My favourite time of year to bake is early summer, when rhubarb and all kinds of berries are fresh and in season. I have so many sticks of rhubarb that I don’t know what to do with it. I often make crisps or crumbles, but this time I wanted to adapt an awesome cake recipe that my Mother-in-Law gave me into muffins. (more…)
The last time I posted a recipe I was celebrating Ukrainian Christmas, it was the dead of winter, I was in a different job, and I hadn’t yet travelled to New York City, Miami, Arizona, and Las Vegas. Wow, a lot sure has happened in 4 months! (more…)
Merry Ukrainian Christmas Eve! Just when you thought Christmas was long behind us, up pops the Orthodox celebration. We typically do not celebrate Christmas twice in our household. The standard one in December is what we celebrate. (more…)
I have almost fully recovered from my food coma of Christmas 2014. I had 3 family dinners in the span of 4 days. All of them were filled with Ukrainian food that consisted of dough, butter, onions, more butter and the odd slice of turkey. Don’t even get me started on the sheer volume of chocolate that was also consumed. It was all worth it. But, I am already dreading my triumphant return to the gym next week. (more…)
I deemed this past Saturday “Deep Frying Day”. Claudia came over early, as we had a lot of Ukrainian cooking to do. All of which consisted of frying dough in hot oil. All of which was absolutely delicious. It had been quite a few years since I have had Pampushky. They are Ukrainian style doughnuts that are traditionally filled with either poppy seeds or prunes. (more…)
We never really had Egg Nog in our house growing up. I think one of the first times I ever had Egg Nog was when I worked at Starbucks during university and had to try some in their Egg Nog Latte. It was that Christmas that I had the bright idea to throw a holiday party at my house and make Egg Nog from scratch. I figured it couldn’t be THAT hard, and homemade Egg Nog would be pretty decadent. (more…)
I am a chocolate chip cookie fanatic. I knew this early on as a child. Whenever Claudia would bake cookies with me growing up, they were always chocolate chip. I think it’s because I would demand this for the sole purpose of eating the cookie dough when she was not looking. I got caught once and there is photographic evidence. If you’ve browsed this blog, you’ve probably seen it. (more…)
There are two things my hockey team is passionate about: playing hockey (obvs) and donuts. When I mention that I am bringing donuts to the game, I become somewhat of a hero. Our message board gets extremely animated. I’ve made these donuts for them a few times now and they are always gobbled up in mere minutes. And for good reason. They are seriously one of the most delicious baked donuts I have ever had. They are extremely soft. The flavour combination of pumpkin and maple is decadent. Not to mention, these donuts incorporate my favourite obsession: browned butter!
A lot of people have asked me where to buy donut pans. I bought mine on Amazon. They are Wilton brand and are wonderful and extremely inexpensive. I enjoy baked donuts way more than fried. So these pans have come in handy for all my sweet cravings.
Remember that time I dressed up as Hulk Hogan for Halloween and had to wear a bleach blonde moustache that drove me crazy for an entire evening? Yeah, that was my night yesterday. I have new appreciation for all men who have to eat vegetable dip while sporting a moustache. I had dip everywhere. It was not attractive.
This Halloween was a cold one here in Winnipeg. We didn’t have nearly as many kids come to our door for Trick-or-Treating as we usually do. That was a theme with most of my friends that I have talked to. We bought enough candy for about 120 kids, and we only received about 20 at our house. Crazy, right? Not to mention that kids these days have it so easy. Sure, it was cold, but we had no snow. I recall every Halloween as a kid trudging through knee-deep snow to get myself that sugar gold. No word of a lie. I have photographic evidence too.
I figured I would try and experiment with our leftover candy that we have in the house and make these skillet candy cookie bars! I essentially adapted our Cadbury Mini Egg Skillet Cookie to create these beauties by doubling the dough and layering the candy in the middle. Also – Man, do I love using cast iron skillets to bake cookies. The skillet creates such a rich, decadent cookie. I also love using browned butter. It has such a nutty flavour which is a perfect compliment to the sweet candy bars. If you have leftover candy an want to do some baking, I highly recommend you give these a try!
Oh kitchen and blog, how I’ve missed you. I am back from our 3-week honeymoon vacation in England and Italy. I must say, I didn’t miss much. Let’s be honest here, does anyone really look forward to coming home after a wonderful vacation? Sure, I missed my bed, my cats (who probably laid mostly on my bed), and such luxuries as clean clothes from my closet. But I wasn’t ready to come back to reality so soon. I was, however, excited to share some fun things I was able to do on my trip. It is all pretty much food related (duh)!
I had the awesome opportunity one day while we were in Tuscany to learn how to make traditional Tuscan eggless pasta from scratch. Here’s me with my lovely teacher, who was both patient and amazing. She even said I was a natural at dough rolling. I told them it was years of perogy making practice!
I also had some of the most amazing food at the villa where we stayed in Tuscany.
This was the lunch that greeted us upon arrival. So incredible!
And I cannot mention my trip to Italy without showing you the PIZZA!
This one had homemade buffalo mozzarella and spicy caramelized salami.
It was probably the spiciest pizza I’ve ever had!
It was delicious. And it made me chug my Italian beer.
Like, c’mon!
Carapina was my favourite gelato place in Florence and Rome.
They make all their gelato fresh every morning and have a dozen flavours at one time.
My favourite was the dark chocolate, hazelnut and marsala wine flavours shown above!
Truffles and mushrooms were in season while we were in Italy. They were everywhere and so delectable!
Pasta with truffles – get outta here! SO good.
The open air meat, seafood and produce markets were also total eye candy. I wanted to buy everything.
You know that place that served me that spicy pizza? Oh yeah, it’s also a mozzarella bar!
Here is mild, strong and smoked mozzarella, made fresh (of course).
Let’s all go back immediately!
As much as I loved dining out at a different restaurant for 3 weeks, I did miss my kitchen and making (healthy) food for ourselves. I also missed the food blogger community. And, of course, I missed my Mom 🙂
Claudia and I actually got together a few days before I left for Europe to make this apple pie. It was then that I deemed it “World’s Best Apple Pie”. Because it is. I mean, I might be biased? But I’m also a pretty good judge of food character (humble brag). The crust is so flaky and light, and the apple filling is warm, sweet and comforting. We made this particular apple pie with locally-grown apples from Claudia’s friend’s yard! Ah, the beauty of summer…which is slowly fading away. I recommend you try this apple pie immediately, and capture some of summer back into your lives.