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Friends!! I’ve been working on a sort of experimental project. It’s been super fun. It’s Hip to be Square is my first digital recipe download! It’s a collection of a bakers’ dozen (13!) of my favourite recipes for squares (and a few bars!), from Nanaimo bars to butter tart squares to Sweet Maureens, to download and/or print for your holiday – or year-round – baking pleasure. Cookies get all the attention at this time of year, but a pan of squares is perfect for packaging up to do door drops.

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Hey friends! So I’ve had an idea brewing for awhile now, and it seems like a good time to jump in and just do it already. I promised myself I’d get it out there by December 1, and I’m just squeezing it in before my midnight deadline. I’ve been trying to reimagine how to best utilize all the digital technology that’s available to us to do more fun things between my kitchen and yours. I’ve been getting a ton of requests for Zoom cooking classes throughout the pandemic, and have been trying to wrap my mind around how to best accommodate more people – most of the classes and events I’ve been doing have been for private companies, agencies and organizations, some of them fundraisers, cooking shows and such… but I’d like to do more classes that are open to anyone. (Remember back in February, we had the first of what was supposed to be a series of real-life and live-streamed kitchen parties? The secondContinue reading

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As you may know, I tend to go on about food waste… I’ve been known to orchestrate entire meals around using up a half bunch of slimy cilantro or some wilting kale. I also get a lot of questions about composting, and so when The City of Calgary asked if I would post some guidelines around using your green bin, it seemed like a good idea. (Also, I needed an excuse to share this recipe for compost muffins, so named because you can toss just about anything into them—any grated root vegetable, sweet potato, apples, pears, or you could add berries, dried fruit, and any dairy product nearing the end of its lifespan (yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, milk).

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Who has leftover roasted turkey in their freezer from the holidays? I do. For the past few years, I’ve turned some of those leftovers into cheesy baked buffalo turkey dip, and it generally coincides with a TV event that calls for extra snacks. Of course, baked dips don’t require any particular occasion – Netflix is a totally legit excuse to make a gooey, cheesy dip too. It’s so fantastic—the very best kind of curl-up-on-the-couch food.

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Yesssss, I managed to get another podcast out and into the world! Food writer Claire Tansey was in town to promote her new cookbook, Uncomplicated, and since she has many years of experience running the Chatelaine test kitchen, we decided to sit down and answer a few common questions we get about cooking, ingredients and other culinary curiosities. We also talked about what makes a solid recipe, how you know it’s going to work, and ate some jelly doughnuts. Have a listen!

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A few weeks ago, Jann Arden invited me over for lunch – she made Beyond Meat burgers, and we chatted about life and food and how she’s navigating being vegan, and I recorded it all and whittled it down into a podcast. It was my first time recording one on my own – no one was standing by with headphones, watching the levels on the laptop… it was just Jann and I and a single hand-held mic with a really long cord – almost long enough to reach around her 8×10 foot kitchen island. (If I was to be stranded on an island, it would be that one.) Give it a listen… huge thanks to Jann for taking the time to make me lunch, for letting me use one of her songs, and just generally being an amazing human and positive influence on the world.

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Hey guys! I can’t believe I forgot to share here that the second episode of Crispy Bits (the podcast!) is out – this time I sat down with self-published cookbook author Greta Podleski and we chatted about how she has managed to sell 2 1/2 million cookbooks on her own, without the support of a major publisher. How she managed to be the #1 best selling cookbook in Canada all last year, even though her latest book came out in October of 2017. It’s truly an amazing story.

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I realize plums aren’t in season right now, but focus on what’s underneath: a crunchy shredded phyllo-wrapped ricotta cheesecake of sorts, which like other cheesecakes can be topped with just about anything, including whatever fruit you currently have in the freezer, simmered with a bit of sugar or honey and spooned overtop. I wasn’t sure what to call this – it’s not really pie, nor cake; I settled on torte (as have others) because it’s a sort of blanket term for a dense cake, and it is baked in a pan and served in wedges. What makes it unique is the kataifi, finely shredded phyllo pastry you can find alongside the frozen phyllo at any Middle Eastern grocery, and even in some grocery stores. It’s lovely to work with.

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