icook: A Cool Dinner and Impromtu Dessert

The heat in the city, and more importantly, our house, is unbearble. Hot, muggy, sticky...with the humidex, it's supposed to feel like 42 C. The humidity in our house reads 80%, ugh. We don't have A/C so the fans we have are just blowing around the hot air. Sleeping is difficult and cooking in this heat is no fun.

What we need for dinner is something refreshing. Pasta salad sounds nice, I haven't eaten that in ages. Pretty easy too (my kind of dish). Cook up some pasta, your choice, I had a bunch to choose from but went with Smart Pasta rotinni. Now comes chopping time. Tomato, red pepper, zucchini, fresh basil. Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas. Once the pasta is cooked, rinse it under cold water to speed up the cooling. Whip up some dressing for the pasta salad, this could really be anything. I used 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano. Toss everything in a bowl to coat and sprinkle some light Parmesan cheese over the mixture and toss again. Stick in the fridge until cold. Ideally, you would want to make this the day before so the flavours really have time to permeate the pasta and chickpeas and all that, but I didn't plan this so here we are. It was still very tasty but even better the next day.

Pasta and Veggie Salad

To round out the carb part of the meal, I boiled some corn while the pasta salad was setting up. To save time and energy, I reused the boiling water from the pasta. Once the pasta was done cooking, instead of draining the water down the sink, I scooped out the pasta from the water using a slotted spoon. I topped up the water enough to cover the corn, put it back on the heat and the water boiled almost instantly.

While the salad and corn were enough for my dinner (I am eating more and more vegetarian these days as it seems to agree better with my tummy), my hubs, C should have more to eat. He needs more protein that what is in the pasta and the chickpeas.

We had some leftover deer meat that had been seasoned with taco seasoning and we also had some leftover black bean and wild rice salad I had made earlier in the week (this had chopped tomatoes, black olives, corn, cilantro and onions in it). I filled 2 whole wheat pitas with the meat and the bean/rice mixture, folded them up, and stuck them in the oven to crisp up.

One for dinner, one for his lunch the next day. Ah, the sweet smell of efficiency.

Cold Veggie and Pasta Salad, Corn on the Cob, Healthy Mexican Wrap

My husband had a tough day at work and I could see him out of the corner of my eye, rummaging through the pantry (which is really just an open metal storage shelving unit since we don't have the pantry built yet). I knew instinctively as he riffled through the back (which is generally where I keep any goodies so I am not looking at them all the time...although, we rarely have junk food in the house) that he was craving something sweet. C is a bit of a stress eater. If he's feeling off, he usually goes for the sweets. I told him to sit down, that I would make him something to sooth that craving. He told me that he was about 2 seconds away from walking to the corner store, so I starting making my specialty: Sweet Marie Bars.

I would like to think that I am a little famous for these bars. They have often been a go-to dessert bar to bring to a potluck or party. Three reasons: quick and easy to make, ingredients I often have on hand, the most tasty treats EVER! I do not kid. If I didn't know what a calorie was, or had the metabolism of a 17-year-old-boy, I would snarfle down an entire pan of these, no share-sies. And I wouldn't feel guilty. Well, maybe a little, but the sugar would help me get over it ;)

The thing is, if you cannot tell by reading my blog so far, I am on a leftover-purging kick. So, normally, these are made with peanut butter but I knew that I had almond butter in the fridge that just keeps getting pushed to the back and ignored since toast has mostly left my diet so out that came instead.

That's the beauty of most of the recipes I use though. They are flexible. They beg to be adapted to any situation. They enjoy change. I aim to be more like my recipes, lol.

Like I said, these were/are still a huge go-to dessert bar for me so I can make these in my sleep without recipe. I decided it would be best for both of us if I halved the recipe. No sense in destroying an entire 9"x13" pan of treats. Plus, C isn't overly fond of sharing food that he loves. We'll work on that...

So, into the pot goes corn syrup, the almond butter, brown sugar. Mix mix mix, melt, cook, warm. Add a tbsp margarine, stir. Add vanilla, stir. I decided to also add in some almond extract. Why not? And you know what goes great with almond extract? Shredded coconut! So, I decided to sub 1/2 cup from the Rice Crispies quantity (mine are No Name brand so about the size of pumpkin seeds so I won't be buying that kind again) to add some wonderful coconut. Mix some more. Now, the sweet, gooey caramel mixture should easily coat the cereal (and whatever else you decide to add). You forearm will get a great workout in the process as well. I sprayed a square glass pan and "poured" the mix in, pressed it into the pan, and sprinkled chocolate chips on top. The warm mixture already started to melt them and I have them some extra help with a minute under the broiler. Usually, you mix peanut butter with chocolate chips in the microwave then spread it on top, but since I wasn't adding anything to the chocolate, this was more efficient. And you know how I feel about that word. I could easily spread the chips all over the top once it came out from under the broiler.

Here is the finished product, in all its glory. C loved them and it was just what he was craving. I thought they were ok, but not as good as the peanut butter variety, but I did love the coconut so I will play around with this another time.