Sunday, October 30, 2016

Chickpea Salad Recipe

I'm so excited to be taking my first Rouxbe cooking class this year!  I was gifted a six-month "Professional Plant Based Certification" course and am ready to hit the ground choppin!  The course will be an immersion in culinary skill and knowledge development with plant-based cuisine. Heaven knows we can all use a few more fruits and veggies in our diets!

I am only 2% done with the course, but got started cooking right away. The first assignment instructions were: Make one of your "go-to" dishes, part of your regular culinary repertoire.  It can be a simple dish, such as a starter, a soup, a favorite salad, or even a more involved entree, but it must be plant-based. The criteria include that you upload three photos: (1) mise en place shot, (2) shot of recipe in progress, (3) shot of finished dish. Make sure you add a title and description to your assignment. 

So I want to share with you my delish-dish; try it out, you will be so happy you did!

Title: 
Chickpea Salad with Apple, Breakfast Radish, Cucumber, Honey Lemon Vinaigrette and Nutritional Yeast*
*Can be supplemented with Feta for dairy eaters
Description: 
This is a light, and healthy recipe that makes me crave summer all year round.  A great salad to make ahead for a party and just top with either nutritional yeast (or feta).  Enjoy!

 Ingredients for Salad:
1 1/2 cups organic salad mix
2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 cucumber, peeled, quartered, and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 bunch french breakfast radishes, thinly sliced on the mandoline
1/2 apple, pealed cored and diced
*Nutritional Yeast
*Can be replaced for feta if not dairy-free
Ingredients for Honey Lemon Vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1/2 teaspoon honey
Maldon Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions (recipie in progress):
In a small bowl place the lemon juice, honey, 2 pinches of maldon salt, and black pepper.  Whisk to combine.  Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the bowl while whisking, until the dressing is emulsified. Taste.  Season with more salt/pepper to taste.

Place chickpeas, cucumber, radish and apples in a large bowl.  Drizzle with lemon vinaigrette, lightly coating the chickpeas.  Season with salt and pepper.  Taste.  Add more vinaigrette, salt and pepper as necessary. 

To serve, scoop the chickpea salad on a bed of fresh organic greens.  Top with a generous amount of nutritional yeast.  Finish with a sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper.
And there you have it, my first assignment done, and in my belly!  Try it out, what would you grade it?


Sunday, October 9, 2016

Bath, England

Bath is a city that has pulled off the English charm!  Here's our guide on all things...
Although traveling to Bath is a train ride away from London, it's more than worth it to explore the sights of one of England's most beautiful and historic cities!  We left from Paddington Station, and in about 90 minutes we were in Bath. The train station was conveniently located in the centre of town  and once we got there we set off to explore.  
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which was conveniently located walking distance from the train station, and right on the outskirts of town.  We love not needing to use any other transportation method other than our feet when getting around a city, and the hotel was perfect; no taxi needed to get anywhere from where we were staying (breakfast was also included, which is an added bonus)!
There are lots of fun things to do in Bath, we spent a day and a half checking out some highlights.  Besides walking the cute streets, here are our top suggestions, in no particular order, on what to do while here:
1. Tea  Time
While English tea time was once  considered the pinnacle of elegance and fine dining, it has made its modern day comeback into everyday life.
We went for a fun afternoon tea at Bea's Vintage Tea Rooms.  The tea room had a fun quirky 40's style vibe and a superb cake selection! 
The menu had so many tempting plates, from savory to sweet there were so many things to choose from.  We had the afternoon tea which included: a tiered cake stand with a selection of finger sandwiches, buttermilk scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, homemade cakes, and loose leaf ribose tea.
We are seriously so happy at this point!
Jordan eyeing some sweet treats
I think our favorite sandwich was the lox sandwich.
Such good scones, but the conundrum remains: clotted cream first and jam spread on top or slather the jam and top it off with the clotted cream?  Either way, it's good!
Our cakes were fluffy, light and perfectly sweet: raspberry vanilla coconut and lemon meringue.
Tea is such a fun thing to do in England, it makes you feel so proper, and was definitely a great way for us to enjoy each others company!

2. Mayor of Bath's Corps Honorary Free Walking Guide
Our Free Walking Guide was AWESOME.  I love free walking guides because you meet locals of the area, can take in the city from their perspective of what is important to see, and they are FREE; The Mayor of Bath's Corps guides don't even allow tipping.  Our guide was Richard, and he was in great shape for his ripe age of 92, he even out-walked some of the people on our tour. 
Our tour started in front of the big Bath Abbey, which is absolutely beautiful; the most interesting thing about the Abbey is the carvings on the outside...
Here it is up close: Jacob's ladder with angels crawling up the sides as if they are climbing up and down from heaven.  Later in this post you'll get a chance to see the inside, so keep reading!
We walked through cute little streets in the town, passing lots of fun windows to look at...
Crossing over the River Avon we had a nice view of Pulteney Bridge. If you have seen Les Misérables the movie, it is the bridge Javert uses when he commits suicide. It is beautiful, and reminded us 100% of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
Beautiful Views:
We walked over to the circus, which is not the type of circus you are probably thinking of...no animals sorry.  In Latin the word 'circus' means ring, oval or circle, and this "circus" is a ring of houses built in the 1760's. 
If you look closely at the detail of the stonework you'll see many emblems like serpents, acorns, nautical and masonic symbols. 
The next stop on our tour was to The Royal Crescent, one of Bath's most iconic landmarks: a curved terrace of Georgian townhouses arced around a perfectly manicured lawn.  
Selfie in front of Royal Victoria Park!
We ditched our tour group at this point in the tour because we wanted to visit another "must-see" location...coming up, keep reading.

3. Number 1 Royal Crescent
We really wanted to go inside one of the apartments in the Royal Crescent.  If you walk along the Crescent, when you come to No. 1 Royal Crescent, you can actually go inside!  It is decked out in authentic period decor and furniture.
I love seeing old kitchens, they remind me that we have come a long way, and to be grateful for my electric stovetop!
We really enjoyed all the interactive parts of the house, it really helps you get insight into what life must have been like back in the day, and the staff in each room was eager to explain to us lots of cool information.
 Watcha lookin' at peeping Tom?!?
Sniffing the spices:
 We played some fun peasant games, and Jordan beat me all 7 times...
They even had clothes for us to dress up in...
I may have had to talk Jordan into dressing up too:
No. 1 Royal Crescent definitely had a great view!

4. Royal Baths
We started our second day with Bath's main attraction, The Royal Baths, conveniently located in the centre of town. Well...perhaps it is fairer to say that the town grew around the baths, given that the Romans moved to the area to make use of the hot springs. 
The terrace that overlooks the Great Bath is lined with statues of famous Roman Emperors, such as Julius Caesar.
Since the city is built on top of the Bath, you enter from street level, where you are on a terrace that lets you look down into the Baths six feet below ground.  The preservation is excellent, it is one of the best-preserved Roman sites I have ever seen! I would recommend getting there early, to enjoy it without the crowds.
The first baths were built in 70AD and over a million liters of 114°F water flows from the mineral spring every day.
Men and woman would bathe together and clothes were usually not worn, but wooden sandals were necessary to protect bathers feet from heating tiles under the floor.
We took the self-guided tour and got up close and personal to the main Bath
The Romans used the baths daily and weekly to get clean, socialize and relax. 
The preservation is so amazing, we marveled over it!
While I'd love to socialize in the baths, the water was looking a little too mineral dense and slimy for us!
That is some goo
At the end of the tour we got to sample the water.  It was SO disgusting, I can't even describe it. The healing waters of Karlovy Vary were much better.  I can't believe people actually drank liters of this water when starting their day thinking it would cure them! Take a look as I try to drink some, Jordan couldn't pay me enough money to do it however he had no problem chugging it down.

5. Bath Abbey
Bath has so many great attractions, like the historic abbey which we walked by on our tour.
Very impressive stained glass depicting the life of Christ.  During World War II the images were taken down, and after the war artists thought it would be too difficult to repair, luckily it was done!

6. Sally Lund House
Our last stop before heading home was to the Sally Lund house for a Sally Lund bun.  There are people trying to replicate the world famous bun all over the glove, but the one and only place to taste the original is right here in Bath.  The house is one of the oldest in Bath dating back to 1482, but Sally lived here in the 1600's.
I really enjoyed their Bun Etiquette:
We tried a dolce de leche, and a lemon curd: both we highly recommend!
 Caramel...So good!

And there you have it, Bath, a great place to visit, and well worth the trip!


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