in the kitchen
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lemon curd cupcakes {recipe}
My mother-in-law chose "lemon pudding" as her birthday cupcake flavour, which really put my mind into a tailspin. Lemon pudding? In a cupcake? How the heck was I supposed to achieve that? And then, inspiration just dropped into my lap. Actually, it was delivered to my...
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pan-fried mahi-mahi with honey grapefruit dressing {recipe}
Ever since our honeymoon in Hawaii many years ago, Paul and I have always been partial to mahi-mahi. Also known as dorado or dolphin fish (relax people, it's not related to dolphins in any way), mahi-mahi is a very "meaty" fish. By meaty, I mean that the texture is...
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pesto cheeseburgers {recipe}
Paul makes awesome burgers. Seriously awesome burgers. One of his secrets is to add some "moisture" ingredient to the meat before shaping the patty - it can be mustard, pesto sauce, barbeque sauce, beer...really, there are an unlimited number of options. But that...
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rustic chicken pasta bake {recipe}
Paul and I make our own tomato sauce all the time - in fact, we've never purchased tomato sauce before and we have bought pesto sauce, but mainly because fresh basil is expensive and for some reason, basil is the only plant that refuses to grow in our garden. We have...
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chocolate nutella cupcakes {recipe}
Both my brother-in-law, Dave, and my sister-in-law, Alex, answered with an emphatic "chocolate" when I asked them what flavour they wanted their birthday cupcakes to be. After a little more thought, Alex added that she wouldn't mind Nutella cupcakes either. Since I...
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crown royal whisky cupcakes (aka boozy cupcakes) {recipe}
I never gave my father-in-law a chance to choose his birthday cupcake flavour - it was always going to be Crown Royal cupcakes. You see, many years ago, when Paul and I were still dating, I gave a bottle of Crown Royal Canadian whisky to his dad for Christmas after...
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birthday cupcakes for the family
Earlier this year, I had the crazy idea to bake cupcakes for each of my close family members on their birthday. But, not just any cupcakes - these were going to be special birthday cupcakes based on a flavour that was either requested by them or chosen by me based on...
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watch out kitchen – i’m making macarons!
If you haven't been able to tell from my blog, Twitter and Instagram feeds - I love macarons. A lot. Paul likes them well enough, but I ADORE them. I even managed to talk my sister, Suzie, into giving macarons out as her wedding favours just so I could eat more...
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granita di caffe con panna {recipe}
One of our favourite discoveries when we travelled to Rome for the first time last year was the Tazza d’Oro, a small coffee shop that sits very close to the Pantheon. Being a famed coffee shop in Rome is no small feat and there were definitely some wonderful coffees...
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pink pepper hot chocolate {recipe}
Pink peppercorns look like regular peppercorns and have a peppery flavour, but are not actually related to regular peppercorns. These pinkish-red dried berries can often be found in gourmet stores or bulk food stores (where I found my supply) and are sometimes even...