Chive Blossoms – our garden
Tonight marks the start of Tu B’Shevat, one of my favourite holidays on the Jewish calendar. There’s something whimsical and life-affirming about having a New Year’s celebration for the environment and the seder (religious) service which accompanies it has a focus on our role as stewards of the planet, as well stewards of our own ever-evolving personal natures that I find inspirational. Traditionally this holiday is celebrated with vegetarian fare, and my centerpiece for many years has been eggplant lasagna.
I think it’s time to shake …

Yes! I’m back! A day late for the proper Tuesdays with Dorie post but back nevertheless. Thanks so much for the inquiries and well wishes, I have been dealing with some chronic health issues that flare up from time to time. But now everything seems to be under control again And just in time too! I’ve been working hard lately over the last few months to begin losing some extra pounds that have accumulated so I was really glad to see this recipe was this week’s …

This recipe is a staple side dish of mine that I’ve adapted and modified at length through the years. Both colorful and flavourful I think it creates a texturally interesting background for spicy curries and other East Indian flavoured entrees.

Coconut Rice with Lentils and Cashews
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 lb. basmati rice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon stone ground mustard
1 teaspoon urad dhal or brown lentils
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon madras curry powder
2 ounces fresh coconut, grated
1 ounce unsalted roasted cashews
salt and pepper
METHOD:
1. Put the rice in a sieve and rinse under cold …

Oops! It almost slipped my mind to let you all know the wonderful dal recipe that I used with yesterday’s Dosas.
This Tridoshic dal comes from a cookbook that I’ve been using for years called The Ayurvedic Cookbook.
I’m always interested in learning about the culinary traditions and philosophies of other cultures. Eastern cuisines in particular often fixates on the concept of warming and cooling foods. Maintaining a balance of the two within a meal, or strategically stimulating or calming ones system where imbalance is detected. This approach to balance …

Finally! I have completed (and posted) a Daring Cooks Challenge on time! I have been cooking along with this most recent adjunct to the Daring Bakers community but have always ended up missing the deadlines for one reason or another. No more!
This time around the challenge was Indian Dosas. I’ve made dosas before but this was my first time doing so with gluten-free flour. Two suggested accompaniments were also given; a curried chickpea filling and a coconut curry gravy. I decided to use the recommended filling but broke away …

Earlier this year when Trinidad hosted the Summit of the Americas, I came up with the idea to try to cook my way through the recipes of the attending nations. That never quite materialized in the timely manner that I had envisioned. This recipe was one of those.
This simple tomato and onion salad is a customary accompaniment to meals in Chile. Its name echoes not only its popularity in that country, but also the fact that its main colors (red and white), mirror the colors of the Chilean flag. …

Salads in Trinidad are traditionally a disheartening affair that leaves you wondering why the cook/establishment even bothered. Two wilted lettuce leaves, a force-ripe watery slice of tomato, and some slivers of cucumber served either unadorned, or swimming in some vague mystery oil with specks of pepper flecked throughout. All that’s missing is a headstone for your plate. Most people down it ASAP so that they can focus on the ‘real’ part of their plate, or they simple leave it behind. For this reason, I don’t take it personally when guests …

This quick and simple salad is perked up by the addition of slivered stem ginger. Stem ginger is an ingredient that doesn’t get as much love as I think it should. It’s usually found in the baking aisle, but at times I have seen it hiding rather uncomfortably in the aisles that house ‘international ingredients’ and/or random salad dressings.
From the Good Food Channel:
Preserved or stem ginger is made from tender young ginger root – which is technically not a root at all but a rhizome or underground stem …

MMMMMMMMM. These were so good! And SO SIMPLE! Some peeled core apple, some puff pastry. A little butter and sugar and that’s it! Oh c’mon! Even the most kitchen phobic amongst you can make this one.
With my heart shaped cookie cutters I really went to town. Ever the experimenter I decided to play around with the toppings. In addition to the sugar and butter topping that Dorie uses in her book, I also toyed with honey, maple syrup and sugar with angostura bitters as sweeteners. They were all …

The past two weeks have been a blur, and I’ve fallen behind on food events and posts. Not that I haven’t been cooking, but finding time to sort and edit has been sorely lacking. In due in no small part to my having a heavier workload combined with 2 consecutive ‘truncated’ work weeks. One because of the local Easter Holidays, and the other because of the recently Summit of the Americas. Somewhere in there I hosted a seder and here’s a little writeup of how that went! …