The Chocolate Orchard

This is the last post about last week's trip to Creston.

One of the places I really wanted to go on this trip was the place known as "the place that sells all the chocolate-covered fruit." My dad didn't recall the name, but it became obvious as we drove down Creston's fruit stand strip: The Chocolate Orchard (again, no web site, unfortunately) - 2931 Highway 3, Ceston, BC.

Oh, what a place! Far more than a candy factory, The Chocolate Orchard is also a restaurant, deli, bakery, fruit stand, garden centre, and cherry orchard.

To begin, the chocolate covered fruit. There was quite the variety and it was not cheap: $3.98/100g. I realized I couldn't have everything I wanted to sample without it costing me a small fortune, so I had to make some tough choices. I took some chocolate-covered blueberries, apricots, blackberries, and tart cherries. Even though I tried to be reserved, I still wound up plunking down nearly $20 for my goodies - but man, were they worth it.

There was also a TON of salt-water taffy, but since I'm not fond of it, I didn't buy any. The Chocolate Factory also makes fudge and a variety of other chocolate and non-chocolate treats.

This place sells some of the most amazing-looking pies I've ever seen! It was really hard to not purchase one of the huge varieties on offer, but what would I do with a whole pie, single gal that I am?
Additionally, there were artisan breads...
...And a whole whack of jams, pickles, spreads, preserves, sauces, dips - you name it...
It's a pretty amazing place!

Sunday Smile

In addition to LOLcats, I also love LOLtheist! It's hilarious.

As I enjoy a weekend of camping, please have a laugh on me. See you next week!

Bakery Review: Creston Valley Bakery & Deli

So, as you read, on Thursday I went to Creston with my dad and we had a great lunch at the Creston Valley Bakery & Deli (no web site - come on guys, get with it!). In addition to the desserts we had with our lunch, I bought a small selection of other items on offer from the bakery.
L- R, starting at top: Skor Bar Square, Rocky Road Square, Chelsea Bun, Coffee Cake Bun, Bear Claw (hidden slightly).

First of all, take note of how yellow the dough is in the last three items. I strongly suspect that this is due to using local farm-fresh eggs, and not crappy mass-produced chicken farm eggs from the local overpriced grocery store. Beautiful, isn't it?

I have to admit we actually indulged in a second dessert after having our initial dessert. I was really eager to try out the Bear Claw as I have fond memories of Bear Claws I used to get when I lived in Ottawa from the Rideau Bakery. This Creston Valley Bear Claw had a date filling that was subtly spiced with probably cinnamon, and had fondant and a streusal topping. It was seriously good, but not as good as the ones from Rideau.

Once we got to the summit of Kootenay Pass, we got out the rest of the baking. To start things off, we tried the Rocky Road Square. Chocolate base, marsmallows, nuts, and sweetened condensed milk in there somewhere. Coconut, chocolate chips, sliced almonds. DECADENT. We both loved this bar.






Next up, the Skor Bar Square. I knew I would love this as the girl was lifting it off its tray in the display case to put in my box - it was so gooey she had trouble getting it out! Upon sampling, Dad and I were in heaven. Skor bars are my dad's favourite, so he was even more over the moon than I was. Chocolatey, caramely bliss, lemme tell ya! DIVINE!




Next we sampled the Chelsea Bun. I've never had one before and don't recall ever seeing one in a bakery before! I think they're kind of old fashioned. Made from soft possibly danish dough, Chelsea buns have candied fruit dotting them and this one was topped with some fondant and apricot glaze. It was really good! I might have to try making these sometime.




Finally, the Coffee Cake Bun. Made with a similarly soft dough - like I said, probably a danish dough - it was much like a cinnamon bun with a coffee & cinnamon-flavoured filling, topped with fondant and streusal topping. It was really yummy and we both enjoyed this very much. Might have been better with a nice hot drink, but still, it was tasty.



The Creston Valley Bakery & Deli is a definite recommend in my books!

Tomorrow...

...I go here. Woo-hoo!

Lunch In Creston

I've had a busy couple of days!

Today, my dad and I went on a drive to Creston, BC, which is about an hour and a half or so from here. Creston is in a deep valley and is well-known for it's produce, similar to the Okanagan. Dad wanted strawberries and a sandwich from Creston Valley Bakery & Deli (no site, unfortunately). I wanted some Creston asparagus and to visit a place that sells chocolate-covered fruit (more in a later post).

Creston Valley Bakery & Deli makes a large selection of gourmet sandwiches and serves other light lunch items, including homemade soup and borscht. The bakery is excellent, too.

My dad had a reuben sandwich with extra hot mustard.I had the shrimp croissant. We got carrot sticks & dip with our sandwiches. The croissant was fairly average, but as a whole, the sandwich was pretty good.

I bought dessert, in addition to a selection of other items from the bakery (again, fodder for a future post). Dad had the Saskatoon Slice, which was like Black Forest Cake only made with Saskatoon berries instead of cherries. He really liked it.
I opted for the Mocha Missile, which was like a rectangular doughnut sliced in half and filled with mocha buttercream, topped with fondant, chocolate drizzle, and more mocha buttercream - YUMMY!

And just to give you a taste of some of the views we enjoyed on our drive over the Kootenay Pass to Creston, here are some shots of the lovely mountains we saw. The first two were taken at Kootenay Summit, which is 1774m/5826ft above sea level, and the last one was near the summit, on the western side of the pass coming up from Salmo.


Full Flickr set here.

Cake Mix Cookies Redux

Girlichef has created a monster! I'm addicted to cake mix cookies!

Remember these totally decadent cake mix cookies I made at the beginning of June? Well, the local overpriced grocery store had Betty Crocker cake mixes on sale for 99 cents each last week, and what can I say? I'm cheap. I bought one. I got the white mix because I thought the colour contrast between white cookie dough and dark chocolate chips would look stunning, and I decided to add some red into the mix too, just for aesthetics.
As a reminder, here is the recipe:

1 box cake mix
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
whatever add-ins you want

Mix, scoop, bake @ 350F until done. These are so incredible I can barely describe them. So, so delicious! I got 2 dozen with my #70 cookie scoop, and after sampling...a few...I froze the rest to take away with me on a camping trip upcoming this weekend.

Panini Heaven

So, this is what I made with my herbed focaccia from the previous post:
OH. MY. GOD.

If I ever open my own cafe, this is a sandwich I will definitely be serving!

Coyote's Ultimate Panini!

Focaccia bread
lemon & garlic mayo
mozzarella cheese
bacon
arugula
caramelized onions
Assemble. Grill.Inhale.

Yeah, this ain't no pedestrian ham & cheese, lemme tell ya! Let's take another look, shall we?Totally fracking orgasmically out-of-this world amazing!

Magazine Monday #42: Herbed Focaccia

I've had this recipe from the May 1994 issue of Canadian Living Magazine for quite some time, and I've made it several times, particularly when I worked at a retreat centre and we needed a quick pizza crust. I didn't do the sponge step back then, but I did it today and it was well worth it!

Herbed Focaccia (adapted by me)

1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups bread flour (all purpose will work)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried herbs of your choice (I used thyme & oregano)

1. Make the sponge. To do so, combine 1 cup flour, the sugar, and the water in a bowl until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap & let sit at warm room temperature for at least an hour.2. Once the sponge has done its thing, add the salt (I forgot to do this, and man, could I ever tell the difference!), herbs, olive oil, and enough additional flour to make a nice dough.

3. Proceed as per these instructions.

In the end, I got enough dough to fill a 9x9" pan. I docked the dough with my fancy docker and set it to rise under a towel.Docking the dough allows for it to rise and bake evenly, with fewer big giant air bubbles making the surface all weird.

After baking, I had this:Nice, eh?

The loaf was feather light and had very little weight to it. And it was bland, despite the herbs, because I'd forgotten the salt.

And you'll just have to wait and see what amazing sandwich I made with this focaccia for dinner - but I can tell you it was outstanding!

Saturday Laugh

Garden Bounty 2009, Part 1: Arugula Meatballs

Last year's lettuce fiasco in my little garden plot resulted in a rethinking of my veggie plans for this year's garden. I decided not to grow leafy greens that grew in tight bunches, so I opted for arugula. I also had seen lots of arugula appearing in various blog posts amongst my regular food blog friends, and I thought it would be a good idea to try out some new things with it. One recipe that stood out to me was Bellini Valli's chicken & arugula meatballs, seen here. Tonight, after harvesting some young arugula, I made a bison version of this meatball.

I got some bison on special at the local overpriced grocery store. There might have been about a pound or so. I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and about 1/2 cup of finely chopped arugula.
After mixing well, I got out one of my favourite and most-used kitchen gadgets: my #70 cookie scoop. I scooped out the meatballs and put them in a pan to brown.When they were nice and evenly browned, I added some homemade pasta sauce I whipped up last night using some of the tomatoes I canned last summer.I let the sauce and meatballs simmer until the meatballs were cooked through, then served them over pasta.
Arugula, especially if it's relatively young, has a pungent smell and is quite peppery. I have to say, however, that they didn't add much in terms of flavour to the meatballs. Perhaps I didn't add enough. Who knows. The bison might have been too strong a pairing, too. Still, it was an excellent meal.

Plaited Loaf: Redux

It was necessary to take Juno, my cat, to the vet again today. It's a long story, but she's OK. It was kind of an impromptu trip once more, so as my dad taxied me home - once more - I told him I'd bake him another loaf, since he thought the last one was so fantastic.

So, I came up with this recipe. I really enjoyed braiding the last loaf but realized I needed to practice my rope-making and braiding skills, so I decided to make another plaited loaf.

The recipe itself is a variation of the Healthy Heart loaf I've made and blogged about previously.

Sesame Flax Loaf

3 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup flax meal
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 tbsp instant yeast
1 tbsp vital gluten
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp barley malt syrup
1 1/3 cups (approx.) water
poppy seeds

Directions here.

I just talked to my dad and the bread is a hit!

Life is a Box of Chocolates, and Father's Day Dinner & Updates

So, one weekend my cat gets sick, the next weekend I get sick. There is obviously something in the water up here. Yesterday, I had to bail on work, but I was feeling well enough to go in this morning and bake, so that's what I did.

Technically, what I do at this place is categorized as volunteering, though I do get a supplement to my disability pension that makes life a lot easier for me, but the organization itself doesn't pay me. They are always telling me how well I do my job and how good the kitchen smells when I'm in there baking, and today I was presented with a lovely gift from the staff as a token of their appreciation. I got a really nice card, a huge box of chocolate, and a gift certificate to a store I regularly haunt. I was so surprised - even more so because I was up to my elbows in muffin batter at the time of presentation!
Nice, eh? It felt so great to be so appreciated. I can't tell you what this meant to me!

Sunday was Father's Day, as many of you might know, and my family & I celebrated with a dinner I held at my place. I made this chicken lasagne, which my father had been nagging me for since my article containing the recipe came out. My brother brought some focaccia bread from Safeway, and for dessert I served a selection of desserts: spicy molasses cookies, snickerdoodles, and sour cherry loaf.
And here is Juno, the cat who caused me so much stress a couple of weekends ago! She loves to roll onto her back, tuck up her feet, and show me her belly. I don't know why, because if I try to tickle the belly, she bites me. I always find it funny when she assumes this position; it reminds me of a seal!
FYI, I talked to the cook today about last week's Hawaiian Rice adventure, and he said it was great and that it was very much like a rice pudding! He really liked it, and said the residents did, too!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #16: Chicken & Biscuits

One of the consequences of roasting so many chickens is that I tend to accumulate a lot of chicken carcasses, and since I'm a little sick of chicken soup and coming up with new variants of chicken soup, I had to come up with some new and exciting way of using the carcasses up. When I went to my freezer last week, I had three carcasses sitting in there! That's a lot of carcasses!

Thankfully, the universe has a way of speaking to me indirectly at times. For one thing, I've seen several chicken pot pie recipes crop up in the posts of many of my regular food blogger pals. And then at work a couple of weeks ago, chicken pot pies were on the menu and I made the pastry for them. The wheels started turning...

So, I got out the carcasses and put them in my crock pot and made a stock with less water than normal. I also used fewer aromatics - just carrots, onions, garlic, and cilantro. I wound up with quite a bit of chicken meat and about 4 cups of stock. I had left over cream and whole milk from my hamburger buns, so I put that to good use.

Here's what I did, approximately.

3 cups chicken meat
2 cups chicken stock
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 green pepper diced
4 green onions, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
1/3 cup flour
1 cup cream
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp basil
1 tsp ground sage
salt & pepper to taste
garlic, crushed, to taste

Saute the veggies until soft & have released all liquid. Add stock and spices and bring to a simmer. Combine the milk & cream and add flour to make a slurry. Add slurry to the pot & simmer until thickened. Season. Allow to cool slightly. It will thicken further as it cools.

Now, I thought this was too liquidy for a pie filling so I opted for a biscuit topping instead. The biscuit recipe I used is here, as part of a recipe for a similar dish by Canadian Living's test kitchen. I my filling fit into a 9x13 pan, and this is how it turned out:

Pretty fracking great, IMO. I got lots of meals out of this and wound up freezing some of it, too. It was tasty and not as rich as some fillings I've had before - lighter but still creamy enough. I'd definitely make this again.

Hawaiian Rice

So, the place where I work provides dinner for the residents, and dinner always includes a dessert. The menu rotates over 8 weeks, and last Monday happened to be Hawaiian Rice night. I've never been around for Hawaiian Rice night.

The relief cook hadn't been around for Hawaiian Rice night, either, because when he looked at the recipe, he was really skeptical. He thought it looked weird and was asking if I'd ever seen the regular cook make it before, and if I'd ever tasted it, etc. I said no, it was a first for me, too.

It does look strange - kind of like a combination of ambrosia salad and rice pudding. Here is the recipe.

Hawaiian Rice (makes 6 servings)

1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 cup mini marshmallows
3/4 cup crushed pineapple, drained
- combine these ingredients and chill for 3 hours

Add: 1 cup cool whip or whipped cream and 3 tbsp sugar. Fold into rice mixture. Chill again. Sprinkle with coconut. Serve.

Here is step one...

Here it is just before step two...

My shift ended before the dessert was finished so I have no idea how this turned out. But I will see the cook again soon and ask him how it went.

What do you think? Does this appeal to you or not?

Book Review: Well-Preserved

The flap reads: "Most of us remember our mothers or grandmothers painstakingly canning tomatoes or pickles outside on a sweltering summer day so they'd be able to grab them from the basement pantry come winter. But how can a busy person with limited time and space put up the seasons' delicious bounty to savor later in the year?"

The essence of Eugenia Bone's Well-Preserved is summed up in the subtitle, "Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods." Bone herself lives in a small New York apartment, and if her book is any testament, she can pump out an incredible amount of stuff in a small, limited space.

Covering water bath canning, pressure canning, pickling, smoking & curing, freezing, and oil preserving, Well-Preserved covers a lot of ground in a slim volume. Bone's highly readable tone makes quite a scientific subject engaging and inspiring. Methods for these different types of preservation are well-laid out and the language is accessible. Her recipes look delicious and inventive. When canning time comes around this neck of the woods, I will for sure be making some of the recipes I've bookmarked, like the Strawberry Balsamic Jam and the Stewed Onions with Marjoram.

Bone structures the book around one master recipe, like the Strawberry Balsamic Jam, and then provides a series of recipes that use that one master recipe as a staple ingredient. There are a lot of cool ideas for everything from desserts and main dishes to salads and soups. As one might expect, there is a ton of variety.

So, I am very much looking forward to canning season (which is usually around the end of August in my family), though this book has some great ideas for non-canning preservation methods that I can totally see myself using. I am very grateful for my freezer, I can tell you that!