Eating Dinner With My Family

Well, since it is mother's day, I get taken out to dinner.  Normally I would just skip tonight's post, but I gotta give a local business some serious props!  Originally we were to try a new place as my husband knows it is a bit of an obsession to try every place in town that could even remotely be good.  We had been to this place before so.... if it weren't for a faulty hot water heater, we would have had the time to travel to New Smyrna and would have missed out on what could be on the top ten meals I have ever eaten EVER.  (keeping future meal in mind too!)  So just a heads up to anyone ever in the Daytona beach/ Ormond beach area you must try Toscana 621 S Yonge St in Ormond. (386) 615-0350. If you are interested you can read the reviews (including mine) at http://www.yelp.com/biz/toscana-ristorante-italiano-ormond-beach

Well it is the Holiday Season, and that means weekly wine tastings at the OWC!  I was lucky enough to get to go to another one and left the husband and kiddies to enjoy leftovers.  I however got to eat one of the many delicious things on the menu.  I find I am often wanting to have so many items on the menu, I can't decide and then end up ordering my favorite: the Duck and Blue flat bread.  It has the most amazing spicy plum sauce.  I really don't care for much of the duck I have had. (I'm not a fan of birds in general) I do like it here.  So yay to tastings and no cooking for me tonight;)

We had a date night and went to one of the two Halafax Food and Wine festivals.  I have no idea what is up with that.  It sounds like there is drama there.  I found out about the second one after the fact.  It seems stupid to do them on the same night because I would have liked to have gone to both. (had I known there were 2) Maybe I did but never realized it was two different ones because they have the same name.  We ended up at the one at the News Journal.  It was fun and there was lots to eat and drink.  It is hard to serve food there away from a proper kitchen but I think there were some poor choices of dishes that don't travel well. (crab cakes? not really a good lukewarm thing)  I will say that more than the positives the the big negatives stand out more and will be businesses I don't plan on ever using.  First Crush wine shop.  You send some arrogant guy who was not exactly a joy.  He did a few things I found really anno...

Top to bottom: Bean, Formage, Blue Well tonight was a movie night at the boy's karate school. A group of my friends who have their children in the school decided to take this opportunity to go out. However, as movie night started at 4 (and it's closest to my house) we decided to have some wine here before we went to dinner. I think it irresponsible (much less bad manners as a host) to serve alcohol with out some sort of food to go with it. I made a white bean dip, formage fort, blue cheese and chive spread for the savory options. To accompany them, I had some crackers, herbed flatbread crisps, pita triangles and marinated olives. I also made a marscipone and honey spread to put on some thin crisp coconut cookies. I choose what I did because I had almost everything on hand. I knew I needed to restrain myself because I tend to make too much and I didn't want to spoil our dinner. I started with the formage fort. I hadn't made it before but have always want...

Well another day without a proper refrigerator.  (grrrr)  My lovely friend invited us over for Mojitos and Pizza.  Both were delicious!  The Mojito recipe is from our friend Benny.  They are most likely the best mojito recipe on the planet!  They go down WAY to easy!  Since the pizza was from a local place, Luigi's, the only recipe I can include is the one one for the mojitos. Enjoy responsibly ;) I can't wait until I can cook properly again! Mojitos 1 Cup sugar 5 Limes 750 ml of bacardi white rum 1 Bunch of mint leaves Crushed Ice 1) Muddle the sugar and mint well 2) Add the juice of the limes and mix 3) Add the rum and stir Pour over a pitcher full of crushed ice.  Enjoy!:)

Well this morning, I thought the temp in the fridge was a little warm.  Thankfully my husband is a restaurant manager and a food safety expert.  A quick temp check showed that the fridge was about 45 degrees.  (DANGER ZONE)  That was the air, the food was still below forty, so we moved the uber perishable foods to the 'beer fridge' in the garage.  I called the appliance repair place my friend recommended.  She is totally the one who would know, so I am thinking my impression is wrong but..., they were so not helpful.  We had already replaced the motherboard on the fridge; my MIL's husband knows all about this kind of thing and has the same fridge.  He recommended switching it out because it fixed his problem and  it is what was the fix for 99% of the problems with the G/E profile artica fridge.  After spending about $200, (half was the motherboard) I didn't have confidence in the repair guy that came out, because of how vague he was,I ha...

OK so today I am miserable.  I have a fever, stuffy, sinus pressure, neck feels like I have been beaten and sore throat.  My husband, being the kind man he is, suggests eating out.  My thought, lets get take out.  I don't want out of my pjs and I can't smell, so I can't taste anything.  After much debate, a debate that involved numerous variables, we decide to have Thai.  Just so you can appreciate the length and scope of this debate, here are but a few of the variables: what do I feel like eating (me: nothing, him: somewhere nice for me), where do I feel like going (me: nowhere him: ditto), take out? (me: anything, him: most food doesn't travel well).  OK so I decide to get dressed.  The only opinion I can muster is that Thai food might have enough flavor to penetrate my taste buds despite my inability to smell.  The snafu, my daughter is allergic to peanuts.  Well we ended up at Thai, which we all enjoyed.  The girl enjoyed her ne...

We got a date night!!!  My mother in law was visiting us, so we got to go out to eat, just the husband and I.  I have been dying to try Cress.  I first found it on Yelp a long time ago.  Recently, the chef was nominated for a James Beard Award, so now I am doubly excited.  I got dressed like it was a proper date, wanting to look nice for my man.  My son tells me as soon as the make up is on, "Mom you look really nice!", my mother in law tells me I look really beautiful.  I said thank you and now everyone has told me but the husband.  Well the drive to Cress is about 35 minutes.  Half way there, my husband gets a text.  As he is driving, he hands it to me to read it to him.  It is from his mom.  It says have fun and tell your wife she looks beautiful.  (now i would be remiss to fail to mention that as we got in the car he did say I looked good)  We both chuckle at the fact that I am reading it to him.  He says tel...