Coffee Chiffon Cake

I baked a cake for the first time! Each Christmas, my family invites my sister's in-laws over for a family dinner and I take care of the dessert.  This year, I wanted to bake a Chinese style coffee cake. I'm a coffee lover and I love the whipped cream and fluffiness of Chinese style cakes.    

Tiramisu in a Jar

The past several years, I started a tradition of giving a party favor/memento to my friends for Christmas (last year's was the coffee ornaments).  This year, I wanted to do something with mason jars since I volunteered to make the dessert for the Christmas party.

"Not Too Sweet" Apple Pie

For this year's Christmas, I was once again in charge of the dessert!  I was planning on making a pumpkin pie, but after surveying the idea with a few of my family members, apple seemed to be the preferred choice.

Yummy Meatballs!

My office organized a baby shower last month and we all had to bring a dish to the party.  I decided to make meatballs since it went well with the gender of the baby :)  I remember that my brother-in-law, Anson, made some pretty good meatballs in the past, so I decided to borrow his recipe.

My Heart "Beets" for Salads

I know... I know... lame title, but it cracks me up :)  Plus, who doesn't love beets and summer salads?  I was craving for a simple summer salad, so I went on Allrecipes.com and I found this Roasted Beets and Feta Cheese salad recipe.

Cooking Kale with Beer

If you're a fan of beer, perhaps you might like to cook it with your greens.  The inspiration behind this dish came from my sister's trip to Montreal a few years ago.  She ate something similar at a restaurant and thought it had interesting flavours and looked like it would be easy to make.

Here are the ingredients for this dish:
- One bunch of kale
- A few cloves of garlic (make sure you take out the white stem in the center of each clove to reduce the outcome of gas. A trick I learned from one of my cooking classes... haha)
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Paprika
- 1 can of beer
- Additional seasoning of your choice (optional).  We used "Slap Ya Mama" Cajun seasoning, which was something my sister picked up when she was in New Orleans.

Delicious Autumn Cheesecake

I've always wanted to learn how to make a cheesecake since it's such a classic dessert. I decided for my family Christmas dinner this year that it would be a great opportunity for me to learn how to make one and serve it for the dessert course. The recipe that I picked was the Autumn Cheesecake from Allrecipes.com.

Cookie Mix in a Mason Jar

Mason jars are all the rage these days.  If you go on Pinterest, you'll find lots of cool and creative ideas on how make use of a mason jar.  This project was inspired after visiting a craft fair that I attended recently.

Cowboy Cookie Mix Ingredients and Materials
- Ingredients from Cowboy Cookie Mix Recipe from allrecipes.com
- 1 quart mason jar
- Ribbon
- A strand of fake flowers (you can find some nice ones at your local Dollar store)
- Instructions on how to bake the cookies
- Ingredients list

Feenie's Quinoa, Green Bean and Tomato Salad

My friends, @MashedThoughts and @Seapotato, bought me Rob Feenie's Casual Classics for my birthday this year.  I was recently introduced to quinoa and loved it, so naturally, the recipe that caught my eye in the book was the Quinoa, Green Bean, and Tomato Salad.

Apple Bread Pudding

Apple Bread Pudding

The first time I tried bread pudding was this year at UBC's Blueberry Festival.  It was delicious!  I decided to make it this past weekend.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any blueberries in my fridge, so I opted to use apples instead.  I found this relatively simple recipe on Allrecipes.ca.