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.
I’m sitting here grinning like an idiot because this is the first day we’ve had both sun and warmth in Toronto for a very long time. For the past month, it’s either been one or the other. Or else pouring rain. I actually had to buy a new umbrella a couple weeks ago because my old one decided to spontaneously turn itself inside out in the wind and then refused to close properly. So yeah, I’m super pumped that it’s finally nice out for real this time. Not bad for the middle of May!
Nothing says last minute like pulling out a cookie recipe just two days before Mother’s Day. I’m nothing if not a procrastinator. Luckily, this recipe comes together really quickly and if you’re in a bind over what to make your Mom for Mother’s Day, may I recommend whipping up a batch of these coconut lime shortbread cookies and serve them alongside a pot of hot tea? While it may not be breakfast in bed, you can at least let your Mom sleep in. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.
I can’t believe that I almost forgot to post this recipe for Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies. Do you want to know what reminded me? Here it is – scrolling through my own Instagram account. I spotted a photo I had posted over a month ago of these cookies cooling on a rack on my kitchen counter and my jaw dropped when I found these photos still on my camera. Am I the only person who does that? Forgetting to edit photos and post recipes I mean, not scrolling through one’s own Instagram profile. I like to at least pretend that everyone secretly checks out their own account from time to time.
Seeing as how sukiyaki is considered a wintertime meal, it seems fitting that I would share my Grandma’s recipe on the last day before spring. Sukiyaki is a Japanese hot pot dish that consists of meat and vegetables that are slowly simmered in a mirin, soy sauce, and sugar mixture. Along with the meat and vegetables, my Grandma would also add sliced water chestnuts, potatoes, mushrooms and a package of Ichiban noodles. The whole pan would be brought to the center of the dining room table and we would eat everything over a bed of hot rice. My Grandpa enjoyed his in a more traditional sense by cracking a raw egg into a bowl before adding his hot ingredients.
I had emailed myself the measurements and instructions to this sukiyaki recipe a couple Christmases ago when I was made it alongside my Grandma, and I recently discovered the email while doing a massive inbox cleanup. After cooking and posting the end results on Instagram, I received a few comments and requests for the recipe. I get it, nothing is more comforting than a hot pot meal.
Canadian food blogger, baking and eating her way through life. Musical theatre fanatic. Personal finance nerd. Sometimes runner/yogi. Green smoothies are pretty amazing.
