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Fried Halloumi with Tomato Sauce
Halloumi is one of those cheeses that holds shape when it heats, going gorgeously soft inside and crisping up a little on the outside rather than going gooey-melty. Fried Halloumi with Tomato Sauce is a nice, simple dish that works best in the Summer, when all of the fresh ingredients are at their peak flavour. Halloumi is a soft, brined cheese that can be found in many Canadian grocery stores – it’s a salty cheese that holds its shape well when heated. I like to eat it fried, on its own as a snack, or raw, but the sweetness of the tomatoes helps vary the flavours on your tongue, and cuts…
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White Pizza: Caramelized onions, mushrooms, and roasted garlic
One night, I was feeling adventurous and decided to try making pizza crust. Out of that batch, there was enough crust for two pizzas; one with a tomato base, and one white pizza. The tomato-based pizza was pretty good, and has become a staple of my pizza repertoire. But the white pizza was delicious, and after a pizza night, my sides are usually aching from having eaten too much of it. So here’s the recipe! This was the first time I’ve tried making my own pizza crusts from scratch, and while I always find it a bit frustrating, the results are usually pretty good. I’m going to experiment a bit more before…
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Jalapeno-Cheese Dip
A delicious, spicy, cheesy indulgence! My sisters and I made this Jalapeno-Cheese Dip for the first time last February, when I’d just moved to Toronto for a new job and was feeling quite lonely in the big city. They came up to visit, and we made and ate this while mostly-ignoring the Super Bowl in my big, weird empty condo sublet. It’s definitely comfort food, definitely not an everyday dish, but a good warming appetizer for special occasions (like sister nights!). 2 8-oz packages of cream cheese 1 cup of mayonnaise 4-6 jalapenos, chopped and deseeded 1 cup of cheddar cheese, shredded 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese, shredded 1/4 cup diced green…
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Mini Doughnuts
A co-worker ((Shout-out to Georgia! Thanks for the recipe!)) brought these baked mini doughnuts to a potluck back in the Spring, and I ate about a dozen of them because they were so good, and I pestered her for the recipe until she surrendered it. But it’s been a busy year, and my dreams of mini doughnuts were put on hold. Last week I finally got myself over to good ol’ Tap Phong to buy some mini doughnut tins, and yesterday I found an unexpected gap in my schedule (I’m part of the team running the Toronto Christmas Market this year, and it’s been a fun, busy time), so I whipped up a…
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Buttermilk Pancakes
When I bake my favourite Chocolate Cupcake recipe, I’m always left with a huge amount of leftover buttermilk and no real idea what to do with it. Often enough, it would end up going to waste, until I started making this recipe. I always think of pancakes as being heavy, boring, and a bit of a hassle to make, but these Buttermilk Pancakes are quick, easy, and fluffy, and pretty good even without maple syrup. I bet they’d be great with honey, too, or with a little lemon juice and icing sugar, like Nana’s Crepes. Ingredients 2 eggs 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1…
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Chocolate Cupcakes
I swear, these chocolate cupcakes are the easiest thing in the whole world. You mix it all in one bowl. Â It takes less than 15 minutes, and then you pop them in the oven. Â Easy-peasy. Like many a child of the 80s, I grew up with cupcakes and cakes made from boxed cake mixes. Â Once I started baking and realized that making cakes from scratch required very little extra work, and resulted in a vastly superior flavour, I was kind-of confused as to why anyone thought that those boxed cake mixes were a good idea. To me, they always end up tasting like stale vegetable oil and sugar, even more…
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Ugly Soup
This is a recipe from my good friend and longtime co-conspirator Ashley, who is a great cook and sometimes posts recipes here. Some years ago when I was feeling pretty under-the-weather, she shared with me this recipe for a soup that she created. This is totally comfort food, for me, when the cold weather hits; it’s essentially a Chicken Noodle Soup, if Chicken Noodle Soup wasn’t salty, bland, and disgusting and was instead somewhat heavenly and delicious. Anyway, now you know where I stand on Chicken Noodle Soup. This recipe will do all of the things you want from said grotty soup, but will do them with vim, vigour, and…
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My First Hammam
My trip through Morocco has been terrific so far, with many serendipitous encounters and lots (and lots, and lots) of interesting, friendly new people. Last night at my Fez guest house, Pension Dar Bou Inania, I met an American woman who’s also traveling solo. Melissa joined myself and some other Canucks for breakfast at Cafe Clock (my home-away-from-home in Fez), and asked me over pancakes and fresh-squeezed orange juice if I’d be interested in joining her at the Hammam this afternoon. I’d tried to get to a hammam with some other travel friends in Meknes, but had missed the appointment, so I was happy to find a companion for our first…
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Nana-Approved Turkey Pot Pie
2017 Update: I posted this Turkey Pot Pie recipe in 2010, and two years later my lovely Nana died. This recipe still reminds me of her; her approval meant a lot to me. 2010 Original post: This is essentially a basic turkey pot pie recipe, but I like to think that I’ve particularly made it mine by emphasizing the thyme, salt, and pepper. This savoury pie could probably handle a little sage, too, but have a light hand – the thyme really makes it irresistible. And don’t be stingy with the salt and pepper. I find too that no matter how badly I think I’ve screwed up the homemade pastry,…
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Mango Chutney
About a week ago, I was grocery shopping and saw a flat of mangoes for $3. It was too good to turn down, but then I had a flat of swiftly-ripening mangoes kicking around my kitchen. So I took a look online at a bunch of recipes for canning mango chutney, combined a few, modified them to suit my own tastes, and came up with a mango chutney I’m pretty happy with. It’s a dead-simple recipe that would be a good one for first-timers, as it’s not too fussy and doesn’t take a lot o. Just remember to wash everything in hot, soapy water, and let everything air-dry – that’s…
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Pumpkin Pie
One of the greatest pleasures of Autumn is pumpkin pie. I wasn’t converted until I was well into my twenties; the idea of vegetables in desserts didn’t sit well with me. Nowadays, as soon as the weather turns cooler I start to think of the creamy deliciousness of my own homemade pumpkin pie. I got this recipe from Terri, who took me under her wing when I was at theatre school and away from my family for the first time. Whether for Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en, or just to celebrate Fall and harvest-time, this easy pumpkin pie recipe is exactly the thing you’re looking for. As with all of my sweet recipes,…
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Nana Cynthia’s Crepes
My Nana Cynthia gave this recipe to my sister Sammi when she was about 10; we wanted crepes, so Sammi called up Nana and copied down the recipe from her. We were all pretty amused to see that Sammi had spelled them ‘creaps.’ To my mind, paper-thin, hot crepes with lemon juice and icing sugar are both the only way to eat crepes, and they are the best treat in the world. But this crepe is a neutral base, and you can use it for sweet or savoury fillings. This recipe simultaneously reminds me of my Nana and my sisters as well as Paris, which I’ve visited in the Springtime…
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Apple Pie
Easy-peasy, lovely and delicious, Apple Pie is the perfect thing for just about every day, if you feel like it. I know oldsters and orchard-owners will tell you all kinds of things about which apples make the best pie, but I’d say that MacIntoshes and Granny Smiths are the absolute best apples for pie making that are regularly available in most grocery stores (in Canada, anyway). I know other apples hold together better in the pie, but taste is my issue, not texture, and you can’t beat Macs and Grannies for perfect sweet-tartness. If you want a pie that tastes less like a straight-ahead old-fashioned version and more like candied…
