Although this post is titled “Bagel Breakfast Sandwiches”, I’d never actually eat this for breakfast. I’m never hungry in the morning and usually it’s just a bowl of oatmeal or some yogurt and fruit. But, I’m a big fan of breakfast for dinner. When my kids were little, we’d have waffles and ice cream if my husband was out at a meeting. He would have never considered that dinner. We loved it.
Although I’m giving you a recipe for this sandwich, it’s really more of a guide. Feel free to use whatever you have on hand. I had leeks, kale, peppers and some leftover plant based Italian sausage.
I sautéed the veggies, shredded some cheese, then added them to some beaten eggs and poured them into a greased sheet pan. It only took about 8 minutes to bake in the oven.
Since there are just the two of us, we had leftover “egg circles”. They reheated up perfectly for breakfast with a piece of toast the next few morning, and lunch the day after that.
I toasted up some everything bagels, melted some Gouda cheese on the bottom and topped my egg patty with sliced avocado, tomato and arugula. Cheddar and an English muffin would be yummy. Ciabatta bread and Gruyere would also make a fine match. Just use up whatever is lingering in your vegetable crisper and cheese drawer and you’ve got the makings of a very fine dinner!
I had big plans for this rolling pin. It was destined to decorate the top of an apple pie, as a Valentine’s Day treat for my husband. While chocolate is the traditional Valentine’s Day treat, apple pie is what makes his heart beat a little faster. I decided to create Erin Jean McDowell‘s Cider Caramel Apple Pie. She literally wrote The Book on Pie.
The pie is sweetened with an apple cider based caramel. You boil down 8 cups of apple cider, for almost 45 minutes, until it is reduced to the consistency of caramel. When mixed with the apples, it creates a sweet-tart filling with a rich creaminess.
Erin suggest that you take your time and arrange the apples carefully in the pie shell, forming concentric circles. That way, you avoid big air gaps, and your top crust won’t cave in after baking.
The pie looked beautiful going into the oven.
Sadly, the embossed design disappeared with baking. I think that the rolling pin would be more successful with cookie dough, as it spends less time in the oven. So, as they said in 2020, I had to pivot. As a food blogger and photographer, I have learned to become a problem solver. My husband is thrilled when I need to resort to Plan B, because it leaves Plan A for him to eat, without having to wait for me to finish shooting. Food blogger problems!😉
Plan B involved pulling out my heart shaped cookie cutters. I have quite an assortment of sizes. I decided to make mini pies, because, well, mini pies are just cuter.
These pies looked just as beautiful coming out of the oven as they did going in. And the taste! The had a bright, intense apple flavour with just a hint of caramel sweetness.
I’m very excited to share these cookies with you. This little cookie box, packed with hearts would be such a lovely gift! While I love the look of decorated sugar cookies, most of them are just too sweet and lacking in flavour. I have solved that problem by flavouring and colouring the icing naturally, with freeze dried fruit powder. These are sugar cookies that people will actually want to eat.
Freeze dried fruit is not the same as dried fruit. Dried fruit is dehydrated and only about 75% of the water is removed. With freeze-drying, the fruit is placed into a vacuum chamber where the temperature is well-below freezing and 99% of the moisture can be removed from the fruit.
There are so many fruits that are freeze dried these days. I chose strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and peach. I buy my freeze dried fruit online. You can grind up the fruit in a food processor or spice grinder. I like to strain the powder after grinding, to eliminate any seeds. I mixed up a big batch of royal icing and divided it into 4 bowls and added the fruit powder until I got the colour and flavour I wanted. I also mixed in a little fresh lemon juice to brighten the flavours.
For the cookies, I used my favourite sugar cookie recipe from Bon Appetit. It uses brown sugar instead of regular granulated sugar, They are a little bit chewy in the centre and very delicious. I used a variety of heart cookie cutters sizes. I bought these ones on Etsy this year.
The inspiration for this cake came from Sally’s Baking Addiction blog. She claimed it was the Best Banana Cake she had ever made! After baking it, I must agree. It’s outstanding.
Even if you’re not a baker, chances are, that during the past year, you have baked a banana bread during the pandemic. But banana bread is so 2020. This year, it’s all about Banana Cake. So, what’s the difference between banana bread and banana cake? Generally, banana bread is a bit denser than banana cake. Banana cake tends to be a bit sweeter as well. The biggest difference however, is that Banana Cake almost always has a frosting. And really, isn’t all about the frosting.
Sally frosted it simply, with a butter-cream cheese icing. I took it up a notch and browned the butter in my cream cheese frosting. Browning the butter is an additional step that is most certainly worth the effort. It adds a nutty taste that helps to temper the sweetness of the frosting. Even non-frosting types, like my husband, loved this one.
Instead of making a simple snacking cake in a 9×13 inch pan, I baked mine in three 6-inch round cake pans and created this statuesque layer cake.
In addition to the frosting between each layer, I added a crunch element. I toasted some chopped walnuts, crushed digestive cookies and some melted butter to create a crumble.
When my children were little, we used to pretend that the first of every month was Elmo’s Birthday, complete with cake and candles. Of course the cake was almost always chocolate. And I always had at least one of the kids in the kitchen “helping”. Somehow, with help, it always took longer! I have so many lovely memories from that time. The enthusiasm for these monthly celebrations was infectious. The kids have all moved out now, but I think it just might be time to bring back monthly birthday cakes.
My name is Cindy and I have a Bundt pan addiction. Is there anything more beautiful than a Bundt Cake? It does all the work for you. Somehow, over the years, I have amassed quite a collection of Bundt pans. I have this one,this one, this one, this one, these and these. I have resisted buying these, but we all know it’s only a matter of time.
Bake from Scratch magazine founder, Brian Hart Hoffman, recently released The Bundt Collection Cookbook, 128 gorgeous and delicious ways for Bundt aficionados to show off their baking prowess.
I started off with this Banana beauty. When you slice the cake you reveal a gorgeous cream cheese swirl. The tang of the cream cheese really complements the sweet bananas. It’s a classic combo.
Once the cake is cooled, you brush it with melted butter and sprinkle coarse sanding sugar all over the top and sides. It glistens like a jewel.
Since I have baked more than a few Bundt cakes in my life. I’d like to offer a few pointers for success:
To avoid every Bundt user’s worst nightmare, spray the pan very well with Baker’s Joy, Pam with Flour, or other spray that includes flour.
Dense batters, like pound cake and coffee cake are best for a Bundt pan. A light chiffon or sponge cake is not a good option for this pan.
Be patient when you bake this. It takes a while. Use the wooden skewer test. If the skewer comes out sticky or covered in batter, it’s not ready. If there are just a few crumbs clinging to it, that’s fine. Better still, an instant read thermometer, registering 200°F is a foolproof test.
Let the cake rest on a wire rack for at least 15-20 minutes before turning cake out of the pan. You might need to give the pan a gentle bang to help loosen the cake and release.
Let the cake cool entirely before glazing or icing it.
Any leftover cake freezes beautifully. I slice it, wrap each slice in plastic wrap and then put them in a freezer bag.
I’m very excited to share this lasagna recipe with you guys! I have been working on it for a while now. I wanted to create a “meat” lasagna using plant based meats. After some trial and error, I settled on a combination of Beyond Meat ground beef and Beyond Meat spicy Italian sausage. This is not a sponsored post. I just really love their products. They really replicate the taste and texture of meat, unlike some soy based alternatives I have tried. If you’re curious to know more, you can read abut it here.
The sauce is quick to make, it only needs to simmer for about 15 minutes. Rich and satisfying, it was really difficult to believe it was not real beef and sausage.
For the cheese filling, I went traditional here, using a mix of mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan, with a bit of cream to smooth the whole thing out.
I know that making a lasagna is a big time commitment. This one is worth it. A 9×13 inch baking dish will make about 8 servings. Any leftovers freeze perfectly. I just love pulling dinner out of the freezer on nights when I don’t feel like cooking.
Watch how it all comes together. Pro tip – see how I use a potato masher to break up the ground “beef” and “sausage”.
Please don’t be tempted to use the “no boil” lasagna noodles. They just don’t have the same texture as the regular noodles. It’s an extra step that I urge you to take.
Anyone else need a bit of a reset to their digestive system this month? My consumption of cookies in December was a bit over the top. Well, more than a bit, but never mind. Let’s look forward, to this Split Pea, Barley and Spinach Soup.
This soup is a body-cleansing powerhouse. A mere 1/4 cup of green split peas contains 12 grams of both fibre and protein. Barley rings in at 8 grams of fibre and 6 grams of protein per 1/4 cup. Make sure you buy pot barley and not pearl barley. Pot barley is not hulled, meaning it still has the outer layer and is considered a whole grain. I suggest cooking the barley separate from the soup, and mixing it in at the end, so that it does not overcook. You want a bit of chew to your barley.
This soup also contains an entire 5-ounce box of spinach. In addition to the nutrients spinach provides, it also helps the split pea soup have a prettier green colour. Although, I will admit to a bit of editing to the green colour of this soup.
Leeks, carrots and celery form the base of this soup. I used vegetable broth, but chicken stock could also be used. I spiced things up a bit with some red pepper flakes, thyme and bay leaves. I like to finish the soup with a drizzle of yogurt and a sprinkle of crispy fried shallots, entirely optional, but very delicious.
Most of the baked brie recipes out there rely on ready-made puff pastry. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’d like to offer an alternative. Wine pastry. Yes, you read that correctly. There is actual wine in the dough. It comes together quickly in the food processor, rolls out beautifully, and results in a supremely flaky pastry. The wine adds acidity to the dough, which provides a perfect counterbalance to the rich brie.
I learned how to make this dough many years ago when I worked in catering at Dinah’s Kitchen in Toronto. One of our most popular party items was a huge wheel of brie, topped with brown sugar and mixed nuts, and then enrobed in wine pastry. Once baked, the melty brie with the sugared nuts was an addictive combo.
Since nobody is having huge parties this year, I updated it using a mini 4 inch wheel of brie. I used fig jam and pistachios to flavour mine.
You can wrap the brie, brush it with egg and put it in the fridge up one day ahead if you like. Once baked, you must let it rest for at least an hour, or you will have molten brie running everywhere. You want it soft and melty, but not running like hot lava.
I went full-out cheese board and I just love how it turned out with all the red fruits I surrounded the gorgeous brie with. I topped the pastry with fig wedges, chopped toasted pistachios and some pomegranate seeds. Don’t they look like little jewels?
Any leftover will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days. Just reheat in a hot oven for a few minutes, until the pastry recrisps and the brie starts to melt.
These are one of the most beautiful cookies I have ever baked. But physical beauty aside, they are also very delicious. Sometimes beautifully decorated cookies end up disappointing in taste. Too sweet and lacking in flavour complexity.
If you’re looking for fast holiday cookies, these are not for you. These take time, but you will be rewarded with intensely flavoured and beautiful cookies. These cookies were inspired by a recipe from the November/December Holiday issue of Chatelaine magazine. In the original recipe, the top of the sandwich cookies were dipped in melted white chocolate, dyed pink with food colouring. They were filled with raspberry jam. When my husband tasted them he said that they were good, but they needed more raspberry flavour.
I needed to figure out how to boost the raspberry flavour. Sandwiching more jam in the middle would not work. It would just ooze out. Adding a border of buttercream would act as a dam, holding in more jam.
I made a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream and flavoured and coloured it with freeze-dried raspberries, ground up into a powder. Freeze dried fruits are a great way to flavour buttercream. I used about 3/4 cup of freeze dried raspberries to the buttercream. If I added 3/4 cup fresh berries to the buttercream, it would be way too wet.
The second way I boosted the raspberry flavour was to mix some freeze dried raspberry powder into the melted white chocolate, for dipping the top of the sandwich cookies into. Natural food colouring with flavour!
Start with a vanilla sugar cookie dough. I like to roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment paper as soon as I make it, rather than chilling first and then rolling. I find it very difficult to roll cold dough. After rolling the dough, chill for at least an hour.
Once the dough has chilled, cut out your shapes. A fluted square cutter is very pretty for these.
Dip half the baked cookies into the raspberry white chocolate and pipe the other half with a border of raspberry buttercream. I used a small French star tip to pipe the buttercream. Fill in the centre of the buttercream with jam. Top each sandwich cookie with a chocolate dipped lid.
Store cookies in an airtight container in the fridge. They should be fine for 4-5 days. Let come to room temperature before serving. You could also freeze them for several weeks. A little box of these gems would make a beautiful holiday gift.
It has been almost 9 months since the Pandemic threw us into lockdown on March 14. I suppose I could have gestated a baby in that time. Instead, I put my energy into learning how to co-exist with my husband while he switched gears from working in an office to working at home. It was a bit of transition.
He is an intelligent man and learned, after 4 days, to stop asking “What’s for lunch?” We eventually settled into a routine and he spends most of the day, locked up in his office working. I spend my days in the kitchen, cooking, shooting and writing. He emerges every now and again to make coffee or open a can of sardines and baked beans for lunch. One of the nicest things about having him home with me is that when he does appear for a break, if the counter is strewn with dirty bowls and dishes, as it often is on shoot days, he happily washes them all.
A few weeks ago I was putting the finishing touches on my blood orange meringue pie. I was walking across the kitchen to put the pie on my setup by the window to start taking photos. My husband was at the sink. Unfortunately, he had the dishwasher door open as he was loading the dirty dishes. I did not see the open door. I tripped on it, and the pie and I went flying. It was very sad. I quietly left the kitchen to tend to my wounds and left him to clean up the pie. He asked if the 5 second rule applied. I did not answer him.
Luckily, the only thing broken was the pie. I had a nasty bruise on my thigh and a sore knee for a few days, but was otherwise unharmed. I quickly got to work on pie #2.
The pie crust needs to be baked without the filling. Dock it well (poke holes with a fork) and line the pie shell with parchment paper and some dried beans to act as weights so the dough does not puff up.
Once the pie is baked, start in on the filling. I love working with blood oranges because slicing into one is always a surprise. You never know what shade of orange/red will be revealed. This year, I seemed to have happened on a particularly bloody batch. Every single one was deep red on the inside.
While the pie crust is cooling, get to work on the filling. Lots of eggs, butter, blood orange juice, zest and some cornstarch for thickening. Strain the hot filling into the cooled crust. Chill for at least 6-8 hours.
For the meringue topping, I recommended a Swiss meringue as opposed to an simple French meringue. It is more stable. For a Swiss meringue, you heat the egg whites and sugar over a bowl of simmering water until they reach a temperature of 150°F. Then you whip the whites and sugar until stiff peaks form. In a French meringue, the egg whites and sugar are not heated first.
I decided to pipe the meringue onto the pie because I wanted to have some of the pretty blood orange showing.
