Content
We needed a treat for race day. And anyway, the rhubarb in my fridge has been calling to me. It’s been telling me that I should make Rhubarb Custard Bars, but I was feeling more pie-ish. (Pies are my favourite dessert.) Also, I found a bag of 2010-picked strawberries in the back of my freezer (oo-oops! –read more...
For the last two months, my oldest son has been on what we jokingly refer to as the ‘no-ingredient diet’. In a quest to find the origin of his eczema, we have been avoiding all dairy, gluten, soy, corn, peanuts, eggs, refined sugar, refined oil… ad bore-eum… The good news: his eczema is gone. Theread more...
I’ve finally recovered from my week in the kitchen with 37 kids over Spring Break. We had so much fun! I’m stopping now, because I had you at 37 kids, didn’t I? Yes, but they were spaced over two camps (younger kids in the mornings, older ones in the afternoon), not 37 kids all atread more...
I am posting today so that I secretly have an excuse to share this super exciting food discovery: a farm on Vancouver Island (in fact, right here on the Saanich peninsula) grows lentils!!! I know, right? WAY more exciting than all this local wheat taking up the headlines. Until now, there have been very limitedread more...
Last January, I posted about my New Year’s Resolution to stop pretending that food storage worked like a bank vault, and to start using up food from my freezer and pantry before I had to throw any of it out. I started with the bag of three-summers-old frozen blackberries that I found on New Year’sread more...
This is one of those recipes that I find myself making again and again. There is something so very comforting about the interplay of soft greens, sweet raisins and rich toasted nuts that has made this recipe a favourite vegetable dish for our family all winter. It’s getting to the point where I am making itread more...
I have had many friends and clients ask me to post this recipe so that they can Pin It and “never lose track of it again“! I get it. This is the one cookie I make without fail. I almost got away without it this year, but this morning – Christmas Eve – I woke upread more...
Today is the day I announce the winner of the Rancho Vignola giveaway – a basket of new crop nuts and dried fruit valued at $150. A big thank you to everyone who commented and participated. Between the comments on the blog post, my facebook page, and my twitter account, I have over 160 individualread more...
I made these the first time only because I wanted to use up some pecans. I made these the second and subsequent times because they Are. So. Good. These cookies are beyond good when made with baby native pecans from Rancho Vignola. Anyone who read my last post will know that I am a huge fan of Rancho Vignola’sread more...
This past week has been pretty nuts at my house. And I mean that literally. On Friday, I received a delivery 475 pounds of nuts and dried fruit, which some friends and I spent the evening sorting out and sharing amongst ourselves. It sounds pretty nutty (read: mentally unhinged), doesn’t it? Well, once you have tastedread more...
You want a lip smacking dish to take to a Christmas party? A recipe that’s seasonal, creative, delicious, but still simple? Please allow me to introduce my latest creation, Cranberry-Orange Custard Bars! My most popular blog post to date has been the Rhubarb Custard Bars that I posted Spring 2011. Those bars are most definitely worthy –read more...
The last three weeks of rain, rain, and more rain has driven me indoors where I am cozy in my kitchen, laughing in the face of damp cold weather while preparing my arsenal of comfort foods. My own favourite foods-to-protect-me-from-rain run the gamut from oatmeal to roast chicken to apple pie. But none so comforting as fresh pumpkinread more...
I admit that I am a traditionalist when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, bread stuffing, pumpkin pie – you know, the usual. But I like to add a new dish to the mix every few years. Last Thanksgiving I made a favourite recipe from my Great Grains cooking class, Warm Farro Salad. I thought the combination of nuttyread more...
I adore September. I love the mellow sunshine and cool nights, the blue skies and golden grass, and I especially love the overlapping food seasons. Nothing says Harvest Bounty quite like September, a month in which the summer crops are growing at the same time as the fall ones. I mean, you can eat local peachesread more...
One of my favourite September rituals is to make a big batch of Salsa Verde. Salsa Verde is obscenely easy to make and yet it has so much wow-factor – it’s bright green, it’s delicious and tangy, it’s very ‘authentic Mexican,’ and it’s made with one the coolest vegetables I know of : tomatillos. You’veread more...
I am posting this recipe for two reasons: 1) It’s eggplant season right now and people, I’ve noticed, need help with eggplant ideas. 2) People also need help with tofu. And this post includes the hassle-free, the non-stick, the delicious, and I mean delicious, recipe for Crispy Roasted Tofu. My roasted tofu recipe might beread more...
By “Train Museum”, I mean the BC Forest Discovery Centre. By “Pie”, I mean, well, pie. Many years ago, when my oh-so-cool Middle Schooler was a train-obsessed toddler, we would have to, have to, stop at the ‘Twain Museum’ on our way up and down the Island. Old-fashioned vehicles and machinery, and a steam train rideread more...
This was my lunch last week. It was made up of leftovers from the previous day’s dinner: salmon, beets, new potatoes and farm market salad. Although this looks like a gourmet and inventive use of leftovers, really it was me being lazy and trotting out something I already make regularly in the summer: the Summer Saladread more...
Yesterday, I posted one of our simplest and favouritest summer meals: crispy chicken with Nonna’s green beans. We eat green beans a lot around here, since they are a favourite vegetable of at least three members of our family. Seasonal, nutritious, tender-crisp, sweet, done in a jiffy – does it get any better? Yes, it does, apparently.read more...
Since I have started documenting my simple summer meals, I realize that I make Crispy Broiled Chicken quite frequently. It’s so common around here and so well-loved that I’ve even posted about it once before. I make Crispy Broiled Chicken because it guarantees super-crispy skin and moist meat on the very same piece of bird. I use this same methodread more...
Thank you for the positive feedback I’ve received so far on my first simple meal post. I’m thrilled to know that I’m in good company while I suffer from a love of cooking/eating with not-enough-time-to-make-it-happen. Wait, let me rephrase. I did know I am not alone in this, but I’m thrilled to know that some of you want to readread more...
I hear a lot of curiosity from my cooking class students about my home cooking and my family’s eating habits. In almost every class, I find myself fielding questions about my personal life, the most common two being: “Will your kids eat this?” and “Do you cook like this at home?” The short answer to these kindsread more...
By the time you read this post, I will be away camping on beautiful Cortes Island with my children and their cousins. I will, without a doubt, be making a giant batch of these pancakes on the trip, possibly on this very day. It’s expected of me: a camping trip without Auntie Heidi’sread more...
I made my first blueberry buckle last August, the same day that I picked up 110 pounds of blueberries from a local farm. The buckle was buttery and dense, like a pound cake, loaded with berries, and topped with a sweet streusel. We enjoyed it but, as always when we eat these kinds of things, I thoughtread more...
If you have been longing to buy some of those gorgeous green and luminescent gooseberries in the markets the last few weeks but are not sure what to do with them, let me help you out. First of all, make yourself some gooseberry jam. Hands down my favourite jam in the universe! But definitely, definitely makeread more...
Sometimes, when I want to give it all up in despair – the long hours, the one-woman show, the stress of self-employment while parenting young kids – the universe throws me a nice meaty bone of encouragement. Or two, even. I am happy to say that this week, I have been bolstered up, and soread more...
This is how much I love sour cherries: 1. When my parents’ sour cherry tree died of a horrible tree disease several years ago, I cried and held a private tree funeral service in my head. 2. I kept my last jar of frozen sour cherries from that tree for four years because I didn’tread more...
Now this is the kind of post that needs to start with exclamation marks! Because it’s summer and the berries are BACK! And there is nothing so refreshing as lemonade, on ice, on the deck, on a hot summer evening – especially if you are school-aged and the lemonade in question is pink! YEAH!! I think I needread more...
These crazy vegetables – long coiled green things – show up in the farmers’ markets in June. “Garlic scapes,” say the hand-written signs. Sounds good, but what does a person do with garlic scapes in the kitchen? Scapes are the green stems of the garlic plants, trimmed in the spring to prevent their blooms fromread more...
My oldest son is named Ruben. We spell it the Spanish way to be all trendy and alternative but we prefer to tell people that Ruben is named after a Cuban musician. Here’s a secret, though: I named him after my one of my favourite sandwiches, the Reuben. Trust me to name my child after a menu item. So… I was talking aboutread more...
Easter is good times in our family. Our first big gathering since Christmas, the return of the spring sunshine, and the weekend feels all about fresh air and smiles rather than food. We always make something lemony for Easter dessert. Lemon seems to suit the budding fresh springtime energy of the day. Or maybe we areread more...
As part of my New Year’s resolution, I have been eating up not only healthy foods like dried beans and frozen chicken, but also - woe is me – treats from my stockpile of baking supplies, i.e. dark chocolate, organic sweeteners and fair-trade nuts. It’s been tough. The siren call of the nuts and chocolate led directly to a revival of my favourite childhood treat:read more...
Title Translation: “beef chili made from freezer finds” I came home from work last Thursday with a burning determination to continue my New Year’s resolution. With hardly a hello to my family, I began ruthlessly pulling stuff out of the freezer to thaw. “Use it or lose it!” I told myself, even when the pileread more...
“Operation Use-It-Up” has lost some momentum these last three weeks – weeks in which more food made it into my freezer than came out of it. Sigh… However, I will persevere. In the meantime, let’s check out this fun thing I did at a cooking class two weeks ago. AN OLIVE OIL TASTE TEST!read more...
This recipe is definitely part of Operation Use-It-Up, but I got tired of using that term in all my post titles. It’s kind of off-putting, don’t you find? Posts about the struggle to use things from my pantry and freezer(s) will now be found under the category “Operation Use-It-Up” down there on the sidebar. Inread more...
This has been a red-letter week in Operation Freezer. I managed to use up freezer items for at least three delicious meals, and to dispose of one sad lonely pork loin chop that has been making me feel guilty every time I open Freezer One. However. I have been thinking. I’ve decided that my Freezer Issue isn’tread more...
I have a problem that I like to call my Freezer Issue. I put food in my freezer but rarely take it out again. So it should have been no surprise to me that on a New Year’s Day rummage of my freezer, I found a bag of blackberries, circa 2009, on top of a pile of otherread more...
Before the year is out, I want to round up the chronicles of my European trip. I had imagined that I would have luxurious amounts of time while I was travelling to blog about the trip, but I didn’t. I’ve had even less time since I’ve been back home. But it would not feel rightread more...
On Christmas Eve, I have a personal tradition of staying up after everyone else has gone to bed and watching It’s a Wonderful Life by the light of the Christmas tree. In recent years, I have added to my Chistmas Eve ritual a cold glass of homemade eggnog on ice, cut with a shot of dark rum.read more...
One notable thing about my European trip has been the lack of consistent internet connection anywhere. No complaints, though. The lack has freed up more time for me to enjoy the food, scenery, and people here, and left me feeling only slightly guilty about my blog followers back home who have been waiting for theread more...
How can I describe my first 24 hours in Madrid without taking up enormous amounts of bandwidth? So much has happened already that it boggles the pen. As many of you know, I am part of a culinary tour of Spain and Morocco, organized by the Women’s Travel Connection. I am, in fact, the host,read more...
Clafouti is the kind of word, I swear, that chefs love to use to cast a veil of mystery over the simplest of recipes. Actually, I’m only saying this because I made two delicious clafoutis this week and everyone who tasted them said pretty much the same thing: “A… Cla-footie? I have never heard ofread more...
One thing I have been quietly excited about all summer is that I have been able to buy Methi, fresh, by the bunch, whenever I feel like it. At the grocery store!! You have to understand that, until this year, methi (aka fresh fenugreek) was the Indian ingredient I was most unlikely to find, ever.read more...
I first mentioned this recipe here last summer, after a camping trip with my sister and all of our children. I’m almost ashamed to say that I referred to it as the “tandoori chicken debacle”. My love of drama had gotten the better of me - the tandoori chicken was not a debacle. The chicken was divine,read more...
I have a backlog of recipe ideas and photos to share with you, but I have been guilty of taking some vacation time, and leaving important things like recipe notes and photo sticks behind. What can I say? I happen to be visiting my brother-in-law and his family on Gabriola Island right now (alsoread more...
“Fresh” is not the first word that comes to my mind when I think of lasagne. But a stay at KilrennyFarm in the Cowichan valley changed my mind completely. I taught an Indian cooking class at Kilrenny Farm last month and was charmed by Deborah and Russel Fahlman’s enthusisam for their produce, their new teaching kitchen, andread more...
The lady who gave me my first tayberry (years ago) told me that tayberries were a heritage variety of bramble berry, known back in the old country for making excellent pies and jam. That sounded good to me. The berries certainly have an undefinable tart-floral flavour which shines more when cooked. I easily imagined the tayberryread more...
Of all the wonderful fruits and vegetables that are coming into season, cilantro root is the one that I am most excited about right now (sorry, dear cherries). Cilantro Root has a delicious herbal flavour, packs a powerful cilantro punch without being too cilantro-y, and is an essential ingredient in all kinds of Thai recipes. And it’s inread more...
Last year around this time I posted a tried-and-true method for freezing seasonal berries. But I neglected to write about my actual favourite method of freezing berries of all kinds: freezing in homemade syrup. The syrup, simply made with about equal parts sugar and water, coats the berries beautifully, preventing freezer-burn, preserving the fruity berry flavour, deterringread more...
It’s the first day of summer and so I’m sending out a favourite warm-weather recipe of mine. I adore new potatoes, but when they are bathed in a smoky-spicy-sweet-limey dressing, I want to marry them. That’s what this recipe is: the salad I want to marry. I learned how to make the original recipe when I first started cookingread more...
