Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Not Crocker

Sigh, well let me tell you a quick tale. A tale of two failures if you will.

First, I was all geared up for St. Patrick’s Day, and had set about making some Chocolate Bailey’s Irish Cream Fudge from scratch (ie: no condensed milk, marshmallow, etc.). I had watched Alton Brown’s video about how fudge comes together and was all set up to make an amazing treat. I had all the ingredients going on the stove, they were coming together, looked as they should. But I made a fatal mistake, over cooked it and created instead a monstrosity of chocolate, Bailey’s, sticky-hard sand. Ugh. So, I decided to repurpose this failure to create delicious thumbprint cookies with a delicious Chocolate and Bailey’s centre. No, the butter cookies spread more than intended and the ‘filling’ clumped out and was just terrible. Big failure all around!

So I had something glorious planned for today but after the miserable fudge issue and then the half-hearted cookie attempt I am left with nothing more than kind words and lots of love!

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday and I will be sure to make up for the failures this week!

Simple Saturday Side, Roasted Asparagus

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Not Crocker

The rain has dampened my enthusiasm for cooking, thinking, doing stuff this week. I had an incredibly exciting interview on Tuesday, and email for another exciting interview for next week, and then spent the rest of the week in brain-melt mode. I was able to be mildly productive but nearly as productive as I wanted/needed to be. My goals for next week are big and shiny and will make up for the lost time of last week’s slump. Some sunshine would really help motivate me…*coughcough*mother nature get on this *coughcough*. Fun fact, apparently Elton John, when in a hotel in Germany, was so bothered by the wind while he was trying to sleep that he asked his agent (or manager) to do something about the weather. I am with Elton on this, somebody please correct the weather (preferably the weather in Vancouver, not Germany… I mean, clear theirs up too if you want).

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Blackberry Cream Cheese Muffins

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Not Crocker

There are a lot of magical little places up in the Yukon. I was fortunate to work at the incomparable Alpine Bakery, and have struggled to find bread of that quality in either Calgary or Vancouver. There are incredible cafés, restaurants, and shops that would stand out even in the largest cities, and we are always thankful to have these gems in our small town. One such gem is the Chocolate Claim. First, they sell some of my favourite earrings from Lara Melnik, but they also have two types of muffins every day that are sure to knock your socks off (they also used to have a cranberry bread pudding muffin that is as close to heaven as I’ve been, I am not sure they still make it). When I was working at the Yukon Transportation Museum I used to go out of my way a few days a week to get a coffee and muffin. One of my favourites was their Raspberry Chocolate Chip, it had the perfect balance of tart and sweet. My ultimate favourite which seemed to appear less often was the Blackberry Cream Cheese. Their muffins were massive and packed with berries. But the best part was on top there was a hunk of cream cheese, baked into the muffin and lightly crusted with sugar. That nugget of cheesey goodness POPPED with the flavour of the muffin.

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Fresh Homemade Tzatziki- dress up chicken, veggies, a spoon!

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Not Crocker

Well thank goodness Vancouver! I woke up this morning feeling drowsy, I noticed the blazing sunlight and figured I had slept through the morning. Feeling terrible about wasting my day, I pulled myself out of bed to discover that it was 8:30am! What an incredible day! I cruised outside for a stroll, lingering in the sun. It is not summer-warm yet, but it feels incredible and I am once again thrilled to live in this city! Feeling summery I am back on track with bright and fresh food, this dip is no exception!

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Tweaking and making the BIG shuffle

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Not Crocker

So I’ve been contemplating this move for some time, and have finally decided to move over to a self-hosted site. I did it on the stupidest day possible, a Saturday when I get a ton of traffic! I am sorry to those who came to the site for the hour or so that I was figuring things out, but I’ve gotten it mostly sorted now. I am taking a break for the night and plan on tackling the CSS issues tomorrow!

That’s my news for today! If everything falls down and crashes in the next few weeks… well I will figure it out as it comes!