The night she arrived I made a beautiful pork roast in the crock pot using a new recipe. It looked really good and the marinade was really simple. It was balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, dijon mustard, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Here it is after being rubbed with the marinate before hitting the crock pot.
Unfortunately the pork was very dry and very sweet. Way too much brown sugar ... but it LOOKED really good. After cooking for about 8 hours I served it with couscous and a fresh salad. Too bad about the taste!
You should take note of my cute little pottery pitcher in the picture. Sooo cute ... and I got it for free when I bought some bowls directly from the potter (a fellow out near Mount Forest, ON). It goes nicely with the pottery butter dish that I bought one year at the Potter's Guild sale here in Ottawa. It is actually made to hold a wine bottle to keep any drips from the table but I like it for a butter dish and it works really well and looks great.
You might also notice a loaf of bread in this picture too. This is bread that I bought from the Italian bakery in my neighbourhood. This one is 'spicy' Italian bread and it has an AWESOME kick. Emma and I both love spicy things and this definitely delivered. The red chilies are baked right into the loaf. You are not going to want this bread toasted with peanut butter lets say, but for a savoury spicy bread, I don't think you can beat it. Flavour in every bite. We also had tomato focaccia from this bakery later in the week. Normally focaccia is not one of my favourites - I often find it kind of dry and tough but this tomato focaccia was outstanding. The bread was soft and fresh, the tomatoes are fresh (not sun dried) and it has a beautiful olive oil drizzled on top (which accumulates in pockets in the dough) and sprinkled with basil and a little bit of salt. Delicious. Also good toasted. We really enjoyed it. I guess in this case, the bread actually turned out better than planned!
So ... we might as well continue on the bread theme for the moment. I took Emma to the new 'Art-is-in' shop down under the Somerset bridge. You are probably familiar with the Art-is-in bread as they sell it all over the city (although apparently not in Kanata according to Dannette) including at Nicastros, Grace in the Kitchen (one of my favourite stores) and other fine food shops. The bread is soooo yummy. The baguette loaves are long and flat and soft (no hard crust that cuts the roof of your mouth on this bread). My favourite is the potato, onion and dill. YUMMY! But the bread aside, the chef has opened a little storefront where he sells bread, pastries and has a fresh lunch counter with soups and sammys. The pastries are fantastic. I had the pain au chocolat and the apple turnover. OMG. So delicious. The pastry on both was so light an flaky (yes I had a circle of pastry flakes surrounding me when I ate them ... but Jake & Gwenny vacuumed that up in no time). I was very happy that the pain au chocolat was not covered in powered sugar so that it was not overly sweet and the apple puree in the apple turnover was smooth, fresh and the flavour was perfect. Emma chose an almond croissant, almond brioche and a raspberry scone. She has a thing for almond paste. All were very good, the raspberry scone was very soft and delicate and not at all dry as scones can sometimes be. I also got a butter tart for Bonnie - one of her favourite things. She said it was very good with lots of caramel flavour which she enjoys. She said heated up for a few seconds in the microwave would make the tart perfect.
And now I have one more bread story to share - which definitely falls into the 'Not Everything Goes as Planned' category. Last Thursday I decided to make these buns which, in my family, we call "Elton's Buns" - Elton being my great uncle and this being a recipe that came from him at some point a long time ago. I have made this recipe with my mom and it is a super simple recipe. Unfortunately, my dough didn't rise as much as they are supposed to. The dough should double in volume - mine hardly rose at all. I have no idea what happened. Anyway, I went ahead and baked them and hoped for the best. While they were not nearly as light and fluffy as I know they are supposed to be, they still tasted OK. At least they were not heavy, dough rocks or anything. And, if my work colleagues are to be believed, if you didn't know that is not how they were supposed to be you would never know there was anything wrong with them.
Yes, I took them to work to share with my colleagues during our Friday morning eating ritual. I also brought in a jar of my mom's homemade elderberry jelly. Not one person knew what elderberries are. Not surprising to me, because outside of my own family, I never see these small dark purple very mild flavoured berries at any market or fruit store.
You might want to check our my sterling silver butter knife in this picture. This is from my Granparents' set of 'good' flatware which I inherited and I love. In order to keep the silver from tarnishing, I use the flatware regularly - I don't save it for good.
There was, of course, lots more eating and drinking when Emma was here. We went to Hintonbuger, which will have its own separate post, we turned up at the Heart and Crown pretty much every night, and we went to the Empire Grill for Stacey's birthday dinner where a drink and appies were comp'ed for us ... which was definitely not planned but most welcomed!
