Chocolate Dipped Orange Shortbread Rounds

As I mentioned before, I never used to be a big fan of shortbread. Maybe because it wasn't sweet enough for me. In the past few years though, I have started baking it more, and have discovered a few important lessons. The most important being that you really do need to make sure that the butter is softened. The first time I made these cookies I had to make the dough twice, because the first batch crumbled. With butter at the right temperature it was much easier to work with. I love the mix of orange and chocolate in this recipe.

Creamy Chicken and Green Bean Toss

This is a nice mid week dinner, but I would recommend if you want to cook it quickly (about 20 minutes) do a bit of the prep in advance. I cut the chicken and sliced the onion, as well as prepped the green beans before hand. It made the actual preparation pretty quick and smooth. While I'm not usually a huge fan of Israeli or pearl couscous, I did like it with this meal. Another note, I searched high and low, and eventually found sumac, however I did notice the recipe did mention if you can't find it you could replace it with smoked paprika. I'm not sure how it would change the flavour, because as it was, this dish was super tasty. 

Chocolate Toffee Shortbread Cups

I've only recently started enjoying shortbread, and realizing how versatile it can be. Now that the holiday season is coming quickly upon us I figured what better time to start trying some different recipes. This one comes from Canadian Living's December issue. There are five basic cookie dough recipes (sugar, shortbread, biscotti, chocolate and ginger) and four different variations to try with each dough. Seeing that I absolutely love anything with toffee and chocolate I decided to try out this recipe, and as usual, it did not disappoint. I'm sure my Econ study group will enjoy them too!

Vegetable Quinoa Soup

This soup is packed with healthy food - quinoa, sweet potatoes, kale. And it was really quick to prepare and tasty to boot. Next time I might use yams, just to add a pop of colour.

Shredded Pork Chili

Chili is such a great and versatile dish. It can really be thrown together with whatever you have in your pantry, and is fun to experiment with. I remember in University one of my roommates serving hers over rice, love that idea. This recipe uses the leftover pork I had from this recipe here. I had frozen the rest of the pork in 1 cup portions, and all I had to buy to put this together was a can of tomatoes and a can of kidney beans.

Fondue's and Don'ts

My family used to have oil fondue's on Christmas Eve every year. It was a lot of fun, but also a little precarious. Hot pots of oil, usually a dry Christmas tree, and a few clutzy girls (I was the worst) - I think we were all on edge most of the time. After I had a wee bit of a grease fire in 4th year university, we opted to change it up and do Raclette, which is awesome. Today's post however, is about fondue, and while I still love to fondue, now I keep it to cheese and chocolate.

Fondue's and Don'ts
- Do use quality ingredients in the fondue, good cheese and wine are musts
- Don't worry too much about the dippers - the focus is on the cheese - a few blanched veggies, apples, and some breadsticks and bread and you are good to go
- Do serve a light green salad on the side, but don't worry if it doesn't get eaten!
- Do invite friends over to share
- Don't try and have too many people, crowded pots are never a good idea

Mexican Pork and Rice Bowl

Canadian Living's November issue has on the cover 'The Comforts of Home: 20 Easy Slow Cooker Recipes'. It is a little misleading however, because it is really one slow cooker recipe for shredded pork that yields 20 different potential recipes. I decided to roast the pork one day, and then make two of the recipes. I will have some leftover, but it says it will freeze for up to 3 weeks. The pork recipe is super easy. You take a 1.35 kg boneless pork shoulder blade roast, trimming and discarding any excess fat. Put in slow cooker, with 1 1/2 cups beef broth and pinch salt and pepper. Cook on low for 8 hours, let cool slightly, discarding liquid. Using two forks, 'shred' pork, makes 4-6 cups.

The first recipe I made was a mexican rice bowl, and was very reminiscent of a burrito bowl at a Chipotle or Red Burrito. You could add avocado or cheddar cheese to kick it up a notch if you want. We added some fresh cilantro, which is key for any great mexican dishes.