It’s that time of year when I get to start baking for Christmas! I loooove Christmas baking, and I kicked off the season’s treats with these Lemon Lavender Shortbread. I’ve made this recipe a few times now and it takes the rich buttery taste of shortbread and pairs it up with the delicate scent of lemon and lavender. These are so unique- I bet your family and guests will never have tried a cookie flavoured with lavender before. The recipe is a snap to make, but do make sure you follow the chilling times even if you are impatient

Lemon Lavender Shortbread (recipe from Epicure Selections)

• 1/2 lb (125 g) butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 heaping tsp lavender (I use this)
• 1 heaping tsp fresh lemon zest
• 1 cup all purpose flour

I decided to make this recipe after seeing it on the morning news. The recipe comes courtesy of Laura Calder, one of my favourite Food Network Canada hosts. I love the soft, roasted peppers in this recipe, the healthy olive oil and tangy citrus flavour. Make sure you use a good baguette for this…I don’t eat bread often, so the crusty, toasted outside and soft inside of the rustic French baguette we bought was quite a treat. I was quite surprised that there was no cheese in this recipe, and I thought about adding some but after biting into the sandwich, I realized it doesn’t need anything else. This ain’t your mama’s brown bag tuna sandwich!

TUNA AND WHITE BEAN SALAD ON TOASTED BAGUETTE

Recipe Courtesy of Laura Calder – French Cooking at Home

• 2 red peppers
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 orange pepper
• About 1/2 cup olive oil, more for the baguette
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 celery ribs, sliced
• A scant cup (100 g) pitted Kalamata olives, roughly chopped
• A few handfuls of fresh parsley leaves
• 2 cups cooked cannellini beans (use white kidney if you can’t find cannellini)
• Salt and pepper
• Zest and juice of 2 lemons, more to taste
• 14 ounces (390 g) high-quality tuna chunks packed in olive oil, drained (about 3 cans)
• 1 to 1 1/2 baguettes

Heat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Seed and julienne the peppers, toss on a baking sheet with a few tablespoons of olive oil, spread into a single layer, and bake until soft, about half an hour. Remove from the oven and turn the heat up to 400°F (200°C).

Tip the peppers into a large bowl. Add the garlic, celery, olives, parsley, and beans. Season with salt and pepper, and toss with the lemon zest and juice and the remaining olive oil. Add the tuna last and carefully mix it in with your hands so the chunks don’t break up too much. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Slice the baguette(s) in half lengthwise and then into pieces the length of the palm of your hand. Arrange on the baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Toast until golden and crisp on top but still squishy within, about 5 minutes.

Put a piece of toast on each plate and top with a generous heap of the salad, including the juices.

This week’s pastry classes were extremely frustrating and stressful, but I made it through. We made a ton of stuff, which worked out great, as it was my brother’s birthday this week. We made a cheesecake that I haven’t tried yet, but it looks quite good, except for the crack on top. I’m going to go ahead and take a lucky guess about the crack– just after we put our cheesecake in the oven, my partner and I noticed a certain measuring cup full of cream sitting on the tabletop. Oops! To make up for the lack of moisture, I made a nice gooey mixed fruit sauce to go on top of the cheesecake.

We also made 3 different kinds of danishes from one danish dough. We learned how to make rolled, or ‘pigs-in-a-blanket” style danishes, as well as pinwheels, and also diamonds. We filled the rolled danishes with frangipane, the pinwheels were filled with pastry cream and apricot halves, and the diamonds were filled with a fruit mixture. They got a bit squished on the ride home, but you’ll get the jist.

Adding to the panic, we were given 15 minutes to put together a black forest cake from start to finish, with no ingredients prepped. In the process, I managed to cut two of my fingers while cutting the layers for the cake. After digging up some bandaids and gloves, my partner and I pulled together our cake. Slightly sloppy, yes….but we did it.

Lastly, (and the best-tasting) we made a lemon sabayon tart with a Swiss meringue and it was soo delicious. I normally dislike anything ‘lemon meringue-y’, but I really enjoyed a bite of this. We used a pate sucree base, and created the lemon sabayon filling. The Swiss meringue was so fun to pipe on and then torch!

I love eating salad….what could be better than a big pile of vegetables in a delicious dressing. A few weeks ago I made a roasted beet salad and it was absolutely divine. The roasted beets are matched up with aspargus and blue cheese and amazing candied walnuts, all tied together in a super citrus-y orange vinaigrette. This is one of the best salads I’ve had in a long time…I definitely went back for seconds! This would be great to make for company, instead of a boring ceasar salad or green salad with the all-too-typical (yet tasty, don’t get me wrong!) balsamic vinaigrette.

Roasted Beet Salad (adapted from KCTS Cooks Salads)

• 4 medium beets, tops trimmed
• 1tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 8 cups mixed baby greens (these can be left out in order to just make a side dish with aspargus/beets/walnuts/etc)
• 1 apple (I used Graventstein from my apple tree)
• 1/2 cups walnuts
• 3 tbsp sugar ( I used organic unrefined cane sugar)
• 6-8 asparagus spears
• 1/4 cup blue cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss beets with olive oil, salt, pepper. Place in shallow baking dish and bake for 40-60 minutes (until tender). Cool beets slightly and then remove skins and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

Wash and drain greens and cut apple into small chunks. Place sugar in a frying pan and heat until melted. Add walnuts and stir to coat. Turn nuts onto a lightly oiled dish to cool, then coarsely chop.

Wash and trim asparagus, then cut into pieces and blanch 1-2 minutes and then plunge into cold water. Drain.

Combine all elements together, drizzle with orange vinaigrette and sprinkle with blue cheese.

Orange Vinaigrette

• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 1/2 tsp orange zest
• 1 shallot, peeled and minced
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Combine all ingredients and whisk in oil.

On another note…I start my full-time cooking school experience on Monday!!!!! (Before I was only taking one class). Now I really get to step into the kitchen and learn and I couldn’t be more excited….and slightly nervous! You may have noticed a new tab at the top of my blog, entitled ‘culinary’. By clicking this tab, you will be located to posts purely about my cooking school experience. I will continue to blog about food + recipes (of course!!!) but I hope you also will enjoy reading about the mayhem I will create for myself in cooking school bahahah. They don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into!!

Yes…that is me as a young’n with who knows what on my face (let’s just hope it’s face paint). For some reason I always closed one eye in pictures when I was a kid….

For my dad’s birthday this year, I decided to try something new- instead of a traditional birthday cake, I made a Baked Lemon Cheesecake. The cheesecake was different, in that there was no sour cream or cream cheese in the recipe. The “cheese” part came from ricotta and greek-style yogurt. The finished product was wonderful and actually ended up tasting like a lemon meringue pie! My family loved it, and I’m sure your family will too- recipe coming soon!