Daily Unadventures in Cooking

This beef stew recipe is why I love to cook. Simple, rustic and easy preparations lead to an amazing gravy full or lush flavour. Oh, how I love braised, stewy comfort food.

Fresh, simple, and delicious, this cassoulet recipe tastes very real. The fresh vegetables retain their colour and flavour and the dried beans cook up deliciously as they are simmered with the meat.

A light green chili based on tomatillos. The chicken and beans make it light and fresh, and the roasted poblano gives it a nice smokey sweetness.

A strong beer such as a stout has such a creamy, nutty, almost coffee like flavour that it is just beautiful with short ribs in this recipe.

Remember when lamb shanks and short ribs were cheap because they were peasant food? Yeah me neither, but so I have been told. Luckily, what does work is buying the meats when they are on special, and tossing them in the freezer. I picked up this pack of short ribs for about $5, tossed them [...]

I made this chili last week as the beginnings of my post-Christmas detox. Anybody else craving simple, light, healthy food yet? In actual fact, I made this between Christmas and New Years and am trying to start my detox over since it didn’t really stick. (In case you are curious in this house detoxing means [...]

I did manage another healthy slow cooker last night, but I will get to that postl ater in the week when I have more time.

Every Monday night I have a late meeting with our offshore team and so I try and get organized so I don’t have to cook (or eat crap) on Monday evening. Every week I have the best intentions, but usually this doesn’t so much happen and I end up eating one of Ichiban, takeout or [...]

This is like ratatouille with chicken. Except rather then fresh summer tomatoes I had to used a can of san marzanos. This was in an effort to use up what was in the cupboard and it worked quite well. I swear I could eat zucchini everyday and not be sick of it.

Thank goodness I was feeling lazy yesterday! It was pouring rain by the afternoon and I went out for a big run in the morning so all I wanted to do was curl up and read my book and bake a loaf of bread. So when we saw the stew meat I gave J [...]

One of the things that Rachael Ray does that I appreciate is her make-your-own-take-out meals. I have made a few of them with good success. (Before you stop reading Rachael Ray haters I did not do an RR recipe.) Here at the cabin we are very restricted by what can be cooked based [...]

Day 2 of my vacation was also good. I really wouldn’t have thought that yesterday’s dinner could top the one before it, but it did, or at least it was certainly a close call. Yesterday was raining, not just raining, but pouring almost all day long. So it was time for winter comfort food [...]

You know when you throw something together and then it turns out really well? But you didn’t.. say pay attention to what you were doing? Well that is this one. It was a major success in the slow cooker, as far as Beef Stew goes it was perfect. But I didn’t measure anything and [...]

Inspired by my favorite lamb shank recipe with white wine, tomatoes and garlic this has been adapted for the slow cooker or crockpot.

One of the cookbooks I got for Christmas was the The Gourmet Slow Cooker. I made the White Bean Chili from it yesterday and was quite impressed. I stuck to the recipe pretty closely except for the liquid, I had less white wine and chicken stock then required so I made up the extra with [...]

I had a very good birthday this year where I received loads of fun presents. One of which was a gift certificate to our local cookbook store. (Yes I know, a store just about cooking.) I had a really fun hour in there trying to decide which of the many books on my wishlist [...]

Another rainy day in Vancouver deserves another stewy meal. Lamb shanks are always a treat so when I saw these beautiful shanks at my grocery store I snatched them up eagerly. I was also proud that besides the lamb I had everything needed to make this meal already – including the mashed potatoes on [...]

I borrowed the Vij’s cookbook from my friend last week and when I saw this recipe it caught my attention instantly. Vij’s is one of Vancouver’s best restaurants, they serve intensely rich and imaginative Indian Fusion. I used the curry almost exactly as it was – except for two changes, I used [...]

Beef stew is perfect comfort food for this dismal stormy weather. I can’t even believe that we had another snowstorm today, that’s like four this winter which is unheard of for Vancouver. This recipe is based on Ina Garten’s Beef Bourguignon from The Barefoot Contessa cookbook. However, I added potatoes because I [...]