Ramp Up Your Salads

Ramp up your salad. This culinary wild leek is making good dishes taste better. It’s what all the top chefs are twittering about. Because of its short supply and high demand, this flavourful ingredient has sky rocketed in price. It’s hard to forage here in BC because the original strains are more common on the east coast. I have found it here from the west coast but very limited supply. I will check out some sources as I travel to the northern regions of Vancouver island. I just talked to friend grower who is going through the stages of a long wet winter....

All Day Lover of a Bacon Ceasar Salad

All Day Lover of a Bacon Caesar Salad. As a chef making a Caesar Salad  the restaurants signature dish was one of the first staff training priority’s. Picking some good romaine lettuce requires several steps before plating. Making sure it’s free of rusty leaves, pesticides and grit. Washing and spin drying is absolutely necessary. Storage in a nice clean towel to ready to be chopped and tossed with your favourite caser dressing. Crisp Bacon Crunchy Croutons and Real Parmesan is a must. Olive Oil, Lemon, Garlic, Anchovy, Kosher Salt, Ground Pepper Fresh Egg...

Ruby Grapefruit and Golden Beet Salad Dr...

Ruby Grapefruit and Golden Beet Salad The Local Farms supplied me with such delicious salad greens and veggies last season, I’m looking forward to this years bounty here in the Dairy Capital of Canada. So many salads for me to find the right dressing for. This golden  yellow beet salad sure tastes good. The grapefruit makes this salad rock! Try adding a fresh honey raspberry flavoured balsamic dressing to kick it up a notch. As an executive chef in charge of the many cooking stations at large resorts, training staff the recipes was what a good chef did. I trained as...

Mouth Watering Ponzu Salad

Mouth-watering Ponzu Salad Ponzu Sauce is a tangy soy-based sauce.   It is traditionally made with a citrus fruit and was originally inspired by visiting traders from Holland during the 17th century. Fresh squeezed lemon juice and orange juice give this sauce a zippy citrus snap. It makes a great Asian style marinade and also a wicket salad dressing You will need; 1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice 1 tablespoon spring water [no chlorine] 1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine) 1/8 teaspoon crushed red...

Garlic/Wine Clams and Linguini.

Garlic/Wine Clams and Linguini. These tasty little neck butter clams sure made this quick pasta dish taste mouth-watering. Simple to do, and man does it taste scrumptious. Scrub up a kilo of clams and hold in some ice. Follow directions and blanche off your linguini noodles. Try and time it so you can add it right to the clam mixture when it is cooked al dente. In a thick bottom sauté pan heat to medium high add tbs of olive oil and a tbs of minced garlic. Stir and do not scorch. Add in a cup of cut up roasted tomatoes, some fresh basil and a half cup of good pinot gris...

Pioineer Beef BBq on a Bun

Beef BBQ on a Bun Back when my dad worked at the Iroquois Hotel during the 50’s, it was a very busy hotel and known for its good food. A lot of kitchen help was needed and a lot of the area mom’s filled the many positions as cooks and restaurant help. As the decades changed a lot of the ladies were trained to be good cooks and carried on cooking in other Galt/Preston/Hespeler restaurant kitchens. They were the one’s responsible for cooking up good fare in places like The Knotty Pine, Preston Pioneer BBQ, Moffatt’s, Breslau and numerous other dinning establishments...