Garden Spring Soup Recipe

Written with love, by Sarah-Elizabeth Labelle

One of my favourite parts of growing up in the country is fresh, delicious ingredients made into fresh, delicious food. Have you ever put mint into a soup? My mom did, amongst a million trial and errors of her very own. There’s something about soups in particular that always struck a chord with me. They’re so versatile, and can always be improved on or added to. It’s literally a chance for a wild experiment in the making.

I love sitting down with the concept of a soup in mind, picturing the colour and all the different elements of it, and then breaking it down into savory ingredients. The end result is an amazingly bright soup that is thick, warm, and vibrant. Am I making your mouth water yet?

Excellent!  Well then you’ll be thrilled to see that this week’s recipe is a very garden fresh, spring soup! It’s healthy, versatile and will bring you straight back to country living, even if you only ever visit for meal times.

Ingredients

·         1 onion, chopped

·         ¼ cup of butter

·         3-5 mint leaves

·         ½ cup of half and half milk

·         3 cups of chicken stock

·         4 cloves of garlic

·         1 cup of spinach, chopped

·         2 cups of peas

Directions

1.       Melt butter into soup pot and add chopped onions, let cook until browned

2.       Add in garlic, spinach, and peas, mix into butter and let simmer for roughly 1 minute, or until everything is coated

3.       Add in chicken stock, and bring everything up to a boil for roughly 5-8 minutes

4.       Let the whole mixture sit at a simmer for 10-12 minutes, then add in mint leaves

5.       Next puree the whole mixture over very low heat

6.       Add in half and half milk on medium heat, stir well, season to taste

Wine: French Rabbit, Chardonnay

Beer Battered Fish (the low calorie recipe)

Written with love, by Sarah-Elizabeth Labelle

I have a confession to make – I love to bargain with myself. You know the kind where you can’t actually lose, but you’ll probably never fulfill your end of the deal? For example: one more scoop of ice cream tonight, and I’ll run up and down the stairs a few extra times, or one more hour of Netflix tonight and tomorrow I’ll go to bed super early. I find I rarely keep my end of the deal, but for those few moments I feel like I’ve won the lottery..."Of course I’ll do that tomorrow, I’ll have no excuse."

Inevitably, I find the excuse. I’m the master of the excuse (which is probably why I enjoy the thrill of the bargain). I can come up with a hundred reasons why I can’t do those extra steps after all, and for those few moments a wave of guilt comes crashing down, but don’t worry, I’ll have just one more scoop of ice cream tonight.

With that being said, there is a way to break the cycle, ladies. It starts with a great meal you don’t have to make a bargain for and you even get to eat deep fried food without trading your dessert.

INGREDIENTS

·         4 fish fillets

·         1 cup of flour

·         2 tbs of garlic powder, or minced garlic

·         2 tbs of paprika

·         2 tbs of salt

·         1 egg, beaten

·         1 bottle of low calorie beer (roughly 375mLs)

·         3 – 5 cups of vegetable or olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1.       For all you lucky people with a deep fryer, preheat up to medium. If you don’t have a deep fryer, no sweat! Just use a frying pan, fill about half way with vegetable or olive oil, and set to medium heat. Just be really careful to watch the pan the entire cooking process!

2.       In a mixing bowl, add flour, garlic, paprika and salt (feel free to add in anything else you like the taste of).  In a separate bowl, beat the egg.

3.       Add in egg to dry mixture, mix well

4.       Slowly pour in beer while stirring the mixture

5.       Stir the mixture really well, remove all the lumps: You want a cup cake batter consistency here

6.       Submerge fish into batter, one at a time, and then carefully place into frying pan

7.       Flip the fish after roughly 3 minutes, or until the opposite side looks golden brown

8.       Add some bright green veggies to your plate for a pop of colour, and a guilt free side dish

Date Night Recipe: Spring Taquitos

Written with love, by Sarah-Elizabeth Labelle

It’s all over the magazines and people are even beginning conversations with strangers about it. We can all feel its impending arrival. Spring is coming, or so we all desperately hope. We change over our coats, we try and make it through the commute in shoes that really aren’t fit for melting snow and we spice up the colours in our wardrobes, all in the faint hope that we can force the weather to get warmer.

I find myself constantly checking my weather app thinking if I will it hard enough, spring will simply just appear.  It’s not only me - Store fronts optimistically display gardening tools, clothing stores promote their new line of rain boots, and food articles literally turn green with envy. So why not add to the fever that’s over taken us all and make some delicious food that reminds us of backyards without snow, and of tee shirts instead of parkas?

Ingredients

·         Taco shells, or tortilla bread

·         1 lbs of ground beef

·         1 lbs of ground turkey (or chicken)

·         3 stalks of celery (chopped)

·         ¼ cup of chopped green onion

·         ¼ cup of chopped asparagus

·         2 cloves of garlic

·         ¼ cup of olive oil

·         ¼ cup mushrooms

·         1 tomato diced

·         1 Zucchini

·         1 bag of mixed cheeses, or 3 cups of shredded cheese

·         1 tbs paprika  

·         2-3 cups of shredded lettuce

Spice Mix Ingredients

·         1 tbs chili powder

·         ¼ tsp garlic (or 2 garlic cloves finely diced)

·         ¼ cup of diced onion

·         ¼ tsp crushed chili pepper flakes

·         ¼ tsp oregano

·         ½ tsp paprika

·         1 tsp cumin

·          Pinch of salt and pepper

Zucchini Sliders // Directions

1. Preheat oven to 170F

2. Chop up zucchini, dip into a small bowl of paprika and place on a greased baking tray

3. Cover the top with shredded cheese

4. Cook in oven for roughly 15 minutes, or until cheese is golden brown (put in oven at the same time you begin ground beef for timing purposes)

Beef or Turkey Mix // Directions

1  Mix all the ingredients for Spice Mix into a bowl with ground beef, or ground turkey, and work together (using your hands for this works best)

2. Over medium heat cook ground beef until no longer pink (roughly 10-15 minutes)

Fillings // Directions

Set aside your cheese, and lettuce as well as diced tomatoes in separate bowls as fillings

Combine the chopped celery, green onions,  asparagus, mushrooms and garlic with olive oil on a sauce pan over medium heat (can be done while ground beef is cooking) and let cook for 5-8 minutes. Set this aside as a vegetarian filling, also goes well with ground beef

Drink Pairings

Light beer; Corona
Wine; Santa Carolina, Merlot