A few weeks ago some friends and I got together for a nice dinner at Town, on Elgin Street. My first impression of the restaurant was that it was small in size but big in personality. I loved the decor and the staff. We were not rushed through our meal and had lots of time to share some appetizers, like their incredible meat balls and cheese, and chat.

I had the half chicken dinner, this was a very generous portion, with mashed potatoes, sprouts and squash. The pomegranate was a lovely touch.

Two people had the chicken and two had the pork chop. And one had the meatballs and salad as the main course. Again, everything was lovely and very generous portions.

The highlight of my meal was definitely the sundae which featured caramel popcorn on homemade icecream. I’ve never thought about this interesting combo but it really worked out. I LOVED it!

Most of us had the sundae for dessert but two people shared the tiramisu.

Overall, great experience, great food! I would definitely enjoy another night out at Town.

Part of our Christmas tradition is attending “A Very Ayler Christmas” which is an avant garde jazz show that take Christmas carols and introduces them into the music of Albert Ayler (google him – interesting bloke!)

They have two more concerts to go:

Saturday, December 17 at 9:30PM at L’Envers, Montreal

Sunday, December 18 at 7:00PM at the UMI Café, Ottawa

It’s really interesting music, Ottawa Jazz Scene is going to post some of the video from the concert if you are interested.

Here are a few photos of the band

These are all taken with my Lumix, no flash

So over the weekend I made up some batches of homemade chocolate turtles.

I like to give these out with my homemade gifts. I don’t think I made them last year but thought I would do them again this year.

They are easy to do and do not require any baking.

1. Bake pecans in the oven, watching them and stirring occasionally so they don’t burn

2. In a double boiler or microwave container, soften some caramel (I buy mine at Bulk Barn)

3. Arrange pecans on a piece of parchment paper on a tray or cookie sheet. I like 2 pecans together.

4. Carefully using a small spoon pour some caramel over the pecans.

5. In a double boiler or microwave container, melt some chocolate (milk or dark) and using a spoon carefully pour over the caramel and pecans.

6. Add some sprinkles or chopped nuts to top them off

7. Place in freezer or fridge to harden before placing in a container.

I like to keep mine in the fridge for storage until I put them into the containers for gifts.

So lately, I’ve not been doing a lot of photography but have been baking up a storm! With Christmas just around the corner a friend and I did some Christmas baking this weekend. I started with my candied nuts and homemade turtles.

Before this I made some chocolate red velvet cupcakes for a friend’s 40th, here were the results:

I used a fondant mold to make the cake toppers. The icing was a creamcheese with vanilla bean.

I added some shimmery edible luster dust.

Not everyone enjoys the taste of fondant so I did a few just with a small touch.

Due to the large number of sad bananas in my house I also made some banana bread this weekend.

So here is the first batch of candied nuts. I like to give these out as part of my homemade Christmas gifts.

This is sort of a long posting. I’m going to try and start doing regular postings again – hopefully this will get me back into more regular photography and other hobbies that have fallen to the side with all the baking.

Celebrating my favorite place to visit in the world – Austria!

So for Halloween this year I’ve been thinking of a 1950’s inspired costume with a halloween twist. I created these saddle-like shoes using shoes from Ardene (NR’s suggestion), googly eyes and a glue gun. I got the idea from a Craft Blog and I’m really happy with the outcome!

I’m looking forward to continuing my costume work…

Okay, so last night I tired my hand at macaroon cookies. This was quite challenging for me because macaroons use a meringue base (whipped egg whites) and so many things can go wrong when trying to whip egg whites.

I looked at several macaroon recipes and came up with my own version of the french macaroon, a vanilla macaroon cookie.

Ingredients

2 cups ground blanched almonds
3 cups powered sugar
8 egg whites
1/3 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
2 vanilla beans, seeded

I preheated the oven to 275 and lined some cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Using a hand mixer I whipped 3 egg whites – make sure there is no grease in the bowl because the eggs will not whip properly otherwise.

In a small sauce pan I put the water and the granulated sugar until it was melted. (Watch the sugar very carefully because you can not let it burn.)Then I added the sugar mixture to the 3 egg whites and whipped it until it was glossy and a little bit stiff (around 12-16 minutes).

In a bowl I put the ground almonds, powdered sugar, remaining egg whites and the vanilla bean seeds. You mix this until it looks like a paste.

Then I folded in the whipped egg mixture with the other bowl.

I used a piping bag or a spoon to put “blobs” of my batter onto the parchment paper and allowed the trays to set for approximately 10-15 minutes.

I put one tray at a time into the oven and set the timer for 6 minutes. Then I turned the tray and set the timer for another 6 minutes or until the cookies were ever so slightly browned and a crust had formed.

Raspberry Coulis
In a small sauce pan, I put approximately 2 cups of raspberries, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water and let it simmer down until it was a thick mixture. Coulis often doesn’t include the seeds but I usually leave mine with the seeds – it’s similar to jam.

Lessons Learned

1 – next time I would grind the almonds into a thinner consistency
2 – my whipped mixture started to “deflate” I think because the kitchen was warm, and it lost some of it’s thickness
3 – whip my egg white mixture slightly longer
3 – the smaller cookies were harder to handle and often broke, the larger cookies were much easier to handle

Not a day goes by that I don’t wear my Do It For Daron (D.I.F.D) purple bracelet.

On November 12th, 2010, Daron Richardson took her own life. She was 14 years old and a friend of my younger cousin. I know when I heard of her death I was shocked and deeply saddened that such a young girl would take her own life. Daron’s family started this organization to bring awareness to the issue and to inspire conversation on mental illness.

This important group will be featured on Battle of the Blades! Bryan Berard and Marie-France Dubreuil will be skating for D.I.F.D at the Royal as their charity of choice. The prize if they win – $100, 000 for D.I.F.D!

How to vote

Web Options

Install the Battle App via www.cbc.ca/battle (using your facebook account)

Official Battle of the Blades Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/battleoftheblades

You can vote every five minutes http://www.cbc.ca/battle/vote/terms.html

Phone

1-877-844-8155 to cast your vote for Bryan and Marie-France – unlimited voting

Thanks for your support – for more information on D.I.F.D visit:

http://www.doitfordaron.com/

I was very happy with my new underwater toy camera – these were taken above water, and I love the results!

This is probably my favorite of the four. I definitely look forward to using this camera again – especially the underwater feature.

My mother-in-law brought these delicious desserts as a treat on the weekend. They were delicious but I’m not sure where they were purchased.