Anna N

Paul Young's classic fudgy brownies. This is the third batch I have made in the last two days. One batch will go for the meeting people, one batch was made with gluten-free baking mix and will go to my daughter and one batch will go to the rehab group. I was out of Lyles Golden Syrup so used honey for the first two batches. I don’t recommend it. They ended up very dense and very sticky. The last batch I made with maple syrup and I’m much happier with them. Once again we will see how many get returned as unsatisfactory.

So pleased I only got a picture because I don’t have room for one!

I do this frequently and get quite annoyed that I am not able to look up a word.

Think I might be on a fruit crumble bent. I had two apples in the crisper drawer that looked much more attractive in their youth than in their senescence. I diced them without peeling, tossed them with some currants and some honey and topped them with my usual crumble topping (butter, sugar, flour). This is one of those desserts that is almost infinitely adaptable, quick to pull together and enjoyed by many people.

It is what it is. I’m sure there are ways of reducing rhe sweetness and you’d probably have a delightful treat but it wouldn’t be a butter tart. That would be my two cent’s worth if we Canadians still had cents.

Thank you for providing that link. I was just too tired last night. Except for being overly sweet, I don’t think that butter tarts and pecan pies have a great deal in common.

I like to make @Marlene‘s Butter tart squares which are in the recipe archive.

And it has probably been mentioned before but it perfectly rehydrates (plumps up) dried fruit. I used 10 minutes at 210°F steam function.

It grew up in Canadian waters?

An opportunity to celebrate that most Canadian of treats —— the butter tart. Butter tart festival.

Canadian eh? See what happens when a whole nation legalizes cannabis— we can persuade our neighbours to buy things they never heard of before — things we wouldn’t dream of buying ourselves.

I am desperately in need of new glasses so today my daughter drove me to get my eyes tested and then took me to Costco to order my glasses. Since there’s a lovely little Thai restaurant just two doors down from the place where my optometrist practises, I treated my daughter to lunch. We both had the same thing. Their salads are always beautifully fresh and made with a variety of greens. Creamy coconut curry with rice.

Manitoulin Island? Like the times on the door just a suggestion.

Thank you. I think we need to hear both sides.

So when my granddaughter first introduced me to these delivery apps I was quite excited. Only pizza and Chinese food were available here by delivery until the advent of these new services. But by the time I added up the fee for delivery plus the expected tip to the cost of the food, it certainly didn’t seem like it was going to show up very often as an item on my credit/debit card. Without going into the rather boring details of why, I do confess to using a service once. I happen to like KFC. It’s a nostalgia thing. I know I can freeze deep fried chicken and reheat it very satisfactorily in the Cuisinart Steam Oven. And I was becoming quite sick of pizza and Chinese food. So I placed an order. Being not very conversant with how the whole thing operated, my order landed up in a town some distance from me instead of from my local KFC. The delivery person, while staring at me as though I had two heads, asked me why I had ordered it from that particular store at a higher delivery cost than I could have ordered it locally. I could only mumble that I was new to the whole idea. In order to maximize my dollars I had ordered two buckets of chicken pieces. Aside from my mistake on where to order it from, the operation was quite seamless. I might’ve continued using this service but only if I could maximize my order. One Big Mac was not going to cut it. But when @Kerry Bealdescribed to me how these services were hurting the small independent restaurant owner, I swore them off for good. There are a number of family operated places where Kerry and I enjoy lunch and I would not be happy knowing that I had in anyway harmed them. I doubt my actions will have any real impact. But each morning when I look in the mirror I can still mostly tolerate myself.

I was fortunate enough to be offered some rhubarb by @Kerry Beal. I hesitated as I did not wish to waste it and my cooking mojo has been MIA for many weeks. Once I had said yes that I would take some, I knew I was committed to doing something with it. A quick search brought up a couple of recipes that interested me so I combined them. I briefly roasted the rhubarb with some sugar and a little bit of water, added some ground ginger and then made a topping of butter, sugar and flour and spread that on top of the roasted rhubarb and then sprinkled some almonds on top of that because I could. Baked it for 30 minutes or so and voila— where is the ice cream?

And the thoughtfully packaged leftovers are tonight’s dinner for me. Not only did our server carefully package each dip but she added a pita bread since we had not left very much of the barberi bread! I am always impressed with this little bit of extra care.

Today since we were in the area we paid another visit to Rahoon, a Persian restaurant in Burlington where we have enjoyed lunch on a number of occasions. For Kerry Persian tea spiced with cardamom and served with saffron nabat (crystallized sugar sticks). Today I was happy to just enjoy some cold water. A tray of three appetizer dips. From left to right: TORSHI - Pickled vegetables KASHKEH BADEMJOON - Eggplant, yoghurt sauce with garlic onion and mint ZEYTOON PERUARDEH - Green olives dressed with pomegranate, walnuts, lemon and herbs. Barberi bread for the dips. Shared platter of BARG KABOB - Beef tenderloin strips marinated in yoghurt pepper sauce and served with ZARESH - barberries and saffron infused rice.

No guarantee that it would work but it might be worth the effort. A book that I wanted and had on my wish list suddenly increased astronomically in price. I brought this to the attention of Amazon and almost immediately the price reverted to what it was when I had put it into my wish list. This had nothing to do with sales. It is just an example of how responsive Amazon can be.

Can we make it a bit earlier? I’m usually in bed around 8:30.

Inspired by @patris‘s oatmeal cookies and as an attempt to tease a group that I have spent some time with recently, I present today’s offering. I will divide them between those that go to the meeting people and that was that go to a potluck that is marking the end of a rehab session. The participants in the rehab session seem to be all oatmeal-for-breakfast obsessed. In its natural state I am not a fan of oatmeal so here I will present them with breakfast – – no bowl to wash! Oatmeal with dried fruit (raisins and cherries) and honey. This one with the lacy edges had my name written all over it.

Thanks for all of this! I just might be prepared to give this kind of cookie another chance.

These definitely appeal to me but I’m not into cutting out cookies with cookie cutters and my experience with slicing rolled cookies has always been abysmal. So I’m wondering how easy you found these to slice. Did they have a tendency to crumble? Did they deform as you sliced? I am sure it is operator error but after struggling with Dorie Greenspan‘s World Peace cookies I swore I would never try this again. But these do look good. Thanks.

This blog ended far too soon! Thank you. I enjoyed every single posting and learned quite a bit in the process. I hope you won’t have to disappear again because your contributions are really appreciated.

And be sure to serve lots of sherry on the side.