Is Soup a Meal? (Ginger Carrot Red Lentil Soup Recipe)

Whenever I write out the weeks meal plan and one of the dishes on the menu is some type of homemade soup, I always wonder how Maeghan will react. It's not that she doesn't like soup, it's that my father (who isn't a picky eater either), has a funny reaction when my mom makes soup for dinner. To be fair, my mom is a big soup fan and it does feel like each time I call home during the colder months - which in Northern Ontario is basically 7 months of the year - she is making soup. So for the longest time, I've had a funny memory stuck in my head of my dad trying to bail himself out of a sticky situation by explaining to my mom that he does like her soup it's just that soup isn't a meal. 

Since going vegetarian years ago and recently floating back to somewhere on the "flexitarian" spectrum, I've spent a great deal of time researching and learning about different kinds of protein, fiber, carbs...basically all of the components of a healthy balanced meal. When I plan out our weekly meals - remembering that they will not only be dinners but lunches as well - I make sure each meal is not only balanced, but also has enough protein. With that being said, I think the answer to the my parents debate is: if your soup is hearty and packed with nutritious veggies and proteins that will keep you full and energized, then it is definitely a meal!

I've been on the hunt for new soup recipes since the rainy, damp season has arrived here in Victoria. Recently I came across this delicious recipe for a ginger carrot and red lentil soup from My Kitchen In The Rockies and I can tell you it will definitely be a staple in our winter menu.

Of course Maeghan ate it with a side of 3 English Muffins covered in melted butter, but she was a fan and never once questioned my decision to serve soup for dinner. We highly recommend tossing in your favourite nuts and seeds along with big globs of goats cheese!

Click here for the recipe and cooking instructions, and let me know what you think!

Meal Plan Your Way to an Extra $2600

I'm sitting here thinking of all the things I want to do with my $2600...like go on an extravagant trip or a massive shopping spree. But in reality, that extra cash will go towards something grownup like tuition or a down payment on a house - still good things, but a $2600 trip to somewhere exotic like Fiji or Bora Bora just seems so much dreamier! 

Back in Ontario, Maeghan and I were spending about $120 a week on groceries for the two of us. We always bought food to make breakfast at home each morning, snacks for lunches, and supplies to make a large dinner each night so we would have leftovers for our lunches. Even though our fridge was always stocked with fresh ingredients just waiting to be turned into a delicious meal, each night I always found myself scouring Pinterest for dinner inspiration while staring into the fridge and whining, "we have no food". Not only did this waste endless hours of my time, but each week we would end up spending more on food by running out to get "just one ingredient" - paying a premium price for it at a corner store and ending up coming home with things we didn't need - as well as wasting food that went bad as it never seemed tasty enough to be included in that week's meals. Since moving to British Columbia (where everything is significantly more expensive), we've been spending just $70 a week on groceries and our food wastage has decreased significantly. 

How, you ask? One simple change: we started meal planning. 

Each Saturday, while enjoying my morning coffee, I get out my computer and a pen and paper. I spend the next 15-20 minutes compiling a list of seven different meals as well as all of the ingredients needed for those meals. To save time, whenever I see a recipe or meal idea I cut it out or Pin the link for later. Come Saturday, I can look back on those recipes to quickly build my list without repeating any meals. From the ingredient list, I make a shopping list of all of the items I don’t have in my pantry, and then add to it any extras we’ll need for breakfast and snacks. At the grocery store, I’m in and out in less than 30 minutes with only the items on my list (and maybe an extra treat since it is the weekend after all) and I’ve spent only $70 to feed two people three meals a day for seven days!

When you break down the numbers, the savings will blow your mind!

$120 multiplied by the 52 weeks there are in a year is $6240 that we were spending on groceries (with so much of it going in the trash)! Our now $70 multiplied by 52 weeks is $3640. 

The original $6240 we were spending, minus the $3640 we spend now, leaves us with $2600 in SAVINGS.

The benefits of meal planning speak for themselves; I have more of my evenings back since I never have to wonder what to cook each night, I spend significantly less time in the grocery store, our food wastage has nearly stopped, and we have an extra $2600 a year in the bank! Now…what snack should I bake tonight? 

Pancakes and a Lesson on Cooking For One

This past weekend I spent the entire weekend alone. It was the first time in a while that I had to think about how to spend all of my free time and what I was going to cook each day for just one person.

Growing up in a family of five, we almost never had to think about how to cook for just one or two since more often than not we were cooking for 10 to ensure there were leftovers. When I started to date Maeghan, and later moved in with her, learning how and what to cook for two was one of my biggest hurdles. After a few months, cooking for just the two of our little tummies became the norm. But cooking for one? Who even has the motivation to cook for one let a lone a stack of recipes for just one serving?

Refusing to order-in or cave and eat a bowl of cereal for every meal, I set out make myself something to eat for Friday night dinner. I whipped up what I thought was going to be a small helping of vegetable fried rice. You can imagine my reaction when I ended up cooking more than I would have if I was aiming to cook for two...I think there was enough to feed about 6 big eaters.

Saturday morning I slept in and when I woke up I had a craving for pancakes. For the second time I set out hoping to make just a few pancakes for just one person, and low and behold I was left with a giant stack of pancakes and no one to share them with. Don't worry, over the next couple of days I ended up polishing off every last one of those pancakes, and since they were so good I'll share the recipe with all of you!

But before the recipe I'll give you my thoughts on cooking for one... it's just not possible.

Raspberry (or any berry/fruit/chocolate) Pancakes

You will need:

- 1 and a 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons of baking powder

- 1 teaspoon of salt

- 1 tablespoon of sugar

- 1 and 1/4 cups of milk

- 1 egg

- 3 tablespoons of melted butter

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla 

- optional additions such as raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, chocolate chips, etc. 

Directions:

- Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. 

- Slowly add the milk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla to the dry ingredients and whisk together until all of the ingredients are well combined and have created a smooth (lump-free) batter. 

- Add your berries or chocolate and mix well into the batter.

- Heat your skillet or pan over medium heat. Once heated, add a small amount of butter or cooking oil to the pan. 

- Pour your desired amount of batter (about 1/4 of a cup) into the pan in little circles. Flip the pancakes once little bubbles begin to form and pop throughout the batter. 

- Stack, cover in syrup or any other toppings, and enjoy! 

Could making pizza "from scratch" be any simpler?

Each time I think to myself, "I deserve pizza tonight", instead of narrowing down which pizzeria I want to order from, I open up my pantry to ensure I have flour and a can of tomatoes and then move on to the check the fridge to assess my cheese and assorted veggies supply. With those few ingredients, and a shockingly small amount of time, I can make my own pizza from scratch for a fraction of the cost of a pizza from a pizzeria.

Along with being an equally tasty yet inexpensive alternative to pizza from a pizza place,  you can be as creative as you like when you make your own pizza and use up whatever ingredients you have on hand as toppings! This time we went totally vegetarian, however, the time before we had some leftover sausages that we BBQ'd the day before so I cut those up and tossed them on.

I'll share with you my sauce recipe as well as my yeast-less, no-rise dough recipe, but if you're crunched for time or feeling especially lazy, a store bought sauce would work just fine!

Sauce

You will need:
- 1 can (28 oz) of tomatoes (I find whole taste the most fresh...if you can even say that about canned tomatoes, however, if you don't have an immersion blender crushed will work just fine)
- 3 cloves of freshly grated garlic
- 1/4 cup of finely chopped onions
- 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. If you're using whole or diced tomatoes, blend them until slightly chunky using an immersion blender.
2. In a sauce pan, heat the olive oil, onion, garlic, and spices over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes to the pan, mixing all of the ingredients together. Turn the heat down to low and allow the sauce to simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Yeast-Less No-Rise Dough
You will need:
- 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon banking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup of milk
- 1/4 cup of melted butter

Directions:
1. Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Slowly add the milk and melted butter, mixing with a dough hook or by hand until the ingredients create a ball.
2. Sprinkle flour onto your rolling surface and rolling pin. Roll out the dough to about a 1/4 of an inch thick.

Putting it all together:
- On a pizza stone/pan or a cookie sheet, lay out your freshly rolled dough. Cover the dough with your desired amount of sauce.
- Toss on your toppings of choice (we usually go with mushrooms, onions, peppers, sliced tomatoes, spinach and possibly some kind of meat)
- Cover with cheese! Of course mozzarella is the most popular pizza cheese, but we usually use marble since that's what we always have kicking around.
- Bake at 450F for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Enjoy!

The BEST Quiche EVER!

Quiche has always been somewhat of a cop-out meal in my world; it's something that I make when I'm feeling lazy or I'm crunched for time. I whisk together some eggs and milk and throw whatever veggies and cheese I have in my fridge into a pre-made piecrust with the eggs. It always tastes fine and Maeghan loves it (mostly since she can coat it in ketchup...). But! As of last weekend, my quiche cooking has been forever changed, and all thanks to my sister! 

"Family Day" (a relatively new holiday here in Canada), is an important holiday for my family. Despite all of us living in various cities across the province, we try our best to all make it home to Mom and Dad's to spend the day together. This past family day fell on one of the coldest weekends we have had all winter, with temperatures reaching -45C with the windchill...you honestly felt the water in your eyes freezing when you stepped outside...For this reason, my family decided to skip the outdoor activities and spend the weekend doing what we do best: cooking and eating.

See, I come from a half Italian family so I'm sure you can understand our deep love of home-cooked food. The weekend was full of delicious meals such as hand-made gnocchi with fresh sugo (Italian pasta sauce), gourmet home-made Italian pizza (of course on from-scratch secret recipe dough), and to finish the weekend off, a DELICIOUS quiche made solely by my sister. 

When I entered the kitchen and noticed her thinly slicing raw sweet potato into the bottom of the pan, I'll be honest, I was a little concerned about the fate of my lunch. However, what she created out of random ingredients from my parent's fridge turned out the be the BEST quiche I have EVER had. No word of a lie.

She was kind enough to remind me of the ingredients and the process to make this mouth-watering meal, and I am so happy to be able to share it with all of you!

Ingredients:
1 whole sweet potato, peeled and sliced thinly (about 1/8 of an inch)
5 eggs

1/3 cup of milk

Your choice of chopped veggies (we used spinach, tomatoes, onions, peppers, left over roasted veggies such as zucchini and mushrooms, and olives) but you can add to or omit from this list to suit your taste buds!

Your choice of cheese (we used feta, but cheddar or another type of mild cheese would be delicious!)

Your choice of meat (optional, but we added Italian sausage on half)
Fresh ground salt and pepper

Cooking Instructions:

1. Place the thinly sliced sweet potato coating the bottom and edges of a well-greased pie plate (this acts as the crust, so keep this in mind while laying down the potato slices)
2. Bake the sweet potato crust at 400F for 15 minutes or until the potatoes have softened a bit.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, adding in the salt and pepper as you whisk.
4. Mix the chopped veggies and cheese into the egg mixture. If you wish, keep some of the veggies, cheese, and meat to lay on top (shown in the photo with the sausage and tomato slices).

5. Pour the entire mixture into the pie pan with the sweet potato crust.

6. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean from the center.
7. Let the quiche rest for 10 minutes before serving.

8. ENJOY! 

Is bumbleberry pie a thing?

Quite often I get the urge to bake late into the evening (usually around the time I should be thinking about going to bed) and I get an idea in my head about what I want to bake before I even make sure we have all of the ingredients. This was the case last night when I decided to bake a "mixed berry pie" at 9pm.

I knew we had a bag of mixed berries in the freezer that we bought months ago for smoothies that we never made, and a left over pre-made pie crust from the last time we made quiche. So, with this in mind I set off to make us what I thought was called a mixed berry pie. Shortly into my preparations, I was informed that the proper terminology for mixed berry pie is in fact "bumbleberry pie". Which Wikipedia (my go-to for factual information) explains as a pie that contains at least 3 different types of berries...like who made this up and why are they so strict? Regardless, I was making a mixed-bumbleberry pie and the clock was ticking!

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. I hate making homemade pie crust; I suck at it and it never tastes as good as the store-bought stuff. So, all of my pies have store-bought crusts and crumble topping. But for this pie, the crumble topping, that's where it got interesting.

Once the pie filling was made and in the shell, I realized we had run out of butter earlier in the day. Now, an important thing to know is that Maeghan and I live RIGHT downtown. One block from a Quickie (corner store) and 3 blocks from a 24 hour grocery store. However, I do not believe in leaving to get an ingredient, I believe in the internet and alterations. That's a lie I was just lazy.

So,  picture this...it's almost 10pm now, the oven is ready but the pie is topless because we have no butter. Then, I wonder "what do vegans make crumble topping out of?" (the answer is vegan butter by the way). But! I go where probably no skilled baker has ever gone and I make my crumble topping out of vegetable oil...don't judge me.

Once the pie was in the oven, I of course turned on the oven light and sat down near the window to watch it bake. Soon, the brown sugar in the makeshift crumble topping started to dissolve into the pie filling and I became increasingly worried for the fate of our late night snack. However, no need to worry because the pie turned out to be delicious and the crumble topping was arguably the best part.

Since my pie was a hit (with my fiancée that is...) I thought I would share my creative recipe with all of you!

Ingredients:
1 store-bought pie crust
1 cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup flour
3 or 4 cups of frozen mixed berries
Squeeze of lemon juice

For the crumble topping:
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup of oats
½ tsp. cinnamon
3 ish tablespoons of vegetable oil

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a glass bowl or measuring cup defrost the berries in the microwave. 
3. Mix the flour and sugar in with the berries. Add the squeeze of lemon juice. Now you've created your pie filling. 
4. Pour the filling into the pie crust. 
5. To make the crumble topping, mix all of the dry ingredients together. Once combined, add the vegetable oil. Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the pie filling.
6. Bake for 45 minutes. 
7. ENJOY! (After letting it sit for about an hour, or don't let it sit and you'll be eating berry soup)

The Ultimate Black Bean Burger

Burgers remind me of summertime. Growing up, my siblings and I would spend our days scorching our pasty white skin in the warm August sun, splashing around in the cold water of the northern Ontario lake at the cottage, and snacking on nothing but orange pop, salt and vinegar chips, and fun dip from the little general store down the road. By 6 o’clock when we could hear the clicking of the BBQ lighter and immediately smell the charcoal heating up, we were starving and seriously hoping someone was grilling up some burgers.

In my opinion, one of the best parts about burgers is the endless variety of toppings you can add to them. Think of your favorite gourmet burger joint. They probably have a list of over 100 burger toppings much more creative than the usual lettuce, tomatoes, and onions; toppings you’ve never even begun to imagine on a burger like red pepper jelly or deep fried pickles. But what many of us burger lovers don’t stray too far from is the original burger patty taste. No matter what toppings we put on top of that warm, plump, flavourful, burger; we want that authentic burger taste.

Four years back when I vowed to help my sister transition into vegetarianism (as she was about to embark on a series of journeys to places without much meat and needed to prepare her body for this), I didn’t realize it would last more than a few months. But here I am, and four years have passed since I have had one of those juicy ground beef hamburgers fresh off the BBQ at my family cottage. You can wipe those tears off your face that you were shedding for me, as this black bean burger is BETTER than those all-meat patties my dad used to grill up. And actually, easier to prepare than a homemade beef patty and requires so many less tools.

After all of that suspense, and now that you’re day dreaming of a warm summer evening and a delicious burger, I am so happy to share this recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon with you.

(Photo from spoonforkbacon.com)

You will need:

- food processor (or a really powerful blender…imagine making hummus, we’re talking that kind of power)
- can opener and strainer
- chopping knife and cutting board
- frying pan 
- spoon or spatula 

- 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons rolled oats
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- ½ teaspoon curry powder
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¼ cup plain breadcrumbs
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (for frying)
- 4 burger buns
- desired burger toppings

Directions:
1. Pulse the onion and garlic in your food processor about 5 times
2. Add the black beans, oats, spices, and salt and pepper to the food processor and
pulse another 5-10 times, or until the consistency of a really thick hummus
3. Remove the top from your food processor and add the bread crumbs to the
mixture. Stir the crumbs into the mixture with a spoon or spatula
4. Form the mixture into equal sized patties (I usually make 4 or 5 patties
depending on how big the buns I have are)
5. Heat your oil in the bottom of your frying pan (around medium heat)
6. Place your patties into the frying pan and cook them for about 5-7 minutes per
side (they should be browned and crispy on the bottom)
7. Remove the patties from the pan (pat down with paper towel to absorb some of
the excess oil if you like), and place the warm, mouth-watering patties onto their
fresh buns
8. Assemble your burger with whatever toppings you choose! (I usually go with
mustard and ketchup, tomato slices, cheese, avocado, and lettuce)
9. Enjoy and be amazed

Happy burger eating!