Monday, September 26, 2016

MiniMofo: Signature Dish Bruschetta!

Trying to pick just one signature dish was a little daunting and as my kitchen is still a work in progress I figured I would go with a classic I started making in Middle School Simple and rustic bruschetta.



I remember this being pretty much the only thing I ever made that my mom would willing eat, in fact she now makes it pretty regularly which for someone as picky as her is a huge HUGE success.

While the recipe often changes based on whats available its a pretty simple and intuitive dish to make.
Thankfully my mother hand delivered me some glorious tomatoes, garlic and basil from her garden shortly after I moved in so I have been enjoying this all week!




Ingredients
-Fresh tomatoes diced(home grown is best!)
-Fresh Basil (although I have in the past used dried italian seasoning & basil) 
-Fresh Garlic Minced
-Onion diced
-Virgin Olive Oil
-Balsamic Vinegar
-Red wine Vinegar (use sparingly!)
-Crusty vegan bread!
Glorious colours
Toss together in a bowl your diced veggies and minced herbs, make sure to mix everything up well before adding in the oil and vinegar. Toss as you add to make sure you get a nice even coating and add in some fresh cracked pepper and salt.

The key is to allow the tomato mixture to sit as the salt will draw out some moisture for you, keep tossing it occasional and taste it until you get the perfect balance.



Meanwhile slice your bread and preheat the oven to broil (or at least 400 degrees) the high temperature allows the bread to toast while just warming or slightly charring the tomatoes and onions. You could also toast the bread by brushing it with olive oil and garlic then top it with the raw tomato mixture, but I prefer to cook it.

You can see in the photo I make mine a bit soupy on the bottom so I can toss the dressing over the veggies. I like to strain the mixture a bit when I top the bread and then spoon/drizzle the oil/vinegar dressing over top as it bakes.

Voila! Perfect summer fare.

Friday, September 23, 2016

Renters kitchen: A new dilema.

As you know we recently moved and one thing we discovered while trying to unpack is our new kitchen is equip with remarkably tiny cabinets. Which when they were empty we didn't notice.

Here are a few photos of the kitchen layout, our entrance is on one side of the kitchen along a big stretch of empty wall and the rest of the kitchen is built along the adjacent wall.

It looks decent enough, until you attempt to place diner plates or pots into the cabinets. The drawers you see there can only hold 1 large or medium size pot (which is inefficient so I am trying to find alternative places to store them, notice they are hiding with the bowls.).


A common theme with the storage for cabinets here is narrow but deep. Special award to the tiny areas next to the oven. Which are about 2-3 small tinfoil rolls wide but a good 2 feet deep. Normally I put baking trays in the warming drawer of my oven but the cabinet there is so narrow I am unsure what else would fit.

In fact we have a really nice deep pantry just next to the fridge. Seriously its almost 4 feet deep!



However as you can see things can get a bit lost in there and you kinda have to pull everything out to get what you are looking for or even see what you have. Thankfully my large dry good storage jars help a lot with this process but I am looking to the internet to find solutions that don't loose us valuable shelf real estate.

Hallway Closet of appliance banishment.
So far I am negotiating to get my pegboard approval to make use of the giant empty wall and provide a home to pots and pans.
I have also bought a small kitchen cart on wheels to hopefully reclaim some of the counter space and we have put an industrial shelf into our storage closet down the hall to house the appliances.

So if anyone out there has any brilliant ideas or solutions to my ever dwindling counter space or spice storage I will take all the help I can get!!!

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Veganmofo 2016! Dusting off the old blog

So 2015 and 2016 have been a whirlwind of shitty life occurrences but after just moving to a new place with my fella I am hoping things are turning around. So although I am currently off on a workplace injury which leaves me pretty apartment bound and immobile (for now!) VeganMofo is on the horizon! And as I am currently laid off in addition to being injured I feel like this year will have me aching for something to do so let's dive into MOFO Season Y'all!

More info on Vegan mofo can be found at the command centre Veganmofo.com

So to start things off they are issueing Mini Mofo challenges to wet our appetites round one has a deadline of Sept 27 so I am getting a late start but I will be polling past roommates and friends to figure out what my signature dish is! And I will try and have a post ready for you all and maybe also unpack my new kitchen so we can all get cooking!

**I have also dabbled a bit with fixing the broken theme on here, sorry! let me know what you think, it seems to still have some formatting issues for larger images.