Inn on the Twenty [-Nine]

It’s a special year of birthdays. My BFFs and I are celebrating each one of ours together in style. This time around we celebrated “The Doc’s”. Think Power Puff Girls…

Anyway, The Doc decided to celebrate by setting us up on a road trip from Toronto to the Niagara Region to have brunch at the well-known On the Twenty Restaurant. If you haven’t heard of Inn on the Twenty, then please let me share some tidbits with you. It is located in the Niagara Region in a little hamlet called Jordan. It’s a 90-minute drive from Toronto. Food Network fans know that this restaurant is where celebrity chef Anna Olson of Sugar: Simple Sweets and Decadent Desserts and Fresh with Anna Olson: Seasonally Inspired Recipes to Share with Family and Friends was the pastry chef. It was here, also, that she met her husband, Michael Olson, the executive chef of the restaurant at the time. The restaurant is known for its regional cuisine as well as its seasonal menus.

Here is a picture story of our brunch:

 

Pureed Asparagus and Ham Soup

Chardonnay Steamed PEI Mussels
with Fiddleheads, Asparagus and Roast Garlic served on fresh linguine

Truffle Scented Linguine
with Woodland Mushroom Ragout and Asparagus Tips, Parmesan Tuile Chardonnay Cream

Ontario Beef Tenderloin
Pommes Frites and Stilton Poutine
Balsamic Braised Cipollini, Merlot jus

Red Velvet Cake

Mmmm… Red Velvet Cake.

Everything was delicious and our server, Claire, was the best! Y’all gotta go and dine there.

The Red Velvet Cake is not on the restaurant’s menu. We later learned that The Doc had arranged it with the restaurant to have this cake for us. This is the third birthday of the year we’ve celebrated among ourselves and the third time we’ve requested the cake for our dessert. For the first birthday, we were all very disappointed. It tasted nothing like Red Velvet at all. It was a spinoff, having a raspberry-cranberry thing going on. The second birthday we ordered the cake only to be told by our waiter that they were sold out. Actually, the restaurant lied because as we were leaving we saw a whole uncut Red Velvet Cake in their dessert display! I guess we were all hoping that the third time was it. But alas, it was not…the cake wasn’t chocolaty enough and the frosting lacked in the cream cheese department. Well, the next birthday will be mine. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we will finally find The One.

On this note, I wish my very dear friend Charlie a very happy 29th birthday.

MIA

I apologize for being away from the blog for so long. My blog, my baby, oh how I have neglected you these past 20 months.

Things got pretty crazy since my last post. Here’s a short update. Late in 2009, my grandfather, who lived with us, fell ill. I had to take him to countless doctor’s and specialist’s appointments. Unfortunately in April 2010, he passed away. Goong Goong, may you rest in peace. From that point, my focus ran in many directions and the blog was put on the back burner. Aside from caring for my children, I looked over the sale of the family business. Once the sale was complete, I started a new job. And I haven’t really had a chance to get back into blog writing since…until now.

Please drop in every now and then to see if I’ve posted anything. I have been taking a lot of pictures of food and I have lots of ideas for posts prepped in my head. Just give me some time to put it on Window Live Writer and publish it. Thank you for your patience.

Happy Holidays

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year! Here's to good food, good friends and family, and good life.

Cate

Oatmeal

I remember the first time I had oatmeal. It was over 10 years ago when I had hired a trainer and he gave me a meal plan to go with my training and oatmeal was the first thing I had to eat in the morning. My first attempt was anything but delicious. One-minute oats mixed with hot water with a pinch of salt. Well, I was a good sport and I stuck with it for a while and you know what? I eventually got used to the texture and the taste but I still wouldn’t say that I liked it one bit. After 2 months though I’d had enough of the bland stuff and went back to eating the way I did before the meal plan. I wanted flavour. I wanted texture. I wanted variety. I wanted yummy stuff.

A few years later I started eating oatmeal again. Once again, one-minute oats mixed with hot water (no salt). I just ate it out of the comfort of not having to think about what to have for breakfast. What could be easier? All I had to do was scoop 1/3 C of oats with hot water from the water cooler and let it sit until the water was absorbed. I enjoyed them much more than I did way back then. But then I stopped eating it when I got married and had kids. With the lack of sleep and time, eating breakfast was the last thing on my mind and I would eat mindlessly all day long.

Last year I ventured into blog reading and I came across Kath Eats. She loves oats so much so that she even did a tribute. I never knew that oatmeal could be jazzed up except for when you purchase them in boxes of instant packets of flavoured oatmeal which I never liked. So I’ve tried her banana oatmeal and I use it as a basis for oatmeal. Here’s my favourite combo:

1/3 C large flake oats
1/3 C water
1/3 C milk
1/2 ripe banana

topped with:
1 Tbsp dried cranberries
1 Tbsp semi-sweet chocolate chips (blooming from being in the pantry too long)
1 spoonful natural almond butter

This bowl is so satiating. I find that if I have a bowl of oats for breakfast my sugar cravings are controllable for the rest of the day, which is a good thing, especially when there are still Halloween candies laying around.

The Beater Blade +

Now here’s a brilliant gadget:  the Beater Blade + (KA-TH) shown here is a paddle attachment made for tilt-head Kitchenaid stand mixers. If you don’t have this mixer, don’t despair as they carry different paddle models for different stand mixers. What is so special about this plastic paddle as opposed to the Kitchenaid solid-built paddle? Well the external sides of the paddle are actually flexible and are meant to act as a spatula so that there is no need to scrape the sides of the bowl when mixing. It also has an extra center prong that ensures that the mixture will have an even consistency. It’s great for making buttercream, icing, cake batters, and best of all, my favorite cheesecake! Here is the Mascarpone Cheesecake being made with the new beater.

    

I just can’t believe that something so delicious and smooth was so easy and quick with this gadget. So if you use your stand mixer frequently, I definitely recommend the BeaterBlade+.