Quiche à Odette: The Easiest Quiche Ever

Quiche à Odette -- the world's easiest quiche

Last year, for pi day, I decided to make genuine quiche -- from scratch. We didn't eat until close to 8:00 p.m. (Dinner at our house is usually around 6.) It was delicious, but definitely not worth the time and effort, especially when compared with this super-easy, crustless option.

Citrus-Mango Salad for a Hot Day

(The tomato is hiding.)

Hot, sticky weather like this calls for negligible cooking in the house.

This hot spell is killing me. Today the thermometer read 32 degrees Celsius in the shade. IN THE SHADE! And that doesn't even account for humidity. So there was no way I was about to fry, roast, or simmer anything in the kitchen, which leaves: grilling and salad.

Pasta Primavera

I've been so preoccupied getting the cookbook ready that I almost forgot that I owe you a recipe!

Back in November, I posted a list of recipes that I still had to prepare and asked you if there was one you were most eager to see. That post only got one comment, but it was a request for Pasta Primavera. So here it is.

Fresh out of the oven! -- UPDATED

UPDATE: now includes preview and link to order iTunes version!

DING! The Sibbald Family Famous Recipes Cookbook is DONE and we have ordered enough copies for our little family.

The book is available to you, now, in two formats: print or PDF. (I'm still waiting for the iTunes book to go live.) Here are the links.

Pea Soup

I will never be able to say "pea soup" without hearing the crickets (surely they aren't cockroaches!) from Rescuers Down Under. Despite that, it is one of our favourite recipes.

French-Canadian Classic: Tourtière du Lac-St-Jean

Tourtière du Lac-St-Jean

Most Canadians are familiar with tourtière* - a meat pie made with ground meat and spices. It's so popular that you can buy it ready-made in grocery stores. This is not that tourtière.

This one is a feast of game meat in big chunks, slow-roasted in a pie crust. It is a recipe big enough to feed a whole extended family, and it takes most of a weekend to prepare and cook.

Murphy's Law strikes again.

I'm still working on the cookbook project, and am making good headway. I've decided not to share every recipe here, especially if the recipe is fairly straightforward. But today's recipe warrants a blog post -- not so much because it's fancy (quite the opposite), but because a full-blown comedy of errors took place in our kitchen this afternoon.

Comfort Food: Irish Stew with Dumplings

Stew is one of those classic "peasant" foods that make me feel like I'm sitting in front of a crackling fire with a wool shawl wrapped around me and a mug full of wine. Ideally, there would be a baby asleep on my lap, and a dog snoring lightly at my feet.

Ah, sigh.

On the day I saw my first fluffily floating flakes of snow in Ottawa this year, I pulled out my biggest pot and started an Irish stew simmering in the kitchen. Then I added dollops of dumplings, and we all sat down to a hearty meal.

Since you couldn't be there with us, I decided to share the recipe here. I've learned a lot of lessons about stew -- all the hard way. I hope this post will save you some scorched pots and leathery meat.

Challenge Accepted

Front cover of the Sibbald Family Famous Recipes Cookbook

More than two years ago, I decided to turn our hand-written, heavily soiled family recipe book into a proper cookbook with photos and stories and personal notes. Since then, I've encountered corrupted files, obsessive perfectionism, and loss of enthusiasm.

Foodie Friday: Golden-Glazed Chicken

This was after it had baked for 45 minutes.

Mmmm, chicken! This is an easy, delicious, savory-sweet recipe that was given to me by my sister-in-law Mary Ann when I babysat my nieces one weekend. She made sure to leave a recipe that a newlywed with no parenting experience could pull together with minimal effort.

It was a winner and has become a family favourite, though it goes by a couple of different names, including Honey-Mustard Chicken and Curried Chicken. Here's the recipe.

Amazing Disappearing Treats: Bouchées aux noix or Nutty Nibbles

Bouchées aux noix

When we lived in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, we had a lovely neighbour named Odette who shared a few recipes with me. By far the most popular on was the recipe for these treats, which she called Bouchées aux noix, which roughly translates to Nutty Nibbles.

These bars may be the least healthy treats I've ever shared with you, but they are absolutely delicious.

Today, I'm sharing the recipe and some tips I've learned the hard way.

Broccoli Goodness

I haven't posted a recipe in quite  while, so I figure it's about time. And why not start with something that combines healthy and unhealthy foods in the most appealing way? This recipe includes lots of nuts and seeds (good fats) and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower (vitamins, fiber, and disease-fighting phytochemicals), but then throws in bacon and mayonnaise. But if you're someone like me (or have children like me) who like a little sweetness to bribe them into eating their veggies, then this recipe is for you.

Potato Salad -- in a Hurry

Potato Salad with a Chive Flower

Potato salad is one of my favourite summer foods, but I almost always forget to boil the potatoes well ahead of time. (My middle name should be "Last Minute.") I had always thought that meant I would only have potato salad on weekends, but then I found a short cut!

Here's my simple recipe and my trick for speeding things up.

Dining in the Dark

Just before heading into the dining room.

Last night, for two and a half hours, Steve and I , and our friends Ron and Heidi, were "blind" as we ate a four-course meal as part of a fundraiser for Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind. Every year, a local restaurant named Chances R invites people to don masks and eat an entire meal in the dark and gain a real appreciation for just one facet of life without eyesight.

Let me tell you how it unfolded.

Almost-One-Dish Dinner: Layered Meat Loaf

This card was NOT given to me!

Meat loaf gets a bad rap. I mean, sure it's really high in fat and kind of has an odd texture . . . but it can also be really tasty. And with this recipe it also holds a hidden surprise and uses up some of your leftovers, which makes it even better.

Lemon Chicken with Roasted Cauliflower

Inspired by this recipe from Elena's Pantry.
What looks like a slice of garlic on top is actually a slice of shallot. See below for more about shallots.

I shared this picture of a Greek-influenced recipe (it includes lemon, chicken, and black olives) way back in February, but forgot to share the recipe! So here it is.

Experimenting with Quinoa

Yup, that's actually steam rising from the fresh, hot loaf.

I bought some quinoa because it seemed like a good idea. Then I didn't know what the heck to do with it. I thought that, like hemp hearts, you could just toss it on or into anything. It's a seed, right?

So that's what I did. I splashed a handful of them - raw, untoasted, unsoaked - into a batch of cookies I was making.

Beet Red

Get ready: I'm doing two food posts this week. (It's been a good foodie week at the Sibbald house!) This one is from a Pinterest pin from Joyous Health, but has my own twist and more pictures. That makes it better, right?

Nom nom, chicken-broccoli braid!

Are you hungry yet? 

The first time I attempted that delicious dish, it turned out like this:

[Insert sad trombone sound effect.]

I even wrote a post about it. I was so disappointed because my niece Diane's braid looked just stunning, and I was trying to show off. But I forgot about it until yesterday, when my niece posted it again on Facebook, along with a link to the recipe on her blog.

Getting Fresh

Day 15 of 100 Happy Days: 

When I shared that picture as part of my 100 Happy Days gratitude exercise, I captioned it: "big basket of fruit that will last us about three days." As it happens, I was proven right -- and that is a very good thing.