food Archives - Frugalbits

5 irresistible recipes for popcorn toppings

February 20, 2015/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, THE LATEST, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Here are 5 top recipes for popcorn toppings your guests will not be able to resist.

FROM THE VAULT | Although I wasn’t able to get everything organized in time for the Emmy Awards this year, I will be hosting a popcorn party for friends and family when the Oscars roll around on Sunday. Movies and popcorn are a winning combo, and in the past few weeks I’ve been scouring the Internet for recipes, whipping up toppings and popping up a storm on my stovetop. Read more

Appetite For Easy: One Minute Guacamole

August 31, 2014/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, Entertaining, FOOD, Food & Drink, SAVE TIME, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Here’s a recipe for the best guacamole you’ll ever scoop on a chip: it’s fresh, seriously delicious and you can make it in a minute.

ONE-MINUTE WONDER | It’s a holiday today in British Columbia and we are having friends over for a dinner, which means I’m going to need appies: lots of them. I can get away with serving strictly store-bought stuff—cerignola olives, edemame in the shell, gourmet potato chips—if I serve it in small, one-of-a-kind containers that give it an air of exclusivity. But store-bought alone feels ungracious to me so I like to mix in a few homemade or half-scratch appies I can turn around on a dime. One of my all-time half-scratch favourites is cheater guacamole. I’m always surprised by how many people ask me for the recipe. Read more

Shine Your Silver To Perfection Quickly Without Commercial Polish

April 25, 2014/0 Comments/in Cleaning & Maintenance, HOME, Home & Garden, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, SAVE TIME, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

This homemade concoction will put a shine on your silver with minimal cost and effort. (VIDEO)

THIS STUFF WORKS | Until recently, I have polished my wee cache of silver—both sterling and plate, everything from jewellery to flatware—with pricey silver polish from a local jewellery store. “Why do you use that stuff?” my friend and Frugalbits contributor Brendan Power asked one evening after I complained about the bits of pink paste that had become lodged in the nooks of my newly cleaned Tiffany bracelet. I could avoid this residue, and polish up everything nicely, he explained, “using tin foil, soda and salt.” Read more

Baby Cakes: Hosting A Gender Reveal Party

February 3, 2014/3 Comments/in Culture & Leisure, Entertaining, FOOD, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All Food Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

Here’s a fun and memorable way expectant parents are revealing the gender of their baby.

SNEAK PEEK | Our daughter Alexis got married last spring, and now she and her husband Dave (pictured here on their wedding day) are expecting a baby. Last week, they went for their 20-week ultrasound. This imaging technique is used five months into a pregnancy to determine whether a fetus is developing normally. At 20 weeks, it can also detect whether the baby is a boy or a girl—if the gender is visible, of course.

Lexi and Dave wanted to know the sex of their baby. And they wanted to share the experience of finding out what it is with members of their immediate family, so this past weekend we had what’s called a gender reveal party at our house.

Here’s what Lexi and Dave did to ensure the baby’s gender was kept under wraps (and unknown even to them) until the appropriate moment.

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

Technique: Make Perfect, Crisp Bacon In The Oven

December 12, 2013/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Nothing says lovin’ like bacon from the oven; it’s no fuss, no mess and quick.

EASY & DELISH | The holidays are all about group meals like big breakfast spreads and brunches. Both of these multiplate affairs are always improved when sizzling strips of bacon are on the menu, though slaving over a sputtering frying pan to cook up a temperamental batch is a task fewer and fewer of us choose to tackle. But what if you could cook perfect bacon for a crowd while sitting in the living room balancing a Buck’s fizz in one hand and a cheesy blintz in the other? You can if you bake your bacon instead of frying it.

How To Make Perfect Caramels In The Microwave

November 1, 2013/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Yes, it really is possible to make super yummy sea salt caramels in the microwave.

EASY & DELISH | When my daughter got married last May, she asked her aunt and me to make chocolate bark and fleur de sel caramels for the wedding reception. The bark was no problem; I’d made it before, and nothing could be easier (CLICK HERE for our recipes). The caramels made me nervous. There’s kitchen science involved in producing caramels that are both soft and chewy.

So we put off making these paper-wrapped sweets until a few days before the wedding—then muddled through using a recipe we found on Epicurious.com (CLICK HERE to get it). Only after the big day did I learn that we could have saved ourselves both time and concern by making our candy in the microwave. Read more

October 17, 2013/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Recipes, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

TECHNIQUE: Deseed A Pomegranate Lightening Quick

SAVE TIME | Pomegranates are everywhere in supermarkets right now, and maybe you’ve been eyeing them with reluctance because you hate the thought of picking and plucking at the hundreds of juice-wrapped kernels (anywhere from 200 to 1,400 per pomegranate) nestled inside the fruit’s fleshy membrane housed in a rosy-red case.

Fret not. Here’s a little tip on how to deseed a pomegranate in fewer than two minutes. We picked up it from a friend who picked it up from a chef at Rambagh Palace, “the jewel of Jaipur,” in western India—how exotic is that! Read more

This Cookbook Is All About Pretty & Sweet

September 9, 2013/2 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Rosie Daykin’s new cookbook, Butter Baked Goods, offers treat lovers 100 sweet ways to say yum. (SNEAK PEEK)

NEW NOW NEXT | It maybe be a little early to be thinking about what to get your foodie friends for Christmas, but I’m pretty sure mine will be receiving copies of Rosie Daykin’s Butter Baked Goods: Nostalgic Recipes from a Little Neighborhood Bakery. Not that I’ve thumbed through an actual copy of the cookbook yet—it won’t be available to purchase until mid October. What I have had is a sneak peek at a few of the pages, and I can tell you that they’re every bit as visually enticing as everything else this talented Vancouver interior designer/ successful baker turns her hand to. Read more

Make The Berry Best Dessert In Under 5

June 24, 2013/0 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Clafoutis is unquestionably the most delicious and fruity dessert you can make in less than five minutes.

EASY & DELISH | Some people call French clafoutis (pronounced cla-FOU-tee) a pancake-like dessert, while others say it’s more flanlike. No matter how you describe it, if it’s made with any fruit besides black cherries, it’s technically not a clafoutis but a flaugnarde—though no one we know, including superstar cookbook author Donna Hay, whose recipe we’ve adapted here, uses that term. So we’ll continue to call our favourite summer dessert—the easiest/sweetest thing you’ll ever make—a mixed berry clafoutis too. Read more

Posts