Cooking in a Chianti castle The Rustico Cooking Chianti Culinary Tour was the ultimate cooking experience. For five days, our tour group attended hands-on culinary courses in the kitchen of the enchanting Castello di Meleto (Meleto Castle). This magnificent castle, surrounded with cypress trees and junipers, is located in the town of Gaiole, in the central Chianti region of Tuscany, Italy. Roasted Pepper Eggplant and Cheese Terrine was one…
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In a “celebration” of past Daring Baker and Daring Cook challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we’d like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try! After browsing through the archives of wonderful recipes, I chose the Armenian Nutmeg Cake from the Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge…
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Chickpea Feta Cheese Summer salad is quick and easy to make for lunch or supper, especially for those ‘I don’t feel like cooking’ summer days. It requires minimal cooking and is full of fresh summer vegetables and herbs. I recently added quinoa to my menu planning not only for its nutritional value but also as a replacement for…
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Zucchini Blossoms season Whenever zucchini blossoms are in season, I go to the Jean-Talon market in Montreal to seek out the stalls that sell the yellow, orange and green zucchini blossoms packaged in small containers. When my mother-in-law had her garden that produced tons of zucchini, she would bring us a basket of zucchini blossoms and that day we would have…
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The Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec is the province’s largest producer of wild blueberries. In fact, the residents of this region are referred to ‘bluets’ (or blueberries). Every year, the region celebrates the blueberry by hosting blueberry festivals such as the ‘Festival du Bleuet à Dolbeau-Mistassini’ featuring a 60 inch pie made with 200 pounds of wild blueberries enough…
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Spoleto Culinary Tour We spent the first afternoon of our culinary tour of Umbria and Tuscany in Spoleto, Umbria at il Panciolle Restaurant. Chef Mirella Argilli gave us a hands on cooking class on the method of making homemade strangozzi, pasta unique to Umbria. That night we had wonderful supper at il Panciolle Restaurant, dining on Artichoke Flan with Truffle sauce, Strangozzi…
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Fish Market cookbook Fish Market – A Cookbook for Selecting and Preparing Seafood by Kathy Hunt is a must have cookbook to guide you in purchasing and preparing fish and seafood. The Introduction contains valuable information on selecting seafood, cleaning fish, cutting steaks and fillets, cooking equipment, and ingredients. The next 8 chapters lists over 130 recipes to make 50…
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Maple Syrup Season When the winter temperature gets warmer during the day and freezing at night is the ideal temperature to ensure the sap flow, and the beginning of the maple syrup season in Quebec, the world’s largest maple syrup producer. During the maple syrup season, it is a Quebec tradition that has sugar shacks or ‘cabanes à sucre’…
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