Meet Your Rainy Day Remedy April showers might bring May flowers, but in the meantime the rainy weather can get a touch depressing. While you’re waiting for the beautiful buds to bloom, cheer yourself up with a bowl of comforting Canadian Creamy Brie and Fresh Mushroom Soup. This deliciously hearty recipe will melt the blues [...]

By Pamela Hatton My Mom microwaves pie pumpkins in pieces to speed up cooking time.  Failing her instructions, I accidentally discovered all squash cook like a charm whole – as long as you poke holes deep into the flesh allowing steam to escape.  A lesson quickly learned… Serves 8 first course Ingredients: 1 acorn squash [...]

Take a mid-week break with fast and delicious comfort food. Hectic work days. Long commutes. Multitasking half a dozen household crises. How can parents be expected to prepare something tasty in the precious little time they have between getting home and their children’s first cries of hunger? They can’t be – not without a little [...]

Pat’s Harvest Soup Paired with Cave Spring Estate Riesling By Pat Anderson It’s fall, and the bounty of the harvest season is upon us. We’ve got a huge selection of vegetables at this time of year! Go to your local farmer’s market, and see what’s in season. You can use almost anything, from corn on [...]

By Pat Anderson Summertime, and sometimes it’s just too darned hot out to eat a hot meal. Soup and salad makes a great combination, especially if it’s a creamy cold soup that you’ve made in advance, and only needs to be poured from a pitcher in the fridge into bowls! Vichyssoise is an adaptable cold [...]

Most of us think of hearty wines with soups or stews because their meat and texture is appetizingly rich from slow cooking. These winter warmers often work, but you might also consider other ingredients. Spices, herbs and tomatoes add tangy notes that may call for wines with good acidity, while vegetables such as onions, carrots [...]

On a recent visit to Niagara, I was fortunate to spend time with Martin Malivoire of Malivoire winery, a producer of spectacular pinot noirs. We arrived at his gravity-flow winery by helicopter along with Magdalena Kaiser-Smit of the Ontario Wine Council. This gave us a terrific overview of the region (though I was glad to [...]