Pesto-Garlic Spice Blend Portobello Burgers

If there's one thing I love more than a tasty and multi-purpose ingredient, it's a free one. What can I say? I'm a poor student.

This summer, I was lucky enough to win a set of Made With Love Spice Blends from a giveaway hosted by one of my favourite bloggers, HoneyB over at Grumphy's Honeybunch, as well as one for a friend.

I received two bottles of Made With Love's Pesto-Garlic Spice Blend and two bottles of Crimson Love, a beet-rosemary-nori blend with the bright red colour to match. Although both spice blends are delicious, the pesto-garlic spice blend has been seeing the most use in my household. Maybe it's my love of Italian flavours. I've been using the spice blend in place of real pesto whenever possible - stirring it into tuna salad, sprinkling it on sandwiches. I love sandwiching a slice of fresh tomato between two slices of cheddar and two slices of bread, sprinkling Pesto-Garlic spice blend on top of the cheese, and grilling the sandwich until the tomato is warm and the cheese is melted. It's quick and easy and such a delicious snack or lunch. I love that the flavour of the blend is spot on, but it's missing the fat and calories of nutty, cheesy pesto.

One of my favourite uses of the pesto-garlic spice blend, though, is adding it to marinades. It's a simple step but adds a ton of flavour.

In this recipe, the pesto-garlic flavour infuses a balsamic vinegar marinade. Portobello mushrooms are soaked in the marinade for about half an hour before being tossed on the grill to be cooked through. After they're cooked and a slice of provolone cheese is melted on top, they're placed on a bun, topped with tomato and spinach, and slathered with pesto garlic-infused mayo. The combination of the hot, balsamic-pesto flavoured portobello, the melted provolone, the creamy pesto mayo, and the cool tomato and spinach is fantastic. A perfect vegetarian treat.


Pesto-Garlic Spice Blend Portobello Burgers
Makes 2 burgers
Note: I'm a balsamic vinegar lover, so I love how the balsamic soaks right into the portobellos in this recipe. If you'd like a more mellow balsamic flavour, you can balance out the vinegar with more olive oil.

2 portobello mushrooms, cleaned and stems cut off
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tsp Made With Love Pesto-Garlic spice blend (or actual pesto)
2 burger buns
2 slices provolone cheese
2 slices tomato
A few leaves of baby spinach, romaine lettuce, or other salad greens

Pesto Mayo
1 tbsp mayonnaise
A dash of pesto-garlic spice blend


Combine balsamic vinegar, olive oil, pesto spice, and salt and pepper in a casserole dish. Place portobello mushrooms in mixture. Marinate for 15 minutes, then flip over and marinate for another 15 minutes.

To make pesto mayo, combine 1 tbsp mayonnaise with pesto-garlic spice blend (or, again, actual pesto). Set aside.

Meanwhile, preheat barbecue to medium heat. When mushrooms are done marinating, place them right on the hot grill. Flip after 4-5 minutes. Continue cooking for another 3-5 minutes, until tender but not shriveled. Then place one slice of cheese on each mushroom, closing the lid to help the cheese melt quickly. When the cheese has melted, remove the portobellos from the grill. You can also toast your burger buns on the barbecue.

Spread equal amounts of pesto-garlic mayo on both burger bun bottoms. Place one cheese-topped mushrooms on each bun, then top with tomato and spinach (or whatever greens you are using). Serve immediately.

Prosciutto, Blue Cheese, and Fig Jam Sandwiches

I'm all for regular sandwiches - BLTs, ham and cheese, grilled cheese, tuna, club - you name it, I'm game. But sometimes it's fun to make sandwiches that are a little more gourmet.

On a day trip to wineries in Niagara-on-the-Lake, my brother made sandwiches very similar to these for us all to snack on - prosciutto sandwiches with blue cheese and store-bought fig preserves.


It was delicious, and I shamelessly hijacked the recipe and replaced the store-bought preserves with a variation on Giada de Laurentiis' fig jam. The jam is a mixture of dried figs, simple syrup, brandy, and hazelnuts. I skipped the brandy, replaced the hazelnuts with walnuts, and halved the recipe. Slathered on a long dinner roll, topped with blue cheese and prosciutto and then toasted, it is a seriously tasty sandwich, though definitely not meant for a child's palate.


Prosciutto, Blue Cheese, and Fig Jam Sandwich
Makes 1 (multiply accordingly)

1 large dinner roll, cut in half length-wise
3 slices prosciutto
1-2 tbsp. blue cheese (or to taste)
1-2 tbsp. fig jam, recipe follows (or to taste)

Fig Jam
Makes enough for at least 4 sandwiches - freeze what you don't use in a small container, or refrigerate it if you'll be making the sandwich again later in the week.
3 dried figs, halved
1/4 cup simple syrup, recipe follows
1/8 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Place a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the figs and simple syrup. Bring the mixture up to a simmer. Turn off the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Place the fig mixture and the walnuts in a food processor or blender and blend, pulsing a few times, until pureed. Set aside.

Simple Syrup
1/3 cup water
2/3 cup sugar

In a small saucepan, combine water and sugar over medium heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes, until the sugar has dissolved. Take pan off heat and cool the syrup. Any extra cooled syrup can be saved in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Assemble the sandwich
Spread fig jam on one half of dinner roll. Top with blue cheese. Place the fig jam- and blue cheese-dotted bread, face up, in a toaster oven at 350F until the blue cheese begins to melt, about two minutes. Alternatively, you can do this in a regular oven, and if you're making more than two sandwiches, you'll have no other choice.

Remove the bread from the oven and spread the hot blue cheese evenly across the surface of the bread. It should spread very easily.

Top with prosciutto slices and the other half of bread. Place back in oven and continue to bake for about 5 minutes, until sandwich is thoroughly warmed and bread is toasted. Cut sandwich in half, width-wise. Serve and enjoy!

Spicy Black Bean and Corn Soup

In Ontario (my province), hard alcohol is sold via a government-owned corporation, the LCBO or Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Because liquor is sold under a monopoly, this means that liquor prices in my province are known to be quite high. The trade-off, however, is that we also get a free magazine called Food and Drink with our purchases. Food and Drink is packed with tempting recipes and alcohol pairings, and whenever a new issue comes out, I always make sure I grab an extra one for my mom. Perhaps it's just my family, but my mom, my two brothers, and I are always excited to see a new issue of Food and Drink available. I'm sure it's not helping prices at the LCBO go down, but it is a fantastic magazine, so I don't mind.


This recipe, Spicy Black Bean and Corn Soup, is from a recent edition of Food and Drink. And it's wonderful. It relies on a few cupboard staples (black beans, canned tomatoes, frozen or canned corn, tomato paste) mixed with spices and a bit of fresh produce but tastes fresh and filling. It's a healthy and flavourful Tex-Mex style soup.


This soup is fantastic served with cheese quesadillas. Spread a couple spoonfuls of salsa over a six-inch tortilla. Sprinkle on shredded cheese, chopped green onions, and top with another tortilla. Then cook the quesadilla in a bit of melted margarine in a frying pan over medium heat until it's nicely browned and the cheese is melting. Together, the soup and quesadillas make for a perfect combination.

Spicy Black Bean and Corn Soup
Via Food and Drink Magazine

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cups onion, finely diced
2 cups red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 tsp. jalapeno pepper finely diced, seeds removed
1 tbsp. garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
3 tbsp. tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups frozen corn, thawed and rinsed
6 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and saute onion, red pepper, and jalapeno for 5 minutes or until softened. Add garlic, oregano, cumin, and chili powder and cook for another 2 minutes.

Add tomato paste, cook for 3 minutes while breaking up with a spoon. Add diced tomatoes, and cook for 5 minutes more.

Add beans, corn and chicken stock. Bring to the boil, lower heat and cover. Simmer for 45 minutes until all the vegetables are tender. Just before serving, stir in cilantro if using.

Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Prosciutto, Pesto and Sun-dried Tomato Grilled Cheese

Sometimes I want a supper so simple that it appeals to my inner child. But most of the time, when I'm craving something simple, I still want it to feel a bit more grown up. Enter Prosciutto, Pesto, and Sun-dried Tomato grilled cheese, which I adapted from a recipe in Make It Super Simple With G. Garvin.


My version of this recipe fuses together classic Italian ingredients (except for the distinctly un-Italian sandwich bread) into something that comes together fast. That's the nature of grilled cheese, I suppose, but this is much tastier than a processed cheese slice sandwiched between bread slices. You'd do well to use ciabatta or focaccia instead of the generic sandwich bread; it's what I have on hand and I'm trying to use it up.



Prosciutto, Pesto and Sun-dried Tomato Grilled Cheese
Makes 1 sandwich -- multiply accordingly!

-2 slices of bread -- focaccia, or a ciabatta bun, or if you're stuck, like me, plain old sandwich bread
-About 1 tbsp of pesto
-2 or 3 sun-dried tomatoes, oil-packed or not, julienned (now, this is grilled cheese, so don't worry about making perfect little matchsticks--just slice them small enough that you won't bite off a big chunk of sun-dried tomato by mistake)
-A slice of mozzarella cheese, or a handful of shredded mozzarella
-1 or 2 thin slices of prosciutto
-Softened butter

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Spread one side of each slice of bread with butter. Spread opposite side of each slice of bread with pesto. Lay one slice of bread on a plate, buttered-side down. Arrange prosciutto, cheese, and tomatoes on bread. Top with the second slice of bread (buttered side up this time). Cook about 5 minutes or until golden brown, turning once.