m keeping it well dressed, lubed up with vaseline and changing the gauze every few hours, until it regrows some of the skin.  And stopping bleeding might be nice, seeing as it happened almost 24 hours ago now.  It’s going to be a long haul.

But hey, at least the ratatouille was good.  I give it a thumbs up.

What, too soon?

In case you were wondering, the recipe is from Smitten Kitchen.  I used organic onion and garlic from my produce pack in the tomato sauce, and I had roasted the garlic (lots of it too!).  Organic eggplant, zucchini and summer squash too.  I didn’t include the red pepper, but you surely could.  And I used herbes de provence instead of what Deb suggests, because I have them from France.  Also I suggest a pinch or two of curry powder in the tomato sauce to give it a real authentic flavour – an algerian trick I picked up this summer from Karim.

Ratatouille’s Ratatouille
As envisioned by Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 cup tomato puree (such as Pomi)
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat cheese, for serving

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.

On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.

Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.

Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.

Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)

Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.

Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.

Here comes the rain again

Another rainy weekend, this one I am running out of my mind trying to finish marking while mentally I’m already on to the next two things. This is not good.

But at least the rainy weather is keeping me in and forcing me to work.

To help combat the wet I thought a nice soup would be perfect. Roasted butternut squash and sweet potato – still trying to get more veg in my regular diet, a process that will be made much easier when I start getting my produce packs. Expect blogging to occur about those at length!

CDWM challenge 4 update

You know what it is?  HAM.  FRICKIN HAM.  I do not like ham.

I will now tolerate ham.  If it is a full, bone-in, giant ham, I may even like it depending on the preparation.  For instance, the one at Mom and Dad’s this week was actually tasty and not gross.  Most ham, however?  Not a pleasant dish.  There are so many other things I would rather eat than ham.  When I was little I didn’t like to eat ham at all.  You know why?  Because it is not that tasty.  It is the meat equivalent of a salt lick.

Ham is a food that makes me scrunch up my face and stick out my tongue like only one other, the dreaded yellow kernel of doom that people persist in thinking is “tasty” and “good” and not disgusting and gross.

Don’t even get me started on “toupie ham”.  Or those sad, bland attempts at sandwiches that are sold in the cafeteria.

Sigh.

I’ll think of something.  I may actually have an ace up my sleeve.

Nevertheless. Ham.

Grumble.

Come Dine With Me Challenge 3 – Healthy Eating

I was so thrilled when this month’s challenge was announced. I mean, like everyone, I have to lose some weight. I have a pair of pants I have to fit into this summer – and right now? SO NOT HAPPENING.

So, I decided to do a family dinner, why not, on a Sunday.  Dad has been complaining about the fish he is trying to get through in the deep freeze, so that dictated the protein for the meal.  I thought might as well go to the Mediterranean for some inspiration!  And I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

I started with only the best appetizers, made entirely by hand with the greatest care.

What would I do without Blue Menu?

Yeah, OK, I cheated again.  But as if I’m going to make those from scratch.  Though, now that I think of it, I do have a really tasty recipe for Baba Ghanoush.

I mean, I did put them in a bowl. Presentation counts, right?

I wanted to do a nice side dish as well, something light.  So I went with rice, and also a mediterranean-inspired chickpea and green bean salad.

A squeeze of lemon makes most everything taste fresh!

There were chickpeas and green beans, as well as roasted red pepper and feta and some red onion.  It was delicious!  Very summery, actually.  The chickpeas are totally filling.  I just did an easy dressing of lemon juice and olive oil, with a bit of salt and pepper.

For the main dish, as I mentioned, I had lots of haddock fillets.  When I was little, Mom used to do a fish fry-up most every Friday.  What, she’s Catholic.  So I grew up with regular feedings of fish.  Haddock is a really good fish, actually, for cooking, because it usually holds its shape quite well. I wanted to cook it in parchment this time because, well, I had never done that before.

Parchment envelopes ready to go into the oven to bake.

In checking out recipes of poisson en papillote (see how fancy I am) I noticed a lot of them used tomatoes – a lot of canned tomatoes, actually.  But I didn’t want to have it heavy.  So I took and did a little sautée of cherry tomatoes, zucchini, black olives, capers, garlic and thyme, with olive oil and lemon juice.

I mean, this skillet even LOOKS healthy, doesn't it.

Mind you, not everyone wanted fish, not even with all of these lovely vegetables.  I know, inconceivable.  However, you know, when there’s a picky four-year-old at the table, you have to be able to make accommodations.  So instead of fighting with my adorable niece, we made her fish sticks instead out of some of the haddock

Navigating the breading station, set up under Nanna's watchful eye.

This was really easy, actually: it’s so easy to make your own fish sticks.  Take your fish – haddock in this case, pat it dry, and cut it into strips.  Drop into flour, we used whole-wheat.  Then milk or egg (or cream) and then some crushed corn flakes and VOILÀ, a meal a four-year old is pleased to eat and to help make.

As for the rest of us?

A very full plate of healthy and tasty goodies.

But wait!  We’re not done.

So for dessert (YES I MADE A DESSERT THIS TIME) I did a berry compote – blueberry, raspberry and strawberries – with greek yogourt and a squeeze of honey for sweetness.

Dessert! NOM NOM NOM.

This foray into healthier eating was a definite success.  I am looking forward to more healthy meals in the next couple of months.  Why, just look at how happy my entire family is with their tasty and lovingly prepared meal (added bonus:  I didn’t kill anyone!)

See? The whole family is enjoying the meal. Especially my brother.

I’m really looking forward to eating more healthy concoctions over the next couple of months.  I mean, there are worse ways to get fit.  Those pants don’t have room to be let out, so I’d better get to it.

And now…. go see what Su-Li and Melissa made!  I can’t wait to read what they came up with.  This challenge is so much fun.

A hint to my upcoming CDWM challenge…

… I am not going to reveal all of my awesome dishes.

But I will reveal two things:  1.  haddock  and 2.  the Mediterranean.

That is all you’re going to get out of me till Sunday.

BWA HA HA, mine is an evil laugh.