Apple Pancakes

Today has been exactly a year since I lost my mom, therefore I'm sharing her famous apple pancake recipe. I remember making this with her when I was a kid, and sometimes we would swap the apples for freshly picked blueberries. Here's her recipe:

Apple Pancakes

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of sugar
4 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
2 well-beaten egg yolks
2 cups of milk
2 tablespoons of butter, melted
1 cup finely chopped apples
2 stiffly beaten egg whites (with a hand mixer until it looks like whipped cream)

Sift together dry ingredients. Combine egg yolks and milk. Pour into dry ingredients; stir well. Stir in butter and apples. Fold in egg whites. Let batter stand a few minutes. Bake on hot griddle using 1/3 cup batter for each, spreading evenly. Enjoy with maple syrup. Makes 12

I do still make this recipe from time to time because they really are the best pancakes. My mom was amazing in the kitchen, and I'm really missing her cooking. I'll be seeing my dad, brother, sister in law, nieces and nephews today, to spend some time together and remembering my mom, we all miss her and love her very much!

I also made a banana, blueberry and chocolate chip loaf this morning, which the recipe comes from the cookbook, Cook with Kindness. The recipe did call for strawberries, but I had fresh blueberries on hand so swapped it, and it was delicious.

Last night, my hubby and I relaxed and watched movies, and for supper I tried a new recipe I saw on the food network, and Giada really knows how to put together a chicken and leek Cornish turnover, we both loved it! I prepared my own coleslaw, and the dressing was apple cider, Dijon, mayo with some paprika and a touch a salt and some pepper. We had this with an Ontario red wine.

Supper was delicious and the wine paired nicely with supper. This wine is one of our favorites.

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Canada Day on Tuesday!

Mud Hero

A little over a week ago I went to Mud Hero. First time doing something like this and it was tough but a lot of fun! This race is 6 km with 18 obstacles along the way. I got to run a while before we hit our first obstacle, which was dirty water that went up to my waste. Then I had to climb walls, walk through mud, climb a netted wall, then we ran through wooded areas. I also had to run through little cabins which are set up for paintball, and then got to a blow up slide which I had to climb up first. There was another slide that I got to go down, which we then landed in dirty water which helped clean me off a bit. Soon after though we were walking in more mud, which some were waste level, so very difficult to get out of there. I had to climb a wall using a rope, walk across a wooden beam, which there was water under in case you fell. Right towards the end I had another wall to climb up on and there was a net in between, then had to climb back down

Then the last part was lots of mud and the wooden bar you see at the far left of the picture, we had to go under that, so we got mud on our faces and got our bodies completely covered

Then when I crossed the finish line I got my medal! It took me 1 hour and 9 minutes to complete it.

They had showers available to help wash off some of the mud, which I brought extra clothes to change into. I wore old running shoes because I figured I would just throw them out after, but they did offer to donate your shoes at the end, they wash them, and give them to someone in need. My clothes washed out pretty good, but did have to put them in the wash three times to get them really nice and clean. 

Would I do this again? Absolutely! Even though I had a lot of sore muscles, which I thought my legs would hurt the most but it was actually my upper body. I guess with all the wall climbing, nets, and using my arms to help me get out of the mud. It was a really good workout!

If your looking for a challenge and want to do something new, give this a try. You do get a really nice t-shirt, muscle milk at the end of your race (protein drink), and with returning your timing chip I got a free beer! Most importantly though, with registering, the money goes to really great causes, check out their website.

Trip to Halifax

Two weekends ago, I took a trip to Halifax to visit my BFF. I flew over on Friday morning, we got to have lunch together at her place, then went out to see some ocean views. We picked up her daughter at school, and once her husband was home from work, her and I left to have dinner together. We checked out a store first, which she bought some haskpa juice so I could try it. They have a berry called haskpa, you can tell it's a berry, but it's more intense then the other berries, I really liked it.

We then went to a vegan restaurant called enVie, we both had the same thing, a grill cheese with a poutine, and it was delicious! Since it's vegan, it's not your typical grill cheese and poutine, so it was different, but very good! For desert, I had the raw chocolate torte which was also amazing, and my friend had the chocolate peanut butter pie. We went back to her place to change, so we can go tour around, she brought me to a few places that lead to an ocean view. I love the sound of water crashing around, birds, and the smell of the ocean. It's so calming and beautiful. Saturday we went to downtown Halifax to go to an indoor market, and mostly everything in there is local and homemade. It was amazing and wish we had something like that in Ottawa. I actually did a search the other day and found out we do have an indoor market, but when it's nice they move it outside, so I'll check it out and write a post on it. We got thirsty so went to a place that makes drinks, and got a fruit and vegetable drink, homemade with fresh ingredients, it was delicious! We then went to another indoor market, which had the Alexander Keith's brewery, so I was sure to get a souvenir for my hubby. We shared a Pad Thai for our lunch then made our way to a hotel to meet others for a food tour. Never done that before but it was a lot of fun and got to try a lot of amazing food. Our tour guide was from Ottawa, and she told me I should try the food tour in Ottawa, so I looked it up, and will do that at some point, and will write about it. Never heard about food tours, but it is good to know and can't wait to see what new places I will learn about in Ottawa. To get the details of our tour, you can visit my friend's blog, she wrote out a lot of details for the tour, her blog is called Eat Real Being Real. We walked a different way back to the car after, and she took me through Public Gardens, it's so beautiful there!

We walked a lot that day, she has a fit bit, and it tracked that we walked about 16 km that day. We still took the time to cook up supper though which was pizza! We bought the dough at a local pizza place, and we added tomato sauce, bacon, asparagus, beet greens and goat cheese, it was delicious! For desert, we had a vegan cheese cake that we picked up downtown. Sunday her and I drove about an hour away from her place and along the way, stopped to see this amazing view...

We drove up to Cape split for a 16 km hike. It was the most amazing hike! Half way, there was an amazing view, but of course a picture isn't as good as actually being there, it took my breath away

We stopped to rest a while and had some lunch, which we made eggs sandwiches, along with a banana, and local homemade bars. We hiked back, and here's a view along our hike...

This hike took us 3 hours, but really didn't feel that long, it went by so fast. I love hiking so I hope to do more this year. After our hike we stopped for some gelato, and stopped at a few shops including a vineyard. I brought home a bottle of red wine for my hubby and I to try out. When we got back to her house we made one delicious supper. Had salmon, with bacon, asparagus risotto and a garden salad, which the salad dressing was one that she bought in the market, it was really good. We even had white wine with our supper, she picked it up at the vineyard we went to. It really was an amazing trip. I got to try so much amazing food, and see a lot of beautiful things. I don't see my friend as often, so that extra long weekend with her was great.

This trip gave me some new ideas on what to make for meals. I'm also going to try to explore Ottawa more to see what I'm missing out on. If you know of any great places around Ottawa, please let me know.