Greek Yogurt BBQ Chicken Pasta Salad

This past weekend was a long weekend for us Canadians, meaning the summer has (unofficially) begun!  And it has definitely felt like summer the past few days; yesterday the temperature went up to about 28°C (around 83F) here in Southern Ontario and I was reminded what it’s like to sweat just standing outside (and in my case, just sitting in your apartment too)!  It was perfect weather for sitting outside for a barbeque on Sunday and laying on the beach Monday (though with the lake still freezing cold, we didn’t last long on the sand without having a way to cool off)!

With the long weekend for my American friends coming up next, I thought this would be a good time to share a pasta salad recipe – the perfect thing to take with you to a summer bbq or picnic.  And feel free to bring me along too, I need another long weekend already!

This pasta salad is made with all whole wheat pasta, non-fat Greek yogurt in place of mayonnaise, with veggies for nutrition and chicken for protein - but with the delicious creamy BBQ flavour, no one would ever guess it’s healthy!  I loved the crunch of veggies and the kick of spice in this pasta salad that’s unlike any I’ve tried before; my boyfriend loved this too and couldn’t even tell the pasta was whole wheat or had Greek yogurt.

You could leave out the chicken if you wanted this to be a lighter side dish, but we loved the flavour and texture the chicken added.  And if you’re vegetarian, I think black beans would give this a fun southwestern twist!  

The Tuesdays after a long weekend are the worst, but thankfully this day's already almost over and I can start counting down the days until the next long weekend!

BBQ Chicken Whole Wheat Pasta Salad with Greek Yogurt

Recipe inspired by Gonna Want Seconds (who adapted a dish from Cook’s Illustrated)

Makes around 4-5 large servings or 8-10 side dish servings

Ingredients:

1 375g (13oz) box of whole wheat macaroni

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1-1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 small shallot, minced

1 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt (you can replace part of the yogurt with low-fat mayo if desired, but I used all yogurt)

1/2 cup BBQ sauce

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

4 green onions, chopped

2 cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, shredded and seasoned with salt & pepper, and tossed with a bit of bbq sauce if desired (or use around 12-14 oz of rotisserie chicken and shred it)

Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Cook macaroni according to package directions.  Drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water until cool.  Let drain in colander then transfer back to a large bowl.

Add hot sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper, chili powder, brown sugar, vinegar, and shallots to the pasta and toss to coat.  Let stand for about 2 minutes to absorb.  Next, mix the Greek yogurt and BBQ sauce together in a small bowl, then add to the pasta and toss to coat.  Stir in diced peppers, green onions, and shredded chicken.  Mix and adjust any seasonings if necessary.  Serve cold or at room temperature.

*Note: Feel free to add a bit of BBQ sauce to leftovers before eating if the sauce dries up at all in the fridge (I didn't really have this problem, but I still liked to stir in a little extra sauce to my leftovers)

Roasted Spring Vegetable Salad with Arugula Pesto Vinaigrette

So I just realized that I’ve been posting a lot of salad and vegetable recipes on here lately.  Sorry if it’s getting repetitive; but now that spring veggies are available and the weather is turning warmer, I seem to crave salads a lot more often! 

I promise I'll try to post something different next week, but with the May long weekend starting tonight (for us Canadians) and all the burgers, beer, ice cream, etc., that tend to go along with it, I thought you guys wouldn’t mind if I squeezed in one more healthy salad recipe today!  (Although by that logic I guess I should be posting this after the weekend instead, but because this weekend is the unofficial start to summer, I need to squeeze in another spring recipe before it’s too late!)

This is a perfect light spring meal (or side dish) that makes the most of local produce by packing a ton of roasted veggies into an arugula salad and covering it all in a fresh arugula pesto vinaigrette.  Because arugula has a bit of a bite to it, I mellowed it out with some grated parmesan cheese which balanced everything out quite well, though I also think a creamy goat cheese could be a nice touch instead!

I hope that all my Canadian friends have a safe and happy long weekend!  I don’t have anything exciting planned, and all I’m hoping is that the weather will be nice enough to enjoy some drinks and dinner outside to kick off the summer.  Fingers crossed!

Roasted Spring Vegetable Salad with Arugula Pesto Vinaigrette

Adapted from Eating Well

Makes 2 large servings or 4 smaller servings

Ingredients:

For the Vegetables:

1 cup mini potatoes, larger ones halved into bite sized pieces

1 cup radishes, quartered or cut into similar sizes to potatoes

1 cup baby carrots

1 tablespoon olive oil, divided

Salt & pepper

1 cup green beans or asparagus, ends trimmed*

For the Arugula Pesto:

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup packed arugula

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon walnuts or pine nuts

1-1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Salt & pepper to taste

For the Salad:

2 cups arugula

Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°F.  Toss potatoes, radishes, and carrots with 2 teaspoons of oil and season with salt and pepper.  Spread on a foil-lined baking sheet and roast in preheated oven for 30 minutes, tossing halfway through.  If using green beans, drizzle them with a bit of oil and add to the pan for the last 15 minutes of cooking.  If using asparagus, drizzle with a bit of oil and add for the last 8-10 minutes of cooking. 

*Note you can use any mix of vegetables that you want, as long as you have about 4 cups of veggies total.  Just adjust the cooking times accordingly.

Meanwhile, prepare arugula pesto.  Add all ingredients for the pesto to the large bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.

Let roasted veggies cool slightly, then toss with arugula.  Add arugula pesto and mix well.  Season with salt and pepper and top with shaved or grated parmesan cheese.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Mother's Day 2013 Recap

Today I thought I'd share a little recap of some of the great food we enjoyed this past Sunday for Mother's Day.  My parents have made thousands of amazing meals for my sisters and I over the years so we love being able to cook for them all day while they sit back and relax on Mother's Day and Father's Day (and other days of the year too!)

Before I get started, let me first apologize for the pictures in this post - I only had time to snap quick photos (some with a cellphone) before we ate!

For breakfast this year, we decided to make this strawberry rhubarb baked french toast from Two Peas and Their Pod. 

It was almost more like a bread pudding than french toast (because the bread is cut up into cubes) but it was so delicious!  We loved that we could do most of the prep work for it the night before so all we had to do in the morning was throw together the crumble topping and bake it in the oven (though we did have to wake up pretty early since it needs a long time to bake)!  I would highly recommend this for your Mother's Day brunch next year, or any special occasion where you don't mind an indulgence like this to start the day!

After brunch our family took a stroll through a beautiful park to take pictures with the blooming trees and flowers.  My dad got some great pics of our mom with her daughters!

After our walk, it proceeded to snow and hail in the afternoon - not the best weather for Mother's Day!  We spent the afternoon indoors though, as my sisters and I took our mom to see Dance Legends.  It was a lot of fun - kind of like a giant live episode of So You Think You Can Dance, but with singing too!  If you're in the London area, go see it this week - last day is May 18!

While Mom relaxed afterwards, we prepared an appetizer for everyone which we called rainbow salsa & brie on crostini.

The recipe was inspired by this peach salsa with pickles red onions and chile, but our version of salsa had mango, peaches, apricots, tomatoes, cucumber, jalapeno, mango hot sauce, lime juice, cilantro, and pickled red onions.  Then we warmed up some sliced baguette with brie in the oven and served the salsa on top like crostini.  It was so good!

For dinner, our mom chose two salad recipes.  To start, we had this mixed greens and goat cheese salad with blueberry glaze, which looks horrible in the picture below but was really good!

The salad was easy to prepare but tasted gourmet - the base was just mixed greens, then we added goat cheese that had been sliced into rounds, coated in walnuts, and warmed in the oven, along with a sprinkle of additional toasted walnuts.  The dressing was a mixture of olive oil, wild blueberry syrup (which you can get at the grocery store), a bit of maple syrup, garlic, and salt and pepper.  I was skeptical because it didn't sound like much, but everyone really enjoyed it.

For the main dish, we had a tabbouleh salad, which required a bit of prep time to prepare but was quite easy to put together.

The salad was a mixture of bulgur and quinoa with chickpeas, tomatoes, yellow pepper, green onions, carrots, cucumber, parsley, mint, feta, and a lemon-olive oil dressing.  This was a nice light and refreshing dish to balance out the heavier breakfast we started the day with!

For dessert, we had a strawberry rhubarb crisp with a side of ice cream - the perfect way to end the meal and the day!

Hope all the moms out there had a lovely Mother's Day and those with fantastic moms, aunts, sisters, friends, or other mother figures in their lives spoiled them!  I'd love to hear how you spent your day so I can start getting ideas for next year!

California Omelette

There were two dishes I ate during my trip to Boston last March that I was determined to try for myself once I returned home.  One was fish tacos, which I seemed to get a version of at every restaurant I went to because they were all so good, and the other was a California omelette that I treated myself to for breakfast at Sauciety in our hotel on the last morning.

When I looked up California omelette recipes later, it seemed that there are about a million different versions of them, but the one ingredient that appears to be common to them all is avocado.  The version I'd tried also included pesto, tomatoes, and mozzarella, and since I loved the combination of those four ingredients so much, I decided to just stick with them and create my own version off memory.

And I wouldn’t have wanted this any other way – it is so good!  I loved it when I had it in the restaurant but I think I loved it even more at home, where I could control the proportions of ingredients to my own liking (and of course, if you make this yourself at home you should do the same, taking the amounts I listed as a guide).

I've never been able to get the whole omelette technique down pat, and as you can tell from the pictures, my omelette certainly isn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but the flavour more than made up for it! 

With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, I think this would be a great savoury brunch offering to serve her!  We are still menu planning for our own mom’s special meals – we’re still figuring out dinner and dessert, but for brunch we’re going towards the sweet side and are leaning towards either banana blueberry pancakes or this strawberry rhubarb baked French toast.  If you're also searching for menu ideas for Mother’s Day, you can check out what we made for our mom last year in this post. 

I hope all the moms out there have a fantastic Mother’s Day!

California Omelette (with mozzarella, pesto, tomatoes, and avocado)

Serves 1

Ingredients:

2 large eggs (fresh, good quality eggs are better)

1-2 tablespoons water (optional)

Salt & pepper

1 teaspoon butter or olive oil

A few slices of mozzarella cheese (about 1 oz)

2 slices of tomato

Half a ripe avocado, sliced

1-2 tablespoons pesto

Chopped parsley or herbs for sprinkling on top, if desired

Directions:

In a small bowl, beat the eggs, water (if using; I think it makes them fluffier but some prefer to leave out any liquid), and a pinch each of salt and pepper until mixed.

Heat butter or olive oil in an 8- or 9-inch non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Pour in the egg mixture.  Let sit for a few seconds until edges of omelette begin to set, then use a flexible heat-proof spatula to gently stir the eggs in a circular motion until thickened.  Gently push any cooked portions of egg toward the center of the skillet and tilt the skillet to allow uncooked egg to flow into empty spaces. 

When eggs are almost set on surface, layer the mozzarella, tomato, avocado, and pesto over half the omelette.  Gently fold the other half over the filling, and slide the omelette out onto a plate.  Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley or herbs and an additional drizzle of pesto, if desired.