I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick (and how to fix it)

Okay I'm not that sick but I have a really terrible sore throat and a snuffly nose. I feel a bit worn down. Life is hard I know ;) I'm a cry baby.

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Anyways, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share my naturopath's stop-your-cold-in-its-tracks remedy. It tastes a bit like Neocitran but without the knock you out for 8 hours effect. The ginger is awesome for your immune system, lemons are full of vitamin C, and honey is a natural antimicrobial.

You'll need:
- a hunk of ginger (not minced out of a jar, real ginger!)
- water
- 1 lemon
- honey

- Take about an inch of the ginger and peel it. Chop or grate it and throw it in a medium size pot (if you grate it, you may want to throw it in cheesecloth). 
- Cover with 2 cups of water. Boil for 20 minutes. The longer you boil it, the stronger it'll get.
- Remove the ginger pieces (hence cheesecloth or I just slice mine now and fish it out with a slotted spoon)
- Add juice of 1/2 lemon.
- Pour into your mug, add honey to taste and enjoy!


My naturopath recommends drinking 2 mugs of this a day. I've taken to doubling this recipe and reheating over the course of a couple days. It seriously works and it's tasty!

(Source)

Valentine's Day Dinner: A follow up

A friend asked me to post a follow up about our amazing dinner from Ezra so here it is! We literally ordered one of everything and it looked like this:

Our menu was amazing. I couldn't wait to dig in! You can see how excited I am in this photo:

You can also see Dan laughing at me. On to the food. That's what we're here for right? First course: Dan had truffled celery root soup with apple/crab salad and crispy shallots. I picked this for him because typically any time I've had something with truffle in it I've hated it. When I poured this out to heat it up for him I could smell the truffle and was glad I had picked the other started. But then, magic happened. The apple/crab salad balanced out the truffles perfectly and oh my god shallots have never tasted so good (and I like shallots!). I pretty much had to physically restrain myself from taking the bowl and running into the other room to polish it off. 

For my starter, I had boston, arugula and baby spinach salad with chive yogurt "queso fresco" and parmesan olive oil croutons. Mmmmmmm delicious! This is probably one of my favourite salads ever. It was light (albeit huge! You can see it on my plate in the photo above), fresh and the queso fresco added a really neat tang that I loved. And yes, I ate it and half of Dan's soup. 

Mains: Dan had red wine braised beef short rib and veal pot pie with cipollini onions, roasted squash and pickled baby vegetable salad. This was a perfect hearty winter meal that I knew Dan would enjoy. I have a rule against eating cute small furry animals so I passed on having this as my main. I did, however, try a bite (repeating it was only the short ribs I was eating in my head) and I ended up pounding the table with the fist a la When Harry Met Sally. 

The meat was melt in your mouth tender. Dan remarked on how Ezra made sure to tuck a piece of meat in each corner since that's where you start on the meal. You never ended up with a forkful of pastry and sauce. It was awesome! 

I had the lobster gratin with meyer lemon/almond crust, oyster mushrooms, leeks, fingerlings and lobster reduction. I'm not a seafood person. Again, Ezra has changed my world. What is with this man?! The lemon/almond crust was light with soft underlying flavours and added the most wonderful accent to the delicate lobster meat. The veggies underneath were amazing, so full of deep flavours that were rich and aromatic. Mmmmmmm! 

Last we had dessert. Dan and I are so different when it comes to dessert. I'm an absolute sugar fiend. You could give me a bowl of caramel doused in maple syrup with spoon and I'd be in heaven. Dan falls more to the savory side. Our two desserts were worlds apart but each was perfect for us and we didn't end up stabbing each other with our forks to get the last bite of the other's plate. Dan had Upper Canada's "Comfort Cream" cheese with brandy poached pears, pear gastrique and walnut bread. The cheese was a delicious brie texture and when it was all stacked up it made for a lovely little morsel of heaven! Dan was thrilled at the "non-sugar" option and it ended his meal off perfectly.

I embarked on sugar overload and was a very very very happy woman with my dessert! Warm callebaut chocolate bread pudding with chestnut-crusted marshmallows, spiced creme fraiche ice cream and blood orange salad graced my plate. It was topped off with some hot fudge. See above Meg Ryan clip for my reaction. A little of each on my fork and oh my gosh, again, heaven! I loved the combination of the chocolate bread pudding with the blood orange salad with a touch of ice cream. So amazing! 

Now that your mouth is watering, enjoy your next meal! Get a little creative and enjoy! Thanks again to Ezra for yet another inspiring and delicious meal!

Vote for us!!!

It's time for some shameless self promotion. Dan and I have been selected as one of five finalists in a contest for free engagement photography, but to win we need your votes! So please visit Avenue Photo and vote for the Winnebago Adventure. That's us! Thanks so much!

xoxo

Bridesmaid Inspiration: I have become a Polyvore whore

I discovered a magical place today. It's called Polyvore. You create little inspiration boards of fashion or art or whatever floats your boat. It's totally addicting. My ladies, this is your inspiration for your dresses! Go nuts!

Blue Bridesmaids Inspiration by elevatorbride featuring J Crew dresses

Love Day

It seems I've been posting a lot more about food than weddings lately. I do have wedding things to blog about, it just seems salivating over my latest culinary conquest entertains me more. This posting is a little of column A and a little of Column B. 

I think I've posted before about our wonderful caterer and how we found him. Ezra Title of ChezVous Dining may have changed our world. For Dan's 30th birthday I wanted to something big. I wanted something once in a lifetime amazing. We went away for the weekend to Muskoka to stay at a beautiful lodge for a few days and went paragliding. When we got home Dan was surprised by a man we had never met standing in our kitchen preparing a gourmet meal for us. A couple of our close friends were in on the job and had set up an uber romantic scene for us on the back deck which was amazing. In fact, it was so good we hired Ezra again for Dan's 31st birthday. And then we emailed him and asked if he would cook Dan's birthday meal every year for us. I don't plan on ever backing out of that deal! 

This is one of those little things that makes our relationship awesome. Once a year we get to splurge and have the most amazing meal in the comfort of our own home (we're homebodies and we have a spectacular view from our back deck). We spend a lot of time making sure other people enjoy our home and their time here but it's not often we sit back and let it all sink in. Enjoying one night of utter indulgence is something both Dan and I agree is well earned and it's easily our favourite night of the year.

When Ezra agreed to cater our wedding and he said yes we were ecstatic to say the least! Ezra's star has blossomed, he's about to shoot the second season of his TV show, The Healthy Gourmet, so we're so thankful he has time for our wedding. 

So I love my fiance, I love our chef, and it's Valentine's Day. Where am I going with this? People keep asking "Are you cooking for Valentine's Day?". Ummm no. I made a HUGE brunch this morning for my family which got demolished before I could take a photo, and that was more than enough cooking for me. BUT I did get an email from Ezra about two weeks ago offering a Valentine's Day meal delivered to your home which, of course, I jumped on. I think I emailed him back in about 35 seconds and before even asking Dan. 

What's the perfect Valentine's Day for me? When a good looking man arrives at my door with a beautiful bag full of amazing food and a long stem rose. SCORE! (Sorry honey)

Unpacking my goodies

I can hardly wait to dig in tonight! It took so much will power last night to keep this stuff in the fridge! If you ever want a good Valentine's Day, trust me, kick back your feet and call Ezra!

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

It's been a weekend of family and Olympics, sorry for not posting this recipe sooner! So I took my 2 for $4 packages of red peppers, cut them in half and laid them on tin foil covered cookie sheets under the broiler until they were good and charred. I did 7 total (one was moldy inside when I cut it open, ew).

  

When those were done, I threw them in paper bags until they cooled. While they were cooling, I cut a bunch of roma tomatoes in half, tossed them with some olive oil and fresh minced garlic and put those in the oven on 325 for about 45 minutes or until they start looking  soft and shrivelly and smell awesome. 

 

When the peppers are cooled, rub the bag over them and the skins should peel off easily. If you're like me and this doesn't work perfectly, get as much off as you can, and don't stress about the rest! I don't peel and seed my tomatoes either, but a lot of people do. Whatever floats your boat. It's going to taste delicious either way. 

Now put your roasted peppers and tomatoes in a decent soup pot. Grab your immersion blender (if you don't have one GO GET ONE NOW! Or just use a food processor but they're such a pain to clean up, you'd be better off spending the $50 on the immersion blender) and blend away! You want to get all your veggies nice and smooth. You may want to add some chicken stock to help the process along. You'll need a cup of chicken stock either now or when the veggies are done anyways. When that's good, simmer with the chicken stock on the stove for about 10 minutes to get your flavours going. Add 1 cup of milk (or cream, whatever your diet will allow), and a good handful of chopped fresh basil. Some more freshly minced garlic or even caramelized onions would be tasty additions too! I like to run my immersion blender through again at this point to make sure I don't have any big basil leaves floating around. 

 

Add in some goat cheese if you'd like to make it a little silkier. Season with salt and pepper to taste! Delicious! We had ours with brandied carrots and parsnips and an oven baked ham.
It's not a gourmet lookin' plate but it sure was yummy!

 

 *All of the above photos are personal photos*

What's for dinner tonight?

 (source)

- Roasted tomato and red pepper soup with fresh basil and goatcheese
- Oven baked ham 
- Brandied parsnips and carrots (to make up for the ham since Dan hates it)
- Fresh french loaf

Inspired by: 
- packages of red peppers on sale at grocery store 2 for $4 (four/package, awesome deal!)
- beautiful roma tomatoes I grabbed at the St Lawrence Market a couple days ago
- the need for ham for Valentine's Day brunch casserole


Photos and recipes to follow shortly!