roasted strawberry ricotta scones

 

In the past few days I've learned something - the magnificence of a roasted strawberry. Sure, I've done the roasted strawberry thing before, but I don't think I had it quite right. Don't get me wrong, they were really tasty, but after this experience, I don't think I had roasted them long enough. When you roast strawberries to the point where they begin to dry and disintegrate, all the water (the hallmark of California GMO strawberries) leaches out and you're left with little shrunken miracles that explode with the flavour of summer. Even in January. Seriously.

I was originally inspired to make these in muffin form by the tub of ricotta in the fridge and the 3 for $5 watery California strawberry sale at Metro. I immediately googled to see if anyone had done it. Lo and behold they had (at about.com). I balked at the idea of going to the trouble of roasting strawberries - who has the time to roast strawberries for 45 minutes in the morning?! - and followed this recipe without taking that step. And that's the story of how I welcomed the morning with dense little muffins, studded with squishy, slimy, watery cooked strawberries. Yumyumyum. Sarcasm.

tarragon-roasted strawberries with caramel cream

  

This weekend, I said hello to two old friends: Vancouver and the flu. Isn't that always the way? You get some time off work, you travel for hours, then you wake up the next day with an unwelcome viral stowaway and he's beginning to let himself show. I yo-yoed for the entire day, culminating in a spectacular crash while out for dinner at Tavola. Fun, feverish times.

Despite the fact that I had to postpone my trip-within-a-trip to Vancouver Island today to visit family there, today has actually been okay. Is it possible that Cold FX isn't just voodoo? I've felt totally normal since I woke up - completely bizarre, given that last night I felt like death. My new, fresh energy was to the point where I got that other bug I get on a regular basis. The bug to COOK. And how could I not create something with my stepmom's spectacular cookbook library at hand?

fruit salad with fresh mint

 

I used to make fruit salad by cutting up any fruit that I liked. You will get tasty fruit salads that way for sure - I don't think anyone's ever had a bad fruit salad except, perhaps, those fruit salads you get at cafeterias that taste like the plastic container they came in. You know the ones. They're generally made up of a few wedges of orange, some grapefruit and a couple of red grapes soaking in a rancid pool of ammonia. Delicious!

In order to take your fruit salad from tasty to exceptional, all you need to do is put a little thought into it. Don't go nuts adding whatever fruit you want. Think simple and understated. Restrain yourself and think about what flavours compliment each other. That's what I've started doing lately and the other day I came up with the idea for this (though Adam was good enough to prepare it while I was busy making something else for our esteemed guests of the day). It was the best fruit salad in the history of fruit salad. If I do say so myself.

brown butter strawberry banana bread

What do baking brown butter strawberry banana bread and eastern Canada summer thunderstorms have in common? Only one thing: they both make my apartment very, very hot. It's even worse when you decide to bake brown butter strawberry banana bread during an eastern Canada summer thunderstorm. You might be questioning my sanity at the moment and I wouldn't blame you one bit. By the end of it all, my apartment was a sauna and my hair was sticking to my face, but I had some luxurious golden buttery banana bread to enjoy and a front row seat to some epic fork lightning - something we Vancouverites don't really get to experience.

almond strawberry crisp

 

I have never quite understood the difference between a cobbler, a crumble and a crisp. A quick google search tells me that I am not alone. My humble understanding has always been that the difference is in the topping. A cobbler is fruit baked with layer of biscuits on top; a crumble is a combination of butter, brown sugar and flour crumbled over fruit and baked; and a crisp, as seen above (and, in my opinion, the hands down winner of all three) is similar to a crumble, but with the addition of oats to give the topping more texture. I have no real history or facts to base this on, and it is most certainly wrong. It's just that my mom always made "crisp" and it always had oats in it. Does anybody have the definitive answer, or is it just one of those things that nobody really knows the answer to, like the chicken and the egg?

buttermilk mixed berry muffins

I am a morning person. After spending my teenage years (and my early 20s) sleeping until the afternoon (yes, after noon), I am finally one of those people that non-morning-people hate. I am peppy, cheerful and excited to take on the day. My boundless morning energy has me washing dishes, sweeping floors and doing other such housework. With my lack of grace - or, as Adam says, my lack of proprioceptive sense - it is a nice gesture to placate the late sleeper in the house with baked goods to make up for all the crashing around. These muffins make a wonderful peace offering.  Not only are they fruity and delicious, but they contain three out of four food groups. What more could you want?