Best canadian cooking, food & wine books according to redditors

Is this her book; ZED? If buying the book helps her continue her wonderful project then I will gladly pick it up.

I have a disability as well and I know how shitty these Canadian winters can be for us, so her story really hit home with me.

Can you please let her know that while she may be purely thinking of others, at least one more person is now thinking of her as well. :)

Shoutout to Jen Fisch, author of The Easy 5-Ingredient Ketogenic Diet Cookbook (Amazon link). This is a modified version of her cream cheese muffin recipe. I would definitely classify these as a fat bomb, breakfast, or dessert!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond flour
  
• 5 Tbsp butter, melted
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2 Tbsp cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  
• 2 Tbsp heavy cream
  
• 3/4 Tbsp baking powder
  
• 2 Tbsp all-natural peanut butter
  
• 1 Tbsp Hershey’s dark chocolate cocoa powder
  
• Liquid stevia (to taste)(I didn’t measure how much I added, but would guess 1/4 tsp or so. Even if you don’t like sweets, I’d recommend a little bit to offset the bitterness of the cocoa powder)
  
  
  

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare 6 regular sized muffin cups by greasing bottom and sides with 1 Tbsp of melted butter.
   
   
2. In small bowl, cream together cream cheese and heavy cream until well combined. Add eggs and remaining 4 Tbsp of melted butter. Mix well and set aside.
   
   
3. In medium bowl, mix together almond flour and baking powder. Add cream/butter mixture to flour and blend with a hand mixer until batter is smooth.
   
   
4. Add peanut butter, cocoa powder, and stevia to muffin batter and continue to blend with hand mixer. Batter should be thick, dark, and smooth.
   
   
5. Divide batter evenly into 6 prepared muffin cups, using a rubber scraper to get all the batter into the tin.
   
   
6. Bake for 13 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to a wire wrack to cool. Serves 6 (in case that wasn’t obvious, haha).
   
   
   Macros per Muffin:
   
   Cal - 290
   
   Carbs - 5.3 g
   
   Protein - 8 g
   
   Fat - 27 g
   
   Fiber - 2.8 g
   
   Net Carbs - 2.5 g!

I sometimes do the one-dish-for-the-whole-week thing too. These are my favourite and least expensive recipes:


Mint-Flavoured Lentil Soup -- Serves 6-8

• 4 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 2 med onions, chopped
  
• 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
  
• 1 small hot pepper, finely chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
  
• 2 cups stewed tomatoes
  
• 7 cups hot water
  
• 1 cup green lentils
  
• 1/2 tsp salt (original recipe calls for 2 1/2 tsps, but this was too salty for me)
  
• 1 tsp cumin
  
• 1 tsp pepper
  
• 4 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
  
  Method
  
  

1. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
   
2. Add onions, garlic, hot pepper, and ginger. Cook for 10 minutes.
   
3. Stir in rest of ingredients except mint. Bring to a boil.
   
4. Lower heat to medium. Cover and cook until lentils are soft (~45 mins).
   
5. Stir in mint and serve.
   
   This recipe comes from a great, but obscure cookbook called Arab Cooking on a Saskatchewan Homestead. The author's family came to Canada during the Great Depression and this book is a compendium of all the traditional Syrian dishes that his mom made using cheap and easy-to-find ingredients. Each chapter is built around a specific ingredient like chickpeas, potatoes, burghul, etc. Totally useful when you're trying to follow a budget and only have few main ingredients in the kitchen.
   
   Simple Lentil Dal with Fresh Ginger Green Chiles, and Cilantro
   
   Okay, this is technically one pot and a pan, but it's so cheap and delicious that it's worth the extra washing up. The recipe is for four, but it's easily multiplied. Also, once you know how to make the basic lentil mixture (lentils, turmeric, salt, water), you can completely change the flavour of the finished dish by adding a different tempering oil. The one in the link is quite tasty, but this one is equally good and even simpler:
   
   Cumin and Dried Red Chiles Tempering Oil -- Serves 4
   
   

• 2 1/2 tablespoons of canola oil
  
• 1 1/4 teaspoons cumin seeds
  
• 2 whole dried red chiles
  
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon/lime
  
  Method
  
  

1. Cook lentils per the linked recipe above.
   
2. Combine oil and cumin in a pan. Cook over med-high heat until light brown.
   
3. Add the whole chiles. Cook and stir for another 30 seconds.
   
4. Take pan off the heat. Add cayenne and sprinkle a few drops of water on top to stop the cooking.
   
5. Stir the tempering oil into the cooked lentils.
   
6. Stir in lemon/lime juice.
   
7. Serve over rice or with naan.

One I got for a gift recently was the Easy 5 Ingrediate Ketogenic Cookbook. I do find some great recipes online but still come back to this cookbook because it is beyond simple and most everything I've had has tasted really good. The simple ingredients also mean no random grocery items.

https://www.amazon.com/Easy-5-Ingredient-Ketogenic-Diet-Cookbook/dp/1939754445

My breakfast is almost always a Slimfast Advanced Nutrition shake.

Lunch, I do a lot of Atkins frozen meals or Quest bars and cheese. Sometimes I'll do a precooked frozen chicken breast and steam in the bag frozen veggies (I teach, so my lunches need to be fast and microwavable at most)

Dinner is where things get more adventurous. My husband and I have a keto cookbook. We try to do one new thing a week. (Specifically, I use this one:The Easy 5-Ingredient Ketogenic Diet Cookbook: Low-Carb, High-Fat Recipes for Busy People on the Keto Diet https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939754445/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.AOQCbHCF6T7K )

Personally, you cant go wrong with salad (romaine, black olives, mushrooms, cucumbers, maybe a little shaved carrot and feta cheese) with your protein of choice (grilled salmon is great. Fried tofu is good. Chicken is good.) Just make sure you measure all those veggies- they do have carbs and they can add up.

The Easy 5-Ingredient Ketogenic Diet Cookbook: Low-Carb, High-Fat Recipes for Busy People on the Keto Diet https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939754445/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kYZuDbY3EGHRR

If you follow the link they have a few recipes listed there. The one we did tonight is cheesy bacon and broccoli chicken
2 tablespoons ghee
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Pink Himalayan salt
Fresh ground pepper
4 bacon slices
6 oz cream cheese room temp
2 cups frozen broccoli
1/2 cup shredded cheese.

This is a two person serving. Best part she provides calories, total fat, carbs, net carbs, fiber and protein per batch and per serving! It was delicious

You need to get a good veggie cook book. Get an old hippie book for the stand-bys (hummus, tempura, veggie chili, lasagna, tofu stir fry, curried chick peas, burritos, etc..) then find a good new one for some interesting fusion recipes. My all-time fave is the Rebar which features tex-mex minestrone, bhangra burritos, and potato crust pizza with goat cheese and onions caramelized with balsamic.

Ask vegetarians you know for recommendations. I have been a veggie for over two decades and I eat better than any carnivores I know.

I’m making this recipe tonight that I found in this cookbook: The Easy 5-Ingredient Ketogenic Diet Cookbook: Low-Carb, High-Fat Recipes for Busy People on the Keto Diet https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939754445/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_PCfYCb7S5Y4Z1

Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole
Serves 4 Prep 10 mins Cook 50 mins

Ingredients
For the bacon and ground beef
1lb bacon (use your most feasible keto friendly brand)
1lb ground beef
1Tbsp ghee (could probably use grassfed butter too)
Pink salt and Freshly ground black pepper

For the casserole
1 Tbsp ghee
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup shredded cheese of your choice
Pink salt and Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350F

To make the bacon and ground beef
•In large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the bacon on both sides until crispy, about 8 mins. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate to drain and cool for 5 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and chop the bacon.
• use the same skillet with the bacon grease, add ghee and heat. Add the ground beef and season with salt/pepper. Stir occasionally, breaking the beef chunks apart. *don’t overcook the bacon and beef because you’ll be baking the casserole.
• once meat is browned, after about 8 mins, drain the fat and mix in the chopped bacon.

To make the casserole
• coat a 9x13 in baking dish with ghee
• spoon the meat and bacon mixture into the baking dish as a first layer
• in a medium bowl, mix together the cream, eggs, and half the cheese, and season with pink salt and pepper. Pour over the meat. Top with the remaining half of the cheese.
•bake for 30 mins, or until the cheese on top is melted and lightly browned.
•let the casserole sit for 5 mins on a cooling rack before setting and serving.

Ingredient substitutes
• if desired, substitute ground turkey for ground beef
• add a 1/2 cup of diced pickles into the beef mixture; it adds a nice acidity
• sliced pepperoncini works if you don’t like pickles
• adding a 1/4 cup of low-sugar tomato sauce to the cream and eggs mix provides flavor. Rao’s or Simply Ragu are low/no sugar brands. Skip pasta sauce if it doesn’t fit into your macros.

Can’t wait to see how this recipe works tonight!

Feast. It's a couple of Canadian women who travelled across the country in search of food and their story. The book has recipes and a background from each of their stops. Check it out if you're interested in a Canadian twist.

https://www.amazon.ca/Feast-Recipes-Stories-Canadian-Road/dp/0147529719

I actually have your dream cookbook. It's called "a century of Canadian home cooking."
It gives a little blurb with each recipe about the history of the dish, then regional variations or suggestions to alter it. It's a pretty good guide as to the dos and don'ts of that recipe. Often serving/presentation suggestions too. It includes all sorts of foods, cooking, baking, sweet, savory, etc. I love it.

My aunt gave it to my mom, which was slightly bizarre since my mom hates being in the kitchen. I got into it as a teen and never have it back, lol.


https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0139534156/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510515326&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=a+century+of+Canadian+home+cooking&dpPl=1&dpID=51SdMg6VUyL&ref=plSrch

I definitely recommend using an app like Carb Manager at first, it really helped me at first to understand what a typical keto day looks like with my allotted macros (and what foods to avoid - it even has a barcode scanner for easy adding foods you eat).

​

There's also a lot of really budget-friendly foods you can buy that are keto, I eat a lot of eggs, brick cheese, bulk ground beef/ pork, pork tenderloin (pretty much whatever meat is on sale each week), bulk avocados. If you're not much into cooking I got this book through my local library to help me through the first couple weeks with easy meal ideas: https://www.amazon.com/Easy-5-Ingredient-Ketogenic-Diet-Cookbook/dp/1939754445

You can make keto bread too, using almond flour and MCT powder and baking powder and eggs. It's not bad. I get most of my stuff from a cook book.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939754445/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


And these keto snacks are good, just expensive and not a lot in the bag...


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DDQ3GJT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

You need better cookbooks. I find almost any recipe I mess up on it's because I didn't read all the instructions and missed a step or ingredient. I learned from this as my first cookbook and it has a wide selection of recipes and teaches you techniques and basics, plus the instructions are very specific. Temperature, pan size, amount of salt, time to flip things are all there.

I love the Rebar cookbook. (Also available on Amazon).

Some of the recipes are a bit more labour intensive, but many are easy and the authors have developed some very creative recipes. They also give tips for altering recipes to be vegan, and occasionally include seafood as an option (like in the wild rice waffles with smoked salmon... yum yum!).

Thanks!

Edit: is it this one? A Century of Canadian Home Cooking 1900 through the 90s https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0139534156/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_h-CBxb66KS2JW

This is a great Canadian cookbook with many regional favourites.

https://www.amazon.ca/Feast-Recipes-Stories-Canadian-Road/dp/0147529719/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519869015&sr=8-2&keywords=canadian+cookbook

I highly recommend this book http://www.amazon.ca/Northern-Cookbook-Eleanor-Ellis/dp/0888301782

In my experience, moose steaks are delicious, bear... is... gross. Maybe it was poorly made.

I had moose steak the way the cosmic entities decreed, cooked in bacon fat, salt and pepper in a cast iron pan.

The bear was in bearburger form. And it tasted like garbage, and not in the nuoc mam good kind of way, like licking a dumpster.

Also, if you really want an interesting cookbook to go cover to cover on, you could always consider Mme. Jehane Benoit's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CANADIAN COOKING. She was a friend of the family when I was growing up so I may be a little biased on this one, but she is not called the Canadian Julia Child for nothing. She has a couple of books that can be purchased used on Amazon and would be well worth the minimum expenditure.

https://www.amazon.com/Benoits-ENCYCLOPEDIA-CANADIAN-Universal-BestSeller/dp/0774501286

https://www.amazon.com/Enjoying-Canadian-cooking-Jehane-Benoit/dp/0919364756/ref=sr_1_7?qid=1554145024&refinements=p_27%3AJehane+BENOIT&s=books&sr=1-7&text=Jehane+BENOIT

Buy a good vegetarian cook book. Go through and cook all of the recipes that appeal to you.

My favourite book is the Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook

https://www.amazon.ca/Rebar-Modern-Cookbook-Audrey-Alsterburg/dp/0968862306

There are a lot of good ones and some crappy ones. Just find one that you like.

Rebar Modern Food Cookbook

It's a mix of easy and medium recipes from a legendary vegetarian restaurant in Victoria, British Columbia. The book has been a staple across Canada since it came out in 2001. It's incredible.

Though the book is mostly vegetarian, most of the recipes have foolproof instructions for veganizing.

Best V tortilla soup ever.

Check this out as well!! Its a great Veggie book!

Check out this book, we use it all the time, meals are easy and delicious.

The Easy 5-Ingredient Ketogenic Diet Cookbook: Low-Carb, High-Fat Recipes for Busy People on the Keto Diet


https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939754445/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_FaoCCbDH4N4D6

then for days that you don’t want to plan, Grill up a steak or chicken, bake a fish. Breakfast for dinner is always good.

I love the Rebar cookbook personally.

http://www.amazon.ca/Rebar-Modern-Cookbook-Audrey-Alsterburg/dp/0968862306

> the most flavorful cuts of meat are the ones that scare you and you'll never purchase them

This. In some of my favorite recipe books, several potentially great meals are skipped because they're calling for unorthodox cuts that scare the shit out of me. Half the time it takes days to find a place where I can get it. Two butchers will tell me they don't sell that, one will tell me they can get one for Thursday. With some luck I can find a frozen specimen. Truly, it feels like I'm hunting for some piece of extraterrestrial belly.

Bones, fuck even bones can be complicated to get. Lamb bones for stock. Sorry, we throw them away unless a customer asks, come by Thursday. No problem, please cut them in 3 inch pieces, I'm making stock, not a marimba, thanks! As for what body part or appendage those bones from are (legs, ribs, shoulders) I never dared to ask.

Fish, I hate shopping for fish. Hello, do you have sable fish? No we rarely do, except sometimes at the end of the season. Well thanks good sir, how can I subscribe to your newsletter? I'd feel like an ass to call and ask what fresh fish they're carrying today so I can select a recipe accordingly BEFORE going out shopping. The short shelf life of fish creates an egg or chicken dilemma: do I choose a recipe and hope to find the fish, or go get some fish and go back home to find a recipe and again back to the store to get other ingredients.



> most (not all) restaurant cookbooks dumb down recipes for you

That's strange, my best cookbooks are from restaurants. I find that most non-restaurant cookbooks (rachel ray stuff, cooking the italian way) contains a multitude of beginner meals I don't care about. If I want to mix pasta and pancetta with some vegetables, I can do it myself thanks. And thai cookbooks that calls for "store-bought green curry paste" goes directly to the trash. Googling recipes works just as well.

On the opposite side, you you have the classical hardcore style "French Cooking" stuff that calls for killing and brining a living rooster in every other recipe. That sounds fantastically rewarding, but I have a day job.

For fine, modern, complex and layered yet approachable recipes, locally oriented & world-inspired restaurants seems to be where it's at. I'm not sure how dumbed down those recipes are from the real thing (as I've never been to them), but those 2 from Vancouver have provided quite fantastic culinary learning and experiences for me:

• Warren Geraghty's West, The Cookbook
  
• Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine
  
  If anyone has recommendation of great restaurant cookbooks, I'd love to hear them.

I highly recommend the book Maple on Tap. Lots of good advice from a guy who did it wrong or learned the hard way the first time. Captures a lot of lessons learned so you don't have to learn them yourself.