A food blog dedicated to whole, local and seasonal foods, sweet treats, indulgent eats and minimal living.
Amanda Reynolds is a wife, cook, baker, pretend picture taker and lover of all things fall. Up until 2016, she was also the owner of a small bakery/cafe in Southern Ontario. She then sold her little dream for a less stressful life with more time for family and friends.
Food Blog, Recipes, Sweet Treats, Indulgent Desserts
There is something magical about taking simple ingredients and creating a comforting, cozy meal or delicious, homey baked good. There is little else that can ease my stress or lift my spirits more than the act of creating something with my own, small hands. It’s my version of therapy.
Amanda cooks on a very tight budget mostly out of necessity but also because she is determined to be able to eat well without spending hundreds of dollars a month doing so. Right now She’s managing to spend less than $5 a day per person on food and there’s somehow usually money left at the end of the month from that budget. She tries to live a fairly minimalistic lifestyle which usually means more time with her family, reading, writing and spending hours outside in between working. It also means less computer time (oddly), less phone time, buying less things and being more compassionate.
Her diet is ever changing based on how she’s currently feeling, the season and what her body requires at the time. It’s never the same but it’s usually healthy. More recently She has been experimenting with cutting out sugar, white flour, coffee and alcohol (like 95% of the time) to help tame her migraines and help her sleep better (it’s working). She eats meat two or three times a week, milk is not her friend most of the time but for some reason butter and cheese are aaaalways fine. The rest is usually a combination of different grains, beans and some lentils, seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables, local if possible, imported if necessary.
We hope you’ll follow along as she figures it all out, cook delicious, healthy food, try to live a more compassionate life and hopefully start each day a little better than we were yesterday.
The Pretend Baker Recipes
- How to Prepare Penne Pasta With Sun- Dried Tomato Cream Sauce
Penne pasta with sun-dried tomato cream sauce is a food that is usually considered fancy food and is mostly prepared for dinner. It is a portion of fast food that is creamy and is vast with flavor. It can be made a vegetarian dish when prepared without chicken and is mostly available in most restaurants. … - Preparing Spicy Buffalo CauliflowerBuffalo cauliflower is a very tasty appetizer of cauliflower that is coated in a dip-flavored breading that is gluten-free. It is made using simple tools that are readily available at a relatively lower cost. Some buffalo cauliflowers are not too spicy while others contain a lot of spices like the spicy buffalo cauliflower. Spicy buffalo …
- Cooking Meatloaf in a Muffin Pan- Easy WaysMeatloaf is food that is made from ground meat mixed with other ingredients then shaped to look like a loaf. It is then baked using a baking tray or other baking tools. Its final shape is either made with the hands or the shape can be obtained by baking it using a loaf pan. Meatloaf …
- How to Cook Cool Pizza Cupcakes- Easy RecipePizza cupcake is a type of snack that is cup-shaped. It is very portable and mostly used for buffets during game days. They have an almost similar texture to biscuits. It is prepared with an oven to ensure a sweet taste. It is prepared with a sauce so that people do not need to prepare …
- Easy Steps of Cooking Sweet and Sour ChickenSour chicken is a very sweet dish that is popular in America. Sweet and sour chicken is the product of sour chicken that is usually made using a mixture of chicken breasts that are cut into sizable pieces. These pieces are then coated with batter, added some onions, pineapples, and pepper then cooked. Cooking sweet …
