I roasted a bunch of squashes the other day and thought I shouldn’t waste the seeds. It’s a little work separating them from the stringy bits of squash flesh that want to stick to them but you know, it’s doable. So I pulled the seeds out of the squash cavity, cleaned them the best I could and spread them on a parchment sheet to dry overnight. The next day I drizzled them with a little... View Article
How do you get ready for a trip? We are counting down the days to our upcoming four months stay in Italy. There is of course the usual preparation: reserving accommodation, car rental, opera and concerts tickets, arranging cooking classes and booking truffle hunt excursion, not to mention olive oil tasting, visits to the wineries and cheese making farms. But, I tend to do more than just that. Long before we leave on a trip... View Article
The Okanagan Wine Festival has just ended and as usual there were many events that I attended with my friend My friend Val of More than Burnt Toast. Mid week we piled into the Hummer and drove to Penticton for a wild mushroom and pinot noir tasting offered at the new Wine Information Society Sensory Centre at the Penticton Campus of Okanagan College. It’s about an hour drive from Kelowna but Val and I are... View Article
A little after the fact but still relevant because it’s seasonal. We celebrated Thanks Giving with family here in Kelowna and I was asked to bring vegetables for about 20 people. Vegetables are my “thing” so I was happy to help with that dish. I had in mind a large dish of roasted vegetables, mixing a variety of fall vegetables – roots, squashes and others – and roasting them with olive oil, salt and a... View Article
A while ago I posted a recipe for a no knead bread and thought I’d show you a variation, adding chopped olives and herbs to the dough to make it a little different. I have to admit that this no knead method took me by surprise the first time I tried it but it has become my go to method for baking bread. The flavour develops beautifully over the long, 18h fermentation, the crust is... View Article
I made these little muffins on the spur of the moment this morning, before my Italian teacher Gian Marco Litrico came over to give G and me an overview of Italian art, history and politics in preparation for our upcoming stay in Italy. Gian Marco is educated, knowledgeable and interesting and we had wonderful time looking at and talking about works of art and historical, religious and political figures in Italian history. I served these... View Article
I am winding down my kitchen for the season preparing to leave for Italy in just a couple weeks. Still, I was watching Giada de Lorentis episode about her visit to Tuscany and watched her made these cookies and could not help going into the kitchen to make a batch. Not sure who is going to eat them, but it’s fun to bake. Giada makes these very large, she scoops them by 1 cup balls... View Article
Well, back to cooking: many people who love to cook can be divided in two camps: those who love to cook and those who love to bake. I fall somewhere in the middle and really love to do both. Earlier in my cooking endeavour I used to bake a lot and fairly challenging “stuff” like complicated cakes, croissants, all kinds of breads, cookies etc. Now I still bake but simpler things like cookies,... View Article
If you were to look in my freezer one thing that you would always find is a bag with candied buts, often hazelnuts. I use them as an extra item to add to salads, savoury grain dishes, along with cheese, desserts, over breakfast oatmeal, in pancakes or waffles, I’ll stop here but you get the picture. Sometimes I buy instead of making them and we have a few good sources for buying them prepared, but... View Article
My mental image of an ideal kitchen is one with a pot of soup simmering on the back burner with the warm, inviting aromas wafting in the air, making a house feel like home. My favourite pot to cook soups in is the French enamelled cast iron Le Creuset, and no, they are not paying me to say this. I have some beautiful copper pots that would look beautiful filled with soup, but then I... View Article
I am alone at home for the week but that doesn’t keep me away from the kitchen. Sometime in my evolution as a wife and a mother I fell in love with cooking and begun an affair with my kitchen. I was lucky to have a wonderful, warm and comfortable kitchen at Trail’s End (our previous home) where I could acquire culinary skills, express my artistic abilities and develop a style of my own. As in... View Article
I have had a couple of dinners out this week and both times selected the gnocchi dishes on the menu. One of these was at Waterfront Wines, probably my choice for top restaurant in Kelowna. Chef Mark Filatow works his magic in the kitchen and it’s always special to go there. The dish I ordered was not called gnocchi, it was described as house made ricotta cavatelli with grana padano and sage brown butter and... View Article
