Whole Wheat French Toast

Feb 1, 2012 by lovelypantry

 

Hello friends! Can you believe it’s already February? Wow, time certainly flies. I’m looking forward to creating more recipes and working on my photography. How am I doing so far? I’m so excited for what this year has in store! My love for photography is never-ending! And apparently, its keeping a lot of folks quite hungry too 🙂

I picked up a loaf of whole-wheat homestyle bread at the supermarket and I couldn’t wait to dig into it. The thing is, when you buy a loaf of bread like this, you have to eat it all within a day or so of cutting it otherwise it will get hard. After that, the only thing it will be good for is breadcrumbs. And that’s not a bad thing ~ I’d just prefer to eat it :-). I thought it would be a good idea to make French Toast using lovely thick slices of fresh bread. Its a family favourite and its a change from the usual suspects around breakfast time. I used French Bread before to make French Toast. Do you remember that post? Here it is: Stuffed French Toast. That was some tasty toast! But time is always a factor in getting breakfast ready. So the traditional way was good for me this time around. The kids loved it and so did I!

 

 

Happy Wednesday!! ~ Lyn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Creamy Orzo With Pancetta

Jan 30, 2012 by lovelypantry

I had an opportunity to try a pasta called orzo. It’s a small pasta shaped like a grain of rice quite suitable for salads, soups, risotto or creamy pasta dishes. It’s a wonderful addition to my Pantry. This is a very quick and easy week night meal that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did. I made quite a few changes to the original recipe but I was more than happy with the result. Sometimes, all you need is an idea to get your creative juices flowing. The texture of this recipe reminds me of a risotto since the pasta has to absorb the liquid that it is cooked in.

I enjoyed making this dish and I can actually think of a few variations that I would love to try – like meatless, or with chicken instead of the pancetta. I love that there are so many options. The first time I made this dish… I forgot the cheese. I’ll just call that the “reduced calorie” version 🙂 It looked pretty though, and tasted great too.

 

 

Here’s how I made it. So easy. I bet you’ll be making this meal this week 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remembered to add the cheese this time 🙂

 

 

 

This recipe was adapted from Everyday Food

 

Happy Monday!!! ~Lyn

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Hoisin Salmon with Quinoa & Zucchini

Jan 25, 2012 by lovelypantry

Salmon and Quinoa were first paired together by me about 4 years ago when I started to make serious changes to my diet. My chiropractor at the time, taught me about the benefits of whole grains and consuming less sugar. I was determined to learn more about how food can help heal the body. It took me a while to get used to eating certain vegetables that were fairly new to me. Zucchini was one of them. With benefits like – being a great source of vitamins A & C, folate, fibre and potassium, I had to find a way to LOVE this green goodness. Combining it with Quinoa, a grain I fell in love with immediately, seemed pretty practical 🙂

Simple. Healthy. Delicious.

 

 

 

 

I always say that eating healthy doesn’t have to be hard. Perhaps I say it often to remind myself. At the same time, I hope I am reminding others. I think this recipe is a perfect example. I started making this dish a few years ago and now I make so many variations of it, I can hardly keep track. Adding various vegetables in the quinoa mix is always a great idea. Diced Carrots, Sweet Peas, Sweet Corn, Sweet Potato, Butternut Squash, to name a few. All these things go nicely with quinoa.

I hope everyone is having a great week so far. Take good care 🙂

 

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Roasted Curried Chicken

Jan 23, 2012 by lovelypantry

I love curry. I think if I could curry everything, I probably would – just to try it. Ok well, not EVERYTHING. I’ve  curried Tofu a few times. That turned out super!

In Jamaica, it is traditional to stew curried chicken. And for the most part, that is how I’ve always prepared curried chicken. Its great. But I wanted to do it a bit differently. You know, just because. I figured it would be ok to roast chicken that has been seasoned with curry. Especially since I’ve found a new appreciation for roasting chicken. It’s so easy! And the skin is so crispy and yummy.

When stewing curried chicken, carrots and potatoes are the usual suspects in the dish, so I kept them. I couldn’t leave them out. Besides, they taste amazing when roasted!

 

 

 

Prep time!

 

 

I just love my oven. It works wonders!

 

 

And here you have it. Serve with rice, or like me – just like this.

Have a splendid week, my friends! ~Lyn

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

Jan 18, 2012 by lovelypantry

I wanted to post the recipe for these cookies for a few days now but alas, I’m slightly behind in my posting. I’m so happy to share this with you though, as these are my husband’s favourite cookies. I kinda love them too. I promised him I’d make a batch this week so me posting is great timing. I love the simplicity, and also that I’m using  low-fat peanut butter, less sugar than what the original recipe called for plus I used dark chocolate chips. Sounds like some good stuff right? You can substitute peanut butter for the organic kind. I plan to use vegan dark chocolate peanut butter to see how it comes out. I may omit the chocolate chips to avoid overkill. We’ll see!

This recipe is adapted from Everyday Food.

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t you just want to dive in? Seriously.

 

 

Take good care guys! ~ Lyn

 

 

 

 

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