Looking forward to February recipes

When I got here to Vancouver I checked out the big cookbook I had, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I had picked it up in a Little Free Library some time last year and hadn't really looked at it much. It seems to really be a book about how to cook everything, and as I flipped through it, I saw a quarter of a page on how to steam carrots. I am not a super-complicated cook, but I can't give shelf-space to a recipe that basic. And no pretty pictures... so I gave it away. 

Moving on, I looked at two Cooking Light magazines, one purchased here last year and one brought from a Little Free Library in Toronto. 

I tried a recipe from the one on Soups and Stews, Fast Chicken Chili with Butternut Squash. 

One thing you can count on about Cooking Light is that it is absolutely American and loves convenience foods. They suggest brands of pre-chopped potatoes or pre-cooked rice or whatever. I am not lazy enough to buy pre-cooked rice, but I am too lazy to peel and chop my own squash. This recipe needs 2 cups of chopped butternut squash, and I was certainly looking forward to finding pre-peeled and chopped squash in my local store. Although they sell this in the Loblaws up the street from me in Toronto, I couldn't find any in the two stores I looked at here! I couldn't even find frozen cubed squash, only spiral ribbons. What the heck, it's stew; I just tossed in the ribbons. 

The recipe also calls for the breast meat from a rotisserie chicken. I don't really like most grocery-store rotisserie chickens as they tend to be too salty and too dry. I found some chunks of chicken that are maybe meant for sandwiches or salad and that was fine. It would also be easy enough to poach or fry up some actual chicken pieces, or use leftovers.

The spices were nice, and it helped that I accidentally dumped out twice as much red pepper flakes as was called for! The recipe made a lot of stew and I enjoyed it as leftovers for lunch. 

For a moment my plan was to change the "official" recipe book for February from The New Basics to these two magazines, but then my hold appeared at the library and I will have the New Basics for three weeks at least. I can't scribble in the margins like I would at home, but I will be happy to explore this book more. 

I did try a recipe from New Basics yesterday. I had some quinoa in the cupboard, from perhaps last November or maybe last summer. I think this is the only quinoa recipe in the book, and it is an adaptation of a rice salad recipe. 

Cook the quinoa, adding some raisins in at the end of the cooking time. Add chopped green onions, peanuts, mandarin orange segments, sesame oil (or olive oil if that's what you have) and mint (or perhaps cilantro if you recently made chili and have some left in the fridge). 

Very tasty, but it would also be fine with rice or barley. 

There is a huge variety of recipes in this book and I will have fun with it, I think. I shall throw in more from those magazines as well. I also picked up a book about baking, and since I shouldn't really eat cookies and cakes, I think I will work on some yeast bread recipes. I had a library book on bread, but all the instructions involved turning on your heavy-duty mixer with a dough hook. My kitchen here is tiny and I don't even have a heavy-duty mixer in Toronto, so I need a recipe which says, "stir for a long time and then knead" and things like that! 

I have a few late-addition Vancouver arches to show you before we start a new photo theme as well. 

We made it to the beach for sunset yesterday