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Standardby Julie8 Comments

August is truly tomato season, and I seek out any opportunity to eat them- in sandwiches, on toast, in a pie with corn cut straight from the cob and a biscuit crust, and in tarts, like this one I made for the Globe and Mail two falls ago. Tomatoes are perfect in shallow tarts and galettes, and can be paired with all kinds of things you might rummage from your fridge or pantry – pesto, olive tapenade, ricotta, goat cheese, Boursin… everything goes with a tomato.

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Standardby Julie4 Comments

Fava beans are here! They are some of spring’s first arrivals, along with asparagus and fiddleheads, and are well worth seeking out in their fresh state while you can find them. If you’re not familiar with the fava (or faba, or broad) bean, they’re the big, spongy, cartoon-like beans you see in farmers’ markets in the late spring, and they require a little more effort to access their buttery goodness, but are well worth the effort. I kind of like food you have to work at, or can sit around outside and peel + eat.

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Standardby Julie7 Comments

I’ve been in rugelach mode all weekend, making batches of sweet versions (dark chocolate-tahini! apricot-pecan! apricot-chocolate! Nutella! pistachio paste! cinnamon-sugar! for a couple virtual cooking classes (these ones were fundraisers for the CBC Calgary Food Bank Drive), and then doing a shortbread Instagram live bake with Amy, she mentioned having made everything bagel rugelach… and thus the seed was planted.

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Standardby Julie22 Comments

I’m astounded I haven’t managed to post this recipe yet- it’s been part of my toolbox for years, called into service anytime I have cheese but no carrier, or need something quick and interesting for a snacky board or some such. Once you know how to make this one massive cracker, which is baked and then smashed into pieces, they’re easy to make by memory- 1 1/3 cups flour, 1/3 cup each oil and water. With salt, of course- and any seasonings you like, which makes them super easy to customize. I’ve been into using za’atar and everything bagel spice mix, but you could use finely chopped fresh or dried herbs, or ground nuts, seeds, sharp cheese… they’re a blank slate, really. You roll the dough out very thin on a baking sheet (or the underside of one, if it’s rimmed, so that the edges don’t get in the way), bake the whole thing until it’s golden, then bash into pieces, which is super satisfying,Continue reading

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Standardby Julie0 Comments

Though I haven’t seen her much over the years, my Belgian aunt is known for her croquettes. She shapes them into short, stubby cigars – a mixture of mashed potatoes and other leftover ingredients that can often be found in the fridge, rolls them in breadcrumbs and fries them in hot oil, which she tests for the right temperature with the handle of her wooden spoon. They’re completely delicious, and the perfect thing to make when you happen to have leftover mashed potatoes and roasted turkey at the same time. (The only time she has made them for me, they were made with mashed potato and roughly or finely chopped turkey.)

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Standardby Julie13 Comments

I’ve been at two events in the past two weeks that served plates of this whipped feta topped with roasted beets and dukkah – both were celebrating the launch of the new Calgary Eats cookbook, a collaboration between 40 Calgary restaurants including Ten Foot Henry, whose chef, Steve Smee, contributed this recipe. I have a bowl of roasted beets in my fridge (you can do them in the slow cooker!) and is there a better combo than beets and feta or creamy goat cheese? Wait – how about whipped feta you can drag through with soft flatbread instead of relying on a green salad as delivery vehicle? This is going directly into my regular repertoire.

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Standardby Julie15 Comments

You guys! I’ve been holding out on you. I had the most amazing pimento cheese at a Christmas party last weekend, and although I haven’t had or made it in years, it was like a rebirth into the world of pimento cheese. I had forgotten how much I love its intensely cheesy, mayo-y, briny deliciousness. I immediately requested the recipe from the friend who had brought it, who had found it on the conversation thread of a makeup tutorial YouTube channel she frequents. Ah, the internet. Remember when you got recipes from your neighbours and small collection of cookbooks, or clipped it out of the newspaper? So this particular pimento cheese came from a woman who got it from her southern mother – pimento cheese is a southern thing, not surprisingly from the same era as the cheese ball. At its core, it’s extra-aged cheddar and mayo, with a hit of spice in the form of cayenne or chili flakes. I instantly asked my FacebookContinue reading

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Standardby Julie19 Comments

I’m a bit ashamed to admit I didn’t realize what a big deal green onion cakes are, and have been for decades, in Edmonton. They’ve become the quintessential market and festival food, introduced to the city back in 1979 by restaurateur Siu To. I’ve been meaning to make a batch using the masses of green onions that nearly took over my garden, and when I finally harvested them all (and replanted the bulbs for next spring), I took his lead to make my own. Yes! If you’re not familiar with them, green onion cakes are these crispy, doughy savoury cakes cooked in a skillet, made by rolling dough out, sprinkling it with masses of chopped green onion, much like you’d spread cinnamon-sugar over dough for cinnamon buns, then rolling, twisting, squishing – there are as many techniques as there are cooks making them. The process seems complex, but is simple once you get the hang of it—roll, sprinkle, roll, cut, squish, roll—there’s no need forContinue reading

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Standardby Julie5 Comments

Have you been watching Jinhee on Top Chef Canada? She’s killing it. She always does. I met Jinhee years ago, when she was cooking over at Raw Bar, and everything she made was magic. She’s brilliant and humble and generous and kind, and I love that she secretly switched from accounting to cooking but didn’t tell her mom (back home in Korea) until she made it to the helm in one of the best kitchens in Calgary. While they were building Foreign Concept, she won the Gold Medal Plates semi-finals (which she went on to win, by the way), by cooking out of her apartment kitchen. (The restaurant was still under construction.) She has brought home the gold two years in a row, and silver the year before. Traveling through Vietnam last year, she fell in love with this Hanoi street dish – Cha Cá Lã Vong – cooked in a well used tin skillet over a small burner. It’s the only thing this particularContinue reading

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