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! 

A Trifle Excited

Antoine and I are heading to Amish Country (aka Holmes county Ohio) for the weekend to celebrate his birthday, and I'm just a tad excited about it.  I grew up about an hour from "Amish Country", so we went there often while I was growing up.  But this will be Antoine's first time going (and yes, I did make a Pinterest board just for this little weekend excursion, because I'm crazy)!  Amish Country in general is a bit of a novelty, especially when you grew up on a farm surrounded by humble Amish farmers and played with Amish kids in the summertime like I did.  For me Amish Country is all about memories.  Eating at certain restaurants, going to certain stores...it makes me think of my childhood.  Plus, the food is rad!  No, seriously, I've been daydreaming about peanut butter cream pie from Amish Door nonstop, all week!  I can't get it out of my head.  My diet is so going down the drain tomorrow because I am going to shove so much peanut butter pie in my face.  Mmm, pie!  It will be glorious!

Speaking of sweet things...I made a trifle (my very first) this week to take over to my sis' house and I knew I had to share it.  Antoine, Cheese and I headed over to my sis and bro-in-law's house for a cookout/furry creature playdate, so I thought I'd make a trifle and use up the rest of the blueberry filling I had leftover, stored safely in the freezer, from the cake I made two weeks ago. 

Not the prettiest thing in the world, but damn did it taste good!  I used angel food cake, to make it a bit lighter, and whipped up this awesome microwave lemon curd (so easy and SO good, especially if you throw some lime juice into the mix) and this tasty coconut whipped cream.  I started with cubes of angel food cake, then a layer of curd with strawberries on top, followed by coconut whipped cream, then more cake, blueberry filling, coconut whipped cream and repeated the bottom layer one more time. 

I topped it with more whipped cream, blueberries and the last of the lemon curd (minus a spoonful that went straight into my mouth).

I thought it was really tasty, light yet very flavorful.  The coconut whipped cream and fresh fruit made it very refreshing.  It would make a great picnic item, though the coconut whipped cream might get a little melty on you if it's not kept cold...but it'll still taste great!

So how about you, any fun weekend plans in the works?  Whatever you do, stay cool...it's been hot enough outside to melt your face off!  Okay, not really.  But kind of!  Anyway, happy Friday/almost the weekend!

Okay, now I'm going to go think about peanut butter pie...

Weekend in Instagram

What a great weekend!  The weather was gorgeous, if a little sizzling; so much better than last weekend.  My weekend began with a little detour to Lunken Airport (my first time there).  My sis and I had plans to go blueberry picking, but she had a work thing come up at Lunken so I sat in the car while she did her thing.  Unfortunately it wasn't open yet, so I couldn't see the inside...maybe some other time.

My sister and I headed to Rouster's to pick some blueberries.  Yes, it was my second time going this summer, but I couldn't help myself!  And boy oh boy, was it the perfect day for it.  Since picking got canceled last weekend because of the rain, there were tons of enormous, sweet berries on the bushes.  We picked until they closed and I walked away with another 9lbs of blueberries! 

When I got home from blueberry picking Antoine's nephew, Kayeson, was over.  Kayeson adores Guillermo and Cheese so he begged to come over to our house so he could play with them.  Cheesy love Kayeson (well, any human really), but Gui isn't too fond of how loud he is and hid behind the washer and dryer most of the time. 

 Kayeson had fun throwing the ball and making Cheese fetch it...though Cheese was exhausted after a couple hours of this!

After we took Kayeson home (with a brief stop at Hold the Nuts for some soft serve), we ran to the mall where I purchased a couple pairs of new jeans in a size smaller than I had been wearing!!  Yay!!  Despite cake-making and pie-making, Antoine and I have been doing really good lately with our calorie counting and last week we started getting up very early and going to the gym before work, two to three times a week.  It's been really great for us!  Anyway, I was in a ridiculously good mood after finding out I went down a pant size, so Antoine and I decided to celebrate with Fusian!

 I got my usual tuna roll (which is only 383 calories!) and tried their seasonal special strawberries...so good!  Also, a little heads up to you central/east siders, Fusian will be opening a second Cincinnati store in Hyde Park Plaza!  They are expected to open their doors in October and I can't wait!

Sunday was a bit of a lazy day...or should I say, I homebody kind of day. 

 This guy took his ball with him everywhere.

 I washed, dried and froze about 3/4 of the blueberries I had picked with my sister.

 This might have been the biggest one I picked!  It was so ridiculously sweet and delicious!

I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen washing berries, making tasty strawberry balsamic vinaigrette, and lemon curd (for something later this week).  Then Antoine grilled up some ribs and corn for dinner...seriously so good!  I couldn't even pick up the ribs because the meat just fell right off the bone.

Then Antoine and I watched Star Wars (the real ones...not the newer ones) and I whipped up some baked blueberry oatmeal for Antoine to take to work for breakfast this week.  He said it turned out great, but I didn't try any because I was too stuffed from dinner!

So, how was your weekend? 

Blueberry Lemon Cake

I've been on a blueberry baking roll lately.  This always happens after blueberry picking, when I have a ton of fresh, plump blueberries, my mind starts racing on what to make with them.  Lucky for me, one of my coworker's birthday falls smack dab in the middle of blueberry season.  In the past I've whipped up cheesecake for the occasion, but this year I decided to go all out and make a blueberry lemon birthday cake...entirely from scratch!  Right down to the blueberry filling and the zesty lemon buttercream.  And it turned out pretty well, especially for it being only the second cake I've ever made from scratch (here's the first if you don't remember).

 Ta-da!

For this cake, filling and buttercream I used two different recipes and tweaked a couple of the ingredients slightly to get the results I wanted.

For the cake and filling I used Mother Thyme's recipe (pictured on the left) and for the zesty lemon buttercream I used Kitty Cat Stevens' recipe (pictured on the right).  Both are great recipes and I'd highly recommend either!

For the cake:  I didn't change any of the ingredients in Mother Thyme's cake recipe, except I added about 1 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries (tossed in a little flour) to the batter.  I used three 8" cake pans, greased with butter and coated in flour, and baked them at 325 degrees (compared to 350 degrees in her recipe) for a little bit longer time so that they wouldn't rise too much.  I learned that tip from this wonderful post on how to build a layer cake from Completely Delicious!

For the filling:  I tweaked Mother Thyme's recipe quite a bit, so here's my modified list of ingredients...

• 3 cups of fresh blueberries
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 TBSP cornstarch
• juice of one lemon (about two tablespoons depending on your lemon)
• zest of two lemons

For the buttercream:  I ended up adding an extra tablespoon of lemon juice (3 tablespoons total) because my buttercream was still a bit too stiff.  The zestiness of all that lemon zest and juice really cut the sweetness of the powdered sugar, so the buttercream wasn't sickeningly sweet like some can be!

I did the traditional crumb coat followed by a second layer of buttercream, and had enough buttercream left over for Antoine to devour.  And since I had so much excess blueberry filling left and, obviously even more blueberries in my fridge, I tried to pretty up the top a bit...mainly because I still need a good piping bag.

Voila!  Everyone really seemed to enjoy the cake...it was completely gone (save one piece set aside for Antoine) by the end of the day.  Most of the blueberries still sunk to the bottom of the cake pans (even with the coating of flour) because they were so heavy, but that's okay.  As far as cake goes, it was pretty tasty.  Sweet, but not sickeningly so, and zesty!