Sometimes after a long day of editing Powerpoints, writing speaker's notes, sending emails, consulting with your supervisors and colleagues, and doing a bunch of research, a gal just needs to stop and smell the flowers.
Mmmm, that's better. Too bad the flowers don't smell quite as good as my first peach crumbles.

I'll be honest: I'm afraid of crumbles. I always, always, ALWAYS manage to screw up the topping somehow, even if I follow the recipe to a T. I've never figured out why this always seems to happen. It's really a shame, because I love crumbles, and I've watched my mother whip up a blueberry crumble in the time it takes to preheat the oven.

So on Sunday night, thanks to a pile of beautiful ripe peaches in my fridge, an unwillingness to pack for school, and an inspiring recipe from my Barefoot Contessa cookbook, I knew I had to make peach crumbles in individual ramekins and risk the crumble topping (after all, if it flopped, I'd still have yummy baked peaches underneath).
I prepared the peaches first, which I had never actually tried before. For those of you who were as ignorant to peach peeling as I was before Sunday, it was pretty easy: all you have to do is put your peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds to a minute, place them immediately in cold water, and peel them one by one.
The boiling water loosens the skin from the inner fruity part of the peach, and the cold water bath keeps them from cooking (I think - this is about as scientific as I get). It's a bit messy, but far better than peeling them by hand (I know because I made the mistake of trying to peel by hand first).
The divine peaches looked awesome in Mom's new bird's-egg blue bowls, so of course I took loads of pictures to avoid starting the dreaded crumble topping.
With one last picture (or five) of the pretty ingredients in their pretty bowls and a deep breath, I started my foray into the crumble topping.
So it looked good, my flour, oats, and brown sugar all mixed together nicely. I only had one ingredient left: the wet one. Butter. Okay, actually it was margarine, but one must make do sometimes. I was quite worried, because I hadn't actually softened it in the microwave: I turned half of it into a puddle. "Oh, great," I thought as I walked apprehensively towards my bowl, "This crumble topping is going to be ruined too, I just feel it."
Unsurprisingly, my "crumble-topping-sense" pretty much sucks, and the topping turned out beautifully. There was one tense moment when I wasn't sure that I had added enough "butter", but I was, of course, wrong.
Gosh, isn't it beautiful? Look at it! So pretty! All those years of frustration, dissolved into nothing. thanks to my beautiful perfect crumble topping.

In a state that can only be described as elation, I whipped up the crumbles, spicing the sliced peaches with pinches of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and popped 'em into the oven, along with a few apple mini-crumbles (I ran out of peaches).My little brother asked me to take pictures of his fried egg for the blog, so I snuck my crumbles into the background. I'm such a terrible sister. I don't feel too bad, though, because his fried egg was an unphotogenic diva of a fried egg. And yes, they DID taste as good as they looked. Now THIS is what summer's all about. Until next time!Music of the day: "Crush", by Jennifer Paige (cheesy pop, yes, but oh well - my Dad likes the song and he's the purchaser of the peaches: the founder of the feast, as it were)

Sometimes, less is more.

It is tomato season, and you know what that means in my house? Lots and lots of sandwiches and salads featuring everybody's favorite vegetable...er, fruit. I mean, even my little brother eats them, and he's the kind of guy who would make a meal out of only a big piece of steak (actually, this past weekend, he did - and I joined him, but I ate some humus afterward too).

And one thing my mom is good at is sandwiches. In particular, a VERY classic sandwich with tomatoes as a featured ingredient: BLTs. If it were possible to be in love with a sandwich, this would probably be my spouse (the utterly divine ham sandwich at Salvatore's in Halifax is a babe, but totally out of my league, unfortunately).

So since Tom, my little brother, spoiled my dreams of BLTs this weekend by preparing steak (and eating all the tomatoes in the house just to spite me), last night I finally got the sandwich I'd been craving for days. And oh, was it ever dreamy.

Since I made it myself, it wasn't quite as special as Mom's, but I know better than to complain. True love is true love, after all.


Music of the day: "Ganges a Go-Go" - Kalyanji and Anandji Shah with Dan the Automator and DJ Shadow, from the album Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars and Sitars.

Frustration!

So, these are supposed to be the lazy hazy crazy days of summer, right? Pretty foliage everywhere? Check.

Easy minimalist yummy cooking with fresh ingredients? Check.

Road trips to beautiful locales? Check.
Boozy thirst-quenchers? Check.

Picnics and party food? Check.

So why, oh why, does my Mac refuse to rotate my pictures?

brownies and cookies and tigers oh my!!

Bonjour! It is I, Martha Stewart!! Queen of baking!! Psyche! It's ReemBean, alright, I know I haven't posted in awhile, but here I am with two new recipes to tickle your sweet tooth! These recipes were made in an attempt to please 3 very small hooligans, otherwise known as the spawns of satan, or Greg's 3 cousins, Monica 9, Kara 8, and Kevin 12.
First recipe on the list, and now Greg's favorite brownie recipe:

Orange Cappuccino Brownies
2 oranges
3/4 cup butter
Coarsley chop:
2 squares (1 oz each) semi sweet chocolate
2 squares (1 oz each) unsweetened chocolate

1 3/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder or instant coffee granules
3 eggs
1/4 cup orange flavored liqueur (Grand Marnier or Triple Sec)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 package (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening

Grease 13x9 inch pan. Finely grate orange peel, and measure 2 teaspoons peel. Melt butter, chopped chocolate squares in large heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar and espresso powder, remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Beat in eggs one at a time with wire whisk, whisk in liqueur and orange peel. Beat flour into chocolate mixture until just blended, spread batter evenly into pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees F, until center is just set, and remove from oven, let cool on wire rack.

While brownies are baking, melt chocolate chips and shortening in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, after removing the brownies from the oven, spread melted chocolate over brownies and let cool completely.

Cut into 2 inch squares and garnish with thin strip of orange peel. To make thin strips of orange peel use citrus zester and tie the strips into little knots.
I'm a regular Martha Stewart! Don't they look awesome??

Second recipe is a version of chocolate chip cookies that is super awesome for kids.
Mini M&M cookies:
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package (12 oz) mini m&ms
1 cup peanut butter chips

Stir flour, baking soda, and salt together in bowl. Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, in large bowl until fluffy. Then beat in eggs and vanilla, then add flour and blend on low until well blended. Stir in m&ms and peanut butter chips with mixing spoon. Drop heaping teaspoons full onto ungreased cookie sheet 3 inches apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown, at 375 dedgrees F. Remove cookies from oven and let cool for a few minutes, then remove to cool on wire rack.

The verdict? So good Greg got mad at everyone because they ate all "his" cookies, and he only got one. I had to substitute the peanut butter chips in this recipe for Greg, so I used white chocolate/semi sweet chocolate swirl chips instead.

This is ReemBean, signing off.

A Red Kind of Day...

Hello, all. It's Meg. I'm terribly sorry for dropping off the edge of the universe, dear readers. Work has been keeping me busy, as has re-reading the first six Harry Potter books in preparation for the release of the seventh and final book (I'm halfway through book 3 right now...will I be able to finish between 1000-2000 pages by Saturday?). Also, I have acquired a shiny new Mac laptop (his name is Squishy), and I've been spending a lot of my spare time converting from my PC ways. This has all led to very little cooking going on.
However, I did a fair bit of cooking in June, so here comes part of my backlog.

As I did last year, this year I made Dad's birthday cake. Instead of busting out my Nigella cookbooks, I allowed my father to make a request. He asked for a family favorite: Red Waldorf Cake. It's named after the hotel where it is said to have originated, according to family legend, and some distant cousin alledgedly paid 125 dollars in order to acquire the recipe. I have no clue how true this story is, but the cake IS delicious, so it doesn't really matter.
I started baking in the afternoon, happily mixing the odd red batter which smelled strongly of chocolate. I daydreamed about the final product on a pretty cake platter, covered in snow-white buttercream, and tried my best not to salivate.
Then the doorbell rang. I had gotten a package, as it turns out, and it contained my new red iPod. It couldn't have come on a more colour-appropriate day.

Gourmet Pizza For The Gourmand

Good day, little reader(s). I am Reema Mk. 2, master chef extraordinaire. I've been training for weeks and weeks to perfect my craft, no longer satisfied with food that looks like someone coughed up a lung. While my predecessor Reema has failed to achieve this goal, I feel that, with this latest entry, I have achieved my long-sought dream.

Tonight's epic meal began just like any other in this household. I lay on a couch, deep in thought and pondering what I could possibly cook for dinner. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, it came to me: pizza! It was a genius idea, and I certainly had all of the ingredients. In addition, I've made pizza from scratch several times before, so it would be a piece of cake for me to cook it.

So, I assembled all of my ingredients.

After preparing the dough, my lovely assistant Tess added just enough tomato sauce to quench our ravenous appetite for the unfortunate red vegetable.
I felt that the frozen pizzas we found in the freezer would be a wonderful touch, and boy was it ever. Not only were they an excellent model for what my own pizza should look like, but they had been in the freezer for a couple of months and needed to get eaten.
Unfortunately, at this stage of the creation process my gourmet pizza doesn't look especially appetizing. But delicious? I think so!
After adding the only cheese that we had in the house--muenster--I added a few herbs and spices. The first herb is actually a product called Herbamare, which we got when my vegan cousin wanted to make Tofurkey palatable for the family. I also added cilantro and basil for that extra bit of flavor.


After cooking in a 425 degree oven for about ten minutes, one can easily tell that I'm quite excited by this ample fete. Unfortunately, it would seem I put a little too much muenster on my pizza, and some of it melted off. Luckily, I had the foresight to put a large baking pan underneath my pizza stone in case such a thing would happen. And how was this pizza? Just ask my lovely assistant!
The word "delicious" comes to mind. Mmm mmm good.

Feeding Moi!

This, dear readers, is an adventure in Fettuccine Alfredo! It is my entry to Presto Pasta Nights over at http://onceuponafeast.blogspot.com/
Recipe calls for
3/4 pound fettuccine
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
Generous dash white pepper
Generous dash ground nutmeg
1 cup freshly grated parmesan
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Make your fettuccine in boiling water
Mix heavy cream and butter until butter is melted and it boils a bit, then mix in white pepper, salt and nutmeg, then mix in cheese and remove from heat. Mix cheese until blended.
Drain your fettuccine and then poor in the sauce, then mix in the parsley. Garnish with a fresh sprig of parsley and voila!

This past weekend, I went on a short road trip of sorts with my mother, grandmother, and mom's neighbour, Anne. A good time was had by all, taking in the beautiful scenery and stuffing ourselves full of awesome foodstuffs. Here are a few of the highlights:

Veggie sushi! It was made fresh a few minutes before I bought it. It had avocado, lettuce, cucumber, and carrot, which is never a combo I've seen in sushi before. I'm still not sure if there were chives in it too, but it doesn't matter because it was tasty.


The mini-macaron in front might look familiar to the two of you who've read this blog before, as it's a smaller version of the gorgeous chocolate macaron I raved about back in December. The same bakery that shows up at the Brewery Market in Halifax every week was also at the Market in Kentville, and because we were there earlier than when I usually go to markets, they still had plenty of pastries left (though all the big macarons were gone, sigh). Anyway, the mini version might just be better than the full one, since it has a much thinner layer of ganache but the addition of a piece of VERY good dark chocolate, which added new textural and flavour dimensions. YUMMY.


Also yummy was the exquisite chocolate-pistachio sable something-or-other. It was almost too beautiful to eat (emphasis on "almost"). I was quite glad I chose to eat the blackberry garnish last, because the clean taste of the fruit washed away the buttery richness of the ganaches very nicely. The ganaches were almost too rich; it would have been better if there had been less. The flavour of the sable cookie couldn't stand up to its toppings because it was far outnumbered. That's a shame, since the cookie was very good on its own. As a whole, though, I was very pleased with the delectable pastry - it was worth a foodgasm.

Mmm, spanakopita. One of my absolute favorite Greek dishes, if not my most favourite of all. It tastes like summer.

And now, for some nature shots, because the Annapolis Valley is beautiful:

My First Sushi

Had you told me 3 years ago that one day I would be suffering from a serious jones for some sushi, I'd have laughed in your face. "Not only did I hate my first piece of sushi so much that I immediately named it one of my least favourite foods," I would have scoffed, "But I also cannot stand to eat seafood." I know, of course, that it is possible to eat sushi without getting seafood involved, as I did then, but if you eat sushi for any length of time you are bound to encounter fish at some point.

But Reema made me try it again... and again... and again, and the next thing you know it's one of my favorite meals, and I'm ordering king crab, lobster, and Alaska rolls without breaking a sweat.

Fast forward to about three weeks ago. My friend Travis is coming for a visit, and he likes sushi just as much as I do. Granted, he'd only eaten it once before - at a dinner where all three of the contributors to this blog were present, actually. Anyway, while cleaning in preparation for Travis' arrival I had found my sushi set. At that very moment I decided it was time to make some serious California rolls - because really, who DOESN'T like those?

Though attempting to make inside-out sushi was not as much of a success as I had hoped, it was still pretty yummy. I'm going to do more research next time.

I highly recommend the "Sushi Day" blog (see sidebar) if you're interested in making your own maki. It is totally worth the effort. We didn't get too creative with the recipe, but making up your own maki is a fun time.