2011 Year in Review: Cooking Up A Storm!

Thanks to cooking classes and some nice recipe websites, I got into cooking some yummy dinners this year. My top favourite recipes were:

White Bean Stew - hearty and filling, good with a chunk of bread, green salad and a glass of white wine. Recipe

Chickpea vegetable soup - I made this a bunch of times, such a great way to get a good dose of veggies. We liked adding some meatballs for extra substance. The amazing part of this fragrant soup is the grated parmesan cheese topping that has lemon rind, pepper and rosemary mixed in. Recipe 

Potato salad with mustard dressing and pickled onions - Pickled onions became a permanent fridge fixture after this recipe, used in lots of stuff. This recipe was so refreshing and tangy, and when our first box from the Farmers Market had a ton of potatoes in it, this was a great way to use them up. We nixed the radishes the second time around, and it was just as good. Recipe 

Scalloped tomatoes - Especially good on toasts the next day. Sweet tomatoes with good cheese. Recipe

Moroccan Chicken Stew - my Mom told me to check out this recipe in the Anne Lindsay cookbook, and it was so good. Tons of veggies and rich flavour, with saffron and sweet raisins. Recipe

Zaatar Recipes from Arabic Cooking Class - zaatar has been an amazing discovery since arriving in Dubai, combinging thyme, sumac and sesame seeds into an excellent, flavourful spice. You can use it in a ton of combos, mixed into yogurt like a dip, spread on pitas with olive oil and then broiled for chips... and then these two recipes from my Arabic cooking class. 1. Layer chicken, potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms and onions and marinate the chicken in lemon juice, zaatar, garlic, and various other goodies. Bake it up! 2. Chicken marinated in tomato paste, lemon juice, zaatar, garlic, etc. Like chicken tikka masala, yum.

Tomato and Sausage Risotto - James wanted to cook a recipe so we picked this one out and headed over to the grocery store with the behind-closed-doors pork section so that we could get sausage. At every step along the way, we kept exclaiming, "this is going to be amazing" and it was!! Recipe

Chicken in Dill Mustard Sauce - What to do when you buy a massive bunch of dill at the Farmers Market? Find recipes that use it up! Like this one, which was deeeeelicious. The sauce was fantastic. Recipe

White Beans and Cabbage - The title sounds bleh, but this recipe includes toasty, tasty beans and a whopping pile of grated parmesan cheese. I bought my Mom this cookbook for Christmas because I had read so many rave reviews online this year (surprise mom!) and flipped through it before packing it away - this recipe is on the cover, and it looked so good, so I tried it out. Yum. Recipe

Desserts
Lime Coconut Cake - James' 1st cake. Inspired by Lime Tree Cafe, we saw a link to it, and both instantly knew we had to make it. And it was INCREDIBLE. Recipe

Chocolate Cake - This recipe reminded me of the chocolate corks at the High Rise Bakery in Cambridge, MA, which are dense and chocolate-y and delicious. This one pan cake was fantastic and filled the house with cocoa fragrance as it baked. Super easy to make, once I found the cocoa at the grocer store. I made it for James' bday and it was very good with some vanilla ice cream (Recipe). There's also a red wine version, that James made me for my birthday, and it was delicious, like a rum ball (Recipe).

English Toffee - For our office Secret Santa, I made this recipe and it reminded me of the yumminess that Iolanda used to make at Christmas. So easy, so simple, yet the ingredients combine to make something that is irresistible. Recipe

Other good recipes to remember:

1. Potato leek soup (especially good the next day, when the potatoes were browned a little on the bottom of the pan)
2. Stuffed peppers with couscous and feta
3. Ratatouille (eggplant, zucchini and tomates from farmer's market)
4. Zucchini loaf
5. Cabbage and apple salad
6. Eggs cooked in tomato sauce
7. Endive salad with toasted walnuts, apple slices, pomegranate seeds and goat cheese
8. Braised leeks
9. Barley risotto
10. Baked rigatoni - These little meatballs were so tasty. This dish used almost every pan in our cupboards and took about 2.5 hours to make. But it was as light and tasty as promised.
11. Cellophane noodle salad with roast pork - We couldn't figure out the pork, improvised, missed the required 4 hr marination until we started to cook at 8pm. But deeeelish.
12. Fajitas - chicken breast cut into cubes and cooked with pesto, strips of onions and red peppers, avocado mashed with tomato, tortillas heated on the stove element. Mix and match, add salsa if desired
13. Zucchini fritters - I love these, we DEVOURED them with a dollop of sour cream, smoked salmon, a squirt of lemon and pickled onions
14. Simple vegetable paella from the NYT. A great way to get tons of veggies - chickpeas, beans, red & green peppers, onions, peas, tomatoes, with the filling substance of rice. The saffron makes it fragrant and delicious.
15. Lemon risotto with summer squash. Tasty, the squash I used was orange on the inside, like pumpkin. It was so good with lots of extra greens wilted right in. Didn't use garlic. Delicious when freshly made, but I didn't enjoy the leftovers.  
16. Steak salad with blue cheese.
17. Broccoli gribiche
18. Homemade pasta
19. Cauliflower curry