Carrot cake is a quintessential dessert of spring. This recipe is moist slightly sweet, and perfectly spiced. It is paired with a rich and velvety cream cheese frosting.
Asparagus is so beautiful this time of year, so I wanted to create a recipe around it. I made some basil and pumpkin seed pesto, and drizzled it on toasted bread with asparagus, avocado, and shaved Parmesan.
Because his family is a true-to-the-bone pancake family, I really wanted him to share with me the secrets to making a good pancake, thin and delicate, perfectly browned on the outside, soft on the inside. He gave me a recipe, one that he has memorized. A set of very specific instructions, the right temp, the right amount of time for frying. I followed it to a tee, and sure enough, the pancakes came out the way I had always dreamed they would.
I had been meaning to make some pickled onions since the new year, and I thought this to be the perfect opportunity. Pickled onions are one of my favorite condiments. I first discovered my love for them after moving to the West Coast and discovering that they make a perfect addition to a fish taco. I then decided to try them on everything, and it's been all pretty positive.
I have been using a lot of coconut-related products lately in my cooking - coconut oil, coconut milk, and shredded coconut. Just last night, I enjoyed a delicious bowl of the silkiest yellow curry with tofu and fresh vegetables. I think my coconut obsession might have something to do with the seemingly long winter months and my desire for a well needed tropical-type vacation. So, clearly, I was going to incorporate coconut into this French toast in some fashion.
After my last trip to the grocery store, where I impulse bought way too many oranges (don't know what I was thinking, how many oranges can one person eat?), I have been trying to come up with inventive ways of using them in recipes. After my failed attempt at making beet pasta, I was now left with a big bunch of beets. Clearly, the beets and oranges were meant to be together, tucked away in the vegetable crisper by themselves.
The cookie recipe that I finally settled on is soft and chewy. Slightly sweet with lots of melty chocolate, crunchy pecans, and a sprinkle of Maldon salt to tie it all together. The most delicious parts of this recipe, in no particular order, are the 1) brown butter 2) maple sugar 3) dark chocolate 4) pecans and 5) Maldon salt.
I had this idea to combine three of my favorite foods - banana bread, doughnuts, and almond butter. I like my banana bread full of healthy bits, like walnuts, coconut, and whole wheat flour. I like to spread a generous serving of creamy almond butter on top, and wash it down with a glass of almond milk
Now that I have a personal waffle iron all to myself, it's been waffles for dinner everyday since Saturday! I've been working on this aged cheddar waffle recipe, one that I first discovered at a small cafe Lady Marmalade in Victoria BC.
I am just going to leave you with a roundup of my favorite Holiday cookies and slip away quietly. If you choose to make only one cookie recipe this year (because you have way more exciting things to do than spend hours in the kitchen baking - I love you and envy you), the mint chocolate Nanaimo bars are perfect.
This dish falls into the category of a wonderfully satisfying, nutritious and flavorful meal. I have taken some of the traditional tabbouleh flavors and combined them with a few seasonally appropriate ones of my own. I'd be hard-pressed to find a decent tomato this time of year, so it only seemed natural to put the traditional version on the back burner until next summer.
Speaking of signature recipes, just last night I made Marcella Hazan's butter tomato sauce. As I watched the tomatoes simmer and the house fill with the most wonderful aromas, I thought about the history of this particular recipe, about Marcella, and I wondered if her family feels the same excitement and enthusiasm that I feel each time I ladle a generous serving onto my pasta.
This past weekend I chose to bake these rest of the apples into a cake, using a recipe that is simple and delicious. This recipe requires very little preparation and only a few common baking ingredients. It starts with a standard bundt cake recipe that I frequently use, but adds a streusel topping, and (of course) an apple streusel layer in the middle.
