TWO YEARS!

Firstly, thank you to everyone who continues to visit, read, comment, cook and so on.

That being said, my second year into blogging has been much different from the first. I’ve taken my photography beyond the boundaries of the web and got published in print here and there (the most notable being my little feature in Gastropost below). I also had the amazing team from Emerge TO make a profile on the blog which you can watch here. WARNING: I’m a little awkward but what can you do.Another big, big difference between this year and last year is that I switched to a .com. This made my blogging that much easier because (as I’m sure many of you can relate to), giving a URL to someone that has .wordpress in the middle gets a lot of puzzled looks. After switching over it made posting to social media that much easier as well, plus the URL doesn’t look too shabby on a business card either.

Speaking of social media, let me just say what we all already know: People of the internet are all crazy. This past year, I’ve had some…encounters…shall we say—about some of the most random topics you could imagine. Let’s just say I never knew someone could get so worked up over enchiladas (I’m looking at you reddit).

And of course, I got more unexplained and creepy google searches leading people to my blog.And then there’s the food. I’ve tried my best to keep it versatile, creative, and appealing to people with even the pickiest eating habits. I’ve come across some incredibly handy tips & tricks along the way, acquired some new cookware and gear, and ate far too much.

Here’s a list of some of my top culinary tricks from the last year (feel free to add your own in the comments, I’m always looking for more):

• To get puffy, chewy cookies, make them taller than they are wide and refrigerate them for 30 minutes before baking. This prevents them from spreading out excessively and they bake into a rounded ball of glory.
• If you cook with a cast iron skillet, get it really hot before adding the oil to the pan. This will prevent your food from sticking and make for easy sautéing, frying and baking.
• Boil unbaked dough for buns before placing them in the oven to get the chewiest results.
• If you’re doing any kind of gluten-free baking, try your best to keep the dough moist. Cover it with a damp towel, keep a spray bottle full of water on your work surface—whatever works. This will make it malleable and prevents it from crumbling while prepping.
• When cooking stir frys, Chinese soups, and making fillings or dipping sauces for spring rolls, rice wine vinegar is a must. It gives that extra punch of flavour without having to unload a bucket of soy sauce into your food.
• Baked eggs are amazing for groups. They make the perfect single-serving size, are less greasy than the fried alternative, and you can customize each one individually.

To end this off, I’ll leave you with a little gallery of my favourite posted recipes and photos from the past year.

You’re all the best (except for you enchilada hater),

Veronica Sheppard