Potato Pizza with artichoke, lemon, and herbs

This was divine! I made this recipe over two days to accompany a knitting session with my friend Sarah. The first day I made the pesto (a large batch so I could freeze some) and started the pizza dough. I have recently fallen in love with spelt crusts, and having spelt grain and a grain mill means I can make the crust with fresh flour. One quirk of this recipe is that olives are not listed on the ingredient list, but one of the steps calls for adding the olives (which I did not have).
Three stars and three bars (due mostly to the large number of ingredients).
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After posting this blog I ate some left-over slices, and decided to up the rating to four stars. It really is incredible!

Rebar Linguine

A very simple and tasty meal, but I would have appreciated some suggestions on how more protein could have been added (we added pepitas). This recipe is a nice way to celebrate the new produce available at the farmers market. Yeah summer!
1 bar. 2 stars.

Bircher Muesli- a breakfast of champions!

Some of you may know about my addiction to oatmeal, which I have to admit, has now been a refined to an addition to bircher muesli. Yes, I've eaten this breakfast every morning since I first made it, last week. Although some may consider oats boring and predictable, this wholesome bowl of goodness is what I crave every morning now. I mix it up by adding different fruits and nuts (local Saskatoon berries are especially good, but also walnuts from my yard and ground flax). I have recently learnt about the health benefits of soaking oats overnight and combining oats with yoghourt to help digestion and increase uptake of nutrients (Sally Fallon, Nuriting Traditions), so I was pleased to see those steps included in this recipe. According to Wikipedia, birchermüsli was invented by the Swiss Germans' (as so many good things are like Toblerone, cheese fondu, and yodeling), and they even eat a version of this for supper: Birchermüsli complet with butterbrot and milk coffee! Think about it, Rebar. If I could give a staple 4 stars I would, but 4 stars are reserved for special indulgences like chocolate cake, so 3 stars and 1 bar.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with apricots and walnuts

I baked these cookies as treats for my Bike-To-Work-Week Team, and they loved them. In fact non-bikers were asking how they could also get one. Perhaps my team would be even larger if I advertised these cookies before hand! Although very popular with the group, I found them a bit too sweet, but they did grow on me with multiple tastings.
2 stars, 1 bar.

Mushroom Pecan (Walnut) Burgers

These were a tasty and filling alternative to commercial veggie-burgers, which are often bland and leave me hungry. The one trick is keeping them together when cooking. Putting them in the fridge to cool before cooking may have helped (as the recipe suggested), but hunger and a lack of pre-planning resulted in my omission of that step. I substituted walnuts (due to my plentiful supply), which worked well as I think pecan would have been too rich. 2 stars, 2 bars (but 3 bars for me because I (Rob) had to crack of all the walnuts).