Root Vegetable Gratin It only tastes like you slaved over it. In an ideal world, your refrigerator is always filled to the point of bursting and you have all the time you need to cook a meal that everyone will love. In reality, however, your refrigerator may be pretty barren, especially towards the end of the week. And having lots of time? Let’s not even go there. Fortunately, I have a wonderful recipe that requires only a handful of ingredients and a few minutes of preparation time: Root Vegetable Gratin, featuring Canadian Provolone. What’s especially nice about this recipe, beyond […]
Food & Wine Pairing
Squash Brulee Paired with Riesling or Gewurztraminer
By: Travis Oke Autumn is my favorite season. Not just because it’s my birthday and I get presents – but also because of the food. Parsnips, squashes of all shapes and sizes, and it’s now cold enough in the afternoon that I want to slow roast various cuts of animals in my oven. Three cheers for slow cooked meat. A trip to the local squash farm is one of my favorite activities. Grey, red, white, stripy – it’s crazy how many there are at the Goode Family Farm near my place in Guelph. My favorite thing to cook is the […]
Red Wine Glazed Meat Loaf Recipe Paired with Tilia Cabernet Sauvignon
Red Wine Glazed Meat Loaf Not your mother’s meat loaf! A red wine reduced glaze caramelizes on top as the dish bakes. Moist, tender comfort food and the perfect pairing for a full bodied, juicy red wine like Tilia Cabernet Sauvignon from Argentina. Red Wine Glazed Meat Loaf Ingredients: For the glaze: 1 ¼ red wine ¼ cup brown sugar 1 tomato, seeded and finely diced 1 tsp molasses pinch of allspice For the meat loaf: 2 thick slices bacon, cut into matchstick sized pieces 1 small onion, finely diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup fresh bread crumbs ¼ […]
Thanksgiving Wines: Turkey, Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce
My latest column in Active Adult Magazine has lots of terrific wines for your Thanksgiving dinner, including pairings for roast turkey, stuffing or cranberry sauce. You can also find my tips for pairing Thanksgiving (or Christmas) turkey and wine in Reuters (second story), Kansas City Star, The Vancouver Province, The Star-Ledger, Contra Costa Times and The Star-Gazette. Let’s give thanks for all of these great bottles!
Wine and Cheese Tasting on Google Video Hangouts October 10
The Wine & Cheese Gang is back together again for another Google + Video tasting on October 10 at 8 pm. After the fun we had during our first tasting, we started planning this one. The wines and cheeses are different, but we’ll take the same conversational approach, weaving in some great insights on pairing wine and cheese. Taste along with us that evening! In the meantime, we’ll also be on Twitter using the hash tag #CDNcheese. Cheers! La Fromagerie du Presbytère Bleu d’Élizabeth, Sainte-Élisabeth-de-Warwick, Quebec Elizabeth Blue is an organic semi-soft cheese made from pasteurized milk with non-interior mold. […]
Fast Food and Wine: Drinking Outside the Box
Knowing that Kobe beef with braised oxtail and potato rosti will make Château Pétrus sing is useful if you have a fat trust fund and a kitchen staff of twenty. However, most of us are racing from work to soccer practice to ballet class and then home again, so we’re far more apt to grab some take-out food or heat a frozen TV dinner than to prepare a multi-course dinner every night of the week. Although wine consumption has increased 20 percent in the last five years, only 42 percent of drinkers say that they have wine with take-out […]
Kung Pao Chicken Recipe with Grant Burge Summers Chardonnay
Grant Burge Summers Chardonnay won a Silver Medal at the Hong Kong International Wine Challenge 2011 for ‘Best Wine Paired with Kung Pao Chicken’. I was inspired to create a version of this classic dish for the home cook to enjoy. Kung Pao Chicken Ingredients: For the marinade: 3 boneless chicken breasts cut into small cubes 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry 1 tbsp cornstarch For the sauce: 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp Chinese black vinegar or rice vinegar 2 tsp sesame oil 1/3 cup water 3 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice […]
Hearty Lentil, Pesto and Colby Soup with Cotes du Rhone or Pinot Noir
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 help. So this week I’m suggesting a nutritious and delicious recipe that is so fast to prepare it will leave you with enough time to treat yourself to a nice glass of wine. This hearty lentil, pesto and Canadian Colby soup pairs wonderfully with Côte […]
Wine and Corn, Tomato, Steak Pairings: Fine Cooking Magazine
I’m not letting go of summer until the first official day of fall, which is still a few weeks away. Now is the time to enjoy luscious tomatoes, sweet corn, grilled steak, field berries and other late summer treats. I’ve paired them with wines in the latest issue of Fine Cooking magazine. Carpe diem!
Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin and Spinach Salad Recipe with Southbrook Cabernet Franc Rose
Spice rubbed pork tenderloin and spinach salad with summer fruit and curry vinaigrette This spice mix is a blend of sweet and heat. A bright, vibrant rose with touch of sweet fruit freshness would be a terrific match for this main course salad. A delicious choice would be Southbrook Triomphe Cabernet Franc Rose 2011, an organic wine from the Niagara Peninsula. Serves 4 Ingredients for the pork one 2¼ to 2½ lb pork tenderloin, trimmed ½ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp garlic powder ½ tsp cumin seed ½ tsp fennel seed ½ tsp chili powder ¼ tsp black pepper 1 tsp […]
