Speacial Occasions: The Olympics

Summer is a great time to throw your fridge into a salad bowl or invite the world to London to have a super duper sports battle of epicness. Here is a fun summer salad that has some ingredients you might not expect rising to the challenge of deliciousness.

- Kirby Cucumbers
- Tomatotes
- Mini peppers
- Swiss Cheese
- Papaya
- Green grapes

Tossed with white balsamic vinegar and olive oil, served on a few leaves of Boston lettuce.
I tried to make the peppers look like the Olympic rings, but they're upside down and obvious not the right colours.

REZ LIFE recipe #1: Asian Style Wraps

Fun and easy, this recipe is great for small get-togethers or maybe even getting to know your roommate :)

What you need:
- Rice paper wraps
- Cut veggies in strips (pepper, cucumber, sprouts, carrot)
- Cooked meat of your choosing (left-overs work great)
- Soy sauce/teriyaki sauce/peanut sauce
-Warm water
- A flat tray (pizza pan, plate)

What to do:
-Chop veggies
- Put warm water in flat tray
(you may want to put the water in the kettle for a bit BUT DON'T LET IT BOIL)
- Place rice paper in the tray until soft
- Fill wrap with delicious things
- Add sauce
- Fold
- Eat
-Repeat (you will eat more than one)

How to Survive University Residence (when all you have is a microwave and a kettle)

While I'm not super psyched about getting a meal plan, I think it will help reduce the stress of my first year away from home. That being said, I'm not going to eat caf food for every meal. However, most residence buildings don't have kitchens. They all have microwaves though (or they should), and they let you have a kettle in your room.

So what on earth can you eat with just a kettle and a microwave at your disposal? That's my mission. Stay tuned for new recipes labelled "Rez Life".

Quick Recipe: Pesto sandwich

I visited Queen's U again over March break, and had a delicious pesto chicken wrap thingy. It was chicken with balsamic, wrapped up flawlessly in a huge whole wheat tortilla with pesto, cheese, and tomato. SO GOOD.

Anyways, I now have Invisilign braces, which means eating has officially gotten harder. You have to take them out to eat, but you can't have them out for longer than half and hour, and then you have to brush the aligners and your teeth, bla bla bla. Also, I can't snack constantly anymore, or at all really. I get like, one official snack break in addition to 3 meals. Oh woe is me.

THE POINT IS, I have less time to make lunch in the morning. So I make pesto sandwiches a lot.

You need:
Bread/a bun/a bagel
Pesto (red or green, although I do prefer red)
Left-over meat/cold-cuts
Cheese

What to do:
Toast grain product (only if you're going to eat it right away)
Spread pesto onto grain product
Cut up or grate cheese onto sandwich
Add sliced meat
Close sandwich
Enjoy the goodness

Recipe 15 - Red Pesto and Cheese Stuffed Chicken

It was kind of an experiment for me, since I don't usually deal with meat. I find touching raw meat a little disturbing, but I'm getting over it. Anyway, I felt like stuffed chicken, so stuffed chicken we had. If my ambiguous pronouns bother you, "we" refers to whomever I'm eating dinner with. In this case, it's my dad.

What you need:
-1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast
- A jar of red (tomato) pesto, or green if you prefer.
- A small bowl of grated cheese.Cheddar, Mozzarella, or Swiss will do.
- Some olive oil
- Some bread crumbs or flour

What to do:
- Trim your chicken of any excess fat

- Slice the chicken as you would a hot-dog bun and open it up

- Spoon a large heap of pesto out onto your chicken but remember IF THE SPOON TOUCHES THE CHICKEN IT CANNOT GO BACK IN THE JAR.

- Once you're satisfied with the amount of pesto, you can spread it over both halves with the back of the spoon

- Sprinkle in your grated cheese

- Stab your chicken with tooth-picks! And by that, I mean, use tooth picks to keep it closed while it bakes.

- Brush the top of your chicken with olive oil and sprinkle your bread crumbs over top. (this helps prevent the chicken from drying out)

-You can sprinkle any excess cheese on the top as well.

- Put some bread crumbs on the cutting board(or whatever your work surface is) then lift the chicken, place it over top, and smear it around so the bottom also gets covered.

- Place your chicken in a small baking pan (which has olive oil evenly applied to the bottom of it)

- Bake the chicken at 400F for 45 minutes

- Slice and Serve!

Serves 2 with a little bit of left overs. Goes great with potato wedges and salad.

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Recipe #14 - Arctic Char with Israeli Couscous

I first came across this recipe at one of my favourite restaurants: Petit Bill's. It's on Wellington Street in Westboro if you're ever in the area. It's a little on the pricey side, but the service and food are always fantastic. When I had it, it was served with a Dijon dressing drizzled over the fish and spinach, but as we had no Dijon mustard, we modified the recipe.

NOTE: Arctic Char is the slightly more sustainable/expensive cousin of salmon. It's also a fresh water fish.

What you need:
- 500g of Arctic Char
- 2 large handfuls of baby spinach
-2 medium sized tomatoes
- 1 cup of Israeli couscous
- 2 tsp butter
- 1 3/4 cups of water
- A drizzle of fig-flavoured balsamic vinegar
- A drizzle of olive oil

What to do:
- In a kettle, boil the water
- In a sauce pan melt the butter (burner on medium)
- Add the couscous and coat it in the butter (stir occasionally for 5 minutes)
- Add the boiling water and turn the heat down to low
- Keep covered for 8 minutes
- Let stand 3-4 minutes before serving

-Place Char on a pizza pan
- Sprinkle some oregano and paprika over it
- Place some lemon slices on the top
- Bake at 400F for 15 minutes or until the thickest part is cooked through

Meanwhile
- Wash your baby spinach
- Arrange it nicely on the plates
- Slice your tomatoes into wedges (6 pieces will do)
-Arrange them on the spinach
- Pour the balsamic and olive oil over it

When everything is done, place the char over the spinach and dish the couscous out as desired.
Enjoy!

Serves 2 with  one serving of fish left over.