Curried Couscous with Grilled Chicken Breast

It's bikini season, oh yes it is! Lately I have not been eating the best foods in the world so it was a nice surprise when Ina of all ladies, came up with this bikini inspiring curried couscous. We just tossed in some grilled chicken and it made a superb dinner for three... and uh, lunch, and ummm dinner, lunch, dinner. Yes, it's the couscous that keeps on giving.

Ian and I switched out the carrots and extra onion for some blanched green beans, finely chopped red bell pepper, chick peas, and a small grilled chicken breast. Plus we figured that the oil could be cut down to half, considering it is a Barefoot Contessa recipe!

It was so delicious we are going to make this again tonight with quinoa (the trendy grain) and eat it for another week!

Thanks to Ellyn of Recipe Collector and Tester for restoring my faith in Ina.


Curried Couscous with Grilled Chicken Breast
adapted from The Barefoot Contessa
this is our version of the recipe here

1-1/2 cups couscous
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/8 cup good olive oil
3 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. curry powder
1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
1/8 tsp. cyanne pepper (optional, if you like spice)
1-1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup dried currants
1/4 cup blanched, sliced almonds
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 cup blanched green beans, cut to one inch
1 cup drained chickpeas


Place the couscous in a medium bowl. Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour over the couscous. Cover tightly and allow the couscous to soak for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Grill and cut the chicken into 1 inch pieces. Whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry, turmeric, salt, and pepper. Pour over the fluffed couscous, and mix well with a fork. Add the grilled chicken,green beans, parsley, currants, almonds, scallions, red pepper,and chickpeas, mix well, and season to taste. Serve at room temperature

Chocolate Dipped Cherry Almond Biscotti for Mother's Day

So if you didn’t know, this Sunday is Mother's Day and I thought that I would send out a little reminder to everyone to buy or bake something for your mommy.

I love my mom, and even though we live in different Provinces, I call her all the time and talk to her for hours. She is always there for me, no matter what is going on. Seriously, there are a million things I could tell you about her but she doesn’t like all that sappy stuff so I will just say that she is THE BEST!

I wanted to send something special for Mother's Day and usually I would send a drawing, but this year she is getting the most amazing biscotti that I have ever tried. You know those delicious chocolate cherry Kashi bars that are incredibly addictive? Well imagine those in cookie form. Yes. So good. I have to send them in the mail tomorrow so look out for Canada Post on Friday mom. Hopefully the mailman won’t eat them before they get delivered.

So Happy Mother's Day, I Love you Mom!
Ian also loves his mommy and we will be having dinner with her on Saturday, where he can tell her in person.


Chocolate Dipped Cherry Almond Biscotti
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies Book


1 1/4 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup amaretto
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 tbsp. Unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, (3 whole, and 1 lightly beaten)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole blanched almonds
4 oz. good quality chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Heat cherries with amaretto in a saucepan over medium-low heat,stirring some, for 8 minutes. Drain, and keep 2 tbsp. liquid.Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk butter and granulated sugar together. Mix in 3 eggs then mix in cherry liquid and vanilla. Gradually add in flour mixture. Stir in cherries and nuts. On a lightly floured surface, divide dough in half. Shape each half into 12 x 2 or so logs. Flatten logs to 1/2 inch thick. Transfer to two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Brush logs with the beaten egg; sprinkle with sugar if desired. Bake 35 minutes and let cook for 20 minutes. Cut each log on the diagonal into about 3/4 inch slices. Transfer pieces to baking sheet, standing them up. Bake at 300 degrees, for 14 min. Let cool until crisp. Dip into melted, tempered chocolate and let dry overnight at room temperature.

Baked Pears filled with chocolate, Almonds, and Orange in a Flaky Pastry Shell - Valentine's Day Part 1

So this is Ian's and my Valentine's Day Part 1, and of course why not start off with dessert? Today is also our first year anniversary (yay) and we had this amazing reservation at one of the top restaurants in Montreal that we had to book many weeks in advance. Unfortunately with all that was going on this week we had to cancel and spend the night inside, which was a lot of fun!

If you stick around for the next couple days I will be posting the other delightful aspects of our meal, but today we do dessert. And what a dessert it was. I was just flipping through this Jamie Oliver book called Jamie’s Kitchen that I took from home, and this recipe screamed out from between the pages at me. How could I say no? Chocolate inside a pear wrapped in flaky pastry, come on, there isn’t a person out there strong enough to say no.

Now, I don’t know how to accurately explain how marvellous the taste was, it was just so incredible. These little bundles were all you thought they would be, and more. Each flavour played perfectly with the others and came together to make this "Super Dessert". It’s probably what superman eats every day to keep his energy up. I think the key factor to keep in mind is to use good quality chocolate. In this I used Vhalrona Chocolate, but most quality 70% chocolates will do. To put it over the top I served them straight out of the oven with a huge scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side.

Now you might be like me and think that filo pastry is daunting and not worth the work. Let me tell you, it is so simple and easy to work with, just buy a package of frozen sheets and slather each layer in butter. This was actually the first time that I worked with filo and I am now saddened that I waited so long. I will be making many more recipes with these flaky tender sheets. Watch out world, I’m going to cover everything in filo!

So just to rub it in, on a day that is practically dedicated to chocolate, Ian and I ate the ultimate in chocolate desserts.

Baked Pears Filled with Chocolate, Almonds, and Orange wrapped in Flaky Pastry
adapted from Jamie's Kitchen, 2002
4 pears
3 tbsp. blanched almonds
6 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. sugar
Zest of one orange
2 ½ oz Vhalrona chocolate 70%
16 sheets of filo pastry, defrosted, 8x8 inches

Preheat oven to 350°F. Peel pears and cut core out from the bottom. In a food processor chop almonds, then chocolate. Place in bowl and add sugar, orange zest, and 4 tbsp. of butter. With hands, mix together until uniform. Put ¼ of mixture into bottom of pear, pack extra filling around the base. Repeat for three others. Take one sheet of filo and brush with heated remaining butter, then stack with another filo sheet. Repeat stacking and brushing with butter until there are 4 layers. Wrap pear in filo and twist at the top to keep the package closed. Repeat for other pears. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.