Sweetness has never tasted better! My review of the Lovely: a bake shop holiday menu

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been eating a lot of sweets lately. I don’t think it’s just my body’s response to the stress and exhaustion of these past few weeks – I also believe it’s got something to do with the season. Between my mother-in-law’s baking at home and numerous lunches and potlucks at work, the sweet tooth, pie & coffee cake aficionada in me has never felt happier!

For me, now is the perfect time to indulge and to try to put the worries and challenges of this past year behind me. Lovely: a bake shop provided the perfect opportunity for me to do just that, when they recently invited me to sample their holiday sweets menu. I happily obliged – and off I went 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving! Our vegan pumpkin strudel – at least as good as pumpkin pie :-)

Have you ever been afraid to make pastry dough? I have – and I still am! Luckily, my mother-in-law has recently given me the recipe below, which is an easy to make, but also economical (no eggs, no butter!) strudel-type pastry.

I am a big fan of strudel, that Austrian multi-layered pastry which is not just delicious, but also versatile. I literally grew up eating apple strudels, lol Meanwhile, my husband loves ricotta&raisin  strudel, and always wants me to make more. As a matter of fact, yesterday I brought ricotta strudel to a pre-Thanksgiving party at work, and everybody loved it – and how couldn’t they? Light as a feather and delicately powdered with sugar, this dessert can brighten up any meal, and any occasion, Thanksgiving included. I made it for Halloween last month, and I’m making it again for Thanksgiving. We just can’t seem to get enough of it 🙂

I made “Little Lies” cookies: a story of sweetness and… lies?

“Tell me lies/Tell me sweet little lies” – this is how Fleetwood Mac’s song goes. I love this song – and I also love the cookies I am going to write about today. 🙂

This is a traditional fried cookie recipe I have from my mother, and intriguingly enough, the name of these cookies can be translated as “little lies.” You can find them in the Polish cuisine too, where they are called “angel wings.” To us though, they are “little lies.” I have been wondering why they bear this name in our cuisine. Is it because the exterior fools you into thinking they are crispy like cannoli or like the angel wings (their Polish counterpart), when in fact they are soft and light as a feather? Or is it because they trick you by appearing complicated, when in fact they couldn’t be easier to make? Questions and assumptions aside, these are delicious, quick to prepare, and very economical – you’ll get a lot of cookies if you use the quantities below.

Raspberries and cream: a chilled dessert for overly hot weather!

The other day I checked out one of my dessert posts from last year, and I became nostalgic: So much has happened in my life since I wrote this post! I had a great vacation, a very busy fall semester – and then I became a parent! Being a first-time parent has definitely altered my priorities, and has given my life a new meaning and impetus. I am different, older and wiser – or so I think 🙂

I checked out this dessert because I needed a quick and easy dish to satisfy my family’s sweet cravings. I had planned to do some baking, but the weather was too hot to turn on the oven. Cooking on the stovetop was too challenging too, so in the end I made a very simple raspberries& cream dessert. After all, with the raspberry season upon us, now is the perfect time to eat raspberries on their own or to use them in a variety of dishes.

My Memorial Day menu: It’s about fruits and veggies… and burgers, of course!

It took me awhile to come up with a Memorial Day menu. Nowadays, my mind tends to wander off aimlessly more often than not, and I have found that sleep deprivation affects my creativity. With summer just around the corner however, and with the local stores brimming with new crop fresh produce, I had extra incentives to work on this menu, and as I developed it I felt inspired and energized. I also experienced a great satisfaction seeing my family enjoy these dishes, which I intend to make again this coming weekend.

I used plenty of olive oil to make the salads below, as well as salt and pepper for seasoning. I started off by making tzatziki, the traditional Greek sauce which we usually eat as a dip.

Sweets for the sweetest mom: my special “sandwich” for Mother’s Day

I made this for my mom yesterday and she loved it! This is the perfect recipe for those who lack the time to make an elaborate dessert, but still want to surprise/spoil their moms with something almost homemade. I say “almost” because you can buy some of the ingredients and avoid spending hours in the kitchen. For instance, I used store-bought cinnamon bread – if you have a recipe for it, let me know! 🙂 For the lemon pudding, I used my vanilla pudding recipe, with one small change: I replaced the vanilla extract with the juice and grated peel from half a lemon.

Baking while waiting for the baby: We made mom’s apple pie!

I haven’t been around much lately, and you may have guessed why: the baby is coming! With two weeks left till due date, the days seem to be getting shorter and the impatience is running high. There is still so much to do and sometimes I panic I won’t have enough time to buy all the things the baby needs. I haven’t slept well lately either, most likely due to the stress.

Food-wise, we rely a lot on the slow cooker nowadays because it’s easy to use and very convenient. I didn’t use the oven much after Thanksgiving, but when I did use it, the result was definitely worth it. Such was the case with the apple pie my mom made for Thanksgiving – it was so good that I asked her to make it again and again, and she happily obliged 🙂 I hadn’t had her apple pie in a gazillion years and I had forgotten how delicious it actually was!