For all fans of mint and chocolate, have I got the cookie for you. They are like Christmas in your mouth. In fact, with the rich smell of these tasty treats baking in the oven, it took all my strength to keep my Christmas boxes in the basement. The thing is, once I get started, I am unstoppable. I am obsessed with Christmas.

I managed to keep the sparkly holiday paraphernalia in storage, but compromised by extracting every December food magazine issue from my overstuffed-to-the-point-of-being-a-safety-risk cookbook bookcase and having another cookie.

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Pumpkin cheesecake. If you haven’t tried it, here is my suggestion: drop what you are doing; run, do not walk, to your kitchen and start preheating your oven; tie your frilly apron strings snugly around your waist, and ignore all phone calls for the next hour. Trust me, you want to undertake this killer dessert with the urgency it deserves.

Although reminiscent of the traditional pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake is richer, creamier, and even more sinfully delicious. With a silky vanilla-bourbon caramel sauce and nutty toasted pecans it could arguably be considered a religious experience. Continue Reading »

Sitting beside a rain-streaked window, wrapped in a soft wool sweater with my fingers curled around a steaming mug of spicy homemade chai – I think I have embraced the fact that Fall is really happening. That being said, I still plan to extract every ounce of summer out of the remaining days, savoring the last of the sunny afternoons, sweet corn and juicy nectarines.

With the first chill in the air, I feel eternally compelled to turn on my oven and bake. In my opinion, a bright lemon tart is the perfect segue from summer to autumn. It’s like sunshine enclosed in a buttery crust – perfect with a hot cup of tea on a rainy afternoon.

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Confession: Every single time I see rosy, plump local strawberries at a market, I will bring them home. And very sadly, my history includes many a soggy berry. Those gorgeous little summer gems only last a day or two in the fridge! But I have discovered a secret to making them last longer. Just mash them with sugar, and not only will they keep a few days more, but they will release beautiful pink juice and be delicious with yogurt, ice cream, cheesecake, or even just on hot buttered toast. The act of sprinkling fruit with sugar causing it to release its juices is called “macerating”. Be sure to e-nun-ci-ate carefully on this word if you decide to repeat it… tee hee hee.

Or, alternatively, you could just bake them into a pie. Or several little pies. Perfect for toting to a picnic, sharing with neighbours, or grabbing for breakfast. Yes, pie for breakfast is perfectly acceptable on occasion.

These rustic looking hand pies are made with cream cheese pastry, which is softer than typical pie crust, and tastes quite like a rich sugar cookie. The strawberries bubble up irresistibly through the vents. The result is darling little, buttery sweet pies, perfectly sized for one.
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In the summer months, when peaches are at their prime, and sweet, juicy berries are abundant, chocolate desserts usually get displaced in my kitchen by fruit concoctions.

This isn’t a conscious shift, but a product of my impulsive shopping, or what I call ‘market fever’. The symptoms of market fever include dizziness and impaired judgment in the presence of produce, and usually results in lumbering home with half one’s weight in local fruit crammed into just two reusable shopping bags, walking 15 blocks with the dog’s leash tied around one’s waist, with fingertips numb and white with loss of circulation. This particular fever is often marked by fresh cherry (or raspberry/blueberry/insert other highly pigmented fruit here __________ ) stains are present around mouth and on shirt front. Continue Reading »

Making a pie from scratch feels important – like you are part of something that goes way back.

Back to moms and grandmothers with strong hands and pie-crust rolling biceps, flour-dusted frilly aprons and wispy curls of grey hair escaping their braids from the exertion of baking. Back to days of spending hours in a kitchen on a hot summer day, piling fresh-picked, sun-warmed berries into pastry shells, and then letting the hot pies cool in the breeze on the window ledge, attracting hopeful neighbourhood kids and dogs alike.

Making pie is wholesome.

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Hi old friends. My last post was in July. And here we are in July again. Ta da! Can we just fast-forward the in-between and pretend it didn’t happen? No?

Okay, here’s the scoop. I was an intern. In a hospital. Me no likey. I’m a fainter. ‘Nuff said. But it had to be done, and I learned a heckuvalot whilst working my rather distressed hiney off.

And really, all that matters now is that I made it out the other end alive (if slightly worse for the wear and a bit shell-shocked), and got a few pretty letters tacked onto my name in the process. Not to mention I have a very clear picture of what I don’t want to do with my life (which I think is a very important first step in making career decisions). Hoorah!

Now lets pick up where we left off, which was, I believe, celebrating life and summer and delicious food!

I thought a humble pie would be a very symbolic, tail-between-legs way for me to reappear on the blogosphere. Then I found out what humble pie was. Blech. You’ll be very happy I am making you Cinnamon Bun Biscuits instead, and I think you will be much more likely to forgive my absence having spared you the deer innards.

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It’s Summer! It’s Summer! And I’m still here! Except now my brain is in a beachy-happy-place instead of in a library cubicle, my nose deeply planted in an Agatha Christie mystery instead of in a Nutrition and Disease textbook. Hooray! Although sunkissed and befreckled, I’m also a little shame-faced about my total, unexplained hiatus from the blogosphere… It is amazing how fast a week turns into two, turns into three, turns into several. Do you want the Coles Notes version? Okay, here goes:

Mid to late April: Exams! Last ones ever!! Eek! This gives me a strange happy-sad-frightened feeling.

Early May: MEXICO!! Girls getaway. All-inclusive. Endless beaches. Endless tequila. A trip we affectionately refer to as “Swine Oh-Nine”. (But don’t worry, *oink*, no symptoms, *oink*).

May, immediately post Swine-09: Full-time summer course + lots of visiting family = a bustling, happy house… and a very busy (but happy!) Jenn.

Beginning of June – present: Happiness, in the form of: a sister, a bouncy dog, endless sunshine, a whole lotta ice cream, buckets of Corona, a secret beach, a bicycle, a bikini (or ten), strawberries, and freedom.
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Sigh. I am so conflicted this time of year with the simultaneous arrival of both exam period, and some of the sweetest parts of Spring. Cherry blossoms, warm summery breezes, the appearance of rhubarb at the market… these things do nothing for my already challenged attention span.

But life’s about balance, right? So I am taking lots of study breaks: strolling with Oliver through the streets lined with cherry trees snowing their blossoms onto the cars parked beneath them; running on the beach at low tide to capture a few moments of warm, salty air; ransacking the market on my walk home from the 24-hour coffee house (thus continuing the walk home with 30 pounds of books on my back, and 5 pounds of rhubarb under each arm); and then baking the afore-mentioned rhubarb into a delicious, summery pie. Continue Reading »

Death. This according to a recent study published in the New York Times. Hmm… And all this time I thought we all had the same risk of death. Like, 100%.

The thing that irks me about publications like this, is that it totally freaks people out using dumbed-down, dramatic phrases such as “those who ate the most red meat were most likely to die”. I wonder how many people are giving the poor cow the heave-ho based on research that is obviously lacking for controls? For example, are those whose meat consumption is greatest eating meat at the exclusion of things like grains and vegetables? Are they getting the meat in the form of daily slabs of fast-food hamburger meat, with a ginormous side of fries and a litre of coke? Are the people who eat more meat eating more of everything in general? Are the people who eat less meat more health-conscious in general? Don’t forget the “French paradox” where people eat plenty of red meat, usually with a side of butter, and have much lower rates of cardiovascular disease than in North America.
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