This is a vegan take on Mexican style lentil soup, people usually add sausage, or bacon, or ham or all of the above. My mom did not use to put any meat in lentil soup but she used plantain. I forgot to get it today but it may also work out with this recipe.
I went to St. Lawrence Market and got a jar of “nopalitos” (tender cactus).

I also used 2 cups dry green lentils, I soaked them for about 6 hours beforehand.
5 medium tomatoes (I used tomatoes in the vine)
4 green chilies (or to taste)
1 small onion
Half a cup chopped cilantro
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons Knorr vegetable bouillon powder
3 tablespoons cooking oil (I used canola)

Cook the lentils making sure they don’t go mushy, I cooked them for 7 minutes in the pressure cooker (after soaking). Use no salt for cooking them.
Chop tender cactus into small (about 1 inch) strips.
Combine the onion, garlic, tomatoes, chilies and cilantro in the food processor. Chop finely.

Heat the cooking oil and fry the salsa in it. When it’s cooked, add the chopped nopalitos and cook for about 1 minute.

Add the cooked lentils and the vegetable bouillon powder. Let boil for about 8 minutes.

Serve as a soup.

Delicious!

At the bar

Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

I ran into Grant and some neighbours at The Richmond Rogue

Don sent me this recipe of the chicken sandwich they had in Puerto Vallarta. It looks super delicious, the combination of sweet pineapple and cheesy mozzarella, mmh mmh (damn milk allergies). OK, for everyone’s enjoyment here it is.

Ingredients:

Two chicken breasts (boneless)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1-8-oz. can of crushed pineapple with juice
½ cup slivered almonds
6 sandwich rolls or hamburger buns
Tomato slices
Tabasco, hot pepper or buffalo sauce of your choice

Bake two boneless chicken breasts wrapped in foil to keep moist. Approx. 30 minutes at 350 degrees (F) until tender. Shred the breasts into a layer in a twelve inch frying pan.

Mix in the slivered almonds and set the heat to medium. Pour the crushed pineapple and juice into a bowl and blend in the hot sauce to taste. Note: you will probably add more sauce the next time. Pour the mixture into the chicken and stir together.

When the mixture is warm add one cup of mozzarella cheese and fold together until mixed and the cheese is melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly so the cheese holds the mixture together.

Butter the buns and season with garlic salt and place in the oven to toast. Serve with a slice of tomato and a little Miracle Whip or mayo. Makes six servings. Leftover chicken is excellent in a tossed salad.

Oh dear, I’m so hungry now!

Again this year we went out “all night long” (ok, we got back like at 1 AM) to see art all around the city. It was lots of fun and we had a great time. My favourite were the mascots at Lamport Stadium, it was just so much fun seeing them dancing all around.
Here are some of the pictures I took (the others can be found on my Flickr site, or click on them to see them bigger.

Oh, and I ran into the mayor, I took this picture but me being me, I did not catch my whole face:

So I finished Blasted by Kate Story.

I think this book is a simple, classic example of Magic Realism, where weird or magical things happen in a “normal” setting. Ruby currently lives in Toronto, but spent her childhood in Newfoundland. The story goes from present-day Toronto to the St. John’s of the early eighties or so. I cannot say much about the description of St. John’s, but the current Toronto is described from the perspective of someone who lives there (I like this type of narrative, it’s what got me hooked on British chick-lit, because it described London as I knew it).

In the beginning I was enjoying the setup and the descriptions of the places, though I thought that the language could have been funnier or lighter to describe some of the situations. As the story progresses, stranger and stranger things start to happen. I found these interesting in the beginning, but after a while I just got frustrated thinking “ok, I understand, get on with the story”. As the story went on, the main character, Ruby, reminded me more and more of the brat girl in Elise Levine’s Requests and Dedications, and I started to get annoyed.

The book is enjoyable and, as I say, I loved the description of the places. The magic realism elements were fun as well, and probably well-researched (this I have to assume, since I know nothing about Newfoundland mythology and superstitions). But I believe the situations were kept going for a bit too long. I just got annoyed by the book and by the main character. It could have ended 100 pages earlier, I believe.