Recipes

This weekend at Whistler, Roland and I cooked dinner for 9 hungry skiers. We made a hearty meal with herb roasted chicken as our focal point. When John asked for the recipe, I suggested that it was similar to my roast turkey recipe, but I thought I should be more specific.

This weekend I made these chocolate and peanut butter cakes that were in January's Gourmet Magazine. The photo of these were irresistable and Roland is a big chocolate and peanut butter fan.

In winter, I love eating warm savoury dips with hearty bread or sturdy vegetable sticks. A few weeks ago, our friend Rebecca made this delicious hot artichoke dip. She served it with an assortment of breads and crackers and it was a hit! You can mix this up ahead of time and bake it just as your guests arrive.

One our closest friends, Teresa from Toronto, has tried a carrot cake from Bon Appetit and loved it! Check out her story.

At work, our team members take turns bring treats for our staff meetings. Last week Bonnie brought these tasty carrot pineapple muffins that she baked. The dates in the muffins add a nice sweet dimension.

On the subject of tofu, here's another tasty use for tofu...kimchi soup. Kimchi is basically a Korean style fresh pickle. Kimchi can be made from many different vegetables, but most typically it's made from chinese cabbage (sui choy) or napa cabbage, salt and Korean chili flakes. It's spicy, pungent and appetizing!!

You can make this soup vegetarian by omitting the meat and substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth. Or you can use whatever meat you like including chicken or seafood like clams or prawns.

Tonight I found two cool Mapo tofu sites: One is a web design project from a woman at RIT and it looks good! The only problem is that her recipe calls for ground beef! As I said before, ground pork is MUCH better and if you grind it at home, it's even better.

The other recipe is from a Sichuan travel agency. This is interesting because Sichuan is the home of this recipe.

I took my mother's salmon and tomato recipe (which is not spicy) and evolved it over the years under the tutelage of my friend, Roel and came up with my own spicy salmon recipe. It has become a winter staple. I find that the spiciness of the dish blends nicely with the tomatoes and the salmon.

Here's a photo of Barb's Bhel that we described on the 16th of February.

After trying out many waffle recipes over the past weeks, this recipe for basic waffles is what I've been using the most. It's really easy and simple, and they turn out well...they're crispy and light, yet have good body. And the recipe adapts well to many variations, some of which I've listed. Great to serve with sweetened berries and whipped cream, good maple syrup or a yummy fruit sauce like peach rum sauce.