Clarifying Clarified Butter

_DSC0446Ever heard of ghee or clarified butter? In an effort to use more whole-some and truly “natural” ingredients, ghee and clarified butter have made a come-back in many cookbooks – or maybe they really have never left – and are often used instead of highly refined plant oils. Do you regularly use it? Do you know why so many recipes do? Have you ever made it? Today we’ll look at ghee and clarified butter in more detail. My grandmother and mother regularly use it, always having a little bowl of it in the fridge or cold pantry. Let’s see what’s all the fuss about ghee. Come and cook with us! Continue reading “Clarifying Clarified Butter”

An Ode to Oats

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I like a personal challenge, particularly when it involves food. So when my son invited a few friends to a sleep over, I resisted the immediate gratification I would receive from indulging them with a breakfast of pancakes, doused in syrup with a side of bacon. Imagine those happy faces. Instead, I decided to make oatmeal. And guess what? They all loved it! Yes, sure, bacon sells, but so do oats! Come and cook with us! Continue reading “An Ode to Oats”

It’s Back-to-School Night: Let’s Eat Clean

photo 4If you have kids, you’ve probably been to a few Back-to-School events to kick off the scholastic year with a guide on what’s ahead. Well, why not take this week to review what we consider our best practices in the world of food shopping, cooking and eating. We’ve heard it all before, but it’s just good to bring to mind what we already know before we forge ahead into another year of over scheduled feeding frenzy. To borrow a widely-used and very intuitive headline for this exercise, let’s call it our Clean Eating Best Practices. Clean, because when it comes to food, our bodies can only be as clean as the foods we feed them! Come and cook with us! Continue reading “It’s Back-to-School Night: Let’s Eat Clean”

Garlic Butter

IMG_3552_2When I was in college, my sister met a Australian boy traveling through Europe on her train ride to Milan. In a sign of compassion, she invited him to spend a few nights on our couch. After all, he didn’t have a place to stay. Long story short, he ended up making us dinner – he was an aspiring chef and, apart from teaching him a thing or two on how to cook pasta properly, he left me with the gift of garlic butter. Come and cook with us! Continue reading “Garlic Butter”

Fed Up with Your Food?

photo 13It sure seems as if we can’t agree on what food is best for us. Maybe that is because those in charge of formulating the messages we hear the loudest follow an agenda that is not aligned with what’s best for our health in the long run. The main problem is that fresh produce doesn’t come with a marketing budget, or a healthy profit margin. And whether we want to admit it or not, advertising works and if it’s true that 98% of food related ads that children view (3920/year) are for products high in fat, sugar and sodium, how can an apple ever have a chance! We are constantly bombarded by the media with information on junk science, fad diets and food industry propaganda. So what is one to do? Come and cook with us! Continue reading “Fed Up with Your Food?”