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You’re No Food Network Star!

Last week I asked you to all examine your own accident-prone past in your own kitchen(s). For your effort I promised to award one The Next Food Network Star prize package to the most disastrous (but believable) kitchen horror story anyone could come up with.

The scariest stories (yes, she had many) came from Holly of Phemomenon (see below for a copy of her kitchen disaster story).

The prize package, courtesy of The Next Food Network Star includes the following:

1. Cookbook – "Bobby Flay’s Grill It!"
2. Food Network Keychain
3. Next Food Network Star Poster
4. Next Food Network Star Postcard
5. Next Food Network Star T-shirt

Congratulations, Holly!

I have so many stories I could share, but I’ll just concentrate on this past winter.

I have been in quarantine with our preemie son since his birth (2 months early) last October (until abou 1 week ago). Anyway, baking has been my salvation this winter – but sleep deprivation and baking don’t mix very well. I usually end up doing something stupid, or that I just know isn’t going to end well… and then doing it anyway.

So, my story is all about the week before Christmas – and I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I’m not exaggerating here. First I cut two fingers by not paying attention while cutting up tomatoes, then I put a hot from the oven pyrex pie plate into the sink and started to run not hot enough water over it – it exploded, literally (thank goodness it mostly stayed in the sink).

Then, sticking with the exploding glass theme, on Christmas morning I had forgotten to chill a bottle of sparkling cider we were given, so I put it in the freezer and promised myself I would remember it was there… but I didn’t. It exploded and left frozen, sticky slushy cider and green glass shards all over the freezer (still cleaning up after that one).

Finally, also Christmas morning, I had decided to make a new sticky bun recipe. It seemed too big for it’s pan, but I decided it would be alright. Well, then I forgot to put a sheet pan under it to catch any drips. Well, the drips became flat out overflow – and since I have a gas oven and burnt sugar is flammable – I set the oven on fire.

I am still trying to clean this mess up as well – and I even had to unscrew and remove the floor of the oven – which I got to spend the rest of Christmas day trying to clean. (Oh, and I still haven’t been able to get the oven floor screwed back in correctly either. It is being held in place with my heavy pizza stone. I should probably stay out of the kitchen, but I try not to let it get me down!)

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I’m No Food network star

My Life, in a Nutshell

Or to put it simply, “Why I Could Never Be the NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR…”

When I was very young my father crowned me with the nickname “Murphy”, as in “Murphy’s Law”: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I was, to put it mildly, “accident prone”. Actually, accidents followed me around like dark shadows, turning up when I’d least expect them, ruining perfectly good days.

When I was three I was up at my cottage and my brother had broken a juice glass on the floor of the kitchen. My mother cleaned up all of it (she thought) but my foot somehow managed to find the one piece she had missed. It embedded itself into my foot and I ended up in the emergency room a few days later waiting to have it removed (for which I received a pretty pink balloon…my brother was jealous).

At the ripe old age of 4 my brother (still jealous) sat me down on the kitchen floor and gave me a horrific hair cut. To this day I fear haircuts and anyone bearing scissors in the kitchen.

When I was six I tugged on the kitchen door at the cottage and the glass window fell out of it, nearly slicing off my right thumb. No emergency room this time, just a big bowl of hydrogen peroxide and a clean dish towel for a bandage. I have nerve damage in that hand and am still upset I never got a pretty pink balloon to make my brother jealous. Entering that kitchen still gives me the heebee-geebies.

At the age of eight my brother (jealous much?) whirled me around the grocery store in a shopping cart and tipped it over (with me still in it). Now I become somewhat traumatized when I walk through the doors of any large grocery store…it makes shopping a nuisance to say the least.

At 19 a good friend cooked me dinner but the chicken was slightly undercooked and I ended up sick in bed for over a week…minus one good friend. To this day I am a bit paranoid when it comes to cooking chicken.

When I was 27 I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. A very similar disorder is caused by e. coli so I am a bit overly cautious when I cook ground beef…to the point of burning it sometimes.

Recently I wanted to make myself a cup of tea. I turned the stove on, walked out of the kitchen and made a telephone call. I returned to my kitchen to find the stove on fire and the room filled with thick grey smoke. I had turned on the wrong burner, on top of which was an old tea towel. I think you can guess the result…the house still smells funny to me and I have left the tea-making to S.

So those are my flaws (a few of them anyway), do with them what you will. But if you’re going to think ill of me for them perhaps you should examine your own past in your own kitchen(s). For your effort I will award one The Next Food Network Star prize package to the most disastrous (but believable) kitchen horror story you can come up with.

Please send me an email before June 2nd with your tragic story and I will choose the best (worst) and post it on Tuesday June 3rd. The prize package, courtesy of The Next Food Network Star includes the following:

1. Cookbook – “Bobby Flay’s Grill It!”
2. Food Network Keychain
3. Next Food Network Star Poster
4. Next Food Network Star Postcard
5. Next Food Network Star T-shirt

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My Favourite Mistake

I have been posting a lot less frequently than I would like to lately. So many things have been keeping me away from my wee MacBook laptop in the past few weeks. Nothing exciting unfortunately, it’s just that I haven’t had the opportunities I would like to have to sit and write, or stand and cook and then sit and write, as it were.

With the weather warming up (finally!) I have been craving fresh, light citrus desserts. I thought for a nice treat I would make some gorgeous teeny tiny lemon tarts with meringue tops. Yes. Those would be perfect for a warm spring evening.

Only they weren’t. To start, they weren’t very lemony. The crust, while delicious, unfortunately did not work well with the not-so-lemony filling. And don’t get me started on the meringue — it looked haphazard at best and down right horrible at its worst. They did smell good however and I appreciated their (the tarts’ that is) effort, even if they did look as though they had been drawn by an extremely un-artistic 3 year-old (no offense to 3 year-olds or their talent!). And, strangest of strange, there was a huge amount of filling left over from the original recipe. I used maybe 1/10 of it making the tarts, and I figured I’d put the remainder in the fridge thinking I might make more tarts the next day.

The next day, after I’d finished making the horrible, deformed-looking tarts I was not sure what to do with the left over filling. Then I thought about a cheesecake recipe I had made once that was quite similar and decided that I would mix the left over filling with some mascarpone and cream cheese and make a cheesecake with it. Hmmm. So that is how I came up with this lemon cloud cheesecake recipe. It still might need a bit of tweaking, but it was good. Good the day I made it after coming out of the oven and cooling for about an hour or so, but much better the next day after being in the fridge over night.

I love it when mistakes in the kitchen turn out so deliciously!

For more citri-fied desserts, be sure to check out Helen’s blog for this month’s SHF round-up on Friday!

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Tarting it Up




My fingertips are red from all the strawberries I have been eating lately. Once spring begins to bring the fresh, warm breezes to tickle my cheek and the sun begins to stream through the windows early in the morning I begin to reach for berries…especially of the “straw” variety.

I can eat them freshly washed with the stems still intact. I love them dipped in white or dark chocolate. Filled with sweetened cream cheese, with ice cream or angel food cake. I love them in breads, in pancakes and in milkshakes. They’re delicious in pie, cobbler and coffee cake. You name it, strawberries make it better.

When at an Italian restaurant one evening a few summers ago I ordered a light dessert after an amazing, but a little heavy meal. The waiter had suggested a bowl of fresh strawberries with a little brown sanding sugar and some perfectly aged balsamic vinegar. I had never had this combination before and I was a bit surprised at the flavours. Once you get past the initial thought of vinegar on berries it is all good. The flavours play off of each other so magically it’s almost hard to believe you would ever eat the two separately again.

When I had three pints of strawberries languishing in my fridge recently I kept thinking back on that wonderful dessert. I also remembered a bottle of white balsamic vinegar that was begging to be used in a delicious, interesting recipe. Pairing white balsamic with a beautiful, unctuous custard was the best thing I’ve done in some time.

Next time I’m making balsamic ice cream and serving it with strawberries…that says delicious to me!

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Leisurely Breakfast


Now that I am back at work weekends are so much more important to me. Those extremely short two days (whatever happened to the thought of a hour-day work week??) are when I get to spend REAL time with Leith and S. It is when I can relax a bit, rather than just buzzing around, attempting to get out the door as I tend to do on week day mornings. Weekends are spent doing all the household tasks that pile up during the week like laundry and vacuuming and gardening (now that it is *almost* warm enough!). Saturday and Sunday are the only days I really get to cook and bake because I’m simply too tired to do so when I get home from work. Weekends are so much more busy now, but that goes without saying I suppose.

Because our Sunday mornings can be pretty laid back (we tend not to get out of the house much before Leith gets up from his nap at 1pm!) I try to treat Leith and S. (and myself) to a nice, leisurely breakfast. Sometimes it is French Toast, other times it is Fruit-Filled Pancakes…whatever we eat it’s delicious and much more of a treat than the toast or cereal or apple-on-the-run that tends to be our speedy weekday fare.

Lately I have been on an apple kick. I don’t know how it happened, but I’ve been eating one everyday (let’s hope it keeps the doctor away!) and I have been wanting to make lots of apple dishes as well. The recent Apple Cake was so good I went out and bought a huge 10 pound bag of apples and everyday I am dreaming up more and more apple desserts and snacks for us. If you have a favourite apple recipe, please do let me know about it – I can always use more!

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Love is a Powerful Thing

When I got married a few years ago I vowed not to cheat on my husband; never to love another the way I do him. I pledged a few other things as well (like to not irritate him too much and to make him breakfast on the weekends) but the “love” one is the promise causing me some difficulty today. When I started this blog I swore to myself that I would not allow it to enter into my private life too much, that I would avoid blogging about the really delicate facets of my existence. I am about to break these two very important covenants.

Continue reading “Love is a Powerful Thing”

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Sweet Serenity Now!

I grew up in a house where dessert was never an after-thought. That sweet, final touch to each evening meal was something we were guaranteed to get, no matter the occasion – or lack thereof. Dessert to my family is something you don’t dare question or forget, you indulge in it, enjoy it and most of all you’d better not forget to bring it.

Continue reading “Sweet Serenity Now!”

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No More Sticky Fingers

Those who know me well know I am a huge tea drinker. Actually, just about any hot beverage appeals to me, but tea seems to be at the top of my list lately. I used to be a chronic java addict, but I tried to give up coffee last summer while in the hospital (not a difficult task when the coffee is as bad as it is in there). It stuck for a while but these days I find a cup of coffee every now and then is a lovely indulgence.

Continue reading “No More Sticky Fingers”

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Me Without Mittens

Something happens to me this time of year…for some reason I become giddy and full of energy as the days become longer and grow just a little bit warmer. It might be the promise of better times ahead (it’s been a tough fall and even tougher winter) or the idea of seeing all the trees begin to bud. Perhaps it is the idea of paring down the wardrobe to one sweater (rather than three) and one jacket (rather than two) and wearing shoes rather than boots once the weather starts to pick up. It may even be the lovely long weekend coming up that revolves around food and chocolate and candy and family. It may be the nearness of my birthday… I can’t quite put my finger on what it is exactly but I am pretty pumped about spring finallycoming.

Spring is looming. You can feel it on the street when the breeze blows just a bit lighter and slightly warmer. It is right around the corner, just waiting to surprise you with melting snow everywhere and kids (including my own) jumping in every puddle they come across. The stores are stocked with Easter decorations and candies and April is less than two weeks away. Spring is without a doubt on its way.

I practically live off of soups and stews during the cold winter months. Heavy, meat and vegetable-laden concoctions that have oodles of time to simmer on the stove while I huddle inside of a pile of sweaters. But once the temperatures start to run upwards and the sweaters start to come off I still crave the comfort of soups…just on the lighter, greener side. Soups like this one keep me hopeful that spring is just around the corner and keep me warm down to my toes until the temperature outside warms up a bit more.

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An Admission…of Sorts


Here is where I admit to something that I should rightfully be slightly ashamed of: there are only a select few dishes I have managed to “master” in my lifetime. There are millions more that I have either (a) yet to have made or (b) have tried once and failed miserably or even (c) have tried a few times, making them to the point where they are eatable. How dare I consider myself even remotely adept in the kitchen after such an admission…? Well, the few that I do make well I really do make them to perfection. Trust me – come over for dinner sometime and I’ll make you one or two of them.

Pizza. I make amazing homemade, entirely from scratch pizza. I make the dough. I make the tomato sauce. I roast the vegetables and pan-fry the sausages and pick out the delicious cheeses. I brush the crust with olive oil that has been steeping for at least a month in sun dried tomatoes or other herbs and spices. I carefully knead and proof and rise my dough in a loving, almost motherly manner. I love making pizza and I make it flawlessly.

Risotto is another dish I have mastered. I can make it with any kind of rice and a few grains and it turns out delicious and silky smooth every time. Everyone always thinks that risotto is difficult to make, but I find it easier than plain rice. It just takes patience, a little bit of attention and really good Parmesan cheese.

Pancakes are my sure-fire impress-people-early-in-the-morning dish. I make them with any kind of fruit or berry inside and I usually also serve a simple fruit compote along with them. Warm maple syrup and some whipped butter and I can get just about anyone to do anything I want if I ask them while they chow down on my pancakes.

Panini sandwiches, in all their many variations are as simple as you could possibly imagine…simpler, actually. And the great thing is you can make them with just about any ingredients you have at hand and they will be delicious. It is a dressed up version of the plain old, boring sandwich and it is impressive enough to serve at a dinner party (of course most of my dinner parties of late have taken place with basketball or football on the television in the background, but whatever!).

Scotch Graham Scones are the “thank-you cards” of my culinary world. Any time I have to say a quick thanks to someone (my dad for looking at our electrical wiring when we bought the house, my dad when he helped us move a huge table from his house to ours, my dad when he helped us tear out a wall in our tiny cramped but now spacious kitchen…I guess they are more the “thank-you dad cards” of my culinary world) they are what I make. Incidentally, I have made them A LOT over the past few years…there has been quite a lot to be thankful for.

And last but certainly not least are my now infamous Truffles – or as I have referred to them: the little black dresses of the dessert world. They are the perfect ending to any meal, the greatest little gift to present to anyone for any occasion and the best tasting chocolate morsels you are ever going to have. I have tried truffles from various chocolate shops around town and I have to say mine rank up near the top of the list. I made them for part of the dessert table at my own wedding and saw guests snagging more than a few to take home at the end of the night.

There is now also a huge list on my refrigerator of dishes I intend to master over the next few years; things like French Onion Soup, Pound Cake, Curry and Croissants. For now however I will take these few recipes I have mastered and tweak them into new dishes – like using my celebrated pizza dough to make Stromboli once in a while (which was a huge hit for two men watching basketball in my living room recently).