How many cereals are in your pantry? Take a peek…Let me know. I am facinated by this question (and the answers). I am convinced that most households have over 3 different varieties. Am I right?

My household consists of two adults, 1 teenager, 1 tween. The adults enjoy certain cereals (think; ahem – FIBRE), while the teenagers and the tween have requests too.

We enjoy cereal for breakfast, for after school snack, and for late nite snack too. It’s such a versatile food. One has to like it.

A few years ago, I went to a cuzins house and saw this brilliant cereal dispenser that they bought at the dollar store. They knew I loved it so I received a few as a dinner gift one year and we love it. It dispenses ONE cup of cereal. (which is always smaller than I anticipate)

I’m not kidding…I will even go to the States and bring back cereal that you cant find here like this gluten free chocolate chex.

So bring it on..how many cereals do you have in your pantry. I seriously am interested to know.

Disclosure: I am part of the LMD Connector Program and I receive special perks as part of the affiliation with this group. The opinion on this blog our my own.

Here’s three things to do this weekend:

a) Visit Maple Towne at Mountsberg Conservation. Hint: go as early as you can. I’ve been going for years and it’s one of my fav. activities. Spring wouldnt be the same without pancakes and maple syrup at a conservation area. If you don’t have a chance to go – I hear from @hypnoflair that Bisquick makes a mean pancake.

b) Visit the One of A Kind Spring Show and Sale at the Direct Energy Centre (March 30 to April 3rd). I went yesterday to the show and discovered a new food product. Does this surprise  you?  It looks like a candy apple but it’s not…it’s gourmet cheesecake on a stick and then rolled in a topping (over 15 different types). YUM. Hot Lollies are located in aisle C – Booth 38.

c) Visit Yorkdale. Thomas Sabo is opening his Ontario Flagship Store at Yorkdale on April 1st and this is amazing news. I own a little red heart necklace and everytime I wear it, I get tons of compliments.

d) Organize your cupboards..Just Kidding.

Enjoy your weekend. It’s going to be nice and sunny in Toronto …so celebrate.

I’ve organized a few tweet ups in Ottawa over the year so that I could enjoy new restaurants with other foodies. We have enjoyed tweet ups at Ceylonta, at Coconut Lagoon, and at Blue Nile too.  I was kinda having a hard time finding the right restaurant for  the next tweet up but FoodiePrints came to the rescue. While reading their blog entry on Serious Cheese, I said to myself  “aha – a cheese tweet up”.

I immediately picked up the phone to speak to the owner of Serious Cheese and asked him if he would be interested in doing this. He agreed over the phone. I then set up the twtvite and tweeted out the invitation a few times on twitter.

Here’s how it worked: On Sat Night, over 20 people came to the store to enjoy CHEESE – talk about cheese, mingle, eat cheese and eat some more cheese.

It was a perfect tweet up. Lots of mingling and lots of eating.

Many of us enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches:

Many of us also enjoyed their asweome goo-ey macaroni and cheese.

Jamie put out some lovely samples of cheese along with Dolces’ Gourmet Jam – and everyone was clearly happy.

Tweet Ups are a great way to meet other people with similar interests. Infact the group on Saturday nite, included a foodie from Boston (@GeekBoston).

I can’t wait to organize the next tweet up for my next visit. I’m thinking about a Jam tweet up. What do you think?

Another trip to Ottawa means another opportunity to eat!!  I ate my way thru the following restaurants and my stomach couldn’t be happier.

I started off at Town. It was listed as one of top ten restaurants for 2010 in Ottawa magazine and I can see why. The restaurant was packed but I was lucky and found a spot at the bar. When presented with the menu, it was tough to make a decision what to order.  But I was super happy with my decision.  I inhaled the ricotta gnudi that was served with a walnut pesto and browned sage butter.

The next restaurant to make my stomach happy was Chez Edgar. I asked the waiter what was popular and he replied “a lot of people order the heuvos rancheros”. I replied “ok – that’s what I will have”. I was not disappointed. It was perfect. The restaurant is situated in a house – so there’s a few tables and an open kitchen.  This means that I got to watch the chef make my meal. Total entertainment.

On the way out I grabbed some photos of some baked goods. OMG.!!

Next: The Scone Witch. This restaurant has been around for over 20 years and clearly has a following. It’s a clever concept as you don’t find too many places serving sweet or savory scones along with devon cream and jam. Again, my stomach was happy.

Here’s the details about the restaurants:

Chez Edgar: 60 Rue Begin, Gatineau, QC

Town: 296 Elgin St. Ottawa

The Scone Witch: 388 Albert St. or 35 Beechwood Avenue, Ottawa

The highlight of the weekend, was the Cheese Tweet Up but that will be a separate posting on Tuesday. Stay Tuned.

Entertaining Made Easy…According to momwhoruns:

a) select a date and then invite the guests

b) decide on the menu. I generally do one main course, 3 sides, one dessert. The internet saves me. You can find all the recipes by clicking on the item. I’m pretty sure I found all of them on tastespotting.

c) buy groceries and begin to cook. (often I do this in stages vs. doing it all at once).

d) buy flowers and set the table.

e) ENJOY the good food and the great company.

Here’s what I served to guests a few weeks ago:

Roasted Carrot Cumin Dip

Quinoa and Smashed Herb Salad (sorry no photo – had a senior moment)

Barefoot Contessa’s Basil Mashed Potatotes

Baked Salmon with Kale and Dill with Harissa

www.tastefoodblog.com

Strawberry Raspberry Crisp. (recipe to follow in another blog post)

Another fav. part of having company over is to set the table and buy the right flowers. What do you think?

I cant wait to entertain next month.

You might be shaking your head (sideways), saying “molecular WHAT”? but when I received an invitation to attend a molecular gastronomy demonstration – I shook my head up and down to indicate YES.

I’m not sure when I was first introduced to molecular gastronomy but I’m pretty sure it was at Charlie Trotters’ restaurant in Chicago many years ago. Or perhaps it was at Joel Robuchons’ restaurant in Las Vegas. All I know is that I think it’s spectacular!

So what is it? Its a method of cooking that I WILL NEVER master. LOL.

However there are some great chefs out there who do an awesome job…including John Placko who is teaching a series of hands-on molecular gastronomy workshops at Humber College.

I was tweeting about the demonstration throughout the evening and received some tweets back that said “I would kill for that machine”. (special machines and ingredients are often used in molecular gastronomy – so I found out). The tweet was in reference to a $4,000 pacojet!

The evening demonstrated a few special techniques including: spherification, reverse spherification, emulsification and more. It was a 3 hour demonstration and I loved every minute.

The photo at the beginning of the blog post is one of the many items that were demonstrated that evening. It’s cereal milk ice cream (made in a pacojet) in a frozen bowl made of coconut milk with raspberry niblets (with the help of liquid nitrogen) on a bed of white chocolate powder, topped with gold flakes. IMPRESSIVE.

There’s a series of workshops taking place each Saturday from March to June at Humber College. For further information,visit the Humber College website or call 416-675-5005.

It wasn’t suppose to become a cookie challenge, however after I posted “My Fav. Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe” on twitter, I received a tweet from @livwu that said the following:

@momwhoruns Anna Olson’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie is my fave http://bit.ly/9GU6Wc try it!

So I clicked on the link and said “hmm…I think I might try this recipe. Why not?”.

Here’s the recipe in the event you don’t feel like clicking on the link:

Anna Olson’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie:

3/4 cup butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp corn starch

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups flour

8 oz bittersweet chocolate cut into chunks

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Cream butter and sugars together untill smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract and blend in.

3. Stir in, flour, cornstarch, baking soda and chocolate chunks

4. Drop by tablespoons on to a greased baking sheet and bake 8 to 10 minutes and golden around the edges

5. Let cool

I gave one chocolate chip cookie from Recipe #1 and one chocolate chip cookie from recipe #2 – to my daughter, her friend and her friends dad (he picked up his daughter at exactly the right time). Everyone was happy – both cookies were delicious but indeed recipe #2 has a slight edge.

Thanks to my twitter friend for sharing this recipe for me. I hope I meet her IRL (in real life) one day soon.

Happy Baking – once again.

PS… Are there any other chocolate chip cookie recipes I should try. I’m ready for the challenge.

Dear Dannon and Yoplait.

My family loves yogurt. Its great to put in the kids lunches and its a quick and easy dessert at dinner with fresh fruit.

But it seems that we aren’t getting the same flavors as our friends south of the border!! Evertime we travel to the States we go “nuts” (well not really, but you know what I mean) when we see the HUGE variety of flavors that we can’t get in Toronto.

For example:

Danone: we love the strawberrry cheese cake and the banana cream pie!!

Yoplait: Triple Berry Torte, Black Forest Cake and Red Velvet Cake!! Isnt’ that just awesome?

Last week while shopping in Buffalo, I picked up a dozen assorted yogurts. Naturally they are gone now. What was I thinking? Why didnt I pick up two dozen?

Hopefully one day we will see these varieties in Canada. If Target is coming…then maybe I can get a red velvet cake yogurt at my local grocery store one day soon. Crossing my fingers.

I grew up in the east end of Ottawa and have many childhood memories of walking to Westgate Mall to get candy.

I remember pixie stixs, sponge toffee, black balls and more.

Naturally a store like Sugar Mountain is right up my alley. It’s so much fun to take the kids and show them what “mommy use to eat”.

Here’s a few photos of candy that I remember eating when I was a kid.

But the best part of my last trip to Sugar Mountain was to discover that COCONUT M&M’s are in Toronto. I no longer have to find them in the States. HOORAY.

I tweeted this picture immediately(cause I was so happy) and there was a flood of replies from other coconut m&m fans.

So tell me…whats your favorite candy from your childhood? was it a chocolate bar? or was it candy?