You would think that I’d know better than to try a new recipe out on Christmas Day. Whether it was foolhardiness or simple arrogance in my abilities to pull it off, I decided to make a recipe I saw in the Jamie Oliver Magazine for a chocolate Buche De Noel that looked delicious. It didn’t contain any flour so I thought it would be a perfect treat for my husband who has difficulties with gluten. My mom brought her jelly roll pan since I was determined to do it right and having the right equipment often helps get a good result. […]
Zucchini and Summer Squash Ribbons on Pasta with Creamy Goat Cheese Sauce
I think I will be saying, “Please excuse the mess, we just moved in,” for the next two years. The amount of junk we have is overwhelming as are the thousand small projects there are still to do to get the house up to snuff. The stress of moving seemed to have sucked all my creativity and energy from me. I didn’t want to cook, I just wanted to clean, unpack, paint, and clean some more. The previous owners of this house left it in a bit of state. At one point I thought that I was losing it because […]
Creamy Pasta with Kale, Mushrooms & Pancetta
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 […]
Kale Salad with Pancetta & Balsamic Vinaigrette
I’ve always like kale in soups but this salad is my favourite way to eat kale now. I have been eating absurdly large servings of this salad so I’m feeling like I should be entered into the running for dietary sainthood for eating this much raw kale.. Bacon notwithstanding. The first time I made a kale salad was on Christmas Day. I saw on Twitter that Martin’s Family Fruit store said they had a delivery of fresh Ontario kale and on the drive home to Waterloo from Barrie on the 23rd I asked them via Twitter whether they had any […]
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 […]
Pasta with Pesto, Peas, Pancetta and Grilled Chicken
This is a meal I crave in the early weeks of summer but is great any time of year if you have had the forethought to freeze pesto or just use store-bought. The thought of the flavour packed pesto combined with the hit of fresh sweet peas, salty bite of pancetta and little bits of mellow mozzarella are making my mouth water as I write this. I make the pesto in a fairly typical way – lots of basil. a clove of garlic, toasted pine nuts, fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, pinch of salt and pepper and lots of olive oil. No great […]