I have been baking up a storm lately, some of the creations have made to the blog and the rest hopefully will if I get to photograph them. Today I focused on beautiful apples from a local orchard that originally were intended for an Italian apple cake but ended up in a classic French tart tatin. I made this same desserts last week but it was gone before I had a chance to photograph it... View Article
You know that cooking vegetables is my “thing”. My fridge is always full of them and they feature in every meal we eat. Cauliflower is one of my favs, a versatile veggie that can be boiled, baked, pureed, roasted or made it into soup. You can even make a cauliflower “rice” by pulsing it in a food processor to rice textured small bits). Cauli goes well with cheese sauce, blue cheese, tahini, lemon, crunchy dukkah... View Article
I have been in a baking mood for some reason and this morning got up and made these brownies before 8:00 am. I had to stop myself from making a torta di mele (Italian apple cake) as well, must save that for tomorrow. What’s up with that? Brownies are usually delicious and when you swirl cream cheese into the batter they are even better. I also added fine zest of a small orange, orange and... View Article
I haven’t made this rice and lentils dish in a while but I consider it one of my favourite Middle Eastern dishes. It’s just that there are so many things to cook and what I repeat other than vegetables tends to be pasta, pasta and more pasta. Basta pasta? I don’t think so. I have seen many recipes for making mujadara and even a few different spellings of the word (mejadra, Mejadara etc.). My preference... View Article
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
I have been working on my book about our stay in Spain in 2014 and came across a picture that made me hungry. I remember that bar and the dish we had very well and also remember trying to go there again and not being able to find it. All the small street and side alleys merged into one big maze in our mind so we had to let it go. The dish was simplicity... View Article
I never tire of potato salads and although I make them mostly in the summer when potatoes are garden fresh, this year I am extending the season as the weather is not that bad. My friend Philly gave me a bag of organic potatoes the other day and I made good use of them, transforming some into a leek and potato soup and the rest into this delicious salad. I usually steam potatoes rather than... View Article
If you follow me on facebook you may know that I went to the market the other day and brought just about the entire market home with me. I was too excited to leave anything behind, it being the end of the season and probably one of my last market trips this season. Living at the 50th parallel has its disadavantages. In spite of the fact that there are only two of us at home... View Article
One of my favourite fall desserts is a sticky toffee pudding, dense and moist, drizzled with sticky toffee sauce and served with ice cream. It doesn’t matter what I have for dinner, there is always room for this dessert. I have a few recipes that I rotate when making this pudding but I always keep my eyes open for something new and I found this one in a new dessert book. For those of you... View Article
So I never make (or buy) one of anything and when I made the previous pizza I also made this one. I bought beautiful firm pears at the market the other day (yes, it’s fall produce) and thought they would be beautiful on pizza. Usually pear and gorgonzola is the flavour combination I like but I didn’t have gorgonzola and blue cheese worked just fine. I sliced the pears paper thin on a mandolin and... View Article
Halloumi is one of the only cheeses I know that doesn’t melt and keeps its shape when grilled. This white cheese with firm texture and salty flavour originates from the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean and found also in Greek and Middle Eastern cuisines. Halloumi keeps its shape when cooked because of its high melting temperature but once fried you need to serve it immediately, it does not benefit from sitting around. In... View Article
We were in Vancouver a couple of days ago and of course went to Granville Island. We still have great produce available in Kelowna since it’s not winter yet so I didn’t buy that much, but still, indulged in a few things. One thing I found were these beautiful mini king oyster mushrooms and I bought a lot. Some of the mushrooms went into a pasta dish, others into vegetables packets roasted in a parchment... View Article
