Today we went to Centreville with friends for some fun and a picnic.  We had great weather, delicious food, and amazing company.  We took the ferry over to Centre Island in the morning.  From the Island we had a great view back to Toronto, and the CN Tower.

We were greeted by these great signs!

We enjoyed lots of rides together.  Maddie loved the pony ride, and another favourite for us all was the merry-go-round.

We were all looking forward to our picnic so much that we headed to a picnic table at 11:30  The menu, classic picnic fare, Kentucky Fried Chicken.  It was bought the night before and served cold –nothing like it!  With it we had veggies, chips, home made dip and humus, and fresh bread and butter.  Yum!

For dessert, I tried a new recipe from Cityline.  I made it the night before.

Peach and Frangipane Tart

Recipe courtesy Michael Bonacini

Serves 6 – 8

Ingredients

4 just-ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced
1 pack frozen puff pastry
Frangipane:
2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 whole eggs
1 tbsp, plus 1 tsp, all-purpose flour
2/3 cup ground almonds
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Roll out the puff pastry to about 1/8 inch thick, and 10 1/2 inches in diameter.

Place an 8-inch flan ring on a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper.  Line the flan ring loosely with the puff pastry and dock using a fork.  Place in the refrigerator to relax.  In a clean bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Crack and beat the eggs, reserving some for the egg wash.  Add the beaten eggs to the creamed butter and sugar, followed by the flour, ground almonds, lemon zest and vanilla.

Beat thoroughly to remove any and all lumps.  Take the pastry from the refrigerator and place the frangipane in 6 – 8 dollops over the base of the pastry crust.  Slice the peaches thinly, and arrange on top of the frangipane.

Loosely fold the edges of the pastry crust inward.

Egg wash the pastry crust, sprinkle with a little sugar, and bake in an oven at 350° for 20 – 25 minutes, covering with aluminum foil if needed, until pastry crust is golden brown and crisp.

Serve with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or plain yoghurt.

At our picnic, my sweet husband walked back to the concession stand and bought vanilla ice cream so our pie would be picture perfect.

I’m all for truth in blogging, and I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the pie.  It was good, but if I made it again, I would make sure to chill all the ingredients.  My frangipane was warm when I put it in the pastry and the pie didn’t hold together in the oven very well.  It kind of melted onto the cooking sheet.  Overall, it was okay, and a good way to use up our fresh Ontario peaches.

We had a great time at Centreville; the weather was great, the food was yummy and the friendship a blessing!  We love you Hagen’s, and our first annual picnic

Our amazing friends, Dan and Heather, recently celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary with a backyard bbq for friends and family.  Heather did an amazing job on all the little details, as usual, and I wanted to share some of the highlights here.  The colour scheme was turquoise and white.   Guests were greeted by beautiful black and white prints of the couples wedding day.  Heather strung them up on a custom “clothes line” of turquoise string, and added a circle of coordinating scrapbook paper to the clothes pins.  This idea would also be great for a birthday party.  Photos of the birthday boy or girl over the years could be unified by all being printed in black and white, like they did here.

The front deck was decorated with beautiful butterfly garland, found at the dollar store.  Dollarama we love you!

The big beautiful maple tree in the back garden was all dressed up for the occasion with more ribbon and butterflies, and a bouquet of tissue paper pom-poms and paper lanterns.  So beautiful, and summery.

All the tables looked coordinated and beautiful with Heather’s handmade table clothes.  She used inexpensive dress lining found at the fabric store, which matched perfectly.  Another great idea that the guests loved, especially those with kids, was the full salad bar.  Guests were able to customize their salad to what ever they liked.  The lemonade  looked fantastic in the big glass jar dispensers, complete with fresh lemon slice garnish.

The dessert table looked amazing.  Heather added turquoise touches by adding ribbon to her cake stands, and adding in turquoise candy, and fun turquoise jello for the kids!  She also made beautiful sugar cookies monogrammed with the couples last name initial.  Don’t those cupcakes also look amazing, and she made them all herself.  Yum!

Before guests left, they were asked to write some advice for the couples next ten years together.  Instead of having it in a guest book, Heather used coordinating turquoise scrap book paper, and had guests attach the papers to the metal garden shed with beautiful hand-made pebble magnets.  What a great idea for an outdoor party.  I also love the use of adhesive chalkboard stickers here.

What an amazing party.  Congratulations Heather and Dan, and our advice for the next ten years?  Life is what you make it, so make it a party!

Today I finished off a little project inspired by my daughters up coming ice cream themed birthday party.  I saw a cute ice cream finger towel on Etsy, but decided to make mine bath towel size so it could be used by my daughter after her party. 

I found a plain white towel at Home Outfitters for $5, and used up some felt I had.  The pretty pink rick-rack is from Fabricland, along with the button.  I already had some Heat-n-Bond, so it was an inexpensive project.

I started out by creating an ice cream cone and ice cream out of cardboard, and using this pattern to draw and cut it out of the felt.  I then created the criss-cross pattern on the cone, by sewing diagonals on my sewing machine.  I made sure to tie the ends on the backside.

After I finished sewing the criss-cross pattern on the ice cream cone, I adhered the cone and the ice cream to the towel with an iron-on adhesive called Heat-n-Bond.  You could skip this step and just sew it, but the iron-on adhesive should help insure that even after washing, the ice cream cone will stay on the towel.

After this, I sewed around the ice cream and cone with the sewing machine, and added the rick-rack.  The final touch was to sew on a bright pink “cherry” button.

I love how it turned out and so does my daughter.  I think it will be a cute touch to the bathroom on the big “Ice Cream Birthday Party” day, and a great addition to bath time later.

Now I think I want a real ice cream cone!

I’ve linked this project to a link party at Under The Table and Dreaming, and Just Something I Whipped Up, and Made By You Monday and Its So Very Creative and Mad Skills and Making The World Cuter Mondays

Last night we had some old friends over for dinner, and I wanted to make something really nice, and summery for dessert.  I decided on Strawberry pie, and we all really enjoyed it.

It is a recipe with several steps, but is really quite easy.  The pie crust is a no-roll, which is baked and covered in a cream cheese filling, then fresh strawberries, with a glaze on top, and the finished pie is served with sweetened whip cream.  Yum!

Mrs. Megarry’s Strawberry Pie

Crust:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup corn oil
• 3 tbsp cold milk

Mix flour together with sugar.  Mix oil and milk in a separate bowl, then add to flour and sugar mixture.  Combine and pat with your fingers into a pie plate.  Bake at 400 for 10 min.

Cream Cheese Filling:

• 1 pkg. cream cheese
• 1 tsp almond flavouring
• 1/2 cup sugar

Combine all three ingredients in a mixer and whip until smooth.  Spread the mixture over cooled pie crust.

Strawberries and Glaze:

• 4 cups of fresh strawberries, sliced
• 3/4 cup water
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Add 3 cups of strawberries to the pie on top of the cream cheese layer.  Reserve 1 cup of strawberries for the glaze.  Combine 1 cup strawberries, and water in a sauce pan and simmer for 3-4 min.  Combine the cornstarch and sugar and add to the fruit and water.  Simmer until the mixture is thick and clear, stirring constantly.  Add lemon juice.  Cool slightly before pouring over the fruit in the pie shell.  Chill, and serve with sweetened whip cream.

It’s always a good sign when the guests ask for the recipe

My husband and I recently went on a romantic getaway.  After two days of shopping, dinning, antiquing, and wine tours we finished our visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake with my husband taking me to high tea at the Prince of Wales Hotel.

The dinning room where they serve high tea was beautiful, and made us feel like we were going back in time with its Victorian furnishings, linen table cloths, fresh flowers, and china teacups.

We ordered the traditional high tea.  You can see the menu here.  Everything sounded so good.

The tea was served on a beautiful traditional three tiered tray.

The bottom tray was the savoury sandwiches.  They included cucumber and goat’s cheese rolls, salmon with horseradish mayo, egg salad with dill, and my favourite, ham and cheddar cheese with mango chutney.  I host an annual tea party, and will definitely be adding this one to the menu.

The second tier included the traditional scones, served with clotted cream, jam, and butter.  The top tier was filled with delicious sweets.

We had a great time, and it was the perfect ending to our romantic getaway.