food Archives - Page 4 of 11

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

Fresh Strawberry and Pineapple Popsicles - iStock

All-Fruit Popsicles Are Easy & Quick to Make

June 18, 2012/5 Comments/in Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, Recipes, View All Food Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

Make super fresh all-fruit popsicles from scratch in a few minutes flat.

WASTE NOT | My favourite way to enjoy extra overripe fruit happens to be the most fun and easy: a quick whirr in the blender, and I’ve got the makings for nutritious fruit popsicles. All-fruit popsicles look (they’re typically textured) and taste nothing like the coloured sugar-water popsicles most of us are familiar with, and they are certainly healthier. You can buy expensive all-fruit popsicles at the grocery store, but why would you want to when they are so simple to make from scratch? 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

Why The Mezzaluna Is Best For Slicing Pizza

May 15, 2012/3 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Seriously, this is the only utensil you’ll ever need to cut perfect pizza slices every time.

BUY RIGHT | Google pizza slicer images and you’ll find an amusing looking assortment of scissors, wheels and other contraptions designed to cut effortlessly through homemade pie. The only trouble with most of these gizmos is that they don’t work all that well. I know because I have a drawer full of them and not one delivers a decent wedge without struggle and concentration, including Jamie Oliver’s pizza wheel pictured above. 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

Make Fat-Free Pototo Chips In 3 Minutes

April 24, 2012/2 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., Easy + Quick = Delicious, FOOD, Food & Drink, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

Potato chip lovers rejoice—TopChips makes fresh, yummy, fatfree crisps at home.

EASY & DELISH | I’m a complete potato chip queen, though most people who know me don’t know it. I seldom buy this yummy could-there-be-anything-unhealthier-with-more-empty-calories snack because I have a tendency to overindulge. Now, thankfully, with my new TopChips chips maker I never have to think about the quantity of crisps I consume or whether or not they’re good for me because chips made using this inexpensive, inventive microwave tray are 100 percent fat free—really. Read more

Why You Need To Grow Blueberries Right Now

April 10, 2012/4 Comments/in GARDEN, Gardening How-To, Home & Garden, View All Garden Stories /by Editor

Blueberry shrubs are easy to grow, attractive year round—and, of course, produce delicious berries.

GROW YOUR OWN | Blueberries thrive in our little corner of the planet—they love our climate and generally acidic soil—so if you want to grow something both good to eat and attractive to look at (what can I say, I’m married to a garden designer), you might want to leave room for a blueberry bush or three in your garden or grow this yummy fruit in tubs on your balcony. Read more

A Tasty Gluten-Free Sub For Wheat Pasta

April 9, 2012/0 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., CANADIAN CONTENT, Diet, FOOD, Food & Drink, HEALTH, Nutrition, View All Food Stories, View All Health Stories /by Editor

Yes, there is a guilt-free, gluten-free substitute for high-cal, high-carb wheat-based pasta.

EASY & DELISH | For anyone on a low-cal, low-carb or gluten-free diet, pasta can be a problem—at least the traditional wheat-based kind. But there is an alternative: shirataki noodles, used in Asian cuisine. Read more

How To Paint Cookies Without A Pastry Bag

April 4, 2012/3 Comments/in FOOD, Food & Drink, HOLIDAY, Tools & Techniques, View All Food Stories /by Editor

For decorating cookies, there is an alternative to both tricky pastry bags and pricey tubes of store-bought frosting.

SHOPPING AROUND | Nothing says spring (and Easter) like hand-painted sugar cookies. My kids are begging me to make some, but since I didn’t inherit Cake Boss genes, I decided to YouTube for decorating advice where I ran across Iron Chef America’s Cat Cora channelling her inner Martha by cranking out these adorable designs on holiday cookies. Hopeless at using a pastry bag, I was about to settle for uneconomical grocery-store tubes of icing with clip-off tips when a girlfriend suggested a cool alternative: squeezable frosting bottles with interchangeable decorating tips. Read more

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