If you’re like me and your husband is working on Valentine’s Day then you’ll want to take advantage of the time you do have – the morning. Here are a few make-ahead, make the morning of and liquid breakfasts that will sweeten up your special day.
If you live in Niagara, you know about Commisso’s, the best grocer of the region. A few times a year, they have product tastings. The store will be filled with balloons and at the end of a balloon in another tasting. The tastings could be or free-trade chocolate, organic popcorn, or health products. It becomes a tasty learning experience and a chance to ask some questions of some experts that are traditionally not there. The fun part is you go around, taste, talk and get a passport signed. A completely signed passport enters you into a draw. Each taster […]
In the big city with an appetite for great food and don’t know where to go in the sea of restaurant advertising – ughhh. So here’s a great tip – Richmond Station. On the corner of Young and Richmond, Richmond Station is everything you’d expect in a trendy Toronto eaterie. Enter from street level and the narrow restaurant is accentuated with a long communal table, natural elements of brick, wood and soft lightening. It opens up at the back into a split level room and more private dining up above. At the back of the room is the ‘chef’s table’ […]
If you’re like me and you absolutely love winter walks in the snow, being pampered with amazing cuisine and activities that stretch your culinary muscle, here are a few of my pics for amazing Ontario winter excursions that will make February taste as it never has before. Oxford County Cheeses Trail: Spend a romantic weekend at The Elm Hurst Inn (with discounted winter rates) and take your time working your way along the cheese trail tasting artisan cheeses in Ontario’s dairy capital. Gunn’s Hill Artisan Cheese even has a Cheesemaker for the Day event. For a special romantic dinner, […]
Walking down the streets of Rome, you’re sure to pass coffee shops and small pizzerias with trays of irresistible paninis. The king of sandwiches, paninis in Italy are a far cry from paninis in North America. And just for the record, no paninis are not grilled cheese sandwiches! In Italy, paninis are made with a special flat bread called Piadina. Padina is baked on giant pans that resemble cookie sheets. They’re a fascinating spectacle, about 2-feet by 4-feet. Each coffee shop or pizzeria will have a quarter or half of one of these giant flatbreads delivered fresh each morning. […]
Pull it from the oven with crusts of burnished bronze, the aromas of simmering sauces intermingling with luscious cheeses and rich meats rise up to fill a room. Baked pastas with layers of cheese, spinach, sausages, pancetta, mushrooms and piping hot, glistening macaroni is soul warming on a cold day. Baked pasta dishes are the quintessential one-dish meals and best make ahead dishes. We all recognize lasagna, baked pasta shells with spinach and the classic macaroni and cheese, but these popular dishes are just the beginning. The sky’s the limit when it comes to creating baked pasta dishes. You […]