My Muskoka Kitchen

10/23/2026

Fat Pizza, stone baked, puffed and ready for sandwiches tomorrow.
This is a great hybrid sourdough-yeasted pizza dough. Used same day or next day ( with more fermentation), or using it like a bread, akin o focaccia for sandwiches.
Tomorrow is a special day; a special sandwich day , Italian style in .

10/20/2026

The Sweet sight of Sweet Potatoes.

You’ll need a mandolin to cut these evenly to 1/8” thick.
Toss in olive oil, thyme, hinted sage, coriander powder, mustard powder, garlic & onion powders, hint of paprika.
Grated Asiago and Quattrocento cheese, & fresh pressed ricotta are mixed in, with some 35% cream to give just enough moisture to toss it, and keep the sweet potato slices from sticking. Begin layering it in the chosen bakeware. I prefer glass Pyrex, in part so that I can see I while it cooks.
While layering, more grated cheese and cream find their way in.
Cover with foil.
Start at 400F for 15 minutes, then drop it to 350- 360F for a good hour, until tender.
This is a decadent, rich and flavourful dish, requiring a small portion, but with a drawn out and happy savouring.
Life here in is about deliciousness, with so many ways to get there , share it and hopefully make more happiness in our corner of the world.

10/20/2026

Make it special.
A few extra moments in the plating actually makes me pause longer, savouring with the eyes, with a bit of longing for the moment when we sit down in for something traditional and lovingly prepared.

10/19/2026

Rolls for Four.
These are the big ones; the single portion, quite enough as part of a main dish.
This recipe touches on a Croatian construction a friend of mine used to make, using either fermented cabbage leaves or a good amount of red sauerkraut atop the filling before rolling it up.
The filling happens with the following:
Fried onion, leeks, garlic, red pepper, apple,a bit of yam or butternut mash, combination of couscous and basmati rice, and all the herbs and spices
Try thyme, marjoram, coriander , mustard powder, garlic powder, hinted cayenne to taste; all good flavour companions for the ground pork which is the feature meat for these cabbage rolls.
This is a flexible filling that also works well for stuffed peppers, which I also made while I was at it.
Spiced up a bit more, with addition of more garlic, abundant ginger, green onions, hinted soya sauce and thimble of sesame oil, gives a potential filling for versions of wontons, gyoza, empanadas or Asian style meatball ( glazed with Hoisin or Sweet chilli sauce for example).

Options, experimentation and savouring are never ending in this kitchen,

10/08/2026

Three times a Charm!
Three harvest Relishes:
- Zucchini Relish
- Rouge Apple Relish
- Green Tomato Relish
and each quite different from the others
This year brought a lot of green tomatoes,which meant resurrecting a recipe I developed years ago, but with a few tweaks.
This particular Green Tomato Relish offers itself to also be blended smooth into great dipping sauce, especially for Samosas and Springrolls, Sausage rolls, Empanadas, Jamaican Patties and Cornish Pasties.
The pantry is getting nicely stocked of favourite preserves; enough to last the coming year, and some to give to friends and family.

10/06/2026

This was a season to relish, in the preserving sense.
Already, the favourite Zucchini Relish and the Rouge Apple Relish-cum-Chutney are in the pantry.
Dare we do another like the green tomato Relish, with all these green tomatoes that were picked before last nights -2 degrees??
I think there is enough to do it, as well as some fried green cherry tomatoes, with some leeks, onion, garlic, parsley and grapes, in a version of couscous salad.
It feels like this was a tough year for beautiful, abundant and ripe tomatoes. We have volume, but nearer to the end of season, and without their blushing colours.
So, save the seeds, sow in February and make a new garden plan for 2027 in

10/04/2026

Autumn in a Bottle

A cross between a relish and chutney, greater versatility for culinary needs, with the colours, flavours and aromas of Autumn preserved for the coming season in

09/27/2026

09/24/2026

Begin with a Seed
All our tomatoes are grown from seed, at harvest the seed is saved for the next year’s sowing.
There are regulars, but also many newcomers that I’m very curious about that I’ve seen at a few garden centres, and need to research to see if I want to make a place for them.
Discover, play, discover more and savour is what it’s all about for me; garden clothes and Wellington boots, kneeling on the ground, fingers combing the earth like casting magic.
It is more than magic as a season unfolds all the beauty, characteristics, purpose, relationship and flavour from the information carried in one little but powerful seed. This is true for all life.

09/23/2026

Never underestimate the possibility.
Celery. What can I tell you?
We’ll, actually, more than I thought, because this isn’t an easy ingredient for me.
But, I’m willing and hopeful when planting it each year -and it did bounteously well, which means gearing up to make it sing somehow.
Celery Soup!
This celery produced thin stalks with abundant, super-flavourful leaves, so technically it’s a celery leaf soup.
No matter. Fry up the chopped leeks, onion, garlic, a handful of parsley, and a mountain of celery leaf. Chopped up apple and potato enter into the slow frying before liquid is added.
Stock is made from all the stems & ingredient scraps, but a little leftover whey goes in as well.
Seasoning includes fresh basil, thyme, marjoram, black pepper, white pepper, coriander and sea salt
Cream is added at the end.
The real finish comes during plating when a small spoonful of both scape pesto and nasturtium pesto are placed both in the bottom of the soup bowl, and a bit more on top as decoration.
A bit of grated cheese like Conte’ , old white Cheddar or crumbled blue cheese brings it all together.
Fabulous Celery Leaf Soup that delivered what I could not have anticipated. This was a good adventure that began in the garden, and finished up dazzling the palate in
Never underestimate!