December 20, 2016
So my fridge is starting to look better with a few things in there ready to be pulled out and used in various dishes. This roasted tomatillos sauce known as salsa verde (green sauce) is a useful one to have and goes particularly well with chilaquiles that I tend to make here regularly. I get the tomatillos at a market that sets up in our resort village twice a week with fresh fruits and vegetables... View Article
December 19, 2016
Local fruit and granola dishes are featured on any breakfast menu on the Mayan Riviera and although I rarely order it at restaurants I enjoy making it at home now and then. Just like we have unparalleled berries, apples, pears and stone fruits in the Okanagan, local fruits here are so ripe and full of flavour that they hardly resemble the version of these same fruits that we get at home. I am yet to... View Article
December 17, 2016
Chilaquiles, meaning “broken up sombrero” in one of the native Mayan languages, is a quintessential Mexican dish that you find anywhere, from humble beach cafes to five star hotel restaurants serving local cuisine. Chilaquiles is made with fried corn tortilla triangles (or strips) that are briefly soften in red tomato or green tomatillos sauce, then topped with fried egg, queso fresco, chopped red onion, plenty of chopped cilantro (forgot to put it on before taking the... View Article
December 15, 2016
If you have been to Mexico, and I am sure you have, you know how important pickles are to the layers of flavours in this simple yet complex cuisine. Almost every dish is accompanied by some pickles, be it the bright and colourful pickled red onion, mildly spicy jalapenos, pickled radishes or pickled fruits. The most commonly seen are the pickled red onions that go so well with the variety of seafood so abundant in... View Article
December 12, 2016
We landed at Cancun airport a week ago after a short and reasonably comfortable Westjet flight from Toronto. We stepped outside into the colourful vegetation and fragrant air of the Mexican Caribbean and felt immediately at home in the familiar surroundings. Even my limited Spanish held up for the brief conversations along the way. Next we had to endure the usual ordeal of car rental, having to do with mandatory insurance that can quadruple the... View Article
September 21, 2016
My sister-in-law Barbara gave me this bean recipe for burritos she makes weekly for her family. She in turn received the recipe from another close friend, Nadine, and the two of them have been making it for years. I am not sure where the recipe originated, but I heard that someone’s mother passed it along. Both gals make this in a pressure cooker and I have been following their method, but I have also tried... View Article
July 4, 2016
Lately tacos have been my go to dish for a quick lunch or dinner. If you have the basic components on hand, taco making is quick and easy. I usually have a stack of white corn tortillas in the fridge (don’t keep them in the freezer) and from there it’s easy to layer a taco from filling to garnish to sauce. Since I keep my kitchen vegetarian bean base is often what I use as... View Article
June 1, 2016
We came back from a long hike on trails around a local mountain with spectacular views of the Okanagan lake. We left for the hike early morning and the parking lot at the foot of the mountain was nearly empty. It tends to fill up quickly later in the day and especially on weekends. We started with our regular route to the top of the mountain but three quarters of the way up decided to... View Article
May 17, 2015
On a recent extended stay in the Yucatan I attended a cooking class (several, really) and watched local Maya women making corn tortillas by hand, beautiful, symmetrical, thin and perfectly formed round tortillas. When you watch them making it seems so simple, roll the dough into little balls and slap it into a perfect rounds between the palms of your hands. Not so fast. Try and do it yourself and let’s see how easy YOU... View Article
March 6, 2015
It’s always interesting to see what other food bloggers write about. I have looked around on the internet and it seems the trend at the moment is to reflect about the change of season. It’s very tempting to talk about the change in weather and how one is emerging from winter hibernation. Some are still writing about making soups and curling up on the sofa with a cashmere blanket and a good (cook)book, others are... View Article
February 3, 2015
I often have cooked beans on hand (in the fridge or freezer) and use them to make either a soup or refried beans or some other bean dish. You can make this recipe with uncooked beans as I instruct below, or use already cooked beans, sauteeing the vegetables, adding the beans and stock and continuing to cook and puree. To soak or not to soak? I have read various articles (here, here and here) with opinions spanning... View Article
February 1, 2015
You may have noticed by now that breakfast for me is a ritual. I like to linger over a beautifully prepared and presented breakfast either at home or out and, if possible, by the beach. My internal GPS leads me to all the beautiful places that serve breakfast wherever we are in the world. One of my favourite on the Mayan Riviera, although not on the beach, is breakfast at the Casa de Lago at... View Article
