Mother's Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend and that all you Moms out there were spoiled rotten! I traveled to Kingston to spend the weekend with my Mom and we had a lovely long walk at Lemoine Point, a park/conservation area near Collins Bay. This is my Mom's favorite place in Kingston.

Again, I have to apologize for the quality of these pictures. They were taken with my very old iPhone so they aren't the best quality and no zoom available :-(

 We spotted a Geese family going for a dip. Can you see the babies?

 So cute!

 With it being Spring and all, there are tons of babies out and about. Here's a little baby lamb (or a kid I should say) bouncing around the rocks at Lemoine Farm. 

 Me and the Trilliums, Ontario's Provincial Flower.

 My Mom at her favorite place in the whole world!

Tranquility

I also took my Mom to Chez Piggy (look out for a Eat Here Before you Die Post on this place soon) for Sunday Brunch and had the most amazing Lobster Eggs Benedict! OH EMMM GEEEE it was sooo good. And unfortunately I forgot my phone in the car so no pictures of that. Booo! But I found this picture just randomly on the Web to give you an idea of how luscious this dish was.

This is basically what it looked like.....heavenly!

What did everyone do for Mother's Day?

The BEST recipe you will ever make!

Ok, I can't even believe that I am sharing this recipe because it is my go-to, crowd pleasing, oohhhing and ahhhhhing masterpiece. Anytime I have made this, I have been praised and even kissed because it is THAT good. Is this dish good for you? Hells no! It is meant as a special occasion side dish so save up those calories when you make it.

I have given this recipe to those I love countless times so I am sharing it with you as a way to show my appreciation for those that have been reading my blog. If you make this, I warn you, you may be required to make it at any dinner event for years to come (as I have)!

The Love Gnocchi

Ingredients

4-5 Shallots roughly chopped

3-5 Cloves of garlic roughly chopped

4 Tbsp butter, add more if needed

½ jar of sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil (get the kind that are chopped already)

1 cup of heavy whipping cream (get the pint sized in case you need to add more cream if your sauce gets too thick)

1 package of Fontina cheese diced

½ package of pine nuts

1 package of Gnocchi potato pasta

Salt and pepper

Directions

1) Heat the butter in a large non stick pan over medium-low heat; add about a tablespoon of the oil from the sundried tomato jar (or add your own oil) to raise the burn temp of the butter. 
2) Once the butter is melted and just bubbling, add the shallots and cook for 5-7 mins until soft. Meanwhile, start a pot of water to boil as per the directions on the Gnocchi package.  
3) Add the garlic and cook for another 2 mins. 
4) Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes and cook for another 5 mins until everything is well combined and the shallots are golden brown.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

5) Add the cheese and a small pour of the cream (a couple of Tablespoons should do it); stir frequently. You may raise the heat a little on the stove to help the cheese melt but make sure that nothing is burning. 
6) By now your pot of water should be boiling; cook the gnocchi following the directions on the package. The pasta takes only about 5 mins to cook; it is ready when the gnocchi floats to the surface. 
7) As your gnocchi is boiling into little puffs of heaven, in the pan add the rest of the cream and cook on MED heat until all of cheese is melted and the sauce has thickened (about 7 mins). Keep stirring to help the sauce combine. Add more cream if your sauce gets too thick. It shouldn't be runny but it shouldn't be goopy either!

8) Drain the pasta and transfer to an oven safe casserole dish. Pour the sauce over the gnocchi and lightly toss. 
9) Sprinkle the pine nuts over the top of this pasta until covered and heat under to the broiler in your oven until golden brown and bubbling and don’t take your eyes off it (about 2-3 mins).

This is the final product! 

This pairs beautifully with a nice Filet steak and any robust red wine (like a Shiraz). The sauce is gooey and rich and the gnocchi are like fluffy decadent bobbles that melt in your mouth. I hope you enjoy my special Love Gnocchi. If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will get back to you!

Eat Here Before you Die!

This next restaurant in the "Eat here before you die" segment is known as the "Nose" but it's true full name Gio Rana's Really Really Nice Restaurant (so named by the owner's daughter).

It is located on Queen Street East in Leslieville, Toronto, Ontario and there is no sign in the front of the building to indicate it is a restaurant. Oh no, there is only a NOSE!

This kind of makes sense if you think about it. Why do we need to see a garish sign when all we want is for our senses to be tantalized when we dine out? I had driven by this place countless times and always wondered what this business was. Well, I got to find out when my boyfriend at the time took me there for dinner. He had gone once with some friends and raved about it so we checked it out.

The Nose is hip and unique with too many special Italian inspired dishes to name. The decor is fresh, funky and kind of reminds me of a flee market which I am sure is hard to picture, but it works.

 Calamari fried to perfection!

 Decor, like I said it's shabby chic

Almost anytime I see carpaccio on a menu, I HAVE to order it

I have mixed emotions about this place as this was the first time I had dined there and like I mentioned it was with my BF at the time. By the repetition of "at the time" I am sure you can surmise that we are no longer together. On this cold damp Saturday night, we had taken a cab to this place to have a nice dinner. And nice it was.... we had wine, great food that I will never forget and we had what I thought was a fabulous time. I even treated him to this meal because I had enjoyed myself so much. Well that was the last dinner that we would have together. You see, this was a long distance relationship (that lasted on and off for over a year), I lived in Kingston and he lived in Toronto. Not only that but I travelled all the time for work. After this amazing dinner, I stopped hearing from him altogether. After about a month of very cryptic texts & emails, no phone calls or plans to see each other again, I had reached out one last time just to tell him that I gotten the non-verbal message that it was over. I told him that the LEAST he could have done was to actually break it off with me rather than taking the cowardly way out. I also said that he would not hear from me again. So that was that. To my surprise he actually replied that he was sorry and that the long distance wasn't working out for him. He knew he should have broken it off in person or over the phone but that he didn't want to hurt my feelings (ummm, thanks?!). 

Now we were not Teenagers when this happened. We were both in our 30's and yes Ladies, this shit still does happen even at that age. But I don't look back on this night at the "Nose" with regret or sadness, it was still a great time; I have moved on and been taught a lesson that any guy that would treat you this way is so undeserving of your time and effort. I am happy that I didn't spend one more second with a person that was so immature and selfish and if any of you have experienced something similar I hope you can feel the same way.

Wow, how did this post turn into a therapy session? Anyways, break-up aside, this is STILL one of my favourite restaurants in Toronto and I hope you can experience it for yourself when you are there!

Valentine's Day for couples only????

I was having a conversation today with a co-worker (who is married) and I asked if she was having a good Valentine's Day so far. I expected her to say that she received some roses, chocolate or that she was being taken out for dinner. But what she said is that this is a day that isn't just for couples to appreciate their love for each other, that it should be a day where we appreciate everyone who we love in our lives. And I totally AGREE! Plus that makes this dreadful day all the less ostracizing for us single people of the world. So if you are single and feeling lonely today or you can't be with the one you love, turn your attitude around and think of today as a day to appreciate anyone that you love. Whether it be your Mom, your child, your friend or your pet; tell someone today that you love them....It's better than crying into a tub of Ben & Jerry's!!!!

Hope this has made someone smile today and if you really do NEED a Valentine, I can be your Virtual Valentine!

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