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I really need to start eating better. Case in point, we have not only surpassed the 100 day mark, I'm pretty sure we've recently passed 90 days until the wedding. This past long weekend, we also managed to eat through an entire Japanese cheesecake. (Both events were not related). I say "we" but you all know better. Trevor had a slice, maybe two. I couldn't help it though. I discovered a fant
Do you ever have days where you just want to stay home and eat chocolate? I feel like I've been having those kind of days a lot lately, especially on the weekends. Sometimes I crave a good stay home day where I get to lounge around in my pjs and catch up my reading. Or my tv shows. Or even my blog reading. I swear, I'm so behind on my favourite baking blogs. What's the cool thing to make these
I'm interrupting the usual flour and sugar-fueled madness that goes on around here to talk about one of my favourite green smoothie recipes. I was almost hesitate to call it a recipe since I really don't have a set way of making this drink. Every time I make it it's a little different since I never measure and tend to just eyeball the ingredients when I'm throwing them into the blender. However
All right, I'm going to be honest. All week I've been dreaming about this banana bread. Everyday, always around 3pm, I would be in the middle of something at work when (!!) suddenly an intense snack craving would hit me. I know better than to keep a snack drawer at my desk (it would always be empty), so I've been stuck with whatever I brought from home which at that point of the day w
Is anyone else pumped that it's finally spring? Usually I'm not a big spring time person (I tend to prefer the crispness of autumn), but I can't help but feel so pleased about the weather during this time of year. Something about shedding my winter jacket in favour of my spring jacket and trading my worn-out boots for running shoes. Not to mention coming home after work and having natural sunli
Step 1: Make delicious muffins. Step 2: Take photos of delicious muffins. Eat some of the extra glaze with your finger because no one is looking. Step 3: Go to write a blog posting on delicious muffins with your sticky fingers. Proceed to draw a blank...... That last step has been the best way to sum up the last few days here (minus the sticky fingers, that was only the first day). Eve
Although Easter is over and I am sure that everyone is sick of carrot-related recipes, I couldn't help but share this one. I have been meaning to make carrot cupcakes for a while now, only I couldn't figure out how to make the cream cheese icing without being stuck eating the whole thing myself (see: Trevor's lactose intolerance). It's also worth pointing out that I refused to make carrot cupc
A couple days ago, I decided to take advantage of Trevor's work benefits and went for a massage. This was my first time going to a registered massage therapist and the only way I could describe the experience was pure.....bliss..... Why we've never used this part of his benefits is beyond me and now I'm going to find a way to incorporate this regularly. Originally I went because I was
After two glorious days of sugar, I've finally found the energy to go through my photos and tweets from Macaron Day 2013. If you don't know, Macaron Day is a day that celebrates the deliciously sweet meringue-based confectionery while also supporting a local charity. A complimentary macaron is offered to customers who mention that they are celebrating Macaron Day while proceeds of the add
I've been toying with the idea of making my own cereal for a couple weeks now. The amount of boxed cereal we go through is insane and as much as I want to believe it, the cereal we eat isn't exactly considered healthy. We may not be stuffing our faces with Corn Pops or Lucky Charms, but most cereals on the market that are marketed as healthy are also loaded with less "whole grains" and more sug
Okay, I get it. Food, especially based goods should not be green. However, I like to think that there are two exceptions to that rule. 1). Baked goods are allowed to be green if mint is involved 2). The green baked goods are for St. Patrick's Day Luckily, these four-leaf clovers fall into both categories. I know, it may seem like I'm repeating myself my from last year. However this not-u
After a busy week, one of my favourite ways to unwind is in the kitchen. It doesn't matter if it's making supper for the night, baking cookies for the week or preparing muffins for weekend breakfast. Something about following a recipe's instruction, measuring and shifting flour and taking that first bite is so soothing, it seems to melt away all my built up stress. Yes, I'm strange that way.
You know those handy cookie scoop devices that allows you to create perfectly round cookies each and every time you bake? Well, have you ever broken one? This seems to be my habit as of late. Over Christmas holidays, I was in charge of making the chocolate truffles for our dessert platter. I was over-enthusiastic with my scooping and likely running on a sugar-high from all my secret taste-test
A couple weeks ago, Trevor took me to my favourite restaurant, Fresh, for pre-birthday brunch. For the last few months, I had been raving about all the good things I had been hearing about their brunch menu, especially their pancakes. Trevor took this as a hint and instead of going out for birthday supper later that day, we made our way downtown for brunch. Since moving to Toronto, Fresh res
This Valentine's Day-ish treat has been brought to you by the flavour vanilla. I know, I know. You're all sitting there scratching your heads thinking "but where is the chocolate? Won't somebody think of the chocolate?" As it goes, every year sometime between the months of December to February, I always find myself growing sick of chocolate. I see it littering the grocery store seasonal aisle
Where did January go? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was celebrating the new year. Now every time I go into the grocery store, I'm being bombarded by flowers and chocolates and everything that goes hand-in-hand with Valentine's Day. Not that I mind having another reason to buy more chocolate. Mmmmm, chocolate. In terms of wedding planning, February is already shaping up to be a busy
Does anyone remember the last time I tried to make healthy bars? Yes, the photos were not the best, but the most embarrassing thing about that post was that the bars I made didn't even fill up the whole pan. Who wants a recipe to make only half a pan of bars? Why, past Jessica, why did that even make it on the blog in the first place? However, it's old posts like this that I keep around as
Weather wise, January has been a very confusing month. For a while, we had really unnaturally warm weather and then by the next day, it would turn on you. Sticky, wet snow. Strong, blustery winds. After a braving this weather each day after work, I've taken to spending my first hour at home curling up on the couch with a hot mug of tea, a good book and a warm blanket. After a few days of enjoy
January is the month that I always find that I eat the healthiest. I stock up on portable fresh fruit and vegetables to take to work and I avoid junk food like the plague. I feel really good for about three-ish weeks and then as February starts to inch closer, I slowly fall off the wagon. But like every year that I can remember doing this, I am thinking not this year. This year is a big weddin
Although a lot of people use the month of January to make resolutions, I find that I make a lot of little mental resolutions throughout the whole year. They usually consist of spur-of-the-moment things such as "eat healthier" when I'm in the grocery store salivating over the candy aisle or "exercise more" when I find myself planted on the couch in front of the TV. The problem is that these kind
One of the many delicious meals I enjoyed in Japan Looking back, I'm realizing that 2012 was such a crazy, whirlwind year for us. It's was no 2010-and-we're moving-to-Toronto type of year, but it was still very busy never the less. Trevor was able to start his dream job, I started (several!) new jobs, and we set a date for the wedding. I was able to watch my brother and sister's teams win silv
After last week's butter cookie coma, I decided to bake something less heavy and with a little more spice. These crispy, yet chewy spiced ginger cookies definitely fit the bill. As much as it is the season for sweet, buttery baking, I believe that there is always room for spiced cookies. Of course, gingerbread cookies are a popular holiday treat, but walk into any corporate coffee shop at
Despite our serious lack of snow in Toronto, I'm starting to get into the holiday spirit. My Christmas shopping is almost complete, I've consumed many Starbucks Peppermint Hot Chocolate drinks, my flights to visit my family are booked and Trevor and I are each well into our annual chocolate advent calendars (his is The Muppets, mine is Hello Kitty). Now I can also finally say that I've complet
I had every intention to have my first December post be a holiday recipe. I even have one stored away as a draft, just waiting to be published. But then I made these muffins. December what? Christmas who? Next week, I'll post a holiday recipe and join the rest of the internet blogging world in celebrating the month of December. But for now, I have to share this recipe. The shredded zu
Growing up, whenever my family would go and visit Grandma, she always had some baking ready for us. My mom would always rave about her buttertarts, which is something I never understood until I was in my early teens. Up until then, I did not like pies or tarts of any kind. I mourn those lost years of missing out on these irresistible tarts. I'm not sure what the best part is of my Grand
When I sit down to write a blog post, sometimes I know exactly what to write and the words flow out naturally. Other times, I really struggle with it. It becomes a war of incomplete sentences, misspelled words and run-on ideas that just turns into so much garble that I have to close my browser, step away from the keyboard and leave it alone for a few hours....or a few days. Recently, I'
With October now over, it's nice to be able to kick back and take a break from the sugar and chocolate coma created by the craziness of Halloween. I'm kidding, of course. Although with the sugar-sweetness of Halloween now in the past, I believe it's time for a more grown-up chocolate taste. Back in June, Food Bloggers of Canada had a members-only option for a product sample from Cacao Bar
Just in time for the Halloween season, I thought I would give a quick run-down of some of my favourite candies I stocked up on during my three weeks in Japan. Most of these items can be picked up in Japanese or Chinese grocery stores in bigger Canadian cities for 3 or 4 times the price I paid for, so in a few weeks time I'm sure I will be mourning the loss of these goodies and the prices I
This post is brought to you by jet lag. It's only the first night of my return from Japan, so hopefully I can work out my sleeping schedule by Monday when I return to work. After trying to stay up on the 12 hour plane ride from Toyko to Toronto, I crashed hard last night. Six hours later, I was wide awake and staring at the ceiling at 3:30am. Luckily for me, I have lots of baking blogs and TV s
Despite my running around and getting ready for my Japan trip next week (8 days), I knew I had to celebrate the first day of Fall yesterday with some delicious baking. This is my favourite time of the year (sweaters! boots! hot mugs of tea!) and I was a little sad to realize that as much as I love this season, I only have one other pumpkin recipe on She Bakes Here. Since I'll be away in
Now that it is the middle (and almost the end) of September, I realize that this back-to-school themed treat may be a little late. I made these almost a week ago, but it’s only now that I’ve finally found the time to sit down and write about them. The funny thing is that in October, my life about to get even busier (more about that at the bottom of the post.) I had every intention to ba
I apologize for the next upcoming year. I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot more wedding talk on She Bakes Here. :) Don't worry, there will still be cookies, muffins and lots of photos of other baked goods. Recipe postings will still continue, only now there might be an update here and there about our wedding plans. With less than a year left, we really have to get a move on,
Sometimes the best therapy is baking cookies. It can make a Friday night more bearable when your boyfriend is stuck working late and your friends cancel plans with you at the last minute. Or also because you spent twice as long getting home from your daily commute from work since it's summer time and apparently summer time also means road construction season. And because you came home
When I started thinking up cookie recipes in my head, I usually have a pretty good idea of how I want them to turn out. Whether or not they turn out this way is a whole other story. These cookies were originally envisioned as a drop cookie with espresso powder and dark chocolate chips. When I realized I didn't have chocolate chips, I scrapped that idea and decided to use the same recipe, only
During my summer trip, we made a stop off at my Grandma's house. I love visiting her place. She's lived there for over 40 years and except for some carpet changes and a few small renovations, it's still the same as I remember while growing up. She has a nice big back yard with a large garden and raspberry bushes. Her basement is filled with old board games from the 70's that used to bel
I can't believe it's been over 3 weeks since I last blogged. Bad Jessica, bad, bad Jessica. Sometimes you just need to get away though, and what better way is there than to surround yourself with family and food? The joke in our family is that no matter what kind of get-together we plan, there is always tons of food involved. My brother Nathan and I joke that we always gain weight when we g
June was a really busy month for me. Between working my usual Monday-Friday day job, I decided to get back into shape by joining a nearby hot yoga studio. Taking up hot yoga in a city like Toronto can be really expensive, but they were having an amazing promotion of 30 days for $30 and based on the location of the studio and the schedule of their classes, I knew I couldn't turn it down. Since I
In the beginning of June, I made whole wheat cookie dough bites and later in the week when the humidity rose in our apartment, it took all of our willpower not to gobble them down. Before I posted the recipe, I mentioned that Trevor compared the bites to the little bits of cookie dough in ice cream. Not that he really eats ice cream, but I'm sure that memory of being a kid and being able to di
After a few hours at the St. Jacob's Farmer's Market, Trevor and I went to Guelph where we planned on spending the rest of our weekend. Prior to this visit, we had never been and the only thing I knew about the town was that the university is a pretty big deal. When I was doing research for our road trip, I came across Guelph's downtown website and it was based on this that it seemed
When I first discovered St. Jacob's Farmer's Market back in 2010, my Mom and I were in the process of moving my brother into residence. He was about to start his first year of university and to make the most of the trip, we also planned to visit some family members. Since it was late August and we were driving, we also planned on picking up some local produce. Word on the street is that one of
I swear, this summer heat is almost worth it because I could eat these popsicles all day. In fact, I've been keeping a measuring cup full of this yogurt mixture in the fridge and every time another popsicle is eaten, I quickly fill up the popsicle mold and stick the whole thing in the freezer again. Yogurt popsicle for breakfast? Check. Lunch? Double check. In fact, I should have bought a coup
Of course, once the heat wave was here, it left almost immediately. Ever since Friday, we've had nothing but cloudy skies with cold blasts of wind and rain. Oh, there will be the odd moment the sun will peak out of the clouds, but now it's like someone turned the dial back on summer and now we're experiencing the spring weather we missed for most of May. Um....yay! Even though it was co
Would you believe that this isn't my first blog post on this recipe? The first one I started when these cookies were resting in the freezer. I typed out the recipe, went to do other things....and then - proof! Somehow it didn't save. A week later, when I finally had time to go and edit what I had started, there was nothing. I blame the internet. These cookies were so good that it just went and
* I was in a bit of a funk when I wrote this, so don't mind me - bad days happen to everyone! :) * There are some days where you just feel like you're on top of the world. You wake up early, the sun is shining, your hair decides to cooperate, and there's an extra bounce in your step. You arrive to work on time, go shopping during your lunch break and after work you come home and have
In my opinion, weekend breakfast is much better than weekday breakfast. During the week, we're often so rushed to get out the door to catch our morning commute (bus - another bus - subway) that I always find myself scarfing down a bowl of oatmeal or cold cereal with almond milk. When the weekend starts inching closer, I get excited because I start daydreaming about sunny-side-up eggs, marble ry
I seriously wanted to wait until September to share this recipe. The heavenly taste of these spiced pumpkin cookies made me daydream about walking through colourful, crunchy leaves, feeling the cool fall breezes on my face and seeing cute kids in Halloween costumes. I realize that last one is more of an October event, but if this was autumn now, I would have wanted to get this recipe out as soo
Sometimes when I post a recipe here, it can be something that I've been planning for a long time. Buying the specific ingredients, figuring out a time of when I can bake and take photos, thinking up ideas for the photos. I've been known to tease Trevor with recipe ideas for weeks on end. Other times though, a recipe will come from something I think up just after getting out of bed. I'll be
The word of the day is almonds. And cupcakes. Sweet almond cupcakes. Doesn't that name just roll off your tongue? They barely lasted three days in our kitchen. These pictures are killing me, I already want another one. Luckily, these are easy to make. Easy, peasy. Like you can make them in under an hour and toast your almonds while they are cooling. The icing is easy too. Really, now y
After baking the muffins, I knew I had to use up the rest of the Nutella. Between the span of making the muffins and making these cookies, I had found myself wandering to the kitchen on numerous occasions and ending with a spoonful of Nutella in my mouth. Show of hands, I'm not the only person who does this, right? Point being, this had to stop. And I'm glad that it did, otherwise these cook
Let me tell you a story.....about the first time I had Nutella. It was around this time last year. I was at Costco picking up groceries. There was a woman doing the food-sample-thing that Costco is famous for. She was cutting bread slices into quarters and using a sharp knife to spread Nutella, thickly, on each piece. (No, that's a lie - I can' remember the type of knife she was using. I jus
