entertaining Archives - Page 4 of 9

Make Dinner Party Fave Chicken Marbella

August 17, 2012/0 Comments/in Entertaining, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Chicken Marbella is dead-easy slam-dunk dinner party entrée that will have every guest who tries it begging for the recipe. We kid you not.

CULT RECIPE ALERT | Summer is dinner party season for us. Since early June, we’ve invited friends over for supper at least once a week. We manage this despite busy schedules by sticking to a few proven menus. First-time visitors, for example, invariably tuck into our number-one-favourite no-brainer entrée: Chicken Marbella, which usually results in their asking for the recipe. If you’ve ever made or been served Marbella, you already know the impact its exceptional flavour can have on all who take a bite. 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

Where To Find Asian Blue & White Dishes

July 9, 2012/0 Comments/in DECOR & DESIGN, HOME, Home & Garden, View All Home Stories /by Editor

Gorgeous, everyday blue and white dinnerware from around the Pacific Rim is inexpensive and plentiful. Here’s where to find it right now.

CHEAP & PERFECT | Sam Carter introduced me to the joy of collecting inexpensive Asian blue and white dishes. Carter, who is now professor emeritus at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver and currently working on a variety of innovative international projects—including facilitating internships for Emily Carr students in China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan and Korea—has, for the longest time, picked up antique and contemporary blue and white dishes wherever he touches down. Read more

3 Quick Canada Day Desserts

June 29, 2012/2 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, Food & Drink, HOLIDAY /by Editor

Let us not eat cake! Three fast and furious desserts for Canada Day dinner that will leave you plenty of time to man your fireworks viewing station. (RECIPES)

DEAD EASY & QUICK | With forecasters predicating only the slightest possibility of showers on Canada Day, we’re betting you’ll want to get outside on July 1st, not drag around in the kitchen. To the rescue, then, three delicious-beyond-all-reason desserts with almost no prep time—after all, who’s got a minute for laborious productions when there are fireworks to view! Read more

Where To Find The Best Pots & Pans For Less

June 27, 2012/0 Comments/in FOOD, Home & Garden, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Stratospherically expensive All-Clad pots are among the most coveted cooking equipment on the planet, and for good reason: they last forever! Here’s how to slice their price.

SHOP WISE | My family and I have been in a horribly abusive relationship with our All-Clad Master Chef pots and pans (pictured below) every day for the past 15 years. Poor things! We cook on an open burner gas range and routinely scorch their bottoms; we’ve also allowed them to cook dry and blacken more times than we’d care to mention (gotta love built-in smoke detectors). Read more

Gluten-Free Cloud 9 Flour Is Heavenly

June 22, 2012/2 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

With this made-in-Canada gluten-free flour, Gwyneth Paltrow’s oatmeal raisin cookies are even more heavenly. (RECIPE)

BUY RIGHT | Everywhere you look these days in supermarkets, on restaurant menus and in deli display cases you’ll find gluten-free options. This is great for anyone with celiac disease, a serious gastrointestinal disorder marked by an inability to absorb the protein gluten. It’s good news, too, for those simply sensitive to wheat or who have “wheat belly,” extra body fat carried in the mid section and attributed to the wheat strains grown today (they supposedly contain more protein than they once did). 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

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