Category: orlando

first birthday

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Caribbean Mahi

we began the round of fall/winter gifty events this week with Z’s mom’s birthday.  Most of our family’s big days fall between November and February with few stragglers.  Our Christmas box to Colorado always included nine Christmas gifts, and four birthday gifts. This year we are way ahead of the curve with most of the shopping completed in the way I like – seeing items that we like for a specific person as we shop or travel, the first gifts being bought way back in the summer when we visited the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and stashed in the closet.
We enjoyed a birthday dinner for Barb at Crabby Bill’s minus the waterfront view because thanks to daylight savings the sun had set.

oh Canada!

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Canadia Cheese Soup

ever been to Epcot and watched the gripping 360 degree surround movie they play in Canada?  Well, the music goes something like Canadaaaaa, oooooh Canadaaaa…. CANADA, OHHHH Canadaaaaaaaa and is one of those things that randomly wanders through your mind.  OFTEN.
Now, I love Canada, which I fondly call Canadia.  Growing up in Seattle we often went north to Victoria visiting the wax museum, Butchart Gardens, the rainforest, etc.  We went to the world expo in 86 in Vancouver.   A good friend Linda and I went to Canada on the Victoria Clipper the weekend I decided food and cooking would be my hobby.  Shout out to La to because she is having a baby any day now which will be her new hobby.
All that said, we had this great cheddar beer soup while we were at Epcot on Friday and bought the cookbook to recreate it at home.  I can’t find a link for purchase.
Wycliffe is home to a couple of voting precincts so yesterday I worked a little bit of a weird schedule, 10:30-8 or so and when I got home, about 8:30, Z had a pot of soup sitting on the stove waiting for me to spoon it up!  He is a great cook and so good to make me supper after a long day of crowds at work.
This recipe makes a massive pot. He made a couple small changes from the Le Cellier Canada area recipe, including a bit of extra cooking for the bacon and extra chicken stock as the thick factor kind of nerved him up but they were good changes This is a pretty easy soup to made and so great.

1/2# of bacon, cut into lardons
1 medium onion, 1/4″ dice
3 ribs of celery, 1/4″ dice
4 T butter
1 cup flour
4 cups chicken stock
4 cups milk
1# grated white cheddar cheese
1 T Tabasco
1 T Worcestershire Sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup Moosehead Lager

serves 10
1.  Cook the bacon, stirring until crisp in a 4 or 5 quart pot.
2.  Add the onion, celery and butter, saute until veg are soft – about 5 minutes.
3.  Add the flour, whisking constantly for about 5 minutes over medium.  Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil for about 1 minute.  Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
4.  Add the milk and continue to simmer for 15 minutes.  Do not boil after you add the milk.
5.  Remove from heat and stir in the cheese, Tabasco, Worcestershire, salt and pepper.  Stir in the beer.
6.  Garnish as you wish.  Serve with some toasty rolls.
The festival cookbook adds that you can add some extra milk if it is too thick but the addition of extra stock seemed to alleviate this problem.

epcot food and wine festival

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we took the day off today and spent the day together at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival.  We left home around 10 and headed over.  We headed straight for the world showcase part of Epcot and began with the Mexico side of the park.  We took a few rides, the Mexican fiesta boat ride, the Viking boat ride,  watched a few movies in Norway and France, shopped our way through each country interspersed with tapas sized bites from food stalls from countries from around the world.
Here is what we tried:

Mexico – Corn and  Queso Empanada
China – Pork Potstickers
Italy – Veal Polpetini w/ Rosemary Breadstick
Morocco – Beef Kefta in Pita, Felafel in Pita
Ireland – Kerrygold Cheese Plate w/ Apple Chutney, Brown Bread and Irish Butter
Canada – Chicken Jalapeno Sausage w/ polenta and Cheddar Beer Soup

My overall impression is that most things had a bit of the Disney effect.  Meaning, not spicy or with much seasoning but good for the masses to try out items they might otherwise pass by.  The prices are a little high for tapas but we had expected that and it wasn’t just awful  We weren’t super excited about anything we ate in particular, until we made it to Canada.  Both items in Canada blew us away.  The sausage was both moist and spciy with polenta underneath to counter the spice with carmelized onions and roasted red peppers.  The Cheddar Beer soup – sharp white cheddar with a hit of spice lingering.  We buzzed by the festival booth to run through the cookbook.  Seeing the soup in there, we picked it up.  I am sure it will emerge from our home kitchen soon. We had a few bottles of water in the backpack and didn’t try drinks or desserts this time.  We rounded out our day by hitting the free tasting bar presented by Coke trying different pop shots for various countries and riding through the incredible Disney greenhouse in the land where they are researching ways to grow food with hydroponics and in different ways like vertically to support density or longevity.  It was really fascinating.  There is more than you could do in a day but we had a good one.