You know those days when you really don’t feel like cooking anything but you also don’t want to spend $30 on some shitty take-out dinner that the kid won’t eat anyway because he actually just wanted Honey Nut Cheerios? Yeah. That. I was very tempted to have cereal for dinner too the first night I made this but I was feeling pretty guilty about letting food go to waste in the fridge. I remembered that I had kale from Bailey’s Local Foods. I also had some Enoki mushrooms that I’d bought to use for a different recipe that was […]
Spaghetti Sauce and Buying Half a Cow
The perils of buying half a steer from an organic farmer, such as Vibrant Farms, are few but the main ones are an inordinate amount of freezer space required and the need for some really good recipes for ground beef. With a small child who has varying degrees of pickyeateritis, which is hereditary, getting the optimal amount of vegetables into the little one is also a concern of ours. This recipe for good old fashion Spaghetti Sauce is perfect for two out of three issue; using a lot of ground beef and getting several servings of vegetables into a picky kid. I […]
Braised Beef Short Rib Ragout
I don’t know about you but after Christmas my bank account has a wicked hangover. This means that going out to dinner is just not going to happen. In fact we are usually still in recovering at Valentine’s so we don’t go out, or do presents then either. This recipe is a fair amount of work but when you sit down to something as good as you would get in a restaurant, it is worth it. This is hands down, my favourite dinner. The first time I had short ribs they were on the bone and in a restaurant. They […]
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Whole Roasted Garlic
This is another easy soup recipe that is all brought together by my kitchen buddy, the immersion blender. We had about 4 or 5 butternut squashes sitting in the pantry from our CSA that I was getting worried would go to waste so I decided that soup is the quickest think to do with them. The next question was how was I going to flavour the soup? I’m not a big curry fan, so that option was out for me. Another look in the pantry led me to a whole head of garlic. Well, roasted garlic it is then. The […]
Creamy Parsnip Soup with Tarragon & Pancetta Crisps
Very close to the top of the list of my favourite kitchen gadgets is my immersion blender. I would be very torn if someone told me that I had to give away my immersion blender, food processor or my KitchenAid mixer. Generally I call my immersion blender my stick blender and it has made making pureed soups ridiculously simple. This parsnip soup has a very simple base: leeks and garlic (onion would be a fine substitute for the leeks). When I was trying to think of something that would pair well with the unique flavour of parsnips I went sniffing around my […]
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 […]
Notes from my Freshman Canning Summer
Preserving is addictive. I started canning with a rhubarb jam that I had been thinking of and before I knew it I was ordering pound after pound of rhubarb from Bailey’s. When strawberry season hit, I knew I was in trouble. I made so much jam last summer that I sold a lot of it at a Christmas craft and jewelry get together that my mom held at the end of November. I remember being in the kitchen sweating over my stove berating myself about why I have bought so much fruit and then ordering more the next day. I […]