Ginger: the Spice of Health
May 17 |
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From cakes and sweets to marinades and soups, ginger can be found in most kitchens. Not just fragrant and fresh, this rooted delight is the spice that keeps on giving when it comes to health! It’s undoubtedly one of the world’s most popular spices and medicines.
Gingers is often used in Indian recipes and is a staple spice in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cuisines. It’s a must in curry and gives many dishes that touch of spiciness. Fresh ginger and powdered ginger are used around the world and while the powder form may be more convenient, fresh ginger…
Read MoreCampfire Cooking
Victoria Day weekend is almost here, and that means camping season begins. Many of Canada’s campgrounds will be booked and the mass exodus that seems to happen in Canadian cities every weekend throughout summer is a sign that people are looking to get away from it all. Many will head to cottages and campgrounds for the long weekend, and that means it’s campfire time!
Why not turn your campfire into a culinary experience for everyone to partake in and enjoy? Spend the weekend cooking with bare essentials over a bed of hot coals; it’s the perfect way to…
Read MoreHow Do We Get Cinnamon?
Commonly used in baking, or (perhaps more often these days) as topping for your delicious coffee, cinnamon has a long history of spicing up the foods we eat. In fact, in ancient times it was considered as a gift fit for a god! So what good fortune that cinnamon, once left as an offering for the mighty Apollo is now available in our supermarkets!
Made from the bark of select trees, cinnamon can be purchased as either a ground powder or in sticks. It’s made by stripping off the exterior bark and then scraping the interior into strips.…
Read MoreReal Men Eat Quiche
In 1982 an author named Bruce Feirstein wrote a bestseller called “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche”. This tongue-in-cheek book pokes fun at notions of masculinity and portrays quiche as a typically feminine food. While clearly not the case, it can certainly speak to the cultural zeitgeist at the time, and how popular quiche had become.
Quiche is a delicious pastry crust cooked with a filling of custard, cheese and meat. Variations exist (with fish or vegetables, for example) that will let chefs play with the formula, and those variations helped contribute to the dish’s popularity.
While the…
Read MoreMeat Loaf: Classic Comfort Food
For many people it’s a family dinner mainstay: the meat loaf. Simple, not tough to make, comfort food. But where did this delicious meal originate? Like a large number of current dishes, a similar-sounding recipe is mentioned in the Roman text “Apicius” in the 5th century. Specifically, Apicius refers to a loaf made of minced meat. Since then, meatloaf became common in Germany and Belgium.
American meat loaf owes a lot to a dish called scrapple. Scrapple is a popular dish eaten by the Pennsylvania Dutch in which pork trimmings are combined with cornmeal and wheat flower and…
Read MoreEverybody Loves Goulash
We’ve all heard of Goulash, but many people don’t know what exactly it is or where it comes from. For many people it’s just a food with a neat-sounding name. But if you’re Hungarian it likely means much more to you. Goulash is, after all, one of the national dishes of Hungary.
Goulash is a type of stew made up of meat, noodles and vegetables, and then seasoned with delicious spices. There are usually many potatoes in there, and paprika is the primary spice. But, like most food, there is, of course, variation.
Traditional goulash was made…
Read MoreBurnt Is In: Cooking With Ashes
Salvage those overdone veggies by charring them! Burning your food is no longer a bad thing. Chefs are using burnt vegetables, grains, wood and even hay in cooking these days bringing back our inner caveman cravings!
This trend has gained momentum in the past couple of years with chefs around the world mimicking the char like flavour using various methods. And while it’s become trendy recently, this culinary fad has deep roots. Aboriginal cooking traditionally consisted of cooking meat by covering it in hot coals and ashes inevitably flavoured the food. As well as meat, bread was also…
Read MoreCroquettes: So Many Possibilities
Croquettes take on different forms around the world meaning you can take just about anything and make it into a croquette. They are small cylindrical shaped foods that are coated in breadcrumbs and fried. While ingredients vary vastly around the world some of the more common ingredients include mashed potatoes, meat, fish, cheese, vegetables and sauces. They can be sweet or savory, and have become famous as both a delicacy and fast food. The sweet or savory mixture of ingredients is bound in a thick sauce, creating a contrast of textures with the crispy exterior and warm gooey interior.
… Read MoreWakey, Wakey Eggs and Peameal Bakey: The Breakfast Sandwich
In a society where we are always on the move, the breakfast sandwich makes it easy to have a full breakfast but on the go. That being said, just about every coffee shop or fast food restaurant open in the mornings has jumped on board and breakfast sandwiches are taking over as hottest breakfast item.
Make it on croissants, English muffins, bagels, scones, biscuits, buns, wraps, toast, or even donuts. The choice is yours when you make it at home! While the toppings can very from spinach and tomato to salsa and capers, this recipe is simply delicious…
Read MoreWe Spill The Beans On Coffee Pairing
So you’ve served a nice dinner and dessert is almost over, now what? The traditional and proper thing to do is to serve coffee. However, these days coffee is often only used to help jump start mornings or survive the day meaning people often overlook its other attributes. Much like wine or beer, coffee can be paired with food to complete a meal.
There are three main growing regions for coffee beans, each with their own distinctive characteristics. These characteristics are the keys to pairing your coffee and food.
- Latin America: this region typically produces light… Read More
