In the Kitchen: Cucumber Quinoa Salad

My first "In the Kitchen" post in ages!  Now that I'm a week and a half into my maternity leave, and all the baby-prep stuff is done, I'm finally ready to try out some new recipes.  This one topped my Bloglovin' feed yesterday morning, and I just had to try it.  This salad is perfect for summer, and would be ideal for any potluck you might have coming up.  It was really quick to put together (as long as you remember to cook and chill the quinoa in advance) and tasted wonderful as a side to barbecued pork chops.  Find the full recipe at Gimme Some Oven!

Tip: Rather than make the lemon vinaigrette included with the recipe I made my own using equal parts Tuscan Herb Olive Oil and Sicilian Lemon White Balsamic Vinegar from our local store, Prairie Oils and Vinegars.  It was delicious!

Image via Gimme Some Oven.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's weekend!

I just wanted to share this recipe for Valentine's Day Strawberries and Cream Puppy Chow from the blog Live, Love and Sugar.  I made it this week with my students for our Valentine's party, and it turned out great!  The kids really loved chowing down on their own 'baking', and it was a perfect way to practice some teamwork and recipe reading skills!

We are planning on spending our love day as a family in Winnipeg tomorrow with some dinner and checking out the ice castles at The Forks.  Take care, and enjoy your long weekend! ♡

In the Kitchen: Shrimp Tacos

It's no secret that hubby and I love tacos of all kinds.  This recipe for shrimp tacos, from Natasha's Kitchen, landed at the top of my Pinterest feed last week and I just had to try making it over the long weekend.  What an explosion of flavour!  I will definitely be making these again.  The recipe includes details to make the spicy shrimp, coconut coleslaw and mango-avocado salsa.  Everything turned out great....I even had my parents over for dinner the night that I made this and they were pretty dazzled by the meal.  It reminded us of the amazing shrimp tacos we had on our taco tour in Puerto Vallarta this winter.  Yum!

Find the recipe on Natasha's Kitchen.  (Image from Natasha's Kitchen)

In the Kitchen: Herbed Summer Squash Pasta

This time of summer always yields an abundance of garden squash...in my garden it's zucchini.  I'm always looking for new recipes to use this vegetable up.  I found this recipe for herbed summer squash pasta on the blog, Smitten Kitchen, always a great place to visit for recipe inspiration!

The recipe uses fresh squash and herbs from the garden and has fresh lemon infused into the pasta sauce, so it's so perfectly summery tasting!  I made it for dinner last night and it was absolutely wonderful.  Find the full recipe on Smitten Kitchen.

Find more great zucchini recipes in my blog archives here and here.

Image via Smitten Kitchen

In the Kitchen: Black & Blue Cobbler

Soooo, I made this cobbler from A Beautiful Mess last night for dessert.  How delicious! While I can't say I had the pleasure of hand picking the blueberries and blackberries myself, this is a quick and easy way to enjoy all of the fresh summer berries that are so readily available at this time of year.  The best part?  You probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry already.  Find the full recipe over here!

Image via A Beautiful Mess