Strawberry Spinach Salad with Grilled Chicken

I love this recipe so much, that in the past week I’ve made it twice and I have the ingredients waiting in my fridge for a third run tomorrow.  I think the key is the vinaigrette and the very lovely, delicious, I can’t use it enough, Pinot Grigio Wine Vinegar.

The recipe is very simple.
For the [...]

Happy Birthday Baby

My husband turned 34 today and I made him this dish.  He called it my Bobby Flay Pasta because of the copious of amounts of jalapeno peppers.  It’s actually fajita blackened chicken over angel hair pasta tossed with roasted red and yellow peppers and a jalapeno pinot grigio cream sauce.  We paired it with a [...]

A Simple Braise

There was a time, early in my cooking life, when I thought I invented braising.  Of course I didn’t call it that, and when I finally invested in my cooking education and started reading about formal techniques, imagine my disappointment when the sexy sounding braise was nothing more than a good sear, a little wine [...]

La Ceiba

Last fall I was lucky enough to spend a few days at Belize’s Ka’ana boutique resort and had a quick lunch at their restaurant La Ceiba.
As with everything at Ka’ana, the beauty is in the attention to detail.  Our group had arranged to meet the new chef Sean Kuylen, who was there to tell us [...]

Poached Pears in Moscato Wine, Honey, Ginger and Cinnamon over Vanilla Bean Gelato

I was dreaming of something sweet, but not a pastry… for something refined but not complicated… a dessert that looked good, but more importantly tasted insanely good. Meet wine poached pears.

1 (750-ml) bottle Moscato wine
2 cups simple syrup
2 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons wild flower honey
1/4 cup fresh ginger, peeled, and finely [...]