Sweetest Sunday - Dream Special

My favorite doughnut place, Tim Horton's has a new trio dream special.  A special flavored donuts, Strawberry confetti, chocolate truffle and dulce de leche.  They have been advertising them for a couple of weeks and I wanted to try them.  But due to the social distancing, I didn't want to go in when there's a lot of line ups and other patrons.  But luckily this morning, when we stopped by one of their store, there was no line up inside.  I quickly ran in and got these three special donuts.  After lunch we decided to try the first one. OMG the doughnut was dry and the chocolate was too brittle.  I took one bite and gave the rest to Jeff.  The confetti one, I decided to give it to my neighbor who was celebrating her birthday so it was fitting.  She tried it and was so sweet but was yummy. Now I am hoping that the one I am saving for the last taste test, dulce de leche would be something delicious that it will make up for the first one.  So disappointing, the last one is like a churro with nutella in the middle. It was edible but not incredible.  Although Tim's has other treats that are much more tasty like their timbits or apple fritter, they should maybe do some taste tasting with their own employees or others before actually selling them.  But maybe I just got a bad batch.  

Sweet Sunday - Waffle Brunch Event

For the month of September, our neighbor event is the annual Waffle Brunch.  It was a perfect day as it had been raining so everyone who could make it was in attendance.  There were a lot of food to feed everyone for brunch and maybe a later snack. Some of the new members of our group was able to meet the rest of the group.  Two ladies hosted this event and they were in charge of making two kinds of waffle. All the food groups were represented on the table.  It was great seeing previous members of the group that have moved a couple of years ago, but sometimes they are able to attend and it was nice to see them.  Anyway, today I just wanted to share what we enjoyed today at our brunch.

Capocollo, swiss cheese and asparagus roll.

Egg muffin with spinach, red peppers, green onions and cheese.

Mini pineapple carrot muffins

Deviled Eggs

Jalapeno and cheese bread.

Variety of muffins.

Plenty of crispy bacon.

Potato breakfast casserole.

Ham and sausages.

Mixed berries for topping for waffles.

Regular and chocolate waffles.

Baked tomato parmesan 

Sausage and potato casserole.

Shareable Sunday - Pie to Pie

OMG, there's bananas that were dying, zucchinis that were getting too ripe, what to do!  This is what happens on the weekend when I notice things like that.  I get on a baking rampage.  First, get the bananas mashed and make something out of it.  Result - Banana Chocolate Chips Nut Bar.  I started making these bars instead of making banana bread.  Two zucchinis that I got at the fruit stand, one green and one yellow.  I was going to make some side dish with it while my friends from Ottawa was visiting but we were so busy I forgot.  So I made a Double Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Kahlua Drizzle with the green one. I shared this at the house warming party last night. As for the yellow one, it became a zucchini pie with yellow peppers, onions and bacon. A very healthy pie if you are trying to diet. For a first time making these zucchini items, they turned out to be pretty sumptuous.  We brought the zucchini pie and apple crumble to the RV campsite where our neighbors were staying for a week and had joined them for dinner.  Almost forgot about the apples that I bought at the same time as the zucchini, I was able to make an apple crumble pie and the left over apple slices became an apple butter, one small jar.  It was a very productive weekend. Now are you ready to check out these items.

Zucchini Pie

Apple Crumple Pie

Banana Chocolate chips and nuts bar.

Double chocolate zucchini cake with Kahlua drizzles.

Sweeter Sunday - Baking brings so much joy

My latest baking craze is the Crack Cake which I found on Pinterest.  It was a very interesting recipe so I thought I should try making it.  Recently Jeff got me a bundt cake pan and I wanted to put it to good use.  The recipe is full proof and it's so moist.  One good thing about it is that the finishing is just a glaze instead of frosting or icing.  Of course it is very light and trying different combination is endless.  It has been a few weeks and I have tried several combination of fruits, chocolate, nuts and liquor.  Everything so far has been a hit.  Almost forgot the most important tip of this cake, it is so so easy.  You have got to try it.

Double Chocolate Crack Cake with Kahlua Drizzle

Raspberry and lemon with white wine drizzle.

Cherry sprinkle with lime drizzle.

Blueberry and lemon crack cake.

My very first lemon meringue pie

Peaches and pecan crack cake.

Sumptuous Sunday - Something new

Before I forget, Happy St. Patrick's to everyone who is reading this post because you are my loyal follower or reader or maybe you just happen to stumble upon my blog, in that case, thank you for stopping.  I decided to share some of the latest recipe that I have tried this weekend.  One is from my daughter (the artisan bread). She told me about using the "Everything but the bagel seasoning" from Trader Joe's.  I added a tablespoon in the bread and another tablespoon on top just before baking.  Check out how good looking my bread turned out.

The next recipe is from my sister.  I was asking her for some ideas for dessert that I need to bring over to the dinner my neighbor was hosting last night.  My sister is great at trying different recipes and tweaking it until it's just perfect and easy to make.  So this is called

Tibok Tibok.  I know it's weird to pronounce but it is definitely smooth and yummy.  If you like coconut, this is perfect for your taste buds. It is not so sweet and yet so much flavor.  One tip my sister added, make sure you don't leave the pot, stirring with a whisk and being patience is the key. 

Sweet Sunday - What makes it

Sweet is such a nice word.  When you do something for someone and they say to you "Oh you are so sweet" that makes me feel really appreciated.  When you have a friend, a guy friend that does a lot of little things unexpectedly, you tell him that he is such a sweet guy.  Talking about a sweet guy.  One of my other BFF is celebrating his 49th birthday today.  Mike aka "the lawnmower man" another inside joke.  He lives in Brampton, Ontario and he is one of the boys or one of the guys.  He's been a friend for a very long time.  There was a time when I had to stay away from him for some odd reason but eventually we were back to being the way we were - great friends.  So today I hope that he is having a wonderful day and that someone is being sweet to him. 

This is Mike and my daughter taken at my retirement party.  My daughter thinks of them(Boys) as her uncles.

Since I am not there to bake a cake for him, here's a photo of a cake that I would have given him for this his special day.  Next year is even more special because it's the big 50.  Oh my, now I feel really old because I just realized I'm eleven years older than him.  

A very sweet cake for a real sweet friend.  Happy Birthday Mike W!

 

Sweet Sunday - It's like a scavenger hunt

A few days ago I posted about my new favorite snack called Sweet Ballz.  The day after my post, Jeff took me to seven different 7-11 and we found three boxes at one of the location.  I wanted to send a box of each kind to my daughter but I could only find the Cookies and Cream and the Chocolate.  So the next day, I ask Jeff to take me again for another hunt (almost like a scavenger hunt) and this time we only went to six locations but unfortunately, we did not find any. What a disappointing mission.  I needed to mail the package to my daughter so I ended up sending her two boxes (one of each flavor).  On Friday night we were going to meet some cousins at some bar near San Francisco.  I asked Jeff if we could stop at another 7-11 if we see one on the way.  It so happen that the street we were making a left turn had the store.  I quickly went inside and was so excited to see a supply in the basket.  Of course I bought 7 boxes.  You're probably thinking why would I want to have so many.  I like sharing them with friends and since it's package so small and cute, it was a nice quick gift.

My favorite is the red velvet, then cookies & cream, and last is the chocolate.

Sweet Sunday - Plum Picking

What does it take to make me go up a ladder?  The experience of picking very sweet plums.  On July 4th we were at our friends home for BBQ and movie.  Just before dinner Gil asked me if I wanted to helped him picked some plums.  I thought I was only going to have to stay on the ground and pick it up from there.  As soon as we got out to their backyard, I realized that the plums were above my height.  I was very excited about all the plums I could pick and the fact that Jeff was going to catch me if I fall (at least that's what he told me).  It was truly a great experience as I keep going higher on the ladder to reach for those sweet and plump plums.  All of a sudden while I was up there, a little breeze made the leaves move and I got a little scared which at that point I decided to get down and let Gil do the rest of the picking.  Check this out, for some of you who knows about my fear of height, you will be happy to know that I go up there and I survived.

 

Sweet Sunday - Just could not resist

It has been a week since my sister arrived and we have been just going in full speed.  Some of the days I have to sneak a little nap just to get energized.  Yesterday we took her to the Mushroom Mardi Gras in Morgan Hill.  We were a little disappointed because they really did not have anything special with the mushrooms.  The vendors had deep fried mushrooms, stuffed mushroom, quesadilla mushroom and mushroom soup (who would want to eat soup when it was 80 degrees and no breeze.  There was one thing that was different that I thought I would try and of course I would like to share some foods that we've tried during the past week. 

Chocolate covered bacon - too sweet

Pineapple from Trader Joe's - very sweet

Tamarind - just right

Fudge, Rocky Road, Chocolate Chips, Double Chocolate Chips, & Brownie cookies made by MIL