My grandma used to love to make popovers — popovers are easy once you get the knack for making sure your oven is ridiculously hot before you put them in and do not open the oven door before they are ready.

This delicious and satisfying almond pone works well for breakfast or alongside a meaty stew or chili at dinner time. Try substituting the bacon with fried chicken skins or pork cracklings, you won’t regret it.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

serves 8

• 1 pound of bacon, roughly chopped (optional)
• 1 T butter
• 2 med leeks, chopped
• 5 eggs
• 1 c cream
• 4 c milk
• 1 t salt
• 1/4 t fresh ground black pepper
• 4 1/2 c almond flour
• 1/2 c parmesan (optional)
• other optional additions: chili powder, bell peppers, mushrooms, goats cheese

Directions:
Butter a 9×13 inch glass dish, set aside.
In an iron skillet melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the bacon and sweat 2 minutes.
Add the leeks and continue to sweat until the bacon is cooked and the leeks are translucent. Don’t let them caramelize or brown.
Remove from heat.
Place the almond flour, parmesan, salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix.
Make a well in the center of the almond flour and add in the cream and mix.
Whisk in the eggs making sure they are completely incorporated, but don’t overmix.
Whisk in 2 cups of milk, making sure there are no lumps.
Whisk in remaining cups of milk. Do not over whip/whisk.
Pour into pan and place in oven.
Cook for 35-45 minutes.

Very good served with gravad lax for breakfast or with ox-tail curry at dinner.

I developed this recipe in memory of my mother-in-law, Oma Harriet, on the first anniversary of her passing away. August 30th was her birthday so it seems appropriate to post this recipe today. They came out surprisingly well! I used coconut flour for the crust and the delicate coconut flavor is a nice complement to the rich, sweet lemon curd.

Oma Harriet was a great collector of old recipe books so I searched them for lemon squares recipes. I discovered that it seems to be a relatively recent recipe probably first created in the 1950s or later. It also seems to be a uniquely American recipe. If anyone has any more info on the origins of this recipe I’d love to hear it!

Yule Kaka (Christmas Cake) is a tradition in our house. Yule kaka is a sweet, buttery, cardamom-flavoured fruit bread that is eaten with jam and cream. I was delighted to find that cashew butter and flour have just the right sort of fat and flavor to be a perfect substitute for wheat flour in this recipe. Personally I find it especially delicious with raspberry or rose-hip jam. The slight tartness that they add to this treat is just the thing. This year I tried it with goji berries, dried cherries and pistachio nuts. But I think it would be much better without the pistachios and with raisins as well.

Every once in a while I get lucky and today I got lucky.  I am landscaping a section of my parent’s garden, which means I have to go up to their place in North Van.  If I have a car on my trip up there and it is the summer time then I always, always, always stop at Bob’s fruit stand.  This is especially true during peach season.  I can easily eat five peaches in a sitting and allow myself to gorge on them during their short, beautiful season.  Bob’s trucks their produce up from the Okanagan so their stuff is local and absolutely gorgeous.

As I was preparing for my peach fix, I happened to notice a little something new at Bob’s.  Sour cherries.  I asked about them and discovered that the season here is about a week long, which is why I have never seen them before.

These little beauties are going to be my secret weapon in an upcoming pie competition.  Yes.  You read that correctly.  My next pie competition is coming up and the judges are not going to know what hit them!

Right now my plan is top secret so I can’t share too many details.  One ingredient that my utterly delicious pie will contain though is roasted sour cherries.  Here’s how to do it.

Directions

1) Stem your cherries, toss them with a little olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Pop them in the oven at 350 F and stir every ten minutes or so.

2) The cherries will split and release their juice and once they are soft, they are done.  Let them cool and then remove the pits.  I am freezing mine because I didn’t want to take a chance on them spoiling if canning didn’t work.  I drained the juice before freezing and froze it separately.

Check back in September for my ultra-decadent pie entry.

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Shonagh explores the guts of food in An Offal Experiment.

And I was a wreck. I had made two test pies. One was perfect – the second was a horrific disaster. The disaster pie led to a reworking of my pie plans, a subtraction of sorts. I am definitely the type of person who likes to overcomplicate, subtraction is not my forte. While I know this is my pattern, I generally don’t catch it early enough. Ahhh… getting older.

So there I was the day before the competition, ready to start the most nerve wracking part – the pastry. Here is my process.

Easy to make, easier to eat this cherry-almond crunch is delicious for breakfast with yogurt or tasty as an afternoon snack.

This delicious traditional walnut torte is grain-free and sugar-free. Made with chocolate, walnuts, cloves, cinnamon and cherries it is also an anti-oxidant rich powerhouse. No sin here! Only goodness for your health and your tastebuds 🙂

Torte:

• 4 oz (110g) organic raw chocolate nibs (ground)
• 6 T local grass-fed butter
• 3 T date syrup*
• 1 t cinnamon (ground)
• 1/2 t cloves (ground)
• 4 eggs separated
• 4 T date syrup*
• 3/4 c walnuts (ground)
• dash salt

This is a delicious and simple, colorful treat for a mid-afternoon high-tea or a late night dessert. When I was preparing the petit fours for this photo shoot, a friend kept eating them almost as fast as I could put them on the tray. They’re irresistible, unless you have a nut allergy.

I had the opportunity to experiment with my cashew pie crust this weekend when making blueberry pie for our annual farm picnic out at our local cowshare. It is best to cook the crust and filling separately or the crust gets too dark. Featured in the Hella Delicious 2012 recipe calendar. This pie-crust received a lot of complements at our cowshare’s farm day!

Makes one 9″ pie.