Some things are meant to be together: peas and carrots, salsa and tortilla chips, Harry and Sally. But my favourite pair of all is mint and chocolate. I want to hug the person who first thought of mixing together mint and chocolate; that person is a genius who has done much for humankind.
Here it is, the end of November, and we still have tons of Halloween candy in the house. The bad news is that I only have so much willpower, and that candy is calling my name. The good news is that it's time to start holiday baking, and that giant bag of Halloween candy is a fabulous chocolaty resource.
There's nothing like a good, simple side salad to complement a dinner party or a big family supper. To me, the best salads are a perfect combination of crunchy, salty, sweet, and zesty - and if they can be thrown together in mere minutes, then all the better!
I have a confession to make: up until about nine months ago, I had lived my entire adult life without a deep freezer. Oh sure, I had a freezer compartment on my fridge, and there was a tiny, beer fridge-sized freezer in my basement, but no full-size deep freezer. That meant that with the amount of baking and cooking I do, just putting away groceries was like playing Tetris, but with colder hands and more frustration.
A few years ago, in a restaurant in Maui, I had my first-ever bowl of spaghetti squash. It was served with a delightfully rich marinara sauce and topped with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. It was one of the few vegetarian items on the menu, which is why I chose it, but it also was listed as a "Healthy Choice", meaning that the dish - a giant, filling bowl - contained less than 300 calories.
I live in a very senior-heavy neighbourhood. In fact, my kids are the only elementary-aged kids on our street. Every year when my kids go trick-or-treating, I stay at home to hand out candy. Some years, my doorbell never rings. My children come back loaded with candy—with so few trick-or-treaters around, the people on my street give them handfuls of chocolate bars, lollipops, and gum.
Have you heard about the show on the W Network called Pressure Cooker? It's a fun cooking competition in which home cooks receive ingredients on conveyer belts to make a delicious dish in very little time. It's an interesting concept—cooking under time constraints with only the ingredients on hand.
Heavy cream is a rich and decadent way to add creaminess and flavour to sauces and soups, but what if you are unable to have dairy products? Fear not: cashew cream is an excellent substitute and it is very easy to make. Use it as a one-for-one substitution in recipes that call for heavy cream.
Hey yummy mummies, want to cook? This caramel corn is the single most addictive substance since Walter White's crystal meth. Or so I've been told; I've never actually sampled Walter White's crystal meth. I'm just going to assume that it is, because any time I make it I immediately break it into pieces and divide it into containers to give away; if I don't do this, I WILL eat it all. There are no half-measures for me.
The other day, a friend of mine casually mentioned that she had received a giant box full of organic purple kale, and would I like some? Would I? Of course, I would!
"We can stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning . . . I'm making waffles!" - Donkey
There are few things that can generate excitement in my house like the possibility of having breakfast for supper, especially if breakfast for supper includes waffles. My kids love them, my husband asks that I make extras for leftovers—everyone's wild about waffles.
Even before the air starts to feel crisp and the leaves start to turn, a large portion of the population becomes incredibly excited about the brief annual appearance of the much-celebrated Pumpkin Spice Latte. The very second the Pumpkin Spice Latte becomes available, people begin to rejoice, sing, and line up to partake. Pumpkin Spice Lattes multiply rapidly; they are everywhere, at every coffee shop, and they fill your Facebook feed with recipes and photos. Everyone, it seems, is in love with the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
It's fall, and you know what that means—APPLES! I love berries, tomatoes, zucchini, I love everything about summer, but when the scarves and sweaters and boots come out of the closet, I find myself really jonesing for some fresh, delicious apples. I eye the produce displays carefully all during September, just waiting for the semi-local apples to appear.
Poor vanilla. It's used as a descriptor for the most boring, pedestrian, run-of-the-mill things in life. Dull, conventional people are described as being vanilla, unexciting music is vanilla, and "plain vanilla" is even used in the financial world to describe basic, standard financial instruments.
I've always loved pears—they are a sweet, juicy harbinger of Fall. My whole family races to eat them when they become ripe. Speaking of which, have you ever noticed that pears, like avocados, seem to follow a certain pattern: not ready, not ready, not ready, THEY ARE ALL PERFECTLY RIPE, oops, now they are overripe. That window of perfect ripeness is only a couple of days long, hence the race to eat them all.
Change is hard. Take, for example, seasonal change—especially the change from summer to autumn. Where I live, summer doesn't gently fade into fall, it jumps; one day I'm wearing sandals and tank tops, and the next day I'm digging in my closet for boots and sweaters. One day it's too hot in the house to sleep without the air conditioner, the next day I'm turning on the furnace.
I know what you're thinking—do we really need another zucchini recipe? Why, yes, we really do. We need this zucchini recipe because it is rich, decadent, and oh-so-chocolatey.
In case you've missed the commercials and advertising that we have been inundated with since mid-July, it's Back-to-School time! Parents everywhere are reluctantly turning their attention to that universally dreaded task—packing the lunchbox.
Are you a sweet or salty person? I like sweets just fine, but salty snack foods are my downfall. I have zero willpower around an open bag of potato chips; I never buy them because there is only one outcome, and that involves me lying on the couch, bloated, with an empty bag beside me and chip crumbs all over my shirt. I like to avoid that outcome at all costs.
Oh, zucchinis. They are amazing vegetables, really they are. They are low calorie, high fibre, and full of vital nutrients, such as folate, potassium, and Vitamins A and C. In addition, as any gardener can tell you, they are easy plants to grow, with prolific yields and a habit of going from "not quite ready to pick" to "OMG this zucchini is gigantic" in 24 hours or less.
Five Guilt-Free Tips For Entertaining 
