With piquant cheese, tender toasted pine nuts and crunchy, crisp greens, this salad is simple yet pleasing.
Often found in various dishes on a New Year's Eve banquet table, pine nuts represent fecundity, traditionally granting diners “a hundred sons.” These nuts also make a terrific cocktail-party snack.
A Canadian chef with Italian roots, Diana Bertuola modernizes classic gnocchi with roasted eggplant and toasted pine nuts, both classic ingredients from the Italian region of Veneto.
My fettuccine is a flavourful dish packed with healthy ingredients, and is a perfect vegetarian entree. The dish will be served hot, all except for the goat cheese that will be added at the end, only to allow it to slowly melt on top. I have been a vegetarian for about 6 years now, and I have never felt better. I love to research various local farmers in the Niagara Region, and buy fresh ingredients. I decided on this dish by researching in-season produce for November when the contest will published in the Canadian Living Magazine. Mushrooms came up, and kale is such a healthy green that along with the pine nuts and goat cheese, this entree is packed with protein and fiber.
The flavours of this simple appetizer or main course allow the characteristic of each ingredient to shine through.
This "steak" is vegetarian-friendly but hearty enough for any meat lover.
These attractive hors d'oeuvres from our new cookbook, Canadian Living Cooks (Random House Canada, 2003, $29.95) are served everywhere from Genoa to Sicily and Catalonia to Provence.
