Grillin' Veggies on the Barbie

Happy 4th of July to all of my family & friends in the USA! I hope you're enjoying your holiday Monday and getting to spend lots of quality time with all of the people who are near & dear to you. How cool is it that we Canadians got a long weekend because Friday was Canada Day and now our neighbours get Monday off to celebrate their nation's birthday!! I love when the holidays fall on a Friday or Monday, so our weekends get extended - I guess some things are just meant to be!

After all of our barbecues, beers and indulgences this weekend, last night was the first time we'd eaten a real meal at home since our brunch on Friday morning, so I decided to pull out my all-time favourite barbecue accessory ~ meet the Barbecue Wok.

We bought this wok for under $15 at WalMart last year and it is definitely one of our most used and most favourite things to cook with in the summer. Last night I wanted something light and healthy for dinner and a barbecued stirfry was just what the doctor ordered!

Barbecued Balsamic Stirfry with Roasted Garlic Quinoa
Serves 4

I have to warn you that I can give you a guideline for this stirfry, however I didn't measure a single thing! The carmelized veggies paired with a splash of balsamic is a total party in your mouth. I was so happy with the way this meal turned out.

4 - 6 c. chunky chopped veggies
1 - 2 tbsp olive oil
4 - 6 tbsp balsamic vinegar or balsamic salad dressing
2 tsp minced garlic
1 bulb of garlic
2 tbsp of Earth Balance (butter)
1 c. quinoa cooked according to package directions

Turn on your barbecue and pre-heat to medium-high.

To make the roasted garlic quinoa:
The first thing you need to do is get your garlic roasting for the roasted garlic quinoa.
Chop the top off of your garlic bulb. Drizzle with olive oil (1 tsp at most) and then wrap the bulb in tinfoil. Place the bulb onto your barbecue grill and let it cook for about 30 minutes ~ until cloves are softened.

Remove from heat and squeeze out the roasted garlic. Add it, as well as the Earth Balance, to your quinoa and mix well.

To prepare veggies
Place your chopped veggies into a large mixing bowl. Add the minced garlic, 1- 2 tbsp of olive oil and about 3 tbsp of balsamic vinegar to the veggies and mix until they are just coated. You do not need an over abundance of oil and vinegar because you don't want a bunch of sauce dripping through the wok into your barbecue grill causing a big smoky disaster!

Place the wok on your heated barbecue grill and add the veggies. Cook for approximately 20 - 25 minutes, making sure to stir often, until all of the veggies are softened. I like mine to be nicely browned and carmelized.

Remove the veggies from the barbecue.

To serve, spoon out some quinoa onto a plate and top it with your veggie stirfry. I like to add another drizzle of balsamic to my veggies right at the end to give them a little oomphf! Derek likes to add just the veggies as a side to his dinner. I had a stirfry with quinoa and he had a steak, baked potato and side of stirfried veggies!!! We were both very full & very happy :-)

This entire dinner was great, but those mushrooms were amazing!!

They soaked up all that balsamic-y goodness and were soooooo goooooddd!!

I was super excited when I had a bunch of leftover veggies. I was able to take a stirfry to work for lunch today and I just polished off a veggie wrap for dinner - ah, life is good!
How do you like to use up your leftover stirfry veggies?
What do you do to celebrate your nation's birthday?

Have a fabulous Monday evening,

Andrea

I Can't Believe I'm Craving Greens!!

This morning when I was putting our lunches together, the following thought passed through my mind:

"Gosh, I'm really craving a salad. I'm definitely going to have to make one for dinner tonight."

Excuse me?!? Craving a salad! Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think this thought would cross through my head! I had a small side salad with my dinner yesterday, but other than that I didn't get many raw veggies over the weekend. I have been making a real effort to eat better and eat my salad a day and I think my habits and taste buds just might be changing for the better :-)

In order to satisfy my salad craving, I decided to whip up one of my most favourite salads. This recipe comes from This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello. She has an incredible story about how changing her diet literally saved her life. I admire her for her zest for life. She is passionate about healthy, kind eating and has also started an initiative to get healthier food into American schools. Maybe you've seen her cooking show. If you've never heard of her, you should definitely look her up.

Mustard Scented Chickpea Salad
Slightly adapted from the recipe from This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
pinch sea salt & black pepper
3 tbsp finely chopped red onion
2 large sprigs of fresh basil, thinly sliced
1.5 c chickpeas
3 c mixed greens or baby arugula (I used a spring mix)

Whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, red onion and basil in a small bowl to make the dressing.

Toss with the chickpeas and salad greens and serve. I enjoy this salad chilled, but it can also be served at room temperature.

I served my salad with some white bean hummus and baked multigrain Skinny chips.

Another fabulous dinner!!

This recipe combines some of my most fave foods: balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and chickpeas. It's no wonder its a total winner with me. The recipe above makes enough for two large dinner portions or in my case one dinner and one lunch!

Who has motivated and touched you in your quest for a healthy and wonderful life?

I hope you have a wonderful evening,

Andrea 

Balsamic Gnocchi with Garlic Butter & Roasted Butternut Squash

Have you ever eaten gnocchi before?

If your answer is no, you better go out to the grocery store right now and pick some up - it's the bombdigity!

I hadn't had gnocchi until recently. I've seen it and always thought the cute little potato dumplings looked appealing, but never got around to trying them. That was until the day I saw a recipe on How Sweet It Is for Balsamic Gnocchi.  This recipe is easy, delicious and Derek said that he would eat this meal every single day ~ this says alot considering no meat was involved.

I am not going reiterate the recipe for Balsamic Gnocchi because I pretty much stuck right to Jessica's recipe. The only changes I made were that I added lots more veggies (sorry Jessica, that might ruin the recipe for you).  I used one pepper, 4 green onions, 1 small zucchini and a handful of crimini mushrooms and I used Earth Balance instead of butter for the basil garlic butter.

This recipe is to die for. It only takes 20 minutes to whip up and would be a great meal to wow your guests with.

As a side, I decided to roast a butternut squash (ok, I admit it....I cheated and I bought a pre-cut squash). Squash is one of my all-time favourite foods in the winter and there is no other way to make it other than slow roasting in the oven. I just wish they would peel like an orange - my wrists are so sore by the time I finish the peeling and chopping, I can hardly use my stirring hand to finish the meal! I could eat a whole roasted squash myself....in fact I probably have :-) At least squash is good for you; that's better than eating a whole cheesecake by yourself .. er, not that I would know or anything.

Roasted Butternut Squash

1 butternut squash

2 tbsp olive oil

1 - 2 tsp sea salt

sprinkle of pepper

Peel and cut the butternut squash into bite size pieces. Place in large bowl. Add the olive oil, salt and pepper and stir to evenly coat the squash. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 for approximately 15 minutes.

 Flip the squash pieces and cook for an additional 15 minutes. I like my squash to come out crispy and starting to brown - the pieces are so sticky and sweet you will understand why I could eat the entire squash myself. If you are like me and you don't time all the components of your meal quite right, you can speed up the baking time by putting the broiler on for just a few minutes per side.

Perfection!

...and in as easy as 1, 2, 3 you have an amazing meal that will wow your family and  friends and even your meat lovin' husband.

Right about now you're wishing you were my friend aren't ya?? :-)

What's your favourite type of squash?

Do you have an awesome recipe of gnocchi you'd like to share?

I hope you all have a relaxing Sunday evening and to my Canadian friends, Happy Family Day tomorrow....and to my American buddies, Happy President's Day! I hope your day off is filled with family, friends and lots of good eats.

Andrea