Well, I am back from my short sabbatical. I pretty much did all that I promised I would. I have been playing around with my Smartphone to figure out how to take pictures (success – and I can link them to Facebook and Twitter). I trained and competed in the Spartan Sprint last weekend (likely the most fun I have ever had at a race). I played around with new designs for my blog (but nothing has changed).
*Blog Break
After a bit of an inner struggle, I have decided to take a few weeks off from blogging. I need to take some time to find new recipes and re-charge my batteries. I have been busy training for a 5km Spartan Sprint in mid-June, and because of this, I haven’t been spending a lot of time experimenting with new recipes. My diet has consisted of salads and eggs, and that really isn’t exciting enough to share.
This past weekend Cherie and I attended the first ever Food Bloggers of Canada Conference. The event was presented by Canada Beef and was held at the Hockley Valley Resort. It was amazing! From Friday to Sunday, it was all about food, networking, seminars and more food. Did I mention that there was a lot of food? 🙂
I am currently en-route to attend my first food blogging conference! 🙂 The Food Bloggers of Canada are hosting the first Canadian food blogging conference this weekend at Hockley Valley Resort in Orangeville, Ontario.
The agenda is jam-packed with great seminars, workshops and guest speakers. Of course, there are appetizing menus and food related events planned for everyone attending. I can’t wait!
This past weekend we hosted an Easter Brunch for all of our Ottawa friends. But, not only was our brunch to celebrate Easter, it was also to celebrate our friend Laurel’s birthday.
I wasn’t quite sure what type of birthday dessert to prepare for her, so I enlisted Jeff’s help in determining the perfect dessert to serve. I gave many options, cake, *pie even an ice cream cake, but Jeff came back with cake and told me that her favourite flavours were lemon and vanilla. How incredible is that! A lemon and vanilla birthday cake, I knew that could be arranged!
I hope that everyone had a fun filled Easter weekend. When we were growing up, every big holiday get together consisted of a large turkey dinner. I am sure that it is no surprise that the turkey recipe that I am sharing with you contains bacon as a key ingredient! 🙂
Now, we didn’t always have a bacon wrapped turkey, but once I was introduced to the deliciousness of bacon and turkey, I was hooked and I never looked back. I have shared this recipe with everyone who asks me about the best way to cook a turkey. What I love about it is that you never have to baste your turkey, as the bacon provides the ongoing moisture that is necessary for a perfect turkey dinner.
Today is my birthday and because lemon is likely one of my most favourite flavours (beside bacon!) I thought I would share with you this super easy and delicious recipe for lemon cookies! 🙂
It is really hard for me to believe that today I am turning 40! When I was a child, I used to think that forty was so old! But as I turned the page on a new decade this morning, I don’t think forty is old at all! I feel that I am in such a good place right now that I am embracing forty with open arms! I have a husband who loves me, a fabulous family and the greatest group of friends! I love my life, and wouldn’t change a single thing about it!
I am going to have to admit to you, that I have never made cabbage rolls before. I have enjoyed them on more than one occasion, but I have never attempted to make them myself, till now.
When we were growing up, our Mom would make cabbage rolls a couple of times a year. It was a time consuming task, but we always enjoyed the effort, as there is nothing better than homemade cabbage rolls. Over the years, I have had the frozen variety, but they just don’t compare to homemade.
On December 11th I received a call from my sister that our father had been airlifted to Toronto General Hospital. The next morning, Jamie and I jumped in the car and drove to the city to be with Dad. Cherie, Dwayne, Jamie, Mom and I rushed to be by his side. Unfortunately he was on life support, so he couldn’t talk to us, but we spent the next two days talking to him, and bringing up happy childhood memories.
Well, this weekend was our move in weekend to our new downtown apartment. It was kind of amazing to walk into work this morning, and have our ‘commute’ be a total of five minutes 😉
The last few weeks have been filled with packing up our life and putting it into a series of cardboard boxes. I find it amazing just how much stuff we were able to accumulate. We have been living in a two bedroom apartment with no storage for over four years, yet when we were packing, the boxes just continued to multiply!
Ruby Reduction 