Ratatouille au Gratin How to Cook Two Meals at Once Hosting adults is one thing. Hosting families is another. While children aren’t exactly demanding when it comes to decoration and music, they can be extremely picky with food. This typically leaves you with two options: “dumb down” your entire meal to accommodate everyone or make [...]

Zucca Trattoria tweets: “@TrialtoON that’s right! We are so impressed with Illuminati Riparosso ($12.55) we made a pasta especially for it.” Sagne e Fagioli All’Abbruzzese Recipe created by Andrew Milne-Allan, Owner/Chef (Serves 4) Ingredients 250 g all-purpose  flour 150 ml warm water salt 250 g romano beans, fresh or frozen garlic, sage 2 good quality [...]

Tagliatelle with Mushroom Ragù A rich, hearty pasta dish featuring earthy mushrooms in a tomato red wine sauce. The recipe is fairly quick to prepare for an easy weekday meal. Enjoy the dish with a fruity, lush red like Illuminati Riparosso Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2009, a terrific bargain at $12.95. Serves 4 to 6 Ingredients 1 [...]

Crowd pleasing and soul satisfying.  This hearty pasta dish is the ultimate comfort food.  The recipe can be prepared ahead and refrigerated overnight making it the perfect dish to serve game day.  Pair it with a fruit forward, full-bodied red like Alamos Malbec 2010. Serves 8 to 10 1 lb. ziti or rigatoni pasta 1 [...]

When the weather outside turns frightful, there’s nothing more satisfying than staying home with a warm meal and a good glass of wine. A steaming bowl of stew, a mouth-watering prime rib or a heaping plate of pasta can bring comfort on the worst winter nights. But the meal just isn’t complete without the perfect [...]

  Italian Sausage and Beef Shank Ragú Paired with Alamos Cabernet Sauvignon Fall is upon us. Here’s to cozy sweaters, comfort food and full bodied reds. This hearty, meaty ragú, is made with flavourful bone-in beef shanks and hot Italian sausage, slowly simmered in a rich red wine tomato sauce. Don’t be daunted by the [...]

Steven’s Garlic Shrimp Spaghetti “We get rave reviews on our un-oaked Chardonnay-Pinot Grigio blend. It’s so versatile, as a refreshing aperitif, or paired with white fish, poultry or salad greens. We love asking guests what flavours they taste in it. Some say orchard fruits, others comment on its melon or citrus nuances.” – Steven and [...]

Foodie apps for iPhones and BlackBerrys are all the rage of late (PC Magazine recently did a roundup of their favourites), and leading the charge is sommelier and “unapologetically tipsy” wine lass Natalie MacLean. She recently launched a downloadable widget for her popular on-line drinks matcher, offering roadside assistance for LCBO-goers moored hopelessly between the [...]

Matching Green Food & Wine “Green food and green wine go together, so veggies dance with wines that have herbal, grassy aromas, such as New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc,” says Natalie MacLean. “In fact, if there were an award for Veggie Wine of the Century, it would go to this one. Not only does it have [...]

Dinner with wine used to be simple. The rule was white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat. But most of us don’t just eat meat and potatoes or drink claret and chablis these days. With modern fusion cuisine and wines from new regions around the world, the choices – and confusion [...]