Let them eat cake (and ice cream)

Its been a while since I've been inspired to cook. I think its because I haven't been entertaining much lately. Our house is in a constant state of flux - renovation madness. That coupled with the slew of house guests we've had, I've been burnt out.

So when we decided to have a gal's day yesterday, I was excited to get in the kitchen! Mo_par & Blarkness both have a sweet tooth, which gave me the perfect excuse to put my ice cream maker and oven to work. I've been meaning to make David Lebovitz's caramelized white chocolate so this was a perfect opportunity. For some reason, it took almost 3hrs for the white chocolate to caramelize (I blame it on my oven). I'm not a huge white chocolate fan but caramelizing it definitely punched up the flavor very similar to dulce de leche. Yummy! I ended up making it into Caramelized White Chocolate ice cream. I also made some Mint Chocolate ice cream, since this is DH's favorite flavor. To go along with the ice creams, I made some cupcakes - Chocolate Guinness cupcakes w/ Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting.




Mo_par & Blarkness have never been to St. Lawrence Market. So we decided to start our day with a trip to the market. I [heart] St. Lawrence Market - its very easy to find inspiration when you're surrounded by pints of wild blueberries, purple peppers, patty pan squash and slabs of smoked bacon [sadly, no zucchini flowers for sale...the search continues]. We started off with chicken & eggplant sandwiches from Mustachios [I prefer these to any sandwich from Calfornia Sandwiches...I really don't understand what the hype is all about], then walked around the market buying ingredients for Sunday dinner.

Afterwards they came to back to my place and watched an FNL marathon while playing video games and eating ice cream & cupcakes. Glad they came over, can't wait for the next gals day!