The one Ukrainian dish that my family never had an actual recipe for was Paska. This glorious Easter treat was often just purchased from our local bakery or store. Because of this, I always just assumed it was super difficult to make and my Grandmother’s and Claudia thought it wasn’t worth the work.
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I watched my first Christmas movie of the season today. How the Grinch Stole Christmas was on TV this afternoon. Not the original animated one, but the Jim Carrey/Ron Howard reboot. I’ve actually never seen the original. Or A Christmas Story. I may have seen It’s a Wonderful Life once…but I can’t be 100% sure. Please don’t judge me. As a kid, I grew up watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer during summer vacation – that’s how much I loved that movie. There was really nothing else in my holiday movie repertoire. Well, I guess National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, but only because my Dad loved that movie. What are your favourite holiday movies? Feel free to tell me in the comments section!
One thing I am absolutely sure of – I love Claudia’s Butter Tarts at Christmas time! They are seriously delicious. She always makes the dough from scratch, and it’s always flaky and buttery. The filling is sweet and syrupy. I didn’t realize how easy they were to make until Claudia came over a couple weeks ago to show me. I am so glad she did.
I love receiving recipe requests. After blogging for a few years now, sometimes it’s hard to come up with recipes every week to share. This recipe was a request from somebody on our Facebook page and we couldn’t be happier to share it with you. I’m a very picky bran muffin connoisseur. Most of the time I find them to be really dry and flavourless. This recipe is the complete opposite. These muffins are extremely moist and very versatile, with a deep sweet flavour that comes from the brown sugar. The original recipe calls for raisins, but Claudia prefers dates in her bran muffins so we decided to feature that instead. However, you can simply swap out the same quantity of dates for raisins if you prefer Raisin Bran Muffins instead.
It’s not everyday that somebody shows up at my door with a big wheel of cheese. Well, last week Claudia did. And she was proud. She had been wanting to make this appetizer since before Christmas. When she showed up at my door that cold Monday evening, her patience had clearly run out. She couldn’t take looking at the wheel of Brie cheese in her fridge anymore. The thought of it expiring before she had an opportunity to feature this recipe on this blog was too much for her to take. Therefore, she showed up and we made this beauty. It’s rich, buttery, cheesy, sweet and sour all at the same time. Did I mention Claudia also brought a Costco-sized box of crackers to go along with the wheel of cheese? She meant business. I couldn’t say no – and I’m glad I didn’t. This appetizer is absolutely delicious and perfect for any company you may be hosting. You can also cut this recipe in half if you don’t want to purchase a huge wheel of Brie cheese and make enough to feed a small army. But then that wouldn’t be as fun! Finally, a special thank you to Claudia’s coworker, Barb, who gave us this recipe. None of this could have been shared without her.