May is Love Your Lentils Month and because of that I was planning on posting this recipe for Baked Lentils on Toast a few weeks ago, but then May just happened. In a good way. It’s like you blink and suddenly there are leaves on the trees and flowers blooming everywhere. It’s not quite summer yet, but finally that cold spring breeze is gone and you can almost feel summer. I love May.

My mom is from England, and while I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat baked beans on toast, or enjoy tea and crumpets on a daily basis, we do love the Royal Family. The last time I was in England, a couple of years ago, I remember out hotel would serve baked beans on toast with every breakfast. I thought it was such an odd combination, but I obviously became obsessed. When I saw Lentils Canada was hosting a recipe contest for Love Your Lentils Month I knew I would participate, the question was what to make. I don’t cook with lentils too often, and when I do it’s always Lentil Soup but one day I had a brain wave. What about a take on baked beans on toast, using lentils instead? And voila, an hour or so later I had my first version of Baked Lentils on Toast. Which was much too onion-y. I finally got it right though, and this recipe is a great alternative to a classic.

Baked Lentils on Toast (serves 4-6)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

6 rashers/slices of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 cups dried green lentils
4 cups water
1 cup crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice

Directions

In an oven safe large pot, cook bacon and yellow onion over medium heat for 4 minutes. Add garlic, cook for another minute.

Remove bacon, onion and garlic from pot and set aside.

Add lentils and water to pot. Bring to a boil, partly cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat, stir in bacon, onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes, maple syrup, molasses, Dijon and salt. Cover with lid.

Cook for 20-25 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

Once finished, stir in lemon juice and serve.

This recipe for Baked Lentils on Toast will be sure to impress even your most British of house guests.

- Lou

It’s OK to start grilling vegetables, right? I know technically summer isn’t for another month or so, but I feel like I’ve been in the summer mindset forever – I started grilling in April!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but it will come as no surprise that I love, love, love Julia Child. I had a phase where I would watch her cooking DVDs every night, even today, I’ll put on her DVDs if I’m feeling stressed out or just need a break. But did you know that Julia Child hated grilled vegetables? She once said “There’s nothing worse than grilled vegetables!” I’m sorry Julia, but I’ll have to disagree with you on that. The grilled vegetables in this Pasta Salad add a nice smokey touch to the dish.

Along with the smokey flavour from grilling the vegetables, the other flavour element of this dish is an amazing Spicy Rosée Sauce made by Maison Le Grand. Usually pasta salad can be a heavy dish, filled with mayonnaise, but using this healthy sauce to bring the dish together was not only really easy, but also delicious.

I don’t know about all of you, but I find vegan/dairy free cooking to be pretty intimidating (confession, I have never cooked with tofu!) and with all the substitutes out there, it almost feels like cooking with your eyes closed. This Spicy Rosée Sauce literally eliminates the fear because Maison Le Grand does it for you – it’s pretty tough to make a delicious dairy-free rosée sauce but Maison Le Grand has cracked the code.

Since I loved the sauces so much, I’m so excited to give one lucky reader a selection of pesto and rosée sauces valued at $50 courtesy of Maison Le Grand.

To enter, leave a comment letting me know what your favourite Maison Le Grand product or which would you like to try?  You can also earn additional entries by filling out the contest widget to increase your chance of winning!

Pasta Salad with Grilled Vegetables (serves 4-6)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1 zucchini, sliced 1/4″ thick (roughly 20 rounds)
1 small eggplant, cut into 1/2′ thick rounds
1 red pepper, cut in 8 pieces
1/2 cup Maison Le Grand Spicy Rosée Sauce (or any of their rosée sauces)
1 375g box of whole wheat pasta (you can also use your favourite gluten free pasta)

For dressing:

1/2 cup Maison Le Grand Spicy Rosée Sauce (or any of their rosée sauces)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil

Directions

In a large bowl, toss vegetables with spicy rosée sauce.Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

Meanwhile, prepare your dressing. Whisk spicy rosée sauce with balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Slowly add olive oil in a steady stream to emulsify.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Toss with half of the dressing mixture.

Preheat grill to medium-low heat. Cook eggplant and peppers for 5 minutes per side. Slice grilled eggplant into long strips, and grilled peppers into bite sized chunks.

Next, cook zucchini for 2 minutes per side. Remove grilled vegetables and add to pasta. Toss with remaining dressing.

Give this Pasta Salad with Grilled Vegetables a try at your next barbecue, you’re vegan friends will thank you!

- Lou

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Giveaway is open to residents of Ontario and Quebec over the age of 18.
See widget for terms and conditions.

Disclaimer: I was provided with samples of Maison Le Grand’s line of pestos and rosée sauces. I was not compensated in any other way for writing this post – the decision to write about the product was my own and all opinions are 100% mine.

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen developing recipes. There are meticulous notes involved, multiple drafts and different coloured pens – the whole nine yards. But there is something magical about being in the kitchen and just throwing whatever you have together. While most of my time in the kitchen is spent working on recipes, I try to carve out a few times a month where I just go in there with nothing in mind and just throw whatever together. There are definitely some pretty big failures, but also some great successful dishes.

That’s how this Quinoa Bowl came together. It was 11:30 at night and I needed something to bring to work for lunch the next day. I wasn’t looking to create a “blog worthy” dish, or follow a recipe, I was literally just throwing ingredients together. I had leftover zucchini, broccoli and kale in my fridge that needed to be used up. With the addition of a little Italian sausage, I had a meal ready to go in 15 minutes. Plus, I love when things are monochrome, so the idea of this dish having all green vegetables pleases my nerdy, uniform side. This Quinoa Bowl is the kind of thing that works well for a quick dinner, but I love to make a batch at the beginning of the week and bring it for lunch.

Quinoa Bowl (serves 2-4)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 1/4 cups water
1 link hot Italian sausage, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 zucchini, sliced in semi-circles
1 cup chopped broccoli florets
1 cup chopped kale
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a small pot, bring water to a boil. Add quinoa and cover. Reduce heat and cook for 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook sausage over medium-high heat, about five minutes or until fully cooked. Remove to a bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic, cooking for a minute or until fragrant.

Next, add zucchini and broccoli. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until beginning to soften.

Add kale. Cook for another 2-3 minutes or until kale has wilted.

Finely, season with lemon juice and salt and pepper.

Toss vegetables with sausage and cooked quinoa.

This Quinoa Bowl will quickly become a lunch staple.

- Lou

Frozen puff pastry is a life saver. I don’t like to use frozen, pre-made ingredients often, but when it comes to puff pastry, I’ll make an exception. I try to always keep a box in the freezer, because I can almost guarantee that there will be a time when you forget you need an appetizer for a dinner or barbecue you’re hosting. Trust me, it will save your life, not to mention reputation. Ha! Just kidding, nobody really cares if you have an appetizer, but it’s fun to play Martha Stewart every now and then. Plus, because these Jalapeno Cheddar Breadsticks are so easy, you might love them even more than your guests.

I’ve made many of these bread sticks before and they are one of the easiest (and most loved) appetizers you can make. It’s amazing the way puff pastry can transform ingredients. If you’re looking for some other options to make, give my Olive and Mozzarella Breadsticks a try. You know what would be even more fun? If you made the Jalapeno Cheddar Breadsticks and Olive Mozzarella Breadsticks at the same time and had options for your guests. This is why they pay me the big(!) bucks my friends.

Jalapeno Cheddar Breadsticks
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg + 1 tbsp water, whisked
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 jalapenos, seeded and finely diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 400.

On a lightly floured surface roll out both pieces of  puff pastry and brush with egg wash.

In a medium bowl, mix together cheese, jalapenos, garlic, pepper and salt.

Leaving a 1/2 inch border, sprinkle one sheet of puff pastry with cheese mixture.

Place the second sheet of puff pastry on top of the first sheet. Pressing around the edges to seal.

Using a knife or a pizza cutter cut the sheets into 24 thin strips. Picking up by each end, twist the breadsticks and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Be sure to press down the ends of the dough onto the cookie sheet so that the breadsticks keep their shape.

Repeat with remaining dough and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

Give these Jalapeno Cheddar Breadsticks a try at your next dinner party.

- Lou

With warm weather comes cravings for healthy, fresh salads. The thing is, salads can get a little boring if you’re eating the same old dressing and vegetable combination every day. I know this first hand because that’s exactly what I did with this dressing. I’m surprised I haven’t posted this recipe for Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette because I would bring this salad dressing for lunch every single day of my senior year of high school.

Ever since I graduated from high school, (almost two years ago…wow) I haven’t been making this salad dressing nearly as often. The truth is, I don’t think I’ve been eating as many salads as I used to. I think that’s one of the side effects of university – healthy eating habits go right out the window. Recently, I’ve been making more of a conscious effort to eat healthy foods and snacks and I can tell you that I feel so much better. Is anyone else planning a health kick this month? Mine’s been going pretty well so far, I mean, I didn’t buy any chocolate covered pretzels last time I was at the grocery store.

Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette (makes 3/4 cup)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
1/8 tsp salt and pepper
1/2 cup olive oil

Directions

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, salt and pepper.

Next, while continuously whisking, pour in olive oil in a light, steady stream. Continue to whisk until olive oil is incorporated into vinegar and dressing has thickened, about 30 seconds. The dressing should be thick enough to coat a spoon (as seen in photo above). The oil and vinegar should not be separate.

Are you on a healthy kick too? What kinds of recipes are you looking for? Let me know. Give this Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette a try for your next lunch.

- Lou

These Baked Spiced Salmon Cakes are something that I’ve had up my sleeve for a while. It’s one of those simple, no-brainer types of dinners that are perfect for your typical Tuesday night. The leftovers might be my favourite part of making these salmon cakes for dinner. because as much as I love cooking, sometimes I just don’t feel like making dinner, especially when I’m taking some time off.

I finished exams last week (finally!) and since last Tuesday at 10pm, I have been taking a much needed break from everything. I’m not the best at taking breaks, I feel like it’s a skill that has to be learned. I, like many others, tend to feel really guilty when I’m not doing something. I always feel like I need to be crossing things off my to-do list, and moving forward and improving. But during this week off (OK, so I did post last week…baby steps), I realized just how nice it can be to take a step back and look at everything you’ve done and enjoy it.

Baked Spiced Salmon Cakes (serves 4-6)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

14 oz (2 213g cans) canned salmon
1 med. sweet potato, peeled, boiled and mashed
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, whisked
1 green onion, sliced
zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp chopped capers
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
Cooking spray

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large bowl, using a fork, combine all ingredients except for breadcrumbs.

Use an ice cream scoop to scoop salmon mixture. Using your hands form into patties. Carefully dredge in panko.

Place on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Spray patties with cooking spray.

Bake for 5-7 minutes in the oven, before flipping patties over and cooking for another 5 minutes. Finally, turn on the broiler and broil patties for 2 minutes – this helps to get them nice and crunchy.

These Baked Spiced Salmon Cakes make a great dinner with ingredients that are probably already in your pantry.

- Lou

Things have been a little more quiet than usual here, but there are a few good reasons for that. Today we’re going to talk about the Food Bloggers of Canada conference.

Last weekend I attended the first Food Bloggers of Canada Conference, which was amazing. I don’t normally get nervous easily, but when my GPS announced that I had 5 minutes to go, my stomach was in knots. I have never been to an event where I didn’t know anyone. Plus, being 19 meant that I was going to be one of the younger, if not youngest, bloggers there. Was anyone going to talk to me, more importantly, would anyone want to talk to me? I mean, I’m 19 what on earth could I know about cooking and food blogging – in hindsight, having been doing this nearly three years, I’m starting to know my way around the kitchen and a blog. I tried to push those nervous thoughts aside and blasted my music (Brooks and Dunn, naturally) and took that last turn into Hockley Valley.

It started off well, I did a fantastic parking job(!) and then realized that I had forgotten my camera by my front door…rookie mistake. All was well in the end because there is this little company called Apple, who makes these phones with pretty fantastic little cameras.

Do you know what I realized, within the first 15 minutes of being there? Nobody cared that I was 19. Nobody cared that I didn’t have kids. We were all there for the same reason, we love food and blogging. The weekend was packed with events and don’t even get me started on the delicious food and wine. Melissa, Mardi and Ethan had a superb group of speakers lined up and I enjoyed all of the sessions. Just hearing everyone speak about things they are passionate about was enough for me. I was particularly fond of the recipe development session as creating recipes is one of my favourite things to do. There was something special about meeting the other bloggers and getting inspired by their passion for their blogs.

I’ve heard mixed things about conferences before, but I can say that FBC2013 was something special. I feel more inspired and energized than ever about what I have going here on Living Lou and what’s to come.

- Lou

Apparently I’m all about the sandwiches these days, last week was Bacon Avocado Egg Salad Sandwiches and this week it’s Chipotle Chicken Salad Sandwiches. My creativity for meals and writing has completely been sucked out of my brain and replaced with post-post modernism, codecs and action verbs (which are the secret to directing actors, in case you were wondering). It’s that time of year, friends, finals. I’m officially over the hump, 3 down, 2 to go.

No matter how prepared I am with recipes that are ready to share, when I’m bombarded with 5 exams in 6 days, I hit a major case of writer’s block. I guess it’s because I don’t really have much to share since all I’m doing is studying. And going for gelato. It’s all about balance, people! Two of the exams I wrote were the type of exams that no matter how hard you study, you’ll get in there and be completely floored by the questions. You’re not left with that relief feeling after the exam, it’s more of an oh-shit type of feeling. Then you have a little chat with your classmates and realize that nobody knew what they were doing in the exam and you feel a little better. Then you blast 60′s French pop on the drive home and you’re feeling much better.

In other news, and a great way to end a not-so-great week, I’m heading up to the first Food Blogger’s of Canada conference this weekend…I can’t wait to meet some fellow Canadian bloggers, and enjoy the delicious food of Hockley Valley especially after weeks of not so yummy, bland food. Maybe I’ll even learn a few things along the way. Be sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter to keep up with what I’m doing and follow that hashtag #FBC2013.

Chipotle Chicken Salad Sandwiches (serves 4)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1 chicken breast, poached and shredded
1 green onion, sliced
1 celery stalk, grated
1 medium carrot graed
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp Dijon
2 1/2 tsp chipotle hot sauce
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together using a fork. Serve over your favourite bread.

I love to eat these Chipotle Chicken Salad Sandwiches for lunch during busy weeks.

- Lou

As you might have seen on Twitter, I’ve been a contributing author to the amazing online magazine Sweet Lemon Magazine for the past few issues. If you don’t know what Sweet Lemon is, it is a digital magazine written by and for the “Jane of all trades”. The magazine is committed to Gen-Y women and is run by a group of fabulous Gen-Y women, the fabulous Paris, Meghan and Brittany – talk about a great team.

Not only is it beautifully designed (thanks to Meghan and her team!) but has wonderful articles. I have, of course, contributed to the food and drink areas of the magazine. This was the Spring issue and I wanted to highlight fresh, spring flavors. I developed, and of course photographed, the delicious Avocado Feta Cucumber Bites (pg. 143) and Strawberry Cream Puffs (pg. 145).

As mentioned, I’ve contributed to previous issues, their Holiday issue back in December where I shared a menu for “Drinks and Desserts” with your girlfriends, including a delicious Flourless Chocolate Cake, Cozy Hot Cocoa and Apple and Cranberry Bundles.

One of my favourites was definitely the Valentine’s Truffles I made for their Valentine’s issue. This was one of my favourite issues to contribute to because I don’t usually develop recipes for Valentine’s Day (I’m not usually much of a dessert person), so this definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Let me know what you think – it’s always fun to work on projects in addition to Living Lou.

- Lou

Bacon. Avocado. Egg. I’d like to introduce the holy trinity of breakfast to the meal we call lunch.

Sometimes lunch is actually breakfast, sometimes lunch doesn’t even happen until 4pm and we know all to well that most of the time, my lunch happens while driving – but whenever lunch does happen, if this Bacon Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich is involved you know it’ll be a good one.

So, how many people have a dozen of creatively decorated hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator right now? How many of you don’t even like eating hard boiled eggs? For me, it’s a texture thing with the yolks, but that leaves the question – what are you going to do with them? Waste them? No! Egg salad is obviously the answer, but not your regular egg salad, something a little special.

I introduced my dad to my favourite breakfast sandwich the other day – the smashed avocado, bacon and egg open faced sandwich and I had the brainwave to put the flavors into egg salad. I’ve been meaning to make egg salad sandwiches for a while, but like many things I plan on doing (cleaning my room, watching Downton Abbey, going skiing) it didn’t happen…until now.

Bacon Avocado Egg Salad Sandwiches (serves 4-6)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

6 hard boiled eggs, chopped
6 rashers of bacon, cooked and chopped
2 avocados, mashed
2 green onions, sliced
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Directions

To hard boil the eggs, cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for 15 minutes. Once finished cooking, remove from hot water and cover with cold water to stop cooking.

Mix together chopped hard boiled eggs, bacon, avocados, green onions, lemon juice, mayonnaise, black pepper, Dijon mustard and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

Serve on your favourite bread, and store in the fridge in an airtight container.

This Bacon Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich is a revelation and I highly recommend giving it a try this week.

- Lou