all the recipes

This summer in Montreal, I asked my mom to show me how to make "kolokithàkia yemistà mé avgolémono," a summer dish I hadn't had in years. The beautiful weather matched the delicious meal. The bright lemon and herbs, tender and sweetened zucchini shells, savory beef and rice filling, and creamy egg-lemon...

Some food assemblies can remain utterly simple, without any actual mixing and each spoonful of this dessert reveals a difference in taste and texture, depending on how much of each individual element of that assembly is in that same spoonful; nectar and ambrosia ! Usually, I would not dare to publish such a simple recipe/assembly but a slight...

A nourishing and hearty winter season pizza, combining fried up and crumbled sausage stuffing and roasted onions and bell peppers, highlighted with a hint of additional accents and spices and topped with different cheeses and fresh herbs and a little story about how I organize my prepping and cooking ! Please understand, I never begin slicing...

Grown-ups like chocolates too, especially during the holidays, but chocolates that are stronger in flavor, thus darker and less sweet and perhaps saltier and crunchier too, so here are some snow-capped chocolate domes for the winter festivities ! They’re smooth, yet rugged, but not quite like rocky clusters either, despite the open cracks...

Whatever you name these and however you spell them and whichever way you assemble them, whether it’s an Italian soffritto or a Spanish or Hispanic sofrito, a Catalan sofregit, a Portuguese refogado, a Caribbean holy trinity, a German suppengrün, a Polish wloszczyna, an African-Taino epis and of course a French mirepoix, these basic...

A little bit of this and a little bit of that added, to lighten up the heavier and saltier and denser flavors of the black olives, resulting with a dip or spread that is still powerful but somewhat brightened and better balanced ! Some olives are to be enjoyed as is, when packed in quality olive oil or in a well-balanced brine and some are...

I find myself often testing “caesar salads” in restaurants, often topped with chicken when I want a one-course quick meal, so I finally decided to make my own version that is fresh yet more filling … :) The first ever Caesar salad was created on July 4, 1924 by Caesar Cardini at Caesar's in Tijuana, Mexico, when the...

The most delicately flavored and comforting winter pasta dish I’ve ever made, using basic sausage meat and that wonderful prepared in advance, pre-cooked and jarred onion-carrot-celery sauce base I shared with you several months ago, with just the simple additions of some white wine at first and then chicken stock and finally heavy cream, to...

Here’s a new variation of an accompaniment for your meat & cheese platters and other appetizers, that isn’t a sliced baguette or flatbreads nor dry and crunchy breadsticks or crackers; here are your new freshly-baked and tender bread bites ! These bread bites visually resemble the different versions of the crunchy and dry...

Cod, clams, shrimp, onions, champagne, with a hint of garlic, parsley, salt-preserved lemon and roasted red piquillo pepper, to prepare a flavorful dish, highlighted with some exceptional ingredients, with possible substitutions too ! There’s an older version of this dish that I’m familiar with, where you use dried, salted cod...

A chilled soup, that you can drink or enjoy with a spoon, that is savory, packed with greener vegetable flavors, inevitably refreshing and an excellent option for the summer heat ! Most of you may be familiar with a red gazpacho which includes red tomatoes and peppers and onions, as well as more water-rich cucumber and of course, garlic (lots...

One Easter dessert that fulfills all of those holiday cravings and is triply chocolate in taste as well as visually, with a moist cocoa and coffee cake and a rich mascarpone and melted chocolate frosting and topped with crunchy chocolate easter eggs ! I’m not going to lie by telling you that I made these cakes this spring, but I did make...

It’s a complicated name and a lengthy title and description for a new type of dessert that you may wish to attempt for this year’s Epiphany (January 6th) in order to replace the more traditional king’s cake or the brioche and/or galette des rois, because it’s luminous and festive and creamy and crunchy too ! It’s a...

It’s so easy and quick to prepare meals when you already have sauce bases ready and waiting in the fridge, as I showed you two weeks ago with the “soffritto-ish” sauce bases; and this pasta sauce, combining equal parts sauce base and tomatoes, with or without chorizo, is just perfect ! Why with or without the sausage ? Because...

Everybody needs to make at least one apple pie during the autumn season, and after the first, many always make many more, so here’s a good-looking version with walnuts and raisins too ! When I was in elementary school in Canada, every September or October, we’d go on a school field trip and pick sweet and tart Macintosh apple by the...