Temptation Tea Shop

Located a stones throw from our hotel this was the first place we ate when we arrived in Ottawa. The outside dinning area was packed so we were hopeful this was a good place. The spring rolls confirmed our suspicions... but then the rest came.

Filled with fresh mint and huge in size (this is one roll cut in half below) our mouths were watering for the main course.


John had the chicken pad thai and was very excited when his plate arrived. The excitement slowly dwindled though as he ate more and more... the taste of ketchup seemed to intensify... really??? Totally a bummer, especially considering how amazing the spring rolls were.


I've been on a Pho kick so ordered a bowl with rare beef.. the beef was a bit on the scraggly side and not at all rare. (I'm a fan of the rare beef sliced super thin and placed on top... not scraggly chunks sinking to the bottom). The broth was nothing to write home about but with a little added condiments I was happy and full at the end. I mean who can say no to a huge bowl of pho??? not me that's for sure.


If you are in the Ottawa area hit up Temptation Tea Shop for spring rolls and bubble tea... leave the rest behind ;)

Photobooth fun

So the wedding was amazing!!! I'm still waiting on all the shots but here's a few from the fabulous "photobooth" I had set up :) I can't wait to see the shots from later on in the evening LOL!





love it!!!

Raspberry Flax Vegan Muffins

Hey everyone! We're back from our honeymoon and I'm back to having time to bake!!! wooohooooooo!!!!! To celebrate I've made you some delicious muffins! (like you are surprised). Don't worry though I still have plenty of pictures to show you from all the wonderful places we ate while we were away, more of that to come this week!

For now I leave you with a recipe I adapted from Maple and Cornbread. Her muffins came out much prettier than mine though... and I've adapted the recipe to make it totally vegan (she uses eggs and honey in hers, I switched it up with flax eggs and strawberry agave nectar!! YUM!)

For her recipe go here.

Raspberry Flax Vegan Muffins

adapted from Maple and Cornbread

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup wheat bran

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 Tbs milled flax seeds plus 1/3 cup water (mix and let stand a few minutes)

1/2 cup wholesome sweeteners strawberry agave

1 cup almond milk plus 1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup canola oil

2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest

1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

2 tbsp raw cane sugar (turbinado)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat 12 muffin cups with cooking spray or pretty paper cups.

Mix whole wheat flour, wheat bran, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda.

Whisk flax seed mix and agave in a medium bowl until smooth. Add milk, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice; whisk until blended.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients with a rubber spatula just until moistened. Fold in the raspberries. Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops with sugar.

Bake the muffins until the tops are golden brown and spring back when touched lightly, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Loosen edges and turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool slightly.

CHOW!!!!

Man and wife

No professional photos yet but here's a snap from a best man's blackberry :)

Wedding Day

This is it! Today's the day!!!


EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Vintage Inspiration and a winner...

I recieved an amazingly fun shower gift that I wanted to tell you all about. It was all about the "something old" saying for a wedding... except these somethings were vintage cool old!


Oh and did I mention... only 3 days until the wedding!!!!! eeeeee!!!!

I was given these from a lovely friend of John's mom. I feel like she knows me even though we have never met.


See these yellow tuperware measuring spoons?? These are the exact same spoons my mom had, the ones I used to bake growing up. AMAZING.


And this measuring cup is the same as the one John's mom uses! How did this lady know all these things :)

Oh right, that whole winner thing ;) Picked by random.org... the winner is!

Ashley of Knots by Ashley!!!! Congrats girl!! Give me an email to stephchows at gmail.com with your address so I can pass it along to CSN!

Thanks everyone for joining in!!

Giveaway!

So with all the wedding stuff churning along I've been getting all types of gift which always lights up my world... well now it's my turn to give a gift! The awesome people as CSN (remember I did a review for them back here) have given me the go ahead to pick a lucky reader to receive a $60 gift card to use at any of their 200 online shops!!!

There are so many things you could buy with this card... like the amazing knife I reviewed!! This is also the knife I mentioned using to cut up that coach of johns... yeah it's that sharp!

Or you could buy this ice cream maker and have a little money left over. Come on it's summer you know you want to make some ice cream!


Already have every kitchen gadget known to man? That's ok, how about a new lighting fixture? We got this awesome fan from them for the new house. (yeah it's more than $60 but hey the gift card puts a dent in buying it!)


Here's how to enter the giveaway....
1 entry for commenting and telling me what you'd buy from CSN (because I'm curious!)
1 entry for tweeting about the giveaway and linking to me (just leave another comment with the link to the tweet)
1 entry for adding me to your blog roll (again just leave another comment saying you did or that I'm already on it)

OH and make sure I have a way to contact you if you win! See it's easy to enter, now go do it! You have until 5pm EST on Tuesday the 15th!! Go go go! :)

* all images taken from CSN.com

under two weeks to go

until the wedding that is... WOW. This weekend was filled with seating charts, music craziness, and lots of final decisions. Still more to do... so I'm apologizing now for the lack of posts these next few weeks, things are a bit crazy as you may imagine :D

Maybe I'll do some eating out posts... since I have a feeling we'll be doing that a bunch. Oh and if you live in the Rochester area and haven't tried Next Door Bar and Grill (wegmans new venture) it's pretty darn good! Although the atmosphere is VERY different based on the time you go. Funny story... my coworkers brought me out there thursday night for drinks and then dinner. Cool atmosphere, hip decor, and the chirashi bowl was delicious. Oh and the flock of seagulls martini (LOL) delicious!!! It was pineapple vodka and hypnotic. Anyway I thought it was fun and told John he should hit it up during his bachelor party on saturday... well apparently the atmosphere saturday late night is more of the cougar fakeboob over 50 crowd... which is fine if that's your thing... but yeahhhhhh John was not too happy that I told him to go there LOL! :D WHOOPS!

Vegan Biscotti update

Hey so remember last week I made that sunflower seed biscotti using 1 real egg and one flax egg... well I made it again and used 2 flax eggs and no real eggs. I give you vegan biscotti. John no joke ate the batch in under 48 hours... wow, and said it was the best batch to date... who knew!

Only suggestion, when you mix it all together, use your hands and kneed it like dough, using a spoon just didn't seem to work so well :)

(yeah I know it's the same pic from last week... whooops! but john ate them too quick!)

Sunflower seed biscotti - vegan version!
recipe by steph chows

whisk together
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup APF (all purpose flour)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds (unsalted)

1 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup splenda granulated (or 1/3 cup white sugar)
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips (dark chocolate if you want this vegan) or use 1/2 cup raisins!

in a small bowl beat together
2 Tbs milled flax mixed with 1/3 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

Add the wet to dry and kneed with your hands until totally incorporated. Form into 2 rectangles on a baking mat and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and slice into thin slices, place back onto the mat and back into the oven for another 20 minutes or until toasty and browned.

more grilled pizza

I can't help myself, this is just too easy to make... and doesn't heat up the house... and is done within 20 minutes of starting... I can't stop talking about it!!!

I made two this weekend... yup, two... and I love every minute of it. Did you all have wonderful Memorial Days? I hope so! John and I finished moving his stuff to the new house... a couch didn't make it... it wouldn't leave his house in one piece... we had to saw it in half to get it out LOL... yes you read that write! Best part... I used a super sharp kitchen knife to cut parts of it in and it went through it like butter!!!


OK back to that pizza, this time, spicy red sauce, mushrooms, chicken sausage, pesto blobbed on top. YUM To read about my first grilled pizza adventure go here.