Food Tasting at the Inn

This weekend Jordan and I, along with our mothers, went to the Inn on Peaks to sample some of the appetizers and entrees we were considering for the wedding. It was a lovely weekend in Maine and so nice to see what the Inn looks like without snow on the ground.

We got clam chowder and salad.


Jordan really wanted prime rib.

An appetizer of lamb chop lollipops.

Eggplant Milanese - the veggie options and it was absolutely delicious!

Pork dumplings with sesame seed dipping sauce.

Tuscan bruschetta - lots of garlic

Ham and gryeure croques - very French.

Sirlon Steak with bourbon glaze.

Crazy how you can go in to something with an idea in your head and then leave with something completely different. Good luck guessing what will be at the wedding. I cannot wait to enjoy it with you!

Dairy Queen is as old as I am!

Dairy Queen turns 25 this year and to celebrate they are having buy one, get one for $.25 Blizzards through April 25th. Part of me thinks that this is still a bit of a rip off because Blizzards are quite expensive these days and you still have to pay for one. The fact that you can get one of them for $.25 is a deal though. I can never pass up a good deal and Jordan hounds me almost every night now that it is warmer to go get ice cream. With the wedding and all I have managed to ward him off all but once so far. (Granted the season for ice creams is still young).

Anyway, after a long Tuesday at work, I don't know why Tuesdays always last forever, Jordan convinced me that with our work and travel plans this would be the only night to be able to enjoy the buy one, get one $.25 deal. How could I argue with such a strong case?

I am normally a classic kind of gal and go for the traditional Oreo Blizzard. However, tonight I sprung for the Blizzard of the Month option of Caramel Brownie Blizzard. Sounds good, huh? I have definitely been having caramel on my mind lately and need to find some recipes to try.

(This is how the blog should have read, and there would have been lovely photos of our ice cream treats. However, I sometimes get blog happy and start posts that have not actually happened. A bit weird I know but normally when I plan something it happens. But my life has not been so typical lately so our trip to DQ never took place. I was going to delete it but then realized that someone out there might be able to celebrate the 25th with DQ. Please go enjoy something I missed out on!)

And just so you know, the wedding diet has officially become the wedding workout plan. Thanks to my nifty friend and the Nike + I now run everyday as long as possible for as hard as possible. This way I can eat whatever I want and not feel guilty about my dress. On a side note, I got my dress on April 10th. I ordered the size I tried on cause it fit perfectly. Thus I am not to gain or loose any pounds from now until the wedding. Now that will be the real task. The goal is to have one fitting, have it fit and be done with the whole process.

Quick summer grain salad

What a healthy meal! I was proud of myself for this one. I realized that it would be the perfect summertime dinner when it is just too hot to cook.

I used the Near East brand boxed Tabbouleh mix. Basically you follow the directions on the box of boiling water, measuring a cup and pouring into the mix. It sits for about 30 minutes in the fridge and you are done. I added grilled chicken, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and feta cheese. Add a side of salad greens, in this case Arugula and you have a complete meal.

Even Jordan said it was good and had it again for lunch the next day. It was so simple and easy as well as essentially no-cook. Of course, you could go old school and make Tabbouleh from scratch which really isn't too time consuming either but why bother when this is just so easy.

Bananas encore!

My apologies for the bad photo. However, I was not the only one in recent history who had an overload of bananas. One of my co-workers tends to buy way too many bananas on a weekly basis. I do hate to waste food so of course I volunteer to take any unwanted leftovers from the week. This week I had a whole 3 extra to take with me.

As my last post stated banana bread is one of the glorious options for using too ripe bananas. This week I took the age old standard banana bread recipe that spiced it up with some mini chocolate chips and pecans. This changed the whole feel of the bread to a lovely dessert. I promptly ate 1/2 the loaf. (Note: the wedding diet has transformed into the wedding exercise plan. Truly a foodie at heart I realized there was no use in trying to cut back in the food I like to eat. Now I simply have to run a whole whole lot)

Banana Bread
Ingredients:
1/4 C butter
1 tsp salt
1 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour
1/2 bran flakes
1 tsp soda
4 mashed bananas (beaten, creamy)
1/2 C pecans
1/2 C mini chocolate chips

Cream butter, add salt, add sugar.

Beat in eggs one at a time.

Sift flour with soda.

Mash bananas. Add alternately with dry ingredients.

Add pecans and mini chocolate chips.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Yum yum!

Flambe: Bananas Foster

So it happens that right around the time I decided it might be a good idea to have some sort of wedding diet going on, I found myself with a large bunch of banana and a 3 day work trip. I do not like brown bananas one bit. In fact I quite enjoy the green kind. Now there are only three ways I know how to get rid of a unwanted, somewhat brown banana: Banana bread, Smoothie/Milkshake, and Bananas Foster.

Of course a nice fruit smoothie would have been the ultimate diet decision but I am just not that kind of gal. At this point Jordan enter my debate as to what to do with the bananas. He is a big fan of Banana Foster. We have had many a great experience with this in restaurants. However, he never was a part of my mom's infamous experiments at home. Well, right then and there the decision was made to make Bananas Foster.

My recipe is somewhat simple and probably not quite right but for a quick fix desert that is absolutely wonderful here it goes.

Ingredients:

2 bananas

2 tbsp butter

1/4 C brown sugar

1tbsp rum

vanilla ice cream

1. Slice banana on plate.

2. Melt butter and brown sugar in saute pan till bubbling and add bananas.

3. Coat bananas with sauce. I tend to let them sit for about a minute and then flip the bananas to cook other side.

4. Add rum to pan and light with match. (This is the set that makes my mom's renditions of this desert infamous). Turn off heat and remove from stove top.

5. Pour over vanilla ice cream. It is extremely helpful to have a partner dish out the ice cream so it is ready at this point for topping.

Notice the flames at the top of the photo. Much cooler in real life.

This takes like 5 minutes total and has less than 5 ingredients, at least my version does. It is extremely delicious and often makes me very sad when my bowl is empty. If you are not big on the alcohol you can simply leave it out. The best part is the butter sugar mixture. However, a big part of the fun is lighting the whole thing on fire which only works with the Rum.

Cupcakes!

Who doesn't love a cupcake?



I was at a wedding yesterday evening and got to see for the very first time the newest trend - CUPCAKES. I somehow lacked a photo of the whole table spread but here are some delicious looking desserts.


I think my favorite part about this new trend is the variety of flavors you can offer. With a cake sure you can pick a new flavor for each layer but realistically how many layers are you going to get? With cupcakes you have many more options for varying the selection of flavors. At this wedding there was chocolate, Bavarian creme, and carrot cake.

Congrats Kari and Mike!