The Yum Yum Factor

It's an Ugly Sweater Party!

It was mid December and we realized that we had nothing happening for an entire week. Sadly, The Kid didn't want to miss any school (WHO IS THIS PERSON??) so Shack and I booked our trip late Friday night and flew to NYC early Sunday morning. No time to plan or overthink. We landed to find ourselves sweltering in our winter coats. The first thing we did was check into our hotel and ditch the coats and set off to explore the city in nothing more than long sleeves two weeks before Christmas Day. We spent the entire day wandering midtown, making our way towards Central Park where we rented bikes and rode through it, again WITHOUT COATS, until the sun set. Dinner consisted of a couple stops in Little Italy for meatballs and pasta and then a third place for espresso and dessert. Even late at night, the weather was balmy and perfect for exploring the magical wonderland that is New York at Christmas without having to brave the cold and snow.  Perfection. We spent a d...

As we all know, we are knee deep into holiday baking season and I wanted to make all new cookies this year and I get sick of making lime meltaways and gingersnaps year after year, even if that disappoints some of my people. I had great success with   Chai Tea Cookies , Cardamom Quince Layer Cookies  and Chocolate Dipped Gingery Pecan Shortbread and wanted one last cookie to round things out. I guess it's because my kid is no longer little that I am gravitating towards more grown up flavours and away from just sweet and easy. After a wine fueled pinning frenzy, I found these cookies on Rock Recipes and couldn't get them out of my mind. The basic cookie dough looked great but I detest chocolate mint chips with a white hot passion. Actually, I only like fresh mint and have never found any sort of food item that contains any sort of mint extract that I would want to eat. I also really prefer chocolate to anything else so I used his basic cookie recipe and then changed it to s...

I have been searching for this recipe for days, knowing that I made them and that I wanted to make them again. I have not lost my mind, it just seems that this ten year old recipe was supposed to auto publish and it never did lol! So, here you are, a tasty cookie recipe from the past. Chocolate Dipped Gingery Pecan  Shortbread 1 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup butter, room temp 1/3 cup sugar 1/2 cup raw pecans, coarsely chopped 1 tsp vanilla approx 100 grams dark chocolate (I used 70%) 2 tbls butter another 1/4 to 1/3 cup pecans, more finely chopped than the first 1/2 cup 2 tbls finely chopped crystallized ginger 1/2 tsp fleur de sel or some other coarse finishing salt Preheat the oven to 325F Whisk the flour, baking powder in salt together in a bowl and set aside. Cream your butter and sugar together with the paddle attachment until nice and creamy - I like to do this for a good five minutes, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the vani...

For the last couple of years, I have been in charge of making dessert for The Neighbour's annual Xmas dinner. They throw a big dinner party for out of town friends and their in town sister with other people added to the guest list each year. We are fortunate enough to be included because it is always an impressive feast and tons of fun. Every guest gets a stocking filled with homemade cookies and a beautiful, hand painted ornament. Last year I made two desserts because it is always a crowd of at least 11 or 12 people but they were both a lot of work and both required slicing and plating and felt too formal for this type of gathering.  This year I wanted to make one dessert that would be substantial enough to feed a big crowd, easy to serve and not require pretty plating. Since this is basically three desserts in one, big bowl and requires nothing more than a big spoon and a shallow bowl, it fit the bill. At first, I was going to just make my Rum and Eggnog Tres Leche...

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.

Mexico is still very much on my mind so I am still looking to make the things that I was looking forward to eating but didn't get to eat while I was there. Although I have eaten my fair share,  I have never actually made a tres leches cake so I thought it would be a great choice of dessert for New Year's Day dinner. We were having our MVP friends over (Most Valuable Peruvians) and I know that they have their own version of this cake so I know it will be familiar enough but I want to christmas it up a bit. We are still all about the turkey dinner and so we are having one last turkey dinner on New Year's Day.There is a full thing of eggnog leftover (the rest of it is sitting comfortably on my ass and belly right now) and so it made sense to make an eggnog tres leche so we can mix the best of all worlds in one, damp, delicious little cake. Most importantly, it will also use up the last of the eggnog and get it out of my house until next year. I decided to use this reci...

 I was so excited to sign on to participate in  The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap  because it meant I could connect with three other bloggers (most likely Canadian as shipping food across borders gets squicky in a post 9-11 world where xmas cookies are now eyed suspiciously ). It also meant that I would receive a dozen cookies from three of my fellow bloggers and that is always a great thing. I love eating other people's baked goods. My favourite and most requested cookie is a really spicy, crispy ginger snap but I have written about that on my blog and we were instructed to make something that we have never blogged about so that meant I either had to make something completely different or change up my standard ginger snap. I have been pretty obsessed with cardamom for the last few months so I started searching out a yummy sounding cookie with cardamom but all I was seeing were sugar cookies with cardamom added to the dough and that didn't interest me...

So, Dianne,  my beautiful and generous friend and blogging partner in crime at no reEats  has an annual gingerbread house decorating party that I have had to miss for the last three years in a row because I am usually off on my christmas trip at that time. I was kind of exited but kind of stressed out by the fact that I was going to be able to attend this year's festivities. You see, as much as I love to drink wine and glue candy to a gingerbread house, I am mildly terrified of the other women who partake in this yearly event. To say that some of them are competitive would be like saying that I like to eat a little bit. The first time I went, I was so naive. I went to the Bulk Barn and just bought a bunch of festive looking candies and figured I would just wing it when I got there., expecting nothing more than good conversation, snacks and wine and a bunch of beaches moms relaxing with a nice little craft. By the time I arrived, the keeners were already there with their tool...

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...