Photo: Nanaimo Bars / iVillage Made in Canada slideshow

Warning: This is not a healthy post, but I won’t take responsibility for that. Blame Canada. (Heh heh.)
No, I’m not in Canada this week. Truth be told, I haven’t even been bitten by Olympic fever. I’ve been too busy to watch and now, the last week of the games, I’m hanging in New Orleans, one of the most exciting places in this country for regional food. But, who knew—Canada has amazing regional food, too! And if there’s one thing that will finally cause me Olympic fever, it’s good eats.
I don’t much think about regional Canadian food. And I bet you don’t either. (Save for my Canadian readers, why would we?) But three fortuitously timed things happened since the start of the Olympics that have got me thinking about the foods of our friends up North.
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So, being the rabid football fan that I am (ahem), I excitedly whipped up a big batch of the Pioneer Woman’s Simple Perfect Chili for Superbowl Sunday… a week too early. My first concern, when I realized the error of my ways, was feeling like a complete idiot. But I immediately confessed on Twitter and found that I was not the only one to make this mistake. Maybe I wan’t an idiot after all! Or at least I was in good company. With that out of the way, my next concern was: what would I make on actual Superbowl Sunday?
Hard as I tried, I couldn’t move away from chili. How was I going to make this work. Chicken chili? Veggie Chili? A smoky version of beef chili made with chipotles? No. No. No. I needed something different. Something like green chili. Yes! With pork. YES! Pork chili verde. Now I was onto something.
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Yea. I said it. Bacon is optional if you are crazy. Or if you are a vegetarian. But if you eat meat and not bacon, I stand by my comment. Bring it on. In the meantime, let me tell you about this delicious slaw.
For the first night of Hanukkah I gave the ChowPapa this Maple Bacon Peanut Brittle. (Yes. Bacon. For a Jewish holiday. We are, after all, a family that celebrates Christmaskah.) The first thing he said after his first bite was that it would be awesome on a spinach salad. He was right, though spinach salad seemed a slightly boring backdrop for these sweet and smoky treats. Instead, I decided to adapt a recipe for Kale Slaw.
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Photo: ex.libris

As you’ve surely gathered from my recent posts, it’s been a bit of a bloodbath here. I cannot stop making sweets! After a long weekend of hard work finishing the nursery—and rewarding ourselves with decadent treats along the way—we needed a light, but satisfying Sunday night dinner.
On one of my breaks from telling the ChowPapa where to hang this and where to put that, I picked up a deliciously gooey, fresh ball of mozzarella. With a day old loaf of bread and heirloom tomatoes from Saturday’s farmers market hanging around, Panzanella was the natural thing to make.
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Photo: Su-Lin

My ChowBaby is only 2 1/2. His school program is two mornings a week, with caregiver. No packed lunch needed. Even so, I’m working hard to diversify his lunch options and come up with ideas that’ll give me a head start on sending him to school with lunch in tow.
I’m big on making lunch out of leftovers from dinner the night before. Since I work from home and Isaac and his sitter are usually home at lunchtime, too, almost anything works. It can be messy, it can require heating—we’re all good. But, as many of you know (better than me), the same won’t be true when we start packing lunch.

The idea of crepes came to me as I was thinking of new ways to approach sandwiches (pinwheels, wraps, quesadillas, using lavash, etc.). The great thing about crepes is that they also make a delicious, sophisticated dinner. So make a big stack, fill, and serve alongside salad for dinner. Take 5 minutes the next day to fill and fold for a great packed lunch. We went with spinach, ham and butter (cheddar or gruyere would be great, too), but the possibilities are endless. Be creative!
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If you’ve been reading ChowMama for a while, you may have noticed a slow—but steady!—increase in sweets recipes over the last few months. I’d like to say it’s my “everything in moderation” philosophy in action as Isaac gets older but, really, it’s all about my pregnancy! Isaac and the ChowPapa have just gotten lucky as a result!
Most of my recent baked goodies made use of seasonal fruit, like my Sour Cream Peach Pie and Cinnamon Cardamom Cherry Crisp (both of which can be made with frozen fruit now that summer is over). Others, like these Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, are simple classics that are fun to make and enjoy with young kids. After all, once you know the deliciousness of homemade chocolate chip cookies, who wants the processed packaged kind?!
In contrast, my latest concoction, this Apple & Candied Bacon Upside Down Cake, is totally over the top. All I have to say is: I’m carrying in my uterus a child who could easily live on the outside. I want what I want and my appetite knows no bounds!
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