VanEats

This is one of my favourite fall/winter dishes. Slow braising tenderizes the lamb shanks and blends together flavours. Although the recipe seems to take a long time to make, it's not complicated and doesn't require a lot of attention. Just put it on the stove and turn it down low while you do other things around the house (laundry, surf, watch TV...!).

As winter approaches, you could try this with other root vegetables like whole shallots, rutabagas or turnips, parsnips.

Gulay is Filipino for vegetable and also the name for any dish with vegetables. Everybody has their own version of gulay. Check out mine!

Last weekend our friend Marco hosted a fabulous garden party. He's got a beautiful garden full of homegrown vegetables and fruit (Marco, where are my figs?!). Along with delicious Italian sausages, cold cuts and cheeses, his mom made some very tasty fried zucchini. And his neighbour, Cathy, a professional chef, brought some gorgeous vegetable stacks.

My visit to the East Van Farmers' Market today has inspired me to write about these veggie stacks. The Market is full of beautiful summer squashes, tomatoes and herbs right now...all the ingredients you need for the stacks.

Continuing our September Rice theme, here is an Arroz Caldo recipe from Manong Ken's Carinderia.

Arrroz Caldo is a traditional Filipino dish. It is a stew of rice and chicken which is similar to Chinese congee but different because the rice is not broken. In other words the kernals of rice are intact. If you try this simple recipe, please don't substitute salt for patis (fish sauce) as suggested in the recipe.

Continuing with yesterday's rice theme, here are some rice recipes from the Asia Rice Foundation.

In the USA, our beloved neighbour to the south, September is national rice month as noted by Tree on the DG. Cool!

So when is national ma po tofu month?

Or how about national pancit month :-) ?

All pastas are not the same! Check out Barb's thoughts on the trenette with pesto recipe!

My friend, Anna, a Vancouverite living in L.A., pointed to this interesting website called EatEthnic.com . The site features fascinating facts, recipes and information about food and food customs of various cultures.

Through the site you can also subscribe to an interesting newsletter called, Forks, Fingers, & Chopsticks. I find the information valuable since I work with and live in a community with a diversity of cultures.