Cilantro Mint Chutney

Aug2

I have a favourite Indian restaurant close by that I usually crave just for their mint chutney, it is sooo incredibly good. We order it with paneer pakoras which Evie also loves so we will have to start doubling and tripling the orders because we are like crazy seagulls fighting over them! Of course since she is the child we let her get her fill. Since we have that mint field in the back garden we decided to search online and try our own which was reminiscent of my favourite but not really like it in consistency (probably because I used the NutriBullet) I am sure they hand chop everything. This sauce was so good Evie even gobbled it up with her pakoras. I did not make the pakoras, we ordered those from the Indian restaurant and picked them up just before we were ready to eat. We will definitely be making this again! I just saw that Natascha posted zucchini fritters and Elaine posted cauliflower cakes so I think I will be trying out those recipes to accompany the sauce.

This was very quick and easy to make. I googled and checked pinterest and basically looked at a few recipes and combined different parts and came up with this.

Into the large jar of the Nutribullet blender I added 1 cup fresh mint leaves along with 1/2- 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves (along wit h some team pieces), a thumb sized pieces of ginger chopped and 1 green chile, chopped and about 1TBSP fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1tsp cumin powder and a good pinch of salt. I blended a little and it was dry so I added enough water just a TBSP or two and blitzed again. This loosened the sauce a blended it nicely.

Do not take a huge sniff when you take the lid off, it will knock your socks off, pretty potent stuff. I did and it was like smelling salts.

I placed it in a jar in the fridge until ready to use. Give a stir before pouring out in bowl as some separation may occur.

This sauce was so fresh and spicy, delicious!

Kouzounas Lemonade

Jul2

I saw this “Lemonade with a Twist” recipe on Kouzounas Kitchen and I just happened to have lemons and limes in the fridge and an abundance of mint in the garden. I had to make it to go with our Canada Day dinner. I adapted the recipe slightly as she used ginger and she also used the peel on the citrus, stop by her blog if you would like the original recipe….there are also a lot of other wonderful greek and mediterranean recipes there as well. I didn’t have ginger so I left that out and I cut the peel off the citrus but then I added a few pieces of each type back to blend. I also used superfine sugar (also known as caster sugar) because it dissolves well in drinks.

The lemonade was delicious and I have added it to my old fashioned real handwritten recipe book so I always have it.

2 lemons

2 limes

3/4 cup sugar

sprig of fresh mint

8 cups of cold water

I don’t have a large blender to I used my NutriBullet (I love it). I added the citrus, a bit of the peel, and sugar to the NutriBullet with about 2 cups of the water as that was all l that could fit in the largest canister. I blended that and strained the juice out into a large jug (discarding the pulp and peely bits), then I added the remaining 6 cups of water to the jug as well and gave it a stir. Then I threw in a few mint leaves and placed in the refrigerator to chill.

We thought it was a really great lemonade because it was tart, but just sweet enough to be delicious. We will definitely be making this a regular summer drink.

Cheers!

Beet and Feta Salad

Jun21

This salad is a regular at our dinner table in summer. It pairs well with grilled food and picnics.

I used about 2lbs of beets.

leave a little bit of the root end and stem end attached to the beets, boil them in a large pot of water until a knife can slide easily through the beet, probably takes about 20 minutes depending on the side of the beets, I try to use smallish sized beets. Once cooked drain the beet.

Now comes the messy part. Once the beets are cool enough to handle, cut off the root end and stem end. Then slip off the skins. You will have to use a little bit of force but it should yield pretty easily. The you can cup beet into bite sized chunks. If you want to be little fancier you can slice them.

Chill in the fridge.

While the beets are chilling make the dressing, whisk together 2 Tbsp olive oil, 4 tsp white wine vinegar, large pinch of salt and pepper to taste and a couple pinches of sugar.

Drizzle with the dressing and toss to coat. Arrange beets in serving dish.

Just before serving (otherwise the feta will turn pink) sprinkle with crumbled feta. Sometimes I also sprinkle with chopped fresh mint. Today I got lazy as I was making several recipes at once, so I didn’t use the mint.

In My Kitchen June 2015

Jun7

I can’t believe it is June already and we are joining Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for the June edition of IMK. I am still waiting for it to warm up here, the garden is slowly growing. The rhubarb is great and we have a ton of mint back there. I just made mint cookies, which I will be posting a little later this week, hopefully. Today was a busy day, Evie had karate grading, she is now officially a blue belt, but she was exhausted tonight!

This book was in my kitchen in May and I am still reading and looking at the pictures. I have renewed it from the library and I think I may renew again, I still haven’t had time to bake anything from it.

Made a buttermilk pie and with the extra filling made some little buttermilk tarts.

Fresh cheese curds, so squeaky and just the right amount of saltiness, this brand is my favourite. We don’t make poutine with them we just eat them as they are, right out of the bag.

Fresh sheep’s milk yogurt, this was some serious yogurt

Truffle pate, tried it on baguette and I found it a little strong that way. I am going to toss it with some pasta and see how that turns out.

A lovely strawberry loaf, it was really good we ate it in two days.

We cut some of our rhubarb to make our strawberry rhubarb apple crisp (aka crumble) recipe. It was sooooo good topped with vanilla ice cream.

This is Fang, the newest addition to our household. He is a Venus Flytrap and he helps control the fruit fly and mosquito population around here. Though it has been too cold lately, poor Fang is getting hungry.

We also have lily of the valley in the garden and I love it , just a few sprigs on the table and the room smells amazing.

We also enjoyed this ice cold cream soda, along with a root beer too.

Now I am off to bed. Tomorrow we are leaving bright and early to go to a medieval festival and having a picnic there for lunch. Maybe we will find some medieval kitchen treats for my next post!

Blackberry Mint Infused Water

May31

Hi Evie here,

This is my first blog post that I have done by myself. This is how you make blackberry and mint water. You take about 1letter (litre) of water and put it in jugge (jug) put some blackberrys and mint (about 1/4 cup berries and 1 few mint leaves). I also really like to make cucumber water add cucumber slices to water and put it in the fridge for 1 night. The water really tastes like cucumbers and I like cucumbers. Cucumber water is very refreshing on hot days.

(Lori here, just read this and decided to clarify a few spelling mistakes, although for just turning 7 she did pretty good with the spelling.)

cookswithevie

our adventures cooking … and other fun stuff

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