Today is one of those days and for lunch I’ve made a super easy and quick pizza.

Ingredients for one pizza:

Thin pita bread – if you prefer to make dough then go for it but I wanted a pizza “NOW”

Tomato sauce, store-bought or homemade

Buffalo mozzarella, cut into slices

Tomato, sliced

Fresh basil

Spread the tomato sauce over the pita bread and then arrange the basil leaves on top and then the tomato and finally the cheese. Pop it in the oven for a few minutes just until the cheese melts and there you have a gorgeous and tasty lunch.

In the instructions it says to microwave everything and to be honest, I’m not a big fan of microwaving food. Leftovers yes, but raw meats? Not so much.

I used boneless and skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces. For the basil rub I used whatever lemon rind I had left over (you need about 2 tsp of lemon rind for the sauce but you can probably get more than that out of one lemon) and about a tsp of lime rind. With my fingers I rubbed the rinds together with about a tbsp of dried basil leaves and I coated the chicken pieces with that.

For the sauce I melted the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and then added the flour and stirred until it was nice and thick. Next I added the lemon rind, garlic, and milk. I cooked that for about five minutes and then I added the homemade pesto Jay’s mom gave us. I’m not sure if there was salt in the pesto so the sauce turned out a little bland but very flavourful so I would suggest you taste the sauce and add salt to your liking. I added the chicken pieces to that same saucepan, covered it, and continued to cook everything on medium heat for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. While the chicken cooked I made the pasta noodles – I used fettuccine.

I really liked this meal but I think the sauce would be much better suited for shrimp. Even as I made the sauce I could visualize shrimp in it so keep that in mind if you ever feel inclined to try this Pampered Chef recipe.

Tonight’s dinner came from The Pampered Chef website because I seem to have a new found obsession with their products and recipes. For the BBQ sauce I simply Googled “BBQ sauce recipe” and I came across one on chow.com. Recipe is here and it is super tasty. The meatloaf recipe can be found here.

Even though I didn’t make the full amount of BBQ as shown on the recipe I still have plenty left over. I’m hoping to use the rest this week…perhaps some succulent ribs?

I absolutely love this loaf pan – I didn’t have to spray or coat it with oil, just shaped the meat into a loaf and baked.

This meatloaf was incredible – full of flavour and juicy. I paired it with pesto mashed potatoes from a previous entry.

For dessert I made a Chocolate Almond Cheesecake, as well, from The Pampered Chef website and the recipe can be found here. The spring form pan is awesome. The pans I had before were of much lesser quality but this one was so worth getting. My cheesecakes don’t stick and I don’t need to grease the sides.

This cheesecake was rich and silky. The almond extract is such a good combination with chocolate. In this recipe it says to use semi-sweet chocolate but I may try it with dark chocolate next time. I’m not a big fan of decorating cheesecake with whipped cream so I left it naked – it’s that good on its own. But you can also sprinkle some almond slices for a nice crunchy texture.

Today has been perfectly gloomy and rainy. I say perfectly because it’s exactly the kind of weather that makes me crave something warm and comforting and I found just the thing inside my blue notebook – Ginger Spice Cookies.

Some times I have no idea where I got the recipe cut out from but in this case I owe my gratification to a Karla Cogghe of Chatham, Ontario, who submitted her grandmother’s recipe for these cookies to Chatelaine magazine.

These cookies are incredibly easy and quick to make and are ready in a flash – or it seemed that way to me because before I knew it I was popping a warm and soft cookie into my mouth. The outer layer has a delicate crunch and inside is soft and almost chewy. Once the cookies have cooled they are little more crunchy. The cut out explains that Karla found her grandmother’s version of these cookies to be a bit too spicy for her (cloves and ginger) so she played around with the ingredients until she found the right formula. There was enough spice in the cookies but I think next time I make these I may add a bit more to give it an extra kick.

Makes about 30 to 35 cookies

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

3/4 cup vegetable oil – I used safflower

1/4 cup molasses

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

Mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt and set aside. In a large bowl whisk the egg. Mix in the oil and molasses and then mix in the brown sugar until smooth. Add the flour mixture bit by bit until you have a nice sturdy dough. Put the granulated sugar in a bowl. Form tbsp sized balls with the dough and roll them in the granulated sugar. Place on a greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake at 350F for 7 to 10 minutes, rotating halfway through baking, until cookies start to crack.

And wow! I am never using another recipe for (baked) cheesecake again. That is how good it is.

The recipe can be found here. My slight modification was that I added about a tea spoon of my own pumpkin pie spice mix as I used the leftover apples from my Mini Apple Pies for the cheesecake topping. The combination of spiced apples and cheesecake was divine. I’m now remembering a while back I made a lemon bars recipe that came with my old Pampered Chef stone baker and if I remember correctly those turned out quite amazing as well. If all their recipes are this awesome I need to try them all out! Of course, I will let you all know how the recipes turn out.

I better not step on a scale though.

Here’s what I used (I hope I can remember now):

approx a pound of beef (best to use stewing beef)

3 or 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped because I like biting into whole bits of garlic but if you’re not a fan of that you can finely dice the garlic.

1 onion, diced

1 28oz can of diced tomatoes

2 bay leaves

1 cup of water – depending on how thick you want the stew add more or don’t add any at all

approx 1 tsp of oregano

approx 1 tsp of cumin

1 can of kidney beans

1/2 cup of red wine, if you have it

half a  jalapeno pepper, which I had completely forgotten about being in the fridge so that worked out great

salt and pepper to taste

And the rest of the ingredients were leftovers like:

3/4 of a zucchini, sliced into small pieces

1 carrot, sliced

2 mushrooms, roughly chopped – of course if you have more than 2 mushrooms by all means use more – for some reason we only had 2 haha.

I think any vegetable could work with this mix.

In a large pot brown the beef in some olive oil at medium-high heat. Lower to medium heat. Throw in the garlic and onion and sautee until soft. Add the can of tomatoes, bay leaves, and cook for 10 minutes. Add cumin, oregano, jalapeno pepper, and 1 cup of water, if needed, and let it cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, covered. This would be a good time to dice all your veggies, if you haven’t done so already. Turn heat to low.  Add the  veggies and other leftovers you want to use, and red wine, if it’s handy. Let that simmer, stirring every so often, for about 30 minutes or longer if your stomach can wait. I think we made it to 30 minutes before we dove in – the spicy aroma was too tempting.

I used to feel that making apple pie was extremely difficult and delicate work. Difficult because you have to thinly slice a billion apples, and delicate because you absolutely cannot let the butter get warm. I’ve made really good apple pies in the past and also ones that come out with a crust that feels like wet sand.

Yesterday I was close to getting that wet sand texture but luckily the crust turned out well if a tad too soft on the sides. The filling was perfect and the apple sauce delectably sweet and gooey.

For the crust I used Julia Child’s recipe for sweet short paste from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. For the filling I used royal gala apples of varying sizes (they were organic and a bit on the small side). Most recipes will say to use tart apples like granny smith but I’ve used all kinds of apple varieties and they’ve all worked.

For the filling:

6 apples of your choice

the juice of half a lemon – about 2 tbsp

1/2 cup sugar

3 tbsp flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon – I used a pumpkin pie spice mixture, which I found here.

Peel and core the apples and then thinly slice. In a bowl toss the apples with the lemon juice. In a separate bowl combine the sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Add the dry mix to the apples and toss until everything is coated. I let this mixture sit in the fridge overnight but it’s also good to use after an hour or two. See my note about a sauce at the bottom of this post.

For the crust:

2/3 cup flour

1 tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

4 tbsp chilled butter and 1 1/2 tbsp chilled vegetable shortening (I didn’t have shortening so I used butter). The butter should be cut into 1/2 inch bits.

2 1/2 to 3 tbsp cold water.

This recipe is good for an 8 inch tart shell.

After cutting the butter I would strongly suggest placing the cut pieces back in the fridge for several minutes as the warmth from your hands may cause the butter to soften too much.

Mix together all ingredients except the water. Quickly break apart the butter with the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like tiny peas. Add the water little by little (make sure it’s ice cold) and rapidly blend together until you have a mass of dough. Add more water if the dough is too dry. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Next, place the dough on a lightly floured counter to knead. Use the heel of your hand (not the palm, as Julia explains is too warm) and rapidly press the dough down in small amounts and away from you, making streaks across the counter. With a spatula or scraper gather the dough into a mass and quickly form into a ball. Wrap in wax paper and place it in the fridge for about 2 hours or overnight.

Another thing I’m not entirely fond of is rolling dough. I always seem to break the dough or it’s too sticky and most of it ends up smeared everywhere. When I brought out my ball of dough it felt almost rock hard but I followed Julia’s suggestion to hammer it with the rolling pin to soften it a bit. Next knead it into a fairly flat circle making sure it’s just soft enough that it won’t crack when you roll it out. Sprinkle flour over the dough and on your rolling pin then start from the centre and roll out away from you until it’s a circle about an 1/8 of an inch thick. At this point you can press the dough into your baking shell.  Fill with the apple mixture and cover with dough. I used 6oz ramekins and I had enough dough for three ramekins but I now have leftover apple filling, which I’ll be using for something else.

The baking part of this project is what I’m a little unsure of. My oven isn’t very accurate – it seems to be 15 or 20 degrees hotter than what’s on the dial. Anyway, I set the temperature to 400F and throughout the baking I turned it down to 350F and near the end to 400F again. I also checked on the pies first after 15 minutes and then every 10 minutes until the crust was golden and not soft.

If you want to make a sauce you can place the apple mixture in a strainer and collect the juices in a pan. I got about half a cup of juices out of my batch of apples. In a sauce pan I combined the juices with about a tablespoon or two of butter and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Over medium heat I cooked the sauce until it was reduced and very thick.

With a scoop of ice cream on top and a drizzle of apple caramel sauce the pies were like a little taste of heaven that the birthday boy devoured in an instant.

My mom once showed me how she made her salsa and I’ve since made a few variations of it. The main ingredients, in my opinion, are tomatoes, onions, and hot peppers. After that you’re free to add whatever you’d like, of course making sure that the flavours work well together but don’t be afraid to experiment. My mom adds dark chocolate pieces to her salsa mix.

In this batch of salsa I combined the following in a large jar:

5 tomatoes

1 white onion

2 jalapeno peppers

1 green bell pepper

1 head of garlic

the juice of a lime

a splash of vinegar

salt to taste

approx a tsp of cumin

approx a tsp of sugar

a handful of cilantro

All these ingredients can be blended together if you want a pureed consistency or you can simply dice everything for a more chunky feel. I like to do half pureed and half chunky.

If it’s too runny you can strain some of the liquid out but I would suggest saving that liquid for cooking purposes – it makes for a great meat or chicken tenderizer. It’s a good idea to let the mixture sit for a few days before tasting it as the flavours need time to mesh together. The longer it sits the better it tastes.

About ten years ago I purchased a square stoneware baking pan from The Pampered Chef. It was my absolute favourite pan until yesterday when we welcomed the new additions. If you’ve never baked with stoneware, I strongly suggest you do as these baking pans and sheets absorb the heat and distribute it for even baking. What I also love about this product is that because you only wash it with hot water (no soap) after several uses it begins to form a somewhat greasy coating. After a while the baking pan doesn’t need to be greased prior to baking.

Once we had our bakeware out on the kitchen table I decided to immediately make use of at least one item. I chose the baking sheet to make Halloween-themed sugar cookies. The recipe comes from Joy of Baking and I recommend watching the video for some tips on making the cookies.

I baked one batch on the baking stone and one batch on my non-stick baking sheet using a Silpat. The cookies on the stone were baked to near perfection while some of the cookies on the other sheet came out half burnt on the bottom. Some were golden and some not so much. The recipe, by the way, is awesome. I left my cookies sans icing sugar as they are subtly sweet on their own.

Of course I couldn’t just stop there. We have a basket-sized amount of apples on our counter, which I’ve been wanting to use for a pie but I still haven’t replaced my broken pie plate. Luckily The Pampered Chef products each came with recipes and one of them was for Apple Oat Muffins. The recipe can be found here. Not only were the muffins fast and easy to make but they turned out amazing. The sweet cinnamon crumble on top gives each bite a little spicy crunch and the apple bits lend their natural sweetness to the mix.

I was trying to make granola bars from a recipe but the words “home” and “made” make me think that I can do whatever the hell I want to a recipe. I’ve had many failed experiments because I didn’t follow a recipe. But this time it wasn’t so bad.

The recipe called for flour, rolled oats, butter, maple syrup, brown sugar, and vanilla. Now, wouldn’t you agree that that list is missing a few things? I thought so and that’s why I added Rice Krispy cereal, chocolate chips, dried cranberries, mini marshmallows, and sunflower seeds. I guess it could have still worked out if I had made enough sticky liquid (melted butter with brown sugar, syrup, and vanilla) to saturate everything. Going into the oven I could tell the mixture wasn’t wet enough.

I almost considered dumping the whole batch except that they were still tasty.

The bars turned out very crunchy and not chewy like they should have been. They were also not as sweet as store bought bars, which was a welcome change as everything seems a bit too sweet to me. I brought out my rolling pin and I smashed all the granola bars into small pieces and then I tried it out with some milk.

I made cereal.