Garlic Scape Scampi

Geoff and I have been getting organic vegetables delivered to our door for the last year. It's always a great surprise to find out whats in the vegetable box. This week we received garlic scape.
I had never even heard of them before now. After a quick search on tastespotting, we were able to come across several recipes. Most of the recipes had the scape blended and made into a pesto. That seemed pretty boring to us, so we decided on this amazingly tastey dish from Closet Cooking. The recipe was fast and tastey. We definitely recommend trying this out.

Jamie Oliver's white fish wrapped in smoked bacon with lemon mayo and asparagus

During our most recent trip to Costco we decided to get a package of tilapia and do some experimenting. We stumbled upon this recipe in our Jamie Oliver cookbook. It took maybe 10 minutes to put together and was so delicious we nearly made it again the next night.

Ingredients:

Serves 4

4 pieces of white fish fillets
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped
Juice from 2 lemons and their zest
ground pepper
16 pieces of thinly sliced bacon
4 tablespoons of mayo
olive oil
2 bunches of asparagus, trimmed

1. Preheat oven to 400 F
2. Rub fillets with lemon zest, pepper, and fresh rosemary
3. Flatten 4 pieces of bacon on a board, slightly overlapping
4. Lay fish on top of bacon and roll the bacon around it tightly
5. In an oven-safe pan, cook the bacon-wrapped fillets for one minute
6. Place pan in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until bacon is golden-brown.
   

For the lemon mayo:

1. While fish is in the oven, mix the lemon juice with mayo and add pepper.
2. Taste to ensure the lemon is strong enough.
3. Boil the asparagus with slightly salted water
4. Drizzle the lemon mayo onto the asparagus and serve with the fish.

Lemon-Shrimp Pasta

While browsing through tastespotting (or maybe foodgawker) we saw a recipe with garlic shrimp and orzo pasta. It looked really tasty and after cleaning out the freezer, we found that there was 3 bags of shrimp stashed away from months ago so we gave it our own spin.

I'm not sure who originally posted the recipe but we used it as a starter for our own. The original didn't have any veggies and we had several lemons sitting in the fridge so we made our best attempt at customizing this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 - 1 + 1/2 cups of Orzo pasta depending on how hungry you are
2 tsp diced garlic
2 big handfuls of baby spinach, washed
an assortment of mushrooms, cleaned (we had 3 or 4 different kinds)
lemon juice
3 tbsp butter
peeled and deveined shrimp
olive oil
parsley

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, salt it and add pasta (should take about 10 minutes to cook)
2. In a frying pan, add 1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp garlic and saute the mushrooms until they soften a bit. Then add spinach until wilted
3. Meanwhile, in another pan, melt remaining butter and add remaining garlic. Add shrimp, squeeze 1/2 of a lemon's worth of juice on top. Cook shrimp 1-2 minutes per side
4. Pasta should be done, drain, mix in a little olive oil, mix in veggies and shrimp. Add as much parsley as you like to make it prettier.
   

Roasted Asparagus and Brussel Sprouts with Jamie Oliver's Egg Salad

Ingredients:
for the egg salad
8 large hen's eggs
6 tbsp mayonnaise (we used Helman's light mayo because it doesn't add too much sugar too it like other brand tend to, alternatively you could make your own mayo which would be much better)
Lemon zest from one lemon
Juice from 1/2 lemon plus a little more
Salt and pepper

for the asparagus and Brussels sprouts
1/2 pound Brussels sprouts
1 bunch asparagus, stems removed
Coarse salt
3-4 tbsp white wine vinegar
Olive Oil
Freshly ground pepper
2-3 garlic cloves chopped


For the eggs:

1. Place eggs in a pot of water that is lightly salted. Bring to a boil.
2. Let boil for 3 minutes, then immediately place under cold water
3. Peel the eggs and cut in half like you were going to make deviled eggs
   
4. Mix the mayo, lemon zest, lemon juice together in a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste.
5. put the mayo mixture on top of the eggs

For the veggies:

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Cut ends off of Brussels sprouts and peel off outer leaves. Cut in half
3. Clean asparagus and cut into 3 sections
4. Toss veggies in olive oil and garlic and put in a roasting dish
5. Squeeze some lemon juice on top, sprinkle liberally with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
   
6. Put in oven for 15 minutes. About 8 minutes in, flip veggies.
7. When the 15 minutes is up, put the white wine vinegar on top, we just eyeballed it, but we probably put 3-4 tbsp of the vinegar. Put back in oven for 3-4 more minutes.

The veggies also taste REALLY good dipped in the lemon mayo that was used on top of the eggs

The Perfect Gin and Tonic

In my family, gin and tonic is the drink of choice. At the cottage, making a gin and tonic has become somewhat of an art. You have to have the right size glass, the right amount of ice, a perfectly sliced lemon, the right brand of tonic and of course, the right kind of gin.

If you have any of the ingredients wrong, it just doesn't work and you can't enjoy that drink until you've had 2 or 3 perfectly made drinks.

Ingredients
14 oz glass
lots of ice
a slice or two of lemon
1.5 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin
1 can (not bottle) Schweppes tonic water

1. Fill glass with ice
2. Pour in shot of gin
3. Squeeze slice of lemon into glass, then put the slice into the glass
4. Fill the glass with tonic water
5. Stir with your finger
   
6. Repeat

Pecan Mascarpone Pasta

This wasn't my favourite meal ever. I saw pictures of this pasta on eatmakeread and it looked so good I had to try it. Unfortunately, when I actually went to make the pasta, i realized I was missing a few of the key ingredients, namely nutmeg and macadameia nuts. Don't get me wrong, the pasta was good, it just wasn't all I had hoped for. Next time I might use some cream cheese, or actually follow the recipe exactly as they had it on eatmakeread and not use garlic.
Geoff loved it though, and its really easy to make at least!

(Serves 2)
Inspired by http://eatmakeread.com/2009/02/24/spaghetti-with-marscapone-meyer-lemon-spinach-and-hazelnuts/
Juice from 1 lemon
Zest from ½ lemon
½ cup mascarpone cheese
½ lb noodles
5 cups roughly chopped spinach
½ cup toasted chopped pecans
1-2 cloves garlic

1. Combine zest, lemon juice, cheese, salt, pepper, garlic in a bowl
2. Cook pasta until al dente, save ½ cup of pasta water
3. Drain pasta, return to pot. Set over low heat. Add mascarpone sauce and spinach until it begins to wilt. Add ¼ cup of pasta water to keep the sauce fluid, add more if necessary
4. Cook until spinach is wilted, toss in pecans and serve!

Asparagus and Prosciutto with Breaded Shrimp

(Serves 2)

1/2 bunch asparagus

Sliced prosciutto

Lemon

Goat cheese

Shrimp

Butter

Flour

Olive oil

Chopped Garlic

Asparagus bundles (inspired by this recipe http://web.mac.com/marciaskitchen/Site/Asparagus_Bundles.html)

1. Trim ends of asparagus and boil for 2 minutes. Immediately rinse asparagus in cold water after to stop them from continuing to cook
2. Take 4-5 spears of asparagus, and wrap a slice of prosciutto around them. Do this until you’ve got all of the asparagus into bundles
3. Place in a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice and crumble goat cheese on top
4. Heat oven to 400F and bake 5-6 minutes

For the shrimp

1. Peel and devein shrimp
2. Coat in flour
3. Melt butter in a frying pan, add chopped garlic
4. Put shrimp in pan and drizzle juice from ½ of a lemon on top
5. Fry on medium-low heat until both sides are pink and the shrimp start to curl inward – about 2 minutes per side

Brussels Sprouts and Scallops

Geoff and I made this recipe last month for my mom's birthday. We actually made my grandpa cook the scallops because he has a tendency of saying seafood is "tough" if it isn't cooked right. I wasn't about to let a delicious meal be ruined with that horrible word. Unfortunately, he undercooked the scallops slightly, which is why they aren't that delicious golden brown. Surprisingly, both my nanny and my grandpa loved the meal. They enjoyed it so much that they even told me it was good. In the 5 months that they have been living with my mother, I think maybe they've complimented her cooking 3 or 4 times (and twice it was for the lobster mac and cheese recipe that I picked out!) so I think I'm winning.

Inspired by this recipe: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/scallops-with-brussels-sprouts)

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

¼ sour cream

½ tsp grated lemon zest

2 tsp lemon juice

1 tbsp olive oil

6 jumbo scallops (my Uncle John swears that if you get the scallops that are slightly pinkish in colour that they’re WAY better, but white coloured scallops are really good too!)

½ lb Brussels sprouts, thinly sliced

1 green onion, thinly sliced

3 tbsp butter

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 ounces pancetta, cubed

1. In a bowl, mix together sour cream, lemon zest, lemon juice and 1 tbsp olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper
2. In a medium skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add 1 clove of garlic. Sautee scallops on moderately high heat until golden and just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm
3. Meanwhile, in another skillet, cook pancetta over moderately high heat, until brown and crisp, about 4 minutes. Add the Brussels sprouts and green onions and cook, stirring until softened, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat; add butter and garlic until melted.
4. Transfer to plates