my week in food photos, january 21-27, 2013

kitchen fiascos

Things have been a little quiet in our kitchen since the holidays - Paul got sick a couple of weeks ago and just as he started recovering, I came down with a bad bug. Which means that for the past several weeks, we were either not in the mood to cook or not in the mood to eat. Either way, it's been a lot of tea, chicken noodle soup and sleepless nights at our house.

We're both now on antibiotics and on the road (hopefully) to recovery, so hopefully we'll be back cooking up new recipes soon.

In the meantime, I thought it would be funny to look at a few of the things that went wrong in our kitchen in the past few months.

Apparently, my main problems in the kitchen seem to involve either baked things that didn't rise properly:

vanilla macaron shells

baked doughnut holes

Or things that were a little too generously filled by me, causing some minor eruptions.

mint-filled brownie cupcakes

pork potstickers

I'm hoping 2013 has more kitchen successes than failures, but it's all about learning, and no one learns perfectly the first time around, right?

I'm sure that the more we experiment in the kitchen, the more "fiascos" will happen, so there will definitely be more of these little photos to share!  :)

What about you? What small fiascos have happened to you lately?

taking the 50 book pledge in 2013

I've always been an avid reader, but it gets harder the older I get - there just doesn't seem to be enough time in my day to sit down and read. But, as the new year began, I noticed the hashtag #50bookpledge on Twitter and decided that I would make a conscious effort to read more books...and not just cookbooks either!

Reading 50 books is a huge goal - that's almost a book a week. It also doesn't help that the first book that I chose is over 800 pages long!

So, for the rest of the year, I'll be tracking what I'm reading here on the blog (see the new tab I added above!). Some of these books will be old favourites that I'm re-reading again, but others will be brand new.

I know a lot of my Twitter and blog friends are also taking the pledge, so I'd love to know what you're reading! Even if you're not taking the pledge, do you have any books to recommend to me? Leave me a comment with your favourite books - I'm always looking for new reads!

my week in food photos, january 7-13, 2013

my holiday in food photos, december 21, 2012 - january 6, 2013

I noticed that most of the gifts I received this past Christmas have to do with food...gee, I wonder why? 

Also, we spent a few days in Buffalo during the holidays and did some cross-border shopping. Besides the regular mall and outlet store visits, we could not stop going into grocery stores and Walmart/Target...the variety of snacks and food options boggled our minds and we now regret not stocking up on more! Argh! Why can't we have nine varieties of Cheerios and Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte ice cream  in Canada (or maybe we do and I'm just shopping in the wrong places)?

happy 2013!

Happy New Year friends!

2012 has been a wonderful year of new adventures for us, and me in particular, most notably starting a new job and launching this blog.

I've met so many wonderful people through kitchen frolic and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for supporting and encouraging me as Paul and I continue to explore new recipes and food experiences. I am still sometimes in awe of how extremely warm and generous the online (and real life!) food community is and I know that 2013 will be full of new friendships, new tastes and fun food adventures!

I don't know if I want to set any "food resolutions" for 2013, as I'm horrible at following through with any type of resolution, but some of the things I definitely want to accomplish this year:

• keep on blogging (at least twice a week!)
• cook a new dish from one of my many cookbooks at least once every other week
• meet more of my online foodie friends in real life
• improve my piping skills (as in piping frosting, meringue, etc)
• keep practicing making macarons

Some of my "non-food" resolutions for 2013, which I might mention from time to time here on this blog are:

• read 50 books (I took the #50bookpledge)
• launch my own PR/marketing company

What about you? Are you making any resolutions for 2013?