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Morroco-Inspired Carrot Salad
This Morocco-inspired carrot salad is perfect; healthy, lemony carrots and chickpeas with the salty feta and pistachios and a nice hit of sweetness from the dates and pomegranate arils.
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Black Bean Chipotle Soup
A deliciously spicy, flavourful soup that’s warming and filling. This time of year, I like bright, spicy flavours and hearty soups that kick you out of your post-festivities malaise and get you back into the kitchen. This soup was serendipitous; I didn’t feel like cooking, and I was irritated that the grocery store didn’t have half of the ingredients I needed for the recipe I wanted to make. I felt grumpy that I had to come up with something on the fly, and thought this was going to be one of those soups that you made and ate dutifully without really enjoying it. I cooked it based on a recipe,…
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Cassie’s Banana Bread
This is my sister Cassie’s banana bread recipe; I made it for the first time this week. Cassie’s critique was that I mashed the bananas too fine – she likes more chunks of banana in the baked loaf. So keep that in mind! This is a nice, straightforward recipe that turns out delicious every time – or at, least every time I’ve eaten it! Cassie’s Banana Bread Ingredients 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/3 cup melted butter 2/3 cup honey (less with more banana) 1 egg, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon baking soda a pinch of salt Directions Preheat the oven to 350…
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2019: A long walk, and then a run
This year has been a series of pleasant surprises, which has been a real relief after a couple years with many good things in them but also many painful, unpleasant surprises. It has been disruptive, and healing, and energizing, in ways I could never have expected. A kick in the ass In February, after five incredible, successful, stressful years, the Distillery District eliminated my position. It was initially shocking, and for about an hour after I got the news I was entirely spun. But once the reality set in – five months of severance, and a bit of a rest – it felt a bit like winning the lottery. I’d…
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Glazed Baked Ham
Baked Glazed Ham has replaced our Roast Turkey at Christmas Dinner - it's delicious, easier and faster than a turkey, and is a nice change if you're looking to do something different.
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Bûche de Noël
This is our family’s favourite recipe; there are loads of different ways you can make a Bûche de Noël or Yule Log, but this one, with a flourless cake and whipped-cream filling, is (in our opinion) the best one. This recipe is very quick and easy to make; on Boxing Day, I usually bake the cake in the morning before I put the turkey or ham in the oven. That gives the cake lots of time to cool, and I usually assemble it and make it presentable before the meat is done roasting. You can also make it the day before. When we’re feeling energetic on Christmas Day, we make…
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Wassail – Mulled Ale
Wassail is an old tradition, going back to pre-Norman England and possibly earlier. There seem to be at least two kinds of wassailing: one kind carried door to door in a large wooden bowl to toast neighbours, and one to visit apple orchards (particular to apple-growing regions) or fields and livestock to ask for a good growing and harvesting season in the coming year and to scare away evil spirits. Like lots of old, regional traditions, it’s pretty confused and tangled-in with other traditions. Those traditions might have been unique from one village or family to the next, all in place for hundreds of years before anyone thought to write…
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Mulled Wine – Glühwein
Glühwein translates as ‘glowing wine,’ and I agree that it adds a glow to the season. In my time at the Toronto Christmas Market, the smell of mulled wine was one of the most evocative scents of the season, and a glass of it at the end of a long, cold day sent me home with a warmth in my heart. People have been drinking spiced wines since the Roman period at least, and the earliest recipe that we have is from 1390, which is older than any of the other recipes I’ve been able to find for my other festive drinks. This is another drink that was given to…
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Eggnog
I have never been an eggnog fan, at least not of the stuff I usually see at festive events – the eggnog that comes in a carton from the store. But I always thought I might like it a lot more if I tried making it from scratch, and this weekend my sisters and I decided to try it out – and I was right. In the older sources I can find, Eggnog is characterized as ‘an American drink,’ though it’s thought to be related to the old English possets. It’s often considered a good drink for people who are ill. I’ve read several times in modern recipes, without any…
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Lamb’s Wool
Lamb’s Wool is an old recipe, a drink that was made in celebration during the dark, festive season, often as part of the tradition of wassailing – in this case, a kind-of ritual toasting the apple orchards (and often other crops, fields, and livestock) to ask for a good harvest in the coming year. In the photo below, I’ve included some real rovings of natural wool from a sheep, so you can see that the colour is actually quite close to real wool. it also has a thick texture, that’s comforting, warm, and hearty. When I decided to try making it, I had a lot of research to do. Years…
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Cranberry Muffins
Update 2019: Ten years later, this is still my favourite muffin recipe! I usually load it full of cranberries, but you can substitute other fruit – I think raspberries work really well, and blueberries would probably be great. But I love the tart-sweetness of the cranberries, and i usually add more than this recipe calls for. I also really like the way maple syrup sweetens the batter – it seems to blend better (in my opinion) than honey does, but either is great. 2009 Post: This is my favourite muffin recipe ever; not particularly sweet, packed full of tart cranberries, pretty much perfect. If you’re one for the coffee-shop sugar-bomb…
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The Perfect Omelette
Okay, the title is hyperbole – it’s a big claim to say that you can tell someone how to make the perfect omelette, and I’m still learning. I suspect that it’s one of those things that you can work your whole life to perfect. But this is as close to perfection as I’ve gotten it, and since I’ve reached new-to-me heights of omelette perfection, I thought I’d share. My go-to version is a fried onion and cheddar cheese omelette, but you can do any kind of fillings you like; the varieties are endless, and it’s very much about personal taste. This one is my staple because I always have cooking…
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Pear and Cardamom Caramel Cake
I love cardamom, and a couple of years ago my sister Cassie gave me a beautiful cookbook, The Cardamom Trail, by Chetna Makan. Aside from having beautiful pictures and lots of great writing, the recipes are fantastic. And tis weekend, I decided to try making the Pear and Cardamom Caramel Cake. I’ve never done an upside-down cake before, and it’s even been a while since I made anything in a springform pan! I had to buy a new one to make this recipe, as I made my delicious cheesecake for a friends’ birthday about a year ago, and left the springform at their place. I don’t know if it’s just me,…
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Pickled Onions
Last Summer I had tacos that came with pickled onions as a topping, and something about the flavours made me slightly obsessed. I thought about making pickled onions on and off for ages, but couldn’t find a recipe I really liked the look of, so I sort-of forgot about it. Then a few weeks ago I was in Montreal for the Folk Alliance International conference, and I was served a dish with the most delicious pickled onions ever, and it reminded me that they are easy to make and that I ought to just give them a shot and see if I could come up with something I liked. I…
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Lemon Cake (Vegan!)
I’m generally pretty suspicious of vegan baking – I’ve tried a few nearly-inedible vegan sweets in the past that really turned me off. But there are a lot of great bakers out there who’ve found ways to make really wonderful vegan treats, and in looking through their recipes I found that there’s a pretty consistent formula – somehow the vinegar does the trick. This lemon cake is tasty and moist, and honestly you wouldn’t know it was vegan by taste or texture. I baked this cake last week for my sister Sammi’s birthday – she and my other sister, Cassie, were doing Vegan February, so my usual go-to birthday treats,…
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Apple Cider Doughnuts
There’s a crispness in the air, the smell of woodsmoke and leaf mould fills my nose, and the trees are blazing in beautiful colours. All I want to do is bake and make comfort food, but I have a broken wrist, so most of my favourite recipes which involve rolling out dough or chopping vegetables are out of reach for the next few weeks while my bone knits back together. So here’s a recipe that I can do one-handed, and I’m sure you can too, though if you don’t have to I wouldn’t recommend it. These doughnuts are baked, so really they’re kind-of a circular muffin, but they’re very cute…
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Honey Ginger Pumpkin Pie
I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to my traditional recipes, so generally speaking, I stick to the absolute most iconic version of a pie and do it very, very well. Last year, however, we had a bit of an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner, and I couldn’t track down my own pumpkin pie recipe (which is here, on my website – how hard is that, Candace?), and I found one I’d printed from somewhere ages ago and decided to give it a whirl. How did we end up putting together a full turkey dinner on the fly? Well, you see, my friends David and Meghan got married on Thanksgiving…
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Lentil Cottage Pie
Hearty, comforting, and vegetarian, this Lentil Cottage Pie is my sister Cassie’s recipe, and it’s a perfect vegetarian main dish for Autumn dinners like Thanksgiving. A few years ago, we were on a family trip in the Scottish Highlands, and we stopped at a small cafe in Helmsdale. Their vegetarian Cottage Pie was delicious and filling on a cold, windy Scottish day, and it inspired Cassie to create her own. This recipe could be made vegan with a few small alterations – mostly by omitting the butter and using oil or coconut oil instead. Lentil Cottage Pie Ingredients 3 lbs potatoes, cubed + salt 3 tbsp butter and olive oil…
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Canning Peaches – Hot Pack Method
Canned peaches can be eaten just as they are, or used in recipes that call for fresh ripe peaches. Try to get high-quality fruit at peak ripeness for best results. People always make canning seem super-difficult and complicated and time-consuming, but in fact it’s mostly washing things and cutting up fruit or vegetables. Don’t be afraid – just make sure your work area is clean, wash everything well, and follow the instructions below! I’ve added some notes at the bottom from my first experience canning peaches; they’re as much for myself as anyone else, but you may find them helpful! Canning Peaches – Hot Pack Method Yield: 5-6 Litres Prep time: It…
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Dill Pickles
Dill pickles are an easy start for a beginning canner, and a staple of most home canners’ Summers. Pickling cukes are new cucumbers, and are available from sometime in July through until maybe mid-September. They’re a nice quick project, easy to do on a week night after work, and the ingredients are easily available at local Farmers’ Markets and at most grocery stores. Dill Pickles Yield: 5-6 cups Prep Time: 30 minutes Processing Time: 10 minutes Resting Time: 24 hours When to eat: It’s fine to eat them immediately after you’ve canned them, but if you can, give them at least a month to let the flavours deepen. Once opened,…
