September 19, 2016
How fun at the end of the summer to gather the best ripe stone fruits and a few others, shower them with a bottle of Vin Santo and simmer them together to a sweet perfection that you can then serve chilled in glass bowls. This to me is one of end of summer best treats. It is a dish I grew up with (minus the Vin Santo) where it was called a fruit soup. It... View Article
September 16, 2016
Cleaning up the fridge today. I chopped up all the vegetables to similar size chunks, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and piled them into parchment baking bags together with a few stems of thyme. Seal the bag and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. If you want to dry them out a bit you can cut the bag open and continue cooking for another 10 minutes or so, or just place the bags... View Article
September 14, 2016
When you buy corn by the dozen for only 2 people sometimes you have a few cobs left over. What I do then is scrape the kernels off the cob and use them in salads, with grains, in tacos, or as here, in a late summer corn and potato soup. This soup can be made with cream, creme fraiche or vegan with cashew cream. Take your pick. It’s a beautiful soup either way you do... View Article
September 13, 2016
Every now and then I enjoy a good cabbage salad but not necessarily with mayo dressing. This is a fresh and crisp cabbage salad with sweet and tangy dressing made with cider vinegar, maple syrup and creme fraiche. Since we want to layer flavours and textures I chop in a few fresh mint leaves and scatter fresh lavender flowers on top. One thing I enjoy with many salads is the crisp and nutty flavours and... View Article
September 12, 2016
I am cleaning up my garden before leaving on our trip. It can get cold here and I didn’t want to come back to frozen vegetables and forgo the fun of picking my own vegetables and cooking them fresh. I had a large amount of sorrel, both green and red and I gave it a whirl in the food processor with olive oil, then filled glass jars with the “pesto” and put it in the... View Article
September 9, 2016
One thing we enjoyed over and over in Italy, especially in Tuscany and Rome, was a dish of slow cooked white beans cooked in a glass flask over low heat for many hours. It was such a treat. We ordered it wherever it was offered and always ended up wiping the plate clean with a piece of bread (expected to be done as the food is so good). Most of the time these were white... View Article
September 7, 2016
I am not going to wax poetic about the change of season. Or am I? We bloggers tend to do that. I will say however that summer seems to be retreating and fall is in the air. The mornings are cool, the sun sets early, the days are shorter. A trip to the farmers market makes you wonder where the green beans and summer berries go. Apples and pear are piled on the stands now... View Article
September 5, 2016
Eggplant, peppers, onion and zucchini are a classic mix in Mediterranean cuisines and very much the kind of foods I grew up with. I was reminded of this dish in a Spanish class recently (taught at VOM FASS by Heather of Heather’s Kitchen) and in the process of cleaning out the fridge before we left on a trip, made this dish for dinner one day. Even if you don’t usually like eggplant, I think you... View Article
September 3, 2016
With the abundance of ripe and delicious tomatoes out now we use them every day in some form: salads, sauces, jams, gazpacho, tarts and more. We haven’t tired of them yet and by the time we do, it will be the end of their season and we will move on to something else. This is the beautify of eating seasonal food, before you have had your fill, they are gone. Since for me a meal without... View Article
August 31, 2016
Here is a recipe for yellow beans using the tomato vinaigrette from the previous post. Serve it warm or at room temperature but not cold as the oil in the dressing needs to be liquid (it thickens in the fridge). Yellow beans are soft and buttery and the acidity in the vinaigrette compliments them beautifully. Substitute green beans if you don’t have the yellow variety. To cook, steam the beans or cook them in boiling... View Article
August 29, 2016
I would venture to say that this vinaigrette is so good that it doesn’t require a salad. Give me this dish with a crusty baguette and leave me alone and I would finish it right off the skillet, still warm and you will hardly need to rinse the skillet. As all good food tends to be, it is super simple and depends on the quality of ingredients. I was watching a food show on Netflix... View Article
August 27, 2016
Here is a recipe for a simple potato salad that works well with any summer meal. It can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for a couple of days without diminishing its quality and travels well to a boat or a picnic. I don’t know about what it’s like where you live but here certainly it is beginning to feel like fall. We wake up to cooler temperatures and a little rain... View Article
