As a stay at home mom, I often have grand plans in my mind of how I’m going to keep the boys entertained without resorting to the tv most of the day. Some days I nail it and they spend most of the day outside but other days they watch tv. A lot of tv. Now I could berate myself or, even worse, compare myself to the other moms who get all their little kids to the beach on their own without seeming to lose their minds. I try hard not to do that (often) because I’m only seeing a […]
Chocolate Teff Crepes
I’ve never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. I always thought of perfectionists as those people with lovely handwriting and Martha Stewart level obsessiveness when it comes to every aspect of their life. I was pondering this because I have become stalled when it comes to this blog, amongst other things. I’m trying to get to the root of this problem and one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging is that I want everything to be perfect. I want what I write to be witty and interesting. I want the photos to be just right, and the recipes […]
Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream
A Simple Woodland Themed 1st Birthday Party When you have your first child, everything is intense and new. You are on a terrifying learning curve but you get through it and have some wonderful times with your wee one. When the time for the first birthday party rolls around, you may feel the need to go a little crazy. I went for a huge, professionally decorated cake with a mini smash cake for Timothy. I invited loads of people to my parents house and we had a big dinner surrounded by 1st Birthday themed balloons and every other 1st birthday decorations […]
Rhubarb and White Chocolate Custard Tart
There is been a lot of chatter lately amongst bloggers about not blogging anymore. I have read a couple posts recently by successful bloggers that are either taking an extended break or they are moving on to new ventures entirely. There are new blogs being started every day but those of us who have been slogging it out for a few years (and more) are burning out. I have not spoken to a single blogger who has been around for a while that isn’t sick of the ‘game’. The bullshit three ring circus that one has to go through to get […]
Chocolate Madeleines
Jan from Family Bites is about to welcome her third baby boy and along with a slew of bloggers we are celebrating this with a virtual baby shower. Jan is in the part of her pregnancy that feels like it is interminable. There is no comfortable position to sit or lay down, but that baby will come. I have a five year gap between my two boys so I forgot a lot of what it was like to have a baby in the house. I know Jan has an even bigger gap between this little boy and your other sons, […]
Christmas Cake
This did not start with me. I remember my mother oiling brown paper bags to line Grandma’s cake tins that were only ever used for Christmas cake. I remember my parents diligently drizzling brandy over the cakes stored in the cold cellar once a week in the month leading up to Christmas. In all those years that my mother made those cakes for my dad, I never had a piece. They seemed strange and full of lumpy fruit and nuts that I avoided as a child. Mom drifted away from making Christmas cake sometime in my teenage years. She still […]
Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream
Honey Sweetened Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream Summer is over now and for those unlucky Albertans out west, it left in a cruel hurry leaving behind a pile of snow. The photos on my Twitter and Instagram feed nearly made me weep. Well, actually, not really since I did have a bit of a smile but only because it wasn’t happening to me. I am definitely dreading this winter. I could care less about nearly all winter sports, both as a spectator and participant. I’m dreading the walk to school to pick up Timothy where I will be trudging through […]