For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to be on my A-game in terms of meal prep. Sundays have been spent making granola and chopping fruit for breakfast, slicing carrots and cucumbers for snacking, and soaking and cooking chickpeas and beans for hummus and easy meals for the week. This prep has been helping me enormously in the mornings when it comes to packing lunches and trying to assemble some sort of healthy breakfast. I’m not exactly at my sharpest before 7 am (really, who is?), so I’ll take anything that makes the first part of the day a little bit easier.

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Happy 2017! I hope everyone had a good celebration with family and friends and partied their way into the new year. Trevor and I rang in 2017 by fiddling with our TV antenna which decided to disconnect between numbers 8 and 7 in the countdown. In the last few seconds of 2016, we threw open our balcony door and relied on our neighbours above us to yell out “Happy New Year!” Did I also mention that I was hoarse and very congested with my second cold of the season? Not my finest way to ring in the new year, but that’s okay, I’ll still take it.

After our returning from our recent trip to Mexico in December, we’ve been enjoying a pretty low-key January. I recently upgraded to a bigger slow cooker and we’ve taken a couple trips to the movie theatre (Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea & Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – love me some JK Rowling!). Other than that, it’s been a lot of hiding out from the cold and daydreaming about the warm, sunny weather and the beaches we left behind in Mexico.

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I realize that this may not be considered “the best time” to post a stuffing recipe, what with Canadian Thanksgiving come and gone and American Thanksgiving over a month away. But as the temperature continues to drop and the evenings get cooler, I know this stuffing will still make a nice hot side dish to go alongside a Sunday roasted chicken or weekend glazed ham. Just because Thanksgiving is over for us Canadians (and is still on the horizon for those south of the border) doesn’t dismiss the fact that snow and winter are on their way. Now may actually be the best time to stock up on comfort food ideas for the long cold months ahead.

In all honestly, though, I did originally plan to remake and take photos of this recipe at some time at the end of the year. But it worked out that I was the first person to finish my supper (lupper?) on Thanksgiving and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use my camera in the natural daylight. You may notice that the staging in these photos are a little rough and all of the food is awkwardly piled on one side of the dish. But that day I was fueled by turkey, gravy, and determination, so nothing was going to stop me. Plus I like to think that the holidays are not so much about getting things perfect as they are about eating good food and spending time with the people you love.

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My experience in the kitchen started at a young age. I remember trailing after my Grandma when she was in the kitchen and “helping” lick whipping cream off the detachable beaters. On nights when I wasn’t doing homework, I would watch my Mom prepare supper and reluctantly set the table (my least favourite chore). I made chocolate chip cookies so often that I had the recipe from The Purity Cookbook memorized before I reached a double-digit age. But my real training in the kitchen didn’t occur until I was 11 years old and my Mom was pregnant with my sister.

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So besides making my own ice cream, I’ve apparently now become a person who makes her own crackers. I know, crazy. If you had told me that I would become this domestic when I first started this blog, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed. Yet here we are, almost 4.5 years later, and I’m posting a recipe for the incredibly long-winded but very addicting olive oil and rosemary sea salt crackers.

One of the main reasons I never thought I would make my own crackers is because they’re pretty cheap to buy and really, what’s easier than opening a box? We always have a box or two going at once because they’re a great snack when we don’t want something sweet, they pair wonderfully with everything (i.e. hummus, guacamole, salsa, soup, etc) and they go on sale at the Shopper’s Drug Mart near our condo all the time. And I’m all for getting optimum points on things like groceries so I can use the points to buy non-grocery things like chocolate. And shampoo when we run out.

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It’s 2012 and the first blog-oversary of She Bakes Here, so I thought I would come clean – I have a weird food confession. Despite everything I bake, I’ve discovered that spinach is one of my favourite foods. Ever. I would eat it for every meal if I could. I throw it in my pasta, lasagna and on pizza. Spinach salads are delicious and are often eaten in favour of other mixed greens. In fact, if there is someway to make spinach delicious in baked goods like cookies, I would be golden.

Instead there is spanakopita, which I’m honestly convinced is heaven sent because besides spinach, it also incorporates feta cheese, green onion, butter and phyllo pastry. Could there really be an more perfect food in this world?

No, I don’t think so.

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