I made this totally because of the name…

… and what you get to cook it in.

(Dutch Baby by Fifteen Spatulas)

Wood & cast iron are my absolute two favourite things to present food on/in.  If you know me, you know I have an incredible affinity toward family style plating.  Wood and cast iron make complete sense to me as the best things to serve something a family would share.

(Dutch Baby from Alaska From Scratch)

My therapist and I only recently did a little self discovery as to why these two surfaces draw up such a warm and affectionate emotion in me and it’s pretty obviously traced to growing up in a family that spent many summers camping in the great outdoors. We camped a LOT. Like a LOT. I have the absolute fondest memories of setting up tarps & tents.  I have story upon story of building fish smokers on the beach out of willow trees & cardboard, or digging deep holes in the sand only to throw in hot coals and a raw roast. I was blessed with parents who were foodies ahead of their time.   We were cedar planking long before you could find cedar planks at a local grocer.  Mandrell said it best…we were simply country when country wasn’t cool.

(Dutch Baby from Simply Recipes)

Our camping trips always included a cast iron frying pan and the echoing words of my father – leave the cast iron for me to wash, and make sure no soap touches it. Next to his tackle box, it was a sacred piece of equipment.

Dutch Baby.  It was only recently I heard the word dutch baby… a fantastic name, for really a fantastic breakfast.  At a cross between a pancake and a crepe it’s pretty much a no brainer. I take a lot of pride in my ability to make a pretty amazing pancake.  My dad’s culinary wheelhouse was (is) weekend breakfasts and grilling.  And camping meant dad was donning the chefs hat much of the time.  I remember pancakes were his “thing” and there may have been Cheese Whiz in our fridge, but there was never pancake mix in our pantry. There was just dad and a bowl and a whisk… add wet to dry to wet (gasp!) until the right consistency was achieved and then stealing the show with his ability to flip a hotcake in the air. (FYI Dad… I have sinced tried that… not really that hard mister)

(Gluten Free Dutch Baby from Memento Bracelet)

This is my first “round up” style of post.  As much as I like to think I can make the best {insert anything here} out there, there are so so many absolutely incredible home cookers/bakers, it would be a crime not share.  So I have rounded up some of my favourite Dutch Baby recipes and if you like that, I will continue to do so with other recipes.  I know I appreciate being able to pick a particular recipe that maybe appeals to me (and what I have in my fridge/pantry) , and maybe you do to.

(Apple Baked Dutch Baby by A Pretty Life in the Suburbs)

So this weekend, maybe change things up for Pancake Saturday/Sunday and give one of these Dutch Baby recipes a try. I think you can’t go wrong with any of these five…

…or the one I served up this past weekend. Enjoy!

As a self proclaimed passionate carnivore…

… a vegan would actually eat quite well at my house. Evidenced by this raw butternut squash salad.

Here is a quick little insight into what happens in my kitchen and how it ends up here.

Much of the food you see on the site is a result of what is in my fridge/pantry/countertop AND is moments away from taking its own life. I say that in jest..

…sort of.

The deal is my week is usually filled with brilliant aspirations of recipe and flavour testing, experimenting and discovery. Visions of how Monday through Thursday me and Little will joyfully frolic through the kitchen, singing and dancing our way through recipe trials and adjustments. He will wait patiently as things simmer, boil or bake and even more patiently as I place warm chocolate chip cookies under his nose, only to say… “no touching sweetie, mommy needs to take a picture of these”.  He responds.. “no problem mommy, I will play quietly & independently over here while you ‘work’ “.

As my laughter subsides, I can assure you the  reality is a trip to Mars away from that. Life happens.  A beautiful life happens. But some weeks are just messier than others.  I hate the thought of wasting food and so (and hence why I was roasting chicken at 6:30 this morning) while I wish my inspiration was all Pinterest/food mag derived, it quite honestly is “food on the edge” inspired.  This salad was no different.

The beauty of winter squash is those babies will sit on your counter for weeks quite contently. I have been doing a lot with squash this winter. My two favourite ways to prepare it are definitely soup – this butternut squash soup from over a year ago is still a favourite – and then as a pasta sauce.  A roasted butternut squash (alongside a few sweet potatoes, carrots and a slice of bacon) make a fantastic creamy “cheese” sauce for a pasta that big and little people in this house seem to get pretty excited about.  Recipe coming for that pronto.

Martha inspired the ingredients & flavour combinations here. I have never had squash raw before and I was pretty skeptical.  After playing around with getting the right thickness for the squash, it works beautifully. I tried hand slicing & the mandolin and nothing worked better than the good ol’ veggie peeler. The only thing I would do differently would be to marinate the butternut squash in the vinaigrette about 15 – 30 minutes prior to serving, just to have the vinegar break it down a little, but texturally it was still very appealing.  The dressing is without any added sweetness because the dates fill that space. Paired with peppery arugula, it was a winner all around.

For wordless Wednesday, I knew the recipe had to speak for itself…

…so I made a bowl of ice cream for breakfast.

The size of Little’s eyes when he heard he could have ice cream for breakfast could have lit up a stadium. When he gets excited he kinda shakes and clenches his fists, its precious.

I recognize it’s a lot easier to convince a three year old this is “ice cream” then anyone over the age of 8, but I encourage you to give it a try.

Close your eyes and think rich berry sorbet on a hot summer day.

It’s clean. It’s a healthy mix of carbs and protein. The cold sorbet will wake you & refresh you, while the warmed honey will comfort you. You could do this with same frozen banana, cocoa, agave and some peanut butter for a chocolate riff. Now that I say that, you may just see that here sometime soon.

And now as always…

…too many words for wordless Wednesday.

Five dollars. Fifteen minutes. A healthy dinner for four on the table…

…you are so welcome.

This meal came together so quickly and was so well received by my small brood, I was excited to share it here.  I would like to say it was inspired by a gorgeous photo spread in my favourite food magazine or that I strategically tested and retested various flavour and texture combinations until it was just right.  Ya…. not so much.

This is pretty much how it went down…

Saturday morning.

“Hun, do you mind taking Little to gymnastics this morning? I just have sooooo much work to do around here.  Thanks sweetie. Have fun & I will have a really nice lunch waiting for you guys when you get back.”  

Fast forward 65 minutes later and my list of accomplishments included a hot shower, deep conditioning treatment and – if I do say so myself – a killer eyebrow shaping.  Insert expletive and a mad dash to pantry. They are now due home in five minutes.

Strategically send text to Mister “Have yummy lunch ready but it needs bread, swing by bakery before u come home?” Selfie high five, just bought myself 15 more minutes. 

I put a pot of water on (because that seems to be what people do in emergencies) and scoured pantry & fridge. One of my FAVORITE meals is a linguini alla vongole with pancetta. Given fresh clams and cured pork were not in play here I was able to improvise with spaghetti & canned tuna. I wanted to beef (pun!) up the protein so I added some chickpeas and truthfully the edamame was for colour but taste wise worked out great. I think it would have been even better with some fresh tomatoes at the end, or some bacon/pancetta etc.  Even without though, it was a great meal.

But if you know me, you know I like numbers.  - the numbers don’t lie.

Dollar wise – can’t beat can of tuna, can of garbanzo beans, box of spaghetti.  Time wise – can’t beat a recipe that gives you something to do while water is boiling. I’m all about efficiency. 

Throw this in your back pocket and sometime over the next couple weeks when you are in a bind for a quick, healthy and satisfying weeknight supper, give this one a try…

…and then you can really thank me.

Ahhh, back to my sweet spot…

…the savoury stuff.

After chocolate cake, chocolate cupcakes and a chocolate loaf, I was ready to put away the mixer and pull out a roasting pan.  I have been wanting to share this chicken recipe for the longest time, ever since I came across Sylvia’s beautiful pictures at Feasting from Home.  This is a gorgeous blog with equally gorgeous photos and recipes. I have tried so may of her recipes and they are rock solid. So solid that even when I have to take my own riff on them they still turn out spot on. I am excited to try her Zucchini Fritters (I think Little would love them) and the next time company comes over (you know who you are) you will most likely find these warm olives on the corner of my cure board.

Two things kept this chicken off the site… the first was I usually tend to cook it late in the afternoon making.  The aroma that this chicken delivers fills the house and makes even my Little one wake up from his afternoon siesta say “it smells good in here mommy”.  Trying to hold back the boys to take some pics proved difficult.

Second, is that I think some techniques require in-progress pictures. I used to take more but found them more fulfilling an artistic need of mine, rather than a helpful visual for my readers.  However when I received a lot of feedback on the chicken wings asking how do you “french” a drumette, I realized a couple step by step pictures would have been helpful.

But here’s the thing…

… there is NO way to make a raw chicken look good.

ESPECIALLY when you cut it open. (Even this rare-meat loving carnivore grimaces a little when you take a pair of scissors up the back of a naked bird.)

Enter black and white photos for raw chicken.  So thank you Sylvia, both for your photo & recipe inspiration.  This is by far one of my family’s favourite ways to have chicken and the leftovers the next day are even better.   I made some changes because I wasn’t sure how Little would handle the heat, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how rich and flavourful this chicken is, especially given how fast and simply it comes together.  I think butterflying the bird it absolutely the way to go – so much easier to baste, carve & plate.

And I promise after trying to put every vegetable under the sun into some recent desserts….

… I will never put chicken in your chocolate.

From me to you….

… Happy Valentines Day! (now go eat some zucchini)

This is the third and final instalment in my attempt to inject a bit more goodness into chocolate baked treats.

The first was a bit out there, but still delicious, Chocolate Cake with Cauliflower.

The second was a Chocolate Cupcake with Beets (both inside the cupcake and in the icing) and today is the more recognizable and likely, most conservative Chocolate Zucchini Loaf.  I realize I probably led with the climax but at least I got your attention.

All of these chocolate and vegetable recipes were made multiple times due to both my errors in basic reading/math skills (every day I question the value of my graduate education) and some necessary recipe tweaking for my taste buds.  I had the pleasure of having the best sous chef for a few days this past weekend (thanks mama) and we had more than a few laughs, including “looks good mom, but where is the zucchini”.

They say trial and error is part of the fun of baking… part of the process. (emphasizing the word process in a bit of a whiny tone). I am not the best process person.  Sometimes I get so focused on the end goal, I forget about experiencing the learning or growing along the way.  I think baking is teaching me that.  Or at least it’s trying. I’m not sure I’m emotionally mature enough to appreciate it yet, but I’ll work on that.

Zucchini and chocolate is nothing new.  I think my mama has been making chocolate zucchini loaves for years. Every recipe can use some updating though, and I really like the result this combination of ingredients produced.  I also like that it is easily made gluten free for those who choose. (just substitute the flour for 100% almond flour). The cinnamon changes the cocoa and is just subtle enough (next time I will add 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg too). I usually double the vanilla in every recipe I find because it never seems like enough. Here, it’s enough.

So there you have it. Chocolate Cake with Cauliflower, Chocolate Cupcake with Beets and now Chocolate Cake with Zucchini.  And if you are still looking for more ways to put vegetables with chocolate I recommend these Chocolate Cupcakes with carrots , this Vegan Chocolate Cake with avocado or this Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake recipe.

So Happy Valentines Day.  My wonderful Valentine has had enough chocolate and veggies to last a lifetime so I’m going to go open him a beer…

and make him these Chocolate Stout Brownies.

I made a beet cupcake.

And it’s vegan.

And people ate it.

And people liked it.

… you should applaud now. 

Here is the second instalment in my series of three attempts to inject more goodness {translation: veggies} into some baked goods. My mom-guilt dial drops a few points when I know at least Little is scoring some serious folate & manganese as he reaches for a second. (and if you can tell me why we need manganese that would be very helpful)  

A favourite comedian of mine said it best when he delivered a joke that went something like this…’ “it would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach.  Like you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, “It’s cool, he’s with me.”‘

That’s kind of what I was going for with the beet and the cupcake.   The vegan thing was just a bonus.  These cupcakes were a cross between a brownie and a cake. Not too dense, but light and airy.  They don’t even need the icing (sifting a little icing sugar and cocoa together would be a nice finish) but if you do decide to try the icing, save a tablespoon or so of the beet juice from roasting them to tint the frosting. (or cranberry, blueberry juice etc all work great)  There is very little sugar, and as I mentioned above – bonus, vegan.

So if you have some beets lying around (ideally not on a white couch) and you don’t want to make this gorgeous soup or these cute chips, then make your Valentine some cupcakes…

… and maybe don’t mention the beets.

It’s way better than it sounds…

…I promise.

Happy Valentines Week! (I think there is rarely a holiday that doesn’t deserve a week of celebration – as in every day life, 24 hours is simply not enough time)

I get the sense people are either pro-Vday or against it. And I seem to meet more of the latter. Often billed the Hallmark holiday, it seems gets a bad rap for pressured expectations… flowers, cards, presents, dinner etc. (fyi Mister, any or all would be lovely!) I get it. But in the big scheme of things, I also think there are lots of people that take things way too seriously.  No matter your situation – happily single, unhappily single, newly loving, newly married, old-ly married – I kinda think you just have to lighten up and laugh it off.

I see no logical reason to complain about a holiday centred around chocolate consumption.  Around here, it will be much of that. (especially when you spend the week making multiple versions of veggie based chocolate goodies)  It will be a family dinner, likely on Saturday night – because half the fun in this house is planning, shopping and prepping creative & participating family meals.   

And of course, it will be scouring Pinterest, to steal find the perfect preschooler non-food, allergy-safe, age-appropriate Valentine treat to give twenty 3 year olds.

What’s NOT to love about Valentines Day?

I am always on the look out for low sugar and somewhat healthier treats for the Little one. I have no idea how I stumbled across the original recipe here from 2012 but it was too intriguing not to try.  I ended up making it three times until it had just the right balance of chocolate and sweetness. It is not an overly sweet cake (only 1/3 cup sugar in the whole cake) but the chocolate chips and strong cocoa flavour add enough dimension that I really don’t think you will miss it. (and it is a great excuse to add some funky icing!) The cauliflower is a massive dose of the B vitamins, Viatmin C & add moisture without oil.

So no matter what you end of doing this Valentines Day, I hope it includes a smile, a laugh, a love….

… and some chocolate with a side of cauliflower.

Wings & coffee….

… what other dish better represents the Seahawks in the Superbowl?

I have been looking forward to cooking these wings all week.  I would hate to count the number of wings Mister and I have consumed over our years together but for sure, it is our standard to decide the quality of a sports watching establishment. Sure, sound on for the game, number and placement of tv’s, high tops and nooks and crannies – all important. But. If you cannot make a good chicken wing, we will likely not call you the next day.

However, since Little has come into our life, pub chicken wing consumption has declined directly proportionate to our “watching whatever game at whatever pub” nights have.  So we have been forced to bring the ultimate chicken wing recipe in house.  If you try these wings,  I think you will like our house.

In an ode to Seattle – java capital of North America – these wings have been brined in strong coffee and then heavily seasoned in more coffee and an assortment of complimentary herbs and spices. They are finished with a light brushing of maple syrup which caramelizes and creates a sticky, darkened crust.

And if these don’t appeal to you, try these, these or these.  I vouch for all them.

Okay, that is all for today. Too nervous & excited.  Enjoy the game and of course…

… #gohawks.

Please don’t be turned off by the idea of Boar & Bison…

…it was all I had to work with from the beautiful state of Colorado.

When I heard the NFL Network announcer say, ‘we are pleased to provide you with over 200 hours of pre game,’ I knew it was going to be a LONG two weeks. That said, when your team actually makes it, 200 hours doesn’t seem like nearly enough. (And for the record, despite the title of this recipe the Broncos are NOT my team. (although, secretly truthfully there really is not much to NOT like)  

My team? The other guys.

And it’s been a LONG time coming.

A LONG time.

But in a display of good sportsmanship, I decided this week, each team gets a signature dish. Denver lost the toss.

For many reason, chili is popular around this family. Mostly because it’s a perfect slow cooker meal and seems to get better with age making it great for leftovers the next day.  Normally I make it with beef or turkey but in honour of the great outdoors of the Colorado mountains, I took it down a wilder path.  And surprisingly, it was a much healthier path.  I was surprised to learn that all things being equal, boar & bison have less calories & fat plus more protein, then beef.  They are also both raised in a free range and free choice environment, hormone & antibiotic free.

While the lean bison may be harder to distinguish from beef in terms of flavour & texture, I can’t lie to you.
Wild Boar tastes different.
Different from both beef or pork (and chicken for that matter, since everything tastes like chicken)

BUT…

…chilli is a great way to try it. The smoked paprika & cayenne bring out enough alternative flavours that the sweet & nutty elements of boar are more subtle for your first exposure.

So, naturally, this weekend we are throwing a huge, rager of a Super Bowl party… Four have been invited & four are coming, including my wee family of three. (I love my girlfriends, but this year… I need to watch the game & my Washington residing sister gets it.)

Stay tuned for a Seattle inspired game day snack tomorrow but until then – in the words of THE guy you want representing your team…

… #gohawks.