I had a craving for carrot cake recently. One of my sisters created a delicious carrot cake recipe years ago. Her version uses soured milk along with vegetable oil, which gets rid of the oiliness that some carrot cakes suffer from. Her recipe also features raisins and orange rind and is topped with cream cheese icing. It is by far my favourite carrot cake.
But this post is not about that recipe, exactly. This post is about what happens when you bake when you are tired…
I love fruitcake. It is another treat that is not universally loved in my family. A few years ago, my mother and I decided not to bake it at Christmas and to focus instead on more popular desserts. Then, later, after all the Christmas baking is long forgotten, we can make and really enjoy this treat.
My niece is brilliant. She came up with an incredibly delicious idea this week. As part of a meal, we had bacon-wrapped scallops. But they were scallops with double plus bacon, really. First, she fried a slice of bacon for each scallop. Then, she cooked the scallops gently in bacon fat. Next, I fried chopped garlic in bacon fat—I chopped five large cloves for 10 scallops. She assembled them, wrapping each scallop in bacon and carefully distributing the garlic over the scallops. This photo does not do them justice at all.* The result was pure bliss.
*(I guess that means we will be forced to make them again so I can get a better photo…)
Poutine is a staple of French-Canadian cuisine. It’s simple but extremely tasty.
A few years ago, I went with my sister and my niece to a concert put on by Ron Cahute and Jane Lapko, the creators of these educational French songs. They performed their Poutine song, which goes like this:
Poutine, let’s start with the french fries,
Poutine, add the cheese and the gravy!
Poutine is my favourite thing,
It’s fries with an attitude!
I love cheese, as may already be obvious despite the young age of this blog. Four out of my six recipe posts feature cheese. A simple grilled cheese sandwich is one of my very favourite meals.
But a grilled cheese isn’t so simple for those of us avoiding gluten. Anyone who has tried commercially available gluten-free breads will know how disappointing they can be. I am lucky, though, to have stores that sell incredible gluten-free bread near where I live. I made this grilled cheese sandwich with the Romano Bean Bread in the Queen St. Gluten Free bread line baked by Yoshi’s Sweets. There are other breads in the same line—including one made with grape seed flour—and they all have a texture which is incredibly like bread with gluten in it.
I love jalapenos. I first learned how to use a canner just so I could pickle my own peppers. I have grown my own plants a couple of times, too. One year, when I had a large garden, I ended up pickling 60 cups of peppers.
One of my sisters made me this fabulous cake from Martha Stewart for my birthday. It was absolutely amazing.
She made it using three boxes of Betty Crocker gluten-free chocolate cake mix. Other than that, she followed the recipe. It was truly decadent.
And the best part? We celebrated my birthday a day early and I took leftovers home. That meant that on my actual birthday I got to eat this cake for breakfast. That’s a pretty good way to start the year.
This dessert features six layers of chocolate cake, a ganache topping and a salted caramel filling.
These black-eyed susans are in my mother’s garden. She worries about the weeds, but all I ever notice are the contrasting textures, the curves of the beds and the bursts of brilliant colour, like this one.
I have had broccoli salad on the brain lately. My mother had made one, which was delicious, but quite different from the one I’m posting here. Hers was made with feta, raisins and a yogurt dressing. After I ate some, I started thinking about THIS broccoli salad…
Kalakand is an Indian sweet. My mother, who was born in New Delhi, loves this treat. My brother and one of my sisters don’t think much of it, but my other sister and I adore it, just like our mother. We three kalakand lovers aren’t sad that it’s not to everyone’s taste, because that means there’s more for us.
A Flour By Any Other Name 