This quick and simple salad is perked up by the addition of slivered stem ginger. Stem ginger is an ingredient that doesn’t get as much love as I think it should. It’s usually found in the baking aisle, but at times I have seen it hiding rather uncomfortably in the aisles that house ‘international ingredients’ and/or random salad dressings. From the Good Food Channel: Preserved... 

In the 80′s there were no two bigger rivals in the local Beer trade than Stag and Carib. Both had ad campaigns using local musical icons and slick marketing campaigns. In the above minimalist ad, Calypso King of the World, The Mighty Sparrow waxes poetic on its virtues Although in random talks with people Stag seemed to be the sentimental favourite, at the end of the day it was Carib though... 

Banana ‘trees’, Lady Young Road, Morvant “Time, time, time, see whats become of me While I looked around For my possibilities” – A Hazy Shade of Winter, Simon & Garfunkel I had the best intentions where blogging has been concerned, but like Simon & Garfunkel intimated time has a funny way of moving steadfastly on while we are preoccupied with our own visions.... 

Hey, I’m back! For now at least I think this is the longest I’ve been ‘away’ since getting back into my blogging groove. My profuse apologies but sometimes, offline demands make themselves unavoidable and require all my attention! So this and my next few posts (until the end of June) will be haiku-like in their brevity. This ricotta gnocchi was my first entry towards the... 

MMMMMMMMM. These were so good! And SO SIMPLE! Some peeled core apple, some puff pastry. A little butter and sugar and that’s it! Oh c’mon! Even the most kitchen phobic amongst you can make this one. With my heart shaped cookie cutters I really went to town. Ever the experimenter I decided to play around with the toppings. In addition to the sugar and butter topping that Dorie uses in... 

Did ya think I’d forgotten ya? Hardly! However from now until the end of June I’m focused on some work-related activities that are extremely time and energy consuming, so my apologies from now that updates will be rather sparse. However if all goes as planned I will be able to resume a much more prolific schedule again This time around I’m back with today’s Tuesdays With... 

Here it is, down to the wire. Still über busy but I wasn’t gonna let the posting date for this month’s Daring Baker’s Challenge pass me by! The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. I have made cheesecakes in the past but it’s been a long while and I was very excited to try this challenge... 

The past two weeks have been a blur, and I’ve fallen behind on food events and posts. Not that I haven’t been cooking, but finding time to sort and edit has been sorely lacking. In due in no small part to my having a heavier workload combined with 2 consecutive ‘truncated’ work weeks. One because of the local Easter Holidays, and the other because of the recently Summit of... 

I can scarcely believe that this post is so so late! It’s been ‘one of those weeks’ for quite some time now. And though I should be grateful for all the activity, I’m definitely becoming a bit worn and longing for a little tranquility. As a result of all the to and fro going on right now I only made this pie the day before it was due, and now I’m finally writing it up... 

I did it! I finally bit the bullet, pushed through my fear and made pasta! That’s right, thanks to Daring Bakers, I have finally achieved something that I’ve wanted to do since starting this blog in 2006 With the late showing of this post you would never believe that I actually made this lasagna over a week ago. What can I say? It’s been one of those weeks (for the past few weeks)!... 

Truck with corn, Churchill-Roosevelt Highway Tweet  Read More →

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Summit Of The AmericasFrom April 17-19 2009 Trinidad will host the Fifth Summit of the Americas. In recognition of this event, I am cooking my way through the dishes of the member countries. Enjoy! My first stop on my culinary tour of the member states that will be coming down to Trinidad next month for the Summit of the Americas is Peru, a country that I... 

It’s 3a.m. and I need to be up at 6 so I’ll keep this shorter than usual Coffee cake is not a fave of mine, so this wasn’t a great hit for me. Everyone else loved it though and that mattered more to me To be fair, it -is- extremely light and delicate, and the blueberries are not overwhelming in either flavour or textural contrast. If anything, that is probably where my disappointment... 

Why oh why couldn’t I have kept it simple? A quick and easy French pound cake, baked in a loaf tin and brushed with a marmalade glaze. Practically no room for error, right? That was until my eye caught the ‘Variations’ listed on the adjoining page, and my imagination ran wild with visions of a round layer cake filled with lemon curd. I suppose my first clue that maybe this would... 

Mmm hamantaschen. In this part of the hemisphere, hamantaschen is probably the most recognizable symbol of Purim. These three-cornered pastries are usually stuffed with jams and sweet pastes of various flavours. My favourite base recipe comes from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America,however my own twist is to use a filling of traditional ‘set fruit‘, combined with some chopped... 

This Sephardic Purim treat is rarely mentioned in Purim recipe lineups, overshadowed in familiarity by its Western European counterpart Hamantaschen. It’s a shame though, because this dessert is light, and deliciously addictive. Strips of dough are fried and sprinkled with confectioners sugar. I personally like to flavour the dough with a combination of almond and vanilla essences. The result... 

As my ‘raw’ adventures continue I find myself viewing the fruits and vegetables in supermarkets and roadside stalls with an almost reborn eye. This ice cream came about as a glut of soursops came into my line of sight and instantaneously caught my imagination. Soursop ice cream was a vague but pleasant memory from my childhood. For an extremely short time period in the early/mid-80′s... 

This is a recipe whose origins have become lost to the sands of time (and disorganization), however it is fast, nutritious and never fails to please. It’s a regular part of my Purim menu because of the prominent role that chickpeas play in that festival. In Trinidad cuisine chickpeas are routinely served curried or fried. Rarely do they get to shine, relatively unadorned, as the main star. This... 

Hummus is a never-fail crowd pleaser and so deceptively easy to prepare! I love to offer hummus as a starter at Purim because chickpeas figure so prominently in the Purim story. This recipe comes from one of my favourite cookbooks The Sephardic Table: The Vibrant Cooking of the Mediterranean Jews (you can read my review here). Although I have tried many hummus recipes and am not opposed the occasional... 

I’m a huge fan of soups, especially thick creamy soups, so this butternut squash bisque was right up my alley. It’s sweet and savoury, all in one, and so so smooth. As with most soups I find that slow cooking the vegetable components until they deeply caramelized ensures the most flavourful result, and don’t be afraid to salt the vegetable base in between additions as well. It...