I’ll be the first to admit it; basil and Smarties… it’s a peculiar pair.
I didn’t start out wanting to make basil and smarties cookies, I had leftover basil, not enough to make pesto and I didn’t want it to go to waste.
Lemon-lime basil cookies, that’s what I wanted – every refreshing lemony bite tastes like summer, and yet I was out of lemons and limes.
For some reason, maybe because it was the only candy I had lying around, I wondered what I’d get by infusing basil’s sweet subtle minty flavour into a Smarties cookie.

What I got were these Smarties & Basil cookies; rustic, crispy and slightly spicy from the basil and molasses

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Pushing Daisies was a charmingly quirky series about a pie-maker who could bring the dead back to life by touching them – a second touch would kill them again.
The characters lived in this visually stunning whimsical world, where they solved bizarre murders using the pie-maker’s abilities.
Pie was a central theme in the show, with much of the action taking place in the pie-maker’s shop, the Pie Hole.

Pushing Daisies made me really want to bake a pie! And to this day, I can’t think of baking a pie without thinking of myself as a ‘pie-maker’ – said in narrator Jim Dale’s voice.

I had a few firsts last year as far as culinary expeditions go; I baked my first apple pie!
I’ve been meaning to bake a pie for a while now; it’s on my to-make list, I’m just not ready to delve into the complexities of pie crusts yet.
In Pushing Daisies, the pie-maker’s girlfriend bakes Gruyère into the crust of the very special apple pie (laced with homeopathic antidepressants) she sends to her aunts.
One day I shall try my hands at the perfect flaky crust, there’s vegan coconut oil crust I’m itching to try.

Being my first try, I figured I’d be forgiven for using store-bought pie crust.
I chose the TJ’s crust for its simple ingredients; flour, butter, palm oil, water and salt.
And the pie filling is an old recipe I’d been holding on to for years, it’s simple too, apples, lemon juice, sugar and spices.

Unfortunately something went wrong and my crust fell apart, it thawed and broke into pieces.
I just piled them on the apples and hoped for the best.
In hindsight, I should have re-rolled the dough.
Still, the pie turned out really well for a first try.
I feel hopeful… I’m on my way to becoming a better pie-maker

Have I ever mentioned that I was baptised in the Presbyterian Church?
No? That’s ok; it’s not something that usually comes up in conversation.
Unless you find yourself on a long train ride, with a group going to a conference on baptism – then, you’ll have tell your baptism story and even say; “I guess I’m a Presbyterian, sort of.”
Do you know what else is ‘sort of Presbyterian’? Graham flour! (I know, stay with me for a second).
So back in the 19th century, Presbyterian Minister and presumably health food nut Rev. Sylvester Graham was convinced that processed white flour was ‘teh evilz’.
He invented Graham Bread believing that the bran and germ were healthiest and most nutritious part of the wheat and vital to health.
With Graham flour, named for Rev. Graham, the bran and germ of the wheat kernel are coarsely ground and added to finely milled endosperm to create coarse-textured flour.
I buy graham flour mostly because I like the texture; it’s similar to whole wheat but has a higher bran content and not as dense.
It makes the most wonderful bread; nutty, lightly sweet and soft.

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I have a confession to make: whenever I’m at Ikea I always end up at the food market, I usually ponder how bizarre it is to get excited about food from a furniture store, and I always walk away with some lingonberry jam and Daim.
I love lingonberry jam…
It’s one of those preserves that has a delicious balance of sweetness and tartness – it’s used as a condiment in sweet and savoury dishes in Scandinavia where it grows wild.
I usually stir it into my porridge, use it in thumbprint cookies, or just on toast or pancakes.

I initially used lingonberry jam in this pie only because I was out of blueberry jam – which is what the recipe I found calls for.
This pie is buttery, sweet and slightly tart – a simple and truly lovely dessert.
It’s based on the traditional Icelandic ‘wedded bliss cake’, which from what I’ve gathered uses rhubarb or prune jam, but I think lingonberry jam works perfectly here too.
This first time I made it, I served it with vanilla sauce (using Bird’s Custard Powder).
It’s good with whipped cream, or ice cream or plain.
It’s also one of those pies that tastes better the next day – I call them ‘next day pies’

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Every summer, if we’re lucky we get a shipment of apples and kiwis from New Zealand; this is one of the many little things that make my summers so awesome.
This year’s bounty arrived just as we were getting ready to head for the Sunshine Coast for a few days,
We packed our little cooler with apples and kiwis, gave some away to friends and neighbours, and for the next few days we snacked on apples and kiwis and tossed some in salads and smoothies.

For the past few years we’ve been getting Envy apples, a newer variety of apples from Enza.
I first wrote about Envy apples back in 2009, and a few years of eating them – they’ve become my utterly favourite kind of apple.
It’s available in limited quantities in grocery stores, so it’s really a treat whenever I get my hands on some.
Envy is bright red, big, crisp, and perfectly sweet; and resistant to browning.
It’s obviously an ‘eating’ apple, but with that many apples I had to try it in some recipe of some sort.

I love crumble, it’s such a simple and versatile dessert, it’s my quick and easy go-to dessert for when I want to use up my too many fruits.
This Envy apple crumble has a few of my favourite snack items; dried mango and flakes of toasted coconuts.
I also added a few slices of kiwi… just because.
There isn’t really a recipe for this crumble, but here’s a very good recipe I use as a guide for all my crumbles.
I use coconut oil for that warm distinctive coconut flavour.
This crumble barely stuck around!