Pender Harbour for Jenn's 'MARGARITA' bridal shower

The beautiful Bride-to-be

We celebrated Jennifer G's  bridal shower in Pender Harbour yesterday. Thanks to Beau & Victor, Jennifer's best friends and soon-to-be in-laws, who hosted a fantastic shower in their beautiful home in Pender.   

 We are also celebrating being double vaccinated and being able to visit face-to-face with friends and family again.  We have so much to be thankful for! Beau, Shannon, & Julie did such a wonderful job and as soon as they share their Margarita recipe I will post it.  Stay safe out there everyone!

Roddy enjoying the afternoon in Pender

Cody 

Maggie enjoying Cody's ocean front home

BBQ'd Asparagus with lemon drizzle

Here we go to the Farmers Market Grandma!

One of the best things about summer is having the beautiful weather to BBQ your entire meal and you don't ever have to turn on the oven or stove.

Kelsey, my favorite daughter-in-law is a master at the BBQ and she prepared the most delicious halibut burgers with roasted asparagus drizzled with her own lemon zest reduction. Seriously, so delicious on a hot Calgary night.  

Kelsey's Lemon Zest Reduction 

1/4 cup vinegar (we used champagne vinegar) 

Zest and juice of a lemon

Place the above ingredients in a small pan and bring up to the boil and reduce heat to a simmer.

Reduce until the liquid is a glaze consistency. 

Approximately 15-20 minutes.

Rinse off asparagus and pat dry. Trim asparagus by taking each asparagus spear in your hand and bend near the blunt end. This allows for a perfect break that removes the woody end. Discard the woody end.

Add 1/4 cup of olive oil to a large flat baking pan.

Carefully place washed and trimmed asparagus into the pan and role the asparagus in the oil and sprinkle with salt.

Turn the BBQ to high to burn off the char and then reduce the heat to 3/4's and grill asparagus until tender crisp. 

Remove from the BBQ and place the asparagus on a serving platter.

Drizzle with the lemon zest reduction and serve hot with your chosen protein.

Thanks Kelsey honey!

The perfect charcuterie board compliments of Jessica O'Dwyer & Ashley Oddy

Jessica & Ashley 

Charcuterie board you say?

These two lovely ladies have nailed it and they are not even in the business.

Ashley & Jessica, Lynn's daughters really went into overdrive to ensure their Mama had the best birthday ever. They are very talented chefs and it is too bad that catering is not their business.  Great job ladies!

Lynn Oddy's birthday celebration at O'Rourke's Winery

Sausage Rolls with Puff Pastry

 

500-600 gr. sausage meat (I used a combination of hot Italian pork sausage and mild sausage)

1/4 cup feta cheese (crumbled)

fresh ground pepper to taste (this recipe does not need salt because of the feta cheese)

2 tsp. herb de provence 

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

14 oz. box Puff Pastry - butter puff pastry can be bought in the freezer section of your grocery store 

4-5 tbsp. all purpose flour (for rolling out the pastry)

1 egg + tblsp. water (for egg wash)

Thaw frozen puff pastry in the fridge (not a room temp).

Combine the sausage meat, cheese and dry ingredients in a large bowl.  With clean hands combine all the ingredients until well mixed.

Flour your work counter and then unwrap the puff pastry and place on the floured counter.

With a rolling pin, roll out pastry so that it is thinner but not too thin.

Cut the pastry in half length wise so that you have 2 rectangles to place the sausage meat on. 

Divide the sausage meat in 2 parts.

Flour the counter again and roll out the sausage meat with your hands so it looks like a log. Place the sausage logs onto the puff pastry rectangles. Egg wash the outside edges (as shown below). 

Close up the pastry (see pic below) and pinch the edges. Cut off any excess not needed.

Egg wash the top of the log. 

The easiest way to cut these sausage rolls is to freeze them first as a whole log.

Take out of freezer and semi thaw.  Cut into 1 inch  bite size pieces. With scissors cut a vent in the top of each piece as is demonstrated below.

Place sausage roll pieces onto a parchment lined baking tray.

Bake at 400° for 20 - 30 minutes depending on your oven.  Remove from the parchment so that the sausage rolls do not reabsorb the grease.

Cool down to store in the fridge or serve hot.  This is an awesome appetizer and is a real crowd pleaser.

Lorna's delicious egg & avocado toast direct from the Sunshine Coast.

 Nothing better than a delicious breakfast especially when you are on the beautiful Sunshine Coast.

Ingredients: delicious bread of choice, 1/2 an avocado and a hard cooked egg.  If you happen to like hummus (click here for an excellent recipe) Spread hummus on the bread first (instead of butter) and top with avocado, egg & fresh herbs from the garden. 

Devilled Eggs with Epicure Onion Mix from Lynn Oddy

 These eggs are so delicious and easy to make and a real crowd pleaser. I hope you enjoy this recipe.

6 large eggs 

1/4 cup mayonnaise 

1/4 tsp. '3 onion dry mix' from Epicure (my contact is a family member in Vernon please contact Lynn Oddy loddy@telus.net to order)

cracked pepper to taste

1/8 cup Diyon Mustard. 

Hard cook the eggs. There is no need to boil eggs to death. Over boiling hard cooked eggs isn't harmful but the nutritional value decreases if you over cooked them.

Place your eggs in a pot of cool water (the water should fully cover the eggs) and bring the water to a boil.Once the water boils, remove the pot from the heat and allow your eggs to rest in the boiled water. Cover the pot. Let the eggs sit in the boiled water for 12 minutes. 

Remove from the hot water and cool eggs down using cold water.  

Carefully remove all the shells and discard. Rinse eggs well in clean water so there are no remaining shell stuck to the eggs.

Place eggs into a covered dish in the fridge to hold until you are ready to make the egg yolk filling.

Egg Yolk Filling

Carefully cut each egg in half lengthwise. Remove the yolk and place into a large mixing bowl. Add the mayo, onion mix, pepper, and mustard.  

Using a hand mixer or by hand, beat the egg yolk mixture until soft and creamy.

Open up a clean plastic bag (or use a piping bag) and spoon the egg yolk mixture into a bottom corner of the plastic bag.

Cut out the corner of the bag.

Squeeze out the yolk mixture into each half of the eggs.

Garnish as desired.

Keep in the fridge until service time.

Apple Pie for Games Night

 1 small pastry recipe, please click on this link to see a complete recipe.

Apple Pie Ingredients

8 large apples (🍏 🍎 today I used a combination of granny smith and gala)

3 tbsp. flour

3 tbsp. cinnamon ( if you are not fond of cinnamon you can easily cut this back)

1/4 tsp. each of nutmeg and allspice

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp. vanilla

1/8 cup water

Peel apples. Discard the peels. Slice the. apples into thin wedges or pieces (I am lucky to have an apple corer that also slices the apples at the same time. Please see pic below)

Place sliced apples into a large mixing bowl. Add water to the apples.

Mix all the dry ingredients in another bowl first. Mix well.

Add dry ingredients to the apples. Mix well and set aside until you have rolled out 2 rounds for your pie.

Roll out pastry to fit your pie shell. Place the first round in the bottom of the pie plate and allow for the edges to hang over the pie plate. Don't trim the edges yet.

Fill bottom pastry round with apples, cover with the 2nd pastry round.  

Trim off the edge. Finger flute the edge to make the pie pretty. Egg was the top of the pie and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 375° for approximately 65 minutes until the juices start to run out of the pie.

Serve hot or cold.

This is my fabulous apple corer and apple slicer all in one.

Tiramisu for Girls Game Night

 This a very simplified recipe for a tiramisu which does not include eggs. Regardless, it is  delicious for a non traditional tiramisu and the girls loved it.

Ingredients:

500 ml whipping cream

275 gr.  mascarpone cheese

2 cups strong espresso coffee

1/3 cup rum (or liquor of choice) 

1/3 cup white sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

1 package of vanilla lady fingers

4 tbsp. Cocoa powder (2 tbsp. to add to the coffee and 2 tbsp. for the topping)

1  Lindt caramel & sea salt chocolate bar (this is the bar I happened upon in the grocery store. I think any chocolate will do but I wanted to add some pizazz to my recipe so the caramel/toffee is the key for me)

Prep:

1.  

5.  With a hand beater or by hand whip the whipping cream first and then add vanilla and sugar. Whip again until soft peaks form. DO NOT OVER MIX  If you have never prepared whip cream before be careful here. If you beat the cream too long it will curdle into a butter and then it is unusable as whipping cream.

6.    

     Make coffee and pour into a shallow bowl. Dissolve cocoa in the coffee and add liquor of choice (I am using rum but any liqueur will do). Set aside for assembly.

M 

M  Mix together in a food processor: 2 lady finger biscuits, 2 tbsp. cocoa &  and one chocolate bar of choice

Assembly:

7.    

9.    Start layering:

a.     Start with coffee soaked lady fingers on the bottom of your dish

b.    Spoon 1/2 of the whipped cream mixture on top of lady fingers

c.     sprinkle with chocolate/cocoa mixture, use about 1/3 of the mixture

d.     add another layer of coffee soaked lady fingers

e.     spoon the remainder of the whip cream onto the lady fingers

f.     spinkle with remaining chocolate/cocoa mixture.

Cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until service time.

first layer of lady fingers on bottom of baking dish

delicious crumb mixture for mid layer & topping