Sweet & salty treats with a hint of nostalgia.
A rich, fudgy and decadent treat for Easter, or any time of the year.
The most decadent treat! Chocolate fudge filled with tons of delicious Cadbury Mini Eggs.
A giant skillet cookie filled with delicious Cadbury Mini Eggs! This recipe was featured on Food Network Canada!
A super healthy, easy and delicious dinner.
Our absolute favourite Ukrainian family recipes…all in one place!
Decadent cupcakes filled with marshmallow filling and topped with dreamy chocolate buttercream!
The best sweet and savoury dip for your next potluck!
Soft, delicate and delicious…and better than your local bakery, guaranteed!
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…)
I love the weekends for more reasons than just the fact that I can sleep in and not have to drive 45 minutes to work in the dark. I also love weekends because it means I have more time to make something other than a smoothie for breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, I love smoothies. But they are a little hard to drink day in and day out when it’s winter and cold in the morning. (more…)
There is nothing more comforting on a cold winter day than warm buns. You can interpret that however you like. I mean, whatever floats your boat, you silly animals. But right now, I’m talking about these dough buns above, otherwise known as “Perishke” in Ukrainian. Delicious, soft, warm cottage cheese filled buns smothered in creamy dill sauce. One bite and you will forget all about those other warm buns you were thinking about. (more…)
I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of breakfast. Okay, scratch that. I actually really like breakfast foods. I just don’t have the time each morning to make them. I like sleep. I am the queen of the snooze button. That trait doesn’t bode well for me to have the time to make a healthy breakfast. That’s why 90% of my days begin with a protein smoothie. (more…)
I bought a Christmas CD yesterday. It was the first CD I’ve purchased in legit 3 years. Of course it is filled with Christmas tunes from one of my favourite guilty pleasure TV shows, Nashville. With only a few weeks left until the holidays, I figured I should get into the spirit. Also, the most recent Christmas CD I had was Justin Bieber’s, so it was definitely time for an update. (more…)
I love comfort food. Especially around this time of year when the temperature is dipping and I’m in my comfy socks 24/7. Yeah, I paid $35 for a pair of socks. Don’t judge me, they are worth every penny! So much, I actually bought two pairs. But I digress…
My latest obsession (besides said socks) is trying to create delicious comfort dishes with a healthy spin. So, when Aloha approached me on partnering with them in their “Bringing a Dish to Pass” campaign, and to create a healthy version of a traditional dish, I couldn’t say no. Spaghetti Bolognese is something I enjoyed a lot while I was in Italy last month. It’s warm, rich and seriously comforting. But I don’t need to tell you this as I’m sure you’ve had the pleasure of having it in your lifetime.
The key to turning healthy ingredients into delicious food is flavour. Using spices seriously ups any flavour profile, which makes you forget that you are actually eating something that is good for you. This can easily be said about this Zucchini Spaghetti with Spicy Turkey Bolognese dish. With such flavourful spices as oregano, Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes, you almost forget you’ve replaced your red meat sauce with protein-rich, lean turkey. The zucchini has such a mild flavour that you really can’t tell it’s, well, vegetable noodles instead of starchy pasta. Also, a little red wine has never hurt any dish. It’s full of antioxidants and great for your heart, so in moderation it’s totally healthy. Yes, I tell myself this every time the cork is released from the bottle.
Again, I used my trusty spiralizer for this recipe. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend you get one. But while you are waiting for your order, you can always slice the zucchini very thin using a mandoline or a julienne tool.
If you are looking for other great healthy recipes, please do visit ALOHA’s recipe site. So many guilt-free yummy dishes on there!
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I am in love with my spiralizer. I took one look at it and I knew we would be soul mates. A couple months ago during my healthy eating quest, I came across Ali and her amazing blog, Inspiralized. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out her blog, I highly recommend you do. The focus of her blog is to create delicious healthy meals by using her spiralizer. After visiting her blog for the first time, I immediately went to Amazon and bought my very own spiralizer. And it’s worth every penny. And this is coming from a girl who isn’t really into vegetables!
I’ve made quite a few of Ali’s recipes and they are all incredible. The meals are such a healthy game changer for me. I slightly adapted this recipe to include white sweet potatoes and chickpeas (Ali’s recipe calls for white beans). I used chickpeas because I didn’t have white beans in the house. I have since used white kidney beans in this recipe and it’s still super delicious as well. I also used an amazing red wine chorizo sausage from La Grotta, which is a local Mediterranean market here in Winnipeg. I cannot tell you how yummy this dish is. My husband has already requested that we have it again by week’s end! This definitely is a a nice healthier alternative to your traditional comfort food dishes.
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.