love and hot chocolate

I had today off and it was wonderful.  I spent the better part of the day making dinner for my love.  I wanted to make it completely from scratch, and I wanted to make it something I know he would love.  We got a pasta machine for Christmas last year but we've never even taken it out of the box, so I thought it was more than about time.  It was intense.  I say intense because I've never made pasta before, and it made a lot... and quickly all the free surfaces and even the mixer were covered in fettuccine. 

Joshua really doesn't like red sauce, so I made a roasted garlic white wine alfredo cause, along with a tomato cucumber salad I know he loves.  All in all, it was a giant success.  He said it was the best meal he's ever had, and I'd say that puts a gold star on my wifely duties for the day.

He really is wonderful, and I am so very blessed to have him.

After supper (and a lot of dishes) I started working on Christmas presents, and who doesn't love hot chocolate?  One of my favourite magazines is called Where Women Cook and in this issue there was an awesome idea for individual servings of hot chocolate.  I can't wait to make more!

A very successful day off indeed!  Tomorrow... the possibilities are endless, but I have a feeling it's going to be sweet.

waffles make everything better... right?

I have not posted in a long time.  I have not taken a photo of anything I've baked in a long time. I have not reallly felt like it, life gets in the way sometimes. 

I am married now, and I love it.  I am almost done school, and I love that too.

Tonight I made waffles for my Joshua because we finally got a waffle maker. (HUGE thanks to Lauren and Jamie!)  He has been begging me for months but it's kinda  hard to make waffles without the iron.  So because we finally have one, I have no excuse anymore to not make them for him.  I was inspired to take pictures because the gift came to us with love from one of my oldest friends.  I wanted to take pictures because I'm very lucky to have Josh.  Baking for him makes him happy, and in turn it makes me happy.  I needed to take pictures becasue despite the fact that I've been away for so long, I knew I had to start somewhere to get back to where I feel the most comefortable.  To get myself back to basics. 

So despite the simplicity, and with one foot back in the door, I hope there will be lots more to come... and soon. 

Christmas is almost here, and there is a desire inside me to make things sweeter by sharing with those I love.  One step at a time, and I will get where I'm going... and until then, I will bake.

celebration cake

In the Grob family, whenever there was a cause for celebration, it was done with a mandarine cake.  I never had the privledge of meeting Josh's Omi, though  I wish I had, she was a wonderful woman.  The glue that held them all together.  I have this idea in my head that I would have loved her.  She would have taught me so much about the way she baked for her family.  The only thing I know she really baked was the infamous mandarine cake.  I have seen this cake in many pictures from many celebrations, and while it was always decorated differently it was always made with the same three ingredients: white cake, mandarine oranges and lots of whipped cream. 

It's Josh's favourite cake. 

I started a facebook page for back to basics, initially as part of my final project in baking management.  It's been growing slowly and steadly since March, and yesterday I finally hit 100 fans.  A cause for celebration.

 

Because the cake wasn't fancy enough I made a mango frozen yogurt to go with it.  Super simple, I just blended frozen mango, added some greek yogurt and vanilla and voila. 

Josh loved the cake, which is really all that matters to me.  I love feeding him my baked goods, and I know he loves to eat them. 

Only 3 more months and I will officially be Mrs. Grob.

Life is sweet.

something blue

I'm getting married!

I got to try my dress on tonight and it made it so much more real.  Not a sample dress, but MY dress! I'm so in love with it, I wish so bad I could show Josh! 

Two of my wonderful sisters are what make up my side of the wedding party, and they're throwing me a shower in 3 weeks.  I know nothing about this shower except that I'm to make mini doughnuts that are coloured tiffany blue.  It's going to be epic, I just know it.

After such a wonderful night I decided I'd try out the doughnuts when I got home, just to practice and they turned out so much better than expected! 

I just can't wait to see what other wonderful goodies are at this shower!

heat wave

It's hot.  

I don't think I need to go further into that statement, it's pretty self explanatory.  Especially if you're fortunate enough to be living through this insane heat wave.

I work in a bakery, so the temperature getting up t0 90 while not always the most comfortable, is fairly expected.  The heat outside on the other hand is unlike anything I've ever experienced.  We've had some record breaking heat this past week, but Thursday the worst, supposedly... yesterday at the bakery was worse for me, but I was lucky enough to have Thursday off.  

Side note: yesterday it was so hot that all my butter cream was melting.. I'd pipe a rose and it would wilt right away.  I'd chill the butter cream in the fridge, and within minutes it would be melting.  I had to make two slab wedding cakes and the time constraint was so bad that I ended up finishing the second one with 10 minutes to spare...  in the fridge.  Yes, the walk in fridge.  But that's a whole other story entirely and that's not what this post is about, so back to what I actually did on Thursday during the hottest day of the year.

My girlfriend Stephanie asked me if I could help her with a cake order she had.  No problem, I love helping out.  Her air conditioner being broken the hottest day of the year and baking 2 cakes (because we had issues with the first one) in an oven when the inside of her house was already an oven... big problem.  We did it though, and thankfully had a small reprieve while decorating cookies in her mom's air conditioned studio.  Despite the heat, it was a wonderful time.  We even had a little helper, Coral, the granddaughter of the the woman who's cake we were doing.  

All in all, one failed cake and her house being 97, it was really a wonderful night.  Steph's since sent me a picture of the final cake and she did a wonderful job!  Next time though, air conditioning... or a sprinkler.

copy cat scone

Sometimes when I'm waiting for Josh to pick me up after work, I go to this grocery store that has a cafe in it and they make the most amazingly delicious cinnamon cranberry and walnut scones.  Last week I tried to recreate them, and while they were delicious (despite my forgetting the cinnamon) they were not at all like the ones at Commisso's.  This week I tried again and holy crap... They may even be better.  When I found the recipe I didn't read the directions thoroughly, just checked to make sure I had all the ingredients.  I'm glad I didn't read the directions, I may have been deterred from the puff pastry like process, but I'm so glad I stuck through the time intensive process.  These scones (despite my having forgotten the walnuts... maybe next time I'll actually remember all the ingredients... grr) were to die for.  I will be making these again.  For sure.

I didn't start taking pictures until after the two folds and chill time in the fridge. 

I also added 1/2 tbs cinnamon to the dry ingredients and 1/2 tbs to the butter mixture.

 

 

 

Yum.

veggie love

I love vegetables.

I'm not a huge bread person, and there are days I forget to eat meat, but veggies... now veggies I would die without. My dinner tonight was so delicious I just had to take a picture.

Usually I blog about my baking adventures, being a baker and all, but I love to cook too. It was all about quick and easy tonight and as easy goes, tuna melts are always high on the list. Pair it with local asparagus and the spicy maple glazed pecans I made earlier in the week, local tomatoes in a balsamic pesto dressing with feta and holy moly... Party in my mouth. So glad there are leftovers!

pudding and pie

It's been a wonderful night! After work, Josh and I went to our wedding tasting and holy yum! Almost makes me wish the wedding was tomorrow so I could eat the food again! Almost... still so much to do! I can't believe how fast the time is flying by, there is only a little over three months to go!

After we got home from the tasting, I made dessert as we're not getting dessert made by the caterer. I wanted to try out a recipe I saw in the new Whole Living magazine for chocolate pudding. There is a whole section on eating raw and I've been wanting to try this recipe since I saw it.

 

All the ingredients are items we have regularly stocked in our house... conveniently.

Mix it all up and voila. Delicious.

I must say the sea salt was such a wonderful addition. I will definitely be doing this one again!

After devouring the pudding and seeing that it was only 7pm it was on to the next thing on my to make list. I had to do something with all the cherries I bought from the local stand we shop at. I love black forest cake, but the idea of store bought cherry pie filling just doesn't appeal to me very much, and so because it's cherry season here, homemade cherry pie filling it is. Super easy too! I got the recipe from a wicked blog I follow. Super fun, if you have time I definitely recommend checking it out.

I don't have a cherry pitter so used a piping tip. Works wonders, though super duper messy.

It kind of reminded me of a horror movie when the pit popped out. I made Josh stop playing his video game to watch me. He didn't think it was as entertaining as I did, but at least I kept myself entertained while pitting 6 cups of cherries. So worth it.

Next step, black forest. I can't wait!

who doesn't love pizza?

Seriously, who doesn't love pizza??? Now that I work in an italian bakery and am surrounded by pizza all day, I can't help but crave it all the time. It's always entertaining to come up with different things to put on it.

Again with the food processor, instead of tomato sauce I made a basil and balsamic base for both halves and went from there.

They were both amazing.

6-5-4-3-2-1 switch...

I haven't posted in a while, haven't found anything I though was worthy enough to post about. Not a very good excuse but none the less there it is. It's been crazy around here. I decided I'd had enough of my whirlwind of a life as a barista. It was pretty interesting how it all went down actually. I'd been looking for a baking job and because Josh got his job after posting an add on kijiji I though it couldn't hurt. It took about a week when I had an inquiry from a small Italian bakery looking for a baking assistant. Turns out it's exactly what I wanted for my first experience in the industry, and the hours are exactly what I want. Needless to say, I left Starbucks and haven't looked back... Life is much less stressful these days. For the most part.

I turned 29 last week. I didn't have time to make my birthday cake at home, so I ordered one from work and got paid to decorate it. And then my awesome step sister Christina bought it for me so I literally got paid to make my own cake. I just learned how to pipe roses.



Not too shabby for a weeks worth of practicing. I feel really lucky to be getting this experience, and it's super convenient that they're willing to work around school too. Today was insane. Honestly ridiculous. There is no other way to put it. 2 banana breads, 2 zucchini breads, 32 bran muffins and 18 tea biscuits later. What am I supposed to do with all this?!?!?! Everything's in the freezer right now with the exception of the tea biscuits, I put those to work. For dessert tonight I made Josh a fancy shortcake filled with white chocolate mousse.



I don't particularity like white chocolate but this mousse was so yummy! I have no idea how I managed to bake everything I did at school and then before even starting the mousse make tzatziki, baba ghanoush, and apricot jam... all before 8:30.

Side note: We got a mini food processor at my first wedding shower last week. I'm so in love with it.

I still need to make cookies for a order but that will have to wait until tomorrow. For now, I've completely exhausted my mind and body, thankfully, and distracted my thoughts from thinking about anything that I just can't handle thinking about anymore. Now it's off to read a trashy western romance novel until I start it all over again tomorrow. I kinda love my life. Like a lot.

everything's coming up maple

Josh thinks it's wonderful that I'm so easy to please. I've never been one to lust after shiny expensive things. He knows that the easiest way to put a smile on my face is to surround me with ingredients that inspire me, places that feed my heart.

Our lives are so busy these days. Our opposite schedule takes its tole on us and so when we do have time to do things together, it's nice to just take a step back and revel in the reasons we're getting married to begin with. He's so good to me.

When we lived in Guelph, our favourite thing to do every Saturday morning was to go to the farmers market in St. Jacobs. We haven't been since we moved to St. Catharines and I miss it. Miss isn't a big enough word, but for the sake of getting to the point, I'll leave it at miss. A lot, so when I had a rare couple days off this weekend we decided to go visit the Grob family and the market. That was the plan until we found out that this weekend was also the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival.

Sold.

We got there at 7:30am, thankfully, because any later and there's no way we would have gotten pancakes. We only had to wait in line for about 10 minutes, but by the time we were done eating our 10 minute wait had easily grown to at least an hour, and it only got busier from there.

After pancakes, we spent a few hours walking up and down the main street, window shopping all the glorious stalls. It was wonderful, and even more so because the main theme of just about everything was maple. Oh how I love maple.

The best part of the whole day easily had to be the 15 minutes that the awesome Joshua disappeared. I wasn't worried, everyone has cell phones, and I figured there was a good reason for him being gone, so when he came back with a 2L bottle of pure local maple syrup... good reason indeed.

Weekends like this one are like a reset button on the insanity of our lives. Things aren't as carefree as they were when we worked the same hours for the same company, but this weekend was a great reminder of how worth it it all has been. I'm so lucky to have him and I'm so lucky for this life.... I can't wait to be his wife.

Sweet.