Posted by Billie-Jean | Oct 19th, 2010

Bacalau Salad

INGREDIENTS: 1 ½ pounds of salted cod fish, soaked overnight and then boiled the next day for 15 min.-saltiness according to taste. 1 avocado, peeled, roughly chopped 3 eggs, hard boiled, peeled, roughly chopped 1 medium Spanish (white ) onion peeled and sliced thin 1 large tomato sliced 1 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/3  cup white vinegar salt and pepper DIRECTIONS: In small bowl mix olive oil, vinegar,  salt...

Posted by Billie-Jean | Aug 7th, 2010

Potato and Green Bean Salad

This is a dish that my friend Giovanna taught me how to make.  She said this is a classic Italian dish that appears at most of her family meals. Italian Potato and Green Bean Salad Ingredients New potatoes boiled whole and chopped in half later.  Do not over cook them or they will be mushy.  You can even make them  ahead of time and refrigerate them until you are ready to use them. Green Beans blanched; again...

Posted by Billie-Jean | Aug 3rd, 2010

Sicilian Meaty Tomato Sauce

I had the pleasure this weekend of spending time with friends and cooking.  My friend Giovanna grew up in an Italian home.  Her parents were first generation Italians from Sicily.  We are both extreme foodies so the thought of growing up with such rich cultural heritage would be a dream come true for me.  As we talked she reminisced about how her parents prepared food.  She remembers 3 days dedicated just to...

Posted by Billie-Jean | Jul 21st, 2010

Vegetable Jalfrezi-the star, David Labistour.

Once in awhile, as if by chance, you stumble upon a flavor that is completely brand new to you.  Seemingly distant and exotic yet coming from a place as close as your own backyard.  Or, in my case, my cul-de-sac.  As if guided by the divine itself, I was led to the flavors of Vegetable Jalfrezi, it grabbed a hold of me, tossed me around like a used napkin and rendered me an eternal victim of its unique, sensuous...

Posted by Billie-Jean | Jan 4th, 2010

One duck.Three Meals.One Night.

I can’t even begin to describe how fabulous our Christmas Eve dinner was.  My friend Cindy taught me how to make a 3 course Peking duck dinner that was not only simple to make but each dish flowed perfectly into the next allowing us time to sit and chat between meals.  Find a list of all the ingredients we used here.  There are no precise measurements here, just taste everything as you go. The first thing...

Posted by Billie-Jean | Oct 13th, 2009

Gnocchi making 101-Jacoe style!

If you have ever imagined what an Italian/Canadian family would look like, Rogers’s family would definitely be it.  I don’t just imagine it though, I idealize it like in a movie.  The more I learn about his life in Nelson, the more enamored I am with all the idiosyncrasies of having an Italian father, who bakes, cooks, grows his own food, cans tomato sauce, and cooks out in his garage.  For years I have...

Posted by Billie-Jean | Sep 25th, 2009

Puerto Rico baby!

I would like you to meet my friend Andrea.  She first introduced me to Puerto Rican food 5 years ago and I have been hooked ever since.  The thing about her cooking is that the flavors are so unique and so addicting.  The bacalau salad is probably the only food where I have woken up in the night to go eat more.  Or, got up first thing in the morning to have as breakfast.  Once you have a taste for it, you can...