Take Back Thursday Gingerbread Delights #TBT

Since Chrismas falls on Thursday this year, I thought it would be fun to re-use my favourite Christmas cookie recipe today and show you how I decorated my gingerbread cookies this Christmas. I'm just posting early since I know I'll be a little busy tomorrow!  

This year I bought a reindeer cookie cutter and created little reindeer and Santa combos to munch with milk, eggnog, or whatever our hearts desire tonight. And, if there are any left, Santa will get some too! 

Enjoy your holiday tomorrow! Best wishes from my home to yours! 

Tangy Chocolate Christmas Cookies

To me, chocolate is the king of desserts and cookies are the king of Christmas desserts. So that means that chocolate cookies must top the list, right? I like to think so.

This Christmas I felt like making a few new cookie recipes in addition to my tried and true favourites,  just for the fun of it. And clearly that meant trying a new chocolate Christmas cookie.

I taste tested my way through a few different recipes, a really tough job, and finally create this recipe - one so good that it will be pulled out all through the year! These cookies are tangy, rich, decedent, and pretty healthy too because it's almost all chocolate and that's dairy!

So let's get down to the recipe for my new Tangy Chocolate Christmas Cookies! You have to try these!

Grinch Cookies!

I love everything about about Christmas, but watching a Christmas movie while munching on homemade cookies would have to be my very favourite holiday activity. And to make this year's favourite activity even more festive, I made a new cookie that's inspired by one of my favourite holiday movies, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas!

I've enjoyed matcha tea, a powdered green tea, in lattes for awhile but adding it to a batch of cookies is the perfect way to naturally dye my cookies a delightfully grinchy green. And simple pink piped hearts, three sizes too small, adds to the Who-ville experience in a way I know every single one of you will agree.

So get out your mixing bowls and cookie sheets to bake up a batch of what I think is going to turn into everyone's new holiday favourite - Grinch Cookies!

Berry Delightful Cranberry Sauce #Molkosanberry

I love all Thansgivings, Canadian and American. But I don't love that heavy feeling of eating too much food after one of those huge family meals. And sometimes I think I could use a little extra help disgesting my meal and that's where Molkosan comes in.

Molkosan is made from milk from the Swiss Alps (but I promise it tastes like berries and not milk, beacause the fat, sugar, and protein was extracted and only the whey was left behind), and the lactic acid helps with digestion. 

Using Molkosan Berry, I've made a new delicious Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce that would be perfect to help with digestion after a huge family meal, either full of turkey or tofu-key! 

Easy Holiday Dinners

Christmas is still over a month away, but I am already that holiday rush. Every time I sit down I remember something I forgot to do and immediately have to get up again. So something had to give and that something was making busy dinners.

But giving up busy dinners doesn't mean that I'm eating fast food or frozen pizzas every night. I've just started cooking smarter. 

Instead of making a big dinner ever night, I might roast up a pan of squash on the weekend and turn that into easy dinners for the next week. Maybe a squash soup for Monday, a pan fried fish and squash salad for Tuesday, and some totally amazing Cheesy Roasted Squash and Mushroom Wraps for Wednesday.

I think I pumped you up for wraps, so that's what I'm sharing today. Read on for the recipe, perfect for the busy holiday season.

Salad Frenzy #Molkosanberry

I have been participating in the Molkosan Berry "21 days to a happier tummy" challenge and today is day 14 . Before the challenge, I had never heard of Molkosan Berry but now I know that it's is a unique lacto-fermented whey product that works to improve our natural pH balance. And I have to say that this Molkosan Berry is already starting to make me feel great.

So far I've had Molkosan Berry stirred into smoothies and apple cider and both drinks have tasted great. But because Molkosan Berry is a mix of sweetness and tartness, I thought it might be the perfect ingredient for a new salad vinaigrette. But don't just trust me, try it for yourself!

Beet-za Pizza!

Most people think of pizza being made from pizza dough, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. I agree, that's pizza. But I think that pizza is so much more than that too.

One of my favourite pizzas is my Butternut Squash and Arugula Pizza  and it doesn't have any tomato sauce on it at all. In fact it has maple syrup on it! One of my other favourite pizzas is my Provençal Pizza and it's covered in pears and lavendar! 

If you think either of those pizzas sound like something you might be interested in tasting, keep on reading because this pizza is incredibly yummy too. It's my version of a pizza created on the Roasted Root, but done in an even more beet-y way to incorporate the earthy flavour of beet greens. 

Beet Pesto

I love a good pesto on pasta, burgers, as a dip, or on veggies. I love it made from basil and pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, or really anything. I just love that it's a super flavourful and vibrant sauce.

Today's recipe takes vibrant to a new level. It's a sweet, rich, and über vibrant Beet Pesto and it's perfect for serving in place of any of your favourite pestos.

If this recipe reminds you of something else you've seen on my blog, it might be because it's really similar to my Alien Spaghetti I made for Halloween last year! But considering this recipe has cheese in it and is a little hardier, I like it even more!

Winter Salad

It's still October, but I can feel winter's cold breath on my cheeks when I bike to work in the morning. And while most people wouldn't be excited about crafting up a salad for dinner this time of year, I think that's pretty much a perfect choice.

No, I'm not crazy or having a hot flash. I just mean a different kind of salad than a bright summer salad. I'm not using juicy, grilled peaches or fresh off the vine cherry tomatoes, instead I'm using cooler weather ingredients to make my perfect winter salad. It's full of bright citrus, bitter radicchio, walnuts, and dates. To me, it's a perfect winter salad and the thought of it gets me through those chilly winter bike rides (especially when it's paired with a glass of white wine!)

Soup for a Dark Day

Is it just me or did it just get super dark in the mornings all of a sudden? I wake up, I look outside, it's dark, and it's 7:00am? It feels like a prank, but sadly it's not.

These dark days make me yearn for hot, silky, creamy soup. The kind full of goodies and deliciousness. The kind of soup that makes you want a second bowl. Maybe the kind with a little heat in it, so you don't feel cold anymore. Do you know the kind I mean?

If you can't put your finger on the kind of soup I'm talking about, don't worry. I have your back. It's the kind of soup I'm sharing today - Thai Coconut Noodle Soup. It's perfect for the days you want to stay in bed, and the other days too.

October's Crazy Ingredient Challenge

I missed last month's Crazy Ingredient Challenge because life just got a little crazy, so this month I made sure to participate. The challenge was a little greater for me this month though because it was to combine pumpkin and bacon and if you know me, you know I don't eat bacon!

Because of my no bacon rule, I took a few liberties with the challenge and used tempeh bacon instead of the real thing. But if you really love bacon and beef,  I know you could substitute regular bacon and regular meatloaves in my recipe if you wanted to. Either way, the best part of the recipe is baking it in a little pumpkin!

I know this recipe is sure to get you in the mood for Halloween, or Thanksgiving if you live in the US. It's too perfect for either one of those holidays! So before you read on, just be sure you are ready to get into the holidays!

Plum Lucky

I just got back home from visiting my family and I'm ready to start sharing recipes again!

First up is a great scone recipe that my mom and I put together one cold morning at the cottage. We didn't have all the ingredients we needed so we subbed in what we had and came up with a winning combination.

Here's to the delicious Zesty Plum Scones we made. It's lucky we had a big stock of plums!

Spoon Worthy

I love pumpkins in every shape and form. Pumpkin patches, jack-o-lanterns, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, Cinderella's carriage, and pretty much pumpkin anything. But when I eat pumpkin treats, I really love when said treats are sprinkled with cinnamon.

Today's recipe are Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes frosted with plenty of Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting. This frosting is so yummy that I coined a new phrase, spooky worthy. It's definately tasty enough to dig into a bowl of it with a spoon.

Carrot Fever

Now that it's almost (gulp) October, I am doing my best to eat up all the veggies left in my garden. This means that all carrots I pulled and am featuring in today's recipe are a little bit less than perfect looking.

But looks say nothing of their taste! They taste fantastic! For this recipe, I merged together two of my favourite things, gingery carrots and my old favourite sauce for chicken or turkey. Now I know this sauce goes perfectly well with carrots so I think I will try it with tofu next!

Mexi-Style

I have been on a wrap kick for the last few weeks and really enjoying that kind of dinner. There aren't a lot of dishes, it's not messy, no cutlery is required, and it's not a lot of work.

I know if that's all I was looking for, I could just head to the nearest McDonalds. But I also like a few vitamins in my meals. And home-cooked wraps provide all the vitamins I could ever want. I'm making them, so I can put just about anything I'd like into them.

Today's recipe is more than just a wrap. It's a whole Mexican dinner stuffed into a wrap. And, if you're into wraps, it's great served as a casserole and just topped with avocados and cheese. I've happily eaten it that way more than once!

Salad Toppers

Have you ever tried corn nuts? I haven't until now and I am surprised to say that I like them. They look a little like the corn I used to buy from vending machines at farms to feed to the animals, but they taste like crunchy, salty, bites of goodness. And they are great as salad toppers!

The best thing I found about corn nuts is that they taste great on top of any salad I've tried so far. But I have to say that the salad I'm sharing today is pretty fantastic when topped with corn nuts.  Maybe it's the vinegary bite of the pickled beets with the salty corn nuts, creamy avocado, earthy lentils, and sharp green onions, but I think it's a great pairing!

Chickpeas in Asia

If someone told me that I could make a dinner that is easy, quick, yummy, and contains only six ingredients, I would tell them they're either crazy or just warming up a frozen dinner with a bagged salad.

Luckily today is not frozen dinner and bagged salad day. Today is Asian Chickpea Sweet Potatoes day and that day might come around a few times in the near future too. It's even easier than Twice Baked Mexican Sweet Potatoes day and just as yummy!

Saturday Morning Muffins

My favourite meal is breakfast. I know you are probably thinking it's dessert. But if I had to choose one meal to live on for the rest of my life, it really would be breakfast.

I mean, you can have cake for breakfast, right?

This recipe is not only a cake recipe, but it also celebrate how amazing summer fruit is right now. I love throwing in peaches, pears, or whatever fruit is ripe and plentiful in my fruit bowl. I also toss in coconut and speckle each muffin with lots of raisins. I guess that's why I call them Goody Muffins, because they're chock full of goodies.

Homemade Enchilada Sauce

I love Mexican food for the spicy, bright, and big flavours I always find in it. Fresh herbs, creamy avocados, bright veggies, citrus, and hot peppers make me smile. And I love that Mexican food always seems to be smothered in a flavourful sauce. 

My mole sauce is one of my favourites and I'm planning on sharing my new recipe for guacamole soon, but today seems like a good day to share my recipe for enchilada sauce. It's rich with tomatoes and spice, delicious on enchiladas, and too easy to ever to search the shelves for ever again. 

Big Appehtite

One of my hobbies is cooking up new recipes to enter in cooking contests and sometimes I win big. Recently I entered quite a few recipes into contests put on by Maple Leaf through Appehtite and I am excited to share that I won with one of my favourite quick and easy sandwich recipes.

I have shared my winning recipe before, but it's too yummy not to share again, especially when it just made me $1000 richer! Check out my recipe for my Italian Steak Sandwiches on my blog or on Appehtite.

And be sure to check out one of Appehtite's current contests for a chance to win $1000 yourself!