The Yum Yum Factor

  I tried to make shakshuka for five days.  Day 1: ordered all the ingredients I needed online for delivery. Shit, can't get it til tomorrow. No problem, we will eat something else tonight but super excited for tomorrow's dinner Day 2: groceries come! Time to start.....oh, wait, what? You feel like ordering Thai? But I was...okay, Thai does sound like it would hit the spot. Shakshuka tomorrow, FOR SURE Day 3: make the shakshuka tomato/red pepper sauce in anticipation of tonight's shakshuka. Sit outside with my neighbours for a glass of wine and the next thing I know, we grab The Kid and venture on down to sit on the patio at The Pub. It's the only place that will let us take a table for 8 so we can sit at opposite ends of the table and their salt and pepper wings are really delicious..... Day 4: TODAY IS THE DAY. WE are making this damned shakshuka if it kills me, but first, a visit to drop off something to friends we haven't seen since January. Go to drop it off on...

In today's admission of food snobbery,  I had convinced myself that I hated the idea of a make ahead breakfast casserole type dish. Monkey bread could go take a hike and if you thought I was going to eat soggy white bread french toast in a casserole dish, you had another thing coming but when it was time to whip up a few brunch dishes at the request of a friend's husband that I could drop off the night before, it kept creeping into my brain. I made a frittata, which is always good the next day but everything I thought I wanted to make that would be more on the sweet side of things worked best made on the day. I was pretty sure my friend would love a french toast bake though and since it was her birthday brunch, not mine, I set out to make one that would make me happy as well. I used croissants in place of bread and, trust me, this is the one time that those doughy, bread like grocery store croissants work better than a really well made, flaky croissant, so get those. They...

So, what is congee, you might ask? It sounds exotic but it's really just a nice, soupy, savoury rice porridge that is the perfect remedy for frigid winter mornings. Even though we go for dim sum regularly, we don't usually order this because it's really filling and it cuts down on the amount of dumplings I can scarf so it's something I save for home, but, pre , I didn't make this as often as I would have liked. Since my wizard pot truly lets me set it and forget it, I plan to make a batch of this every weekend over the winter. I am NOT a sweet breakfast girl but any porridge that lets me garnish it with crispy pork, chilis and other savoury treats is the food of my cold, dark heart. You can make congee with any sort of broth but chicken congee is a great way to use up the leftovers from a roast chicken, whether its a bird you roasted yourself or a bubble chicken that you picked up at the supermarket. Just throw in the entire carcass, all leftover meat, some ...

Earlier this week, I whipped up The King's Crashed Potatoes  using a bag of Blushing Belles, little yellow fleshed, pink skinned creamers from The Little Potato Company . We ended up eating those little crashed potatoes all week - with dinner, with breakfast and as a snack.

I think I have shared the fact that we don't drink cow's milk on the blog before. I mean, we put a splash in our coffee and I bake with it and eat ice cream but to pouring a big glass of cold cow's milk is just never going to happen around here. Nobody is lactose intolerant or allergic, although I have been tempted to lie about that over the years. Back when people would get all up in my grill about not giving my toddler huge glasses of icy cold cow's milk because it was going to cause him to never grow, I wish I had a picture of my future 6' 15 year old to waggle in their faces. When The Kid was little, he would act like you were trying to kill him if you tried to give him a glass of milk. Because of this, we have depended on alternate forms of milk type drinks to make our morning smoothies, put on cereal etc and our favourite is almond milk.

I have been staring at a container of ricotta in my fridge for weeks now. We bought it for Shack's lasagna but then he thought he needed more and bought a bigger container of the stuff from Costco and used that instead. I don't use ricotta all that much and I didn't know what to do with it but I knew that I didn't want to end up throwing it out. I spent a couple of days toying with the idea of doing muffins so I read recipes, looked at tastespotting, read more recipes and nothing spoke to me. The easy way out was to make stuffed pasta but Shack is away and I am trying to not eat pasta while he is gone because when he is home, we eat it way too often. Then, last week a little voice in my head started to whisper "ricotta pancakes would be nice".

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 ...

Back when I used to work on set doing makeup for tv commercials, I enjoyed a thing called Kraft Service. The Kraft Service people are responsible for feeding us all day and at the time, I didn't always appreciate them as I should have. The one thing I always loved though was our morning breakfast burrito (as long as they were using real eggs and not egg beaters. No offence to the fine people who make egg beaters but they are just not for me). I apologize to every Kraft person I have gave the gears to over the years because now that I no longer have people who make me breakfast and snacks and soup and cheese trays and cut up my fruit and put out trays of M&M's and jube jubes, I realize how wonderful you all were. My ass, on the other hand, never wants to see you again. Anyway, I had three corn tortillas left over from last night's calamari tacos and couldn't bear to throw them out so I made the Little Prince, which is what we call The Kid when we realize we...

granola with greek yogurt and honey- prison food at it's finest In another few weeks, I am going to start work on TIFF - The Toronto Film Festival. Usually, I work pretty much every day doing makeup on actors who are here to promote their films and although it is a ton of fun, it turns my household into a tail spin every year. It's the only time of year that I work every single day for 10 days straight and as much as I try to plan for it, it is always really stressful for all of us. This year, Shack is working on a film and since he has not had a day off in about five weeks, I am going to assume that he will not have any time off during TIFF either. That leaves the 12 year old on his own for mornings. The Kid is a bit spoiled when it comes to breakfast - it's always some type of egg, pancakes, french toast or porridge. Breakfast = hot, delicious and nourishing around here. Once, when our stove was not working, he had to have toast and yogurt and told his ...