a peek inside the fishbowl

This grilled cheese sandwich was A Most Excellent Grilled Cheese Sandwich. It consisted of:

1) Two thick slices of white, day old bakery bread with

2) two kinds of cheese: cheddar and swiss. Which were placed between the bread and

3) grilled in bacon fat (although butter will do just fine).

4) The secret is to slide a slice of cheese under the bread as it’s browning on the pan. The cheese melts into the bread (!) creating a cheesy crust of fried awesomeness.

5) The other secret is to serve it with a generous dollop of Rootham’s Red Pepper Ketchup. I was thrilled to discover that Kitchenalia sells it, although you can also snag it at the Ottawa Bagel Shop. The Rootham’s a good news/bad news kind of discovery. The good news is that it will add amazing flavour to everything. The bad news is that you will no longer be able to eat ordinary ketchup. (I am not even kidding. I am ruined forever.)

This sandwich was so good I almost made a second one, right on the spot.

I spoke on a panel at the BConnected Conference on Sunday and stayed for the rest of the day. If you were there you already know how what a fantastic experience it was (and you know I don’t say that lightly). I was part of a media panel with some local media rock stars I admire: Katherine Dines, Ian Mendes, Catherine Clark and moderator Christy Laverty. Our 45 minute session sped by and then I had the rest of the day to absorb the wisdom of others.

One of the things I was inspired to do after the conference was brush off my ol’ Pinterest account. For the next while I’ll be spending a bit of extra time cultivating and refining my boards, but here’s the thing … I don’t just want to pin more stuff, I also want to act on them. It makes no sense to keep saving recipes and never actually make anything. And not just recipes, but crafty ideas too!

So every week or so I’m going to pull something from my boards and challenge myself to make it and find out if it’s actually pinworthy. Here’s where you come in. I want YOU can make it too. And if you blog about it or just tweet a photo, please make sure you leave a link so I can see how yours turned out.

My first challenge was this recipe for Thai Cashew Coconut Rice with Ginger Peanut Sauce. I have been eyeballing this recipe for ages. I love how colourful it is, and a quick glance at the ingredients hinted that it would be pretty good. Basically, it has ALL THE FLAVOURS.

The original post doesn’t look quite the same as my batch, close, but definitely not the same. (I’m ok with this.) Here’s mine:

Here’s what happened.

I was originally going to make half of this recipe, but I got a bit excited at the outset and forgot. (It serves 8-10. Ha ha!) I made the proper amount of rice but I used brown jasmine rice instead (and hello, what a great idea to boil it right in the coconut milk!) and used a bit less carrot than was specified. I eyeballed and only grated two carrots in the food processor and it seemed to be ok. But the cabbage. Whoa. The recipe calls for one cabbage and I used about 2/3 of a head I had in the fridge. THAT IS A LOT OF CABBAGE PEOPLE. And when you shred it up you will realize (a) that you’re going to need the biggest mixing bowl ya got and then (b) you start wondering (scratch that, HOPING and PRAYING) your family is going to eat it. I also used half an onion and one red pepper. But that’s the beauty of this recipe. You can improvise a little with your favourite veggies it will still work.

The taste, well, it’s fantastic. It has the right balance of crunch – that’s the cashews and cabbage – and the peanut ginger sauce is to die for AND may result in a Serious Plate Licking. (I hope my neighbours didn’t see me.) I totally recommend this dish for a summer BBQ. It’s vegetarian, but you can also add chicken or shrimp to make it a bit more substantial. Did I mention it makes a lot? :)

So was this recipe pin worthy? YES.

Want to follow my recipe board on Pinterest? You can do so right here. And if you try this recipe yourself, don’t forget to let me know! I’d love to hear how your batch turned out.

It is estimated that this summer, 918,724 Canadians will rely on food banks to provide over 26 million plates of food. The sad reality is that donations to food banks decline during the summer and food banks are unable to keep up with demand.

From May 2 to 8, food banks across Canada will come together to participate in the Every Plate Full Food Drive with an inspiring goal: to fill the plates of every Canadian who is hungry this summer.

Every dollar raised buys three meals for Canada’s hungry.

You can show your support by posting a picture of an empty plate on social media with #EveryPlateFull and a link to www.everyplatefull.ca from May 2 to 8. The goal is to have thousands of empty plates posted – fine dining, everyday kitchen, chipped, brand new and even paper. Anything goes! Participants are asked to tag their friends and ask them to post a plate and make a donation through www.everyplatefull.ca to a participating food bank or provincial food bank association.

You in? Show me your plate by leaving a link in the comments. :)