Awesome Product Alert! Elaine Wilson’s Thai Red Curry Sauce

Good Morning everyone! I’ve been dreaming about this amazing recipe, so I decided to get up bright and early to write up this post for you!

I stumbled upon an AMAZING booth the last time I went to the 124 Street Grand Market. Elaine Wilson of Food You Can Cook blends a wide variety of spices, sauces and rubs, all made fresh with as local ingredients as possible and in small batches to ensure the highest quality. Justin and I easily spent 20 minutes at her booth smelling various dry rubs, spice mixes and cooking sauces before making a choice (believe it, it wasn’t easy to only walk away with one!) We finally settled on the Thai Red Curry Sauce, and we were NOT disappointed with our choice. It was absolutely fantastic, and so easy to prepare!

The recipes are super easy to prepare, take few ingredients and no time at all to cook up.

First things first, empty contents of jar into a wok or large frying pan.

Dice up some chicken and throw it in there with the sauce. Simmer on Med-Low until chicken is tender and cooked.

Dice up 2 bell peppers and an onion and toss them in with the chicken. Stir fry on Medium-low until veggies are cooked, but still a little crispy.

Serve on a bed of your favourite rice and enjoy. A LOT!

Jacquie’s Super Quick and Easy Chicken Thai Red Curry

You will need:

1 bottle of Elaine Wilson’s Thai Red Curry Sauce (I got mine at the 124 street market, but she also sells at the city centre market)

2 Chicken breasts

2 sweet bell peppers

1 sweet onion

2 cups of jasmine rice

3 cups of water

Pour contents of jar into a large frying pan or wok. Heat on low. Begin preparing rice. Dice up chicken breast and add to sauce. Simmer on medium until chicken is tender and cooked. Next, dice vegetables and add to sauce. Stir fry on med-low until veggies are cooked but still crispy. Serve on rice.

Garden update July 23, 2012

It’s time for another garden update! Justin and I were in Nelson this past week, and boy did the garden explode while we were gone! There was nothing to do but to tame the beast of growth that crept up on us in our beautiful garden. I spared your eyes and took the snapshots after we had give the garden some weeding tlc.

Here is our field of potatoes. Looks like we’ll be in for quite the treat during the harvest!

Our romaine and corn is FINALLY starting to come up. It took a decent amount of time, but we are finally seeing some green salad!

More corn shoots. Looking good 🙂

The strawberry field is still as large as ever, and has sadly decided it’s done giving us any more ruby reds for the season…

Here’s the butternut. It’s finally starting to flower! With any luck, we will actually get some butternut squash!

That is if it’s neighbour, the mammoth zucchini, lets it have some light. We’ve had to snip a few leaves to give its neighbours a bit more light…

Here’s our once tiny tomato plant, all grown up! We’ve had to zip-tie it to the cage, it was getting so large!

The acorn is a happy camper.

As are the beans. Some little buds are starting to show up! yay!

My neighbour came by while I was weeding the other day and suggested that I step on my onion so that they get bigger. It makes logical sense, as the plant will start investing it’s energy into the bulb, rather than the green. Let’s see if it works this year!

Here’s the buttercup plant. He has decided that he is the king of the garden and is going to take over all in it’s path. I’ve had to trim him down significantly and re-direct him to proper places. (He is the darker green plant in this photo. The others are bean plants!)

See? He’s so entitled, that he’s jumped the fence and is making a bid for freedom! I’ve decided to let that slide, so long as he produces squash on that vine. I’ve got my eye on you, cuppy!

Well, it must be happy in some respects, because we have our first squash plant growing nice and strong. I am so looking forward to the harvest!!

Buckwheat Groat Burgers

Do, do I ever have a tasty local treat for you to try! I had my lovely veggie friend over for dinner the other day, which gave me the opportunity to try my hand at making homemade veggie burgers from scratch. I love cooking veggie food, because I feel like it challenges me to think outside the box of “chicken or steak” for dinner. This is a perfect recipe for anyone looking to make a delicious local veggie burger for their next summer BBQ!

During my last market shift with Gold Forest Grains, John suggested I try the buckwheat groats. I had to confess that I had no idea what they were, let alone what to do with them. He said they were essentially the pre-milled form of their buckwheat flour. He also said that he has replaced all of the rice in his house with buckwheat groats, because of the health benefits. It is a grain, after all, so why not? This got me thinking, If I can make veggies burgers out of qiunoa, then why not branch out and use a much more local ingredient! Thus, the idea of buckwheat groat burgers was born!

Before the buckwheats are milled into flour, they look like these little heart-shaped pellets. Ern’t they beautiful?

My new favorite topping for burgers in our house is honey garlic mayo. It adds the right amount of awesome to any burger.

To add flavour to the burger, I diced up an onion and chopped up some dill and chives from the garden.

I also used a dash of seasoning I picked up from the 124 street market at Elaine Wilson’s booth Food You Can Cook. Elaine creates the most amazing spice blends I have ever smelled before. Justin and I easily spent 20 minutes at her market booth, smelling each and every sample bottle before finally deciding on one. Check her out!

Cooking the groats was a little less foolproof than I thought. I tried cooking it just like rice, and it turned out a little to moist for the burgers, so I added a few ingredients to help it out.

I added about a cup of Parmesan cheese and a heaping ton of breadcrumbs. Next time, I’ll add a little less water.

Here’s the burger mixture, all ready to be shaped into patties.

I brushed the patties with Canola oil from Mighty Trio Organics, to add a nice crispy finish to them, and to prevent them from sticking to the grill.

Oh man, they look good!

I love my BBQ.

Here’s the grilled patty. Beautiful, isn’t it?

I topped these bad boys with a little more cheese.

Serve with a side salad, and you’re golden!

Jacquie’s super awesome local organic Buckwheat Groat Burgers

You will need:

1 cup local organic buckwheat groats from Gold Forest Grains

1 & 1/2 cup of water

1 egg

1 medium onion, diced

2 tbsp each fresh dill and chives

1 tbsp spice mix like Italian Seasoning

1 cup shredded cheese

1 cup (or more) breadcrumbs

4 tbsp vegetable oil

4 hamburger buns

For the honey garlic mayo:

2 tbsp fresh chopped garlic

2 tbsp honey

4 tbsp mayonnaise

Preheat grill. Bring groats and water to a boil. Reduce heat to med-low and simmer, covered, until all liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool. While you’re waiting, dice onion, and combine all ingredients to make honey garlic mayo. Add egg, cheese, onion and seasoning to buckwheat mixture. Stir to combine. Add breadcrumbs, and keep adding more until your mixture is dry enough to form a patty. Shape patties using your hands. Brush both sides of the patty with vegetable oil before placing on the grill. Grill until both sides of patty are crispy and light brown. Serve topped with more cheese and honey garlic mayo. Enjoy, a LOT!

Garden Update! July 5, 2012

It’s time for another garden update!

It’s been storming here for the past 48 hours and now we finally have been blessed with some sun, so I thought it’d be a great time to take a picture of the beauties in the garden!

Here is the field of potatoes. I re-hilled them today, because they are getting so huge! We certainly are going to get a massive potato harvest this year. Home fries, anyone?

Here’s one of the beauties up close.

Our carrots and beans are coming in quite nicely.

Oh boy, did the squash ever love the rain! Here is the buttercup, stretching it’s legs.

Here are the onions, nestled neatly between more rows of green beans.

The acorn squash plant basically doubled in size in the rainfall.

Here’s the tomatoes, growing out of it’s cage.

And of course, the zucchini beast. Soon it’ll be competing with the strawberries for space.

The little butternut is finally starting to turn around! Yay!

Here’s the corn, starting to shoot up.

And the strawberry patch. We have been getting a handful of ruby reds every single day for the past 2 weeks, and it has decided to peter off… much to our dismay. We were starting to get use to having fresh strawberries every day!

Here’s the rhubarb, in all of it’s massive glory!

And another row of corn and romaine lettuce. I’m crossing my fingers thy grow a little more!

Stay tuned for more garden updates throughout the summer!