Almost every one I know follows the same formula when constructing a “well balanced” dinner: you need a protein, a vegetable, and a starch. Steak and green beans and potatoes. Chicken and broccoli and rice. Ham and leek soup and a dinner roll. I think that’s one of the minor reasons why “one dish” meals [...]
A while ago I wrote about my quest for a “proper” soft sourdough pretzel in Winnipeg. I wanted the salty, puffy, toothsome, slightly bitter outside and a soft chewy interior - not the horrible, sweet bready things you get from a place like Auntie Anne’s. Some people knew what I was talking about, but the [...]
What to do with a surplus of little sweet tomatoes from the garden?
Our daytime temperature is falling fast, but we’re still getting large handfuls of sweet grape tomatoes from the garden every day. After seeing the price of sun-dried tomatoes at the grocery store ($4.00 for a small bag? and look at the preservatives!) I [...]
Unfortunately, this summer was not great for our garden. We had a late start due to a cool spring, a wicked windstorm in early August, and just not enough days of sunny and hot. (The heat wave we saw in late July helped, but it was a little too late and too short to do [...]
One of the problems I’ve run into with trying to cook for just me and my husband is the size of recipes. Most recipes are designed for families or larger groups, and scaling these recipes can be a bit fiddly. (For example, how do you add 2/3 of an egg?) We make use of our [...]
Sometimes, you don’t want to do anything fancy.
As much as I love cooking with fresh ingredients, there are many times when it just seems like a huge chore. Sometimes I’m too busy. Sometimes it’s too hot. Sometimes I’m just feeling lazy. Fortunately, the cave man invented a device called a “can opener,” which - when [...]
A few years ago, I visited a health food store and picked up a bag of TVP. The cashier rang it up. While she was putting it into a bag, she paused and said, “What exactly do you do with this stuff?”
Texturized Vegetable Protein (aka “TVP”) is a soy replacement for ground beef. You used [...]
I think everyone’s grandparents had a rhubarb plant or two. Early summers would be filled with rhubarb pies and rhubarb crumbles, and if you were lucky you’d get rhubarb sorbet.
Rhubarb (also called a “pie plant”) can commonly be found at farmers’ markets this time of year. In Manitoba, the season for rhubarb has just peaked. [...]
Part of growing up and learning new things is learning how to follow directions. If you don’t follow directions, you get marks off and bad things can happen. Gradually, you start learning the occasions in which it’s ok to not follow directions; hopefully this is undertaken with the understanding that you’ll have to accept the [...]
A few years ago, we spent a long weekend at a “couples only” resort. The cabin had a huge bed, a steam shower, a hot tub, a nice kitchenette and satellite TV. Since all we have at home are bunny ears, we devoured hours and hours of cable TV while we relaxed in the hot [...]
