Kale chips are crazy good. They sound like hippie food, I will not argue with that fact. You may have to go on trust here. We’ve established trust, haven’t we? After all, I am the same person who brought you this moist chocolate cake and those whoopie pies with salted caramel buttercream.

Quite frankly, I could have titled this post “how to eat an entire bunch of kale in under 5 minutes”. Because that’s pretty much what happened. Continue Reading »

It snowed in Vancouver today! It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I am over the moon. This is what winter is about. Bright skies, blinding white snow, rosy cheeks, wool mittens, mugs of creamy hot chocolate, and a steaming bowl of stew.

This succulent chicken stew with apples and cabbage might just be the best stew ever made. It’s got cream and bacon, need I go on? It is positively packed with earthy vegetables. Tender bites of tart apple offset the richness. Sweet, aromatic sage perfectly complements the winter flavours.

I mopped it up with warm, homemade whole wheat bread, and then I licked the bowl. Continue Reading »

I got attacked by a seagull. And I do not use the term “attacked” lightly. It was Hitchcockian.

Let me tell you what happened. And then we’ll talk about cranberry lemon loaf.

I was starving after my Sunday yoga class. I thought I’d stroll through the bustling Granville Island market, and find something for lunch. I did. I found a delicious bratwurst with sauerkraut, fried onions and spicy mustard. Bratwurst in hand and not a seat to be found, I thought, “why not go eat on the dock?”. Live music, a nice view of the boats, and a momentary break in the rain. So off I bounced toward the wet benches, ponytail swinging happily behind me.

About 20 steps onto the slippery landing, a deafening screech ripped through the air. I barely had time to emit a gurgling scream of horror as a seagull the size of a twenty-five pound turkey dive-bombed my bratwurst. His evil razor sharp beak was wide open, tongue vibrating with the piercing shriek, evil beady eyes bulging, ugly pink feet scraping my head as he went in for the kill.

Now, I am not one you want to tussle with over food. I take it very seriously. My limbs still agile from seventy-five minutes of downward dogging, I managed a wild and dramatic twirl and duck.

Bratwurst safety secured? Negative. Continue Reading »

I don’t buy bottled salad dressing. Period. It is so easy to make your own. It takes seconds. It tastes infinitely better. It lacks the long list of questionable ingredients. It just tastes so much better. Did I mention it tastes better? It does. Much better.

I do lemon-olive oil vinaigrettes often for the simple salad of mixed baby greens that accompanies any meal where the vegetable component is an afterthought. I make a homemade caesar dressing for sturdy romaine. I love to make fruity raspberry, grapefruit or mango vinaigrettes for when I make a salad as a meal for lunch, or dinner on a hot summer day.

But my favourite by far? This homemade ranch dressing.

It is creamy. It is fresh. It is tangy. It is wildly addictive. It makes carrot sticks sing the hallelujah chorus. Don’t get me started on what it does for grilled cheese sandwiches… Continue Reading »

Happy New Year!

After 3 weeks of travel through India and Thailand, my feet are back on Canadian soil. My brain, however, is irritatingly convinced that my feet are still in Asia. Jet-lag has had me up at 4:30 am for the past 3 days. I am tired. The nauseous, head-falling-in-cereal-bowl, slow-motion-blinking, saying-”excuse me”-to-the-wall-I-just-walked-into kind of tired. The fact that I am able to coordinate thought-fingers-keyboard right now is a small miracle.

To give you a brief rundown, in the past 21 days I have seen the inside of Vancouver, Beijing, Delhi, Cochin, Hyderabad, Bangkok, Phuket and Taipei airports. There were numerous red-eye flights. There was a beautiful Indian wedding and hundreds of future in-laws to meet. There were throat infections, delhi belly, mystery rashes, car sickness, sunburn, hives and antibiotics. There were beautiful beaches and chaotic cities and bustling family homes. There were temples, houseboats, markets, grand palaces, and rickshaws. It was a wonderful, and certainly memorable trip… however, it has left me completely bushed.

Under the scorching Asian sun, I was only vaguely aware of Christmas, but I assume that it happened in my absence. While I was eating idli and dosa, I’m sure you were enjoying the holiday food trifecta of butter, chocolate and cheese. Considering this, and the fact that if I were to stumble around my kitchen in my current state I would almost certainly bake my oven mitts and burn down my apartment building, I thought I’d dig around the archives for some light-hearted oldies to kick off a new year of cooking.

May your 2012 be filled with happiness, success, laughter, good friends and amazing food. And may I get some sleep before I start throwing cats at people. Continue Reading »