Mirabelles jam

Mirabelles jam is one of my favorite things to make. Because of the dry weather, a lot of white and yellow prune/plum varieties don’t taste as great as they do most years. Most batches I bought and received have contained many dry-ish fruits that aren’t nearly as sweet as they should be. No problem, I…

White chocolate tiramisu

I love white chocolate! I would put white chocolate in everything if I could. This particular addition of white chocolate to tiramisu has turned out great. The only tricky part of this recipe is melting the chocolate without burning it. White chocolate burns much easier than milk, or dark chocolate. You don’t want to heat…

Simple creamy zucchini soup

Unless the squash bugs destroyed your zucchini plants before they gave you any fruits, you’re probably drowning in summer squash by now. Zucchini are one of the easiest crops to grow and they seem to produce lots and lots of fruits, no matter what weather they get. It’s always great to be able to eat…

Pear-rhubarb turnover-cake with honey

The summer honey-crop has been harvested last week, and I am busy processing and preparing the honey to be ready to sell. This involves skimming the impurities off the top of the honey in the buckets. I’m too proud of my first honey crop to just throw this honey away. Even though there are some…

Blueberry crumble cake

I normally don’t use blueberries in cakes or pies, but I wanted to give this recipe a try. It isn’t a very high-maintenance cake, you don’t have to cut any parchment paper to size and there isn’t any complicated decorating to be done. Just blueberries and a simple crumble topping. If I had to improve…

Sweet potato and tomato soup

This recipe is the last one I’ll be making with the tomato sauce I canned from last year’s harvest. I always try to preserve a lot of tomatoes as sauce for spaghetti, soup, or tomato pie. The herbs I’m using are fresh from the garden, but I’m still buying sweet potatoes from the supermarket. Despite…

Recipe: Mango-coconut pie using duck eggs

I finally found some coconut flour for sale in my area and I immediately wanted to use it in something delicious. I stumbled on this recipe in one of my mom’s old cook books and I adapted it to work with coconut flour, not wheat flour. I also used duck eggs instead of chicken eggs….

Cheesy tomato pie

An ongoing project of mine during summer, is canning tomato sauce. As soon as the plants start to yield ripe fruits, I always have more than our family can eat. Thanks to binging on home-grown tomatoes all summer my taste palate is ruined to the extent I can’t swallow any ‘impostor tomatoes’; store bought bags…

Caramel-honey pear tarte-tatin

This a very simple recipe to make. It makes for a spiced cake that isn’t overpowering. The cake is quite light and fluffy, if you’re worried about the sweetness of the top layer, simply use less honey and syrup. Preparation and top layer Preheat the oven to 160°C. Line a baking tin with parchment paper….

Carrot & walnut cake with mascarpone glaze

It might be funny to some, but this is the first carrot cake I’ve ever made. I’m a big fan of cakes made with fruits or vegetables, because these stay moist better than anything else. Honey cakes are a close second because of the hygroscopic nature of honey, but mango, banana, apples or carrots are…

Onion & mushroom soup with Chinese spices

Many people are familiar with using leftovers from roast chickens to make bone broth for soup. I recently experimented doing this with a duck carcass. I used a Chinese-inspired recipe for the duck, so the bird was cooked with ginger and five-spice. The broth: I simply put the leftover meat and the bones into a…

Pumpkin, carrot and turmeric soup

Another recipe you can prepare with easy-to-grow and easy-to-preserve vegetables. I used chicken stock that I saved in the freezer from a rooster I butchered last month, but you can substitute with vegetable stock. Carrots are easy to preserve in a root cellar or in crates covered with sand. As long as a pumpkin isn’t…

Red beet and apple salad

It can be difficult, for those of us in northern climates, to maintain a diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Most methods of preserving the garden harvest require cooking, adding sugar, drying or another process that might remove nutrients from food. The inspiration for this gorgeous salad came from a recent restaurant dinner,…

Honey-walnut-almond cupcakes

These cupcakes might look plain, but they’re far from that! Cut up bits of walnut give a warm, earthy flavor and together with the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves it makes a great, wholesomely warm fall/winter dessert. These cupcakes retain a moist texture thanks to these walnuts and lend themselves well to being decorated creatively. Begin…