The best kind of booze is educational booze.

You may recall my mentioning a presentation on Spanish history in my last post. It was the topic I'd chosen (though not formally) for my oral presentation for Spanish class, mostly because I have an odd fasciantion with the dangerously inbred Habsburg monarchy. It was so frustrating that every time I tried to work on it, I'd find myself giving up and browsing food blogs instead. That's when it hit me: why the heck would I present a frivolous, tabloid-worthy history lesson when the obvious answer was looking me in the face?

I had a lot of trouble deciding which foods from Spanish-speaking countries I'd choose to make. If it was a main course, it had to be vegetarian. It had to be authentic; I refuse to serve my classmates chips and salsa from a bag and a jar. It had to be easy to make and easy to transport.

It didn't take long for the sweets to grab my attention. I debated cupcakes for a bit, but scrapped it due to authenticity reasons. Wanting something more authentic and still sweet meant flan, which I had none of the ingredients or equipment for (I was unable to splurge on the supplies due to my upcoming trip to the US of A - more on that later). Then, a few days ago, one of my friends said, "Why go to the trouble of making all that food when you could just make sangria?". I agreed, got permission from my prof to use real wine, and got to work.

I'd decided from near the get-go to make sangria and some food. While returning home on the bus one night, a classmate from spanish plonked down next to me. He was drunk and heading home from the bar (but it's okay; it was Robbie Burns Day). When I told him of my plan to make sangria with non-alcoholic wine, he insisted that I spike it with real wine. I opted in the end to use all real wine.

So what if my class is at 11:30 in the morning? That's close enough to noon to count, I think.

I'm anxious as all heck for the presentation tomorrow, of course, because for some reason speaking formally in front of people makes me dead nervous. However, rest assured that I won't be chugging any of this until AFTER I've presented. Cheers!

Una receta tradicional por la sangría

1 y ½ litros de vino tinto
1 apuro de canela
1 taza de jugo de naranja
¼ taza de jugo de cal
½ taza de jugo de limón
¼ taza de azúcar
frutas cortados (naranjas, limónes, cales, y melocotónes son las frutas mas comúnes)

Vierto todos los ingredients líquidos juntos en una jarra. Mezcle revolviendo hasta el azúcar es derretido. Agregue todos las frutas. Refrigere por la noche y sirve con hielo manana.

PS: Translating this in Babelfish is hilarious!

Snickerdoodles for Supper

It was a Monday night at the library. I'd been in class from about 11:30am until 8pm with one two-hour break for lunch which had been spent studying. Frustrated about a project on Spanish history, I found myself leaving behind wikipedia entries about "Carlos the Bewitched" in favour of some food blogs. As I browsed happily, I saw that Jasmine over at Confessions of a Cardamom Addict had declared January 15th as "a day that really schmecks" in honour of Edna Staebler's birthday. I was intrigued and delighted when I found an invitation amongst my emails.

Edna Staebler is a Canadian culinary icon. Her cookbooks are eternally popular; I remember seeing them on the shelves at the library where I worked during high school. Though I have not had the pleasure of reading any of them yet, I am sure that I will do so as soon as I manage to get my greedy little paws on one.

Burnt out from a long day at school, I figured it was about time to bake something. Since I had no way of getting my hands on a copy of any of Edna's cookbooks at that moment, unfortunately, I instead began browsing websites featuring Amish and Mennonite cooking. Then, to my delight, I found a website which had a recipe for "Amish Snickerdoodles".

Allow me to digress for a moment. Two of current roommates lived on my floor in residence last year. After Thanksgiving (if memory serves), my mother sent me back to school with more cookies than any single person could possibly eat, so I very kindly shared the cookie love with my floormates. Most of them had never tried snickerdoodles before, and in fact, Mom never made them very often. However, they garnered enthusiastic raves from a lot of my floormates, in particular Shan, one of my current roommates. I figured they would be a pretty safe choice and rushed home to get to work.

As I'd been in class all day, I'd barely eaten, and at 11pm on a Monday night I found myself with a pile of cookies and a glass of milk serving as supper. Though I'm not sure Edna would have endorsed this practice, I think she would have liked the cookies.

"Amish Snickerdoodles" - recipe modified from "Aaron's A to Z Garden of Recipes" website
My imprecise recipe notation may not be your cup of tea. I'm not a scientific person and I tend to tweak things to my liking, using the fictional "baker's instinct" I seem to think I inherited from my mom. This explains my cracktastic yield of 43 cookies, among other things... I hope you enjoy it anyway.

1/2 c. margarine or butter
1/2 c. solid shortening
2 eggs
1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. cinnamon sugar
2 c. white flour
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
cinnamon sugar, made to taste (because really, it's a matter of taste; I add a pinch of ginger and nutmeg to my cinnamon sugar)

Mix the first 5 ingredients thoroughly in large bowl. Sift the flour and baking soda; add to first mixture. Form dough into balls and roll in cinnamon sugar. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies (a good indicator is when the bottoms are just starting to brown). As Aaron, the author of the original recipe, notes, you may top the cookies with red-hots if you desire (I don't like them, personally). These cookies store well and freeze beautifully. Yield: 43 medium-sized cookies.

Recipe notes: The recipe called for margarine, but I used butter to no ill effect (I'm told it makes a difference sometimes...). You can use all white flour; I like a bit of whole wheat in my baked goods. I don't recommend mixing more than half-and-half, or it gets very dense (though if you like very dense, by all means dense it up!). To make things more interesting, I added some cinnamon sugar to the batter as well as on top; it really added another dimension of flavour and texture to the cookies.

Menu for Hope III results

After weeks of waiting in anticipation for the results, we have now found out the winners of the Menu for Hope III raffle, posted by Pim on her website on January 15th.

I was thrilled to discover that I won a Creative Zen mp3 player (that my younger brother insisted that I bid on), as well as a food-related mystery prize. I am going to have a very fun time with it; I already listen to music while cooking, and now I won't have to go looking for my digital camera to take pictures while cooking. I am utterly thrilled.

I'm just as thrilled at the thought of preparing and sending out my prize package, which was won by Peasantwench. P, my darling, please send me an email with your contact details using the email address you provided on the donation form, and I will traipse happily to the nearest post office and send it to you posthaste. I'm going to go prepare it to be mailed right this moment; I'm that excited.

Birthday Brownies

It's never too late to say "Happy New Year!" Sure, we may be 17 days in already, but I haven't had the chance to upload my pictures onto my computer. This term is shaping up to be super-busy.

I spent New Year's Eve and a significant chunk of new Year's Day at a log cabin in the southwest tip of rural Nova Scotia. My friend Sare's birthday is on January 2nd, but since she was going back to her college that day, she decided to celebrate the New Year and her birthday jointly.

I went out to her house on a crisp, cool December night. We packed up two 4-wheelers (one with a wagon attached to carry our copious amounts of stuff) and drove through beautiful snow-glazed forest trails as the starry sky stretched out above us. As we drove along, I couldn't think of a more perfect way to spend the last hours of 2006. The generator at the cabin wasn't turned on, so we relied on candlelight and a wood stove to suit our needs. We played board games, missed the official countdown (we shouted "Happy New Year!" at about 5 past 12 and marvelled at how loudly our voices echoed over the lake), set off lovely fireworks, got my New Year's kiss from my friend's dog, and snuggled up in the loft, warmed by the wood stove's heat, to sleep.


A few days prior to this, Sare had visited my house and we baked brownies together and took kooky pictures, some of which are in the previous post. We came across a recipe for "Gourmet Mint Brownies" in a Pillsbury cookie cookbook, but didn't have all the ingredients to make them. Sare joked that she would love to have some for her birthday, so I obliged. After days of agonizing at supermarkets trying to find peppermint extract, my father brought some home on December 31st. I was ecstatic; I had nearly given up hope. I then set to work and baked those suckers.

As they were being cut up and put onto a tray to take to the party with me, my family descended, rather like vultures, on the brownies. I managed to distract them by taking lots of pictures and blinding them with camera flashes. As you can see, it works wonders.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

Then these are a mishmash of photographs that don't really need any commentary. It just demonstrates part of the awesomeness of my hometown kitchen over the holiday season.

I hope you all have a delectable 2007.

Milestones...

It was my 20th birthday on December 17th. It's still hard to believe that I've already spent two decades on this earth, and that there's still so much I have to do! For example: I've never been to Asia, eaten a persimmon, met my namesake, or flown in a hot air balloon, which are all things I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy. However, there was one item that I'm glad to have crossed off my to-do list.


I stumbled across a beautifully photographed blog called The Girl Who Ate Everything a little while back, and I've been in awe ever since (I'm still puzzling over how she manages to get such bright colours). I was especially captivated by the delectable baked goods adorning pretty much every post, and in particular those cute little macarons. I've never actually had one before, and was planning on making them back home during the Christmas break.

But during my last weekend in the city, while I was the farmer's market buying stuff for Menu for Hope and Christmas shopping, I stumbled upon a lonely chocolate macaron (well, okay, one mini one and one large one; the big one caught my eye, of course). Despite still being full from breakfast, I shunned the mini version and went for the full big-budget regular sized macaron, with deep chocolate ganache spilling out beautifully. I ended up eating it the next day to brighten up a midafternoon study session, and did it EVER do the trick.


My thoughts during my first bite: "Holy GOD this is good oh the injustice of me being home next week and not able to go to the farmer's market and buy another... yummmmmm."

My thoughts during the second bite: "If this is a dream, it's the BEST. DREAM. EVERRRR. Yesssss."

My dad's comment on the photos: "I'm drooling already."

The verdict: I am SO making my own sometime very very soon (and by very very soon, I mean probably next time I'm home...sigh.).

Menu for Hope Update

I'm home for the holidays and busy as heck (including in the kitchen; worry not), but it's fantastic to be home. There are lots of posts to come, but in the meantime...

I just wanted to remind whoever reads this that my bunch of lovely edibles for Menu for Hope 3 (prize code CA17! Doooo iiiiit) can be shipped anywhere in the world, and I mean ANYWHERE. Which is grand, since I can't (be shipped anywhere, I mean). So far, Menu for Hope 3 has raised over 30 thousand dollars for the United Nations World Food Programme, but let's at least double last year's total of about 17 thousand dollars, shall we?

I hope all of y'all out there are enjoying the holiday season. I'll be back with a much-needed update very, very soon.

Another new look and another new post

Using my feminine wiles to get a friend of mine to redesign my food blog was one of the smartest things I've done in quite some time.

Another equally smart thing I did this year was to get involved with Menu for Hope 3.


A Menu for Hope is a global fundraising campaign by food bloggers the world over to raise money for worthy, food-related charities. It was started by the lovely Pim, of the blog Chez Pim. This year, all proceeds will be going to the UN World Food Programme. This is the third year in a row it's been held; last year, food bloggers raised $17,000 to help UNICEF. What happens is this: food bloggers offer excellent foodie prizes, and readers buy raffle tickets to use for bidding on whichever prize(s) they want. Bidding starts today, December 11th, and goes until the 22nd. A wise person once said, "Bid early, and bid often". That person, since they are wise, is worth listening to.

The amazing Jasmine at Confessions of a Cardamom Addict is running the Canadian portion of this event; I'd like to thank her for taking on such a big task and for her help in squeezing my entry in. I encourage you to go check out the Canadian roundup at her website (available in both official languages!), especially since some of the prizes are tailored to Canadians or North Americans:

English version: http://cardamomaddict.blogspot.com/2006/12/menu-for-hope-iii-prizes-from-canada.html
French version: http://cardamomaddict.blogspot.com/2006/12/le-menu-pour-lespoir-iii-prix-du.html

I'm offering a selection of fine products representing my home province. I was tempted to keep these for myself or give them as gifts; they're all really nice quality products. I got them all on a visit to my local farmers' market, which is the place to be every Saturday morning. Come and join me as I give you a virtual tour!

First off, let's stop at one of the many seasoning booths. Oh, yum! Their sample dips are so good. Here's some salmon seasoning, complete with a booklet of recipes for using said seasoning. It would be sublime with a simple piece of Atlantic salmon (it's better than Pacific salmon!).

Moving on, we encounter another sublime idea for your salmon (or your slices of cucumber, for that matter) nestled in a warm, cozy corner of the market. It's smoked sea salt, harvested locally from the ocean surrounding my pretty little peninsula province.

If you have salt, you gotta have sugar to balance it out, and if your salt is fancy, your sugar had better be fancy too. And this booth smells really good. Everything here is made with lavender; that's why! Lavender-infused sugar fits the bill nicely. It's a delicate and aromatic addition to a batch of sugar cookies, or whatever you're baking that needs that subtle kick.

If you can't wait for your cookies to finish baking, try some excellent homemade biscotti to tide you over. It's nearly overshadowed by the towering display of jellies and seasonings next to it, but by the time I get there there are only a handful of biscotti left in each flavour. A dear friend of mine buys it faithfully every Saturday morning, and she is particularly fond of the chocolate hazelnut. I'm a devotee of cranberry, myself, so I've included both. You can be the judge! Also, if you're really busy with holiday baking, the chap selling this said that it freezes beautifully too.

It wouldn't make sense not to include some of the superb tea sold every week at the farmer's market, since it's one of my favourite places to visit. They always have a bunch of carafes of different flavours of tea to sample. I'm going to pick up my favourite, the wild blueberry. It's faint, but you can smell its sweet aroma, even though it's encased in a small bag.

I hope you enjoyed "visiting" the farmers' market with me. If you really want to experience this adventure, though, bid on my package and you could be the lucky person getting this taste of some of Nova Scotia's best in the mail. Do it as a Christmas present... for yourself.

If you want a piece of the (delicious) action, and I'm pretty sure you do, the prize code for my delectable array of goodies is CA17.

Here's what you should do...

1. Go to the donation page at ( http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII) to make a contribution.

2. Each US$10 donation will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you'd like by entering the prize code in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your contribution. E.G: A US$50 donation may be two tickets for UW99 and three tick ets for CA20.*

3. Some companies will match personal charitable donations made by staff. If your company has such a program, pl ease remember to mark the appropriate box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address. We need this so we can contact you in cas e you win a prize. If you do not do this, we will be unable to contact you. Please be assured that we will not share your email address with anyone.

5. Raffle results will be announced on 15 January on Chez Pim. Draws will be conducted electronically, thanks to Derrick at Obsession with Food for creating the computer application used to magically select names.

* N.B: Canadian tax laws prohibit charitable donation receipts to be issued by registered Canadian charities for raffle or lottery tickets. The UNWFP is a U.S.-based charity; should any donation receipts issued, you will need to seek professional advice regarding applying them to your Canadian income tax return.

For a round-up of Canadian donors, available in both English and French (some pretty cool prizes are being offered to Canadians or North Americans ONLY; take advantage!): http://cardamomaddict.blogspot.com/2006/12/menu-for-hope-iii-prizes-from-canada.html

For a list of donors the world over, visit Chez Pim's round-up at: http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2006/12/menu_for_hope_i.html

To make donations and enter raffles, visit First Giving: http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII

In case you've forgotten, CA17 is my prize code. Doooo ittt.


Thanks in advance for your support, and good luck with your bidding!

A new look and a new post

Okay, so it's highly likely that I am the only person who ever reads this blog. I know that at least two people have looked at it once, but aside from that I can only guarantee my own reading. However, I got a bit sad about the layout of this blog after looking at so many gloriously formatted foodblogs. Thus, I've "upgraded" the look, and I hope I (and anyone else who happens to stumble upon this blog) enjoy it.

My dad, as I'm sure I've established in earlier entries, is a sandwich man. My mother, by contrast is a baker. I have yet to uncover the reason why I'm not yet obese, despite being raised on homemade baked goods. I'm not complaining, mind you, just marvelling. Despite the fact that I now live three hours away from my mother doesn't seem to daunt her. She visited at least three times in October and never failed to bring food with her. She always sends up baked goods for me if something else is being dropped off at my house. Whenever I go home for a visit, I return laden with nourishing foodstuffs.

On my latest visit home, Mom packed up a good pile of food for me, including a roll of frozen cookie dough (a genius idea, I must say). Last Friday night, I was in the mood for cookies instead of dancing and booze (which is more of a typical Friday night for me). Since my cookies have been turning out oddly lately and I didn't want my dough getting freezerburn, I decided to bake up Mom's while I made a chocolate cake.

We'd recently bought some eggnog, and a cool glass of it along with a cookie made Christmas, and more times spent with food and my food-loving family, feel all that closer.

I was pretty pleased by the cookies, and decided to continue baking after the cake by making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Both went over well with the roommates, which is a bit unusual. The cookies lasted for possibly two days, and the cake under 24 hours; I guess that's what happens when I don't try to bake healthy things.

I was going to try infusing the store-bought icing taking up space in the fridge with coffee, but I figured the roommates would rather drink it than to have me destroy the coffeemaker in an attempt to brew the stuff... whoops. So I tinted it brown with cocoa and sprinkled chocolate chips on top. The roomies and I ended up gathered round the table talking late into the night devouring our sugary goodies.

I consider it a successful Friday night.

Let them eat cookies!

I sometimes wonder if pregnant women have food cravings as bad, diverse, and often as I do. Within the span of a month I can want homemade bread, pad Thai, shepherds pie, babaghanoush, nutella, macarons (which I’ve never even tasted!) and oatmeal carrot cookies. There’s no rhyme or reason.

Back in the spring, there was nothing I wanted more than some plain ol’ oatmeal cookies. So I set to work, keeping in mind one of my weird baking mantras: Everything tastes better with sprinkles and dried fruit! This might be why my roommates are bit iffy on my baking. Whoops.

I used the recipe I found in some Cookie Cookbook, which, unfortunately, I don’t have with me.

What do you do with a bag of apples?

My mom was in town one weekend for the Rolling Stones’ concert. For some reason, she decided that bringing along not just the usual baked goods, but a five-pound bag of baking apples, would be a good idea. How this thought possessed the woman, I have no idea. All I know is that I spent one hazy Friday night staying up until 4AM dicing apples and not even bothering to peel them. I baked my very first pie, and the crust was pretty much stupendous, considering how bad I expected it to turn out. I ended up eating half the pie as the night wore on… whoops!

So then I was left with piles of diced unpeeled apples taking up a lot of space in my fridge. The next morning, I made a shameful apple crisp, and an equally shameful pie. This makes me happy that my digital camera wasn’t working, since there’s no photographic evidence of my utter, utter shame.

About a week later, two plastic containers of apples remained, mocking me. What with midterm season setting in rapidly, I barely had a spare second. But the apples beckoned, and the roommates bemoaned lost space in the fridge. I was in need of a quick snack for my sleep-deprived self to grab on my way to and from classes and meetings.

It was time for apple muffins, ladies and gents. There was no way around it.
So I baked away happily, sort of following the recipe… whoops. I think they turned out not at all as I’d anticipated (the apples were very moist), but still lovely in their own right. My roommates did not share my sentiments, unfortunately, and I ended up eating most of these beauties on my own. Not that I’m complaining…

Recipe to be added at a later date…

A thing of beauty

Sometimes all one needs on a cold autumn night is a big steaming pot of chili. Too bad Dad made said chili way back in May, and put in too much seasoning. It still looks pretty and comforting.

Now go put on a few more layers of clothing and bundle up under some nice fluffy blankets with a warm cuppa something and a good book!

A Midspring Night's Feast

I love my neighbourhood. More specifically, I love my neighbours. They host these really great dinner parties and we all pig out and I usually get booze (or yummy sparkling fake booze).

On one Saturday afternoon in late May, we finally had one of the dinner parties that I’d missed so desperately during the school year. With my hair freshly dyed, wearing a new outfit, and with ambitions of a super-duper food blog rattling inside my skull, I set forth to make a pasta salad unlike any other pasta salad seen before by mankind (actually, that’s a lie; I was trying to copy the fantabulous pasta salad my aunt Debbie made for us the previous summer). So I spent a late morning/early afternoon chopping veggies, cooking pasta, stirring in fried onions and pesto, chopping fresh herbs, and finally placing my masterpiece in the fridge so the flavours could mature. Several hours later, I was rewarded with a pasta salad that smelled fantastic, but was practically flavourless. I was quite dismayed at this, but thought, “What the hey, it looks pretty and the veggies taste good”. I would have put in more pesto but the salad was already drowning in it. So I brought it over anyway.

My mom, being surprisingly supportive of my food blogging efforts (even though it was another thing to help me spend time on the computer), took loads of pictures. She even got artsy (see picture of biscotti dough in her Kitchenaid) and insisted on getting pictures of me actually cooking. There’s one she took of me looking over my shoulder, which she calls “The Sexy Chef”. I took pictures of her hands rolling biscotti dough.

Mom made some lovely cookies for the party as well. Not only did she try out a new recipe for almond biscotti that I think we found on the internet, she made double-chocolate cookies with marshmallows in them. I think she's really Martha Stewart in hiding...

Music for this post: "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!" by Sufjan Stevens

Oh, so painfully artsy! Mom took this. I take it as evidence that my love for all things artsy is genetic and totally not my fault.

"The Sexy Chef" redux, courtesy my sweet self. That dough smelled fantastic...

I know it's hard to tell, but mumsy used multicoloured marshmallows. There are very few things in this world more satisfying in this world than chocolate and rainbows mixed together.

This is why you do not leave cookies unattended in my house... kidding, kidding! This is my attempt at being artsy, before I started chewing on the smaller one.

This was Mom's idea. I took photos of the salad with vines of ripe red tomatoes, but the contrast here is much better. You win, Mom.

Restaurant food = hilarity

This isn't funny until you realize that those pieces of chicken are each larger than my FISTS. I kid you not here, people. My FISTS. I was eating this gul-danged chicken for almost a week afterwards. It's well worth the price, of course, but goodness. It's chicken cacciatore, by the way. On the side are a twice-baked potato that's so good I always order it instead of fries (and this is an achievement since I love fries and generally not a fan of baked potatoes), and honeyed carrots wth parsley. This is from dinner at The Austrian Inn in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, which I highly recommend if you want a big, hearty, inexpensive ethnic meal whose origins are European. There's also an amazing Lebanese place that's easy on the wallet, a charming tearoom with very good sandwiches on fresh-baked bread, and an incredible tea selaction, and a Chinese restaurant that will get you full and has cheesy decor, but the food quality's debatable.

Next, we have a very foolhardy young man trying some sushi that's quite liberally coated with wasabi. Oh, for the follies of youth! Will they never learn?

In which Meg attempts Thai food... and turns it into sandwiches.

One weekend, my family was graced by the presence of a nine-year-old girl cousin of mine. Given the extremely finicky palates of children, it was an ill-advised time for me to try to assuage my craving for Thai food by cooking it. Did this stop me? Of course not! When Meg wants Thai food, she wants Thai food, and you can't buy it in my hometown anyway, since we have no Thai restaurants.

Being one of those people who sometimes has multiple cravings at one time, I also wanted bread. So after rummaging up some Thai recipes on the intarwebs and a trip to the grocery store, we were ready to begin our foray into making Thai chicken sandwiches.

Firstly, there was peanut sauce. I took a recipe I found online, and took out and added in flavours as I saw fit. Of course (hindisght is 20/20), I forgot to write it down somwhere findable. There was all-natural peanut butter, honey, coconut milk, and spices, but the rest is anybody's guess.

As you can probably tell from the picture of the peanut sauce, we made our sandwiches custom-ly at the dinner table. There was fried onions, fried cabbage, chicken, and peanut sauce to be had. And, obviously, the bread, which the little cousin and I argued over at first, but then I was nice and conceded.

I'm not complaining, though, since we all got a good meal out of it. And when we ran out of bread and chicken, there was plenty of rice to mix the peanut sauce and veggies with.


Music for this post: "Superhot Lady Cop"by Beau Hall & the magnificent 7 (go here for a listen:http://www.beaurocks.com/)