Oh hey. Remember me? Yeah, I know it's been a while... but I have a really good explanation.
You see, for most of the last six months, my kitchen was under construction. Which kind of makes it hard to come up with new recipes.
The longer version of that story is that The Mister and I realized that since the Toronto real estate market is completely bonkers overpriced, the little starter home we bought a decade ago was now, for better or worse, our forever home....
I know I say this every year, but it feels like summer's flown by in the blink of an eye. Asparagus season feels like it was just yesterday, but here we are, knee deep in peaches and blueberries and corn.
Which can only mean one thing.... the onslaught of back to school ads is just around the corner.
Sigh....
This is a sponsored post on behalf of Dairy Farmers of Canada.
As a compulsive list-maker, I have a list for pretty much everything – a list of books I’ve been meaning to read, a list of things I need to fix around the house, a list of things I want to do with my summer, and a list of terrible puns I can use for blog post titles.
My favourite list, though, is all of the unforgettable foods I want to re-create in my own kitchen, mostly because I can’t afford the plane ticket (or in some cases, the time machine) to go back to the place I first tried them every time I have a craving....
We're counting down the days to a couple of pretty momentous events this week.
One is Canada's 150th birthday, which will involve a whole lot of epic celebrations from coast to coast, along with the mass consumption of many iconic Canadian foods like butter tarts, poutine, Timbits and beer.
The other is my big home renovation, which involves going through ten years' worth of clutter, packing up my worldly possessions, and moving into a teensy basement bachelor apartment for the next couple of months....
No matter how hard I try, I will never learn to be a morning person. However, I've learned to fake it pretty well as long as I've chugged a large cup of coffee and put some breakfast in my belly.
The only catch is that my commute to the office is a gauntlet of bad breakfast choices - sugary donuts, oversized muffins, puffy bagels slathered with cream cheese, and worst of all, those oh-so-delicious (and oh-so-bad-for-me) greasy breakfast sandwiches....
I'd like to think I'm pretty knowledgeable about a wide variety of things. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but if you want to go up against me in a game of Trivial Pursuit, you best be ready to get served.
However, when Gay Lea asked us to write about kids in the kitchen this month, I was a little bit stumped at first... mostly because the closest thing I have to a child is a bossy little tortoiseshell cat, and she's not particularly interested in people food unless it's roast chicken or tuna juice....
I know we're just a week into 2017, but this year's off to a rough start... at least, that's how it feels right now.
Warning: I'm about to get really personal and philosophical over here, so go ahead and scroll to the bottom for the recipe if you're just here for the muffins.
...
I'm a sucker for things that come in pretty packages.
That's probably why I couldn't resist splurging on a box of Dorset Cereals muesli the first time I spotted the display in my local supermarket.
Thankfully, what's inside the box is just as tasty as the outside is pretty, and definitely worth every penny....
Why is it that a new year always makes me feel like I need to turn the page and fix my bad habits?
It's not like I've ever managed to stick to any of my New Year's resolutions for any amount of time, and after 30-cough-cough-cough years on this planet, I've learned that change only stick when they come in their own time, and not just because we've flipped our calendars to a new page....
Call me superstitious if you want, but I firmly believe my first sip of coffee is a sign of what kind of day I'm about to have.
Most of the time, my morning coffee is just as straightforward and ordinary as my standing order - one large coffee, one cream, one sugar.
Some days, though, my coffee is bitter and burnt, or the coffee shop gets my order completely wrong.
That's when I know I'm in for a rotten mess of a day.
The only way to rescue the day is to crawl back into bed, but since that's usually not an option, I just take it as a sign that I should stiffen my upper lip and expect the worst....
One of the best parts of being a grownup is not having to play by the rules when it comes to food.
Eat a slice of cake for breakfast? Sure! Eat your dessert first? Why not! Cook an entire pack of bacon for dinner? Damn straight.
Of course, I don't actually do any of those things on a regular basis, which is probably a huge source of disappointment to my inner twelve-year-old, but at least makes my doctor very happy when I drop in for my annual checkup....
When I was growing up, one of the highlights of my week on hot summer days involved strapping on my sparkly jelly shoes, gathering up my hair into a big pouf using a fashionable scrunchie, clipping my high-tech yellow Walkman to my belt, and dashing to the corner store with allowance in hand to buy myself a treat.
(Yes, I really am that old. Now get off my lawn.)
Like most kids in the neighbourhood, I had various strategies for maximizing the allowance to treat ratio.
Personally, I preferred to skip over the less desirable treats (namely, anything that didn't contain chocolate) and go straight for the good stuff - the biggest chocolate bar you could possibly buy with a single dollar bill....
In our house, we don't usually make a big deal out of Easter. Mostly, it's just an opportunity to spend a Friday morning sleeping in and an excuse to eat too much chocolate.
There are a few holiday traditions I absolutely refuse to live without, though, the most important of which is my annual hot cross bun binge-fest. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not Easter until I’ve gobbled up at least a half-dozen of those fruit-studded sweetly spiced buns.
...
In case you hadn't noticed, Valentine's Day is just around the corner, which means it's time to spend a little time showing some love to the most important person in your life.
And by that, I mean you.
That's right. YOU. You're totally awesome, and you should be giving yourself a little TLC.
...
Life, as they say, is all about finding balance.
It's about fitting in an extra workout so you can splurge on cheesecake for dessert, sitting down to a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast before tackling your crazy-long to-do list, or ordering a big salad with your greasy burger instead of fries.
Or, in this case, it's about using a stack of healthy multigrain pancakes to balance out a decadent bananas foster syrup.
Because surely one can be excused for having a rum-spiked sweet treat for breakfast when it happens to be paired up with a healthy dose of whole grains, right?...
As much as I struggled with fall's arrival this year, it still remains my very favourite season. I love the snuggly sweaters, the big scarves, the tall boots, the crisp morning air, the rustling leaves under my feet, and the long shadows at the end of the day.
I don't particularly care for the fact that it's pitch black by 5pm or that entire days can be swallowed up by a miserable cold grey drizzle (or worse, swirling flakes of almost-snow), but hey, nobody's perfect... right?...
There are several things in this world that I am simply incapable of resisting. Fluffy kittens, formulaic Regency romances, striped socks, flippy dresses, and buttery croissants.
Oh, and this Coffee Toffee Sauce that I made on the weekend.
Like any torrid love affair, it was love at first sight. It's like the deepest, darkest, roastiest caramel sauce you will ever taste, and it will ruin you for all other ice cream toppings. (OK, maybe all ice cream toppings except for hot fudge sauce... I still love you, hot fudge, even if it doesn't seem that way right now.)...
In case it wasn't totally obvious from my blog post, I am completely over this winter stuff. Like, beyond over.
And yet, the snow keeps falling and the arctic air keeps blowing, so I'm resorting to fighting back the only way I know how... through compulsive baking.
My personal preference will always be fresh-baked bread, but I don't always have the time to hang around the house and wait for the yeast to do its thing, which is where quickbreads come in.
As you might guess from the name, they're quick, and some varieties are even quite bready....
What's Canadian food, exactly?
It's a common enough question, especially when you're talking to someone who is new to Canada, when entertaining a first-time visitor from abroad, or when travelling abroad and talking to someone who's never been to Canada.
Sure, we've got regional specialties galore: cod tongues and scruncheons, rappie pie, Montreal smoked meat, poutine, butter tarts, Saskatoon berries, and Nanaimo bars... but is there any one dish that is symbolic of Canada as a whole?...
They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
I know this is meant to be a metaphor, but it's also true that what goes into your stomach has a direct impact on your heart.
Believe me, I know this firsthand. You see, when I went to see the doctor a year ago for a routine checkup, I discovered I had high blood pressure. And not just a little high. I'm talking about the this-girl-should-be-on-meds kind of high.
I couldn't even blame crappy genetics, because that kind of thing doesn't run in my family... it was just several years of bad eating habits and a couch potato lifestyle finally catching up with me. I wasn't exactly chowing down on Big Macs every day, but I'd still been eating way too many donut breakfasts, pizza lunches and steak dinners when I should have been hitting the salad bar instead....
It's the first Monday of the month, which can only mean one thing 'round these parts... it's Secret Recipe Club time again!
And this month, I've got a recipe for you that combines two of my favourite breakfast foods in one - Nutella and granola, together at last!
...Meet Nina Roy. Nina doesn't like egg nog. Not even the teensiest bit.
Personally, I think Nina is missing out on one of the best parts of the holidays. Then again, I spend most of December chugging egg nog like a frat boy on a bender, so I might be a bit biased.
In fact, you could say I'm something of an egg nog addict. I stir it into my coffee, warm it on the stovetop with some cocoa to make eggnog hot chocolate, and occasionally drink it straight from the carton when no one is looking. You know that person who stashes multiple cartons of eggnog in her fridge at the end of the holidays so she can stretch out the season for a few more weeks? Yeah, that's me....
As much as I am loath to fully embrace fall at first, I've usually been won over by its charms by the time October rolls around. Sure, I may grumble about the end of summer (and really, who doesn't, when it means saying goodbye to fresh corn and tomatoes for another year?), but it really is my favourite season when you get right down to it. Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed with all things pumpkin right now.
So when I received a review copy of The Sprouted Kitchen
I've been playing around with saffron a lot lately. I love the way that it lends a warm yellow colour to everything it touches, the way it adapts itself equally well to savoury or sweet dishes, and the way the smallest pinch of real saffron can perfume an entire dish with that undefinable flavour that is unmistakeably saffron.
So when I stumbled onto Bon Appetit's recipe for Saffron Panettone one day, I knew this was a sign from above. For one, I still had some candied Meyer lemon peel in my pantry, and one of the most important elements of a proper panettone is good-quality candied citrus. Also, I'd just bought some beautiful brown-and-gold parchment panettone molds at the neighbourhood kitchen shop (or, as I like to call them, my dealers-slash-enablers).
This recipe makes two medium-sized panettones, which means you'll have one for yourself, and another one to pass along as a gift. It's not quite as light and airy as some panettones I've had, most likely because I opted not to knead the dough quite as long as is traditional (some recipes suggest up to 50 minutes!), but I found that the loaves were still beautifully pillowy on the inside, with a fine crumb and a buttery-yellow colour thanks to the eggs and saffron.
Leftovers, assuming you don't devour the entire loaf in a single sitting, will go stale within a day or two. But don't despair - stale panettone can be used to make a fabulously upscale version of bread pudding, or some of the most decadent French toast you've ever had.
And while we're talking saffron, I must entreat you to use genuine saffron if you're going to bother with this recipe. Yes, it's notoriously expensive, but it's most definitely worth your while to splurge.
That small bundle of red threads packed into a tiny little box is surprisingly potent, which means a little goes a loooong way - you'll rarely use more than a pinch or two in any given recipe. Not to mention that while the imitators might be able to duplicate the colour of saffron, they never come close to duplicating the flavour. So skip your afternoon latte for a day or two, and splurge on a box of proper saffron instead. You'll thank yourself for it.
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