Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary
cooking up a storm at the edge of the world
Nearly twenty years ago I sat at my grandmother’s dining room table in rural Eastern Canada scoffing slabs of home made pumpkin bread thick with butter and chatting about this, that and the other thing, as granddaughters are wont to do with their grandmothers.
Here you have it: my new favourite breakfast. I’m fairly new to the whole eating-of-the-fresh-figs thing, being introduced to them only this year after I saw so many of my fellow food bloggers raving about them.
I love cranberry sauce. A Thanksgiving or Christmas meal isn’t complete without it, in my opinion.
One of my favourite meals growing up was spaghetti with a jar of Ragu sauce poured over the top. I could never get enough of it. To me that dish represents the ultimate in comfort food, and I am known still, as an adult, to eat it on occasion.
Halloween was A Big Thing where I grew up in rural Canada. During the entire month of October village gardens and windows would be adorned with Halloween and Autumn themed decorations.
Soft spiced molasses cookies; ideal for when you’re going on an adventure! When I was a girl growing up in rural Canada I used to bake an old fashioned soft molasses cookie recipe. I don’t know where the original recipe came from, being handed down from somewhere, but these cookies were one of my favourites.
I’m a newcomer to the whole kale thing. Following on from a suggestion by a vegan friend who is in love with the stuff, I did, once, some time ago, pick up a bag of curly kale from a local supermarket and I baked it to make kale chips.
I do not have green fingers. I could not be called a gardener in any sense of the word. I do have some houseplants, which, for some reason, have evolved to be very hardy plants indeed, able to withstand weeks of drought in between the times when I actually remember to water them. How they …
It’s National Cupcake Week! Well, it’s the last day of National Cupcake Week, but better late than never, right?
A perfect, creamy heritage potato accompaniment for roast Shetland lamb. September in Shetland, my remote archipelago home in the North Sea, means the return of many things. The winter gales, for starters, blowing away any remnants of summer one might have forgotten in the garden.
I have fond memories of home made jams and preserves from my Canadian childhood. Alas, preserving is not something I’ve become skilled at, yet, but this Autumn I am giving it a bash.
The fantastic chocolatey food blogging challenge, We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette over at Chocolate Log Blog and co-created by Chele from The Chocolate Teapot (who has sadly retired from blogging) is three years old this month!
Deliciously autumnal, this cake is moist, aromatic and bursting with flavour. Autumn is definitely in the air. The nights are drawing in earlier and here in Shetland it’s been dark, dreary and raining for days.
We have recently started receiving an organic vegetable box from a local supplier – Transition Turriefield, who grow all of their produce without the use of pesticides and agrochemicals.
I spent a most wonderful child-free weekend in town. I don’t go into town very often, let alone for an overnight trip, but this weekend past I made an exception.
When I was a very little girl in Canada I remember my grandmother reaching into her freezer and pulling out a container of her home made chocolates.
One of the fondest memories I have of my childhood in Cape Breton, on the East coast of Canada, is that of berry picking. In the summertime there were so many varieties of wild berry to choose from. Wild blueberries were my favourite; they were tiny and bursting with flavour. It also took absolutely forever …
I’m a big fan of veggie bean burgers. Not the shop bought ones though, I don’t know what they do to those to make them taste so awful, but nothing beats a good home made veggie burger except
We’ve just recently received our very first delivery of an organic vegetable box from Transition Turriefield, a Community Interest Company based on the west side of Shetland.
There are some times when cheesecake is required. Do you ever get those late night cravings sitting on the couch with a good book (Kindle) and you just want cheesecake and you want it now? This mini cheesecake pot recipe was borne out of those moments.
