Weekend in Instagram

It's beginning to look a lot like summer!  The weather was gorgeous this weekend and we had a very summery weekend, with a lot of time spent outside.

Lately we've been trying to eat healthier/diet.  It's usually pretty easy going during the week, but weekends can be a bit of a struggle, but then we just try to compensate with some outdoor activities like long walks with Cheese or yard work.  Friday night started out right with a little grilling out...

We made homemade "burrito bowls" though they were more like fajita bowls.  Cilantro-lime quinoa with sauteed and seasoned onions and peppers, and seasoned and grilled chicken breast.  It was pretty easy and very tasty, I mean, I didn't even really miss the cheese, black beans, or salsa I usually get on my Chipotle burrito bowls.  I marinaded the onions and peppers overnight in lime juice and fajita seasoning and they turned out really well, even though I overcooked them a bit.

Cheese thought Antoine's burrito bowl looked/smelled so delicious that he need to try it.  He failed! 

Saturday morning started with me trapped under this guy on the couch while Antoine whipped us up a killer breakfast!  He really is the king of breakfast!

Voila, a delicious hash; home fried potatoes and onions with garlic, thick cut bacon, eggs overhard (because that's how I like 'em), a little Parmesan cheese and some ketchup.  Yum!  So good and so filling!  It held us over until about 4pm!  Afterwards we took Cheese for a 5-mile walk and the weather was so beautiful!  Then we ran to Crafty Supermarket (where we picked up this kick-ass pillow) and ran some errands!

Ahh, and here's where the weekends turn bad...ice cream!  I love ice cream so much and it really is just the epitome of summer to me!  This happened to be our first trip to Hold the Nuts, our favorite soft serve spot, of the season.  I got a twist cone dipped in peanut butter and Antoine got vanilla with krunch kote!  

Sunday was an equally beautiful day, I couldn't resist taking another photo of the insanely pretty dogwood across the street.  We started the day off by sleeping in and then ran some errands and did a bunch of yard work, although it feels like we didn't even make a dent since we've got so much to do.

Cheese was our yard work supervisor.  The job duties include eating cat poop, whining, chewing on sticks, rolling around like a crazy dog, and playing with a tennis ball.  It's a pretty exhausting job though.

That was our weekend!  Today I'm extremely sore and very tired, I'm so ready for a vacation.  The end of May can't come soon enough!

Life Lately (in Instagram)

My apologies for my absence lately, but frankly I've just been too lazy lately to blog.  A horrible excuse, I know, but it's hard to motivate yourself to take pictures and whatnot when it's cold outside!  But now I'm back and I've got some photos to share later this week!  Before I get to that though I thought I'd play catch-up with some Instagram photos so I can share with you what I've been up to lately.

First off, I've done my fair share of baking lately...

The newest member of our department, Ashleigh's, birthday was at the beginning of February so I made her this ginger-lime cake with marshmallow frosting.  I also made some candied ginger for a garnish, since she loves ginger so much!

To celebrate my 29th birthday I made this amazingly delicious pretzel, salted caramel cheesecake.  I actually made it the weekend before my birthday while my parents were in town and my oh my it was good!

If you live in or around Cincinnati you'll already know about the string of delays and closures in the past month for the University of Cincinnati.  For me this meant that there were a couple mornings, here and there, where I got to sleep in late, drink my coffee in bed, cuddle with the cat and watch Star Trek all day while wearing my pjs; it was awesome!

Oh, as if I hadn't been ingesting enough calories one night I decided to whip up some hand pies.  I made two kinds, strawberry nutella ones (left) and pulled pork ones (right).  Both were quite tasty!

This guy.  Not only does he always steal my seat on the couch when I get up, but he steals my pillows and positions himself under my blanket!  Oh, Cheese.

While my seat was being stolen by said basset, I was making banana pecan pancakes and bacon for Antoine and I!

For giggles, Cheese posing with my empty coffee cup!

For my actual birthday Antoine took me to the Palm Court downtown for their Sunday brunch buffet.  I'd heard about it but never been.  My goodness, it was amazing!!  The bread pudding rocked my world!  And afterwards I was so comatose that A and I had to go back home and take a nap.

After our nap I just couldn't get out of my pjs, they were too comfortable, so we decided to take it easy and watch Saving Mr. Banks.  And I made Cheesy pose for this picture with me.

Melting icicles.

Round three of my birthday celebration included an amazing night out with my sister, Michelle, and our friend, Helene.  We went to Cooper Hawk and did a wine tasting, got pretty tipsy, and then enjoyed a wonderful dinner.  What a wonderful night!

We got another round of snow this Friday, which Cheese was pretty happy about!  He loves playing around in the snow, especially when it's not below zero!

Guillermo, my furry stalker on cold nights.  He's perpetually glued to my lap in the evenings.

This past Saturday Antoine and I went to Spring Grove Cemetery since neither of us had ever been in the winter before.  It was so beautiful, but more on that later!

On Sunday we wanted to take Cheese to the dog park but once we got there we found out it was closed.  But we still took Cheese for a walk and threw snowballs to him!  He loves catching snowballs, it's his favorite winter hobby!

That's been my life lately, it's been pretty great if you ask me!  Stay tuned later this week for some snowy Spring Grove photos.

Holmes with a View (B&B Review)

Antoine and I aren't normally bed and breakfast people.  We've been to a couple and never had a bad experience, in fact, we've only had positive ones.  And don't get me wrong, I love the idea of an included homemade breakfast!  But bed and breakfasts tend to have a social element built into them, and that's just not our thing.  Mainly, it's not my thing.  Talking to strangers while I'm on vacation terrifies me and doesn't sound at all appealing.  Luckily, all of the bed and breakfast experiences we've had have been stress-free and involved little to no socializing.  Holmes with a View*, where we stayed for a night while we were in Amish Country, was the epitome of a stress-free, private bed and breakfast.  Combine that with a really cool design and one heck of a view and you've got one awesome bed and breakfast!

  Unlike most B&Bs where all the guests stay in one house, Holmes with a View's suites are completely separated from the proprietors home.  After checking in (at the proprietors home), you drive a couple hundred feet down the road to three circular buildings.  Each building is two stories high and each contain two suites, one on the top floor and one on the bottom.  Each suite has it's own private entrance and separate parking.  One of the buildings is larger than the other two because its suites have two bedrooms instead of one.  We obviously stayed in a one bedroom suite, and chose a top level one.

Look at that view! Isn't it incredible?

Now, it's definitely pricier than we'd normally spend, but in the end we agreed that it was totally worth it!  In fact, we were both blown away by this place and will definitely return in the future.  If you're looking for a quiet, private, and romantic getaway in Amish Country, I'd definitely suggest this place.  I mean, just look at it!

A full kitchen complete with all the necessities, nearly 360 degree windows to enjoy that spectacular view, an adorable little seating area for two, a jacuzzi tub, dish tv (as well as a collection of movies and board games),  a full bath with shower and a bedroom with a view.  Oh, and if that's not enough...continental breakfast waiting for you in your room.

After you check-in and get the keys to your suite and then you oooh and ahhh over it for a couple minutes you realized that your included continental breakfast is already there in your room, waiting for you to enjoy it the following morning.  You don't even have to get out of your pajamas to enjoy your breakfast...icing on the cake!  Delicious cinnamon rolls, a loaf of Amish bread, homemade strawberry jam, an assortment of juices, coffee, tea, popcorn (for a late-night snack) and a Keurig...all in your room waiting for you!  Doesn't get much better than that!  Oh wait, a britta in the fridge full of ice cold water to cool you off after all your sightseeing?  Check!  (This made Antoine and I very happy!  We are very picky about water and we like it ice cold, so yay!)

Picture this, you wake up after a day of shopping/eating cheese samples/feasting on the ultimate comfort food/relaxing in a bubble bath, etc. and you warm up a cinnamon roll, make some coffee and enjoy it on the balcony while looking out on this.  That's just awesome!  Makes it totally worth the price tag.

And the peacefulness of this place is crazy!  It's up on a hill away from any traffic, so you're surrounded by fields and flowers and all you hear are birds chirping and the occasional cluck of a chicken.  It's wonderful.

Oh, and in the morning, there might be horses in your backyard, which is pretty cool!

We had the best time!  It was so relaxing and perfect, we can't wait to go back.  If you're planning a trip to Amish Country, I would definitely recommend this place.  Also, you could make it a little more affordable by splitting the two-bedroom suite with four people, say for a girls weekend or two couples.

* (Holmes = Holmes County, the heart of Amish Country) 

Holmes with a View has no idea I'm writing this post and has not given me any incentive to do so, we just really loved it and I wanted to share it with everyone!

Weekend in Instagram

Unfortunately, Instagram didn't want to play nice with me with weekend.  Part of it was due to the fact that we were in Amish Country were apparently AT&T doesn't have a single tower.  But then we got back home it still was being funky!  And I was tired!  So, I'm cheating a little because I had to upload most of these this morning...not that there's that many.  But I've got a lot of photos to share later this week, once I sort through them.  Until then, here's some Instagram photos that are mainly of horses.

 Saturday morning, after leaving my parent's house (they kindly watched Cheese for us this weekend), we headed to Mrs. Yoder's Kitchen for some breakfast.  Prices were so low there that we weren't expecting large portions...silly us!  I got hotcakes, which were enormous and delicious...sadly, I could only eat on of them.

 After a day of sampling cheese, breads and goodies and shopping, we checked into our bed and breakfast before heading to dinner.  What a fantastic B&B (you'll hear all about it later this week)...just look at that view!

 When we woke up the next morning there were horses grazing in the pasture just behind our room, so we lured this guy over with some grass.

 

I couldn't resist taking a little video of the horses, I just wish you could make the Instagram videos a bit longer!  It's not the best, but oh well.

Stay tuned this week for a couple Amish Country related posts.  We had such a great weekend and I think Antoine enjoyed his birthday...even if we did get lost about a million times! 

[Guilt-free] Ginger Mint Slush

Last year when I saw The Soho's recipe for a mint ginger slush I immediately thought, "Ooo, I need to try that!"  And I had every intention to, but then, as you all know, there was a drought and my mint refused to grow.  But this year is a different story and my mint (both kinds) are thriving!  So I decided to adapt Natalie's recipe a bit to make my ginger mint slush a little zingier and guilt-free.

Ingredients:

• 12oz of Canada Dry Ten (or any diet ginger ale)
• juice of 1/2 a lime
• 10 to 14 mint leaves (I used sweet mint and my leaves were pretty small, so I used about 14)
• a small piece of ginger (the size of about 4 nickels stacked together)
• 2 to 3 cups of ice (depending on the consistency you want)

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Serves 1 to 2 people.

In the end you're left with a really refreshing, cool treat that's perfect for a warm day.  I was experimenting and had all these ingredients on hand, but you could really tweak it to your liking.  I originally thought of adding the ginger because diet/low cal ginger ale tends to have less of a ginger taste to it (though I'm crazy about the Ten right now).  I was a little worried that the fresh ginger would be too overpowering, but it wasn't at all.  The flavor was definitely there, but it didn't smack you in the face or anything.  It would also be really tasty (if a little less guilt-free) with any of the Joia sodas or the Fresh Ginger ginger ales (though you wouldn't need the additional fresh ginger with these), but I've been having trouble finding both brands in Cincinnati lately.  Hopefully they turn up soon!

Unrelated to the ginger mint slush, I just found out some sad Cincinnati news...Mayberry, our favorite brunch spot in the city, will be closing after their brunch service on July 7th.  Such sad news!  It's such a great establishment with wonderfully delicious food and I will definitely miss it!  Antoine and I are hoping to go for brunch two more times before they close and I urge you to try it out if you've never been!  In case you missed it or have forgotten, I've blogged about Mayberry several times in the past: here, here and here.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Incline Public House: A Brunch Review

A little while ago Antoine and I made plans to meet up with my sis, Michelle, and brother-in-law, Christian, to have brunch on what happened to be Mother's day.  After reading Katherine's post on the Incline Public House and seeing their brunch menu, I knew we had to try it out.  Incline doesn't take reservations and they said (both on the phone and on their website) that they opened at 11am on Sunday, yet when we got there at 10:45am there were already people seated inside and there was a 45 minute wait.  But luckily I had my camera with me and the view is amazing, so we spent a couple minutes taking pictures and enjoying the panorama of Cincinnati.

Even though it was freezing outside, it was sunny and the view of Cincinnati was fantastic.

Sadly, all my negative comments about the Incline are about the wait and the lack of organization on the hostess' part.  Don't get me wrong, I have no problem waiting for a restaurant.  I've easily waited an hour and a half to be seated at Melt before...maybe even 2 hours.  And when Antoine and I went to brunch at Blue Moon Cafe in Baltimore, we waited easily two hours in the hot sun (and it was totally worth it).  But I do have a problem with waiting when there are multiple (we're talking easily 4 to 6) tables open, bused and set...just sitting there, empty, for 30 to 40 minutes.  A huge party was taking up all the seating (and space) in the entry way and it was freezing and windy outside.  I was definitely getting testy during our wait to be seated; the combination of there being 4-6 tables open that could have had people sitting at them, some servers just standing around, and seeing all the delicious looking food through the window made me a little grumpy.  Oh, and I hadn't had coffee yet.

But, once we finally got seated (at one of those tables that had been empty for some time) we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed brunch!

The coffee, which our server told us was from Coffee Break Roasting Company, was fantastic!

Christian and his four beverages.  He really seemed to enjoy the Bloody Mary he ordered.

We saw a couple people with beers and tasty looking cocktails.

My sister and I were both in the mood for sweet and savory so we decided to split The Hangover Cure and the Bananas Foster French Toast.  We tend to gravitate toward the same menu items and we both love to share, so we enjoy having brunch together even more since we get to try multiple dishes.

The Hangover Cure: biscuits, fried potatoes, bacon, sausage gravy, cheddar cheese and argula topped with a fried egg.  Antoine also got the Hangover Cure, and we all really enjoyed it.  The arugula was dressed with some sort of vinaigrette which had a slight sweetness to it helping to counterbalance the richness of the egg, bacon and gravy.

Bananas Foster French Toast: French toast topped with a butter rum sauce, bananas and whipped cream, served with your choice of bacon, sausage or goetta.  This was my favorite!  I would totally get it again.  My sis and I were about ready to lick the plate when we were done.  The sauce was so buttery and delicious!  Since I ate the fried egg from the Hangover Cure (eggs make my sis a little squeamish), I let Michelle order goetta (I'm not a goetta fan) as the accompanying side.  I did try it and it wasn't bad.  Michelle said she liked it because it wasn't greasy like some goetta can be.

Christian got the Pastrami Hash: Fried potatoes with onions, peppers and pastrami topped with a fried eggs and served with crostini.  He really enjoyed it.

The food was fantastic, all of it!  Not a complaint in the group, only "mmm" sounds.  Our waiter told us that almost everything is made in-house, even most of the mix-ins for the bar, including the orange juice and purees.  So, once you get seated, expect a little bit of a wait for your food...but trust me, it'll probably be worth it.

The Incline Public House has only been open since February, so I'm sure they're still getting their bearings.  However, one of their biggest issues is obviously their hostess stand.  Our waiter told us that some evenings the wait can be as long as 3 hours.  And while I'm looking forward to returning and enjoying the view on the balcony when it's warmer, I certainly won't be waiting 3 hours, because that's ridiculous!