Breakfast from our favourite coffee shop, a walk along the river, and picking up a few things at the deli.
Had one tub left of applesauce that Mr. Cowboy made last year from our apples and some from the ranch. So I made Martha Stewart's Applesauce Pancakes and they are a keeper.
And then I made Bubby's Sour Cream Pancakes, recipe from Bubby's Brunch Cookbook. These are so thick and good, you won't be hungry for a while.
David Rocco's Made In Italy is a great cookbook; the pictures, the stories, and the recipes are a wonderful combination. For a quick dessert, I tried Torta di Mele, aka Apple Yogurt Cake. It's not too sweet and the yogurt makes it super moist. I don't have a copy of this book in my kitchen library, but I will very soon.
There's always buttermilk in the fridge at our house. Mainly because I like to make buttermilk pancakes on Sundays. And even though I love pancakes, it's good to mix it up every once in a while. So I mixed up a batch of Rosa's Biscuits, recipe from the September 2014 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. Rosa is the pastry chef at Del Posto in New York. We ate these biscuits right out of the oven, just like it said in the story that goes with the recipe. These biscuits are so good they need nothing to make them better; no jam, no nutella, no almond butter. Nothing.
It took us a while to decide on which recipe from Emeril Lagasse's Sizzling Skillets and other one-pot wonders we would try. But one look at the pictures for Big Boy Meatballs and Spaghetti and our mouths started to water. The meatballs are a combo of beef and Italian sausage with lots of garlic and parsley. Emeril adds a bay leaf to his sauce; I do not. But I added a turkey neck and it made the sauce so much more flavourful.
One bite is all you need of this cake; it is so rich, loaded with pecans and coconut plus cream cheese frosting. The recipe is from Saveur magazine.
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprises him most about humanity, he said:
"Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health and then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is going to die, and then dies having never really lived."
When you make a recipe for the first time, it's a good idea to follow it to a T. The recipe for these Almond Tea Cakes from the Yummy Supper cookbook by Erin Scott has very specific instructions as to how thin the fruit must be cut. We have a freezer-full of peaches so I decided to ignore the instructions and cut the peaches into nice chunks. It looks good but is it cooked? These are great and I will make them again and I will cut the fruit into slivers just like the recipe says.
Just before Christmas a friend gave me a jar of homemade grenadine. Yes, it was fantastic! As soon as I saw this post about making Russian Tea Cakes on the Orangette blog, I knew that I would make a batch and fill her jar as a thank you for the grenadine.
When they come out of the oven, they are not coloured at all except for the bottoms, of course.
After cooling for a few minutes, a quick roll in the icing sugar, and they are good to go.
Finally, after three days the snow has stopped coming down. The yard has been molded with huge drifts, like thick cream cheese frosting on a carrot cake. But inside it is warm like a blueberry buttermilk biscuit, the top slathered with melted butter and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
