CaliPoutine

My order of preference would be 1. The Only -the most innovative & I liked everything I tried. It's the most casual atmosphere of these 3- polished but laid-back. 2. Fine- the most upscale of the bunch, and the most limited menu, I like the pickerel 3. Tru- has the most choices on the menu. I've only been there for lunch, and it was fine, but I've liked my meals at Fine & the Only more! ← We went to The Only and it was excellent. The best restaurant I've been to in London. I had the lobster salad and my spouse had the soft shell crab. For mains we shared the roast chicken/creamed spinach/morel mushrooms for two. They also gave us a side of roast fingerling potatoes. We loved the chicken, it was cooked perfectly. I'm a white meat person, spouse is dark so perfect for us. The dish was pretty rich though. The chicken is boned and carved and it was just so good. I'll add some pics later.

On the PBS series "Everyday Baking" (from Martha Stewart's company), the host made a very simple blueberry tart (click here) that looked quite good and also used a mixture of cooked blueberries and fresh. I was thinking you could use the same filling for a pie but with this recipe you don't bake the tart (the crust is blind baked and some of the filling is cooked on the stovetop so it'd be different than a pie). ← Here it is. I made it last year. It was great!!

trying to decide between The Only and TRU in London or FINE in Grand Bend for our 6th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Opinions?

Unless of course its a seeing eye dog or therapy dog

I'm sure they were thinking it!! ( I havent served noodles or rice since last November ) The one major complainer lady wasnt there so that might have had something to do with it. As an aside, I heard two of the seniors whispering about me( and looking at me while doing it). I felt very uncomfortable, but I dont know what I should do( if anything). It is so rude!!

Last Thursday's meal. spinach salad with warm tomato dressing beef stroganoff w/ egg noodles green beans rhubarb custard cake. I bought about 4lbs of tenderloin a few months back. They had excellent coupons attatched to the packages for 5.00 off, but I still managed to spend 36.00 on the beef. I added about 5lbs of sirloin to that to round it out. I found a stroganoff recipe on All Recipes and basically followed that except I added fresh thyme and parsely from my garden. I put it over the noodles so make it stretch a bit more. They loved it!! The salad was a recipe from Kraft food and family. I modified it by using organic grape tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes, and by using a sun dried tomato dressing instead of a lite balsamic. I also donated a package of pecan pie pecans bought at Big Lots in MI. The original recipe called for making your own candied pecans. In addition to those ingredients, there is a bar of cream cheese cut into cubes on a bed of baby spinach. The tomatoes, onions and dressing are heated in the microwave and poured over the top. They loved this too, lots of compliments. I made 2 rhubarb custard cakes( repeat recipe) that they also loved. I'm proud that I managed to stay in budget while serving them beef tenderloin. I served 30ppl with 3 takeouts.

I have to totally disagree with you. I'm a baked ziti connoisseur( having grown up eating it at least 2x a month). I even started a topic( a year or two ago) asking "why my baked ziti sucks". When I read CI's recipe, I was also weary of cottage cheese because my favorite ziti from a restaurant in FL, uses ricotta. But ya know what? It freaking works. Its amazing ziti. I've made it at least 4 times already and everyone who eats it loves it. So, as the old saying goes, dont knock it till you try it.

Check this out. click Also, have you checked Nutsonline.com?

mini choc. chips.

salad Main dish. I got these bacon wrapped pork medallions cheap. I cooked them in the oven in some apple juice and chix. broth. I strained it and made gravy. I also cut up 4lbs of empire apples and baked them in the oven w/ some apple juice. Pie. I've made the pie before, back in April 07. Here is a picture of the cut pie from back then. I used the pillsbury just unroll crusts this time and they loved them. I got a lot of compliments from this meal. As an aside, the woman who was hired for the position in my town, filled in for me 2 weeks ago. She made that infamous dish of chicken breasts, cranberry sauce, lipton onion soup mix and french dressing. She made rice along with it. My coordinator told me they loved it. ( the more processed, the better!!!)

So, I didnt get the job I had a meeting scheduled to discuss the reasons why I didnt get it, but I had to cancel because we had a death in our family. I also didnt work for a month because of said death. I cook today. To say that I'm not into it anymore is an understatement. I'm completely flabergasted as to why I didnt get the position in my town. Anyway, todays meal will be bacon wrapped pork medallions( I got them for 99cents for a package of 4) I'm cooking them with apples and apple juice and some chix broth. I'll make a gravy out of that country style biscuits( pillsbury) BLT salad( spring mix( should be romaine, but spring mix was on sale), tomatoes, red onion, grated cheddar, bacon and ceasar dressing) frozen peas and carrots( they'll hate them, but I'm cleaning out the freezer and I found 2 bags of these) baked potatoes w/ sour cream Honey Oat and Granola Pie w/ ice cream(Pillsbury Bake-off, 1million grand prize winner a few years back) Will add pics later.

I've never seen or heard of bitter eggplants, either. In Japan, it is a common practice to soak eggplants in cold water for "aku nuki" (lit. harshness removal) after cutting. ← I'm assuming you're not getting the ginourmous eggplants that we get in the US. I assume you're getting the long slender " japanese eggplants".

Thanks for the review. We're heading down to Ft. Lauderdale next week and might have to run and give this place a try. I'm so NOT impressed with Anthony's Coal Fired pizza that everyone raves about.

What a relevant topic for me. ( Dang, I wish I'd taken a picture). We had a death in the family last week and Saturday was the funeral. An Aunt's bf( british) brought over two pate's. I was asked by my spouse to cut the beef/pork one and put it on the table( after the funeral). Because I dont eat meat and I was still upset from the funeral, I couldnt even look at it. I commented to some friends that it seriously looked like dog food. It really, really did. ( except there was a whole hard boiled egg inside). It was barely touched!!

Arent they really expensive? I swapped with a foodblogger once. I sent various RPB( big cups, inside outs, mini's, etc) and she sent me many varieties of Tim Tams( which are now availble in the US and Canada)

I do freeze my bread if I'm not going to use it within a few days. I wont eat it untoasted though, I find the texture and taste odd once its been defrosted. This goes for every single bread. Last week I bought a huge bag of 36 rolls from Costco( we had a death in the family). I immediatly frozen 24 of them because I knew we wouldnt go thru them that fast. On the morning of the funeral, I pulled out the bags of rolls and I had one later in the afternoon( as a sandwich). The texture was totally different than the first day( the fresh roll). People ate them all and didnt complain, but I noticed a difference. ( Maybe because I'm a supertaster?). In my house, any bread that is previously frozen is first toasted before being made into sandwiches.

I can barely eat previously frozen bread( without toasting first). I seriously doubt I could eat a frozen sandwich.

I've had people lined up, waiting to buy these scones as soon as they came out of the oven. Cook's Illustrated Blueberry scones. They use a neat technique of folding the dough so it has lots of layers. They were seriously excellent scones. You could vary the fruit.

I used the buttermilk and the cake came out fine.

I took this recipe from Kim's website back in December when I got an order for fudge. It was really good and the client was very happy with it. I used that New World Chocolate from Tomric. I didnt think it was too sweet( even though there is a ton of sugar in it).

Kim, Are those Symphony brownies by any chance? I use coffee for any water called.

I'm jealous too!! I'd love to have some of Rachel's little dishes right at this moment. My BIL just passed away on Sunday and I've been doing a lot of cooking. Those little "southern" dishes would come in handy right about now.

The expiration date on my buttermilk is April 15th. Is it still good to bake with? I want to make a black magic cake. I often use buttermilk a week after expiration, but not almost a month. It does smell kinda funny.

I had the 7 piece set in my shopping cart and the code took off the 25% and free shipping. I meant to complete the purchase, but my Brother in law passed away suddenly and I didnt get back to it until Tuesday, which was too late( total bummer). I called Macy's online, but they couldnt help me because I wasnt signed in when I added the item to my cart. Please post if they ever do this discount again. There is a 7 piece set at cookware.com for 288 and change. Its the MC2 line which is on sale. The pieces are not as good( for me anyway) as the set at Macy's.

We have this and LOVE IT!! Its called an air switch and its installed in our granite countertop. I bought it at Home Depot and the electrician did install it. eta: We have an insikertator too, the cost of the airswitch was about 20 bucks.