Chocolate Granola. The Mast Brothers Cookbook.

I am loving the Mast Brothers Cookbook. On our last day in New York - also the day of the book release - I walked back to the factory to pick up a copy, and found they had all been signed! It wouldn't fit in my already overstuffed luggage, but it was well worth lugging it across the subway system to the airport. Also, have you seen the cookbook trailer? Adorable.

I made the chocolate date cake soon after arriving home - delicious - and marked the chocolate granola for later, soon realizing it would be a perfect give to give coworkers. No last minute baking for me!

A couple weeks ago I made three batches, scooped the granola into six jars and still had some left to keep around the apartment for breakfast. Win.

The recipe is pretty simple - Mix 1 cup each of almonds, pecans and rolled oats with a 1/2 cup of honey and 2 Tbsp brown sugar and place in a 350 degree oven for approximately 15 minutes and let cool. In the meantime, melt 3 Tbsp of butter* with 2 Tbsp cocoa powder and set aside. Combine a 1/2 cup each of cocoa nibs and dried cranberries (or cherries or figs or other suitable dried fruit) with the roasted nuts/oats and stir in the butter mixture. Once everything is cool, mix in 5 ounces of chopped chocolate (I chopped up chocolate from one of the Mast Brothers tablets).

*I used the canola oil from Mighty Trio Organics since I wasn't sure when people would be eating the granola. It worked out well since it's so nutty and light.

So there it is. Christmas gifts (well, some of them) done.

Some cookies. And a little ice cream.

Right after my January/February cake phase, I quickly moved on to cookies - Our little oven needed to be tested. First up were the Quinoa Cloud Cookies from 101 Cookbooks... Sadly they didn't turn out, though with nearly a kilo of quinoa flour left over, I'll be trying them again to fix whatever mistake I made (I suspect it was measurement of the flour; I should always use a scale is the weight measurements are there).

Moving on, I picked up a copy of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich early in March. With easy access to great ingredients (I settled into a lovely "off-festival-season" gig at Provisions by Duchess), the desserts in this book, featuring the flavours of a great chocolate, fresh cream or fruit, nuts and grains, are exactly what I want to make when I step into the kitchen.

I started with her recipe for Whole Wheat Sables, though I swapped out the whole wheat flour for spelt, as suggested, since that's what we had on hand. The dough comes together easily, with just a few ingredients, and is then shaped into a log before being refrigerated over night. I found I needed to cook them about four minutes longer than the suggested 12-14 minutes to get that perfect sandy texture, and to bring out the nutty flavour of the spelt flour (again, our oven...). I made Tartine's Lemon Cream to serve atop the cookies after a lamb dinner made my Rachel.

Next up were Nibby Buckwheat Cookies - Definitely the best of all the cookies I've baked this month. If I can get buckwheat flour into something, I will (these scones, for instance), and I was happy to see it featured prominently in this book. The pairing of buckwheat with cocoa nibs is genius. The flour has a wine like flavour, and cocoa nibs, depending on the brand and origin, often have a fruity flavour that compliments the flour well. She also notes that the buckwheat flour acts like cornstarch - but with better flavour - to give the cookies a fine, sandy texture. Alice Medrich knows her stuff. You can find the recipe here.

Now that things seem to be on the up weather wise, we've found a permanent spot in the freezer for the ice cream bowl. At Cally's Teas the other day, I found dried Lemon Verbena, and picked up a little to make a mint and lemon verbena ice cream also found in the book. This was my first attempt at "Philadelphia" style ice cream, without an egg based custard. The base is made with a fifty-fifty cream-milk mixture, along with a little sugar, and then your flavourings of choice.

I took my pint of ice cream into work on Monday, and I think everyone enjoyed its freshness, particularly since it happened to be the first real warm day since last week's storm.

Cookies and ice cream. Clearly the next step is ice cream sandwiches.

More eggs, please.

I have been eating a lot of eggs. And I mean a lot. Serben Free Range has a great deal on eggs each week at the City Market - two dozen for $8 - that I've been taking advantage of. Combined with a little spinach, and usually a piece of toast, I'm perfectly happy with poached, fried or scrambled eggs at either breakfast or dinner. For lunch, hard boiled eggs have become a quick standby.

By far the best egg-involved recipe I've come across is on the cover of Nancy Silverton's "A Twist of the Wrist" - Pappardelle with bagna cauda, wilted radicchio and a fried egg.

At first I was a little confused by this book. Really, most of Silverton's shortcuts are things I already do everyday; the majority of our pasta comes from a bag or box, our mayo from a jar and our tomatoes from cans. But what I think she's asking people to do is meet her halfway. To pick up a great can of tomatoes, or a really great pasta, and go from there, instead of heading toward frozen entrees or take out. Her combinations are quick and easy, and most importantly, tasty. Plus, they're introducing tinned/jarred items that I wouldn't normally keep stocked at home, like anchovies.

I've tried to make bagna cauda - a combo of butter, olive oil, anchovies, garlic, lemon and parsley - in the past and it didn't go well. The oil must have been too hot and the anchovies too cold, because they spattered everywhere and were burnt far before melting into the olive oil like they were supposed to. So this time I turned down the heat and pulled the anchovies out of the fridge and tin about an hour before I needed them, and everything went beautifully. In just five minutes the sauce was done. No jarred bagna cauda required.

Instead of pappardelle I used some tagliatelle we had in the pantry, and instead of radicchio, I braised some kale the night before and warmed it in the sauce before adding the pasta, pasta water and parmesan and topping everything off with the fried egg.

For such a quick meal this one is beautifully rounded. Salty and savoury from the sauce, silky smooth thanks to the egg and pasta. The kale cut through the richness well, as I imagine the radicchio would too. What I love most about this recipe is that it can be scaled up or down quite easily. I quartered it and had enough for yesterday's dinner with a little leftover for today's lunch. If you need something a little more hardy, it's easy enough to add that extra egg.