summer
Honey Garlic Chicken Kebabs
Kebab, meat on a stick, is a middle Eastern dish and the traditional meat was lamb but you can use just about any meat, chicken, fish or vegetable. Chicken kebabs are easy to make and are appealing to most. If you don’t have a barbeque, use the broiler in your oven.
Read MoreHow To Cook Fresh Peas
I love recreating a food memory. I grew up in the country where my parents had enough land to grow their own vegetables along with 2 pigs and 6 hens. We didn’t have a farm per se, it was more of a hobby farm. Looking back it was an interesting learning experience for me but…
Read MoreStrawberry Pavlova
It’s officially Summer (yay!) although it still feels like Spring here in the Maritimes. A good indicator that we might be leaving the cold behind is the sighting of fresh, local strawberries. I spotted them at the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market, Pete’s and other grocery retailers over the weekend. I grew up in the country…
Read MoreEton Mess
If you haven’t heard of Eton Mess, you’re in for a real treat! It’s an English dessert, served in the food hall at Eton College, and is a mixture of strawberries, broken meringue and whipped cream. It’s so easy to make and a perfect dish for those novices wanting to try baked meringue…and don’t worry…
Read MoreRhubarb Cordial
Cordials are fruit-based concentrated drinks that are diluted with water before being consumed. Homemade versions are easy to make and don’t have any additives like the commercial brands do. Lemon, lime, orange, raspberry and elderflower are some of the popular ones. Rhubarb cordial is my favorite. If you’re lucky enough to have a rhubarb patch…
Read MoreBlackberry Sorbet
It’s the subtle changes in the weather when I start to notice a shift as we slowly drift out of summer and into autumn. I know, shhh! not so loud but it’s true. The sunlight looks different as it lands in areas of the house and the air smells different. As I was rinsing the…
Read MoreCaprese Salad (insalata caprese)
Insalata caprese is a tomato and mozzarella salad from the island of Capri. This simple yet delicious Italian antipasto makes perfect use of local heirloom tomatoes which are available now in grocery stores and markets. Extra-virgin olive oil highlights the sweetness of the heirloom tomatoes and is the only dressing needed. What makes this salad…
Read MoreGazpacho
It’s funny how conversations get replayed in your head. I was just thinking now about one I had a couple of months ago with my daughter, Laura. She asked me if I liked her at this age (20) or when she was younger. I paused, thought about what she asked, and said that I enjoy…
Read MorePeppers Stuffed with Couscous, Halloumi and Currants
There is no such thing for me as a casual glance at a cookbook. And, when I see one that is esthetically pleasing to the eye with beautifully illustrated drawings, tactile, and delicious-looking recipes I am hooked! Mr. Wilkson’s Vegetables truly is ‘A Cookbook To Celebrate The Garden‘. For every vegetable he writes snippets of…
Read MoreBlueberry Grunt – a Maritime dessert
This easy and basic dessert is called a grunt because the blueberries make a grunt-like sound while boiling under the dumplings. The grunt was an early adaptation of an English steamed pudding. The New England colonists had limited cooking equipment and a dumpling-like pudding using local fruit was cooked on the stove top. Wild blueberries…
Read MoreDandelion Cookies
Dandelion…that ubiquitous yellow flowering weed that makes a lawn look unkempt and has gardeners pulling their hair trying to keep it at bay. But if we put their annoyance aside, you’ll find that dandelions are a nutritious food. It is a herb that is believed to have originated in Asia. Nutritionally, dandelions have more calcium…
Read MoreGrilled Broccolini with Garlic Anchoy Sauce
The tail end of Spring is drawing to a close and thankfully the warmer weather has arrived. And because of this, the air in our neighborhood is perfumed with food being cooked on backyard barbeques. If you don’t barbecue you almost feel left out. When I head out to our back deck to fire up…
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