What's for lunch?

My new favourite thing (since I'm trying to eat healthy), is a fairly straight forward and fast lunch. Take an avocado, cut it into slices, top with some lemon juice and a sprinkle of fleur-de-sel. Awesome! It's also delicious on fresh sliced white bread like a french loaf. I'm trying to be good and cut down on my carb intake though, so I skip the bread. Enjoy!

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Splurge vs Steal Day

I spend a lot of time on Weddingbee, and someone started a great thread asking what was everyone's best splurge vs steal for their wedding. Well if that thread could walk around the mall carrying a purse, that was me today! I used to be a bit of a shopping addict but I have reformed my ways (and my bank account) since meeting Dan. I rarely hit the mall anymore, so when I do, it's a BIG deal for me. I've been lusting after the prettiest darn shoes I have ever seen (thanks a lot Bees) and decided to take the plunge and hit Holt Renfrew to see if they were available. I am officially on the calling list when these beautiful Louboutin's come in!

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I was disappointed the pumps weren't available this season, but I'll get over it. They'll be great for our engagement shoot and I'm hoping comfy enough to put on as my dancin' shoes at the wedding! But since I was in Holt's........................................ Well these really adorable Burberry rainboots jumped out at me!

(Personal photo)

I mean come on, they have hearts on them!!! How could I not buy them for our engagement shoot or in case it rains at our outdoor wedding!!!! So clearly I made an impulse cute rainboots buy. I'm pretty sure Dan won't be as enamored with them, but whatever, he doesn't have to wear them right?! I'm going to pair them with a black skirt and little cardigan (hmmmm more shopping. I feel an old habit rearing it's ugly head!), and of course, an umbrella. Cute!!! No one ever told me getting married was also an excuse to buy amazing shoes!

Now for the steal. Let's end the post on a positive pocketbook note huh? A couple years back I discovered the limited edition Evian bottle designed by Christin Lacroix. I'm not going to say I really know what any of his fashion lines look like, or even really who he is, but I thought it was the prettiest darn bottle I had ever seen. I bought one for $20 and promised to love it and keep it and never ever open it so long as I shall live. 

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Then I found them on sale for $2.50 at my local grocery store a year and a half later. So I bought 12 more. They live in my china hutch and make me smile whenever I see them.

(Personal photo)

After my Burberry high, I was trying to scoop some bargains on baby clothes for a friend at Winner's. I happened to see cases of said Evian water in the aisle but didn't give it much thought other than "Man, that's cheap! I can't believe how much I spent on that first bottle!". 1 case, 12 bottles, $12.99. That's $1.56/bottle people! And then I had an Oprah "Ah ha!" moment. We're going to need bottled water for the wedding. Sure, we may find water for cheaper, but will it be THIS pretty?! Heck no!!!! I bought 10 cases. That's right people, 120 bottles of Evian fancy schmancy collector bottles for $146 after taxes. SCORE!!!!!!!

 (Personal photo)

Splurge: Cutie pie rainboots

Steal: Pretty water bottles! 

Winner: ME!

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Brandied Parsnips & Carrots

This is an amazing recipe I've adapted from one of Ted Reader's planking recipes. If you have passion for grilling, buy his planking book, it's our favourite!

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin
- 1 pork tenderloin, silver skin removed
- 1/2 big log of goat cheese (or blue cheese works too), room temperature
- 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
- 2-3 tbsp red pepper, finely chopped
- 2-3 tbsp green onion, finely chopped
- maple syrup
- apple juice or apple cider

Sorry for the loose measurements, I make this so often I just throw it in until it looks delicious!

1) Cut a slit down your pork tenderloin, end to end, not all the way to the bottom, so you're creating a big long pocket. Don't cut straight to the ends either, leave a half inch or so at either end so your stuffing doesn't fall out!
2) In a bowl, combine goat cheese, dill, red pepper, and green onion. This will smell amazing. Try not to eat it all, you still need to stuff the pork ;) We've also found that blue cheese works well with this recipe, and I'm sure there's a lot more cheeses that would be terrific too.
3) Stuff your cheese mixture into your tenderloin.
4) Tie up the tenderloin at either end and in the middle with a bit of butcher's twine. If you're doing two tenderloins, each with a different type of cheese, tie one with a bow and one with a knot so you can tell them apart after.
5) Throw them in the oven (or on a soaked cedar plank as per the original recipe). I put them in at about 350* for an hour or until the juices run clear.
6) In the last 15 minutes of baking, pour a 50/50 mix of apple juice and maple syrup over the tenderloin as a glaze. Mmmmmm!!!!

Feeds 2, or 3 if you're polite.


Brandied Carrots and Parsnips
I discovered this recipe in Cusine at Home I believe and it's my new vegetable side dish staple. You can substitute apple juice for the brandy if you'd like.

- 3/4 lb carrots (2 big guys)
- 3/4 lb parsnips (2 more big guys)
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp EVOO
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp brandy
- 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
- 1 tbsp sugar

1) Peel and cut up your parsnips and carrots into sticks about 3" long.
2) Melt your butter with the EVOO in a saucepan over medium heat.
3) Add garlic and cook about 1 minute till it smells amazing.
4) Add carrots and parsnips, cook about 2-3 minutes, tossing to coat.
5) Add brandy, broth and sugar, stir, bring to simmer and cover. Reduce heat to med-low and cook for 10-12 minutes or until your carrots and parsnips are tender.
6) Remove lid, bring heat up to med-high and boil until your sauce becomes syrupy. Yum!!!

I could seriously just sit down with a big bowl of these veggies for lunch. Enjoy!

Cupcakes make the world happy

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Hello, my name is Veronica and I am a cake addict. I will eat it both in regular and cup form. I don't even need a plate. Give me a fork and the platter.

You can imagine my glee when I attended my first wedding show and got to sample cake from about 10 different bakeries. I have no shame, I broke the cardinal rule and asked for a sample of each flavour. See addict admission above. I repeated said behaviour at my second wedding show which resulted in many sugar high giggling fits while crammed in tiny photo booths with my sister.

Sorry, back to the point. One particular bakery really struck my fancy, The Wedding Cake Shoppe. They had an entire four tier cake covered in conversation hearts. Cake AND candy?! Are you kidding me?! On top of appealing to my serious sugar addiction, their spicy chai latte cake sample was some of the best cake I have ever eaten. Period. I start every day off with a chai latte and now you're going to give it to me in cake form?! Obviously I signed up for a consultation on the spot (of course after making a huge fool of myself gushing over their cake flavours and the adorable Japanese cake toppers).

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Finally sampling day arrived. Best. Day. Ever. Dan and I showed up hungry and excited. We met with Aleksandra who helped us delineate what it was that we wanted. To be honest, we didn't even want a wedding cake. I just really really really loved their cake, and having a wedding was a great excuse to buy one! After looking through lots of books of photos with cakes they've made previously, we decided the common thread was a "natural" sort of vibe. Branches, leaves, birds, that sort of thing. I honed in on one in particular when Aleksandra mentioned it had been created to match the graphic on the invitation. Reeeeeeaaaalllly. Screw the birds, I want a cake that matches my invitations!!!! I haven't yet posted about this, and I promise I will soon, but our invitations are based on the fact that Dan and I met in an elevator.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are having an elevator mini cake! That's right, two tiers of cupcakes (60 total), capped off with a two tier mini cake that looks like an elevator! SWEET! Now I'm not going to give everything away since I want to DIY a few things and post tutorials for you, so stay tuned for the details of how I'm going to make my cake even more wonderful and personal! If you haven't guessed it by now, I'm a little excited! And do you know what else makes me excited?! How amazingly well priced it all was! Our full bill ended up being less than $400 including $130 delivery, and a $30 cupcake stand rental. Ummmm SCORE! I can't recommend the ladies there enough, they are so sweet and charming, really gave us lots of time, and had great ideas. I can hardly wait to pick up another 6 pack of flavours so we can finalize them for the wedding!

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Back Online!

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Oh man. What a rough couple days! Sorry for the unannounced absence. I got some sort of massive virus on my computer that no amount of my rudimentary skills could get rid of. Basically it locked me out of my laptop and I had to take it to the professionals to get it fixed. Thankfully they were able to get rid of the virus and save all my data (which I had also backed up before I got to the point of being locked out). However, the crappy thing about it is that I think they wiped my computer and I'm slowly realizing all the things that are missing.

1) Mozilla Firefox and all my bookmarks. Everything wedding related, design related, fun stuff, interesting stuff, gone. Ugh. I'll never remember it all!
2) My Adobe Suite. I'm not going to cry because I wanted to upgrade to CS4 but I had planned on working on our wedding invitations today. Guess it'll have to wait.
3) AutoCAD. Grrrr!!!!! Thankfully I know where I can get another copy, but it's a pain in the butt to install so I'm not looking forward to doing it again.

I'm sure I'll find other things as time goes on but on the other hand things could be worse, my laptop could be fried completely. That would have been awful. So now that I'm back, I can begin to catch you up on my busy wedding week! Stay posted!

Fail Safe Coconut Tres Leche Cake

My good friend Kelly made this cake for us once and shared her secret: Chow. It's soooo good. I love this website. It's full of recipes, advice, forums, it's a foodie's delight! This cake is easy (make it the day before) and ridiculously delicious. All credit goes to the incredible Chowhound because I could never come up with something so awesome! I find this one is always a crowd pleaser and is my go-to for having a crowd over for dinner (makes a 9x13 pan of cake, so not for your dinner for four). I always forget to put in the rum and no one has ever complained. Enjoy!

Coconut Tres Leches Cake Recipe

TIME/SERVINGS

Total: 1 hr 15 mins, plus 8 hours for soaking

Active: 25 mins

Makes: 12 servings

Coconut Tres Leches Cake

By Regan Burns

This supereasy cake, soaked with a milky mixture laced with dark rum and coconut milk, is one of our most popular recipes. We’ve tested it at several parties and have yet to take home anything but an empty baking dish and a whole bunch of recipe requests. So here it is! Be sure to make it well before you want to serve it—the longer it sits, the better it gets. And don’t skip the toasted coconut!

This recipe was featured in our Build Your Own Burrito Bar story.

INGREDIENTS

• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk (not nonfat)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened canned coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon dark rum, such as Myers’s
• 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Butter a 13-by-9-inch glass baking dish. Separate eggs, and place yolks in a large mixing bowl. Reserve whites in a separate mixing bowl.
2. Add sugar to yolks, and beat on high speed with an electric mixer until pale yellow and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Clean beaters, and whip egg whites to medium peaks, about 1 1/2 minutes.
3. Using a rubber spatula, stir about 1/3 of the egg whites into the yolk mixture to lighten it. Then gently fold in remaining whites.
4. Whisk flour with a dry whisk to aerate and break up any lumps, then sprinkle it over egg mixture. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold flour into egg mixture, just until there are no more white flour streaks. Don’t overmix.
5. Pour batter into the buttered baking dish, and bake until cake is puffed and golden and the edges pull away from the sides of the pan, about 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Remove cake from the oven and place on a wire cooling rack. With a toothpick, poke holes all over the cake. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
7. In a medium bowl, whisk together three milks and rum, and pour mixture evenly over cake. Continue cooling cake, about 45 minutes more, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.
8. For toasted coconut, heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Add coconut and spread it in an even layer. Cook, stirring often, until coconut is lightly toasted and browned. If coconut begins to burn, reduce heat. Remove from the pan immediately.
9. To serve the cake, whip heavy cream and powdered sugar to medium peaks. (If you like, flavor it with a teaspoon of dark rum.) Top each cake slice with a mound of whipped cream, and garnish with toasted coconut.

Wedding shows

You know why I love wedding shows? Free cake! Plain and simple. Yes there are great vendors out there, yes you can get some good deals, but man, free cake is awesome!











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When heading to your first bridal show, here are some tips shared with me from my own engaged and/or newly married friends. All of them have benefited me greatly!

1) Print off address labels (I bought mine from the good ole dollar store) with your name, address, email address, and phone number on them. This will save you a lot of time filling out countless contest entry forms.
2) Set up an email address just for wedding related things like said contests, contacting vendors, etc. I've found this to be a lifesaver because it's all in one place without having to wade through all your other day-to-day life email.
3) Bring a rolling backpack or bag of some sort. You will get about free 15 bridal magazines, wedding planning books, etc which are lovely and so useful, but also heavy.
4) Bring water and a snack. It's always dry in convention centres and the food is typically greasy, unhealthy, and overpriced. A bottle of water and some trail mix will go a long way after all that cake!
5) Enjoy! Chat with the vendors and take part in the free photo booth shots, get your ring cleaned for free, the show is your oyster!

I went with my sister/MOH to the National Bridal show today and followed the above rules. We had an absolute blast! Thankfully this evening was the first day of the show, so it was lovely and quiet and we had time to talk with the different vendors and really take it all in. We met some great people and I really enjoyed myself even though it was a smaller show. I came home with three strips of photos of us, a multitude of free samples, and some great coupons and ideas. So go and enjoy, hopefully you only get to do this once ;)

(Personal photo)