What's In Season

I’m so fortunate to live only a short drive from the gorgeous Rocky Mountains. While January has brought us here in Calgary a ton of very cold days, I have been able to take advantage of some of the warmer Winter days to get outside.

I went with a friend on a cross-country skiing adventure one day which included copious amounts of hot chocolate before and after our our outing.

I also enjoyed hunkering down inside on super cold days (I’m talking -30C with the wind-chill) and cooking tons of seasonal and comfort food.

This month I’m sharing with you some of the recipes I’ve been cooking, books I’ve been reading and other favourites from January.

We participate in a farmer’s share where we get local produce every other week and currently I’m obsessed with parsnips! Martha Stewart’s recipe for Roasted Parsnips is pretty much how we prepare them at home – I cannot stop eating them!

And along with roasting a ton of parsnips, we’ve also been into roasted broccoli. One of my fav recipes for this is from Killing Thyme where she roasts broccoli with garlic & parmesan.

I’ve been cooking a lot of recipes from Donna Hay’s cookbook, ‘Life in Balance,’ which I received for Christmas. Two of my fav recipes so far are the Tomato & Roasted Quinoa Soup and Chicken, Zucchini & Feta Meatballs. Both recipes include simple ingredients but also have massive amounts of flavour!

My curiosity gave in to find out more about a Danish lifestyle trend ‘hygge’ which translates roughly to mean ‘coziness.’ This book was just too beautiful not to read so I downloaded it to find out more about how to incorporate this into my own life – I will report back!

I also got a library card so I’ve been borrowing books like crazy, making my way through a massive booklist I have on my phone including ‘A Modern Way to Cook,’ by Anna Jones. She divides the book into 20 minute, 30 minute etc meals which is wonderful for weeknight dinners. Last week we made the Smoky Pepper & White Bean Quesadillas which were absolutely delicious.

And, not to be forgotten my husband’s and my birthdays are coming up! We started a tradition a couple of years ago where we pick a cake recipe that we make for ourselves. A couple of years ago we almost took it a bit far when we made this insane Bobby Flay Toasted Coconut Cake that legitimately took almost 3 DAYS to make! However, it was SO worth it. This year we’re keeping things a little more simple. We’re going to make this classic Vanilla Cake with Caramel Pastry Cream from Anna Olson so stay tuned to my Instagram feed & Facebook page for updates on our birthday cake!

Until the next cooking adventure,
Jess