Google / Social Description

This clubhouse is classic, but with a twist! I swapped chicken and bacon for tofu and beets and it’s over-the-top delicious.

Introduction

This clubhouse is classic, but with a twist! I swapped chicken and bacon for tofu and beets and it’s over-the-top delicious. There was a time in my young adult years when if I saw a clubhouse on a menu, I got it. Nothing else mattered. I think you’ll feel some emotions flooding in after one big ol’ bite outta this sammie. The beet bacon really only works in sandwiches like this, so I don’t recommend repurposing it in salads or pasta dishes.

Google / Social Description

This is a great recipe to make with kids, and you can swap any gummy candy for the bears, so get creative.

Introduction

Josie’s kids, Lily and Finn, are lucky enough to have a mom who owns a bakery and to attend school right across the street from it! Lily and Finn are passionate about cookies and always coming up with new recipe ideas that they think their schoolmates, some of our best customers, will love. Lily really wanted a gummy bear cookie, so we set to work making it happen. As you can imagine, gummy bears are not the easiest ingredient to bake (they just melt). We had to do a lot of experimenting, but the result has become a bakery staple and one of our favourite cookies. This is a great recipe to make with kids, and you can swap any gummy candy for the bears, so get creative and play with your favourite candies. Buy the fancy gummies with better flavour and real fruit juices to elevate this cookie. We use Albanese Gummi Bears in twelve assorted natural flavours.

Introduction

Standing in line with Johnnie on the cobblestone street outside our apartment in the city centre of Nice, we waited for socca. Chickpea flour, water, and oil poured onto a wide skillet and cooked on an open fire. Sprinkle of salt. Served on a paper plate. The nuttiness from the chickpeas, crunchy salt, the purest olive oil had me on tilt. Oil soaked the paper plate as we stood in the warm sun, not checking the time, just enjoying. It’s a vegan and gluten-free combination of pancake, crêpe, and dosa, and we made our own version at Saturday Dinette. We added a hint of rosemary and served it rolled, stuffed with lavender ricotta, and dusted with confectioners’ sugar with a drizzle of olive oil to finish it. I only wish we could have served it on paper plates.

Google / Social Description

Elderflowers blossom in May or June. Do not rinse the flowers, because they’re delicate, and you’ll wash away some of the flavor.

Introduction

You don’t come across elderflowers at the markets in Paris, but one day when I was walking down the Avenue Trudaine, I spotted a huge elderflower tree in the traffic median! It’s illegal to forage in Paris, so I resisted picking them. But I couldn’t resist taking a sniff, and found the ones that managed to flourish between the several lanes of diesel-fueled cars and motorcycles differed from the “all of summer” fragrance the flowers usually have.

A few days later, I was at a friend’s house outside of town for a barbecue and noticed a spindly, flower-laden tree leaning against their house. “Ah . . . bon? Les sureaux?” they said when I asked if they were, indeed, elderflowers, before I sprinted over to get a closer look. Once my suspicions were confirmed, they gave me carte blanche (and a few big bags), and told me to pick away.

Elderflowers blossom in May or June. Do not rinse the flowers, because they’re delicate, and you’ll wash away some of the flavor. Any bits of debris or bugs should be gently picked or brushed off. To remove the flowers from the stems, run your fingers down the flower heads over a bowl; they’ll easily drop off.

Google / Social Description

f black bean brownies could be a thing—and believe me, they are a thing—then why not red bean brownies?

Introduction

If black bean brownies could be a thing—and believe me, they are a thing—then why not red bean brownies, based on the little adzuki (aka azuki) beans that are so beloved across Asia for their versatility in sweets? I started with a pretty killer gluten-free recipe from Dana Shultz’s Minimalist Baker site and set to tinkering. In went the adzuki beans, out went the black. In went aquafaba—the liquid from a can of chickpeas, not the adzukis, because the flavor is milder—and out went a flax egg. In went a little chickpea flour for extra structure. The master stroke, based on a suggestion from my friend and cookbook author Tess “The Blender Girl” Masters: rose water, which takes these from everyday-American-take-to-work good to special-occasion-Middle-Eastern great. They’re very fudgy and dense on the inside, a little chewy on the outside—and easy enough to make whenever you want.

Google / Social Description

I love pudding. I was the kid that ate those tin cans of milk chocolate Nestlé pudding in my lunchbox almost every day.

Introduction

I love pudding. I was the kid that ate those tin cans of milk chocolate Nestlé pudding in my lunchbox almost every day. Then I went to Paris with my mom when I was 14, and I tasted pastries filled with pastry cream (real vanilla pudding) for the first time. I was in heaven. At 17, after moving away from home to Toronto, I tasted pastéis de nata (baked custard tarts) from a local Portuguese bakery around the corner, and they blew my mind. Then I went to chef school and learned how to make pastry cream (or real pudding, as I like to call it), and it still rocks my world. Not to mention, it’s a great way to use up egg and milk staples.