My cooking style is very conceptual.  When I am in my own kitchen, I will read over a recipe and then kind of wing it.  Knowing what foods pair, blend, enhance and contrast each other is a skill that I have unintentionally honed over the years.  Baking on the other hand, is not a natural talent for me.  I was an avid home economist student and even thought that this would be my career, so I know that baking is more like a science experiment where elements must interact and react in a certain fashion.  This is why ingredients need to be precisely measured in order to produce the desired effect.

There are two men in my family who are great bakers.  My husband D will  whip up a batch of amazing cookies some evening, just because he has a hankering for something sweet.  His Mom is a fabulous baker too, so this trait in genetic, I suppose.

The second man is the beau of Daughter #2 and I call him the Frenchman.  He often arrives at our home with a package of sweets for his sweetheart and a separate package for us to share. These qualities seem like a contradiction in terms because he is as big as a bear (and likely as strong) and yet he is a an artiste and crafts-person (usually in wood or metal) but apparently too in the kitchen. I have already blogged about this delicious cookie but I have modified it for this purpose switching out the margarine with canola oil.

 

These will be served tonight after our weekly “mandatory Sunday supper” which all the kids including the Frenchman are required to attend.  Tonight D’s “Baking Mom Extraordinaire” will be at the table too.  We’ll see how my cookies turn out under the scrutiny of this distinguished panel of judges.

I am using this recipe to enter a baking contest, initiated by the Manitoba Canola Growers www.blog.canolarecipes.ca in the hopes of attending a Food Bloggers of Canada Conference this spring www.foodbloggersofcanada.com.  The event takes place in Hockley Ontario, which means that I will also be able to visit the family of the Frenchman.  I will get to see first hand if his baking skills are genetic too.

Kath’s quote: “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.”-Charles M. Schulz

Love-that is all.

Today my Guest Blogger is my much loved daughter in law, J2, married to my son (J1).  She is a successful blogger in her own right and has started up her own business and can you tell, I am so very proud of her?

“I wouldn’t classify my husband as a picky eater. His palate is very wide and he is no stranger to trying new things (we both tasted fertilized egg embryos when we lived overseas…). There are a few things though that he strongly dislikes. He dislikes beans, or more specifically anything with a chalky texture – lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans. He dislikes most foods that are overly pungent (he also dislikes when I eat them, but I LOVE them) – olives, blue cheese, black licorice. He dislikes broth-y soups. Chicken noodle, minestrone, hamburger…if you can see through the broth, he will probably decline. I love soup, so I try to be creative in finding thick and creamy soup recipes that we will both enjoy.

One soup that we can both agree on is Jamie Oliver’s Sweet Potato and Chorizo Soup from Jamie’s Food Revolution. This happens to be one of the recipes on our weekly meal plan this week and it was a perfect fall meal after raking the front yard.

I have used a regular blender in the past (before I received my beloved immersion blender as a gift), but be sure to let the soup COOL OFF before you blend. Otherwise it will end up all over the walls.
I modified slightly and blended the soup before I added the sausage for a little more texture. Delicious!

Jen Grisim, Providing Pre & Postnatal Services in the Heart of Winnipeg www.specialdeliveriesfitness.com Check out my blog: www.babyladyoftheprairies.com”

From Kath: By coincidence, Jamie Oliver was in Toronto this weekend and so was I.  He was there for a Jamie Junior T-Fal event.  Jamie is our families’ favourite chef and I would love to meet him.  Maybe next time…..

Kath’s quote:

“Said Aristotle unto Plato,
‘Have another sweet potato?’
Said Plato unto Aristotle,
‘Thank you, I prefer the bottle.’”

Owen Wister

Love-that is all.

I seem to continually draw attention to the fact that I am getting old.  This is not because I am ill or feeling old, but because there comes a time in your life when you think that you have perhaps learned everything that you are capable of learning.  Well, in my case I continually amaze(even) myself that, even though you might think that I have reached that stage, the opposite is true.  I bet I learn something new every waking hour of my day.

I have never baked a pumpkin.  In fact, I have never tasted pumpkin served as a vegetable until this summer.  This is in spite of the fact that Precious Ramotswe, my all time favourite character in the Botswana series written by Alexander McCall Smith, eats baked pumpkin just about every evening.  Well tonight I am baking a pumpkin and as I Googled pumpkin recipes, my own blog posts came up (life is strange).  Anyway, my extended family is eagerly waiting the time that the Frenchman will post his glazed pumpkin cookie recipe that he contributed to last weekend’s Thanksgiving dinner, but in the mean time, I thought that I might be able to stave them off with his Pumpkin Scone recipe that he has already shared with me.

Kath’s quote: “One can never know too much; the more one learns, the more one sees the need to learn more and that study as well as broadening the mind of the craftsman provides an easy way of perfecting yourself in the practice of your art.”-Auguste Escoffier

Love -that is all.

When it was J1’s family birthday dinner recently, I was surprized when he asked for a steak supper.  After all, he works part time as a dining room server at The Keg Steakhouse and Bar, wouldn’t he have had his fill of red meat?  Apparently not.

D went to great lengths to select the chicest of cuts.  Nothing was too good for our son on his 25th birthday.  The selection of Angus Beef meant that the steaks were beautifully marbled and oh so tender.  Since I am the daughter of a meat man, I know that marbling contributes to taste and aging enhances tenderness.

The Cutco steak knives that I took out of their wrappings for the evening certainly impressed.  J1 demonstrated just placing the knife on top of his steak and the utensil sliding through (with no effort on his part) to produce a perfect forkful.

Also on the menu were all of J1’s favourites: baked potatoes topped with real bacon, green bean casserole and herb pull apart loaf.  The heart image below is a random piece of the loaf-I kid you not! For dessert though I was stumped as J1 is not a cake guy but I remembered chatting with a friend about a Mock Apple Pie recipe and had to give it a try.

Would you know that it was filled with zucchini from this photo?

D said with amazement at a taste of the pie: “Well this proves that you can put sugar and cinnamon on anything and it will taste good!”

Kath’s quote: “Every year the number of new cookbooks increases, but in spite of them the progress made in this most useful of the arts is not ever overpowering. On the contrary, we must regretfully admit that nowadays people no longer prepare the fine and nourishing dishes that our mothers used to make.”-Anna Dorn, Cookbook Author (1834)

Love-that is all.

Our plans are in place for Thanksgiving weekend and I have my assigned dishes to prepare at “Life is Good” and then wrap and carry to “Kappy’s Korner” where we will all assemble.

This will likely be the last Thanksgiving dinner spent in this way as Sister #2 and her husband will have their neighbouring cottage completed by this time next year.

I think that the great room in that locale was designed especially with extended family dinners in mind.

The biggest hit most years is Sister-in-law #2’s Pumpkin Crunch Dessert.  This year, I am actually remembering to post her recipe in advance o that you can make it for your festivities if you wish.  39 of my family members think that it is the best thing to happen to Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Kath’s quote: “Pumpkin pie, if rightly made, is a thing of beauty and a joy – while it lasts…..Pies that cut a little less firm than a pine board, and those that run round your plate are alike to be avoided. Two inches deep is better than the thin plasters one sometimes sees, that look for all he world like pumpkin flap-jacks. The expressive phrase, ‘too thin’, must have come from these lean parodies on pumpkin pie. With pastry light, tender, and not too rich, and a generous filling of smooth spiced sweetness – a little ‘trembly’ as to consistency, and delicately brown on top – a perfect pumpkin pie, eaten before the life has gone out of it, is one of the real additions made by American cookery to the good things of the world. For the first pumpkin pie of the season, flanked by a liberal cut of creamy cheeses, we prefer to sit down, as the French gourmand said about his turkey: ‘with just two of us; myself and the turkey.'”-‘The House Mother’

Love-that is all.