Category Drinks

Orange Spice Cookies (Gluten-free)

Recipe from ‘The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Cakes and Cookies’.  These turned out really well, both flavour and texture-wise.  I did find they needed to bake quite a bit longer than the recipe recommended.   The only modification I made was sprinkling the cookies with a bit of maple sugar before baking. Update:  It turns out the […]

Restaurant Review: Bier Markt

Tonight I attended my first ever Concordia Alumni Relations event: ‘an evening of beer tasting and food pairing at Bier Markt’. Though I had never heard of Bier Markt before registering for the event, I have since learned that it is an Ontario-based chain whose Montreal location has been open for a couple of months. […]

Cocktail Hour: Cranberry Margarita

I visited the Nutcracker Market recently, and decided to purchase some cranberry syrup.  This syrup is manufactured by a company called Nutra Fruit, which specializes in products made with cranberries grown here in Quebec.  According to their website, Quebec is the world leader in the production of organic cranberries.  I’m not quite sure why none of […]

Coconut Water vs. Maple Water

I do purchase coconut water on a fairly regular basis, because I enjoy the flavour, and also because I tend to drink a lot of water, and I know that it’s important to drink other liquids as well in order to maintain optimal salt, sugar, and mineral levels.  I recently came across maple water at […]

Cocktail Hour: Piger Henricus Gin

Okay, so, a micro-distilled gin, made in Longueuil, Quebec…how cool is that?  Exciting things are happening on the Quebec gin scene…first, Ungava…now this.  First, a little background information.  According their website, the distillery Piger Henricus is named after the latin word for a type of furnace used by alchemists during the middle ages.  The English translation of Piger Henricus […]

Foraging Fun: Yarrow, Self-Heal, and Wild Strawberries

I’ve recently set my mind towards trying to identify which edible (or otherwise useful) plants I could discover growing close to home…whether in my boyfriend’s yard up north, or near my apartment in Verdun.  Getting started with plant identification may not be the easiest thing, but once you learn the name of a certain species you will […]

Cocktail Hour: ‘Bowmore Sails Around the World’

The inspiration for this cocktail stems from a lack of gin.  However, the cocktail that resulted from the limited repertoire of ingredients I had on hand turned out to be quite delicious, so I decided to share it with all of you (whoever you might be): Recipe (for 2 cocktails): 3 oz Bowmore Scotch (this is […]

Champagne White Tea

Tea Time: Tea Sparrow Teas

I like the Tea Sparrow concept: premium loose-leaf teas, carefully selected from various sources, are shipped to your door each month, allowing you to taste varieties that you would perhaps otherwise never sample.  Since Tea Sparrow does not sell the tea, they can independently select those teas which they deem truly special, thus garnering exposure […]

Cocktail Hour: Ungava Gin

The first time I saw this gin at the SAQ, I was immediately attracted to it.  ‘A gin made with indigenous Quebec herbs?  How cool is that?’, I thought.  The only thing that would make it cooler would be an organic designation (locally grown corn is used to make the spirit the gin is made with , […]

How to Grow a Kombucha Scoby- From Store Bought Kombucha

I do enjoy the occasional kombucha…but at about $4.00 a pop, they’re not exactly cheap.  Combine a financial incentive like that with the fact that I like to do things myself, and you can see why I’ve wanted to try my hand at making kombucha for a while.  I only needed to decide was how to […]