Side dishes

Swiss Chard with Raisins and Pine Nuts

February 18, 2010

I fall easily into a vegetable rut. If it weren’t for this blog I’d happily get my daily quota of greens from string beans, broccoli and mesclun mix salad. I once ate Basil and Walnut Green Beans every night for a week. When I stopped I swear, the stock for California walnuts plummeted. But I [...]

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How to Roast Vegetables

February 4, 2010

I got a bit carried away. I was experimenting with roasted vegetables for today’s CTV appearance and ended up making five variations. I just couldn’t make up my mind which version I liked best, so I made them all. Well, almost all. Having recently posted about Herb-Roasted Potatoes I felt I could skip this one [...]

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Readers Question: Herb-Roasted Potatoes

December 4, 2009

This is another of James Ingram’s photos, snatched from the pages of Michael Smith’s The Best of Chef at Home because I was too hungry to take a shot. In my defense, these potatoes were cooked alongside the Apple Roast Chicken so it was one monumental act of gluttony on my behalf, not two. When [...]

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Kitchen Scraps and a Brussels Sprouts Recipe

October 29, 2009

Every once in a while I do something unpredictable. Like cook Brussels sprouts. I don’t like Brussels sprouts, but Pierre A. Lamielle’s book Kitchen Scraps made me do it. Here, Monty Python dukes it out with Edward Gorey as Martha Stewart barks encouragement from the wings. Sure, this cookbook looks like it sprung from the [...]

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Fresh Tomatoes with Balsamic Vinegar

September 3, 2009

I can’t believe I didn’t think of half the tomato dishes people suggested yesterday, especially since I Summer Fest ended with tomatoes. Given my mental lapse, I’m quite surprised how polite you all were with your suggestions. Not one of you put “Doh!” in your answer or called me names. Well, I’ll do it for [...]

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Peach Salsa

August 25, 2009

Birthdays are rather fluid events in my family. We like to celebrate en masse but conflicting schedules often mean we delay festivities until everyone’s available. The April birthdays often pile up until they tumble headlong into Easter. September dates have been known to get inched back until they’re squeezed into (Canadian) Thanksgiving. This year, I [...]

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Summer Fest Week 4 – Tomato Salad

August 18, 2009

Tomatoes are a paradoxical plant. Botanically, they’re a fruit — they have their seeds on the inside — but in the kitchen we treat them as vegetables. While their flesh is a staple in many world cuisines, their leaves are toxic enough to poison a small child. Heck, we can’t even agree on how to [...]

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Roasted Cauliflower with Fennel – A Virtual Potluck with Monica Bhide

June 22, 2009

Okay, I’m trying really hard to keep it real. See the aqua cast iron pan? It’s older than I am and has permanent baked on stains. Remember that. It’s important. Why? Because this is my contribution to Monica Bhide’s Virtual Potluck Party and I’m trying really hard not to let my head get too big. [...]

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Bean Salad

March 24, 2009

For the record, I did very little complaining about winter this year. This is especially noteworthy given the vast amounts of snow and sub-zero temperatures we endured, not to mention the time I had to climb onto the roof and chisel ice out of the satellite dish with the car’s windshield scraper. I figure this [...]

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Quick Carrot Ginger Saute

November 18, 2008

This rainbow of carrots is one of my souvenirs from the Royal Winter Fair. I figured they’d go over better than adopting a lop or lamb. I was going to use them to make a healthy carrot ginger soup, but just couldn’t bring myself to puree these gorgeous colors into mush. So, I julienned them. [...]

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Italian Week — Butternut Gnocchi

September 18, 2008

Not bad for a first try. Gnocchi has intimidated me ever since I visited friends in Italy and returned from a day of sight seeing to find my hosts and their entire kitchen covered in flour. While I was touring the colosseum in Verona, they’d spent the afternoon making enough gnocchi to feed a Roman [...]

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