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  The chemistry of cooking has always fascinated me.  I think it is amazing how a good cook can combine a few simple ingredients and come up with something which is totally delicious . . . and how depending on how you combine them with any number of other ingredients, you can come up with something new and different each time. Take birds eggs for instance . . . they come in all shapes and sizes and colours . . . and are all basically the same thing,  no matter the size or colour.  Humans mostly consume chicken eggs, although duck eggs are also quite popular as are quail.  Filled with vitamins and coming in their own fragile package you can eat them on their own, cooked or raw and depending on preparation you can come up with no less than 4 different ways to have them all on their lonesome . . .  boiled, fried, scrambled, poached . . . and even those can be varied according to what you choose to do with them.  What is a frittata or omelette but eggs, be...

  The Tassimo people challenged their bloggers to come up with a Winter Warming Drink for November.  I found that a real challenge, but this is what I came up with and I let my Canadian Side come to the forefront! Here is what you will need . . .   One Tassimo Milka Hot Chocolate T disc   One Tassimo Cafe Hag Crema (Decaf) T disc A quantity of maple whipped cream  (Simple whip some double cream until thick, having added about 1 TBS of pure Maple Syrup)   Pure Maple Syrup (Canadian of course!) And finally some chocolate shot sprinkles.  I am partial to the dark chocolate ones. Simply do both pods, one at a time, into a large hot chocolate mug and give them a good stir together.  Top with the maple whipped cream.  Drizzle with a touch more Maple Syrup and sprinkle with the chocolate shot. What have you got???  A winter hand warming Maple Mocha Crema!  Beeeeee-utiful!

  Ahhhh . . . turkey, that holiday centrepiece that is so beloved by many . . .   a family tradition for Thanksgiving (if you are a North American) and Christmas (if you are a Brit).  An annual favourite and not all that hard to cook, but so often done wrong.  Today I shall attempt to put to bed some of the mysteries which surround the cooking of this fabulous bird and hopefully help to make yours this year to be the best turkey ever! I like to purchase a top quality bird for my holiday feasts, be it Thanksgiving or Christmas.  This is the one time of the year I will splurge and get a higher cost bird, and it goes without saying that I always choose free range and fresh if I can get it.  I may eat turkey minced, or in bits the rest of the year . . . but it is only this once a year that I cook the whole bird, so it is a real treat for us! (Christmas for us.) A lot of people swear by Brining . . . and others by dry brining.  I have tried both...

  These are busy days when there never seems to be enough hours in the day to get the things done that you really want to get done and this is only the beginning of the Holiday Season!  Just wait a week or two and everything is going to be really crazy! Busy days like this are when it's nice to have something quick and easy up your sleeve that you can rustle up at the drop of a hat for lunch or supper.  Something quick like these Quick Pizza Rolls.  If you have a tin of croissant dough in the fridge, you have a meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner! I don't know about your kids, but mine were always crazy about pizza or anything that even remotely  resembled a pizza, and things like this were high on their list of favourites.   Back home you could buy frozen pizza pockets and pizza rolls, and they liked them, but I think it's even better if you can rustle up something similar yourself. Something which they will still like but isn't loaded with too muc...

I love potatoes.  I could not live without them.  A day without a potato is not a good day for me.  In fact you could take away my chocolate, and I might protest a bit . . . but if you tried to take away my potatoes, I would be really upset.   They are an important part of my life and have been since I was a child.  Happily the Toddster is of the same school of thought. I used to think a potato was a potato was a potato.   I came to learn later in life and after much experience that all potatoes are not the same and that certain potatoes are better for certain preparations than others.  With some 4000 different varieties of potatoes available worldwide at any given time, it's easy to see where someone could be quite confused when it comes to potatoes and their uses. There are basically only two main category of potatoes, with only a few exceptions . . . floury potatoes, and waxy potatoes. Floury potatoes (also called mealy potatoes) are...

I had asked Todd to pick up some croissants for me when he went into town yesterday, thinking that wasn't something he could mess up.  WRONG!  Poor Todd . . . he thought he would save some money and buy the ones that were running out of date, so they were stale and not at their best (which is how I wanted them) and after traveling home in his bag, kinda squashed.  (Why do men always squash the bread????) I just bit my tongue and didn't say anything and then changed my plans. Poor guy.   Whenever I ask him to pick me up something at the store . . .  he looks a bit like a deer caught in the headlights.  He always, always gets the wrong thing, and he knows it.  It's inevitable.   I don't complain any more.  I just sigh inside and try to smile.  I have come to the conclusion that men and woman really are from completely different planets. Whenever I see a man wandering the grocery store aisles with cell phone to the ear, I have a lit...

  I love the holidays.  I miss having Thanksgiving over here in the UK.  It seems to me like the perfect start to the holiday season . . . but alas . . . we don't even really seem to celebrate St George's Day which is kind of odd really, seeing as he is the Patron Saint of England.  Oh well as they say up North . . . "There's naught so queer as folk!" Of course the things I love most about the holidays are having friends and family around and the special food that we get to eat.   We do go all out don't we?   I love it.   I am not opposed to taking a few short cuts if I can however. I like dessert to be something light and not too filling.  After a heavy meal, a heavy dessert seems to be just too much.  That's why I created these delicious little tarts which although not large in size, are just enough to end a celebratory meal in the perfect way. Little airy indulgences that aren't going to lay heavily on your stomach. ...