
Recipe: Roasted Fennel & Tomato Soup
We love the taste of homemade soup in our house especially during the frosty winter months! A few roasted vegetables and some excellent veggie broth go a long way to bringing warmth to the body. Since we are exploring fennel this week, I decided to roast up some fennel and Roma tomatoes. In the end, this has become one of our family's favourite soups. Roasted fennel and tomatoes. Final soup! All photos by Robert Gontier. iPhone 6. Roasted Fennel & Tomato Soup Prep Time: 15 mi

Recipe: Roasted Fennel
Sometimes one of the best ways to eat vegetables is with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Raw fennel has a very distinct flavour but when it gets roasted the flavour mellows into a delicious caramelized taste. For even more depth of flavour, sprinkle a little Parmesan on top while it's still hot from the oven! Fresh fennel from the market. Sliced and ready to be roasted. Final look with a few fennel sprigs over top. All photos by Robert Gontier. iPhone 6. Roasted Fennel P

Recipe: Blueberry Scones
I wanted to end blueberry week with something tasty so I decided to try my hand at blueberry scones. These buttery, flaky pieces of goodness were exactly what the family needed. I even brought some extras in for my work colleagues. The fresh, whole blueberries held up well during the cooking process. It was great to have the sweetness of the sugar crunch on top with a explosion of blueberry in the centre. Dough, blueberries and lemon zest ready to go. Freshly cut and ready to

Recipe: Blueberry Pancakes
Sometimes you just want a little comfort food and with our family it always comes back to pancakes! We love them with lots of different ingredients, including banana, walnuts and occasionally chocolate chips but for this week it was all about blueberries. The tart depth of flavour worked in great contrast to the pancake batter as well as the maple syrup. One thing, among many, I love about Canada is there's always access to high quality maple syrup. What a treat. The finished

Recipe: Blueberry Pie
Up next in our weekly ingredient exploration is blueberries! They are so tart and juicy and make a terrific snack for adults or toddlers. We have just started giving blueberries to the twins whole (without cutting them in half) and they are loving them. Their bodies are still learning to digest the skins of the berry but I'll spare you the details. I wanted to continue to hone my pastry skills, so to start off blueberry week I made a simple but tasty blueberry pie. Blueberrie

Recipe: Spinach Pasta
For our final spinach recipe of the week, we cooked up a spinach pasta sauce along with freshly made pasta from one of our favourite restaurants - Terroni. Here's the noodles below. Spinach Pasta Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Total Time: 35 minutes Ingredients: 2 handfuls of spaghetti 1 cup of spinach (from frozen) 1 cup of broccoli 1/2 cup of pesto 1 onion 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp of salt Instructions: 1) Saute the onions in the olive oil on medium heat.

Recipe: Spinach & Potato Gratin
There's something kind of nice about a mid-week dinner that can be put together in 20 minutes and then placed in the oven while you feed & bathe the kids. My husband and I love tucking the twins in and then enjoying a grown-up meal together. There also might be a little wine involved. Tonight I made a Spinach & Potato Gratin with onions and some excellent cheese. I love Ina Garten and have adapted one of her succulent recipes to get the results below. This is the beginning st

Recipe: Spinach Smoothie plus Spinach Ice Pops!
Alright friends, we've made it through "Carrot Week" and "Grapefruit Week" and here comes Spinach Week! Whether you buy it from your local farmer's market or the grocery store, use it fresh or frozen, this is one of the most adaptable vegetables. You can sneak it into just about anything for added nutrition. We often add it to pasta, omelettes and shakes for the whole family. That brings us to the first spinach recipe of the week - a spinach smoothie (don't worry, it still ta

Recipe: Grapefruit Tart
I wanted to see if I could bake a Grapefruit Tart inspired by a recent episode of the Great Canadian Baking Show. I love the way the grapefruit curd mixes with the crumbled roasted pistachios and sweet flaky crust. I ended up mixing two recipes from the Lark & Linen blog and Martha Stewart. The results made my family smile and it was a nice dessert to finish off the work week. I loved rolling out this pliable dough. I popped it in the freezer for 30 minutes and then blind bak

Recipe: Grapefruit Smoothie
After a jam-packed day, it's nice to have a little something that's refreshing and reminds you of warmer summer days. It's energizing and revitalizing. So if you need a splash of citrus, this might be the smoothie for you. Grapefruit Smoothie Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 0 minutes Total Time: 10 minutes Ingredients: 1 grapefruit 1 orange 1 lemon 1 banana 1 bunch of mint 1 cup of ice 1/2 cup of water Instructions: 1) Peel & de-seed the grapefruit, orange, and lemo