robot cupcakes

You and What Robot Cupcake Army?

 

Special thanks to Joe, Sara and Paige for the adorable cupcake moulds!

chili-rubbed pork tenderloin, black eyed pea salad, cubano quesadilla

We were sent home from my in-laws this past weekend with pork tenderloin. It worked perfectly because I had been wanting to make these two recipes from Great Food Fast for a while now.

Both loins were coated in the chili rub from this Chili-Rubbed Pork recipe then barbequed. That morning we had made a side of Black Eyed Pea Salad. I like salads like these to sit for half a day and it work out very well with this one. This dinner tasted summery but wasn't anything I'll make again. I'm not sure if it's because I've been eating so much bbq'd marbled meat lately that a pork tenderloin on the bbq tastes a little dry.

With the leftover pork I was estatic to make the Pork Quesadilla. Or as it should be refered to as CUBANO QUESADILLA! Why didn't I think of this sooner? Cubanos don't always have to be in sandwich form. This is heartier than a typical quesadilla but was the best one I've ever had.

Along with thinly sliced pork tenderloin this recipe calls for all the usual suspects including deli ham, swiss cheese, pickles and mustard. But there was also the addition of grilled red onion which was an amazing added touch. These quesadillas were heated on the bbq which gave them a nice toasty flavour. I had my quesadilla with sour cream and I know it sounds a little odd with the above ingredients, it was really tasty that way. 

The only drawback of this dinner is that these flavours aren't to the palate of a 20 month old. Owen hasn't really ever found a way of eating through a flour tortilla yet. So scrambled eggs and an english muffin for him and he was fit to be tied.

rum glazed shrimp and mango

On July 4th we took our dinner to-go. We packed up and went to Lakeside Park in Port Dalhousie with our picnic barbeque. While Owen and I watched the horses on the merry-go-round, Nuno barbequed the squers of Rum-Glazed Shrimp and Mango from Everyday Food Great Food Fast.

We arrived with a container of Couscous and Ambrosia Salad I'd already prepared. I love my ambrosia salad to taste like a pina colada so I never include tinned mandarain or marashino cherries. Canned fruit, well, I can't seem to bring myself to ever buy it. I'm not even sure how ambrosia qualifies as a salad, but when you can put marshmallows, coconut and pineapple on a plate and call it dinner, I'll take it! As will Owen. Along with avocado, mangoes were his favourite starter foods a year ago. After tasting the bbq'd mango alongside the ambrosia salad I'm going to start adding mangoes in my ambrosia salad.

We let Owen spend the rest of the evening on Port Dalhousie beach playing in the sand. The daycare told me he's a magnet to the sand box and loves to eat sand. Yes, I have the kid who eats sand! What's next, worms?  Luckily the daycare must have recently curbed his appetite for sand because he had a blast playing and getting dirty. Getting sandy from head-to-toe is A-OK with me when there is a bath immedietly in store.

Lightning McQueen Cake

Nuno's getting pretty serious about cakes these days. As well he should be because he's getting very good and is super talented. A friend of mine requested a last minute cake of Lightning McQueen from Cars for her nephew's birthday. Once Nuno heard about the challenge of putting a cake together under a tight deadline, he was game. I did a Google and Flickr search on Lightning McQueen cakes and, well, this link will give you a pretty good idea of what most people expect from a McQueen cake.

But this was what Nuno whipped up in 48 hours!

As a huge fan of the movie Cars myself, my favourite McQueen is when he gets a new paint job and tires from the Radiator Springs crew and that was the inspiration for this cake.

Nuno painted the eyes and they were full of life.

Details like the head lights, gas cap and tail pipes were all gum paste and hand painted.

The tires were moulded chocolate with black white fondant.

The paint job was of course red fondant but then painted with an edible pearl dust to replicate the glitter paint job.

My favourite moment was when Owen spent Saturday morning breakfast in his chair watching dad put all the details on the cake. We put on Cars and Owen couldn't really get past the first scene, but he recognized McQueen and I'm thinking he must be under the impression that his dad invented Lightning McQueen.

canada day weekend

We are right at that age with Owen where we are able enjoy all the wonderful things that go along with getting out with your children. He's talking, running, playing, swimming and couldn't possibly be more fun. I said to Nuno, if I knew how much fun Owen was going to be while expecting him, I would have been even more brimming with excitement than I already was! 

I'll share a few photos of this past weekend, but I honestly didn't even come close to capturing everything which included carousel rides, stroll along the beach, midway fascination, playing & climbing at parks, splash pad play, food festival, steel drum in a band shell, pool swims, cake decorating, stroller jog along the canal, pony rides, fair games, barbecue, Owen running, playing and squealing for joy at the top of his lungs with cousins.

And, ice cream, ice cream and even more ice cream! Owen doesn't stop to take a breath - I'm serious. 

We all know about hot dog eating - well, is there such thing as an ice cream eating competition? I have a strong candidate.

flank steak with lime marinade and vietnamese steak sandwich

We're loving the barbeque these past few weeks! I always enjoy the first of every meat. The first New York strip, the first rib eye, the first rack of ribs, the first burger, heck, even the first hot dog was something I eagerly anticipated! Well, since cooking through Everyday Food, I was introduced to the flank steak. One huge piece of lean meat that does very well when marinated and barbequed rare. This week we had the Flank Steak with Lime Marinade and Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes - both from Great Food Fast.

Do you really need a recipe for buttermilk mashed potatoes? Nope. I even revised it slightly because I find you get a creamier mash if you warm your milk and butter first. Just a personal preference.

Being a home with two working parents we found that the one thing that makes life so - so much easier during the week if you can meal plan one dinner into the next. If you get good at it, you can have something super quick like this Vietnamese Steak Sandwich on a night when either one of us can't be home in time to help with dinner. 

I enjoyed this sandwich so much more than the previous night's dinner. This quick sauce from pantry staples tasted pretty close to the real Bánh Mì sauce. It was also quite balanced in flavour because the sweetness of the carrots balanced the tang of the sauce. And the corriander was nice and fragrant.

roasted salmon with lemon relish

Wow, we haven't had salmon in a long while. So here is Roasted Salmon with Lemon Relish from Everyday Food Great Food Fast.

This was a simple oven baked salmon with a relish of raisins, pine nuts, parsley and lemon. Very tasty but isn't anything to write home about. The leftover relish was added to our Rice Salad with Raisins and Radicchio side and it really enhanced the flavour of an already delicious side.

blackberry and ginger trifle

When we make our sculpted cakes we end up with a lot of leftover scrappy chunks of cake. Sometimes it's the baker's perk to snack on these, but do you realize how that can add up? My recent weight gain will attest to that. So this time around we immediately froze those leftover cake pieces and pulled them out for this weekend's Blackberry and Ginger Trifles from Everyday Food Great Food Fast.

I needed a dessert for family who were coming down for a picnic this past weekend. I assembled these into Ziploc containers so they were portable. This also worked great because a dessert like this benefits from sitting around for a few hours.

I made blackberry and strawberry trifles. Along with the thawed cake pieces, the cake gets brushed with a quick and easy ginger syrup. It's that little je ne sais quoi that makes this dessert a notch above the standard strawberries and angel food cake. The flavour was quite similar to Nuno's favourite dessert from Everyday Food Fresh Flavour Fast, Ginger Plum Shortcakes.

mini muffins, mini money

I mentioned a few blog entries back that I have a whole new wardrobe courtesy of my sister Katie but I'm also enjoying a new hand-me-down appliance - this Betty Crocker Mini Muffin Magic. 

I remember when my mom bought this for Katie. She was in early high school and she'd request my dad bring home a coffee and chocolate chip muffin from Tim Horton's every Saturday morning for when she got up (at 11am no less!). My dad never thought it was too much trouble, but my mom must have thought it would be more convenient if we just made these muffins at home.

This week I decided to give this novelty appliance a test run. It's similar to a waffle iron with 5 chambers that you pour your muffin batter into and in five minutes they are ready. I was skeptical, but am so pleasantly surprised with the results. It really works like a charm! 

I bought this PC Chocolate Bran mix and with the addition of dried cherries I've been using the Mini Muffin Maker every morning and they are ready in less than 10 minutes start to finish!  It's been a welcome change having fresh baked muffins instead of pulling out my daily  Raisin Bran Muffins from the freezer every morning.

I decided to make some muffins from scratch Saturday morning. After a dozen Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins were in the oven to bake, there was quite a lot of batter left over. So this is where the Mini Muffin Maker came in REALLY handy. I was able to bake mini muffins for Owen so he didn't have to wait.

"Hellz yeah, Mini Muffinz!" They are the perfect size for him! 

When it comes to muffins nothing beats the real thing. It isn't difficult to get a lot of use out of this appliance because of it's convenience and my muffin habit. I always say I'm not big on extra needless kitchen tools, but as far as I'm concerned this Mini Muffin Maker is about as essential as a waffle iron!

asparagus and gruyere tart

This dinner fell into place quite nicely. Nuno came home with a random brick of gruyere cheese last week, so we had the Asparagus and Gruyere Tart from Everyday Food Great Food Fast last night.

What a looker! Does this not look like foodie modern art? Asparagus in a puff pastry frame! And it was super delicious. I mean, anything in butter puff pastry is bound to taste like a million bucks, but asparagus and gruyere are a great match! 3 ingredients - it was that simple!

father's day

Sounds cliche but this father's day was filled with grilled steaks and loads of beer! I'm not sure there has been a week where we've consumed so many choice cuts of beef consecutively. Not that I'm complaining and neither is the man of the day, "Dada" - Nuno!

We caught wind of an event at Niagara College's Teaching Brewery program had to celebrate both Father's Day and the kick off of Ontario Craft Beer Week.

This was our first visit to the college since they've implemented the program. The brewmaster program shares a tasting room right in the greenhouse area - two for one shopping for me since I've been buying my plants from the college for years now.

We've recently gotten to know Kevin, one of the guys who started the program, so it's really neat to see someone who is so talented get a chance to share his knowledge and passion.

At the tasting, dad's received free beer and a custom 'First Draft' bottle opener! First Draft is the college's brew and don't you just love the name?! They offer a lager and an ale and if you're lucky, they might have their specialty brew on draught. 

We bought 2 growlers, one of the ale and one of the lager and headed to our family barbeque. Since we are really into growlers these days we noticed that the college's tap might need a little calibration because our growler lost it's effervescence in just one day!

At our family Father's Day barbecue on Sunday we got to sample Nuno's brother Miguel's new batch of homebrew. Lately Nuno and I have been enjoying his many batches of craft beer made straight from scratch. At the party we got to try his lastest- a California Common (tasting very similar to San Fransico's Anchor Steam). Absolutely loved it!

Ah, beer, glorious beer!

first birthday cake eye candy!

We've had two back to back weekends of first birthday parties. 

We were asked to make a cake for Owen's friend Alejandro's fire truck themed birthday party yesterday. 

My friend requested vanilla cake so I used this recipe. Since making sculpted cakes we've discovered that denser, pound cake-like cakes work best for sculpting and keeping the structural integrity of layered cakes.

4 stacked layers and six cakes went into the fire truck cake.

 Butter cream crumb coat.

Bright fire engine red fondant. Red dye looks great, but tastes like ass.

Again, everything was edible on the cake. All the details sculpted with gum paste and the lights were all gummies. The wheels were moulded chocolate with black fondant on top.

Nuno even worked in flashing red lights underneath two pieces of fruit leather to look like a siren. Worked like a charm!

:::

The other amazing birthday party we attended was an outdoor picnic for our friends Karissa & Kevin's daughter Pepper. 

Here is the adorable cupcake spread all home baked by Karissa herself! The birthday party theme was strawberries so we were all treated to a side of vanilla ice cream with strawberry topping.

Along with the cupcake tower, Pepper had a gigantic pink cupcake all to herself.

These cupcakes were so light and delicious and the frosting was amazing! Owen loved his chocolate cupcake!!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRIENDS!!!

beef tacos with avocado and radish salsa

This week is gearing up for Father's Day. I'm always treated to one extraordinary mother's day after another, so it isn't hard to be inspired to return the favour. One of the best ways I know how to make Nuno happy is to make him some great eats. So I asked him to gear up the BBQ, it's going to be a grilling week. 
 

This past weekend I made homemade barbque sauce and planned Monday's meal of baby back ribs. Next up were a couple rib eye steaks! With the leftover rib eye's I made Beef Tacos with Radish and Avocado Salsa from Everyday Food. This recipe calls for skirt steak but it was sold out, so I decided to live it up and enjoy the first barbeque of the season in style with a great cut of beef, so rib eye it was!

Nuno absolutley loved this dinner where I thought it was just OK. The salsa has a really fresh & nice flavour with lime, cilantro and pickled jalapenos (my new favourite condiment!!). It could definitely work as a vegetarian option because the salsa is so flavourful. This entire dinner was super quick and easy to make. And if you're using leftover beef this entire meal goes from fridge to plate in no more than 15 minutes. We ate it cold and will probably have it this way throughout the summer.

Super colourful dinner!