Every Friday, I ask Mack a question he dreads, “What do you want to eat for dinner next week?” It ensures we have a meal plan for the week, but more importantly, helps us generate a shopping list for our routine stop at the farmers’ market on the following day. Most of the time, Mack [...]

After a few weeks away from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, I returned to it again for dinner inspiration. The recipes didn’t work as well as I’d have hoped, but they did get us out of our routine! Tomato-Glazed Meatloaves We loved Deb’s recipe for baked chicken meatballs (which we have made more than a few [...]

I do my best to try and group the random series of recipes that I decide to make from week to week, and sometimes it is a great stretch to connect two seemingly diverse dishes. This time, I won’t even try! Tuscan Kale and Farro Soup I think I’m in love. With farro that is. [...]

My preference for both dinner and lunch are hot meals, but I have to say, throw together room temperature salads full of fresh vegetables, legumes and grains are really starting to grow on me. It’s not only a nice change-up, but they do make for an easy lunch – no need to queue for the [...]

Though it’s not exactly the same thing, my penchant for one pot meals extends to one bowl meals as well, as generally, for the kinds of recipes I am drawn to, means comfort food. For me, it’s what I want to look forward to eating at the end of a long day. Black Lentil Soup [...]

Mack always teases me that I have my “phases”. He says that I’m currently in my smoothies-for-breakfast phase and my Scandal phase, though based on our cooking schedule recently, I think he’d also say I’m in a Smitten Kitchen phase. Over the holidays, I didn’t feel too inspired to try new recipes, but browsing through [...]

Usually for Christmas I am gifted a cookbook or two, and this year was no different. Mack bought me The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, the latest blog-to-page sensation. Although I had heard the name before, I hadn’t really actively explored her blog before. But after flipping through the book and browsing her extensive collection of online [...]

Though we’ve been eating some rather elaborate meals, as is typical for the holidays, not every day during the season sees such extravagance. Most evenings for us have seen more low-key dishes. And though I’m sad at having to bid adieu to my favourite time of year, it will be nice to return to some [...]

I remember baking sugar cookies with my Mum when I was younger, my sisters and I delighted by the wide collection of cookie cutters she had assembled (as children, we gravitated towards animal shapes and spelling out our names using alphabet cut-outs). We’d lovingly sprinkle our cookies with coloured sugar, sometimes adding a dollop of [...]

To be honest, I haven’t really tried all that many new recipes as of late. In between our travels this fall, we’ve fallen back on tried and true dishes when at home – mostly due to a lack of time to bookmark new recipes, but also because there are more than a few wintery soups [...]