I am not a baker or any kind of dessert maker. Cookies, muffins, cupcakes, pastries. Fail, fail, fail, fail. I blame it on my disinterest in eating sweets. Let me clarify so no one accuses me of being a liar when they see me with an Oh Henry, because I guarantee that you will catch me with many in my lifetime. What I'm saying is... I think about chips all day. I smell salted fries and my eyes dream and my mouth waters. When someone offers candy, cake or ice cream to me it takes me zero effort to say no. If no one puts any of those items in front of my face, I would not think about them until the next time I see it. And sometimes the thought of something sweet will bring up the need for savoury. But... BUT! There are days when the right chocolate at the right time, just feels so right. There is a certain time in a month that that does happen.

What this is building towards is that I had a very proud dessert making moment. Although it didn't take much skill to pull off, for someone who often burns pillsbury doughboy cookies, these cheesecake phyllo cups with raspberry sauce turned out. That's my standard for my dessert. They turned out.

Note that I served these to friends and my washroom never became the focal point of the evening.
Note two. These were inspired by the cheesecake cups my cousins' grandma made one Christmas. I can promise one thing. You will never hear me adding my own flair to desserts. I will never go off the books.

Supersize Me and Food Inc. did nothing for me. Ageless fries and corn pumped cows were of no concern. It took a satirical headline photo from the Daily Show to care that the health of the animal I eat, affects my health. It's not that I didn't understand it before, but I grew up with the idea that there was prestige in always getting the best deal. Why would I buy one chicken breast for $6 if I could get a pack of 6 for $11? It never occurred to me that I needed to shop for the best deal for my body. I can't remember what the bit was on the Daily Show, but the photo was of four pigs in a pig farm lined up like sardines on their sides. Aside from their pen being filthy, it was just sad to see. That's when I made, what I hope to be permanent, a turn. Educate myself more about the meat (and food in general) I eat. I was given a couple of recommended knowledgeable butchers in town that sell local and ethical meat. It's a bit difficult to visit them during the weekday before closing hour, but I've accepted that I probably shouldn't eat as much meat as I do. So visiting the butcher on the weekend and only bringing home a brown bag enough for one or two meals per week really isn't a deprivation. I'm trading in my previously frozen $10 pack of 4 steaks for one juicy grassfed tenderloin.

First attempt was at Windsor Quality Meats on Main. I was meat shy and didn't inquire as much as I should have about where the meat was from, or what was a good cut for how I was cooking that night. I just pointed at the tenderloin. "Is there a piece you want in particular?" "Uh, just a good one, please." I have a long education ahead of me.

Jamie Oliver walked me through this one. Red wine sauce for my tenderloin and thyme oven roasted carrots. The next night I repeated the sauce and made a fried patty which was originally intended to be coconut flour pasta. Despite the internet telling me that coconut flour makes poor pasta, I wouldn't believe the opinion of many until my dough crumbled all over my pasta maker.

No bread and didn't want to spend money buying bread. Solution: finally use my coconut flour again. The canadian in me was tempted to stray from my plan for a sandwich as I whipped up the batter. I was ready to fry up two eggs and two strips of bacon, and drizzle copious amounts of maple syrup on the cakes. Then I got sad thinking about the unused vegetables. Back to the panwich! And it was pantabulous. The runny egg ran messily all over my hands, but pantabulous!

Pancakes: coconut flour, honey, vanilla, almond milk, salt
Panwich: grilled red peppers and zucchini, runny pan fried egg, spinach, alfalfa sprouts, onion, avocado vinaigrette.
Avocado vinaigrette: avocado, olive oil, sherry, dijon mustard, cayenne pepper, salt