dinner with Julie

Brown & Wild Rice Salad, Green Goddess Dressing and Cake

I go and skip one night and look at the backlog of edibles to tell you about.

It has been a birthday party sort of weekend. Not the stylish dinners out as in days of yore, but small child birthdays – a different kind of fun, and a completely different kind of menu.

I have to say – I am starting to love having an actual appetite (it makes food taste so much better – thus of course the reason the French wish us a bon appetit) but it does not help my cause to be in the proximity of so much cake. Particularly pickable cake scraps – the moist chocolate trimmings from Ben’s volcano cake in particular. (My sister has always allowed her kids to choose any kind of birthday cake, and she has always made them herself, entirely from scratch. And she is not a professional Cakeworks sort of person either. She may try to gently steer them toward, say, a soccer ball cake, but inevitably gets stuck the night before creating Tyrannosaurus Rexes and active volcanoes complete with palm tree landscaping and a pink magma core, spewing string licorice.)

Me: “How does one make a volcano cake?”

A: “Bake three 9″x13″ cakes. Set outside in -23 weather. Stack cakes, sandwiched with magma (icing). Carve away everything that isn’t the volcano.”

Everything that wasn’t the volcano – that was what was out on a rimmed cookie sheet for me to pick at before dinner. Honestly, nothing is better with a Tim Horton’s coffee than dense chocolate cake. Especially when you are at the point where your stomach is grateful for anything it can get.

The monkey cake was a winner too. I can’t take credit for anything but the innards – J and P finished it up, with absolute non-confidence that they would be able to pull it off, and look at it! How cute is that? They made the banana all on their own, with mashed bananas and quinoa flour, for the kids.

Backtracking to my sister, we have both lost 14 pounds in the same length of time. Huh. She is a few inches shorter than me and has more weight to lose (I’m not sure if she’d be comfortable with me divulging the number, so I won’t) but we both entered into it with the same mindset. As she put it: I’ve never been so lax and so not hardcore about it before. And I really think I can do it this time!

One thing I’ve learned the hard way: when it comes to losing weight it’s not all or nothing – to drastically cut calories, eliminate foods (or entire food groups) from your diet and start a rigid exercise program all at once can push anyone into the comforting arms of Ben & Jerry. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

So dinner tonight was do-it-yourself pita pizzas with mushrooms, red peppers and thin shavings of pepperoni, veg with Green Goddess Dip that looked like Shrek’s swamp but had the same sort of tangy, salty appeal as Caesar dressing (probably due to the small squirt of anchovy paste that’s totally optional but good for you) with the very fresh green flavour of Italian parsley.

Green Goddess Dip

This classic dip is made green by pureed parsley, onions and chives – add more or less to suit your taste. The anchovies are optional, but add a flavour reminiscent of Caesar dressing.

1/4 cup white wine or white balsamic vinegar
1/2-1 cup chopped fresh parsley (stems removed)
3 green onions, chopped
small bunch of fresh chives, chopped
1 tsp. – 1 Tbsp. anchovy paste (optional)
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbsp. lemon juice (or to taste)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 cup low fat mayonnaise

Puree everything in the blender until smooth and refrigerate until ready to serve. Makes about 2 cups.

Per tablespoon: 23 calories, 1.9 g total fat (0.1 g saturated fat, 1.1 g monounsaturated fat, 0.5 g polyunsaturated fat), 0.1 g protein, 1.7 g carbohydrate, 0 mg cholesterol, 0.1 g fiber. 70% calories from fat

Green Goddess Guacamole: add a mashed ripe avocado; stir it in after pureeing.

Oh right – the grainy salad. That was actually yesterday’s lunch. But I had to tell you about it – it’s so much better than the sum of its parts – I actually pawned the rest off on my folks, a tactic generally reserved for freshly baked cookies and chocolate cake. Although this salad is very nutrient-dense and good for you, it isn’t exactly low in calories. And I was shoveling it in, thinking about how great it would be if I worked in an office and could bring this in for lunch. Although we all know it would be gone by 10:30.

Brown & Wild Rice Salad

Try adding any sort of chopped dried fruit or toasted nuts to this basic grainy salad – or additions like finely chopped peppers, halved grape tomatoes, chick peas or shelled edamame (soybeans). Whatever you put in it, it’s fantastic with a slab of salmon.

3/4 cup (about) wild rice
3/4 cup (about) brown rice
1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds or chopped pecans, toasted
1-2 green onions, chopped
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup raisins or chopped dried apricots
almost a whole bunch of fresh curly or flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Dressing:
2 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1-2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1-2 tsp sesame oil
1 garlic clove, finely crushed

Cook both rices in a lot of boiling water for about 45 minutes; just until the rice is tender. Drain it well in a colander, running cold water over it to stop it from cooking. Once the rice has cooled, stir in the nuts, green onions, dried fruit and parsley.

To make the dressing, shake all the ingredients up in a jar. Pour over the salad and toss to coat.

January 25 2009 | leftovers | 16 Comments »