If you’re like me and love finding easy make-ahead recipes you can prepare and serve in the middle of all the Christmas morning mayhem, this Overnight Baked Egg Nog French Toast is definitely for you!

I have spent many Christmases at my grandparents’ house in Northern Ontario and while most of my relatives look forward to Christmas dinner I am always the most excited about my Grandmother’s Christmas morning brunch.

The days are getting shorter and colder and that means it’s time for lazy evenings by the fire and steaming bowls of stick-to-your bones soup. The only problem - besides dealing with kids’ snowsuits and missing mittens - is just because the snow is here and all I feel like doing is hibernating, it doesn’t mean our evenings are getting any less busy. But on the rare occasion where we actually have an evening at home, this soup is fast, easy, and the perfect cold-weather meal.

I can’t remember the first time my sister-in-law made these super yummy Gingerbread Cookies but they quickly became one of my top Christmas cookie recipes. They're perfect for gifting and cookie exchanging  - and just plain eating with a festive beverage by the Christmas tree.

When it’s my turn to cook the turkey for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, I almost always cook a larger bird than I need so that I have lots of leftovers.

I grew up balancing holidays between my mom, my dad, and even my stepfather and my stepmother’s families. I learned to eat my favourite things at each house (instead of filling up on everything at every meal) and became a master scheduler for every holiday. When my husband and I decided to move our family out West all of a sudden, it was just the five of us and the idea of cooking a turkey for only a few of us seemed ridiculous. I wish I had come up with this recipe back then.

Does your family fight over the drumsticks?

Do you find yourself constantly refilling the “dark meat” turkey platter?

Do you buy the biggest turkey you can only to have bigger drumsticks and still find you don’t have enough?

Do you wish you had more dark meat leftovers for soups, stews, and other yummy turkey leftover favourites?

According to Health Canada, it is safe to cook stuffing inside the turkey providing it cooks to an internal temperature of 165F. You can check by inserting a meat thermometer into the centre of the stuffing while it is still in the turkey.

I will never forget the first time I was in charge of the turkey for Thanksgiving Dinner. I bombarded my dad and my grandma with tons of questions starting with—How big of a turkey should I buy?

Their answer: You need about 1 pound of turkey per adult and half a pound per child.

On October 1, 2014, five of the world’s top ballet companies will come together to celebrate World Ballet Day with a 24-hour live stream featuring a no-holds-barre glimpse into a day in the life of professional ballet dancers.

In our house, fall means back to school, back to activities, and back to comfort food. 

As a working mom of three very active children, I am often asked how I manage to feed my family every single night after working all day and before heading out to dance, cheer, taekwondo, baseball, hockey, or whatever else we have on that night.

Many of us are trying to eat a little healthier these days and are looking for ways to fill our plates with the foods we love, while making a few substitutions to keep us on track with our healthy eating goals. Over the last year or so, spaghetti squash has become a well-established substitute for pasta.

Every once in a while (okay a lot of whiles), I get a craving for cheese—especially in the cooler Canadian months. While I love baked cheesy pastas, cheesy appetizers, fondues, and pretty much anything else with cheese, sometimes cheese happens on a whim, like when you're steaming vegetables on a weeknight and only have 5 minutes to whip up this basic, but super yummy, cheese sauce.

I love summer because it's the season of laid-back, easy-going outdoor entertaining. In the summer, it's perfectly acceptable to call friends up the day before and say bring your kids, a cooler of beverages, and a potluck item (sometimes even your own lawn chairs!), and come hang out by the pool, beach, or in the backyard for the day. I LOVE these kinds of invitations and have many go-to recipes that are perfect for summer barbecues, including this Frozen Chocolate Cream Pie Recipe, which just happens to be one of my husband's favourite desserts.

I don't know if this happens to other hockey moms, but there seems to be a point in the summer when I finally realize that the hockey season is over and yet I'm still driving around with the hockey bag in the trunk. I'm so used to rushing to and from cold hockey arenas that piling groceries and beach toys on and around the over-stuffed hockey bag seems totally reasonable. Except it’s summer and the hockey season is officially over.

So what do hockey moms do in the summer?

Does this ever happen to you? The kids are finally in bed and surprisingly they are all asleep, the kitchen has been cleaned by some sort of kitchen fairy miracle, and there is nothing on your to-do list that can’t wait until tomorrow. So you sit on the couch, turn on the tv and get ready for a quiet evening that consists of you and your favourite shows. Except you want something...you need something...you’re craving something sweet or maybe salty but you just can’t put your finger on what.

So how do you decide? Well, there’s a game for that!

When I think of the slow cooker, I don't often think of dessert, but when it's strawberry season and too hot to bake, this Slow Cooker Strawberry Cobbler is the perfect base to your vanilla ice cream.

Simply mix your cake batter ingredients.

Spread onto the bottom of your slow cooker.

This recipe for roast chicken is one of my favourite slow cooker recipes ever and the exact reason why I may never roast a chicken in my oven ever again because it's that yummy.

Just because it's the summer doesn't mean we're any less busy. Okay, we might be a bit less busy, but I'm still working and shuffling the kids from camp to play dates and dance, cheerleading, Taekwondo, and baseball. This means the slow cooker is still my friend, especially in the summer when turning on the oven for hours is just a bad idea. 

My grandmother grew up on a farm on Manitoulin Island. She was the eldest child and the only girl which meant she learned her way around the kitchen and how to feed a hungry crowd at a very young age. I've been reaping the benefits of my grandmother's cooking expertise for my entire life, and even now many of the recipes you'll find on this blog are either directly from my grandmother's kitchen or inspired by the many meals I've eaten there.