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Tuscan Chicken Skillet
I’m always looking for reasonably quick, easy recipes that are reasonably healthy and freeze well, so that I can take them to work for lunch. Tuscan Chicken Skillet ticks all of the boxes, but it’s also super-delicious. It’s nice, when you’re surrounded by take-out lunch options that aren’t great for your but are incredibly tempting, to have something home-cooked and tasty ready to go. I try to spend Sunday nights cooking, so that I can eat well all week, and though it’s not always possible, when I do have the time it’s awesome. I’ll note that this recipe was initially written up as a low-mess, one pot meal,…
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Roasted Cauliflower with Sesame Seed Oil
Easy and delicious (though admittedly not beautiful), I made Roasted Cauliflower with Sesame Seed Oil last night and ended up eating almost an entire head of cauliflower by myself. Technically I guess it’s a side dish, and a super-tasty one, but it’s the kind of thing I’m likely to eat as a main, because it’s quick and really filling. This simple recipe works best if you have a roasting dish that just barely fits the dish, and that also has a lid. This will help keep the cauliflower moist, and also helps the sesame oil flavour to infuse the cauliflower, which is totally amazing. Sesame oil is one of my favourite…
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Lemon Winter Warmer
This Lemon Winter Warmer recipe is based on a drink that I’d been making for a while, but then altered once I tried the ‘Citrus Booster’ that they serve at Balzac’s Coffee. There’s a Balzac’s near my office in the Distillery District, and when I feel a cold coming on, I sometimes pop over to the cafe to get one, or mix it up myself at home. I’m not sure whether or not it makes a difference to the cold, but it’s delicious and soothing and it makes me feel like I’m doing something about it, which is half the battle. I originally made it with honey, but I…
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Crepes
Crepes - A recipe passed down from Nana Cynthia, this delicious brunch treat is pretty simple to make.
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Sweet Potato Salad with Orange-Maple Dressing
Sweet Potato Salad with Orange-Maple Dressing - delicious, flavourful, and great energy food that kept me going when all I wanted to do was lie down in the grass and sleep.
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Guacamole
Guacamole - delicious, easy, and pretty good for you, guacamole is endlessly customizable to your taste - add or subtract what you like!
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Fried Halloumi with Tomatoes
Fried Halloumi with Tomatoes is a nice, simple dish that works best in the Summer, when all of the fresh ingredients are at their peak flavour.
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White Pizza: Caramelized onions, mushrooms, and roasted garlic
White Pizza - a recipe that I came up with on the fly one night, and that - to my surprise - everyone in my family loves.
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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
Mini Doughnuts - delicious, easy-to-make, mini doughnuts. Everyone loves them, and you can never make enough.
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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 overripe mangoes kicking around my kitchen. So I looked 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 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 of time. Just remember to wash everything in hot, soapy water, and let everything air-dry – that’s really the…
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Pumpkin Pie
An easy, delicious Pumpkin Pie recipe that tastes just like Autumn - and of course, my pie pastry recipe as well!
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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…
