The Yum Yum Factor

It's weird weather out there and I am not as compelled to make nice, warming soups as you would think I would be seeing that it is the end of November. It might be the end of November but it is also going up to about 15C today which is more about grilling and taking long walks on the boardwalk than it is about hunkering down in the kitchen to make a hearty, long simmering soup. The perfect compromise is a nice, spicy soup that doesn't take all that long to throw together if you  used canned black beans instead of soaking dried. I am also starting to pine for Mexico since we would normally be leaving for our Xmas trip there next week but we went somewhere else last year and we aren't sure where we will end up this year. Shack's crazy work schedule dictates that we make all of our life decisions the night before so we could end up anywhere, at any time over the next month or so but for now, I will satisfy myself with a little taste of the country that I love so much. ...

The Kid was away this week from Monday until Wednesday so that always means a mushroom orgy for the adults. Little Shack certainly has a pretty good palette, he eats a really wide variety of foods and is, in many ways, less picky that his father but the one thing we have not been able to sway him over to are mushrooms. Clearly, there is something seriously wrong with my kid because anyone who will eat fish eyes, chicken bones, bone marrow and raw quail eggs but WON'T eat mushrooms has some issues. I mean, he is a nice kid and all and we will keep him but the mushroom thing is really starting to cramp our style. This is, therefore, the perfect soup for a kid free week and the adults were very, very happy. As always, I try to lighten up the foods that we love and so I subbed in evaporated milk for the cream and I don't think it suffered at all. It's still creamy enough but it's light and mushroomy and you don't feel guilty eating a big bowl of it. One big brigh...

Okay people, the holidays are quickly approaching and that means people dropping by with gifts and lovely bottles of wine to share and you need to be prepared. In the olden days, I would make fussy appetizers and hor d 'oeuvres that would require hours in the kitchen and would often take me away from my guests. The oohs and ahhs were good for the ego but I realized that just as I was ready to sit down and relax, my friends were getting their coats on to leave. I thought it was more important to wow them than to sit and have a glass of wine with them but with age comes wisdom and with wisdom comes a much more enjoyable, relaxed holiday season.  What I do now is make sure my fridge is stocked with a variety of nice cheeses, a couple of nice charcuterie items like pate, sliced italian salamis etc and spicy, savoury jams.jellies  and chutneys.  This way, I feel like I can invite friends over last minute without having to worry about what I am going to serve the...

My mom used to make a really fabulous soup that was full of stewing beef, tomatoes and cabbage and I never learned how to make it. I think my sister knows how but I never really paid enough attention because I was all about the fancy pants food and this was just a plain old soup to me. Now that she is gone, I really miss it and keep meaning to ask my sister if she can show me how mom made it but , of course, I keep forgetting. A container of leftover braised pot roast with espresso and balsamic  got me thinking that maybe I could make something like her soup with that because I am not crazy about pot roast in the first place and I really just made it for the boys and am always stumped with the leftovers. I was happy to find a use for it that was less pot roasty and more soupy. You can use less cabbage if you aren't crazy about cabbage but I love the stuff so I used quite a bit. I knew that there was beef, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots and celery but I couldn't reme...

So, this week I am going to feature a recipe that The Neighbours made and shared with me. I have been eating it for lunch every day and would have just made it myself if they hadn't already provided me with a big container to keep me happy all week. We are very lucky to have such awesome neighbours who are also such great friends and someone is always knocking on someone's door with a cookie to try or some sauce to give an opinion on. Sometimes we are tempted to add more things than we need to make a delicious soup and in this case, less is more and I was really glad that there is no cream or anything else heavy to weigh it down. It's a nice, light soup that has just the right amount of red pepper to tomato and that touch of honey cuts the acidity a bit. Perfect.  They read a few recipes and took what they liked from each and came up with this light, savoury soup: The Neighbour's Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup 3 medium onions chopped 3 large cloves of ...

I was one of six lucky Canadian food bloggers chosen to be featured in the holiday issue of Eat In Eat Out, Canada's first online magazine for foodies who love to eat - whether you like to cook and eat in or whether you are a restaurant junkie and love to eat out. You might be like me and fall somewhere in between and love to do both equally. We were asked to come up with two simple, original recipes for the holiday season. I always like to make a box of treats to give to friends and I try to have a good variety of sweets in there. This year there will be the same  ginger snaps  I make every year, meringues, these chocolate truffles and probably some toffee. I attended a crazy, multi day Hindu wedding this summer and I cannot get the sweets we ate out of my head. I don't know what they all were but they all seemed to taste like cardamom, sugar and pistachios and everything was covered in this delicate silver foil. I LOVE shiny things and couldn't' wait fo...