Apple Cinnamon Swirl Cake

Here in Cambridge, the temperature’s finally dipped below freezing. Fall is nearly over. And it’s hard to believe we’ve been here nearly three months already. Luckily, apples last well into the winter, and baking with them lets me keep fall around for as long as I’d like.

I’ll be sorry when fall is gone because I like to keep telling myself I’ve still just arrived. I want Boston to keep feeling like a new city but the truth is that I’ve grown quite comfortable here. I can see myself sticking around here for a long while. People think it’s because Canada and the northern US aren’t so different but I disagree, I just feel I’ve taken a liking to New England.

Honey Miso Marinated Chicken Wings

It feels really good to cook as often as I can. Even though I love to cook, I would often go for fast food or eating at restaurants to avoid the grocery shopping and the cleaning up associated with preparing food at home. After I went to culinary school, I realized that cooking (and the shopping and cleaning up part) doesn't have to be so complicated. You can make great things from few ingredients! Like Honey Miso Marinated Chicken Wings.



Miso is a paste made from fermented soybeans. It’s most commonly found in miso soup, which gets offered to you at Japanese restaurants before you chow down on sushi. It has an intense salty and savoury flavour which they call umami. Other umamiingredients include parmesan cheese and mushrooms, so I like to think of it as that extra oomph taste. Miso comes in a pretty big package, so I’ll be working on more miso recipes in the coming weeks to make the most of the stuff.

"Chocolatiest" Chocolate Cake

I just came up with the word "chocolatiest." It describes the sensation of eating chocolate cake that tastes like chocolate cake. The word is necessary, dear friends, because too many chocolate cakes do not taste enough like chocolate, which is totally unacceptable. We all know that chocolate cake should be more than just a brown version of white cake. Agreed?

This cake has cocoa, chocolate chips and a cheering section of coffee, cinnamon and vanilla to amp up its fudgey goodness. It has been adapted from two very good cupcake recipes because I'm more of a cake person, myself. But this recipe could easily revert back into cakey, fluffy cupcakes. I'll have to try that the next time I want to go into the heavenly sugar coma induced by this cake. It will relax you more than yoga, and you'll find yourself sighing, "yommmmmm..."

Caramelized Onion, Garlic and Ginger Soup with Poached Eggs

Normally, summer is a time for cold soup. Sometimes, though, it gets wet and chilly outside and you find yourself curled up in bed wishing for a soup to cure your cold. Well, I've been sick the past couple of days and I decided to create my ultimate remedy for all this dreariness and sniffling.

When I'm sick, I crave a few things: comfort, nourishment, and strong flavours to treat my runny nose and sore throat. I set out to make a soup with potent ingredients to relieve my symptoms which also would require little prep time and ingredients I had available in the kitchen. This soup was inspired by the cold-fighting qualities of garlic and ginger, combined with the more subtle and sweet flavour of French onion soup. I decided to combine the onion technique from that recipe with the Provencal cure-all dish, garlic soup with eggs. The ginger was then added for kicks, literally.

Bocconcini Stuffed Tomatoes (or, Caprese Salad on a Stick)

I say tom-ay-to, you say tom-ah-to. These days, Gideon and I discuss them as we joke about our different accents. Actually, he'd say that I pronounce them tom-eh-toes because I apparently "sound very Canadian." Anyway, in the not-so-distant past, I actually hated tomatoes. Now I love them. So what changed?

Now, I shouldn't say I hated all tomatoes growing up. No, just raw ones. Don't raise your eyebrow, just tell me you know the taste difference between tomato soup and bruschetta. Raw tomatoes tasted different - I used to think they were too sour. Then one day about five years ago, I decided to order a bagel that was smothered in cream cheese and very garlicky bruschetta. I actually liked it. Then I went from just liking to absolutely loving tomatoes when we went on our honeymoon to Italy.

Spinach, Cheese and Mushroom Cakes with Roasted Garlic Sauce

I love those tried-and-true ingredient combinations. The ones that, when you see them listed together in a restaurant menu, you order that item right away because you know it’s going to taste good. If I like how certain toppings taste in an omelette, I would most definitely try them on a pizza. This recipe was inspired by a mouth-wateringly good spinach, cheese and mushroom crepe with garlic sauce. Yes, it was a crepe – now it’s cakes. Let me explain.

These particular crepes are only available once a week on Saturday mornings at the Brickworks Farmer’s Market, from a man named Clément. He has a table covered with various savoury and sweet crepe fillings, a large tub of batter and two large crepe machines. You won’t know where his stall is until you get close to it, because it is almost entirely obscured by a long line snaking around the table. The wait is long because your crepe is made fresh, on the spot, in front of you. His creations are incredibly flavourful down to the crepes themselves, which are made with buckwheat and Red Fife, a Canadian heritage variety of wheat with a robust, nutty taste.

Beef Massaman Curry

I got the reputation for being cooking-obsessed while in my third year of undergrad. A classmate of mine decided that I must therefore be known as a Spice Girl. 

She asked me what spice name I should have and I suddenly felt put on the spot. “Allspice?” I offered. I got a blank stare in response. I don’t blame her for that reaction – I don’t think I’ve ever even cooked with the stuff! Instead she chose to call me ‘Mel D’ and has done so ever since.

Tofu and Veggie Noodle Bowl with Miso Gravy

I’ve managed to break through my omnivore tendencies to make vegan food. Meat-and-dairy free food has really caught on in recent years, and it’s evolved from being seen as just an eco-conscious lifestyle to a healthier way of eating. Heck, if Natalie Portman is a vegan it must be a good thing, right? However, I’m a proud cheeseaholic, and when food doesn’t have cheese I notice its absence. But I’ve found a solution that doesn’t involve fake cheese! It came in the form of this Tofu and Veggie Noodle Bowl.

East Asian food (such as Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean), for the most part doesn’t have dairy in it. Drinking cow’s milk was just not a thing people did in those societies, historically. In fact, people from that region are more likely to be lactose intolerant. So with their food, half of the work is done – leaving out the dairy part. All that’s left is getting rid of the meat! The only way I don’t like tofu is when it’s left plain, so I marinated mine in a soy sauce mixture for a few days overnight.