Once upon a time in New York City (which will always be my town), there was a little place in Queens called College Point—known by residents as the first town over the Whitestone Bridge. College Point is where I owned and ran a bar and grill with a name that may be a bit cutesy […]
Tag Archives: healthy recipes
After graduating from high school, I spent a few years in Calgary, Alberta—a melting pot of cultural diversity with a vast population of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern families. Living there, I was exposed to authentic flavors that until then had been mostly foreign to me. Such regular access to some of the most delicious food […]
I rarely tire of finding uses for all the beautiful, vibrant heirloom tomatoes from my garden. Whether I’m making a sauce to put away for the winter, piling slices high on crusty toasted bread with thick-cut bacon and crisp lettuce, blending them into my favorite silken gazpacho, or eating them straight from the cutting board […]
Take game-day snacking to whole new level. Queso. The uber popular Tex-Mex staple so ubiquitous in restaurants, bars, and game-day coffee tables across the country. Personally, I was never a big fan. In my initial queso-eating experiences, I found the stuff was always a two-ingredient concoction of melted processed cheese with canned tomatoes and green […]
Ask Chef Phyllis: I like Thai food and eat out at my favorite restaurant when I can. I live in Louisiana where seafood is abundant. I’m interested in a beef dish that is delicious and tender. Beef is my new favorite meat, but I’m not sure this dish will be easy to duplicate at home […]
I don’t know about you, but I’m totally not ready for summer to be over. Here in Colorado, the kids have just started school, and though I look forward to returning to a semblance of routine and getting down to some personal and home projects once the craziness of the past season is behind us, […]
I’ve been wrapping up our annual trip back home to the Pacific Northwest of British Columbia. This year’s adventure was full of lazy days at the beach, boisterous family reunions with cousins I haven’t seen in close to twenty years, peaceful explorations through lush, moss-draped forest groves, mountain hikes with incredible vistas, refreshing lake swims… […]
I can’t let the summer go by without sharing at least one post celebrating the season’s most prolific crop: the equally loved and loathed zucchini. Mid-August may be a little later in the season than I usually publish my annual zucchini post, but now that everyone is surely becoming sick of all that darned summer […]
Ask Chef Phyllis: It’s come to my attention after some reader emails that most of you think the slow cooker is a strictly wintertime vessel. After all, nothing sounds better on those cold winter mornings than coming home to chili con carne or a thick, hearty split pea soup. But to say that the slow […]
I remember the first time I had clafoutis (KLA-foo-tee). I must have been around thirteen, and the bakery where I worked had just received a shipment of plump, deep, burgundy cherries from the Okanagan, in British Columbia. My mentor Pascal immediately exclaimed that I simply had to try clafoutis, so he got to work whipping […]
It is now early August, and as I awoke this morning the first thought that floated across my mind was that winter is long gone, the delicate spring flowers have been replaced by bursting vegetable gardens, and the hot, lazy days of summer are in full swing. So, what’s to eat that keeps me on […]
I’ve often waxed poetic about my affection for Thai food. The harmonic combination of sour, salty, sweet, and spicy is like no other cuisine. I also admire the Thai love affair with street food: full of bright fresh flavors, crisp veggies, and quickly grilled or seared meats, and easy to eat with your hands. My […]
Ask Chef Phyllis: Summer is nearly here, and I love cold, creamy, mayonnaise-based potato and macaroni salads when we go to the beach or on a picnic. But everyone says that it’s unsafe to keep them in a cooler for too long. Is this true? Do you have ideas that will make me feel better […]
I grew up in Canada, and I’ve been interested in food as far back as I can remember, so I was quite surprised that I didn’t discover tourtière—possibly the most quintessentially Canadian food outside of poutine (fries, gravy, and cheese curds…if you’ve never tried it, you must!)—until my later years. Tourtière is a hearty meat […]
I’m not a big cereal fan, but I used to be. Back in my younger (less knowledgeable) years, I indulged in my fair share. And though it wasn’t optimal, cereal was one of the only things I had an appetite for when I was pregnant. Luckily, my mother was pretty strict about the quality of […]
Even though the bright beauty and flavor of citrus brightens up the bleakest months of winter, when citrus is at its peak, I’ve always felt that these lively, juicy fruits are much better-suited as a welcome respite from the heat of the summer months. Lemons are a constant in our house, with their neutral flavor […]
Bread is the Staff of Life; so the saying goes. It’s no secret that since the discovery of agriculture, bread has been a staple food in nations all over the world. From baguettes slathered with butter in France, to tortillas in Central America, Roti in South Asia, and dense rye breads in Scandinavian regions, each […]
Thanks to a heightened interest in eating for health, and mainstream acceptance of making use of the whole animal, organ meats have made a bit of a comeback lately. Yet, while this resurgence in popularity is certainly creating more interest for the average home cook, few people know ways to integrate them into their diet […]
So, hopefully, by the time this post is released, the summer season will finally be upon us. Presently, it is snowing outside as I write this; my animals are confused, and my poor lilacs took a serious beating—ahhhh, nothin’ like a good old Colorado seasonal slip-up…. Now, where was I? Oh yes, dreams of warmth […]
Ask Chef Phyllis I have a field of wild asparagus—at least I think it’s wild). We’ll have a lot for about a month only. Is this common? Will it keep long once we cut it, or can it be frozen? I don’t think I’ve seen asparagus in the frozen section at our supermarket. Do you […]