Canada Day Ice Cream Cake

Originally uploaded by ldgibson

More on this later :-)

... it's "later" and I still haven't explained this masterpiece. Saving it for Canada Day next year ... or that's my latest excuse at least for now.

Bacon Wrapped Scallops & Pesto Bowtie Pasta

Another one of my new favourite quick & delicious meals!!!

PESTO BOWTIE PASTA
I've made my own Pesto before, but nothing compares to the Epicure Selections 'Pesto Herb Mix' It's so easy to whip-up in the food processor. Just add Olive Oil, Pine Nuts and Parmesan Cheese. Oh so yummy!!

Cook the bowtie pasta. My fave brand is PC whole wheat pasta. Toss with pesto mix and keep on low-heat until the rest of the meal is ready. This plate cools pretty quickly because there is no Warm-sauce, so keep on low-heat until right when you're ready to eat.

BBQ BACON WRAPPED SCALLOPS
The bacon-wrapped scallops are a cinch too... thaw frozen scallops - these are a new staple in my freezer - so healthy and delicious, plus they cook-up really fast, so they're good for quick weeknight dinners. Throw them into stir-frys, pastas and more. I digress... take a pre-soaked wooden skewer, alternate bacon, scallop, bacon, scallop... threading the bacon around the scallops each time it's looped onto the skewer like the letter 'S'.. keep going until the bacon is all used up, then you'll probably need a second piece. For me, each skewer uses up two piece of bacon and a handfull of scallops (# will depend on their size). Throw on the BBQ (or have your kitchen assistant do-so... this is even easier than doing it yourself)... for a few minutes and cook bacon to desired crispiness. These flavours are meant to be together - like a match made in heaven.

WINE
We enjoyed a 2-year old Peller Estates Riesling with this meal and it seemed like a perfect pairing. I'm no wine-pairing expert, but this was delicious! :-)

Mother's Day Brunch - the day-of

so... I didn't quite capture Mother's day on camera the way I had hoped... made too many dishes to have time to take photos of every step along the way.

I ended up forgetting to make the bubbly-syrup mixture for the French Toast before I popped-them into the oven, but remembered about it half-way through the cooking process, so I added it then.

Even with this mistake, everything turned-out great! Here are the photos to prove it :-)

oh... and My kitchen assistant knocked the table when we sat down to eat and spilt coffee ALL OVER THE TABLE, saturating the table cloth and soaking the placemats. No biggie (well, it was at the time)... we all survived and enjoyed a lovely Mother's day brunch.

The French Toast was a huge success - can't wait to make it again. Using French Bread is the key, and soaking it overnight really goes a long way in helping the flavours soak into the bread.

Yummm!! :-) It was almost like dessert instead of breakfast!!!

Spice ... 'helping' in the kitchen.. she can be such a bad girl sometimes.

Baking the Bacon... I read somewhere that baked bacon was the way to go.. the slower you can cook it, the yummier it can taste. No matter how it's cooked, bacon is pretty darn good. One of the best foods around if you ask me. In any case, don't bake for too long if you don't want it to be too crunchy.. about 30-40 mins on medium heat for a whole package of Bacon should do the trick. You can cook shorter or longer depending on how crispy you like YOUR bacon.

Here I am, cooking the syrup at the last minute, scrambling to get everything back in the oven. My kitchen assistant was happy to lend a hand with the camera work to make sure some of these important screw-ups were documented.

Laura.. cutting the fresh fruit - will be used on top of the French Toast - YUMMMM!!!

One of my favourite photos - everyone digging in! There were too many different dishes to serve at the table, so we set-up the kitchen island as a buffet.

Don't cry over spilt coffee... just get out of the way or you'll get it all over yourself!

All in all, Mother's day brunch was a great success... yummy enough to make again for sure!

Mother's Day Brunch - Day Before

Tomorrow will be my first official hosting of a 'brunch' - am excited to host guests for a meal other than dinner.

menu

French Toast
Bacon
Turkey Bacon (for mom)
scrambled eggs
Orange Juice
Coffee & Tea
Fruit Tray (Courtesy of my sister Laura)
Freshly Baked croissants (also from Laura)

Tonight I did the pre-prep for the French toast. When I read this recipe I just couldn't resist - it had such great feedback and sounded so delicious!!

INGREDIENTS

1 (1 pound) loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices

8 eggs

2 cups milk (substituted with non-lactose milk for mom)

1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream (instead, substituted with 1 cup of non-lactose milk for mom)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup butter

1 1/3 cups brown sugar

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

Here's what was involved with pre-prep;

Weighed the bread – not sure how much 1lb of bread works out to be, so pulled out the scale.

Buttered a 9x13 inch baking dish (my bread must have been too big because I needed an extra 8x8 baking dish too).

Arrange the slices of bread in the bottom (my kitchen assistant suggested I try making some in the form of ‘French Toast STICKS’… so gave it a shot. The others are half-slices of the bread).

In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Tomorrow I will just need to;

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup; heat until bubbling.

Pour over bread and egg mixture.

Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread

INGREDIENTS

1 can (15 ounces/2 cups) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
3 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used almonds)
1/2 cup raisins, if desired (I used these - love raisins!)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease bottom a 9x5x3 loaf pan with shortening.

2. Stir together pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs in large bowl (I used my Cuisinart food processor with the beaters for this once I was done using the metal blade on it to chop the almonds, it ended up being a lot of liquid - too much actually, so best to do it in a large bowl with beaters or use a stand-up mixer if you have one) Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pans.

3. Bake for 1 hr 10min -1hr 20min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.TIP: Greasing just the bottoms of the pans helps to form a gently rounded top. If the sides are greased, edges of the loaf may have ridges.

Click here for the original recipe