Meatless Monday: Heirloom Tomato & Blue Cheese Frittata

A Meatless Monday post? This is not entirely in my wheelhouse. As any of my regular readers now, I'm a pretty hardcore carnivore, and the boy is even worse. We love meat in all forms, I could go on and on about the braised veal tongue we had in Montreal, but I won't, at least not today.

While on our honeymoon we ate a ton, most of it cooked by us as we were staying on an island in a lake in NH and frankly going out to eat was just too much work. We had no TV and a natural topic of conversation for us is food. As we talked about food and how we eat, we acknowledged that we don't really eat enough vegetables. During this conversation I decided that I wanted to get on board with Meatless Mondays. It is a way to get us eating more vegetables and also a way to challenge me and force me to be creative with vegetables. And the most important thing of all, it's yet another small way we can help contribute to the health of our planet.

For my very first Meatless Monday post I decided to go with a new version of something I'm very comfortable with, a frittata Is it a bit of a cop out, perhaps, but it's a baby step and I hope the more I do this, the more and more creative I'll get and the more fun I'll have with it. Besides that I truly believe a goodfrittata is something every home cook should be able to make, it's a quick and easy way to use whatever ingredients you have on hand to pull together a breakfast, lunch or dinner. This specific incarnation came about as a result of the meal we had in Montreal, with the braised veal tongue I mentioned earlier. Prior to the tongue, we had an absolutely delicious tomato salad with blue cheese and red onion and parsley and just a bit of oil and vinegar. It was very similar to the simple salads I make almost every day at home, but something about this one was just more special, more delicious, more something. The boy loved it and I decided for my carnivores inaugural meatless meal I'd go with something I knew he'd like.

Outstanding Meal at Pete's Greens

Over a week ago my new husband and I were fortunate enough to attend a meal thrown by Outstanding in the Field at Pete's Greens in Craftsbury, VT. While I have spent alot of time in VT due to my folks having a condo at Killington and even lived in Shelburne for a year when I was 5, I've never taken much interest in the food there. We generally cook at the house when we are up skiing, and aside from VT cheddar and Maple Syrup I admit to ignorance when it comes to VT grown and produced products. The boy, being Canadian, also knew next to nothing about food from VT except for our favorite Long Trail beer. As we headed out on our honeymoon 12 days before the dinner, I even noted that I thought there was a chance the dinner would be a beer dinner based on the large number of microbreweries in VT and having had no knowledge of VT based vineyards. All that being said we knew we were in for a great experience and meal and our lack of knowledge just increased our anticpation.

Our host farmer for the dinner was Pete Johnson of Pete's Greens. Pete's Greens is an organic farm located in Craftsbury, VT. Our chef was Eric Warnstedt from Hen of the Wood in Waterbury, VT. Upon first pulling into Pete's Greens we are greeted by the most whimsical sight a small shedlike building whose roof was covered by plants a border of green with the center part covered in this lovely deep purple leafy plants. We later found out the purple plants were amaranth and the plant covered roof topped their farm stand. A shed chock full of Pete's veggies and pastured raised chicken and eggs, as well as tons of other locavore products. From locally made jams and honeys to locally grown flour, some even from Quebec, which even though it's a different country is only 30 miles away from Pete's. It pained me to not be able to buy some of the gorgeous tomatoes and baby greens, but as we were traveling and literally had no more room in the car or cooler I settled for a Pear Honey jam from Elmore Roots, some local honey and some VT grown white flour. The farmstand is completely on the honor system,w here you write down what you've taken and make your own change. Coming from a big city, it was so refreshing to be somewhere where you could trust people like that and made the whole thing even more special, if that was possible.

It's Superbowl time!

Now my team may not be playing but the American Football loving girl that I am I still love the event that is the Superbowl. I love eating all kinds of delish game time food, watching the ads and the performances as well as the game. We don't get the ads up here in Canada, but we get everything else, so that means I need to make some good eats for the boy and I. I posted my Slow Cooker Turkey Chili Wednesday, so today I'll give you a round up of some of my favorite foods for the big game.

Grilled Wings with a Chipotle Dry Rub - If you want are in a climate that makes grilling a possibility, make these! They boy loves them and asks for them every chance he gets. If you don't have access to whole dried chipotles, chipotle powder works great too.


Chicken & Roasted Yam Quesadillas - a delicious twist on a traditional quesadilla and perfect for leftover roast chicken.

Muffaletta Sandwich - perfect because it's from New Orleans! There's not enough time now to make a proper olive salad but you can improvise by putting it together today or tomorrow and let it marinate until Sunday, not ideal but it will still make a pretty amazing sandwich! If the boy wants something like this I will make a quick pepper salad with roasted red peppers and peronicinos, garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper. It's not the same but is delicious in it's own way

Maple Whiskey Pulled Chicken Sandwiches - Another super easy slow cooker recipe perfect for football.


Buffalo Chicken Pizza - This one is a crowd pleaser. If you are feeding a crowd. you can roll out and par bake your pizza crusts for about 10 minutes early in the day and then just assemble the pizzas and finish off when your guests arrive.

Hope these idea help spark your thoughts for your upcoming Superbowl gathering. Let me know if you try any of these recipes or what some of your favorite game time foods are. Enjoy!

Superbowl Turkey Chili

OK folks, as many of you know I'm engaged. Well our date is set for this summer and I have a dress, planning is going swimmingly. It's all good. Except for this whole dress thing. While I'm perfectly happy with how I look in it know. I am completely buying into the hype that this is the most photographed day of your life, blah, blah. That being said I'm working out and modifying my diet to get to where I want to be. I'm going to use you my dear readers to help keep me honest. This all came about because I had a less than good food weekend, as can be seen in my recent Beer Bistro review. While I know I'm the type of person that needs to be able to taste things, I think I need to get better at only taking one bite of something bad and learning to moderate what I'm eating better. Case in point, the corn dogs and frites I had at Beer Bistro. The point is, I'll be writing a bit about the food I'm eating as well as what I'm cooking in a effort to help me be more mindful of what I put into my mouth, in a effort to better fit into my fabulous dress.

Now on to why you are reading this post, a fabulously tasty and easy chili for your Superbowl Celebration this weekend . Last week, a co-worker asked me last week for a slow cooker chili recipe to make for a Superbowl gather she is attending. I've made plenty of chili's this winter so far, but haven't ever really written down what I did. In an effort give her an accurate recipe and because I love having chili around for quick and easy dinners after a long day in the office. I set out to make some this weekend. Plus using turkey and lots of beans makes chili a protein and fiber rich option that paired with a green salad is a very well-rounded meal. I'm also trying to counter balance the bad from the weekend with some good this week. But for the good also has to be tasty and full of flavor.

Winterlicious: Beer Bistro

This past Saturday the boy and I went downtown to do some tux shopping/research. We very rarely find ourselves downtown together so I took the opportunity to take the boy to a spot that was my fave when I was up here working a few years ago, Beer Bistro. We got there around 2pm and were not expecting too much of a crowd since we were in the business district on a Saturday. Little did either of us know that Winterlicious had started. Those of you not from TO, Winterlicious is alot like what was called Restaurant Week in Boston and LA. It's a two week festival where various restaurants in the city offer very reasonably priced three course prix fixe menus for lunch and dinner. This was clearly the reason for a crowded dinning room at Beer Bistro, so we took a spot at a bar along the window.

As the boy had never been here before I wanted him to have the benefit of perusing the entire menu in addition to the prix fixe options. The one thing that stood out to us that I don't remember having had the last time I was here a few years ago were the corn dogs. The menu description is : duck confit, cream ale, pineapple mustard and cherry beer ketchup. If you didn't already have me at the name Corn Dogs, the duck confit did it. The boy was sold on Corn Dogs, despite the fact he's not a huge duck guy.