People always ask me if I enjoy cooking because I do it all the time. My usual reply is "Not really, but I do enjoy eating healthfully as a result of my hard work in the kitchen." Well today after almost a week off from cooking over the Christmas holidays and after a week of eating food that is not the greatest for me I have gotten back into the kitchen. I whipped up a batch of mixed berry jam and experimented with some leftover pumpkin puree and made a pumpkin loaf. And I must say there is something enjoyable about working in the kitchen and creating something with your own two hands. It was satisfying today to spend some time baking while watching my jars of jam cool on the window sill. (I even used my new label maker and added some handy dandy labels to the jar) What is also gratifying is realizing how my skills have improved over the last year. I never would have experimented with a recipe a year ago but today I subbed in pumpkin for bananas and created my own pumpkin bread. It is still baking away in the oven so I will have to let you know how it tastes when it's done!

Braised Pacific Halibut

This is another one of those dishes I chose to make because I had some leftover white wine in the fridge. So far I have not been a huge fan of the fish recipes in the GI diet cookbook. Out of the six fish dishes I have tried I have loved two (Drunken Salmon and Grilled Tilapia) but the remaining four I have not really enjoyed. If I decide to try this meal again I think I would make a few changes. I would attempt the recipe using fresh spinach and I would follow my chef friends advice with regards to the white wine (see below in cooking tips)

SERVED WITH: Brown rice and Mediterranean oven roasted tomatoes

COOKING TIPS: My chef friend gave me a little tip. He said if you bring your wine to a boil in a frying pan before adding it to your casserole to braise the fish with you will end up with a more flavorful dish.

RATING 6. My husband rated this dish a 7 but I disagree. I didn't enjoy it all that much.

A Sunday Afternoon of Cooking with Moe

My good friend Maureen was kind enough to come over a few weeks back to help me prepare for my annual Christmas party. We had such a good time cooking in the kitchen together that we made a date for the following Sunday afternoon. She selected a few recipes from my blog that she thought she would like to make during the week. On Sunday we shopped together for the ingredients and spent a few hours chopping, mixing, cooking and laughing.

We cooked up a storm and made:
2 batches - Chicken and Rice
2 batches - Runner's World Meatloaf
2 batches - Mediterranean Oven-Roasted Tomatoes (post to come later)
1 batch - Braised Pacific Halibut (that is what you see above, post to come later)

If your not a huge fan of cooking I would definitely recommend having a cooking date with a friend. Time flies when you are cooking with a friend and joking around. (Especially if you have a glass of wine) You will most likely learn some tips from each other and you get to try out each others favorite recipes. Best of all you will have enough food to get you at least half way through the week and you will have had fun making it!

Mushroom and Arugula Salad

Back in the day when we used to eat out all the time this was one of my favorite salads from one of my favorite restaurants. I decided to learn how to make it myself so we could have it at home as often as we wished. It is super simple and extremely delicious, especially if you are a mushroom lover like me. It is easy to convert it to a GI friendly recipe, just use low fat cheese.

1 bag of baby arugula
1 lemon
approximately 10 - 12 mushrooms sliced
parmesan cheese (use low fat parmesan to be GI worthy)
olive oil (ok if you limit your serving size)

Squeeze the juice out of one lemon.
Measure just how much you get from the lemon and then add an equal amount of olive oil and whisk together.
Take a taste of the dressing, if it is to tangy for you then add a little more olive oil. I usually find that one whole lemon yields 1/4 cup of juice.
Place arugula in a large bowl and toss with a couple of tablespoons of dressing.
Place arugula on a plate and top with sliced mushrooms and shaved parmesan

SERVED WITH: Any main course you desire.

COOKING TIPS: It is important to note that you do not need a lot of the dressing on this salad. If you use to much it will overpower the subtle flavours of arugula, parmesan and mushrooms.

RATING: 9. This is my favorite salad. I could eat it every night!

Even though I make this all the time I have never thought to take a picture of it. I promise I will take one and post it the next time I make it.

Cream Cheese Icing

Every year I bake up some cupcakes for our Christmas party. This year I made the GI Diet cookbook's chocolate zucchini muffins to keep things healthy. Instead of using icing which is full of sugar I made a cream cheese icing from the carrot cake recipe in the book. They went well together. The recipe uses a small amount of orange juice concentrate for flavour but I think it would have tasted just as good without it. The blue and white snowflake sprinkles I added on top however were not sugar free or GI friendly.

SERVED WITH: Chocolate zucchini muffins

COOKING TIPS: Don't be deceived as I was. At first I thought I would not have enough icing so I doubled up the recipe and then ended up with too much.

RATING: 9. I'm looking forward to trying it out on the carrot cake as the recipe originally intended.

Basmati Rice Crackers

Now normally when I make something new I don't hesitate to have some friends over to try it out on the first shot at the recipe. But something about this recipe seemed daunting and I decided to test it out before serving it at my annual Christmas party. Lucky for me I did otherwise I would have been a very frustrated host running out to the grocery store for crackers just minutes before my guests arrived. On the Monday before my party I gave this recipe a go. It was time consuming and very messy and I will definitely not be attempting it again. You basically cook up a pot of rice with some onions and spices. After you let the rice cool you spread it between two sheets of wax paper and go over it with a rolling pin, cut it into squares, place on a baking sheet and bake them for 10 minutes until they are crispy. The reason I didn't like this recipe was that my crackers kept falling apart before I could get them on the cookie sheet, I got rice everywhere, and once baked it didn't taste fabulous. It was interesting is all I can say.

SERVED WITH: We tried it out with a slice of cheese. They had more of a chewy texture then a crispy one you would expect with a cracker. The ones on the edges of the pan got crispier but were almost to hard and felt like biting a popcorn kernel.

COOKING TIPS: Don't make it! Just joking. You may have better luck then me.

RATING: 3. I'd rather just find some healthy crackers at the store then spend time making them.

Warm Artichoke Dip

This is another item I made last weekend for our party. It was the first time I had tried it out and both batches of it were gone by the end of the evening. It was nice to serve a warm dip. I put out a ton of veggies to eat it with but most people ate it with the tortilla chips instead. It tasted great straight from the oven when it was hot and later on when it cooled off. This turned out to be a pretty chunky dip so I can see why people chose the tortilla chips. It was a little more difficult to keep on a carrot stick.

SERVED WITH: Veggies and tortilla chips

COOKING TIPS: No tips necessary, just chop it up and mix it up.

RATING: 8. I would definitely make it again.

Vegetable Barley Soup Au Pistou - Sub in Brown Rice

I've never made this soup because I'm allergic to barley. I know, poor me I can't drink beer! Last weekend I had so many veggies left over from our Christmas party that I was scouring the GI diet cookbook looking for a recipe that had as many vegetables in it as I could find. This one had alot! It includes carrots, celery, leeks, zucchini, and red peppers.

So instead of using barley I substituted in some brown rice and it worked out quite well. Right towards the end of this recipe you mix in some pesto. There is even a recipe for your own homemade pesto. Since I just happened to have some decently healthy store bought pesto in the fridge I used it instead.

I found this recipe posted on line. So click on the link below if you want to try it out.
Vegetable Barley Soup Au Pistou

SERVED WITH: A piece of spelt toast (Spelt is a yellow light item. I am currently trying to stay sugar free at the same time as staying wheat free due to a suspected wheat allergy in the household so I have had to resort to spelt. It's spelt or starve, so spelt it is for now.)

COOKING TIPS: Don't waste to much time cutting up your veggies. Just give them a quick chop chop and toss them in the pot. If you have any left overs that you plan on eating the next day you may have to add in some more stock or even a touch of water. Because I made mine with rice it soaked up most of the broth. I am not sure if the same thing would happen with barely though as I have never cooked with it.

RATING 7. It was fine, not overly flavorful. I might make it again.

GI Diet Christmas Party

Last night we had our annual Holiday Bash. Each year we host a Christmas party for 20 - 30 of our friends. This year we decided to make it a GI friendly party (well, as much as we possibly could). With so many celebrations in the month of December many of us become "over sugared" and over eat with all the festivities. We did have two or three indulgences but for the most part it was all healthy and most of the dishes were from the GI Diet cookbook. Everyone had a nice time and I think they all enjoyed the food. One guest even told me she was "stuffed full but a good healthy stuffed full". Getting ready to host a party of this size takes a fair amount of time and planning but I absolutely love organizing things. A good friend came over on Friday night and we cooked for four hours and then I spent the entire day in the kitchen the day of the party. But all that work is worth it. It's wonderful having all of our closest friends in one room at the same time.

Here is what we served:
Spicy Popcorn - Parmesan Garlic and Cajun (GI friendly)
Warm Artichoke Dip with Cut up veggies such as carrots, celery, zucchini, and peppers (GI friendly)

Anti pasta Platter - salami, turkey and prosciutto with olives and sun dried tomatoes - one of our splurge items

Layered Guacamole served with tortilla chips - a Canadian Living recipe (Guacamole GI friendly but not the chips)

Quinoa Bean and Vegetable Chili with yogurt cheese (GI friendly)

Mushroom and Arugula Salad with Lemon Olive oil dressing - a dish I copied from one
of our favorite restaurants (GI friendly)

Cheese and Crackers - another splurge because it was not low fat

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins with Cream Cheese icing (GI friendly)

Peppermint Bark - another splurge

Fruit salad with strawberries, blackberries, pomegranates, melon (a red light item), and red and green grapes (GI friendly except for the melon)

And of course the red wine and beer were a special treat as well.