The Kitchen Operas

This summer I was fortunate to eat again at my favourite west-coast spot: Chez Panisse. As part of my decadent meal, I had a gorgeous salad: “Willey Farms Eggplant & Rocket Salad with Red Onions & Mint” It was so good, I’ve been eating nothing but lemony arugula salads at home.  And then Solveig introduced [...]

Molly Katzen says these pickled onions “keep practically indefinitely” in the fridge, but I don’t think a batch will last you that long.

One of my absolute favourite foods is Spanakopita — you know, the lovely Greek spinach pastry wrapped in phyllo dough.  Now I love everything to do with spinach, but somehow the flaky pastry/spinach combo is my favourite.  (And to Sarina, I promise I’m working on a vegan version for you, hopefully for October’s Vegan Month [...]

So what’s a girl to do with leftover mung beans?  (Holy cow, a small amount dried turns into a huge amount of cooked mung beans!)  Why, make latkes of course! These would probably be better called fritters, patties, or even croquettes (like my White Bean, Parsley & Chive Croquettes!), but the texture and smell reminds [...]

Sometimes you just need sweet potatoes. And to herald the season of root veggies, I’ve put them in a savoury tart. This is not just any tart, this one is gluten-free and absolutely divine. I took it to a barbecue with our friends Mike & Tanya, and we really enjoyed slices of this tart along [...]

The inspiration? A line of text on a blog somewhere that said something like: “marinate kale in coconut milk for four hours, then grill”. You know that went to the TOP of my “To Make” List. And then I went researching, and found that there are all sorts of “grill kale marinated in coconut milk” [...]

So by now (if you are a regular Kitchen Operas reader) you probably know all about my friend Louise. You know, my foodie friend who made macarons with me, who introduced me to turning squash into “jam”, who convinced me I could poach an egg, who has mulberry and quince trees (!), who likes all [...]

I’ve been having a little too much fun catching up on foodie TV shows, and I have really enjoyed this season’s Top Chef Canada and The F Word (if you’re in Canada, you can watch them here). On one episode of The F Word, they featured Chinese dumplings, and I had to eat them immediately. [...]

I’ve been dreaming of savoury tarts.  I love them so.  And when a lovely bunch of Swiss chard arrived with its ruby red stems in my veggie box, I started dreaming of a Swiss chard tart. (Please ignore the photo quality… these are phone photos, as I’ve put my camera in a safe place.  You [...]

There’s a veggie food blog I read, Food Blog and The Dog (Cook Eat Live Vegetarian), where somehow, every post is something I want to eat.  This was especially true of the Butternut Squash and Chickpea Crumble with Caramelised Onions, Cream Cheese & Oaty Cheddar Topping.  Which looked so divine, I had to make it [...]