Introducing You Panzanella Meets Caesar

I often find myself in a situation where I don’t have much choice about what I can eat. I write and test certain recipes, try specific street food, visit particular restaurants. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that sometimes, it’s a real novelty to be able to cook whatever I ruddy well feel like. The freezer is stuffed with the ragus and dhals I sweated over on a summer’s day, waiting for autumn when they’ll thaw in a pan after a long day at work, and defrost onto the pages they were destined for.

This salad came about because I was desperate to get as much summery food as I could into my body all at once. I needed the refreshment that only a big bowl of different coloured plant bits can bring, and then while making it decided it was nothing without carbs and a creamy dressing. You can take the girl out of winter.

Panzanella meets Caesar

This is –  you’ve probably guessed already – a hybrid of the Italian bread salad panzanella and Caesar Cardini’s crisp classic. I’ve come up with a dressing which is loosely based on the latter in that it contains anchovies, and a splash of buttermilk for creaminess. Yes I was mining the depths of the fridge. I’ve given quantities for the dressing but not so much for the vegetables as I can’t really remember. Come on though, it’s a salad. Just eyeball it.

For the dressing:

2 garlic cloves, smushed with a tiny pinch of sea salt
3 anchovies, also smushed
1 inch square of Grana Padano or Parmesan, grated
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons buttermilk

For the salad ingredients (although it’s good to mix it up with whatever you have, as long as you keep the bread and capers):

Tomatoes, chopped
Cucumbers, chopped
Spring onions, sliced
Green beans, blanched
Stale sourdough bread, torn into pieces
Capers (a tablespoon?)

Mix salad ingredients. Mix dressing ingredients. Combine together. Ta-da!

Wednesday Finds: Cinnamon Quinoa Breakfast Bowl

On Wednesday morning Mike and I checked out The Perseids. At midnight we hopped in our car and drove down a deserted ghostly highway to make our way past the edge of the city to where the water laps the shore. We spread out our blanket, I tucked myself into Mike’s arm and we let our eyes adjust to the blackest of nights – thank you, new moon. It took a while, but we saw two giant shooting stars together and two tiny ones, separately. I would have lay out there forever but somehow I missed the memo on how you’re supposed to dress in the middle of the night in summer. After a while my shivering became too apparent to ignore so we headed home. But it was a blast and they’re still on so we might just head out again tonight.



If you saw what I eat for breakfast every day, you would be so bored. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my daily eggs & avocado, but lately I’ve been trying to switch things up just because I think change is good every once in awhile. Especially if that change means another excuse to smother things in peaches.

This one is inspired by all of those beautiful breakfast bowls of oatmeal that I see all over the internet. You know the ones – they’re chock full of colorful fruit and other various superfoods. They’re so pretty that they make me wish I liked oatmeal… so finally I had this idea to make a sweet non-oat quinoa bowl for breakfast.

This base of this recipe is the quinoa that is lightly sweetened by cooking it in almond milk with a few cinnamon sticks. It’s this simple: Almond Breeze + quinoa + whole cinnamon sticks. You could also get creative with your spices. Nutmeg, cardamom, and/or vanilla bean would all be welcome here.

To your spiced quinoa, add whatever seasonal or dried fruits you like. Obviously, peaches are my thing right now, the raspberries are for Jack because they’re his favorite. For crunch, I topped these with toasted almonds and coconut flakes.

I’m going to give you two options of how to serve these bowls because Jack and I both have different preferences. Because I have a thing about mushy food, I like my quinoa bowl best served pilaf style, leaving my quinoa fluffy. (it can be served warm off the stove or at room temp if you’ve made it in advance). Jack prefers his porridge style – hot with plenty of almond milk to soak into the quinoa. So to each their own…

Sweeten the deal by drizzling a little maple syrup on top.