drink Archives - Frugalbits

When To Go Organic & When Not To Bother

January 27, 2014/2 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, HEALTH, Nutrition, SAVE MONEY, View All Food Stories, View All Health Stories /by Editor

The experts at Licious Living share their list of the “cleanest” and “dirtiest” fruits and veggies in your supermarket.

GOOD TO KNOW | “Should I buy organic or is it just a waste of my money? I get this question a lot,” says Deanna Embury, who, with co-founder Katie Rodgers, operates Licious Living, a healthy eating company that supplies Vancouverites and Torontonians with super-tasty home-delivered meals plus operates wallet-friendly cafés in British Columbia and Alberta. Read more

Use Meal Train To Take Food To Sick Friends

July 27, 2012/5 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Popping by with a casserole for someone who is ill or in distress is a time-honoured tradition. Now, the free website mealTrain.com takes the guesswork out of when and what to bring.

ON THE DOWNLOAD | A dear cousin who lives several hours away recently had major surgery. When I offered to come cook for her and her husband while she convalesced, she said she would welcome a visit but that meal prep had been generously wiped off her plate. “I’ve got a meal train coming,” she explained. Read more

Flower arrangement by Brendan Power-Martin Tessler

Decorate The Table For Summer Dinner Parties

July 25, 2012/2 Comments/in D.I.Y., DECOR & DESIGN, DIY, HOME, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All DIY Stories, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

Fresh ideas from the garden set the table—and the scene for summer entertaining.

If you are planning a summer dinner party and want to decorate the table in a way that’s fresh and easy, here’s a spin on the current penchant for using formal table arrangements made of single flower variety in a single colour packed tightly into a vase. Read more

Entertain “Kinfolk” Style This Summer

July 13, 2012/2 Comments/in Culture & Leisure, Entertaining, FOOD, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Instead of booking a last-minute summer trip, take a page from Kinfolk magazine —and make the most of staying home.

SUMMER FARE | If you use the school calendar—June through August—as a way to measure summer days and have yet to find the time to get away or relax absolutely, you have six weeks remaining to do something fun and seasonal. But these six weeks will slip away on you like the last six did if you don’t make kicking back a priority. Read more

Puff Pastry Sweets & Savouries In Under 10 Minutes

May 23, 2012/6 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, Entertaining, FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

These delicious puff pastry sweets and savouries are oven-ready in less than 10 minutes. (RECIPES)

EASY & DELISH | Making authentic French puff pastry is no small accomplishment, even for the likes of Martha Stewart who confessed in her cookbook Martha Stewart Pies & Tarts that producing a classic puff takes time, “skill and practice,” and that she’s had her share of difficulties making one “because there are so many variables.”

While “quick-from-scratch puff pastry” is definitely easier and less time-consuming to make than the true classic version, it can still be a disaster as I learned not long ago when I tried to replicate THIS AWESOME RECIPE from the Los Angeles Times. Read more

Breast Or Thigh: Which Chicken Part Is Best?

May 9, 2012/7 Comments/in Diet, FOOD, Food & Drink, HEALTH, Nutrition, View All Food Stories, View All Health Stories /by Editor

Chicken breasts have long been considered the healthiest part of the bird, but top chefs favour the flavour of dark meat. (RECIPES)

WHAT THE PROS KNOW | Why it took so long, I’ll never know, but North Americans are beginning to wean themselves from the breast—the chicken breast, that is. “The dark, tender meat of the chicken thigh is the most flavorful part of the bird,” writes Nate Appleman in his cookbook A16 Food + Wine, the International Association of Culinary Professionals cookbook of the year in 2008. To prove it, he includes THIS AWESOME RECIPE for Chicken Meatballs with Peperonata.

International superstar chef Daniel Boulud (who once set up shop in Vancouver) gave chicken thighs two thumbs up this past winter when he used them in THIS GREAT RECIPE for Chicken Lasagna, which appeared in Elle Décor.

Neither of these chefs would ever stint on ingredients or sacrifice quality because of cost. Both cook with chicken thighs not because they are always cheaper than breasts but because they taste better than breasts. Simple as that.

But here a small voice interjects, “But what about health? Aren’t chicken breasts a whole lot better for you?” Read more

Craft Beers Really Are Quite Simple To Make

May 2, 2012/1 Comment/in CANADIAN CONTENT, FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Craft beers are surprisingly simple to make—economical, too. All you need is a little equipment and the advice of a homebrew guru.

DO IT YOURSELF | Vancouver has made a name for itself as Canada’s microbrew capitol. As the trend and palates for craft beer continue to grow, artistic DIYers are brewing up their own spins on flavourful favourites at home for little more than pennies a pint.

Not so long ago my husband and I tried some delicious homebrew. Intrigued, we questioned the couple who’d made it on the ins and outs of their hobby while our silent glances said, “We could totally do that!” And we did. Read more

Trader Joe’s Comes To Vancouver—Sort Of!

January 18, 2012/3 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, Food & Drink /by Editor

Taking a page, and products, from the quirky Trader Joe’s supermarket chain, one idealistic, enterprising Vancouverite offers great groceries at great prices.

SHOPPING AROUND | “Somebody had to do it.”

That’s the first line of the manifesto taped to the window of Transilvania Trading, a tiny food emporium that recently opened in the nether reaches of West Broadway Street in Kitsilano, a shop destined to become a haunt among Vancouver foodies on the lookout for interesting, healthy packaged foods at reasonable prices. Transilvania’s current raison d’être is to sell a selection of mostly dry products from Trader Joe’s, quite possibly the coolest, quirkiest supermarket chain in the U.S., though that’s by no means the only stuff shop owner Mike Hallatt plans to stock in the future. Read more

The One Meal Fits All Way To Entertain

January 17, 2012/1 Comment/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., Easy + Quick = Delicious, Entertaining, FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Time crunched but wanting to entertain, here’s the creative way one woman takes care of business.

SAVE TIME & ENERGY | If in-home entertaining is something you’d like to do more of but you don’t have the extra time or energy to put into an elaborate production, consider adopting the game plan Janie Collier uses to host twice-monthly Saturday night suppers.

Collier has developed one wonderful meal that she can serve to carnivores, vegetarians and vegans—and she repeats it—with slight variations and tweaks—in perpetuity. “If I had to come up with a new menu and source new ingredients every time I wanted to have people over, I just wouldn’t get around to it much.”

Janie Collier’s One Meal Fits All Saturday Night Supper Read more

3 Cult Classic Places To Eat In San Francisco

November 28, 2011/0 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, Go Here Now, TRAVEL, View All Food Stories, View All Travel Stories /by Editor

Where you absolutely must go for breakfast, lunch and dinner the next time you visit the City by the Bay.

TRAVEL ADVISORY | With so many fabulous restaurants to choose from, San Francisco can be frustrating for tourists who travel to eat. I visit every November, and each time I go I try new places—but first I schedule a return meal at my three favourite eateries. Each one is a bone fide cult classic, and not one need be stratospherically expensive. Read more

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