Five Reasons Why My Husband Cannot Plan for Dinner Guests On His Own He does not confirm with the person cooking the meal that guests will be coming until the night before. He does not confirm what time people will be arriving. He does not ask if their are any food sensitivity issues. On the day of the dinner he still isn’t sure how many people are coming to dinner. He forgets to serve the dessert when he is left to entertain his guest on his own. Who doesn’t love it when your husband reminds you at 9pm about dinner […]
Butterscotch Pudding with Scotch Whisky
Like many parents before me, I have now discovered the secret to getting children to eat their dinner. Have pudding as the dessert. Two evenings in a row I had pudding on offer for dessert and Timothy sat down at the table and ate his dinner with a minimum of pre-schooler drama. On a related note to pre-schooler drama, I am currently reading One More Time… by Amy McCready in an effort to change the way we discipline and parent in general. What we are doing is not working. Time-outs are useless and I don’t want to yell and scream all […]
Chocolate Pudding with Irish Cream
Like most people, I grew up with the boxed pudding mixes which were a staple dessert in my house. I have a confession about those pudding mixes. I actually liked the skin that formed on top when they were in the pudding cups that my mom used. In fact, it was my favourite part. My husband thinks that it is gross but I don’t care. I was good when I made this pudding and I put it in a large glass bowl and put a piece of plastic wrap right on top of the hot pudding so that no skin […]
Homemade Chocolate Truffles
If you can melt chocolate and have a modicum of patience then you can make chocolate truffles at home. There are some rules that you need to abide by, but for the most part it is just a little fussy rather than difficult. If you take your time, you will end up with a rather large amount of truffles for a fraction of the price you would pay at a chocolatier. True, these aren’t tempered chocolates but nobody will care. The two most important tips to remember is to melt the chocolate slowly and get the right whipping cream to […]
Truffle Hot Chocolate
I think I lost all sense of time management at Christmas this year. I made almost all the gifts I gave to the adults in the family and hosted my parents Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my in-laws arriving in the late afternoon for a big turkey dinner. Keep in mind that we had to go to Barrie from the 21st to the 23rd for my husband’s dad’s Christmas dinner. This naturally took a huge chunk of time I had available to me to get everything ready for the big day. It made perfect sense to my frantic, yet […]
Eggnog Bread Pudding with Dulce de Leche
This is my second favourite Christmas dessert, behind Trifle, and it is definitely the easiest one that I make. To be honest it is hardly a recipe it is so damn easy. If your kids know how to crack eggs and stir then they could almost do it themselves. If they are allowed to use a knife to slice bread then go lay down for 15 minutes and let them put this dessert together. This recipe is sort of from my Aunt Val. Years ago Uncle Norm and Aunt Val went to my parents house for dinner and she […]
Pavlova with Peaches Plus a Few Tips and Tricks
Pavlova is not an overly common dessert here in Canada. I discovered it by way of the glorious Nigella Lawson and her show ‘Nigella Bites’. That show was a revelation to me and I will be forever grateful that Food Network Canada used to actually have cooking shows on their station. Now it is cupcake battles, and Top Chef Thunderdome Extreme Cook-off, reality-show crap. I live in hope that the American station, Cooking Channel will eventually make its way up here. I make this dessert quite frequently since it is naturally gluten-free and definitely little boy approved. I almost always […]
Gluten-Free Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Strawberry season is in full swing here in Ontario. I was finally able to get out strawberry picking on Canada Day this past Sunday at Barrie Hill Farms and picked about 20 pounds of berries in a hour. I admit, I had help. Simon picked a few and Timothy was there in a purely supervisory role and to keep my mom in line. I was too tired to make jam on Monday since we had just returned from an extra long weekend away in Niagara Falls and then to visit family in Barrie. The dogs enjoyed their holiday at Nana […]
Carrot Cake with Honey and Cream Cheese Icing with a Gluten-Free Option
I have been planning on posting a carrot cake recipe for quite some time. I make carrot cakes twice a year, one cake for each of my dogs’ birthdays. Don’t run away from reading this recipe – this is a human cake and I give a small piece to my dogs as a treat. Every time I would pull out the Canadian Living recipe that I used to make I would cringe at the disgusting amount of sugar and oil that the recipe calls for. I just felt that it was all really unnecessary so I was determined to do […]
Plum and Peach Candy
I found the recipe for Plum Candy on Married With Dinner by way of Punk Domestics. I was intrigued so I read through the instructions and the story of how the candy came to be and thought that I could do this. I had plums in my fridge that were going bad and I still had some peaches (which I was loathing since I was still sick of peeling). I went through the plums and a lot of them had gone funky and the recipe called for 4 pounds of plums which is how some peaches got tagged in. I thought that […]