The Christmas book haul was extraordinary!! I received several books I had been hinting oh-so-tactfully that I wanted, as well as a few others which, while I didn’t really know much about them before, make great additions to my library! Out of the books I received, Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes…
Category: In the Kitchen
Mexican Chocolate Chile Cookies
It’s Boxing Day but I still have a couple cookie recipes I wanted to post before Christmas, before I was railroaded by situations with the pets and ridiculous car troubles (we’ve used CAA’s towing services three times in a week, including on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – yay). So bear with me while I…
Prize Shortbread
Every Christmas for as long as I can remember my Mom made these little coin-sized shortbread cookies with green and red maraschino cherries (before we go any further, it’s an absolute myth that maraschino cherries contain formaldehyde). This is another well-loved recipe from my ancient copy of A Guide to Good Cooking by Five Roses…
Vanilla Almond Crescents (a.k.a. Kipferl)
I made these cookies without knowing beforehand that they’re actually a traditional German cookie called Kipferl. I found this out while I was looking for a recipe for Lebkuchen, a German Christmas cookie that I love but have never made from scratch before. Chris’s family has German/Lithuanian heritage so I’ve become more interested lately in…
Psychedelic cookies
I haven’t made these before but they look so cool that I just had to try them out, and they’re pretty simple too. These, and most of the Christmas cookies I make annually are from an ancient, well-loved copy of A Guide to Good Cooking by Five Roses Flour. I have no idea how old…
My ugly carrot cake that tastes like heaven
A couple of months ago I was reminded of my own fantastic carrot cake recipe when my pal Alice made it as her son’s first birthday cake. I hadn’t made it ages, and the other day Smitten Kitchen posted her own recipe with a maple-cream cheese frosting which I just had to try out. You…
Pumpkin pie filling, from scratch
In all the years I’ve been exploring new recipes there’s one realm I’ve avoided nearly completely. Pies. I’ll make apple crisp, I’ll make graham cracker crusts, but pies? I think I’ve been long-scarred by a couple of early attempts at making crusts which failed miserably into disintegrated dough. And well if you don’t have a…
Prosciutto, walnut, blue cheese and pear pizza
I have to give credit to my pals Adria and Brad for this one, but its so damn good I can’t not share. First of all, I have a bread machine and I love to use it to make pizza dough. I’m not going to give a recipe because bread machines all differ in their…
What. A. Week.
It’s been hell on wheels this week at work – and while I’ve resolved myself to leave the shop talk out of my blog, I’ll just say it ain’t over yet. Today was a work day (yes, its Saturday), and next week will be nearly utter insanity, with our biggest fundraiser of the year. But……
Cheesecake with Lychee Sauce
Yesterday was a good friend’s 30th and while I wasn’t coordinating the surprize party, I was asked if I would make a dessert. The only thing I was told was that the guest of honour’s favourite flavour is lychee. So I did a little hunting around and decided to make a traditional baked cheesecake with…