Lemon Posset
It’s almost impossible to believe that lemon posset, a silky soft dessert, shares a name with a medieval cure-all of hot curdled milk and ale. Prescribed as a cold remedy throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, the original posset was more medicine cabinet than dessert bowl. Thank the ingenuity of 19th-century British chefs for rescuing…
Date Squares
You could say date squares are a retro dessert but for me they never went out of style. In western Canada, date squares have been also known as matrimonial cake but in the east coast I’ve only ever known it as date squares. Perhaps matrimonial cake is a metaphor for marriage because it has a…
Goat Cheese Stuffed Baby Peppers
You’re walking past the produce section of your local grocery store and a bag of sweet baby peppers catch your eye. You look at their pretty rainbow colors, think about what you could them, and then decide they’ll spoil before you can use them. It’s a usual scenario for me especially when I’m preparing meals…
Homemade Bagels
I remember the first time we ate a bagel from Picnic Artisan Bakery in Alderney Landing Farmers’ Market. It was so delicious we made a beeline for her stall every Saturday morning. And, you had to be there before 10am or you would be left with slim pickings. Jessica Best, breadmaster extraordinaire, has since joined…
Italian Sausage with Peppers and Onions on Quinoa Polenta
I bought a bag of sweet baby peppers the other day and knew that if I didn’t use them soon, they would go off. Sausage, peppers and onions are perfect for a sandwich (hoagie) but I was thinking of something more for dinner. I’ve made many versions of polenta over the years but as I…
Fish Piccata
Anyone who knows me knows of my phobia of fish bones. As a kid, I choked on one too many and as a result I steer clear of fish that isn’t filleted. And, if I do find a bone in a piece of fish, it’s akin to an appetite suppressant and am turned off by…
Parmesan Grilling Sauce
The cool cold Spring has me pining away for warmer days. Warmer days sees us using the bbq more often and sees me experimenting with new, aromatic sauces that accompany a barbecue. This Parmesan grilling sauce is so versatile and scrumptious, you’ll want to smother it on everything you grill…I kid you not! It’ll work…
Top 5 Mother’s Day Dishes
Mother’s Day is May 11th (less than 2 weeks away) and like most, we celebrate it with food. As a youngster, it was always a treat for me to be able to serve my mom breakfast in bed. I was more nervous about the possibility of dropping the tray more so than if the food…
Pineapple Cherry Upside-Down Cake
Pineapple skillet cake has been around since the early 1920s. Dole held a pineapple recipe contest in 1926 and among the 60,000 submitted, 2,500 were for pineapple upside-down cake. And by the mid 1930s, it was the most widely cake made in America. It was still quite popular in the 1950s and 1960s. I’m sure…
Glass Noodle Salad
Glass noodle, you ask? Well, it’s a noodle made from mung bean flour and when water is added to reconstitute it, the noodle looks transparent, glass-like. And, because they’re made from mung bean flour, it’s gluten-free (make sure to read the ingredient list as cheaper varieties can be made from wheat). The dressing is the…
Inside Out Burger
America is considered the true home of the hamburger, but chopped beef had been a staple of Eastern European cuisines for centuries. German immigrants from Hamburg arrived in America in the 19th century bringing their Hamburg-style beef with them. Burgers are all about the toppings and this recipe focuses on the topping you can’t see. …
Minced Duck and Scallops on Pineapple
There’s nothing quite like a new recipe to try and plan a dinner menu around. Sometimes we’ll choose a wine and build a meal from that but most times it’s the former. I had originally thought of a Mediterranean-based meal for Saturday’s get together but wondered if this Thai-inspired dish would be out of sync.…
40 Minute Hamburger Buns
The night before, John and I were watching Eat Street and hamburgers were being made in one of the food trucks. They looked so good and appetizing John said why don’t we have hamburgers for dinner. It’s finally starting to feel like Spring and although we do use our bbq all year round, yesterday was…