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Quinoa Bowl

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen developing recipes. There are meticulous notes involved, multiple drafts and different coloured pens – the whole nine yards. But there is something magical about being in the kitchen and just throwing whatever you have together. While most of my time in the kitchen is spent working on recipes, I try to carve out a few times a month where I just go in there with nothing in mind and just throw whatever together. There are definitely some pretty big failures, but also some great successful dishes.

That’s how this Quinoa Bowl came together. It was 11:30 at night and I needed something to bring to work for lunch the next day. I wasn’t looking to create a “blog worthy” dish, or follow a recipe, I was literally just throwing ingredients together. I had leftover zucchini, broccoli and kale in my fridge that needed to be used up. With the addition of a little Italian sausage, I had a meal ready to go in 15 minutes. Plus, I love when things are monochrome, so the idea of this dish having all green vegetables pleases my nerdy, uniform side. This Quinoa Bowl is the kind of thing that works well for a quick dinner, but I love to make a batch at the beginning of the week and bring it for lunch.

Quinoa Bowl (serves 2-4)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 1/4 cups water
1 link hot Italian sausage, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 zucchini, sliced in semi-circles
1 cup chopped broccoli florets
1 cup chopped kale
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a small pot, bring water to a boil. Add quinoa and cover. Reduce heat and cook for 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook sausage over medium-high heat, about five minutes or until fully cooked. Remove to a bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic, cooking for a minute or until fragrant.

Next, add zucchini and broccoli. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until beginning to soften.

Add kale. Cook for another 2-3 minutes or until kale has wilted.

Finely, season with lemon juice and salt and pepper.

Toss vegetables with sausage and cooked quinoa.

This Quinoa Bowl will quickly become a lunch staple.

- Lou

First Food Blogging Conference: A 19 Year Old’s Perspective

Things have been a little more quiet than usual here, but there are a few good reasons for that. Today we’re going to talk about the Food Bloggers of Canada conference.

Last weekend I attended the first Food Bloggers of Canada Conference, which was amazing. I don’t normally get nervous easily, but when my GPS announced that I had 5 minutes to go, my stomach was in knots. I have never been to an event where I didn’t know anyone. Plus, being 19 meant that I was going to be one of the younger, if not youngest, bloggers there. Was anyone going to talk to me, more importantly, would anyone want to talk to me? I mean, I’m 19 what on earth could I know about cooking and food blogging – in hindsight, having been doing this nearly three years, I’m starting to know my way around the kitchen and a blog. I tried to push those nervous thoughts aside and blasted my music (Brooks and Dunn, naturally) and took that last turn into Hockley Valley.

It started off well, I did a fantastic parking job(!) and then realized that I had forgotten my camera by my front door…rookie mistake. All was well in the end because there is this little company called Apple, who makes these phones with pretty fantastic little cameras.

Do you know what I realized, within the first 15 minutes of being there? Nobody cared that I was 19. Nobody cared that I didn’t have kids. We were all there for the same reason, we love food and blogging. The weekend was packed with events and don’t even get me started on the delicious food and wine. Melissa, Mardi and Ethan had a superb group of speakers lined up and I enjoyed all of the sessions. Just hearing everyone speak about things they are passionate about was enough for me. I was particularly fond of the recipe development session as creating recipes is one of my favourite things to do. There was something special about meeting the other bloggers and getting inspired by their passion for their blogs.

I’ve heard mixed things about conferences before, but I can say that FBC2013 was something special. I feel more inspired and energized than ever about what I have going here on Living Lou and what’s to come.

- Lou

Living Lou in Sweet Lemon Magazine

As you might have seen on Twitter, I’ve been a contributing author to the amazing online magazine Sweet Lemon Magazine for the past few issues. If you don’t know what Sweet Lemon is, it is a digital magazine written by and for the “Jane of all trades”. The magazine is committed to Gen-Y women and is run by a group of fabulous Gen-Y women, the fabulous Paris, Meghan and Brittany – talk about a great team.

Not only is it beautifully designed (thanks to Meghan and her team!) but has wonderful articles. I have, of course, contributed to the food and drink areas of the magazine. This was the Spring issue and I wanted to highlight fresh, spring flavors. I developed, and of course photographed, the delicious Avocado Feta Cucumber Bites (pg. 143) and Strawberry Cream Puffs (pg. 145).

As mentioned, I’ve contributed to previous issues, their Holiday issue back in December where I shared a menu for “Drinks and Desserts” with your girlfriends, including a delicious Flourless Chocolate Cake, Cozy Hot Cocoa and Apple and Cranberry Bundles.

One of my favourites was definitely the Valentine’s Truffles I made for their Valentine’s issue. This was one of my favourite issues to contribute to because I don’t usually develop recipes for Valentine’s Day (I’m not usually much of a dessert person), so this definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Let me know what you think – it’s always fun to work on projects in addition to Living Lou.

- Lou

Top Recipes of 2012

Can you believe another year has gone by? 2012 was definitely pretty crazy. I shared 43(!) new recipes with all of you in 2012, and I stuck to, and completed one of my goals for 2012 which was to share recipes solely created by me all year! I am so proud of all the recipes I developed for you all and am so thrilled to get your feedback – comments, emails or tweets – it makes my day. Thank you, my lovely readers, from the bottom of my heart for making my days and inspiring me to share new recipes.

So now, let’s take a look back at a wonderful year and Living Lou’s Top 10 Recipes of 2012, starting with number 10. Scattered between the recipes I’ve shared a few pictures from my year, a little peek into my life.

10. Spicy Chicken Skewers - this recipe is one of the simplest dinners made with only five ingredients, it’s one of my favourites, especially in the summer.

9. Living Lou’s Authentic Chicken Thighs - I’m really partial to this recipe and was kind of surprised to see it on the list. I think this was one of the first recipes I ever created for Living Lou. This was also the first image of mine that was ever accepted onto FoodGawker. (Fellow bloggers know how monumental that moment is!)

Here I am with my adorable Mom and Sister at a TIFF screening in September.

8. Baked Salmon Cakes - This recipe makes a delicious and affordable meal and it is also a nice change of pace from a typical weeknight dinner.

7. Crustless Spinach Quiche - There is nothing simpler than a crustless quiche and I love that this one uses up a lot of spinach. Is it just me, or when buying spinach do you always end up with like, double the amount you could ever use?

In the Spring, we got our little pup Sophie. Look how tiny she was!

6. Poached Chicken Breasts - I love to see this recipe near the top because it’s such a staple. Poached chicken can be used in hundreds of dishes, tacos, baked pasta, soup, rice etc.

5. Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins - I’m not a big baker, and don’t have a huge sweet tooth, but when I do bake, I love to make muffins and quick breads. These Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins are a nice hearty muffin packed with carrots and walnuts.

4. Vanilla Cupcakes - It’s no surprise to see these in the top 5, everyone loves a good cupcake recipe!

I spent a lovely time in Greece visiting my Grandparents. Here I am on the beach taking some photos (as usual!).

3. Slow Cooker Chili with Sweet Potatoes - It’s no secret that chili is one of my favourite things to eat during the winter (I mean, I have 4 chili recipes on here…) and this is delicious and uses a favourite fall/winter ingredient.

2. Honey Garlic Chicken Drumsticks – I love drumsticks, and the combination of honey and garlic in here is a classic.

1. Shredded Chicken Tacos – I am so excited that this is Living Lou’s #1 recipe because it is my favourite recipe! There truly is nothing better than Shredded Chicken Tacos and I suggest you make them right now. Start the New Year right, people!

Well, that’s it for 2012. I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store and am looking forward to sharing it all with you. Happy New Year!

- Lou

Olive Hummus

It’s that time again, time for The Secret Recipe Club – I have to say that participating in this exciting recipe exchange has been so great. It has introduced me to so many new blogs and has given me two of my favourite staple side dishes, Garlic Parmesan Orzo and Mexican Rice – both are so good! For this month’s recipe I’m finally veering away from side dishes and going for a healthy snack or appetizer.

For this month, I was assigned the blog My Emu is Emo written by Eilonwy. This blog is right up my alley, focusing equally on cooking and music, and experiencing them together. Seriously, I live for cooking and music. Eilonwy is very knowledgeable about both and I have to say that as someone who is always on the hunt for new music, I’ve found myself checking out new bands based on the reviews on My Emu is Emo -thanks Eilonwy! She has fabulous taste in music and I have to admit that I felt my heart patter a bit when I was reading about how she believes that Blondie’s cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” has nothing on the original. As much as I love Debbie Harry, I completely agree with Eilonwy. Seriously, does anyone have anything on Bowie?

When I stumbled upon her recipe for Hummus I immediately knew that was what I was going to make. Up until recently, I’ve never really had too much trouble finding healthy snacks, but these days it’s been tough. Nothing is catching my interest and all I’m craving is chips. Seriously? I don’t even like chips. So, I decided to give homemade hummus a shot and put a little bit of a Living Lou spin on the recipe by adding in some olives.

Olive Hummus

Ingredients
1 Can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1 clove garlic
1/8 cayenne
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
4-5 tbsp water

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse, check for consistency and add more water as needed.

I have to say, that finding a healthy snack won’t be too hard with this Olive Hummus in the fridge!

- Lou