Uh Oh!

Sorry Guys!

I have been on holidays, and right before I left, my camera broke!

I will try to dig something out while I look for a new one.

Stay Healthy Smoothie

Fresh Berries are chock-full of antioxidants. In this smoothie I added fresh raspberry and blueberries, bulked it up with a banana, ground flax and kicked it up with some mango black tea.

Here's the recipe:

1 Banana
1 cup Raspberries
1 cup Blueberries
2 tsp ground flax
1/4 - 1 Cup cold brewed mango black tea

Add the first 4 ingredients to a blender and blend. Use the tea to make it as thin or thick as you would like it. I have a smoothie like this everyday for breakfast, and it really is good to boost antioxidants. What are antioxidants you ask? The are in your body already and they attack free radicals to help keep us healthy. In other words they are the Chuck Norris' of the body; performing round house kicks to any 'bad guys'!

Skate (ahem.. cod) with Traditional flavours powdered for Daring Kitchen

My sincere apologies... I know this is outrageously late. Blame the swine flu. I have been so sick since Monday that I haven't even been able to look at a computer, a TV, even a book. I have had just enough energy to lay in bed and drift in and out of consciousness, usually arising to cough up a lung. Yum! This is exactly what you want to read on a food blog....

Anyways I did complete this months daring kitchen challenge. It was a lot easier then it looked and took a lot less time then I imagined, but to be totally honest I wasn't overly wowed with the results. This may have been due to some dulled taste buds as I was just starting to become ill (unknown to me... I thought the sore throat came from 5 days of hooting and hollering at ska fest!). My man-friend wasn't very into it either - hes a man food man, and this was definitely veering towards lady food. I'm sure the recipe is all over but due to my current condition, which has improved but not all that much so I thought I would go easy on this post. Here was my final result:


And here are some other pictures during the process:


My powders consisted of Red and Green Onion, Mango Jalapeno, Cilantro and Sun dried Tomato, which I found really helped to round out the flavours with a little sweet earthiness.


These were my green beans, which were actually my favourite part.

And last but not least, cod (which was supposed to be skate) swimming in a warm bath of butter!

Multi-Olive Tapanade

Tapanade is a really a great method of making a beautiful olive based spread.
And you all know I love my dips and spreads!

What I really love about a tapanade recipe is that there is no way to screw it up and you can make it flavoured to suit your taste buds. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Olives used to be in my top 2 most hated foods, right beside lamp - I know! I would make a terrible Greek. But after a little taste bud persuasion I have began to like olives more and more, so much so that I now want to eat them pulverized and spread all over bread!

Its simple all you will need is olives, capers, garlic, anchovies, some olive oil and pepper.

Put these ingredients into a blender, I used 3 different types of olives: Moroccan dried black olives, green Sicilian olives stuffed with sun dried tomatoes and big black Cerigola olives.

3 cups in total of olives
1 jar of drained capers
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
3-4 anchovies
2 splashes of olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
pepper to taste.

Add the olives, capers and garlic into a food processor and pulse until chopped, add the remaining ingredients and pulse again until it reaches you desired consistency, I like it a little chunky. Also remember there is no reason to add salt as the olives are plenty salty enough. Taste and add a little more of something if it makes you happy!

Serve with bread and enjoy!




Creamy Crab Spagettini


Oh Canada! Mmm.. Mmmm...
I am lucky to live on Vancouver Island, we have some of the freshest seafood around and it doesn't get any fresher then when you catch the main ingredient yourself! The crab from this dish came from the waters of one of my favourite places: Port Renfrew. The cool waters of the harbour at Port Renfrew are prime crabbing ground; especially during the late winter but also all year round. I absolutely love the Ocean and the beach so in honour of our 142nd Canada Day I created this dish. All red and white and filled with a local Canadian delicacy; dungeness crab.

This dish was delicious and quite simple to put together, I added sun dried tomato for some depth and also so it would complement the sweet crab flavour; and then topped it off with lots of Parmesan cheese for richness. Here is the recipe:

Oh! and don't worry, you don't need to catch the crab yourself; just make sure that you do use the fresh stuff that can be bought from the seafood counter, or your local fish monger. There really isn't room here for the canned stuff!

First things first! Create a crab stock, you only really need about 2 cups.

It is important if you can to cook the crab in the water that it came in, if not have it cleaned and halved and boil it for only a few minutes until it turns a deep shade of red. Cool and shell the crab, I tried to keep a few of the claw pieces intact for a garnish, but the rest will taste great no matter how it looks! Put the shell pieces into a clean pot of fresh water, about 4 - 5 cups; bring to a simmer and reduce until you have roughly 2 cups. You can add any vegetables that you would normally add to a stock, but in all honesty what your after is a deeper crab flavour for the pasta sauce.

I box of Spagettini (or enough for 4 ppl)
1 medium onion
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3/4 Cup sun dried tomatoes
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1-2 Cups of crab stock
1 Cup of Parmesan
Meat from 2 crabs
3 lemons
S&P
1 handful parsley

Once the stock is ready you can throw enough spagettini for 4 people in a pot and cook until al dente. In the mean time saute 1 medium onion in 2 table spoons of butter, once the onion is softened add 2 tablespoons of flour to create a roux. I actually cook onions with a little bit of water in the pan, it helps to create a more even heat for the onions and encourages them to caramelize, so I would add the flour after the water has evaporated and the onions begin to brown. Once the roux has browned add 3/4 cup of sun dried tomatoes, I used regular dried tomatoes (not in oil, but you can if you want), just slice them and throw them in as well as the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Add 1 Cup of the crab stock and 1 cup of heavy cream to create a sauce, at this time you can add both the crab meat and the pasta. Toss it all together with 1 cup of Parmesan cheese and the juice of another lemon. Feel free to add more Crab stock depending of the consistency, you want a nice rich and thick sauce that coats each and every noodle. Serve topped with extra Parmesan cheese, fresh chopped parsley, a wedge of lemon and an extra knuckle of crab right on top.

You are going to love this fun and festive meal! Make sure that you take a nice big bite with a little bit of everything so that all of those beautiful flavours dance in your mouth together.