I’m in Texas right now visiting my family where there is a serious heat wave going on with temperatures in the low 100s and suffocating humidity. We took my little Scottish nieces to the Fort Worth Zoo this morning, where we all lost half of our body weight from sweating so much. A nice crisp and cold salad like this Korean Cucumber Salad would be really tasty on a hot day like today. This salad feeds 4 people at only 35 cents per serving.

Korean Cucumber Salad
1 to 1 1/2 lbs cucumber
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1-inch piece fresh ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon or more minced fresh chili, or red pepper chili powder
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce, or to taste
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

Thinly slice the cucumbers and toss them with salt, pepper, vinegar, ginger, chili, garlic, sugar, and soy sauce. Taste and then adjust the seasoning to your liking. Garnish the salad with a drizzle of sesame oil and some toasted sesame seeds.

Look at this crazy looking Armenian cucumber that I got at the Farmers’ Market.

Stay cool this weekend wherever you are!

My new favourite cookbook is Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. It is basically vegetable porn because I just can’t stop reading it. I will sit on the couch with it and read the book imagining all of the wonderful things that I’m going to make. Basically if you have any kind of vegetable in the house, you will be able to find a delicious recipe in the cookbook to use. I have made quite a few recipes from the book with a variety of different vegetables, and they have all tasted really good. I highly recommend it whether you are vegetarian, or if you are like us and just want to eat more vegetables.

This Southwestern Sweet Potato and Quinoa Salad is featured in Mark Bittman’s book and adds a new quinoa recipe to my repertoire, which is very welcome since I only had 2 quinoa recipes that I make, and I just happen to have a 9 lb + bag of quinoa in the pantry from when the bulk bin at Whole Foods went a little crazy and I was too embarrassed to put back the bulging sack of quinoa. This salad recipe feeds 4 people at 88 cents per serving, and is the perfect meal to make ahead for lunch on the go.

Southwestern Sweet Potato and Quinoa Salad
2 1/2 cups cooked quinoa, or 1 cup raw
1 lb of sweet potatoes
salt
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
1/4 cup minced red onion
1 avocado
1/4 teaspoon chipotle flakes or pepper
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup minced cilantro leaves

If you don’t have cooked quinoa already, put 1 cup of raw quinoa in a saucepan and cover the grains with an inch or so of water. Put it on to boil and once it does, let the quinoa simmer until it is cooked. You can add more water if it needs some, or drain the quinoa if there is any water that hasn’t boiled off once it is cooked.

Peel the sweet potato and dice it into 1/2 inch or smaller pieces. Cook the sweet potato in boiling salted water until tender, around 15 minutes, and then drain it well.

Toss together the sweet potato, quinoa, bell pepper, chipotle, avocado, and onion, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Whisk the oil and fresh lime juice together and toss the salad with half of the mixture, then taste and add more dressing as needed. I squeezed in a touch of honey into the dressing to accent the sweet potatoes with fabulous results. Season the salad and garnish with cilantro.

I used to associate lentils with hippies who ate bad food and vowed never to go over to the veggie dark side and eat them. However, over the past few years, I have eaten some really good lentils along the way and discovered that they are actually pretty tasty. My favourite kind of lentils by far are Puy, or French green, lentils. They are quite smaller than the brown lentils that you most often see in the grocery store, and they have a little bit more bite to them too. I love Puy lentils’ nutty flavour, which goes especially well with the creaminess of the ricotta in this salad from the cookbook, Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe. This Lentil and Ricotta salad tastes good either warm or cold, and makes 6 antipasti portions at 79 cents per serving.

Lentil and Ricotta Salad
1 cup lentils
1 cup ricotta
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 tablespoon parsley leaves
2 tablespoon basil leaves
2 tablespoons arugula leaves
extra virgin olive oil

Rinse the lentils and put them in a pan with the peeled garlic and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let them simmer for around 20 minutes. Drain the lentils and remove the clove of garlic. Add 3 tablespoons olive oil and the vinegar to the lentils, and then season with salt and pepper while still warm.

Chop up the herbs and arugula and stir into the lentils to combine all of the flavours. Slice or spoon the ricotta over the lentils, and top off the salad with more salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Recession Recipe Recommendation: If you love Puy lentils and are ever in LA, be sure to check out Mozza Pizzeria for their Crispy Goat Cheese and Umbrian Lentils antipasti, which is total lentil heaven. Plus their pizzas are to die for too.

One night last week, I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner that would prevent me from having to get dressed, leave the house, and go to the store. The fridge was pretty bare, with just some lettuce, a few leftover cherry tomatoes, and an avocado. I did however have some frozen shrimp in the freezer, so I began searching for a shrimp salad recipe.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I had on hand everything for this really filling salad, Summer Garden Salad with Chili-Garlic Shrimp, or pretty much everything since Carlo had to pick up a cucumber on his way home from school. All I can say is thank god for frozen shrimp! Thank you for letting me stay in my pjs all day This Shrimp Salad recipe feeds 6 people at $3.07 per serving.

I have been really craving seafood lately, especially shrimp and crab, so one day when I was at Whole Foods, I picked up a bag of their Whole Catch frozen shrimp. At $6.99 for a 16 oz package, it is a great deal, and the shrimp look and taste great once you defrost them. Plus they come in really handy when you need to throw some dinner together at the last minute because they defrost very quickly if you place them under running cold water.

Since I like things spicy, I added way more chili-garlic sauce to the shrimp than the recipe called for and just threw in a bit of extra ground cumin to balance it out. The marinade was perfect and ended up not being too spicy at all, so I would definitely use the chili-garlic sauce again for cooking any type of shrimp.

Marinate the shrimp in the fridge for an hour or so and then quickly saute them in a frying pan with a good glug of olive oil.

Since I was trying to only use ingredients that I had on hand, I ended up using frozen corn instead of fresh. I quickly boiled it and then cooled the drained corn in the fridge before mixing it with the tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, and mint from the garden.

I took the basic vinaigrette dressing from the recipe of fresh lime juice, sesame oil and soy sauce, and jazzed it up with some grated garlic that I had on hand to compliment the shrimp.

I tossed all the vegetables and mint with a heavy dose of the dressing and then placed them over a bed of lettuce on each plate. Next came the shrimp on top, and I even added a hard boiled egg for some extra protein.

The verdict on the improvised whatever-we-had-in-the-fridge meal: Excellent, especially when eaten in pajamas! We will definitely be making this salad again this summer.

Like I said last week, we have been eating a ton of salads lately, so in honor of the official start of summer (and the unofficial salad season), Recession Recipes will feature a new salad recipe each day this week.

The first up is Zucchini Carpaccio from the awesome cookbook, The Cafe Cook Book: Italian Recipes from London’s River Cafe. While neither Carlo or I have been to the River Cafe in London, we desperately want to go there next time we are in the UK because we just love the three cookbooks that we have from the restaurant. Their recipes are always fresh, seasonal, and simple, but with great flavours. This Zucchini Carpaccio is no exception. It serves 6 people as an antipasto at $1.22 per serving.

Zucchini Carpaccio
2 lbs young zucchini
1 bunch arugula
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 ounces Parmesan, slivered

We got these freshly picked zucchini with the beautiful blossoms still on them from a Farmers’ Market event that Mario Batalli did at the Palazzo. The zucchinis are from Gilcrease Orchard, a local orchard and farm in North Las Vegas. The stand guy said that they are growing around 80 lbs of zucchini a day and that you can come to the farm and pick some yourself. I can’t wait to do this once I return to Vegas from my trip back to Texas.

This salad is really easy to make: Trim the ends off the zucchini and slice at an angle into thin rounds. I used a mandolin, but you can just use a knife if you don’t have one.

Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper, and pour over the zucchini. Mix everything together and then leave it to marinate for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide the arugula between the serving plates, or on a large platter. Place the marinated zucchini on top, and then shave some Parmesan cheese slivers with a grater to finish off the salad. Season again and you have a summer worthy salad.

Carlo and I decided to take advantage of all the juicy strawberries at the Farmers’ Market right now by making our own Homemade Strawberry Jam. Maybe it is the English in me, but there sometimes isn’t anything better tasting than a nice slice of toast with butter and jam. So many jams that you buy at the store are filled with tons of artificial ingredients, but this recipe from the great book, Preserved, only consists of three ingredients, strawberries, lemons, and sugar, which always makes for better and more flavourful products. Plus it was surprisingly easier to make than both of us thought.

Homemade Strawberry Jam, from Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton’s Preserved
6 1/2 lbs strawberries, hulled
juice of 2 lemons
5 1/2 lbs white sugar

Cut up your strawberries and chop off the stalks. Place them in a large pot along with the lemon juice and gently boil them for an hour or so until the volume has reduced by about 10%.

Once they look like this, add all of the sugar and continue to boil the mixture until the temperature rises to the setting point of 220 F degrees. We really had to crank up the heat on the burner to get the mixture up to this high of a temperature, but we eventually got there.

To see if your jam has reached its setting point, or the temperature when the sugar develops a new consistency, put a plate into the freezer for a few minutes. Take the plate out and pour a little of the jam’s syrup on to the plate. Let the syrup cool for a moment and then push a trail through the middle of the syrup with your finger. If the jam crinkles and the two halves remain separate, the jam has reached setting point. If the two sides of the syrup come back together, continue boiling the mixture for another five minutes and then try again.

Once the jam has reached setting point, skim any scum from the top and remove the pot from the heat. Leave the jam until a skin has formed on the surface. Stir the skin into the jam, and then pour the mixture into jars.

To sterilize your jars or bottles, wash them in soapy water, rinse them thoroughly, and then immerse them in boiling water for 10 minutes. Dry them in a cool or recently switched-off oven. Be sure to sterilize the lids, seals, and any funnels that you may use to put the jam in the jars.

Fill up the jars with jam while they are still hot from the sterilization process. Funnel the still-warm jam into the jar and fill to within a half-inch of the top of the jar. Wipe the jar rim and gently smooth a disc of waxed paper, cut to fit the aperture of the jar, onto the surface of the jam. Screw on the lid and your jam is ready!

Store the jam in a cool place and the jars will keep for at least a year.

Then you will get to enjoy delicious fresh made strawberry jam in the morning on your toast. The jam tasted incredible and I love the big chunks of strawberries in it. I thought it would be overly sweet from the huge amount of sugar that the recipe called for, but the end result was the perfect balance between being sweet and honoring the natural taste of the fruit.

We halved the recipe and filled up 2.5 pint jars with jam at a cost of 30 cents per ounce.

Now that summer is here, I find ourselves eating lighter food, which normally means a ton of salads. However, sometimes I get a bit bored of eating lettuce regardless of what we may put on top of it. When you want something light but are sick of salads, this Grilled Asparagus with Fresh Dried Chili Oil is a great alternative, especially since there is some awesome looking asparagus in our Farmers’ Market right now.

This flavourful Grilled Asparagus with Fresh Dried Chili Oil makes the perfect lunch or light dinner, and feeds 2 people at $1.70 per serving.

Buy some nice asparagus and put them on the grill until they become tender and get a little charred. I bought some of the thicker asparagus, so they wouldn’t fall through the grate on the grill. If you don’t have a grill, you can put the asparagus in a dry frying pan and cook them over a medium heat to achieve similar results.

The Fresh Dried Chili Oil is the pi?®ce de r?©sistance of the dish, and ties together the flavours of the fresh asparagus and the delicate poached egg. I crushed up two dried chipotle peppers and rehydrated them with some boiling water, and then added grated garlic and 1/4 cup of fresh mint from the garden. Slowly add olive oil while mixing everything together, and then season with salt.

Poaching eggs might seem a bit scary, but it is quite easy and takes just a little practice. There are many methods on how to best poach an egg, but here is a thorough demonstration with photos and videos. Don’t worry about making a perfect looking poached egg because my eggs never coming out looking beautiful, but they always taste good which is the most important part.

Place the grilled asparagus on a plate and gently lay a poached egg on top. Drizzle the chili oil over the egg, and serve with some toasted crusty bread to soak up all the egg yolk and oil.

Chilaquiles is one of my favourite things to eat for breakfast. Seriously, what could be a better combination than tortilla chips, spicy sauce, and eggs? I could perhaps eat these everyday and be perfectly content (even though I would probably be the size of a house!).

This Chilaquiles al Guajillo recipe is from Rick Bayless, who sure knows his Mexican food and is perhaps one of the most passionate food show hosts out there. The chilaquiles feed 4 people at $1.79 per serving.

Start the sauce for the chilaquiles by stemming and seeding around 2 ounces of dried guajillo chiles. You can find these chiles at most grocery stores in the Mexican aisle. The recipe calls for the chiles to be toasted, but we normally skip this step and head straight to tearing up the chiles. Even though these chiles are dried, they still pack a spicy punch, so be careful about rubbing your eyes after tearing them up with your hands!

Put the torn chiles in a bowl and pour enough hot water over them to cover. The chiles will need around 20 minute to rehydrate and plump up.

Transfer the rehydrated chiles to a food processor and add 1 cup of water, a can of diced tomatoes, and garlic. Whiz everything up until it becomes a nice smooth puree. Take the puree and press it through a sieve into a bowl. Be sure to press down hard on the puree to get every last bit of spicy goodness from the chiles.

After you strain the puree, you end up with a nice base for your chilaquile sauce. Heat the sauce up over a medium heat and stir constantly until it is reduced to the consistency of tomato paste, around 7 or so minutes. Add chicken broth, and let it simmer partially covered for 20 minutes. Once it has simmered, stir in some sugar and salt to season.

The sauce is the most time consuming part of the recipe, and I know that when I want breakfast on a weekend morning, I don’t normally like to wait too long. To prevent a growling stomach, I usually make the sauce the night before, so the next morning all I have to do is reheat the sauce and only worry about frying some eggs.

Place some tortilla chips on each plate and then pour some of the chilaquile sauce over them. Fry up a couple of sunny side eggs and put them on top of the chips. Top with lots of thinly sliced red onions, cilantro, and Mexican crema. If you can’t find any crema or want a cheaper option, buy some sour cream and thin it out with a bit of milk to make a homemade crema–it tastes pretty much the same! Then sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Fresh & Easy, our favourite local grocery store, sent us a few boxes of their new store brand cereal, Mother’s Joy, including a box of corn flakes. Carlo and I aren’t big cereal eaters, but I decided to use the corn flakes to make some Crunchy Fried Green Tomatoes. I had no idea what to expect when I made these, but they were incredible. The corn flakes made a really nice crunchy crust to the tangy tomato inside. I just only wish that we had some bacon and bread on hand so I could have used the fried green tomatoes to make a killer BLT.

This recipe for Crunchy Fried Green Tomatoes feeds 4 people at 61 cents per serving.

Green tomatoes are basically tomatoes that have yet to fully ripen. They are pretty firm and don’t taste too good when you eat them raw, but they become delicious when you cook them. I was tempted to pick some unripened green tomatoes off my plants outside to make this recipe, but thankfully, the Farmers’ Market had some so I could let my tomatoes continue to ripen for another recipe in the future.

Cut the green tomatoes into 1/2 inch slices.

Grab three shallow bowls to prepare all of the ingredients for the batter. In one bowl, whisk together flour, salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper. In the next bowl, whisk together an egg and milk. In the last bowl, place some coarsely crushed cornflakes. I put my corn flakes into a large ziploc bag and then crushed them. (In case anyone was wondering, the Fresh & Easy corn flakes taste just like the corn flakes you grew up with, and added a really nice crunch to this recipe).

Take each tomato slice and dredge it in the flour mixture then dip it into the egg. Lastly place the egg-y tomato slice into the crushed corn flakes and press the corn flakes onto the tomato for them to stick.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil over moderate heat in a frying pan. Once the foam subsides, put 3 tomato slices in the pan and fry until they are golden brown, about 3 minutes on each side. Take out the fried tomatoes and let them drain on a paper towel. After each batch, clean out the frying pan and add 1 more tablespoon of butter and olive oil until all of the slices are fried.

Place the drained slices on a baking sheet and bake the tomatoes in a 375 degree oven until tender in the middle and hot, about 4 minutes.

I served the Crunchy Fried Green Tomatoes with a spicy mayo that I made by combining some garlic chili sauce with regular mayonnaise. The spicy mayo tasted great with the green tomatoes and would also taste yummy on a BLT using the fried green tomatoes. In case you haven’t tried a fried green tomato BLT, make one! Carlo thought I was making this up, but it is a real dish and tastes as delicious as it sounds.

I love strawberries and always have, despite my 15+ year fruit phobia where I did not eat any fruit, or even liked to be around fruit or people eating fruit (yes, I realize this is very strange). Anyway strawberries were always on the safe list because they weren’t juicy and could be eaten with a fork.

I like plain strawberries, but sometimes you want to do something to jazz them up. Even though it might sound weird to some people, marinating strawberries in balsamic vinegar is incredible and really brings out the flavours of the fruit. This Balsamic Strawberries recipe is a great end to a summer night’s meal, and feeds 6 people at $1.66 per serving.

Summer strawberries are at their peak right now at the Farmers’ Market, and are so much better than the crappy ones that you can get year round in the grocery store.

The balsamic syrup is very simple to make: Stir together balsamic vinegar, sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Stir the mixture over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, and then let it boil until the syrup reduces to around 1/4 cup, about 3 minutes or so. Let the syrup cool completely before mixing it with the strawberries.

Halve the strawberries, and pour the syrup over them and toss well. You can also add some sugar here if you want, to taste. To top off this summer treat, I whipped up some fresh heavy cream with a dash of vanilla extract. Perfection!