Main courses

Recipe: Coconut Baked Chicken with Dipping Sauce

November 21, 2011
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The biggest (okay, only) disappointment in meeting Roger Mooking is he is not a Gemini. How can that be? We’re so alike. Like me, Roger once felt “like a mad man caught in two worlds.” It took a long time for him to realize his love of food and music both branch from the common [...]

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Recipe: Thai Curry

March 24, 2011
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Today I’m on CTV News at Noon. It’s my 7th appearance and I’ve decided it’s time I actually cooked something. Oh, I’ve diced apples, sliced peaches, mixed salad dressing, stuffed peppers, roasted an array of vegetables and even pulverized chickpeas in the name of hummus, but I’ve never actually cooked anything. So today, I’m making [...]

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Recipe: Chicken in Samfaina Sauce

March 14, 2011
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The last few days I’ve felt like a cast member of Glee. No, I haven’t been dancing about the living room singing mash ups. I’ve  just gone quietly about my own business only to get a great, big slushie thrown in my face. While these icy facials came from above, not eye-level, they were just [...]

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Recipe: Moroccan Roast Chicken

February 21, 2011
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Yesterday was Family Day here in Ontario when everyone gets the day off to hang out with their loved ones. With yet another forecast snow storm threatening to turn what should be a laid back provincial holiday into a muscle-abusing Shovel Day, I decided to have family time Sunday night instead. Being the ever-considerate charm [...]

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Recipe: Potato and Cauliflower Curry (Aloo Gobi)

February 17, 2011
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If you look at my recipes index it’s hard to believe I used to do a lot of health writing. While I was supposed to be promoting a healthy lifestyle in others, opposing stats and studies nearly made me sick. One day I’d file an article declaring 7 cups of black coffee a day would [...]

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Recipe: Venetian Chicken

February 7, 2011
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Depending on which urban legend you cite, the Inuit have between 17 and 31 distinct words for snow. I have but one. And I can’t use it here. This weekend’s additional donation of crystallized water had me dreaming of escape. While I wouldn’t turn down an all-expense paid trip to the Caribbean, my warm-me-up fantasies [...]

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Recipe: Spicy Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers

October 5, 2010
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I admit it. I’m lazy and messy. Thee mere thought of  forcing gobs of unruly stuffing into tall, wobbly-bottomed peppers is an open invitation to Murphy. But, I got smart, knocked the suckers on their side and stuffed them full without so much as an “oops.” Anyone who’s grappled with a towering stuffed pepper will [...]

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Vegetable Tagine

January 28, 2010
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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
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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
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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? [...]

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Michael Smith’s Apple Roasted Chicken

December 2, 2009
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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 [...]

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