About Jennifer

So, what’s cooking here?

Is it enough to say delicious stuff? Yeah, probably not. Ok then, so I love to cook and eat simple, seasonal, real food.

Simple food to me means taking a few, great, ingredients and turning it into something fabulous without becoming a slave to the kitchen or spending hours sourcing obscure ingredients. So that sometimes means “dinner in 30”, but can also mean let it simmer 3 hours on the stove-top. Both simple, but some for when we have more time and some for when we don’t.

Seasonal is an easy one. Everyone knows that the best tomatoes are Summer tomatoes. Eating lots of them while they’re at their best is just a no-brainer. And when Winter rolls around, things like root vegetables and citrus are great options.

Real food is a term that’s thrown around pretty loosely these days. For me, I apply the Michael Pollan test. Is it something your Grandmother would recognize as food? So yes, for me, sugar is real food, and cheese and meat and yes, bread is real food, too (if you shop well or make it yourself). But that’s just me :) In food, as in life, I always respect differing choices and am happy to suggest substitutions any time.

So yes, I eat all the real foods, except, of course, the ones I don’t like (looking at you olives :).

All that said, I do try to keep a healthy balance, by indulging in some foods less often than others. I try to follow Michael Pollan’s mantra “Eat Real Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants” Truth be told, I struggle with the “mostly plants” part. It definitely doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’m working on it :) #FoodGoals

So you’ll find a bit of everything here – seasonal and healthy; hearty and comforting; sometimes a little bit sinful … but trying to find that healthy balance and always … real food, done delicious.

I loved this description of Seasons and Suppers from Michelle at Roasted Montreal …

Seasons & Suppers is a beautiful food blog out of Muskoka, Ontario. She cooks what I think of as classy comfort food. It’s all stuff I could see myself cooking regularly like Chicken with Mustard, Warm Lemon Pudding Cake, or Meyer Lemon Risotto with Arugula and Shiitakes. It’s achievable beautiful everyday food (versus anything that’s too complicated, or my usual one-pot kiddie food concoctions). It’s food I want to snuggle up on the couch with and give a big hug. Or put on my table during a fabulous dinner party and go… oh that – yeah that was easy.. just a little something I whipped up (while I sip champagne in a fabulous dress not covered in baby spit up). Oh, to dream.

Thanks Michelle :)

A bit more about the cook and her resident taste-testers

I am a home cook, schooled by trial and error and over 30 years of putting dinner on the table. I also love to eat great food, which is probably my biggest motivation for cooking :) I’ve learned that eating well doesn’t have to involve lots of time, money or fancy ingredients. I also believe that if I’m making it myself, in my own kitchen, from good and fresh ingredients, I’m already a good part of the way to eating well.

I have been married for 33 years and am the mother of 2 now grown children. Our youngest, our 21 year old daughter, has just finished college and started her first job in the big city a few hours away, so we are now adjusting to being empty-nesters. So while I’m “cooking for two” a lot these days, I still remember what’s it’s like to feed a family, so I try to add family-friendly tips to the mix, when I can.

My husband is a “meat and potatoes” kind of guy. Over the years, he’s gradually come around to accepting that not every meal has to include meat and potatoes. I’m thankful for that, because I love to explore new flavours.

We live on a 5 acre, rural property just outside of Bracebridge, Ontario (or “in the bush”, as our daughter often refers to it). I cook in a kitchen that was the original log home that sat on this property and was built in 1870. It’s full of modern conveniences though (thankfully!). All except a dishwasher. We have never installed one, so I do all the washing up from my cooking adventures by hand. Yes, I do have dish-pan hands.

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Photography Info

I shoot my food photos with a Canon 70D, usually with a 50mm 1.8 lens (the nifty fifty). I also have a 60mm macro lens that I love. I only shoot in natural light, which is a challenge during the long, dark Canadian winters. I process all my photos with Photoshop, since I shoot in RAW and prefer to do the finishing touches like sharpening and contrast after. While I have dabbled in (amateur) photography for a number of years, I found food photography a definite challenge. Turns out making delicious food into a delicious photo is not that easy :) But that said, I’ve loved the process of learning.

The Fine Print (or what’s cool and what’s not)

It’s cool to post any of my photos on Pinterest or Tumblr (or a similar photo-sharing site), providing the photo links back to the respective recipe page. And thanks for sharing!

It’s cool to use my photos in a recipe-round-up type post, where only the photo is shown and the photo links back to the recipe here (or a text link below/beside the photo). And thanks for the link love!

It’s cool to use any recipe you find on this site on your site (recipes are for sharing!) BUT … If posting on your own blog, please take your own photos and re-write the instructions into your own words. A link back to my original post would be cool, especially if the recipe is original (doesn’t indicate it was adapted from another source).

It’s not cool to post both my photos and recipe copy (re-written or not) on your site or post it onto a recipe sharing site. After all, if you’ve posted all the content on your site (or another site), what reason would anyone have to visit here? And since I’m the one who bought the ingredients, cooked it, photographed it and wrote it up, I figure it’s not too much to ask that visitors enjoy the content on my site (and not yours or theirs). It’s really only fair, right?

All photos are © Seasons and Suppers. Always and forever. When in doubt about use, please email me for permission. I’m nice. I am usually happy to share.

Jennifer Maloney
November 18, 2016