Last Hoorah

Besides visiting vineyards, my family and I also took the time to do other things during the Labor Day weekend. We enjoyed a nice dinner cruise and took in the Toronto skyline against the backdrop of the setting sun. I'd have to say that my family really enjoys eating and trying new foods and restaurants, as the majority of what we did involved lots of food.

Before you go on to think that we're all fatties though, we did take the time to visit the Safari Niagara and take in the fire works display over the Niagara Falls. Regardles of it being an extremely packed weekend, it was fun to do it all and to see my family again, until my visit back to Ottawa for Thanksgiving.

Bi-Weekly Round Up

These past two weeks have quickly flown by and I'm already starting to miss home again. When I first moved to Toronto, I went back to Ottawa almost every second week for about 2 months. But now it's the first time that I've been away for longer than that and it definitely doesn't feel the same. Nonetheless, I still love living here independently and wouldn't trade it for anything else - besides P living here with me as well.

I met the most adorable dog a couple weeks back, his name is Mochi. With fur in the shape of a puff ball, he was the most cuddliest thing that I'd ever laid my eyes on.

 

I was strolling down Queens street and spotted these adorable Mean Girls inspired posters and just had to take a snap shot. I'm a huge fan of the movie and oddly enough this year is its 10th anniversary. The little posters couldn't have shown up at a better time.

I don't usually wear jewelry but these pretty baubles caught my eye at the Shop for Jayu Collection Launch. And now for the food. I've eaten so much these past couple of weeks that my abs have paid the price for it. Gone into hiding for the fall and winter, I've absolutely decided that it's the right time to start loading up on the tummy fat for hibernation.

A little bit of shaved ice and mango never hurt anyone.

Trying out some food at Taste of Danforth.

Kitchen Play - Pesto Sandwhich

Being a relatively healthy eater, I tend to opt for fresher pastes and pesto sauce definitely hits the spot. It can be thrown into a pasta, used as a spread and even tastes great in a salad. On days when I'm rushing to work in the morning or I'm looking for something quick and easy to make, I almost always reach for my jar of pesto to make my pesto sandwich.

This recipe takes under 5 minutes to make and can easily be customized to suite your taste buds and cravings.

 hello

1. Spread pesto sauce over the bread of your choice. I prefer whole grains because it's healthier for my body.
2. Slice up a tomato until you have enough to cover the slice of bread.
3. Layer the cheese of your choice over another slice of bread. I usually enjoy gently warming up the cheese in a microwave after this so that it's soft and helps keep the sandwhich together.
4. Put the two pieces of bread together and enjoy!

I have another sandwhich recipe that involves smoked salmon which is a little heavier. If you guys are interested, let me know in the comments and I'll definitely add it to my Kitchen Play series!

Cookies and Cream Fudge

It's taken me awhile to finally show the fantastic cookies and cream fudge recipe I found over at Cupcakes and Cashmere, but I'm more than excited to share my fabulous treat that had everyone swooning over the holidays. I'm a sucker for Hershey's Cookies and Cream chocolate bars and by no means did I plan on the outcome of the fudge to taste similar. So when I got reactions asking me if I used any of the chocolate bar in the recipe due to how identical it tasted, I was pleasurably surprised. I modified the original recipe slightly, out my own idiocy when  grocery shopping and didn't purchase enough supplies, so the overall taste is less sweeter than the original.

I used this recipe, but I replaced sugar for icing sugar once I realized that I didn't actually have any at home. This actually sped up the cooking process as the finer sugar melted a lot faster than I had expected. I started the process by doubling the recipe, and by the time it came to incorporating the marshmellow cream, I realized that I had only bought enough for one portion. So only 3.5 oz were used.

I also omitted the pinch of salt because of the decreased cooking time due to the icing sugar made the entire mixture extremely difficult to mix.

Ribtober Fest

If you missed out on the annual Rib Fest that happens on Sparks Street this summer, you had a second chance this weekend. Once again, Sparks Street brought back the same street meat vendors but dubbed as Ribtober Fest (as a pun on October, get it?). I'm not an avid ribs fan, but there's always something there for me, pulled pork. I've never liked having to eat food that involves your fingers and getting sauce all over your face (this includes wings, don't judge) so pulled pork has always been a solid favorite of mine since I tried it for the first time.

I'm a loyal Camp 31 fan, but this time my friends and I wanted to try a different Ribber. Honestly, we had only just finished a gym workout about 20 minutes before hand, so the closet stall with the shortest line up was what sold us. Enter: Billy Bones. Now I'm extremely used to the sweet, peppery tang of Camp 31, and that's not to say that Billy Bones was bad, just different. It had more of a smokey taste to it. The same kind you get from a backyard grill when you accidentally burn your burgers. What was great about Billy Bones was that the napkin stands had huge pumps of their signature BBQ sauce just in case you felt that your order needed a little bit of extra juice. I'm not a huge fan of salt, so I didn't go for that option, but for those who like to be able to add more juice to their plate, I definitely thought that this was an ingenious idea!

I ended up ordering a pulled pork sandwich - as always, and got tempted into the delicious food that was cooking on the grill. My order resulted in some chicken as well. Can I say that I'm a convert to Billy Bones? Definitely not, once a Camp 31 fan, always a Camp 31 fan. But I did enjoy branching out and trying the flavors that other Ribbers had to offer.

Did you guys get to try Rib Fest or Ribtober Fest? Let me know if you have any favorite Ribbers that I should try, I'm always open to suggestions!

Key Lime Cupcakes

I had a pot luck to attend this afternoon and had no idea what to bring. Surprise, surprise I decided to flounce in with a batch of two dozen cupcakes. I'm not going to lie, I did go with one of those pre-made cake batter boxes that anyone can pick up at their grocery store (I was in a crunch for time and couldn't run around picking up all of the proper ingredients), but I did not get the frosting to go with it. Instead I opted to make my own butter cream frosting and flavour everything lime.

*I purchased 4 limes for all the lime zest and lime juice *

 

BATTER

Duncan Hynes Classic White Cake Mix
3 Large Eggwhites
1 and 1/3 Cups of Water
1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of Lime Zest
1 Tablespoon of Lime Juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and fit two dozen cupcake liners into muffin trays.
2. Finely grate the lime to get enough lime zest and then squeeze the limes into a bowl for the juice.
3. Blend the cake mix with the eggwhites, water, and vegetable oil together until smooth, then add in the lime zest and then add the lime zest and juice.
4. Blend once again until everything is mixed in evenly.
5. Pour the mix into the cupcake liners so that each one is filled to about 2/3 of the way.
6. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes.
7. Poke a toothpick randomly through some cupcakes to determine if they are completely baked.
8. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before icing or else the icing will melt.

FROSTING

1 Cup of Salted Butter
4 Cups of Icing Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon of Brown Vanilla Extract

3 Tablespoons of 18% Table Cream

1 Tablespoon of Lime Zest
2 Tablespoons of Lime Juice

1. Beat the butter until it has a whipped consistency and is smooth.
2. Slowly mix in the icing sugar one cup at a time until everything is mixed evenly.
3. Add in the Vanilla extract and mix again.
4. Add in the table cream (the more cream you use, the smoother the icing, the less you use, the stiffer the icing) and beat until smooth.
5. Add in the lime zest and juice and beat until smooth.
6. Once the cupcakes are smooth, pipe the icing to cover the tops of each cake.
7. Sprinkle a little bit of lime zest atop each cupcake for a final touch.

Voila! How easy was that? Now if you want to get "more" creative, you can always use any original batter that you may have and just add in the lime zest and juice to flavour. I had originally wanted to add a slice of lime and twist it to the top of each cupcake but decided in the long run that it would be overkill. So now I have a little plate full of sliced limes sitting in my fridge that I think I'll just add to my water tomorrow morning.

This simple and delicious recipe yielded approximately 39 cupcakes, although you can change it to more or less depending on the sizes of the cupcake liners that you choose. I hope you enjoyed the recipe and let me know if you end up trying it out!