We love the simple deliciousness of classic snickerdoodle cookies. They’re easy to make, but do you know what’s even easier? Making a big pan of snickerdoodle bars! Pour the batter into a pan, bake, and slice into bars for lunch boxes or to keep on hand when friends drop in for coffee.Continue reading
We love kale, and are always looking for new ways to do potatoes. We’re fans of creamy scalloped potatoes; thinly sliced spuds layered with cheese and cream, but sometimes it’s too heavy – this is a perfect compromise, and a great way to get your greens.
Sautéed kale cooks down dramatically, allowing a large serving between layers of soft, crispy potato. This version is subtle, with garlic and ricotta; try an Indian-spiced version by ditching the ricotta and spiking the kale with ginger and curry powder or garam masala as it cooks.Continue reading
Do you still have a few leftovers from a late Christmas celebration? This indulgent brunch dish is designed to use up leftover holiday eggnog and cranberry sauce. If you don’t have any eggnog left in the house, substitute with 1 1/2 cups of milk and 1/2 a cup of whipping cream (and you can always buy canned cranberry sauce if you don’t have any homemade leftover).
Eggnog French Toast Bake
½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 loaf crusty French bread, cubed
8 eggs
2 cups eggnog
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
Spray a 9” x 13” baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Put the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and continue heating until butter is melted. Give it a good stir and pour into the bottom of the baking pan. Place the bread cubes into baking pan on top of the sugar mixture.
Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk until yolks are broken up. Add the eggnog, followed by the vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk until combined and pour evenly over the bread cubes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hours or over night.
In the morning, preheat oven to 325 degrees F and remove the baking dish from the refrigerator (take off the plastic wrap). Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle of the casserole comes out clean.
Cranberry sauce syrup
1/3 cup cranberry sauce
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp molasses
½ tsp orange zest
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and gently simmer for 3-5 minutes.
Serves 8-10
Earlier this month, Mary, Julie and Elizabeth gathered at the Cookbook Company Cooks with a few dozen Best of Bridge fans for an epic baking party to raise money for the Calgary Food Bank. (Huge thanks to Gail for letting us use her space, and to Calgary Co-op for donating all the ingredients we needed!) We put a pot of mulled wine on the stove and had a blast of an afternoon baking together. Among old classics and new favourites, this was a new discovery we came up with that’s sure to stay in our holiday baking repertoire.
Chocolate Peppermint Crackle Cookies
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup shortening, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. peppermint extract (or substitute vanilla)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
extra sugar, for rolling
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a large bowl, beat the butter, shortening and sugar for a few minutes, until light. Beat in the egg and peppermint extract.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter mixture and stir until the dough comes together.
Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and roll in a shallow dish of sugar to coat. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes, until cracked and set around the edges, but still soft in the middle – they’ll firm up as they cool.
Makes about 2 dozen cookies.
These no-bake cookies are a snap to make and come in handy when you need an extra treat to put into a box of holiday goodies. And they seem to be a favourite for many people — when we posted about them last week on our Facebook page, readers told us that they’ve been making these at Christmastime for years. There’s just something about the mingling of the flavours from the butterscotch and chocolate chips and the crunch of the noodles that make these little stacks of sweetness so nostalgic for so many people.
You should be able to find chow mein noodles in the Asian food aisle of most grocery stores — they typically come in a large plastic bag. Feel free to add other goodies like salted peanuts to the recipe (decreasing the amount of chow mein noodles or coconut to make sure there is enough melted chip mixture to cover everything). We kept the basic recipe here nut-free to make it safe for anyone with nut allergies.Continue reading
‘Tis the season for holiday baking – and fruitcake is generally the first thing on our list. Sue and Julie have been baking fruitcake together every Christmas since they were teenagers – and although our traditional recipe is a dark fruitcake from the Joy of Cooking (it’s in the 1997 version – some earlier versions have a completely different recipe, which isn’t quite the same) – but this year we thought we’d give light fruitcake a chance.
We ordered some nice organic dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, apricots), candied ginger and coconut in our Spud Box, and turned it into two loaf cakes – one for our annual Christmas party, the other to unwrap on Christmas day. We used to use a myriad of fancy pans for our fruitcakes, but sometimes they didn’t survive re-entry – loaf pans make it easy. (If they do crumble, turn the pieces of broken cake into a base for a rich, festive trifle, topped with custard and cream. No one will notice!)
Light Coconut Christmas CakeContinue reading
As the weather turns chilly, cold season is creeping up -it seems everyone is coming down with something, or has a cough or a case of the sniffles. Chicken soup is a generations-old remedy used around the world to fight colds and flus and generally make those who are under the weather feel better – and taken care of. Making a pot of soup from scratch is not difficult – a good thing if you’re the one who’s coming down with something.
When we do roast chicken for dinner (even one from the deli), we like to leave some meat on the bones for a meaty stock that’s easily turned into a hearty soup; and around the holidays, there’s almost always chopped roasted turkey in the freezer to add to soups like this one.
This is a slightly heartier version of a classic chicken noodle soup; using barley instead of noodles boosts fibre and other nutrients, but you could swap regular egg noodles too. They’ll take less time to cook – about ten minutes. The addition of greens makes it even more nutrient-dense and rich in vitamin C – a good thing when you’re trying to beat the sniffles.Continue reading
