Brown Butter Financiers with Maple Cream

Springtime in Edmonton, with its 5-foot snow banks, brown slush and icy winds, makes me a little wistful for the springs I've had in other places. In England, March through June is a storybook season: a little gloomy at first, then optimistically budding, then verdant, blossoming, and lush. You kind of feel like having a picnic at all times. March in Montreal is icy and cold, sure, but it's also "sugaring off" season - or as I like to call it, MAPLE TIME - when dozens of little shacks set up all over the city, offering every kind of maple confection. The smell of warm maple syrup is in the air, and it's effing magical. 

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Apple & Olive Oil Cake with Maple Frosting

This started out as another tribute to London - it's a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe - and yet, there's something very Canadian about it (it's totally the apple/maple combo). And it feels very appropriate for Fall; "Mmmmm... appropriaaaaaate" is what I said to myself while stuffing my face with cake.


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Sweet Potato & Garlic Galettes

These galettes have become my thing. They're what I make if I'm required to make something. I love them for several reasons, not least of which being that they're the brainchild of one of my favourite people, Yotam Ottolenghi (whose cookbook I've already posted about). While some assembly is needed, they're actually really easy to make, and they tend to be crowd-pleasers: garlicy, crispy/crunchy, salty, spicy... all the important boxes are ticked. Like most people, I like making things with a high reward to effort ratio.

The amounts in this recipe are approximate and don't really matter - you can use as much or as little of each as you see fit.

...The moral of the story is, you can basically put anything on puff pastry and it will magically look/taste incredibly schmancy.


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Carrot, Apple and Pecan Muffins

A couple days after I moved back to Canada, my mom and I drove to my uncle's farm near Sedgewick for Thanksgiving dinner. It was an Albertan crash course - nothing reacquaints you with your homeland quite like a day driving through its countryside. We saw geese and deer and moose, and the coyotes were just starting to howl at each other as we left the farm.


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Bircher Muesli

I know I've said it before, but I really, really like breakfast. I'll tear myself from the comfort of a warm bed at whatever early hour if I know there's a decent breakfast happening. When my classmates and I went to Berlin last spring, the hotel we stayed at had a huge breakfast buffet... SCORE.

I was rooming with my friend Marielle (we bonded early in the school year due to our shared sense of humour and obsession with good food; also, on the first day of class I found out she had met Lou Reed, sooo... I had to become friends with her, obviously). We would set the alarm and wake up extremely early so we could be the first downstairs at breakfast, where I had bircher muesli every time. If you haven't had it before, it's a kind of stick-to-your-ribs mix of softened oats, yogurt, shredded apple, and other yummy bits and pieces. It's filling, healthy, and customisable to your tastes.

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London: Ottolenghi cookbook

I love reading about food almost as much as I love making or eating it, which is why I thought I would feature some of the cookbooks I’ve collected over the past couple years. This is one of my favourites: Ottolenghi, the official recipe book of the much-loved group of London restaurants.

The Ottolenghi shops are probably best known for their salads and sweets, but there’s a bit of everything in this book – sweet potato and puff pastry galettes, cauliflower fritters, turkey sweetcorn meatballs... all photographed in lusciously vibrant detail.

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