The idea of revisiting a couple of my older recipes had crossed my mind once or twice over the last year. When I started in 2011, the only camera I owned was my point and shoot (aka Mr. P&S). Mr. P&S was very reliable as a travel camera that could be tossed in my purse, but that’s about where his usefulness ended. I upgraded to a DSLR camera in February 2012 (no nickname, too excited), but that means there were (are) a lot of recipes from that first year of blogging with grainy photos. Many of the shots were taken pretty close to the food too, because for some reason I thought it would, I don’t know, hide the fact that I used to bake and take all my photos in the evening right before I went to bed (hint: it didn’t).

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The last few months have been difficult since my Grandma passed away. Late last year we were informed that her cancer had returned and then she left peacefully in the second week of January. I barely had a chance to register the former and then we were thrown head first into Christmas. Suddenly we were wrapping presents, baking and making the most of the holidays. On January 2nd, a couple hours before our plane was to leave, I hugged her and silently wished her goodbye in my head because I knew I would never be able to say the words out loud.

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It’s been pretty quiet here on the baking front. Even though we have air conditioning, our desire to eat anything flour or sugar-based has reached an all-time low. But if you shift through my archives, you’ll notice that this happens every summer. With the weather being as nice as it is, I tend to spend less time in the kitchen and more time outside. It’s not a bad thing, but I like to acknowledge it because the summer season is so short and we need to all get outside and enjoy it while it’s still here. Pretty soon we’ll be swapping our iced coffees for pumpkin spiced lattes and pulling our boots and winter coats out of storage. Ugh.

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There is nothing worse than a tease. Especially a warm weather tease.

Case in point: I have five zucchini plants, a spinach plant, a lettuce plant, and a rosemary plant crowded in large, over-sized pots on our living room floor. All lined up against the window like prisoners on death row, fighting for valuable sunlight, day in and day out, as the sun passes by our south facing windows. I haven’t been able to put them back out on the balcony since last Saturday before the weather dropped and the wind decided it was back with a vengeance. My poor little plants look a little cooped up and after this long winter, I know exactly how they feel.

It’s partially my fault because I definitely started my indoor seeds too early. I blame it on my excitement because this summer we finally have a (small) piece of outdoor space. In my ignorance, I also didn’t think that all five zucchini seeds would take and now I’m staring down at five plants covered in little buds. If all five plants flower and produce fruit, I may be in trouble. If that’s the case, be prepared for a lot of zucchini recipes this summer.

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Happy Easter Weekend!

No holiday-themed recipe this week. Normally I would get really bummed out about not being able to “time” my recipes properly in accordance to the upcoming holidays, but this time I actually have an excuse. Right now, Trevor and I are making our way to the airport for our big Easter weekend trip. Vague much? I guess you’ll have to keep an eye on my Instagram for more clues.

This little mini vacation has been a long time coming for us. Since we didn’t travel anywhere for Christmas, we’ve both been feeling a little stir-crazy. Does that happen to anyone else? We booked this trip back in January during what I thought was one of the coldest weeks of winter (little did I know that February was still coming for us). Now that the weather is a tad warmer, I’m excited to tie up my running shoes and go explore and eat my way through another city.

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Growing up, whenever my family would go and visit Grandma, she always had some baking ready for us. My mom would always rave about her buttertarts, which is something I never understood until I was in my early teens. Up until then, I did not like pies or tarts of any kind.

I mourn those lost years of missing out on these irresistible tarts.

I’m not sure what the best part is of my Grandma’s recipe. It could be the end result of a light, flaky crust which I just found out is her rendition of the Tenderflake crust recipe found on most Tenderflake packages. It could also be the rich, gooey, buttery filling that puffs up and crisps slightly to a golden brown when baked.

However, I think it could also be the crunchy, chewy addition of pecans and raisins. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to what goes in a buttertart, but I find that I’m partial to pecans and raisins.

Whenever my Grandma would make the recipe, she would use a large, round cookie cutter with flower petal edges. I have fond memories of picking off the petals from my tart, one by one and eating them before I would devour the entire thing. I wasn’t able to find a similar cookie cutter, but I did find one with small ridged edges that came in a pack of 6 from Dollarama.

This isn’t an important part of the recipe, but I find that it helps with the end presentation. 🙂

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Sometimes when I post a recipe here, it can be something that I’ve been planning for a long time. Buying the specific ingredients, figuring out a time of when I can bake and take photos, thinking up ideas for the photos. I’ve been known to tease Trevor with recipe ideas for weeks on end.

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By the time you read this, I’ll already be in Las Vegas, soaking up the….er….hopefully not hot weather. Before we moved to Ontario last year, Trevor and I took a trip down to Vegas in August. Yes, August. It was cheap for a reason and we almost didn’t survive the humidity. There were guys stationed around various parts of the strip with coolers filled with ice and water bottles for $1. I think it’s safe to say that they made a small fortune off of us. Even though we bought a case of water to stash in our hotel room and carried around the bottles when we walked, it would never last long between the two of us.

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Quinoa is one of those strange food names I’ve never been able to pronounce properly. Off of the odd chance that I magically get it right, my brain never decides to remember it and then I always go back to mispronouncing it again. The bad part is that Trevor has decided that we’re at the point of our relationship where he knows what I’m talking about and doesn’t bother correcting me, even when I use the wrong words or say something wrong all together.

Trevor: What’s for supper?

Me: Oh, we’re having….uh, quinn-noh-ah.

Trevor: (pause) Great, sounds delicious!

This does wonders for my social development outside of the apartment. “Yes, Mr Waiter, I would like my side dish to be some of that delicious looking……quinn-noh-ahh….yes, I said quinn-noh-ahh. In my spare time? I like to bake and post my creations on the internet.”

One of our typical quinoa suppers, with roasted carrots, sweet potato and zucchini

For future reference, according to Google, quinoa is pronounced keen-wah. Yeah, I don’t get it either, I must have completely zoned out during that significant part of grade 2 when this kind of alphabetical pronunciation was taught to us. Grade 2 wasn’t a complete blur though, I can tell you about the time that my best friend at the time pushed me as I dangled on the highest monkey bar as though it were a swing (we thought we were so clever) and thanks to the force of that push, I flew off backwards and landed flat on my face in the playground sand. That was the year I rocked a wicked scar on my lip and a new-found knowledge of momentum.

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Ree Drummond is the bomb.

I bought her cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks along with my Cookie Craft book in January and I love it. I thought it was going to be just like her website, which is why I didn’t buy it right away since all of her recipes are online.  But I’ll admit it, it’s easier to have a cookbook spread open in your kitchen during the baking process than a laptop displaying the recipe, but also running low on battery life.

When I first discovered her website, one of the recipes that intrigued me the most was that of her famous cinnamon buns. The recipe was simple, straightforward and I already had all the ingredients already in my pantry, which is a big plus for me. The only thing that scared me was the amount of cinnamon buns the recipe made – serves 8 people. Yikes! 99.9% of the time, I’m cooking for just Trevor and I. Plus I had to factor in Trevor’s lactose intolerance.

I also wanted my work pants to fit the next day.

This was where Amber at This Mommy Cooks came in. I came across her cooking blog when I was looking for a successful half-sized version of PW’s cinnamon buns. She posted step-by-step photos of her baking process and I figured that 4 servings would be easier than 8 servings. Half the temptation would be gone! My clothes would still fit the next day!

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