Herbes de Provence is an herb blend made up of (quelle surprise) herbs from the Provence region of France. Most contain some combination of the following: marjoram, thyme, savory, basil, rosemary, fennel seeds, lavender, sage.

You can get Herbes de Provence in the spice aisle of your grocery store, or at specialty food stores. Penzey's is an excellent source and you can order online. Alternatively, there is a line of dry rubs made by a company called "Nantucket Offshore" and their St. Remy Rub is a fine herbes de Provence blend. You should be able to find these in your supermarket spice aisle.

Hope that helps!


Bon appetit!

Happy to help.

And here is a new recipe, shared by my friend who was just visiting from Canada this past week. It was the healthiest thing he cooked for us. It is actually super-healthy, packed with good stuff, VERY satisfying. Since he left I've had it three more times.

Creamy Endive Salad

In a large bowl, combine the following, diced:

1 ripe yet firm avocado
1 tomato
1-2 bell peppers
1/2 red onion

In a separate bowl, mix to make a thick dressing:

equal parts sour cream and plain yogurt (to equal about a pint; or to taste)
chopped fresh chives
chopped fresh dill (or dried dill)

You may wish to drain the yogurt through coffee filters placed in a fine sieve to thicken first.

Pour dressing over vegetables and mix to coat evenly.

Wash 1-2 endives and separate leaves from core. Shake off excess moisture. Dip endive leaves to scoop out salad and eat.

Enjoy!

so many great recipes to choose from..i'm glad i found this thread!!

i'm a vegeterian and while i found some good recipes without meat or that i can subsitute something else for but do you have any good recipes for vegeterian meals?

one thing i made and i'm not sure of it's nutritional value, probably not great because of the cheese but stuffed jumbo pasta shells are very tasty

you take jumbo pasta shells, boil till they are somewhat soft, then take them out of the water, and inside the shell add ricotta cheese and then i just use a spaghetti sauce to put over the ricotta and then top it off with mozerella, put them on a baking sheet and bake at around 400 for 15 minutes, times and temperature are an estimation, i'm still working on that.

This was for a "girl who was like my sister and best friend for ten years until I realized I was secretly harbouring great romantic love for her."  LoL.

Sorry for the delay..  Been dong a lot of work and forogt all about this!

I cooked two racks of lamb, wth a garlic/onion/thyme seasoning.  A little bit of soy sauce in there for good measure.  For vegetables, we had asparagus spears (cause I love the stuff), and some mashed sweet potatoes.  A nice red wine along with it, though I don't remember what I got.

This is a great vegetarian dish that I love making.  It's prep-intensive, but very, very worth it.


Vegetable Couscous

Ingredients
Stage 1:

• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1 teaspoon onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup julienned sweet yellow pepper
• 1/4 cup julienned sweet red pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

Stage 2:

• 1 medium zucchini, diced
• 1/4 cup minced fresh basil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (kosher, preferably)
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 dash hot pepper sauce (like Tabasco)

Stage 3:

• 1 cup uncooked couscous
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Preparation
1. You're going to need a big skillet for this.  Sauté stage 1 ingredients in oil for 5-6 minutes or until just before crisp-tender.  It is important to get the timing right, so that the vegetables retain the right amount of crispness.
2. Add the stage 2 ingredients; mix well.
3. Stir in the couscous. Add broth; bring to a boil. Cover and remove from the heat; let stand for 5-8 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve immediately.


Notes
This recipe is quite modular.  I usually use whatever vegetables are on hand.  The recipe list above is what I got off of the original recipe, but sometimes I'll substitute in some mushrooms in the first stage, or a whole variety of things in the second stage, like green onions, asparagus, chickpeas, yellow squash, or black olives.  Sometimes I'll throw in some cumin for a warmer flavour.  Usually I forgo the Tabasco in favour of jalapeño-infused oil or diced hot peppers.  Also, any leftovers can be stuffed into bell peppers and baked for a delicious, portable meal.

Do you ever stop muse +1 for having a recipe for everyone one any occasion. 

I had a craving for some home-cooked chili yesterday, so Kim and I wetn to the grocery to get what was necessary, and I wanted to do something a little different and also healthy..  Here's the result.

Turkey and Chicken Chili

2 lbs. ground chicken
1 package of Italian-style turkey sausage (about six or eight sausages)
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 cans chili-style kidney/pinto beans (or one can of kidney and one can of pinto)
Fresh thyme
Fresh oregano
1/2 cup (yes cup) of ground cumin
1/2 cup of ground cayenne pepper
1/4 cup of crushed cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 chipotles (or jalapenos)
1/2 cup of paprika
2 tablespoons basil
1 large white onion
1 large tomato
1 garlic (six or so cloves)
1 bottle of beer

You can mess around with the spices if you like, judging on your tasting preference.

Begin by setting a large pot with a small amount of oil in it onto a stove top on medium-low heat.  While you are doing this, you will be cutting up the sausage.  The way this must be done is by cutting it down laterally (sausage cannot be precooked, btw) so that you can peel off the intestine casing.  It's a little messy and gross, but the intestines will come off when you cook, anyhow, and you'll just have strings of guts in your chili, which is never good.  Cut it up into as small pieces as you like and throw it into the pot.  Increase the heat slightly to about medium.

While the sausage cooks, you can start cutting up the onions and garlic. Set aside three cloves of garlic for mincing and 1/4 of the onion for dicing.  The rest of will be sliced, both garlic and onion.  Occasionally, you'll need to stir the sausages around so it cooks evenly.  When it looks like the sausage is just beginning to caramelize, throw in the minced and diced garlic and onions.  When THAT begins to caramelize, then you throw in the first pound of chicken.  Arrange the sausage so that the chicken can rest in the middle of the pot, and the sausage cooking slows.  As the first pound is fully cooked and flakes off of its cube-like shape, you can place the second pound in.  The chicken should go in at the same time as the crushed red pepper, because that will need to brown and caramelize, too, but the longer it does, the spicier it gets.  The chipotles, sliced, should be thrown in as well.  This should all cook for some time.  You're waiting for the chicken to caramelize, and when that happens, the sliced garlic/onions will come in.

As things are cooking, you want to be preparing other things.  Preferably, the spices should be mixed beforehand.  I don't like to use prepared chili powder, because it's unnecessary, you have less control over the flavour, and they put a lot of salt into chili powder, which is really not needed.  By making our own, we can be much healthier and impart more flavours.  Begin by throwing the ground pepper and the ground cumin into a large bowl, throwing in enough garlic powder as you like.  Already, it should start smelling a lot like chili powder.  You want to cut up the fresh oregano and thyme and throw it into the spice mix, as well as the paprika.  Mix it all up with your hands (don't tuch your eyes afterward) until it's all evenly distributed and one solid colour, then throw it into the pot and stir up evertyhing well (the sliced onions should start to be a little more cooked, now, and less crispy-looking).

Open up the bottle of beer and pour it down the hatch (as in, the opening to the pot).  The beer will release all the stored up flavours ground the caramelizing in the oils at the bottom.  Meanwhile, you can start dicing the tomato.  Lower the heat a little back to medium-low and dump in the can of crushed tomatoes..  Only do this when it looks like the beer has been cooked into the meat quite a bit.  Stir it up well, then add in the beans (you want to drain the can a little, but not all the way.. the bean flavours are quite tasty, too).  Lastly, you throw in the diced tomatoes, who need the least amount of time to cook.  Stir it all up and let it simmer for awhile, covered.

Give it a few tastes every now and then.  If it tastes too sweet and tomato-y, then you probably need to add more cumin into the mix, as well as some paprika.  The paprika will dilute some of the sweetness without increasing the spiciness, as its a relatively mild type of pepper.  To increase spiciness, add both crushed and ground cayenne pepper as you feel is necessary.  Myself, I like very spicy chili, so the final steps are almost always pepper and cumin to taste.

But there you have it.. a relatively simple, but delicious chili recipe made with only lean meats!  Best of all, the only salt is the natural saltiness of the turkey sausage, so it's rather low-sodium, too.

Glad I can pique your palette!