DAIRY-FREE CAESAR SALAD

It's wild to think that we're entering week 11 of remote work. It definitely no longer feels temporary - and the unknown of how long we'll be tucked away at home is a little unsettling. We're doing our best to stay active (thank you Peloton), soak up the recent summer weather, and curl up with a good book.

This recipe has been sitting in my drafts for a little over a year now, and similar to the recent vermicelli bowl recipe, I'm embracing all this extra time to finally knock some things off the looming to-do list. This salad has become a house favourite, and is a really great way to use up leftover shredded chicken or stale bread.

ITALIAN PLUM COMPOTE

With Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) just around the corner, this recipe seemed fitting, almost necessary. Every year, my Oma (maternal grandmother) would make her famous plum pies for the holidays -- an open face pie with a shortbread-like crust, loaded with fresh fruit. During the summer months, blueberries, for jewish new year, italian plums, for her birthday in December, apple slices and cinnamon.

My mom continues the tradition and bakes these pies throughout the year; I on the other hand wanted to feel the warmth and familiarity of the pie, without going through the effort of baking (lazy or efficient, I'll let you decide). That's where this compote comes in -- yielding a similar texture and equally gorgeous colour as the plums baked atop the pie crust. Eat it straight out if the jar, or top your morning oats or yogurt with it. Either way, you're going to wish you had made a double batch.

DAIRY-FREE FLUFFY "BUTTERMILK" PANCAKES

My new laptop allows me to shut down for the night with webpage tabs still open. At first, I thought this was great - I could read things at a more leisurely pace and not worry I'd forget about a new post, or hot article.

But now, mid summer, when the last thing I want to do at the end of a work day is face my computer, I find myself struggling to keep up with all of my favourites, leaving 20+ tabs looming week after week. It sounds ridiculous to say that I feel stressed about having too many blogs to read, but that's how I feel. The blogger community is one that I feel very lucky to be apart of, and a huge part of that is reading, commenting, liking, and supporting one-another. I got through a handful of them this weekend, more coming up this week. Baby steps, right?

We celebrated 4 years yesterday, and though we had a celebratory dinner planned, breakfast needed to feel a little special too. These pancakes, doused in all the summer berries, just felt right.

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB CRISP (GLUTEN FREE + DAIRY FREE)

We spent the weekend up at the cottage and it was absolute bliss. We were outside practically the whole time, hanging en famille, boating, drinking and playing cornhole with friends.

When the whole family is up at the cottage, meals can often be a little challenging. Everyone has their preferences, and everyone has their dietary restrictions -- no dairy, no gluten, no cinnamon, no tomatoes. Breakfast is easy, everyone kind of does their own thing, depending on what time you wake up. Lunch comes together as a giant salad with a side of protein (for those who want it). Then there's dinner - always barbecued and always delicious. Finally, dessert. Often just fruit and dark chocolate, but not this weekend. This weekend, I was on dessert duty. Using what I could find in the kitchen, I tweaked my go-to crisp recipe it into something dairy and gluten free. Not sure if it was the country air, the last of the season's rhubarb, or the fun of being all together as a family for the weekend, but the crisp turned out better then I could have imagined. Do your best to swoop up some of the last of the rhubarb before it disappears; if not, no stress, bookmark this recipe for next year!

PASSOVER CARROT CAKE

When we started dating, I assured Nigel that Jewish holidays and Catholic holidays didn't overlap. I'm not really sure what I was basing that on, but boy was I wrong. Without fail, for the past 3 years, Easter and Passover have fallen on the same weekend.

As such, while I'm stuck eating matza this, and matza that this time of year, I find myself tantalized by all the delicious Easter eats that pop up online. Not this year! This year, passover got its very own carrot cake - and though the texture is more sponge cake and less 'typical carrot cake', the flavours are all there, and the satisfaction bang on.

PASSOVER PAVLOVA WITH MAPLE ROASTED STRAWBERRIES

Passover is coming, and you know what that means? No oats, grains, beans, rice or leavening agents -- eek! I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a bit of a struggle, but I love any opportunity to get creative in the kitchen (you know that by now, right?).

In the past, I've turned to nut flours and coconut, but was looking for something different on the dessert front this year. Since I won't be making it home for the holidays, I knew that I'd be missing my Oma's crispy meringues and strawberry ice cream, so I decided to take a stab at an alternative -- light and fluffy pavlova, doused in juicy roasted berries. YUM.