Tonight's dinner started off with me trying to figure out how to utilize a quarter of a loaf of leftover free bread and ended up being a masterpiece. I think this is my favorite meal this year next to Does God Like Enchiladas? I loved every morsel of every dish that I made tonight and I'm not ashamed to tell you so. If you've ever enjoyed garlic, lemon, butter or chicken, then this meal is for you. What a wonderful way to wrap up the first month of A Food Year.

I have no idea what Chicken Paillard means, but this dish with caper brown butter is
awesome. Shannon picked the capers out because she doesn't like them, but she loved the dish itself. The chicken is crispy, despite the dressing, and infused with a wonderful lemony butter flavor.

The Garlic Baked Cauliflower is tangy and flavorful and right up there with my favorite cauliflower recipe, which is mashed havarti cauliflower fauxtatoes. I'm sure those will turn up when I decide on doing a low-carb inspired dinner.

I was a little skeptical about the Mediterranean Eggplant Cakes, but since I had leftovers from the Vegetable Napoleons I made a week ago that were going to go bad quite soon, I figured I'd make use of them somehow. Even with week old eggplant these were absolutely delicious. If you have ever tried eggplant and disliked it, try this recipe. Try all of them!

I was challenged via e-mail to do a vegan dinner. I think that I do an alright job of having vegetarian dishes or ones that are easily adaptable to a vegetarian diet for the most part, but vegan is a little harder for me. Aside from the fact that I love dairy and eggs, I find vegan cooking to be generally either time consuming or expensive, especially in the winter. I am also not a fan of soy or soy products, so my options are pretty limited. All of the recipes used in this meal were inspired by those on The Vegan Chef.

As an entr we had Spaghetti Squash Pomodoro. I personally like spaghetti squash and used to eat a lot of it while low-carbing because it's the next best thing to real pasta, but this recipe didn't do it for me. I sort of went against my better judgment and followed the recipes word for word. Perhaps if I had prepared an actual tomato sauce and cooked it as though I normally would (just bake and scrape and top with sauce) the flavor of the tomatoes would not have completely leeched out.

While I've never been a fan of soy, I do enjoy a wide variety of beans. I love simple bean salads and the Balsamic 6 Bean Salad is no exception. It's a very simple dress and refrigerate salad that will have marinated sufficiently by the time the other dishes are finished. It's a nice meaty alternative with a tangy vinaigrette that's full of vitamins and fiber.

Finally, I'd never actually had polenta before, but it's always seemed easy enough to make. I've always enjoyed watching cooking shows where people would bake it and cut out fancy shapes for gourmet plating, but I just made a simple Creamy Polenta with sautéed zucchini and garlic. I used margarine as a substitute for butter to give it a creamier consistency, making sure I didn't have any whey or lactic acid or anything in the ingredients. Polenta is very much like a yellow cream of wheat. I can see how it could be dressed up quite easily since I thought it was very good with residual dressing from the bean salad.

There are as many ways to make a Quesadilla as there are to make a sandwich. My favorite is with goat cheese and roasted red pepper. A close second is the standard salsa, meat and cheese variety. Warm and gooey and dipped in some sour cream it's an easy fix for dinner. The Cream Cheese Corn is creamy, cheesy and corny and fits perfectly with the gooey cheese from the quesadilla. This is definitely not a low-calorie dish, but very filling and very satisfying.

I still have plenty of chipotles leftover from last night, so I thought I'd look for some recipes. I found several recipes for barbecue sauces that combined chipotle and coffee. I'd never cooked with coffee before, but have been interested in doing so ever since a friend of mine came back from Costa Rica and said that they'll use instant coffee for seasoning over drinking it. I altered the recipe to make Chipotle and Coffee Beans instead of sauce. The flavor of the coffee comes through, but it helps to develop the smoked chili flavor rather than flavoring it like an espresso shot. Very simple and very tasty, I recommend trying it some time!

We had a huge lunch today at a local restaurant, The Barcelona. Then we went to the Marble Slab Creamery where we managed to stuff copious amounts of ice cream into our aching bellies. Hers was a pina colada inspired coconut and pineapple mix and mine tried to imitate Chunky Monkey (my personal favorite) with banana, chocolate and walnuts. Those folk definitely know a thing or two about ice cream.

We weren't feeling very well afterwards and took a long nap. When we woke up it was already dinner time and neither of us were feeling hungry. We tried to think of the lightest thing possible so, of course, we ended up settling on a light Asian theme utilizing what was left in the fridge.

I didn't like the Stir Fry, but I don't particularly like stir frys in general. To me they all end up tasting relatively the same no matter what you put in them, the flavor of soy sauce drowning out everything and leaving a sort of bittersweet aftertaste in your mouth. Shannon, on the other hand, really enjoys the sweet and sour Asiany sauces and enjoyed this dish.

The Curried Beef Rolls are something that we have had before and tried to recreate. Since the only elements are curried beef and egg roll wrappers, we figured it wouldn't be too difficult. Thankfully we were right and they turned out pretty much as imagined, a nice crispy egg roll shell with a gingery curry flavored beef in every bite. Unfortunately we didn't have any plum sauce and had to substitute with crab apple jelly, but that managed to work out quite nicely since apples and curry tend to compliment each other.

Every time I look through the freezer to decide what to have for dinner, I can't help but noticing that a large portion of it is taken up by rhubarb. Every summer we get bags upon bags full of rhubarb and it all ends up in the freezer. So, I decided to make use of it by making a rhubarb sauce. Other than cobbler, I couldn't think of anything this might work with other than pork.

I often rely on salt to really bring out the flavor of the foods that I cook, so I thought I would try to make a salt free meal. To go with the rhubarb sauce I made some Chipotle Potatoes and Cabbage and Apple Slaw.

The Rhubarb Pork was delicious. The sauce has a tart bite upfront but a very mellow apple sauce-like consistency that is very pleasant. If you like apple sauce with pork, this might be something you'd like to try.

Shannon really enjoyed the cabbage and apple slaw, especially the big chunks of cheddar. There's something about cheddar that goes with pretty much everything and the sweet taste of apple is no exception. On the other hand, I'm not particularly fond of cabbage unless it's been cooked, so I didn't like it as much.

The potatoes would have been greatly improved upon if we had any sour cream to top them with. The heat is easily overbearing without something more suitable than lemon yogurt to take the edge off, but they definitely make a good side dish. I do think they'd benefit from a pinch of salt, though. What can I say, salt makes food taste good.

The latest Weekend Cookbook Challenge is winter comfort food and while I already suggested that Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Soup is the greatest comfort meal, I figured I'd make a dinner specific for this challenge. Since I made this in the middle of the week and grabbed my recipes off the internet I'm probably disqualified, but it was still fun.

Since the onset of this project Shannon has been urging me to make Shepherd’s Pie. I have not had it since the earliest of childhood memories where I vaguely remember disliking it, but being one of the top 10 comfort foods, I figured I'd give it a shot. Also, with the enormous amount of carrots in the fridge, I decided to whip up some Carrot Cake, another comfort food favorite.

Shepherd's pie has always sort of thrown me because it doesn't have a crust. I'm not sure what really makes it a pie at all. I tried to look it up, but all I determined was that a shepherd's pie made with beef instead of lamb is properly called a cottage pie. Either way there is no crust, but I do prefer cottage pie because I'm having trouble figuring out where to place the apostrophe. Is the pie the creation of shepherds or a shepherd? Shepherd's, shepherds'… Quite the dilemma.

It was better than I remembered, but it's still just beef with some gravy and vegetables mixed in with whipped potatoes on top, as far as I'm concerned. It's hearty and filling like all comfort foods, but it doesn't really do anything for me. Shannon apparently expected something quite different than this recipe, with tomatoes and corn. I'm not sure what that is, she's swears it's shepherd's pie, but unlike any shepherd's pie I've ever seen.

I ended up making the carrot cake into more of a carrot loaf. In a way, I think I made it too well, if that's possible. It's light and fluffy and everything a cake should be. I wanted a heavier spiced nut loaf texture to it. Regardless, it's delicious. It's nutty and spicy, just like Shannon. It's no surprise that she loved it, too.

There was no set theme to tonight's dinner, I was simply trying to use up some of the leftovers we currently have in our fridge. That didn't seem to matter though, since Shannon said that the cabbage was perfect with the dumplings. Perfect; as if I'd actually planned it to be that way. I didn't, it was perfect by accident!

The Pork and Chive Dumplings by themselves were actually sort of bland. Then again, that's been my experience with any boiled dumpling that I've ever tasted. Part of that is due to the nature of dumplings and part of that is probably my fault. The pork was already cooked (I used some of the leftover roast) and that may have caused it to become quite overcooked and dry. I also may have overcooked the dumplings in general.

The Pickled Cabbage is tart, but in a pleasant way. I was surprised at how much the cranberry taste actually came through. I don't think it would have worked with anything other than red wine vinegar, that sort of grapey taste was quite necessary. If I knew anything about canning I might consider doing so with something like this. Instead, I may just consider making it again some day.

The Morroccan Style Carrots were sort of the pushed off side dish that didn't really work. I personally like cumin and carrots, but Shannon shunned them. I liked the slightly cooked but chilled texture and the pickled flavor from the vinegar sort of brought it in, but it still seemed to stand out in my palette like a sore thumb. As we've learned from made up Wendy's fiascos, thumbs do not belong in food.

Pesto and penne are great together. Pesto and chicken are great together. Therefore, Pesto Chicken Penne can't go wrong. I would recommend making your own pesto because the freshness of the basil really comes through and the consistency is usually more like a sauce. If you're trying to conserve time the store bought stuff would work (I did the same, because fresh basil isn't readily available anywhere right now), but you may need to add more cream or oil to thin out the sauce.

Speaking of saving time, we used the breasts from one of those store bought rotisserie chickens and it was no worse for the wear. You could easily throw a combination of toasted pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, peas, bacon, capers and anchovies in there if you're looking to add a bit more flare.

The Crab Stuffed Mushrooms are a take on something that you'd find as an appetizer at a lot of restaurants. We picked up discounted imitation crab for about a buck because Shannon is allergic to the real thing. Unfortunately she was also allergic to this imitation kind as well. Unless you live somewhere that fresh crab is accessible, I don't think it really hurts the recipe any. That crab flavored, cream cheesy goodness is great. They're really more satisfying than tantalizing, but that's just
like most appetizers. The only real appetizer is starvation, in my opinion. The rest are just small portions of food.

We got another loaf of free French bread and figured we might as well make Garlic Toast. I guess that means we're going to have to make breadsticks or something when the spaghetti Bolognese dinner rolls around. For dessert I had a big swig of Buckley's cough syrup because I'm still sick as a dog. I would recommend something fruitier, but the choice is yours.

Today is a Canadian election day. This last month has been nothing more than a vicious cat fight of slanderous campaigns. It seems as though all parties involved have completely abandoned actually trying to represent themselves and what they stand for and deciding to pump money into advertisements to make the other candidates look bad.

In the few televised debates and sound bites that I've caught over the last while that were actually relevant to Canada, I can't say that there's really anyone out there that's going to represent the whole of my values if elected. I guess a big part of our political system is selecting the lesser evil, but I don't remember it being quite this bad before. Maybe it's my fault for not having the attention span to decipher what is honest and plausible and what is just hot air.

I think that this is a great country, but there are certainly changes that need to be made. I do think politics are important and I hope that you visited the ballot box if you're a citizen. However it seems nearly impossible to have candidates that correctly portray not only what people really want, but what a country really needs. Sure, tax cuts sound wonderful and everybody seems to want them, but what our government actually uses the tax money for is far more important. I'd rather be paying 30% taxes and still have Medicare than pay 20% and live in perpetual worry of ever being hospitalized.

Anyhow, tonight's theme is based on the election. A friend of mine suggested I do dishes based on party names (such as
chicken catch-a-Tory) but I'd already decided on dishes that start with the letters to spell VOTE. In hindsight, his would have been far more interesting. This was definitely a pretty meal. Don't let the French undertones fool you; I'm not a separatist. I love Quebec as a part of Canada. I hope that never changes.

I don't think I'll ever make the Vegetable Napoleons again. It's simply not worth shelling out the money for Camembert and there really isn't a suitable substitute, other than Brie, which isn't any less expensive. The dish itself is tasty, if you like buttery eggplant and zucchini flavor, but didn't wow me enough to justify buying imported cheese.

The Oven Roasted Sweet Onion recipe misled me. I had everything planned out perfectly for dinner time and I ended up waiting another 20 minutes for the onions to finish when they were only supposed to take 12 to begin with. I accounted for this in the cooking time for my version of the recipe. They taste as though a sweet onion should; sweet and lightly spicy. To my surprise Shannon actually liked them. I was under the impression that she hated baked or roasted onions, but I guess I was wrong (or these were particularly good). I prefer how they look to how they actually taste, but I think that this is comparable to sweet onions I've been served in a restaurant, so I'll take that to me that the recipe is a good one.

I realize now that the Tarragon Chicken is very similar to the white wine chicken I made on the first of the month. I can't be out of original recipes already! This was just a fluke. Thankfully they are 2 very different dishes altogether. I can't imagine eating tarragon with anything other than a creamy sauce and if you look on any guidelines for what to pair herbs with, tarragon's first match will likely be chicken. The flavor of the sauce is very rich and compliments the meat quite nicely, while also working with the creamy Camembert in the vegetable Napoleons. The shallots in the sauce also help to bring in the caramelized onions, since they have a similar flavor. As far as palette and esthetics are concerned this was a very pleasant dish.

While I was looking for recipes for the chunk of pork we picked up yesterday I stumbled upon one for a traditional Brazilian dish called Feijoada. Even better, I thought, when I read that it is most suitable for using leftover scraps and typically unused pieces of the pig. However, I didn't really read the recipe, I just figured it was a given that I could just use my leftover roast and turn it into this Feijoada dish.

I'm not saying that the dish wasn't good, because it was, but it probably would have been a lot better had I used the recommended ingredients like chorizo over my leftover pork sausages and smoked ham instead of my leftover Pork Roast. What surprised me about this is that it tasted nothing like I thought it would and there are no surprising ingredients in it. I thought it would taste like a combination of chili, stew and baked beans. It was actually very soft and creamy with a black bean and garlic flavor. The pork is masked by this quite a bit and had become extremely tender, almost giving it the consistency of the beans as well.

I was under the impression that Brazilian food would be spicy and exciting, but all of the recipes I found were very plain, seasoning only with onions and garlic. Simple vegetables sautéed in butter, lots of heavy stews and roasted meats. Traditionally this meal would be served with Farofa (toasted manioc meal), Couve a Mineira (Brazilian style collard greens) and Arroz (Brazilian style rice.) I really don't know what manioc is and am not sure where I would get it. It looks like tapioca from the pictures I've seen.

I had every intention of making the collard greens but I forgot to pick them up. The recipe is simply collard greens sliced and sautéed in the butter until just wilted. I did make the Brazilian rice, but it's very simple and would not have made a good side dish. It suggested I put the Feijoada on top of the rice, which was just fine. It also suggested I garnish the plate with orange slices. I ate the oranges with the black beans and pork and they don't contrast unfavorably. They also add a nice color to the plate.