From the category archives:

Main courses

Vegetable Tagine

January 28, 2010

In the comment section recently, Leslie asked about eggplant. She’s tired of it drowned in tomato sauce or swimming in oil. Joe Girard of Rouxbe Online Cooking School provided some great answers, but even his professional advice didn’t get me off the hook. I’d promised Leslie I’d look into other ways of cooking it, and [...]

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Slow-Cooked Beef with Red Wine

January 22, 2010

I sat beside Ricardo, Canada’s most popular culinary celebrity, at the Canadian Culinary Book Awards a few months ago. He’s got his own Food Network show, Ricardo and Friends, three cookbooks and a self-titled magazine — all in two languages. When he was seated beside me I was simultaneously thrilled and panicky. What would I [...]

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Aix-en-Provence Black Olive Tart

December 8, 2009

The area of a circle is ∏r².
This bit of high school math comes in handy when a recipe calls for a 12-inch tart pan and you go to three stores in search of one and all you come home with is a 118-pound, 5-litre cast iron Dutch oven you bought on impulse.
Why math? Had I [...]

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Michael Smith’s Apple Roasted Chicken

December 2, 2009

This is another photo I didn’t take. And not because my chicken didn’t turn out beautifully. It did. I just didn’t have the time or patience to do a photo shoot.
I give full credit to James Ingram, not only for his camera skills but his super-human will power while photographing this dish. I don’t know [...]

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Romanesco

November 19, 2009

Despite looking like something from Deep Space Nine Cardassian cuisine, this spiral-studded vegetable has been growing right here on Earth for a few hundred years. Romanesco, or Roman cauliflower, might look strange, but its taste is very familiar — a gentle cross between broccoli and cauliflower.
When I saw it at the Farmers’ Market a couple [...]

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Maple-Roasted Chicken Breasts

November 17, 2009

This hardly looks like a substitute for chicken wings, but I assure you, if your mouth wants honey-garlic drumettes and your brain balks at deep-frying, this variation on pub grub will keep every body happy — low-fat roasted chicken for your waistline and a tangy-sweet sauce for your mouth.
While I stop short of claiming it [...]

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Quick Fresh Tomato and Herb Pasta

November 11, 2009

Bet you thought I was done with the fresh tomato recipes for a while.
So did I.
But I was given some environmentally conscious, on-the-vine hydroponic Ontario tomatoes (say that three times fast!) at the Royal Winter Fair and I just couldn’t bear to toss them in a salad. With some stoic herbs still toughing it out [...]

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Matar Paneer

October 26, 2009

I got out the good china and fancy napkins for this one.
Not that matar paneer is an elaborate dish or extremely challenging. Instead, this recipe is a long, long overdue thank-you to fellow writer and Indian cuisine lover, Lora Shinn.
But why am I polishing the silverware and wiping spots off the crystal? First, Lora’s also [...]

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Sag Paneer

October 21, 2009

What are those things? Slivered almonds? Potato chips sprinkled a spinach dip? No. Crispy garlic slices atop a quick-cook spinach curry. See.

And it’s so good I ate it two days in a row.
Spinach is one of those foods that doesn’t photograph well when cooked. It can look slimy or gray. Or slimy and gray.
While I [...]

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Fried Green Tomato Parmesan

September 29, 2009

The deed is done. I have picked all the tomatoes, uprooted the plants and put the garden to bed.
I’d like to think the tomatoes didn’t want to go any more than I wanted to remove them. I had ambitious plans to deal with the garden on Sunday. But it was unseasonably hot and muggy. After [...]