all the recipes
A seafood dish prepared in spring as we anticipate and wait for the summer to make its official entry. These pleasantly tender, chewy & grilled baby calamari (which could either be made with squids or cuttlefish) are easy to prepare with bright lemony and fennel flavors and stuffed with a delicate filling of various greens, fresh...
A proper way to announce spring ? A perfect accompaniment ? Vegetarian peasant food ? A healthy alternative ? All of the above. They’re great as is, as a snack or an appetizer with a drink, as a side dish with eggs (sunny-side up preferably) or simply served with a salad for a light meal. So many possibilities and easy to partly make and...
A little crown-shaped yeasted brioche-like cake with a hole in the middle, that is baked then allowed to dry out and later soaked with a sweet aromatic syrup to which you add a strong alcohol and perhaps glaze it too so it could be shiny and then fill it up with pastry cream or just top it off with a flourish of whipped cream and then decorate it...
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2 ALL !!! … with a multi-layered, multi-glazed puff-pastry creation, filled with a chestnut cream mixture and topped with a candied chestnut, but not for today of course but rather for the days around Epiphany coming up on January 6, which is when people most often enjoy a traditional “galette des rois” in...
The chilly winter months (I feel like it’s freezing here and I don’t remember November being so cold in the past !) lend themselves to and actually encourage, denser, darker cakes filled with sweet dried fruits and a touch of alcohol of course, to better warm your bones ! Here’s a version with at least 7 varieties of...
The Orthodox Easter festivities this year are exactly one week after the Catholic and Protestant Easter holidays, so I thought I’d post a recipe for these cookies today, on this first Easter Monday, when most of you will be officially on holiday from work and school, instead of waiting until next weekend ! There are so many variations to...
Here’s a versatile cake recipe that I seem to be able to remember how to make without even looking at the written recipe, because the measurements are easy and I modify some ingredients each time, depending on what I have available. The cake shape never changes though and it’s always a “ciambellone”, which is the name of...
I don’t pay enough attention to leeks, even though they always flavor most of my broths, my spanakopita spinach pie as well as additions in many soups and stews and chicken & fish dishes, but it’s never the STAR of the dish ? So here’s a quiche with extra leek flavor because when I say LEEKS, I mean that 50% of the quiche...
These spicy and aromatic Greek Christmas cookies, (sometimes loosely translated as honey macaroons but rather resembling a syrup-drenched Mediterranean version of gingerbread or a softer speculoos cookie, but without the ginger and with lots of orange), exist in as many variations as there are villages in Greece and cities around the world where...
Here’s a reinterpreted soup from my childhood days growing up in Quebec, Canada where it is still very popular and available in every restaurant but pea soup is international and existed in Ancient Rome and Greece around 500 B.C. and was even sold in the streets by vendors during that era ! Could this be the most ancient soup in the world...
A spring version with floral notes and pink and red tones, for yet another variation of these soft amaretti cookies, to be prepared for the Easter (both Catholic and Orthodox) or Passover or Ramadan festivities this year. They’re still as easy to make with one part egg white + two parts sugar + three parts ground almond powder, with new...
Another new pizza recipe, celebrating the flavors of SPAIN and PORTUGAL, using the same techniques that I’ve used in the past but with different toppings and some modifications to get the Iberian flavor balances just right ! A balance between smokiness, spiciness, sweetness, acidity, freshness, crispiness & gooeyness. What’s...
What else would you eat in this freezing weather ? Something hot, something you can chew on but also slurp, something meaty (unless you’re vegetarian and you add beans instead) and served in a large bowl that you can wrap your hands around to warm them up ! It’s just a simple rustic vegetable soup with cabbage and smoked...
The simplified method for this traditional preserving method for seasonal duck meat could easily become an alternative for an easier do-ahead prepared holiday meal. The method, that involves pre-salting, some waiting and then preserving the salted meats in fat seems simple enough but sometimes we get the ratios wrong so here’s how I do it...
It’s getting colder out there, folks are still staying home a lot and inviting friends over more often and hummus is often served, being one of the most popular Mediterranean and Middle Eastern appetizer and accompaniment around the world today … Here’s a better way to make it and an easier way to remember how to make...