Inspired by a trip recently to our local Italian Store and an abundance of bright fresh smelling citrus, plus healthier eating, I picked up some ingredients to make this orange and fennel salad with Sicilian olives. Adding olives to the salad was a last minute decision as I browsed the olive section in the deli […]
Fresh mozzarella and ripe summer tomatoes are a annual favourite in this house. With this recipe we went all left field and changed up the traditional caprese salad by adding fresh B.C. blueberries and roasted pistachios. This adds a delicious hint of sweet and crunch from the pistachios to the traditional caprese salad. Not everyone […]
Couscous, a North African dish of small steamed balls of semolina is considered to be a pasta. It’s also a grain my mom introduced to me back in the 90’s and one we eat as a side dish regularly. We grew up taught to always have a carb on our plate with our meal. This […]
Summer days can be hot, and there is honestly no desire in this house to cook a big meal. Instead we love real simple meals. Like grilling up some meat and having a nice flavourful salad with it. This meal was inspired by expiring sweet red chili sauce in our fridge (ha ha!) and the fact we […]
Summer fresh grilled veggies with fresh basil and bocconcini is favourite dish around here when it gets to hot to cook. Leftover veggies are an easy addition the next day to any dish, like these Grilled Veggie, Pesto & Bocconcini Pizzas. Today we jazzed up our grilled veggies with bacon, grilled Italian Sausage and lots […]
Back in 2002 I used to play on a local softball slow-pitch team. I was fairly new to Calgary and looking to get out and meet people. The same year I also joined an indoor soccer team and billiards team. It was around then I met my husband, through work of all places, and life […]
Sunny days make me want to get outside and eat all the things and plant or harvest my garden and eat fresh grown tomatoes. Right? We’ve had an unusually warm start to 2016 which is great for us Calgarians but not so great for the farmers and producers who rely on the moisture to plant […]
Who remembers this popular green salad from the late 70’s and 80’s called Watergate Salad? It’s a salad known by names such as pistachio delight, shut the gate salad, green goop, green fluff and green stuff and these days can be found on the table during Thanksgiving or Easter celebrations. According to research efforts, the […]
This dish was an easy sell to the kids. They love pasta and Israeli couscous are small, round, pasta-like granules made from semolina and wheat flour. Once they heard the word pasta they were happy to try it and pick out what foreign objects (in their minds it’s squash and red onion) didn’t belong. You […]
Meals during the week have to be quick since the kids have activities. These are the days they come home from school, play with the dog, check their emails, do their homework, eat and go to activities, so dinner has to be easy and fast. By the time they get home it’s bed time. Last […]
Several big family gatherings in July called for lots of great potluck, and easy to assemble type food. We had Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan represented in our house over the course of several days, leaving many mouths to feed. So I made big salads and big food. This super grain salad with quinoa was one […]
I enjoyed a childhood filled with an abundance of tree fruits. Cherry, apple, prune plums and crab apple trees adorned the front yard. I often wonder if the people who live in that house now enjoy the fruit trees as much as we did. I have fond memories of the battles my father would have […]
We had an International German student living with us for almost a year. She had a few food allergies and one of them was carrots. So I got used to cooking without carrots. Although the allergy was mainly to raw carrots, I just stopped using them so as to not “forget”. With my coleslaw’s I […]
I love bowl food. It’s hearty, filling and mostly healthy depending on ingredients. When I make it at home, it’s always healthy. When I have it out it’s full of inspiration and for the most part a bowl full of good stuff. I’ve had a love affair with brown rice going on for over 20 […]
What’s old is new again – at least when it comes to eating grains. Catelli Foods Corporation shared this message with us at a recent event here in Calgary. Several bloggers & food writers were invited to attend a one on one cooking demo with Canadian Celebrity Chef Lynn Crawford and Catelli Foods. The evening […]
A quick and easy meal your family will love cause it’s simple. The kids think these are just “big” chicken fingers and one eats it with plum sauce. The other BBQ sauce (not complaining). The dressing on the salad is so simple and light. The whole meal cooks up quickly and is perfect for a […]
This started as a chickpea, brussels sprout & lentil salad. I’ve got this thing for brussels sprouts lately and have to have them with everything. Almost. With lots of options in my fridge, I decided to try my hand at a Salad in a Jar. What a great idea to prepare in advance and take […]
This chicken salad with crackling (crispy chicken skin) is a spinoff or variation of coronation chicken, a dish created and served at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation on June 2, 1953. She became monarch of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Union of South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon. To this day we still sing God […]
An easy salad that came together quickly the other night. All I knew is I wanted grilled corn. Whole for the family, one cut up for a salad. So we rubbed the corn with oil, salt and pepper and tossed them on the grill for about 10-15 minutes, turning regularly. Adding a little char to […]
I’ve been absent the last little while as I’ve been dealing with some work stuff and have had to make some big decisions. I am coming out of the fog now and beginning to get inspired again! Always been a fan of a spicy noodle salad. This Asian Noodle Salad with Spicy Nuts is inspired […]
You will probably hear me talk a lot about how much I love the world of Food Blogging. While I’ve been blogging since 2006, I’ve only really honed in on the Food Blogging World the past 3 or so years. And with it I’ve met and made some wonderful friends from all over the […]
Growing up in the 70’s & 80’s, well life was much simpler back then. There was no technology to entertain us other than the great outdoors. It was the mid 80’s when my parents built and moved into a house on a 1/4 acre lot. I watched from afar as they planted a garden starting […]
A fun treat for the kids any time of the year. During Winter you may be limited to using whatever fruit is available in your grocery store. I know we definitely are here as certain out of season fruit that has been shipped in from afar, tends to taste bland and not good. In Summer […]
This Tabbouleh recipe is one I got from my mom, so she gets full credit for this recipe. If I were to try and guess which year, it would have been around 1992. Yikes I’m old. Shortly after I moved to Vancouver my mom started seeing a nutritionist and taking better care of herself. I […]
It was bound to happen. If you follow my blog you’ll know firstly I love Quinoa and secondly have been a fan of bok choy salads since the early 90’s. It was only a matter of time before these two collided in my kitchen. My kids started really liking salads last year (anything from spinach, […]
If you’ve been following along you’ll know how much I love quinoa salads. And the combinations are endless. Since I don’t eat as much protein as I should, it’s the perfect meal to add additional protein to my diet. For those new to quinoa, it’s a grain packed full of protein and a good one […]
Most of us have heard about the Thanksgiving Side Dish of sauteed brussels sprouts with pancetta and toasted pine nuts. It’s simply delicious and a dish I’ve enjoyed in various forms, more recently at a friends for Thanksgiving Dinner. I had actually intended to make the dish one evening to see if the kids would […]
This Pomegranate and Orange Quinoa Salad was made for our recent Ladies Halloween Wine Evening. Since it was a theme evening, I named it “blood clot salad with crunchy finger nails“. It was very well recieved and so much fun to make. It all started with a variation of this salad I’ve been making all […]
One of Calgary’s older neighbourhoods, Kensington, has been hosting it’s Annual Sun & Salsa Festival for as long as I can remember. The first time I attended was back in 2002! I love that you can bring the kids along and participate as a family in trying different salsas. Upwards of 20 local restaurants, pubs […]
