A delicious, and extemporaneous, meal!

An off-the-cuff salad and fish fillets meal

I was inspired by a picture and recipe I saw in Real Simple, for a spring salad of snap peas and cucumber, with an oil and vinegar dressing.

Salad:

1 pkg snap peas, julienned
1 english cucumber, or 3 mini cukes, julienned similarly to the peas
1/2 small onion minced, or 3 green onions, chopped
1/2 sweet red pepper, julienned (roasted would be good, too!)

toss with 1/2 of dressing recipe, let sit at room temperature a couple of hours if possible to maximize flavours.

Dressing and Marinade:
(1/2 of this is used for the dressing, and the other 1/2 to marinate the fish fillets. Once the fish is removed, the marinade is discarded.)

Shake in a jar or whisk in a bowl:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 T. sesame oil
2 T. brown sugar
1 t. grated fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, grated
hot sauce to taste (optional)

Fish:

4 pieces fish fillets, such as Rainbow trout, or thinner pieces of salmon
1/2 recipe marinade above

marinate in refridgerator for 2 to 4 hours
remove from marinate, blot with paper towel, saute very quickly until done in non-stick pan with a small amount of olive oil

Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

Tried to make something appealing for the Choir's Bake Sale...  We'll see if they sell, however "Quality Control" says they're delicious!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teas. pure vanilla extract
1 teas. pure almond extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teas. baking powder
3/4 cup 2% milk

Preheat your oven to 375 F.  Using your stand mixer or Kitchen-Aid, cream the butter and sugar together until very creamy.  Add the eggs one at a time and continue to beat like mad.  Add the extracts. Crank it.  The idea here is to beat some serious air into the batter to make it light, fluffy and tender.

Before adding the flour, mix the baking powder into it.  Then, check and see if your oven is ready.  THEN add the flour mixture, using the slowest speed initially, so you don't end up with a "flour facial."  After the flour is incorporated, add the milk while the beaters are still going.  Beat until very smooth and light.

Line muffin tins with papers.  I used small muffin tins (approx. the size of a "two bite brownie"), and cake/candy liners I found at Bulk Barn.  Using two teaspoons, spoon batter into the liners, until just below the top, but more than 3/4's full. I only had one small muffin tin of 12, so I ended up doing 3 1/2 batches which yielded around 40 cupcakes.

Cool each batch on a wire rack.  When all the cupcakes are cool, ice and decorate as desired.  I used white icing for the base, red icing for the music notes, and gold "Pearl Dust" to give it all a shine. I picked these colours because they matched the choir's logo and concert uniform.

For more information on the York Region Community Choir, you can go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/York-Region-Community-Choir/170313393029917