November 21, 2017
Sometimes I have food cravings and nothing but a risotto would do. It has been on my mind for a while now but with so much fresh stuff in my fridge I just did not get around to making it. Finally it had to happen today. I had a couple of golden beets I picked up the other day and I thought they would be good in the risotto. Cut in small cubes and cooked... View Article
November 15, 2017
Once fall arrives soup season begins in my kitchen. I make a soup in a large le Creuset pot and then store it in 2-3 mason jars in the fridge so it’s ready to warm up or play with as I wish. Lentil soups are regulars here and I usually mix 2-3 types of lentils together to make it more interesting. Soup for me is second nature and I don ‘t need a recipe to... View Article
November 13, 2017
A fragrant dish of delicious herb-roasted potatoes is always a welcome sight at dinner and this is an easy way to make them. The secret to this recipe is steaming the potatoes until partially cooked before roasting. You can do this step earlier in the day and finish the roasting before dinner. Use whatever herbs you have available fresh but potatoes and rosemary is a classic combination, you can’t go wrong with that. I use... View Article
November 1, 2017
With a bumper crop of Swiss chard in my rooftop garden I have been looking for ways to use up what is left after the summer. I saw a picture of a vegetable tart in a magazine while waiting for an appointment and thought I could adapt it to use with the chard waiting to be harvested. I used the rainbow chard for this recipe, with thin stalks of many colours and still tender leaves. You... View Article
September 9, 2017
Tomatoes are ripe and juicy now and one fun thing to make with them is tomato water. Making tomato water became trendy a while back but I am slow to jump on the bandwagon. However, we had a flavour packed chilled tomato water soup at a recent multi course dinner at the #chefmeetsBCgrape that inspired me to make this soup now. To make tomato water you blend ripe, juicy tomatoes with basil, garlic, shallots and... View Article
September 1, 2017
Sleepless nights are great for leafing through cookbooks and last night in the wee hours of the morning I got up and picked up Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook “Plenty” off my cookbooks shelves. I had to laugh because I saw that I had tagged almost every page with a sticker meaning there is a recipe that I would like to try. Practically the entire book was tagged. This morning I checked the fridge to see what... View Article
August 20, 2017
This is a very Italian dish and like most Italian food it is simple and delicious. “Simple” I mean in a sophisticated way. Viva Italia. I cook beans frequently and tend to have some on hand most of the time so it’s easy for me to make these crostini without having to cook them from scratch. The beans can be homemade, slow cooked with aromatics, or if you don’t cook beans from scratch then use good... View Article
July 31, 2017
We are lucky in the Okanagan to have winery restaurant chefs that pride themselves on creating dishes using local produce that are beautiful to look at and packed with flavour. One of my favourite is the Terrace Restaurant at Mission Hill winery. Not only the Tuscan architecture, the bell tower, the view and the beautiful wines, but the food at their Terrace restaurant is always outstanding. My gal friends were visiting from Calgary last week... View Article
July 19, 2017
Lentils are versatile and I use them all year, for soups and stews in the winter and salads in the summer. I often have cooked lentils in the fridge to pull out on the spur of the moment to make a lunch or dinner salad. In this salad I used leftover beets and carrots from my new sous vide experiment, more on that later, but you can make this without a sous vide by boiling... View Article
July 12, 2017
Enchiladas are a delicious Mexican comfort food and and now and then I absolutely crave these tortillas, wrapped around a flavourful filling and baked in a mildly spicy chile-tomato sauce. I fill them with beans and corn, potatoes or vegetables and scatter a little cheese to melt on top. What type of tortillas to use: Traditionally, white or yellow corn corn tortillas but flour tortillas also work. Red or green sauce? Either. I usually make... View Article
July 8, 2017
If you have your grill fired up it’s an opportunity to try a few grilled salad versions with summer produce. I particularly like to grill radicchio and serve it as a warm salad and this time with a few shitake mushrooms I had on hand. If you don’t grill you can make this in a skillet on top of the stove. The process is simple: cut the radicchio in half or quarters, brush with... View Article
July 2, 2017
This spring was not a good season for artichokes locally. I barely saw an artichoke once or twice at the local grocery store and nothing at the markets. That’s unfortunate because I love cooking with them. On my last trip to the store though I found a few reasonable looking specimen and thought I’d take them. Instead of cooking the artichokes whole, I cut the outer leaves down almost to the heart and then into... View Article
