Dessert By Candy

An Experiment

I have never been fond of diets with their lists of do’s and don’ts. For me, a balanced intake of wholesome minimally processed food has served me well over the years. Why fix something that isn’t broken? I do not lack energy and I am in good physical health saved for injuries brought on by accidents.

Unfortunately, lately, something is not right. An inflamed bursa on my ankle remains persistent even after multiple draining and steroid injection treatments. Surgery will be the last resort and I am staying completely away from any activities that may irritate the bursa. That includes skating. Right now, it is a waiting game and I am praying hard that the inflammation will subside on its own with months of rest. Aside from wishing it away, I start looking into diet changes.

Special Occasion

How do you know if I am fond of you? If I bake you a cake on your birthday, you’re pretty special in my book. But if I show up with a frosted layer cake and flickering candles? You better brace yourself for a huge hug as well! I don’t meticulously layer and frost a cake for just anyone.

One person who always deserves this special treatment is my Little Brother. I already wrote about the special ribs dinner but there was more to the celebration. The weekend began with the infinitely comforting and always fashionable Hershey’s Chocolate Cake. You know the one. The recipe that came from the back of the box, except with a slight decadent twist. No fancy schmancy dark chocolate or ganache or glaze. Just a simple combination of tender chocolate cake and buttery cocoa icing.

Chocolate For Breakfast

I forget things and it unsettles me. Everyone is forgetful occasionally so what is the big fuss? My memory may not be photographic but I tend to remember random pieces of information effortlessly. Plenty of convenience come along with this benefit. I rarely need to write shopping list and planning for complicated menus in my head comes easily. The last couple of weeks, I notice that I am more forgetful. I would walk into a store with a short mental list of things to pick up and totally blank out on one item a few steps later. I would find myself in the middle of a conversation, the topic changed, and I could not recall what I was discussing before. These are very subtle signs that can be so easily dismissed but I know they are the insidious effect of concussion. I only hope that it is temporary and I will recover completely.

Human brain works in mysterious manner and we adapt quickly. What bothers me on a deeper level is the significant things that I forget.

I forget the voices of loved ones long gone.

I forget the importance of a supportive friend and believe I can handle it alone.

I forget when was the last time I smiled.

I forget what it feels like to be healthy and carefree.

You can say things are not quite rosy here for the time being.

Birthday Ribs Night

Victoria Day long weekend unofficially kicked off summer and my family celebrated accordingly. It was also Little Brother’s birthday so I seized the opportunity to make boys food such as pizza and ribs. It must have been at least three years since I last cooked ribs at home. That is an awfully long wait especially for these succulent sweet and smoky oven spareribs. I may be an advocate for meat-lite diet but that doesn’t mean I should subject the boys to feel the same way especially for birthday celebrations.

A man may be able to live on ribs alone but this girl certainly cannot. I completed the menu with a full range of traditional and not-so-traditional side dishes that appeal to my taste. Thanks to my renewed interest in smitten kitchen recipes, I present you:

Very Smitten Ribs Night

Sweet & Smoky Oven Spareribs

Slow Cooker Barbecue Beans

Vinegar Slaw with Cucumbers and Dill

Fingerlings Vinaigrette with Sieved Eggs and Pickled Celery

Sugar Snap Salad with Miso Dressing

My FA-VOU-RITE Things

I am still reeling from the high of last night’s ribs dinner. It was part of the multi days birthday celebration for Little Brother and I cannot wait to share with you all the wildly delicious recipes. There are so many dishes that earned a place on my regular cooking rotation!

But first, I have a big backlog of completed cooking projects that I never got around to write much about. Today is Victoria Day holiday Monday here in Canada so consider this post to be my long weekend slack off. Or better yet, as the incomparable Julie Andrews would say, these are a few of my fa-vou-rite things!

If we’re talking about Favourite Things, brown paper packages tied up with strings are mandatory. Before I made my batch of vegan coconut lime soft caramels, I made these Smoky Maple Salted Caramel using maple sugar, amber maple syrup, and Maldon sea salt. Just follow Dan Lepard’s master caramel recipe and you’ll be singing on top of your voice in no time.

Vegan Coconut Lime Caramel

Lately I rediscovered the joy of homemade candies. The therapeutic quality of bread baking convinced me that I will also find peace in cooking caramel in my concussed state of mind. I only wish. As I found out, hovering my hands inches above a molten pot of lava is anything but calming. My heartbeat galloped away with the rising mercury of my candy thermometer. That’s right, cooking caramel is not the best activity for concussion recovery.

Eating homemade caramel, on the other hand, induces joy and satisfaction that few things can compare. So I guess it all evens out. Every piece of these vegan coconut lime soft caramel mellows from chewy to melty with a lingering richness of creamy coconut and lilting lime. If my head is completely right, I would probably go on longer about how much I love my stash of caramels. But since I much rather let my mind wander in this land of healing, here is the recipe without further ado.

Baking Expert

Do you see what I see? Visions of Virgin Mary may imprint on your morning toast but my household is decidedly more secular. Look! There’s a panda on my cinnamon raisin swirl bread! Or does it look like a cute little bulldog to you? In either case, cuteness rules at Candy’s kitchen and now you cannot un-see it. I am much better at baking than I thought.

I’ve been fiercely craving homemade cinnamon swirl bread for a few weeks. A soft loaf enriched with milk, butter, and eggs and a hypnotising swirl of sugar and cinnamon. Of course raisins are mandatory but not just any dried up chewy specimen. I wanted juicy raisins plumped with dark rum. Obviously this is not a loaf that I can waltz into any bakery to bring home. It was time to take matter into my own hands.

Less, Or More?

I received a request to bake more egg-less dessert. So I went ahead and made one without eggs, sugar, flour, or butter…the four pillars of baking. Of course I had help from other cooks who travelled down this road before. Thanks to Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks and her first cookbook Super Natural Cooking, I made a batch of these vegan Carnival Cookies to share.

When you take away eggs, sugar, flour, and butter from a cookie recipe, are you left with a lesser cookie? Seriously, what CAN you use? Apparently, quite a lot of good stuff. How does this list of ingredients sound: oats, ground almond, banana, coconut oil, dark chocolate, cacao nibs, peanuts, popcorn, cinnamon, and vanilla. It is not about what you cannot use but rather all the wonderful things you can add.

Sunday Taco Night

Sunday night family dinner is now nicknamed Taco Night since we enjoyed tacos for two consecutive Sundays. If I continue for another week, we can practically call it a family tradition, ha! Last Sunday was Cinco de Mayo and it didn’t receive much attention from mainstream media in Canada. In Toronto, we do not have a very large Mexican population (2.6% of the population in Toronto are Latin American). Only in the last couple of years have we begun to see more taquerias in the city.

My anticipation for the celebration mainly stemmed from excitement of food blogs I regularly visit. All week long, I was bookmarking recipes and taking notes of which dishes I would like to eat. After much consideration, three items stood out: carnitas, horchata, and tres leches cake. In case you are unfamiliar with Mexican cuisine, that would be crispy pulled pork, rice almond milk, and sponge cake saturated with three different kinds of milk.  Seeing that I am a beginner with Mexican cuisine, I turned to the always reliable America’s Test Kitchen for help.

Cinco de Mayo Feast for Six Hungry Eaters

Carnitas

Guacamole

Pineapple Salsa

Cabbage Slaw

Whole Wheat Tortilla

Horchata

Tres Leches Cake

Market Picnic at Sunnybrook Park

Free time comes with my forced break from training and last Saturday I went to The Stop’s Farmers Market. Spring is no longer a hint with the arrival of tender greens, ramps, and all kinds of different eggs. My shopping bag was stuffed with enough goodies for an impromptu picnic. My friend and I packed a picnic lunch, grabbed the blanket, and went over to Sunnybrook Park for a relaxing afternoon. First, let’s take a look at my shopping finds:

From left to right:

• black olive sourdough from St John’s Bakery
• sorrel from Vicki’s Veggies (check out this delightful piece from Yotam Ottolenghi on sorrel)
• chocolate macaroon
• crunchy mixed sprouts
• Figaro, a creamy oozy cow’s milk cheese from Glencarry Fine Cheese
• guinea fowl eggs and silkie eggs from Weber’s Farm
• celeriac from Highmark Farm
• smoked trout from Akiwenzie’s Fish

I was excited by all the cooking possibilities! With a portable meal in mind, I put together this simple picnic meal for two using my market finds and ingredients at home.

Easy Picnic For Two

Smoked Trout Salad Sandwich with Sorrel & Black Olive Sourdough

Figaro Cheese with Seedy Crackers

Pineapples

Almond Cherry Danish

Ginger Beer