Saskatoon Berry Pie

We only usually get saskatoons for one week at the farmer's market so I am always excited when I manage to find them. I first had them in a sour cream saskatoon berry pie but this pie is just a plain 'enjoy them for what they are' pie.

I don't make my own pie shells so you can make your own or buy a vegan/gluten free/vegetable shortening/lard pie shell as you desire.

2 pie shells

4 cups saskatoon berries (although you can add blueberries too)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch

Toss the berries, sugar and cornstarch in a bowl. Pour into one shell, moisten edge of shell and pinch other shell on top. Cut in 3 vents.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes then 350 for 50 minutes. Watch the edge of the pie doesn't get too brown. Cover the edges with foil if they start to look like they might burn.

Cool on a cooling rack. Enjoy!


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Grain of Your Choice Peanut Sauce Salad

I had a bowl of couscous in the fridge waiting to be used up but you could use any grain, even rice or even pasta I would imagine. The veggies are of your choice too as are the proportions. It's the dressing that makes this salad. This is what I used:

About 5 cups cooked grains
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped cucumber
1 large sweet pepper, sliced
1 cup cooked edamame
1 cup chopped cooked asparagus

Mix the salad ingredients in a large bowl with a lid.

Dressing - chop in a nutribullet or processor:
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp peanut butter
2 tsp chopped ginger
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp water
1 tsp agave syrup

Pour over the salad, put the lid on the bowl and shake well. This salad will be even better the following day after the flavours have melded but it's great freshly made too.

This is adapted from a recipe in Oh She Glows.





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Pasta and Peppers

It is currently 39 degrees according to the weather man on our balcony. I don't doubt it... It's so hot that my greedy cats haven't asked for food since 11am...












...and my poor nasturtiums on the balcony have gone from being all perky this morning to wilted and cooked this afternoon.






What a perfect time to make a cold supper. Unfortunately, the cold supper I decided to prepare required boiling and baking which are not the best activities on the hottest day of 2015 so far! Oh well, hopefully it will be yummy.

I have two bags of mini peppers and while I love them raw, I decided to roast a few. The result is delicious!

Roasted Mini Sweet Peppers





20 mini sweet peppers
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Put parchment on a baking sheet and place the peppers in a pile on the parchment. Drizzle olive oil on them and mix them around so they all glisten. Spread them out, sprinkle with salt (I used the new trendy Maldon salt flakes and proceeded to spill the container all over the counter and floor while I had oily fingers), crack black peppers over top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Take them out and eat hot or let cool but be forewarned that they will be very hot inside! When they are in the oven, they will still be all puffy but they will collapse once they start to cool.






I baked tofu at the same time as the oven was on as we needed something more than just roasted peppers! Tofu bakes for 60 minutes.

I also decided to make a pasta salad since Corey had been saying how much he was craving pasta salad and the one at IGA is certainly not vegan (or really that good in my opinion.) Why not just boil water while the oven is on??

Creamy Pasta Salad (it never makes a good photo!)





In a large bowl, mix:
4 cups cooked pasta
Celery
Peppers
Carrots
Any other raw veggies you like

In the Nutribullet or blender, blend:
1 pkg soft silken tofu (although medium or firm would be fine but not the banana flavoured kind)
3 tsp chopped fresh dill
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Pour over the pasta and veggies, mix, and put in the fridge until you eat! Pasta salad always tastes better the longer it sits. Well, not weeks but hours or a day.

And while the oven was on for the extra half hour for the tofu, I decided to make the rhubard loaf I wrote about last week except I made into muffins. They took 40 minutes to cook.

Not my proudest energy-conscious day as now the air conditioner is going full blast.

Have you tried this olive oil? It smells delicious and has a nice flavour.






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