Blog Post List

This blog post list contains the most recent blog posts from The Messy Baker in reverse chronological order. You can also browse by recipe category or use the search function.

I missed the last of the season's peaches on Saturday by THIS much. You can't see it but I'm holding my thumb and index finger about 4 inches apart. The universal translation for this gesture is one hour of time for each inch of empty air. I got to the Farmers' Market just after 10:00 AM and the grower told me the last few baskets of peaches went "first thing." Since the only 6 o'clock I'm acquainted with arrives at supper hour, I decided my plans for the peaches were just not meant to be. So I grabbed some pears and plums and shuffled home to fill the peach void with something equally luscious but so different I wouldn't feel cheated. As I walked in the kitchen and slammed the door, the large butternut squash on the counter rolled over like a surrendering puppy. The answer was  soup.

Normally, after I've been on TV, there's a lag between my appearance and me posting the clip. It's a rather complex procedure that requires six technical steps, a good two hours of uninterrupted time and a generous glass of merlot. I swear, I can cook...

  Spicy Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers - TheMessyBaker.com I admit it. I'm lazy and messy. Thee mere thought of  forcing gobs of unruly stuffing into tall, wobbly-bottomed peppers is an open invitation to Murphy. But, I got smart, knocked the suckers on their side and stuffed them full without so much as an "oops." Anyone who's grappled with a towering stuffed pepper will thank me for this culinary cheat. There's no embarrassing spillage in the kitchen. And at the table? Hungry eaters can dig in without drafting a plan of attack that involves advanced physics and an extra limb. Nope. Just grab your knife and fork and dig in. As a bonus, the shallow version cooks faster. Everybody wins. Except Murphy. With fall in full swing and a bounty of big, sweet, inexpensive peppers at hand, I'm sharing my stuffed pepper tips with Kyle Christie (no relation). Tune in to Kitchener's CTV News at Noon if you can. There'll be not-so-deadly nightshades, oh-so sharp implements and the ever-present danger of spillage. And that's before I even reach the studio.

Some days I wish I could be Oprah. I want to point to everyone around me and shout, "And YOU win a book , and YOU win a book, and YOU win a book!" While I normally give away a single book, this week I have...

Where've I been? At the computer having my ego reduced to the size of a shriveled raisin. I decided to tackle video technology. People talk, you slap a few clips together and voila, video! How hard can it be? Very. Oh, sure, video might look like a single benign entity, but it's really a hostile gang in disguise. The camera beat me up while Final Cut stole my lunch money and Vimeo gave me a wedgie. The audio just stood by and laughed.

Before sending my pride to the emergency room for stitches, I spent two Saturdays in Toronto's famed Distillery District. I wasn't wandering the cobblestone streets, sampling the artisanal fair or hobnobbing with celebrities at TIFF. Nope, I had the audacity to think I was up to learning the craft of multimedia story from the internationally acclaimed, multiple-award-winning photo journalist, Brent Foster. While Brent  introduced us to the concepts of wide, medium and tight shots, various software components and the importance of audio, the best piece of advice he could give us was, "Fail!"

So I did.

We have a winner. Or two, actually. Well, three if you count the successful launch of the newsletter. Anyway, thanks to Random.org, I was able to select the winners without too much fuss, which is quite an accomplishment given the glitches that plagued this seemingly simple endeavour.

When I joined my gym, I felt the pressure to act quickly so as not to miss out on the special low-low price and no-no initiation fee that expired at the end of the month. That was in June. July? They extended the offer. And...

I'm going to steal President Barack Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes, we can!" Hope he won't mind. It's for a good cause -- yogurt. You see, while I love my homemade yogurt, for almost a year I've been frustrated. The instructions on my electric yogurt maker clearly state, in bold text and ominous wording,  to add nothing to the yogurt but starter. Despite the machine's packaging, which shows little pots of pastel coloured (and presumably fruit-flavoured) yogurt, it was designed to incubate plain yogurt only. Their options for adding flavour involved stirring in sweetened fruit post fermentation, which I already do. So imagine my delight when Pat Crocker's newest book, The Yogurt Bible, arrived complete with recipes for flavoured yogurt. Yogurt full of fruits and spices you add before you fill those little bottles and hit "start." When I read this I wanted to shout to all the frustrated homemade yogurt fans out there, "YES, WE CAN!"
Here in Ontario, school began yesterday. Despite having graduated from university last millennium, to this day fall still brings anxiety dreams where I race from room to room trying to find my class, or arrive on campus only to learn I forgot to register, or worse -- I'm enrolled in nothing but advanced math, for which I lack all prerequisites. Even when I'm fully awake, the September nags at me to crack the books. And since my focus is now on food writing, the books I turn to are usually culinary. While the following recommendations contain recipes, and lots of them, their primary focus is on education. Their aim is not to provide you with recipes to follow, but to give you culinary knowledge so you can create delicious meals on your own. While these books have a similar purpose, they come from opposite ends of the spectrum. One is beautiful, serene and informative. It makes me want to move to the country and raise chickens that lay blue eggs. The other is crammed with more information than my brain can hold, but funny as hell. Being a Gemini, I like them both, and for very different reasons.

When you do nothing to your pear tree but leave it be, you can expect trouble. And trouble came to my friend in the form of dozens and dozens and dozens of bug-free, blemishless, picture perfect pears. Her punishment? Driving some over to me. That'll...