warm quinoa, spinach and shiitake salad

I always try and celebrate the long weekends with something a little special like a cocktail and dessert. This long weekend I made a Sangria. As soon as summer hits we can't resist an excuse to make our favourite red sangria.

To make this I use a bottle of dry red wine, 1/4 cup of cointreau or triple sec, 1/2 cup of orange juice, 1 lemon thinly sliced & 2 limes thinly sliced. I let this steep refrigerated for at least half a day. To serve, top with lots of fizzy water & ice!

I've blogged about this before, it's Easy Tiramisu from the first Everyday Food book, Great Food Fast.  It's a real standby in this house because it can stand up to variations like Cool Whip instead of whipped cream. I know... to cancel out the inautenticity of Cool Whip I used freshly brewed espresso, an addition of marsala wine and Dutch process cocoa on top. So take that food snobs!

I also tried a brand new recipe over the long weekend. Again, from the first Everyday Food book, Great Food Fast (see a pattern developing?) this Warm Quinoa, Spinach & Shiitake Salad. So, I guess you’re probably thinking this isn’t the most appetizing dinner choice and you wouldn’t be alone. Nuno actually told me he was going to eat Tiramisu for dinner instead. Well, I pushed forward and hammered out this dinner in 20 minutes. It was the most rewarding lack of effort and ingredients I’ve ever mustered. 

This dinner is beyond delicious! It was one of those nice surprises when you don’t know what to expect from a recipe but then it turns around to be something better than you ever could have imagined. It is so balanced in flavours – each ingredient sets off the other. The mushrooms are roasted in the oven with a marinade making them taste almost bacon-y in flavour. And you know how spinach can have ‘that’ flavour – you know the one, that sometimes make it taste like high-iron dirt? This salad mutes that flavour and brings out the nice flavour spinach can have. I imagine this Warm Quinoa, Spinach & Shiitake Salad is relatively healthy so if you’re on a diet, you must try it (hand cut half the olive oil – it doesn’t need it!) If your vegetarian please try this... if you aren’t, try it anyways! Does that cover everyone?

going bananas for desserts

More banana desserts went down in my kitchen this week. I started out baking Banana Rum Coconut Cookies to find that the oven is broken. From what I can tell the heating element on the bottom has stopped working, so I had to turn the broiler on and watch my manual thermometer in an attempt to keep the oven at 350. Of course, it didn't work and some of the cookies got a little toasty on top.

You wouldn't believe it, but even with a slightly scorched top, it didn't effect the cookies taste at all. These cookies are very moist, cake-like and slightly chewy. And with raisins, coconut, walnuts and oats they remind me of trail mix but sweeter and spiked!

So now that the oven is out of commission you'd think it put the kibosh on sweets. Heh, no way. I decided to make Chocolate-Covered Bananas. I did a little experiment and made a few different kinds. First I decided to use an infant medical syringe and stuff the bananas (like an eclair) with President's Choice Banana Dulce De Leche Creme spread. I then covered them in Trader Joe's chocolate. One plain, one with chopped peanuts and one with butterscotch chips.

This is a great way to use up those bananas you just can't finish in time. I'll have to decide which combo is tastiest.

One more dessert I made was Easy Tiramisu. This recipe appears in the first Everyday Food book. I was prompted to make this when I saw ladyfingers at Casa Leone the other day. I made it this morning in the same time it took Nuno to make and eat his cereal. The only revision I made to this recipe was to half it and add some marsala wine (that's part of the flavour I enjoy in tiramisu). I have to admit that I'll probably continue to make this recipe from now on because the real version with mascarpone is expensive and a bit too decadent. This one uses light cream cheese, so you can't go wrong.