The Yum Yum Factor

Say that ten times fast. A rich, creamy matcha no bake cheesecake with a crust made out of Matcha Pocky granola is the dessert you need. Like, right now. Last week, I hosted a pop up night at The Kingston Social House , the place where I have been cheffing since last fall and hosting supperclubs and cooking classes for the last couple of years. It's like my home kitchen away from home but better, because my actual home kitchen is about 2 square feet. I decided on a Korean inspired comfort food menu consisting of a Kimchi Meatloaf Melt, Spicy Miso Soup with Korean rice cakes for the vegetarians and a variety of banchan style sides. Korean's aren't really known for their desserts so it took me longer than usual to come up with something until I bought a few packs of Matcha Pocky. If you aren't familiar with Pocky, you need to do something about that. Pocky are a biscuit stick with a coating of "cream" that is usually chocolate flavoured but th...

If you live in Toronto, you have probably had shortbread from Mary Macleod's at some point. Unlike most other self named companies, there really is a Mary Macleod and she started baking her famous chocolate crunch shortbread in 1981. Even after 30 years in the business, Mary, herself, still spends time in the kitchen coming up with new treats like the Butterscotch Shortbread Crumbs I used to make the crust for this cheesecake. I was more than happy to accept a free bag of cookie crumbs to experiment with because I would happily buy them anyway. I used to live right across the street from Mary's shop on Queen St East for a few years and so I was very familiar with the product. It's not like I had ever run over there in my pjs and grabbed a few cookies to go with my morning coffee or anything.....

I am reposting an old post from no reEATS onto this blog because I want to make it again and it deserves to be seen again. I can't stop thinking about this sandwich that I used to make when I first moved to Toronto at 20 and was just learning about food. For me, this sandwich was the height of fancy pants food snobbery and I always felt very smug and proud when I would make it for someone using an fresh croissant from a french bakery and cream cheese not from the grocery store but from the cheese shop in the market. It made me feel very continental and sophisticated and it was unlike anything I had ever eaten growing up. Of course, by the end of that year, I was actually living in Paris, eating real, mind blowing croissants and endless wheels of brie and other exotic, stinky cheeses and this sandwich faded from memory. It was exactly as I remembered it. The creaminess of the cheese is balanced perfectly with the tart, crispiness of the green apple and then that crunch of t...

Do you think that Oprah loves these tiny, crustless tea sandwiches too or do you think she likes her tea sandwiches battered and fried? Now that I think about it, a chicken fried tea sandwich might be a pretty fabulous thing, no? Anyway, I spent hours looking at tea party treats for our school's annual Mother's Tea and just couldn't decide on what sandwich to make. I LOVE a good egg salad but I was pretty sure that someone else made some because someone always makes egg salad. I wanted to keep things pretty mild, nothing too crazy so I finally settled on these Oprah sammys and then, because it didn't feel like enough, I made some cheese straws too. My southern friends make me feel like I have not lived until I have eaten some tangy, mildly spicy cheese straws and wouldn't dream of hosting a tea party without them so I didn't want to feel like a shoddy hostess (even though I wasn't actually the hostess anyway). I used the recipe from smitten kitchen bec...