The Yum Yum Factor

I volunteered to make a dozen of some sort of baked good for The Kid's christmas party at school tomorrow and he requested the compost bars. The only problem is that these have to appeal to kids from the age of 3 to 13 so I had to rethink them a tiny bit to make them more kid friendly. They also had to be nut free since you can't take anything with any nuts in them anywhere anymore. I took out all the nuts and seeds and subbed in milk chocolate to make them a bit sweeter. I also kept the salty toppings to a minimum and only used to some crushed up bugles although, potato chips would have worked well too but I saw the bag of bugles in the store and was instantly transported back to my childhood. I used to LOVE bugles and quite frankly, I didn't even know you could still buy them. I couldn't resist. I love the look of the whole kernels of caramel corn on there too. The toppings you can throw on these things are pretty endless but I thought I would share another v...

It was either drink that damned eggnog or cook with it and the last thing I need to do right now is drink a container of eggnog so I had no choice. I know that might sound weird because you would think eating a ton of cookies with eggnog in them is worse than drinking the stuff, but i rarely eat much of my own baking so it's kind of like putting it away in the back of the closet where I will forget about it.

I recently wrote about a cookbook, Grace's Sweet Life  , a book full of amazing Italian desserts, pastry and other sweets. I knew that this would be the first recipe I tried as soon as I took my first look at the book but I needed to wait until an occasion was upon us because I just don't make desserts like this for just the three of us. Last night, The Neighbour's had a big, holiday dinner party and I volunteered to make the desserts so, of course, I made Grace's Truffle Cake with Chocolate Glaze. It came together surprisingly easily although I skipped a couple of the steps that would have rendered a more refined end product because I didn't really need it to be perfect, just delicious.  Oh boy, was this thing delicious. It really did taste like a slice of chocolate truffle in a yummy chocolate cookie crust. I usually do a flourless chocolate cake when it's a cake night but this might become my new, go to show stopper.

It's time for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap again! I participated last year and not only was it fun to  bake a new kind of cookie and send them to other people, but I received three different kinds of cookies in the mail myself. I had actually not even considered the cookies I would be getting until the first batch of cookies arrived. The best part of a cookie swap was the one part I hadn't factored into the situation - THE SWAP ASPECT. It's always wonderful to get delicious cookies that someone else baked for you and there is something about getting a care package of treats in the mail that is still so exiting. So, this year I wanted to make something different a bit from all of the traditional christmas cookies. To be honest, I would have loved to make my compost cookies because I am all about those babies but it has to be something you haven't featured on your blog before so they were out. Because I made some oatmeal bars last week, I had bars on the...

We are still Shackless as it seems like his movie is never going to end and he is never coming home from Montreal. The only thing we can do to stop ourselves from crying ourselves to sleep every night is to continue to dine on the creatures of the sea. It is our cross to bear. I was actually not planning to make salmon at all today (I was going to whip up some chili nachos) but then I went to the store for mustard and ended up buying a nice piece of salmon instead. It wasn't quite enough to serve the two of us so I needed to stretch it a bit. I toyed with the idea of making a salmon risotto or pasta or something but nothing was grabbing me. Time for salmon cakes. I often make extra salmon just I can make cakes the next day but this was the first time I cooked salmon just for that purpose. Because I have been craving Indian food for a week, tandoori salmon cakes were now on the menu. As is often the case, I have made them before but I have never really paid attenti...

Shack has left to work in Montreal for a week or so and do you know what that means? Oh sure, it means we  miss him and we both fall asleep on pillows wet with fresh tears. IT MEANS WE CAN EAT FISH! WE CAN EAT SALMON! EVERY DAMNED DAY!!

Christmas season is upon us and, as always, I have a couple of cookie exchanges coming up and  have been combing the internet for inspiration so I can make something shiny and new. I also wanted to enter the cookie contest over at  Manitoba Canola Growers  but the deadline is today at 4pm so that put me on a bit of a deadline. I tend to procrastinate until it's almost too late and then I fly into action - I enjoy working under pressure. I have been told that all that stress will burn away the pounds but I have yet to find this to be true. It probably doesn't help that my stressful energy is spent baking things that must be tasted I suppose.

It's finally time to throw in the towel and admit that it is now winter. Despite the fact that nature has been teasing us with sunny, springlike weather for the last week, the end is nigh and that means we are going to need some soup so It's Friday It Must Be Soup is resurrected. I am not sure how I came to make this soup because I went to the store with a different intention altogether. It started out as an idea to make a kind of mexican potato leek soup using some roasted jalapeño peppers and cilantro but then I saw the lovely cauliflower calling to me. "Hey lady! Don't I look delicious? Why are you ignoring me over here? I am just as boring looking as a potato. Have you no heart?" You know, it certainly did look delicious so I grabbed it up, still thinking I would stick to the plan but then I didn't like the look of the leeks and they were way too expensive. I thought about how delicious roasted cauliflower is with some cumin and then I could roast ...

I am kind of in super mom mode right now after a week of big wins in the dinner department so I decided to cap my week off with something that was sure to make me look like a total superstar. This kid would be happy if I made him a risotto of dog poop and toe nail clippings so I have to be honest about that right upfront. That said, this risotto is waaaay better than rice with dog poop. There was a big container of baby arugula in the fridge and I was going to buy scallops when I realized that we haven't used shrimp in anything for ages so shrimp, arugula risotto was born. It was delicious, everyone was very happy and I pretended that it was sooooo much work and owww my arm is killing me from the nonstop 20 minutes of stirring and all that cheese grating but they are worth it, yadda yadda yadda.  Oh, one note here - if you can get a decent quality parmigiano reggiano over just any old parmesan, please use that. Risotto is a dish that really benefits from nice cheese and...

Grace Massa Langlois might have been born in Belgium but she grew up in London, Ontario where she remains with her family. I was born and raised in London, Ontario so we have a connection in that regard but when it comes to baking, our paths diverge. I am a decent, simple baker and dessert maker and I make a few things quite well but Grace is a real dessert master. I was already familiar with her food blog, Grace's Sweet Life  , and loved to peruse all of the delicious looking desserts while daydreaming that someone else would make these things for me. When I was offered a copy of her new cookbook, I jumped at the chance.  I read the entire thing, cover to cover and was incredibly impressed with the huge array of Italian sweets. Cannoli , Tiramisu and Panna Cotta are all fairly familiar but there were other things like Italian Peach Cookies , Boccanotti  and Celletti which were all new to me. I have to admit, that as a lazy baker, many of these recipes ar...

I love fig jam so much. I love it with cheese and I love it straight off the spoon but I really love to cook with it. The high sugar content means lots of yummy caramelization and that makes it a wonderful thing to baste roasted meats with. I kept seeing this recipe everywhere. I sweat to god, if you google pork tenderloin fig jam, this comes up on a bazillion web sites so I figured it must be pretty good. Since it was also Halloween, I made colcannon to go with it and although it might not be the first side dish that comes to mind when making a spicy figgy bit of pork, it was actually quite delicious together and was happily gobbled up and gave some nice, starchy substance to line the tummy in preparation for a candy assault after dinner. Just because I can, this was what left my house after polishing off a big plate of pork and colcannon. I don't know you, but I like to keep my evil demon necromancers happy. He looks pretty cheery, no? I used less hot sauce than the...

I love getting sent free stuff to try but I don't like it when I get sent stuff and then I don't like it. Do I write about how much I didn't like it? Do I just pretend I never got it? Do I tell them the dog ate it and she seemed to enjoy it very much but I didn't get a chance to taste it myself and offer to let my dog write about it? Ozery's Pita Break  sent me a box of stuff to try out last week and luckily, I love their breads. We already buy the morning rounds, the regular pita and the thin buns that they call OneBun. Not only are they preservative free, low in sodium and generally full of good things, they are made right here in Toronto by a family run bakery. They are also Kosher and although I am not Jewish myself, you can never be too safe, right? Since it is pretty much only me and The Kid right now while poor Shack works around the clock in and out of town to support the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed, it will take me a while to get around ...

Okay, I am a self admitted food snob but I am also a bit of an inconsistent food snob. The bottom line is that I like delicious food and for the most part, that also means real, whole foods. Blah blah blah I also love McDonald's fries, Nacho Cheese Doritos with a hot , white passion and don't even think about getting me to promise that I will never eat doctored up ramen again. So, admitting that I do love selective crappy foods, I have been feeling a bit guilty about my rantings and railings against the use of "cream of cack" in dishes that are , otherwise, composed of yummy ingredients. I also have to admit that I have lots of time to cook things from scratch during the week because I work freelance (which often means that I don't work for days on end and can sit at home on my butt, playing Candy Crush Saga on facebook and soak great white northern beans for soup) and I only have one kid who is gone from 8:30am to 6pm because, unlike his mother, he WORK...

Well, as much as I want to pretend it's not happening, the cold weather is closing in which means it's probably time for my weekly Friday, So It Must Be Soup feature. It's actually Monday but I also have to post this as my submission to Gastropost this week as my ode to the fall bounty so let's just pretend it's Friday and you go make this soup. Kale. We all love kale and I thank my lucky stars every day that I own a son who loves kale. He lets me put kale in his smoothies, he likes it in soups, he likes it sauteed with garlic and olive oil, he likes it in stews and he even likes kale chips. I don't know what sort of evil person I was in a past life that has made it possible to own a kid who loves food this much, but I choose to not ask too many questions and just keep cooking. I make white bean, kale and sausage soup fairly often but I always use those little canned Italian white beans and italian sausage. Since I had all afternoon to make this soup I ...

Canadian Thanksgiving is upon us and so we are getting ready to make our annual trek to spend the holiday with my sister and her family. First of all, let us discuss the merits of having Thanksgiving fall so early in the year, as opposed to the American holiday which occurs right before Christmas. If you are a turkey lover, and we are huge turkey lovers, you want to partake of a big turkey dinner as many times a year as you can possibly manage, no? This means that we like to do turkey for Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. I am thinking about making Shack a huge turkey dinner for his birthday in May as well but don't tell him, it's a surprise. Don't worry, he says he reads my blog but he really doesn't so he will never know if you don't tell him. So, back to the merits of an early Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving has been held on the second Monday of October since 1957. This means it can be as early as Oct 8th, like this year, or as late as the 15th or...

I really love ribs and in the summer time we often make them in the smoker. It takes all day and it's truly a labour of love but well worth the effort if you have that kind of time. Unfortunately, we don't always have an entire day to babysit meat in the smoker and in the winter, even if we COULD smoke ribs all day out in the snow, we won't because we are not nuts and it's way too cold to spend the day outdoors cooking. I used to cook them slow and low for hours in the oven and then broil them but I always feel like I should be home when I have the oven on all afternoon - it's the paranoid old lady channeling my mother I guess. Next thing you know, I will refuse to drive on rainy days, on really sunny days, in rush hour or at night... oh wait, I already don't drive at night if it is raining. Never mind.

It's a rainy day out there and even though it's not actually cold yet, it looks cold out there from inside the house so that's a good enough excuse to make chili. Actually, Saturday is technically the first day of fall so it really is time , isn't it? Tonight we will eat it over baked potatoes with chipotle cream and cheese and then I can send some in The Kid's lunch tomorrow and alleviate my mom sandwich guilt for the week. I am also taking a container of it over to Jen's house ( Piccante Dolce Jen) who is hugely pregnant and due this week so she won't have to cook tonight. So many birds killed with this one chili stone. This is a tasty, basic chili with no fancy surprises or anything. The addition of masa harina at the end thickens it up a bit and since we are eating it over baked potatoes, I wanted a thicker chili as opposed to a soupier chili. It's not spicy either so that it can please all of the people in the house - the chipotle cream a...

Who doesn't love pulled pork? Crazy people, that's who. Making pulled pork in the crockpot is such a no brainer, easy meal that requires almost no time, skill or finesse that I wonder why we don't eat it every single day to be honest. I have still never found THE ultimate pulled pork recipe so I am always tinkering and trying new sauces, new rubs and one day I will find that pulled pork love of my life and I will shout from the rooftops. The best thing about pulled pork is that there is almost no such thing as bad pulled pork. Even if you just throw a pork butt in the slow cooker with nothing but some salt, pepper and a slurp of chicken stock or soda pop or apple juice and then toss it with a good bottled sauce afterwards, it's going to be good enough that your family will still think you are a rock star.

One of my absolute favourite ways to do a roast chicken is slow and low in the oven. You end up with a delicious, fall apart bird with really dry, crispy skin - it's kind of like the best possible version of a bubble chicken from the rotisserie at the grocery store. I am not ashamed to admit that a Loblaw's bubble chicken is one of my favourite stand by dinners and that it also provides enough meat for chicken quesadillas on night two and the bones make a delicious sopa de lima that we enjoy on night three. When I was a kid, roast chicken was always a cheap meal that could feed our big family but somewhere along the line, chicken slowly became more expensive and a full priced, medium sized whole chicken can now cost well over $12. That is one of the reasons why we often just spend $9 and get one that is already cooked and ready to eat.  The fact that it also comes home in a handy plastic bubble pack is just a bonus if you ask me. When whole chickens go on sale though, ...

I have made these meatballs before using ground chicken and we loved them but this was more of a pork kind of day. I usually serve them with rice noodles, bun style, and then sent the leftovers with the Kid for his lunch the next day. Since I have sent the poor wee street urchin to school with a sandwich two days in a row, I was having some mom guilt. A lovely lunch of vietnamese food with a friend made me think of these meatballs and so I hopped across the street to the magical asian grocery store and bought all of the ingredients I would need. Don't be scared of the little roll in the sugar bowl that these babies take just before baking because it gives them that sticky, sweetness of asian bbq meats. You could probably skip it and still end up with a tasty meatball but you would definitely be missing that little extra bit of something that makes these really special. Now, if we weren't still on this god forsaken diet, I would make bahn mi sandwiches but since we (that...

Shack is working late and won't be home for dinner so I promised The Kid that I would cook salmon since his crazy whackheaded father doesn't like it and we both adore it. Along with David Bowie, The Legend of the Seeker and egg salad, salmon has become one of those things we indulge in when it's just the two of us. It's best this way. For some reason, salmon really lends itself to indian spices and I often make a proper tandoori salmon but today I wanted to do something just a little bit different. I also didn't want to bbq it and tandoori is best bbq'd but after my failed attempt to start the charcoal last night armed with nothing but an old electrical bill envelope, a nascar lighter,  charcoal and some fondue pot fuel DOH I wasn't in a hurry to try that again. I found this tasty looking recipe on Family Style Food and although I think I would love the corn salsa thing, it also required the grill and I don't know that The Kid would appreciate...