Top Five Honeymoon Dinners

I got married in June and for a honeymoon we chose to take an Eastern Caribbean cruise from New York. The Caribbean Princess has a really wonderful Italian chef who's name escapes me today. This is Hubby and I's list of the top 5 non dessert dishes we ate.

#5: Pot Aux Roux?

The hubby chose this dish as his main on seafood night. I'm not a huge crustation fan but he is, and he was ecstatic with this dish.

#4: Steamed asparagus with Hollandaise sauce and pancetta

This was really nice. It was decadent and savory, I will definitely be imitating this one day.

#3: Cocoa Crusted Pork Tenderloin with Champagne Risotto and Ratatouille

This pork was so tender and sweet, the cocoa was such an awesome ingredient to use, I have only ever seen recipes that involve cocoa and meat. What a treat! The risotto was so perfect, so sweet and my first taste of ratatouille was even more exciting then imagined. The movie seems to have really boosted it's popularity.

#2: Shrimp Diavolo

Shrimp simmered in a hot pepper and tomato based sauce with both tasty and adorable polenta and your everyday steamed broccoli. This year is my first year enjoying and actually ordering shrimp

#1: Garlic and Goat Cheese Souffle

The most amazingly delcious,tart and garlicy thin I have ever had the pleasure of eating. This souffle was featured on the Chef's showcase menu. It was so good that all we both could think about for days was this delicious masterpiece. As God is my witness, I will make this one day. I will never be able to live in a world where I don't get to eat one of these annually!

Cakes For All

3 posts this week! Score! Just a small picture full blog featuring a few cakes I've banged out. I am by no means a cake decorator of professional sense but I like to play around. Hopefully I can take some classes in the next year to help me step it up a notch. In the last year I have made a few cakes I have been considerably proud of. One from this pile is from 4 years ago and my first bachelorette cake ever.

Cake One: The Dick Cake

I
made this cake for my big sister's bachelorette cake. I was made fun of for this one, as I drew it freehand and managed a vein texture. This shot is before the writing was piped on, as i screwed it up.

Cake Two: The Boob Cake

I made this cake for my buddy Jeff's birthday. I was pleased as punch when I went to the Bulk Barn because they always have so many colours of dye. I found fleshy colours and it really made the cake.

Cake Three: The Baby Cake

My Friend K.T's son turned one and she trusted me enough to ask me to make his cake. I made this Elmo cake. I was really busy at work that week so to save some time and frustration I commissioned an UN-DECORATED cake with cream filling from Costco. I'm not sure how but I messed up his nose a bit. Elmo has an oval nose and I Sort of made the top of his nose go into the eye as opposed to over it. Eh, it was still a damn cute cake!

Cake Four: The Cup Cake

For Christmas last year my Aunt bought my sister and I both these Wilton cupcake-cake mold. It was super cute and the possibilities are endless. I actually used the top piece mold 2x to craft my boob cake!

Next Blog: The cutest and craziest cupcake book I have ever seen.

Sugar High Ham

Two days, two blogs. What a role!
Matty and I had most of the family away during the New Year break and so the kitchen was available for play time. One thing we never really made in our house was glazed ham. Perhaps this can be contributed to the whole being Italian thing as we tend to be chicken and beef and *sigh* lamb and rabbit people. But whenever someone had us over for dinner and made us Glazed Ham I was always excited for the change.
I had leftover pineapple from the new years pizza and so I referenced some "how-to" glaze recipes online and spun up this ham glaze. In the end, this was really nice but maybe a little too sweet. Next time I may need to hit it up with some vinegar to knock it back a peg. I served it with my cheesy cauliflower mash which was delicious and considerably nutritious, sweet potatoes and grilled tomato. I felt pretty good about it, next time more leafy greens needed.

SUGAR HIGH HAM

1/2c Brown sugar, packed
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tbsp Frank's Red Hot
1/4c Pineapple Tidbits
1/2c Pineapple juice (from can)
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp prepared garlic
Salt & pepper to taste
1/4c Coca Cola
2-4 lb cooked ham

Mix all ingredients discluding the coca cola and ham (of course) in a container and whisk together. Can be used immediately but if you have a couple hours to let it sit, you should give it a whirl.

Cut small diamonds into the ham and rub the garlic into it, pushing in as far as you can. Be careful not to tear it open. Stab the ham 6-8 times with a toothpick as long as possible and pour over coca cola.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour sauce into a saucepan and bring to a quick boil. Reduce heat to medium low and let simmer and reduce by half, about 15 minutes. Pour half of the hot glaze over the ham, letting it drip from the top down the sides.

Bake for 30 minutes, uncovered. Pour remaining glaze over ham and bake for another 30 minutes until golden and sticky looking.

Remove ham and let it rest, covered for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Easy, just takes a little while to cook!

Cauliflower Mash!

clean and cut up a head of cauliflower into small florets. Steam until just more than fork tender. Mix with butter- 1 tsp garlic salt - 1/4 c grated cheddar and mozzarella mixed-pepper to taste. Mash up the cauliflower and mix well until it becomes numerous small bits but stop before you get to a mashed potato consistency. This is meant to be pretty chunky. Enjoy!

Next Post: Christmas Breakfast? Something from last year? Naughty cakes? Stay tuned!

Happy New Year! A Foodsie Resolution

Happy New Year! Seeing how it is that time of the year where you are supposed to make a resolution, I made a couple small ones. I didn't set one huge unsustainable goal, instead I set a few small personal notes for myself.

1. Attempt to tidy up a little more everyday, because the hubbster and I tend to let the apartment get away from us. Who wants to spend their whole Saturday off cleaning?

2. Cook Cook Cook! We're currently waiting out the building process of our apartment and staying in a loft apartment, sans KITCHEN. With only a microwave, a rice cooker and a bar fridge to keep some milk and condiments cold, we eat out more than we like to admit. We can however have access to a kitchen off and on so I have managed a couple New Years recipes. My resolution was to cook more, eat out less, try new things and eat healthier.

I started a kitchen journal and so far so good. (Thank's for the tip Michael Smith!) In it i made a list of things I really want to try to make this year. Here goes!

Polenta- Pad Thai - Butter Chicken - Sushi - Roast Chicken - Pizza Dough - Pasta Noodles - Borscht - Miso Soup - Yorkshire Pudding - Brownies - Red Velvet Cupcakes - Green Tea Cake - Buttercream - Pie Crust - English Trifle and more!

The list in my head is much bigger of course, but these are just what stood out in my mind. They also give me more blog goals, as I will post whenever I get through one.

On New Years I only had 6 guests, 8 including us. I kept it easy and pretty quick.

The Menu:
Meat Lovers Pizza- Bacon, Pepperoni and Ham
Hawaiian Pizza- Pineapple, Ham and Pepperoni
Family Cheeseball- delicious tradition!
Veggies & Dip- Roasted Garlic and Cheddar by DEB'S DIPS




***Next Blog: Sugar High Ham and Cauliflower Mash - Stay Tuned!

A wedding day Rundown

I just reformatted my blog page, and switched it from a dark blue background to a creamy colour. All my text in the other 57 posts are bright pinks, blues, tangerines.... a horror to the eye really when i think about it. But this page gets to play with ALL colours. If the look of the page doesn't make your eyes bleed, that's a good day.


My last blog wave was back when I was planning my wedding and right before things got HECTIC. I'm talking, living out of a suitcase cause my house is a big wooden box still and I'm planning a wedding for 250 people. But seeing how everything went so swimmingly and I am finally getting more settled in my newly married life I can get back to blogging...for a while at least. So here are just a few shots from the wedding to give you an idea of the day. It was sunny, we were on top of the world and I have never danced so much in my life.

The Hairdo

The Ladies Help Me Prep- Just thought it was a nice shot

The Ladies in a row

Happy Over Eccentric Newlyweds in the limo


A decent shot of my dress without using a photographers shot


Our First dance was gonna suck because we are not the most compatible on the dance floor together. But we are musically compatible and so we did a first song instead of a first dance. My Husband Matt played Guitar and I sang Jack Johnson's "Better Together"

That's it for today I'm thinkin. ciao!

Can It Be?

ok, im in a new house. my wedding has already 6 months come and gone. in fact, my blog has not been updated in like, 10 months or sumn! insane! the reason i strayed away? my blog was being a pain in the ass! im not exceptionally tech smart, i have a husband who fixes everything for me. But this blog was becoming so hard to do. My net, my laptop and more all made it very hard for me to upload pictures, or even to drag and drop. it owuldnt let me drag, the nightmares i was having. and i got pissed and gave up for a little wee while...10 months wee while.

but i am on a new computer, with a proper mouse, in a new home with shitty country internet but i'm going to give this another try. I really love doing this blog and i love reading other foodies blogs.... and i just want to learn how to make a decent one! lol




to test todays little entry, a photo! This smoggy, grey, finger smudged photo is believe it or not, a sight that made me almost cry. This is my shot of the NYC city skyline as our plane landed in LaGuardia. I waited my entire life to soo the big apple, and 3 separate attempts prior to this FAILED. so when you finally get to see something you always wanted to, you get...well... HAPPY!


now to test photos again....i added only one photo and it did not allow me to drag it down without dropping it in the middle of some text....i dont get it there is sooooo much white unused space on the screen why cant it be more open? *sigh*



ok...drag and drop didnt work...bastardo. however, i switched over to html and took a guess at what could happen if i cut and pasted all that jargin that represents a photo and that worked out to my favour....feeling better! This shot is one we took of the pond in Central Park, it was a gorgeous day!

now that the shoot the shit trouble shooting blog is done, let's see how i can get a years worth of back bloggin up hahahah. look out!

Lion Man tries on suits

Matt took 2 years to agree to grow his beard back! Which i love!~ But now he has a big beard and his hair got long, and he hasn't had a chance to get it cut! So I have started teasing him.

We went to pick out the very dapper sexy suits for our wedding. Matt looked like Lion Man from these car commercials these days. He was so furry and unkempt in the hot suits We had to take pictures to laugh at. I know when he is all clean and unkempt it will be even hotter than it is now! weeeee...

First we tried on a chocolate brown suit with a couple different ties. SEVENTIES MUCH? it was awesome for like a night out or sumn to be silly but not for a wedding. 8 groomsman in brown= shit parade?



We tried on the brown suit because I was hot for this brown tie! it looked hot but the suit didn't work for the wedding. And the tie didnt work with out final suit choice!

The final suit choice is sweeeet. this is it here! Matt is making a silly goodball face!
OW OW what a sexyyyy suit.




Thats it for the suits! I am planning to make covered button boutenniers! what fun!

Thats a spicy pasta (and a sexy dress!)

Hello everyone!

Lot's of crazy things going on in my little corner of the world! I've been so good at staying on top of this wedding planning,working full time as a cook and then a baker, getting ready to move, and more that my poor blog had to take a backseat for a bit. Not because I don't love it, or whoever out there reads this but because I just am too wrapped up!

So this week I shall bring you a sexy, spicy new pasta I tried out on matt recently. 2 spicy italian sausage (yay for meat counters)I hadn't had pasta in weeks and being that I'm an Italian girl who's spent her life eating pasta 2x a week, i needed a hit.

I was thinking about a soup I saw rachael ray make that had sausage in it and i thoughts mmmm. But it was a thick soup (she calls it stoup, its adorable) and when i was trying to come up with recipes i wanted the ground sausage. I also wanted pasta....why not try a twist on bolognese? but i need veggies in me today...peppers? peppers are boring! cubanelle peppers?

Long, shiny, different... i'll do it!

So matt documented as i cooked this up....

SPICY SAUSAGE AND CUBANELLE BOLOGNESE ON RIGATONI

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 hot italian sausage, removed from casings
1 cubanelle pepper, diced
1 lg can crushed tomatoes
1 sm can diced tomatoes (I live by Aurora)
1/2 cup of warm ro room temperature water
salt and pepper
garlic salt
Olive oil
350 grams rigatoni


In a hot large sized sauce pan (or just your fave pot you know can handle a litre ...ish or 2) brown the sausage, breaking into chunks. halfway through browning toss in the onions and sweat. When onions are translucent and sausage is brown toss in the garlic. Stir about for a minute to release oils and flavour and add the peppers. If looking dry, add a turn of the pan of olive oil. Add salt and pepper to flavour. Cook until peppers are browning and starting to soften.


Add all your tomatoes and water. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 35-40 minutes until sauce has thickened and peppers are mega soft.

Mix with rigatoni, and enjoy the pockets of yummy sauce in the pasta.


MMMMM. It was really good but i didn't break up the sausage as much as I would prefer! We gave it 4/5 and docked it the 1 point for a sometimes status as opposed to often and always status lol.

WEDDING NEWS!

Well the bridemaids are singing as they all got to see the dress we chose for them. It's very gorgeous when you see it upclose and personal. And the colour we tried it on in (and ordered it in) is COOLWATER. a very light blue green pastel. gorgeous!



unfortunately this dress shot is pink. When i get the shots from the ladies of the real dress I will post it!

Dress Shopping Easy as 1, 2 ,3

About 2 months ago i had a day off from my then busy work schedule. I didn't feel like sitting at home, or cleaning. I couldn't decide if i wanted to watch a movie or listen to music. I couldn't sit down and i wouldn't stand still. I was going stir crazy! So after managing to flip through a page of a bridal mag and a quick glance at the calendar i figured " today might be a good day to go check out a few of the local bridal shops. " So i called up my Bridesmaid Kristin and we headed out on the town. We started at Elmwood Brides, a beautiful old house with different levels and rooms full of bridal goodies.

My main goal for this excursion was to check out dresses for my bridal party and get a better idea on what colours are available. But what self respecting bride-to-be can walk around in
a shop and NOT peruse the dresses? Being that i'm a rollie pollie ollie I thought my chances of a decent sexy dress would be pretty frustrating. Elmwood had a large rack for the plus sized gals but a lot of them were TOO plus and a few were just scary. Amidst all the dresses i got really full of butterflies and next thing I knew, i was pulling an armful of dresses in my size off the rack.

Dress #1 I tried my first dress and of course got all full of happy emotions and perhaps there was a tear or 2. It really was very pretty. It fit almost perfectly except my buzzies were a little too small for it. Big problem! 8 foot train on a 5 foot girl. moving on...

*~This is a shot of the first dress. NOT MY DRESS! Can you see how short I am now? hehe. But in this shot you can't see the huge train.~

Dress #2 didnt fit at all. 2 sizes too big, it was oddly shaped for someone who looks like me and i didnt even need to do it up before expelling it to the rejects hook. And another...

Dress #3 was very pretty, very comfortable with the kind if tummy hiding capabilities i wanted but it felt a little prom-tastic and i wasn't sure it was quite me.

Dress #4 Then kristin held up the last dress i had nabbed. I hadn't look at it just it's tag. She had it all bawled up so i could get into it. I slipped my head through the top and felt it hug my body as kristin got to work on what i then realized was a different back then i was originally looking for. I stared at myself in the mirror and realized what an AMAZING dress i was wearing. and it fit. I mean it FIT...PERFECTLY. I was amazed and how small my waist was, how well it complimented me and well at just how damn gorgeous it was. The only fault it had was a small train on the back that still proved a little too long for little 'ole me. Of course, i paid the extra cash to order it with a small train and plan to have it altered further when it comes in. I wish i could show you or give you the details but of course this is a TOP SECRET DESIGN. Can't give anything away until those big doors open at 1:30, 8 months from now.

I did go to a couple more shops. The service wasn't as good as Elmwood, the dresses weren't as good. Most places had tiny dressing rooms and a big room in the middle of the place to look at yourself in. NO THANKS.


When i told my mother i had found my dress she suggested i hold off and go to Buffallo. Try on more in a boutique that has blowout sales and all that jazz. But when she came to see the dress and on me all done up she didn't say another word about looking for another one.


How EASY was that? it was easier to pick my dress than it was to pick my DJ! The picture to the left is as much of the dress as anyone not in the female side of the wedding party gets to see! sorry peeps! I have to find a tattoo cover up at the request of the entire family.....even though Matt and I would really rather it was left out in the open. After all, it's who I am.

But don't worry I didn't forget to look at bridesmaids dresses~ I'm going with a nice cool blue. Although i wont know the exact shade until the ladies see all the choices. My 2 favourite dresses!

both will be in the blue, though the dress in brown comes in a gorgeous ice blue and its my favourite with a big lead!


Well that is my ramble ramble. Hope it satisfied any wedding news cravings some of you have been having :P I know I've got a long and short 8 months to satisfy all mine!

Garlic Is Great!

Oh my! its been months since my last post! This kind of apologetic opening is becoming a habit! I shall have to spend less time reading bridal magazines and recipes, and more time with my blog!

So here I go! My first visit to a farmers market! a few weeks ago Matt was playing the guitar in a children's festival at Fairy Lake.

I headed over to see him to find that his performance had been delayed for a couple hours. Not wanting to just go home, and with time to spare before I had to go to work we set off across the street. There appeared to be tents and music and we realized that it was the GARLIC IS GREAT festival and farmers market. I had no money but i was mega excited as I held Matt's hand and dragged him around the stands. We didn't get long but I was feeling really happy surrounded by some beautiful food.

We lined up at the small trailer that serves food. They had a big lineup and a considerably large menu for such a small space. Bacon sandwiches, burgers, fries, eggs sandwiches, and specials of the day! that day they were featuring waffles and cajun corn fritters. Matt got a Sausage on a Bun and I opted to try the corn fritters. They sounded intriguing.


They were actually really really good and not overly greasy. I plan to try my hand at the recipe in the near future. They came with a spicy mayonnaise, an awesome edition.

We took a look at a few stands. There was sushi, knife sharpening, Heirloom tomatoes, the potatoes that are heirloomed but im too tired to remember the proper name for them. I laughed the hardest at a tent called "Big Ass Garlic"

They had lots of garlic wreaths, different garlic types and spreads. They had a donkey for their symbol.

All in all it was a fun 30 minutes jaunt around a parking lot and i look forward to hitting it up on a day where i have both time and money. The great news? When we move to the new house there is a farm market open daily, 2 blocks from us. Oh am i ever excited about living in the country!

coming soon: A post about food!? really? no way!

Bridesmaid News: Second Edition

Ok so, yes. its true. I havent updated this blog in 2 months. BUT WHY ANGIE WHY! because friends, I got a new job in a kitchen. I eat, i sleep, i cook. I also you know lurk around on facebook so...BLAME FACEBOOK AND ALL ITS GLORY! But I have a day off, first in a week and I am using some of that time to get a blog entry in. Ha-haa.

So today i thought since many people i dont get to see or talk to as much as i like have been asking me about the wedding, I will do a wedding entry.

Now a few blogs back i introduced my bridal party and wrote a little poem. That was part of something i do by monthly called "The Bridesmaid News" which is just me talking about random wedding stuff and updating the ladies. I didn't however post the whole thing cause it was 8 pages long. So today you get an edited down version of the second edition!

THE BRIDESMAID NEWS

Welcome to the 2nd Official Edition of the Bridesmaid Newsletter! I’m sitting comfortably on the couch feeling bridal and giddy! I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy and my 2 very favourite characters have just been proposed to at the same time! So thus par, I am very in the mood to start today’s edition!

This week marks the ONE YEAR count down to the wedding! Which means that the wedding has moved from “Next Year” status to “UNDER A YEAR” status! Matt and I are PUMPED and can’t imagine what we are going to do to make this year pass both swiftly and comfortably! But considering how well paced this last 6 months went I think that wish just may come true!

So what have we been up to? Well not oodles and oodles of full on bridal planning…yet. But things are going steady and smoothly and I’m enjoying the ride.

We officially booked with our DJ last week! We went with Flashpoint DJ’s. I met them at the Bridal Show and won free bubbles! But when I got in contact with them they traded me the 50 dollar bubbles for 150 dollars off the total package. They sent me this 10 page survey where they ask all about us and where we work, what we listen to, how we met, if any parents will not be at the wedding and why. Then they list off like 300 songs and they want you to pick what you like, what your friends like, how many people of what age group there are, did we pick music for everyone or just our own tastes. WHEW! And that’s like half the questions. But it’s been interesting trying to agree on certain songs… *Cough* Hot in Herre *Cough*.

The DJ has also asked us to select an MC from the people we know to ensure proper name pronouncement and to give the night a more personal touch.

So the MC for the wedding will be SHANE Wooo!

Shane is also a member of the wedding party and one of our dearest friends. (Well you’re all our dearest friends that’s why you’re in the wedding!) Shane is an Actor, currently in school at York U! He keeps me so entertained and he’s just awesome! We didn’t think twice about whom to ask to do us this honour!

THANKS SHANE!

As far as selecting people goes we haven’t a clue what we are doing for our ceremony. We don’t know if we’re writing our own vows, how we want to go about music (family or church guy or regular pre recorded wedding jive). But what we did decide was to ask our friend Tom to read the first passage for us! Tom moved away to BC on us and we wanted to be able to include him in the day. Naturally he was very touched and accepted! It just wouldn’t be the same without our good old Tommy Thompkins.

THANKS TOM!

Now the most exciting bit of all! THE HONEYMOON! We have officially booked our honeymoon and we’re ready to rock! We booked this early so that we could receive lower rates where possible and because well, we basically picked out our honeymoon 2 years ago. So where are we taking our love adventure!? An itinerary if you will~

In the interest of being able to party all night at the wedding and not having to rush away we are starting our honeymoon on the Monday, June 9th, and are leaving for NEW YORK CITY! We’ll be in the big apple for 5 days and are boarding the Caribbean Princess Cruise Ship on Friday June 13th. Am I feeling superstitious about the cruise leaving on the 13th? Nope! We’ll be taking this lovely boat with our balcony room (breakfast on the ocean, oh yes) through the Caribbean and around the Bermuda triangle. AHH!

We’ll be visiting The West end of Bermuda, San Juan Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and The Grand Turks! I’ve only been to St. Thomas and our boat is the same boat I was on last time. This will be Matt’s first cruise and I’m so happy to get to be the person he goes on his first one with! I tell him tales of food unending, movies under the stars, falling asleep to the sound of waves, and OH how much fun we will have! This will be our first vacation outside of Ontario together!

New York will be amazing! It’s not possible that it not be anything but spectacular when you’ve waited as long or tried as hard to get there as I have! The anticipation is giving me heartburn I think! We’ve agreed to see 2 Broadway musicals, the museum, a nighttime boat tour of the islands, and to get a mile high corn beef on rye from the Carnegie Deli. But nothing is getting booked for a least another 6 months!

We have had some wonderful luck with our hotel. Since we are booking through our Cruise line instead of by ourselves we are getting a 4 star Sheraton Towers King Room for 300 dollars LESS than the usual nightly rate. Naturally we really appreciate that perk, as it made a huge difference in the location and star rating we could originally afford.

Being that it’s our Honeymoon I have agreed to do certain excursions I would NEVER agree to do for anyone else. I, Angie the woman who can’t so much as put a toe in ocean water (but loves cruising go figure) ….is getting into a submarine…and delving over 80 feet into the ocean. OH…MY…GOD! But I’m actually feeling pretty excited and thinking HEY WHY NOT! The brochure even said they give you a special paper that commemorates the occasion! We’ll only be in St. Thomas together once why not make it interesting. This is what I traded Matt to get out of SCUBA DIVING! It seems like a pretty good switch!

in Bermuda we’re taking a ferry tour and hiking through some cool old caves. This is also a Matt chosen adventure. What can I say he’s a Cave Man. Hee! We also will stop in at an aquarium and see what the crazy fish are up to! San Juan looks like the place to shop for great coffee and take a small walk on the beach. I’ll be happy to have a nice shopping day! Mind you…New York will be the main focus of that project.

And Finally Grand Turks. This is the Cruise Excursion we’re the most excited about! We’re taking a Dune Buggy tour around the island beaches, through caves, and stopping on a beach for a Lunch and sun session. Matt and I will have our own Dune Buggy and will convoy with several other buggies through places you can’t really go by car! Though I should mention that all of these excursions aren’t listed for next June just this summer so we’re just hoping they will still be running when it’s our turn!
It’s going to be such a wonderful end to the long year of planning and excitement, and an amazing start to a wonderful marriage!

Whew did I ever talk a lot today! I should have left something to talk about in the next one! I guess that means I just have to do a little more planning! Thanks for reading! I leave you now with the photo of the day!

Tune in for the next bridal newsletter. Same Bride time, same Bride Channel!