Our Wedding Food (plus recipe links!)

While most girls probably focus on the dress or the decorations or the guest list for their wedding (not that those weren't all heavily discussed in our household over the past eight months), for me, it was all about the food!

I was frequently asked, "So who is doing your catering?" Every single time, everything inside of me was yelling in response, "Me! Me-me-me!! I'm catering my own wedding!!" (I'm a bit of a control freak sometimes.)

Unfortunately, everyone around me thought (and was probably right) that that was a terrible idea, so I was slowly reigned in. We wound up hiring Tim's friend Carlos to do the ribs and chicken at $10 a head. He was incredible. The chicken was roasted, while the ribs were slow-cooked and then finished off on the grill. He also made three sauces that people could choose from to sauce their own meats. One was a hot and sour sauce, there was a traditional BBQ sauce, and then a honey-garlic sauce. We chose to do the sauces separately because of a serious garlic allergy among our guests, and it worked out SO well. People could have no sauce, tons of sauce, one sauce, all the sauces. Loved it. Carlos and his wife Andrea were also so crucial to keeping the whole dinner running smoothly. They were there to answer any questions, refill everything, and direct the other two kitchen helpers, Marie and Renee, that Wendy had hired.

Wendy contributed to the buffet as well. She made the caprese salad with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. I know there was a last minute panic on Thursday to find the perfect local tomatoes, and she bought a ridiculously good $30 bottle of balsamic from Chasing the Cheese for people who wanted extra drizzle. She also catered in the potato salad from BE Catering in Peterborough. It had heirloom potatoes, red peppers, celery, green onions, red onions, grainy Dijon mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper, parsley, dill, and a little bit of Miracle Whip. (Miracle Whip? Really? I would have used mayonnaise.) Both salads were delicious.

Wendy's friend Betty-Ann added a kale salad and my Mom made two different types of green salads. I think Dean picked up buns at Costco.

Photo by Ree Drummond (a.k.a The Pioneer Woman)

Even though I was downgraded from my original plans of doing everything, I still made the pasta salad. I'm so glad I wasn't allowed to do more, because it's amazing how much of a mess that was! We had about six containers left over, but this is how much I originally made for 140 people:

• 5 x 900 g bags of pasta
• 2 kgs of Bothwell smoked cheddar cheese from Chasing the Cheese
• 6 quarts of currant tomatoes from McLean's Berry Farm
• Leaves from 18 stems of basil from Twin Pine Farm
• 6-1/2 cups of mayonnaise
• 3-1/4 cups of whole milk
• 3-1/4 cups of white vinegar
• 6-1/2 tsps salt
• Lots of freshly cracked black pepper

I don't know how I would have done this without my Kitchenaid stand mixer and Shannon's big canning pot to cook the pasta and mix everything in. I just used my hands to mix it all together. None of my spoons were long enough. It fit PERFECTLY into 20 of the extra-large Foodland deli containers, which they sold me for 10 cents each. The currant tomatoes were PERFECT because they're so teeny-tiny! I didn't have to cut them, which saved tons of time.

Here's the recipe, in semi-normal proportions: Spicy Pasta Salad with Smoked Gouda, Tomatoes, and Basil. 

Photo courtesy of Lisa Soltermann

For dessert, Shannon busted her butt making miniature cupcakes all week, half chocolate and half vanilla. Angel, Blaire, Sarah, and even Owen helped to ice them at the rehearsal dinner at Dean and Wendy's. Uncle Bob performed quality control by eating any that didn't look up to his standards. The cupcakes were more of an addendum to dessert, though, since I knew all along that what I really wanted for the wedding dessert was trifle! For nine years now we've been making a gigantic trifle in honour of my birthday. For the wedding, we just moved them into individual mini champagne glasses from Costco. Angel, Sarah, Shannon, and Owen worked their way through half of them on the day before the wedding, until we realized there just wasn't enough time to finish 150 of them. Luckily Kendra, Teri, Kristy, and Jess stepped in the morning of the wedding and finished the rest of them off. Everyone loved them!! They were so adorable! I was so excited to get to share the trifles with everyone. The trifle has a bit of folklore status with my friends after being made every year ONLY on my birthday for so long.

The recipe can be found here: Joy's Prizewinning Trifle. I usually mix the pudding mix with enough milk to make it smooth before adding in the sour cream and Cool Whip.

Market morning (plus Chasing the Cheese)!

Saturday morning I was so glad that Tim and I took it easy Friday night. We got up decently early and made it to the market, then to Chasing the Cheese! 

At the market we got pierogies from Taste of Russia - again, we ate them before we got out of the market. So they didn't make it into the market haul shot. We found the squash blossoms right before Taste of Russia at C. Bruni and Sons Farms and were chatting with the vendor about wanting pierogies. Lo and behold, C. Bruni and Sons provides the potatoes for Taste of Russia's pierogies! It was neat to make that local farm connection, and made me even more impressed with Taste of Russia. You could really tell that the woman at C. Bruni and Sons loved that we loved the pierogies. There was a lot of well-deserved pride there.

Sad story regarding the squash blossoms, though. I bought them on Saturday expecting to make ricotta-stuffed squash blossoms on Sunday, since we had my friends Carley and Pete's wedding to go to Saturday evening. I put them in water, expecting them to be like any flowers, but by Sunday morning they were a wilted, glued together mess. I had to sulk a little before throwing them out. Oh well, lesson learned. I either need to find a better way to store them, or make them same day.

The assorted plums are from Eadie Fresh Fruit. We were already eyeing the fruit there from about twenty feet away and the one gentleman must have had eagle eyes for a likely sale. He called us in like a veteran car salesman. It was great for us, though, because those purple oblong plums are absolutely amazing. We bought the corn, tomatoes, and ground cherries all from McLean's Berry Farm. 

We also found these ADORABLE currant tomatoes at McLean's. Don't be fooled - the tomatoes to the left are not roma tomatoes. Those are grape tomatoes. The ones we would think of as small. These currant tomatoes are teeny-tiny!! Probably a centimetre or less across. I love them! I've e-mailed McLean's to see if I can source these for the pasta salad for the wedding. Not having to cut the tomatoes would be amazing. If I can get the tomatoes there, I'll get the fruit for the trifles there as well.

After the market, we popped over to see Julie at Chasing the Cheese to figure out the smoked cheese for the pasta salad for the wedding. Chasing the Cheese is doing all of the cheeses for our wine and cheese hour at the wedding and they've been above and beyond fantastic to work with. Plus that shop is one of my most happy places in Peterborough. Oh, the cheese!!

Cheese-cheese-cheese-cheese!

Next time I'm in I want to pick up one of their apple ciders. 

We picked out the Bothwell Smoked Cheddar for the pasta salad, but I also bought a $10 cheese "grab bag". I managed to find one that had three cheeses Tim and I have not tried yet, plus it has three cow's cheeses. While I LOVE really funky, goaty cheeses (try the Grey Owl when you stop in, it's my favourite!!), Tim prefers more main-stream choices. I justified the cheese purchasing by needing to clean out the cheese-related jellies and condiments from our fridge before we move. Tim just shakes his head. I'm a sucker for cheese. I forgot to grab baguette, though, so I need to do that on my way home from work tonight.

I also picked up a Fresh Ginger Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost because Wendy had bought some for Dean last time we were in. This stuff is incredible!! I would drink this every single day if I could. I love ginger, but this isn't a ginger beer - it doesn't punch you in the face with the ginger flavour. It is much stronger than regular ginger ale, though, with a good sweetness and spiciness to it. I love it!

Market morning!

Start of a long weekend, beautiful Saturday morning - time for the market!

Tim always has to stop at Kyoto Coffee first to fuel his market trip.

The mushrooms from Waymac Farms were looking especially good this week. 

From the front of the very long Taste of the Russia line . . . 

. . . and from where we started out. While we were waiting, this line actually went back three stalls. Before you ask - Yes. The pierogies are REALLY worth this wait.

We wound up buying market corn from Johnston Farms, strawberries from McLean's Berry Farm, portobello mushrooms from Waymac farms, foccacia bread but I forget where it's from, and then the aforementioned pierogies, which didn't make it to a camera shot. They were eaten immediately.

The foccacia we're eating for lunch as I write this, while the strawberries will go into a danish for Sunday morning brunch at Tim's parents' house, and the corn and mushrooms are for grilling for Sunday supper. We thought we should probably grab some meat to grill with that, so of course we had to head to our favourite butcher, Primal Cuts!

Tim trying to narrow down our choices. 

We decided to go with the P.E.I. striploin. 

Next time I'm going to pick up some of this red wine jus to make gravy for poutine. I have duck fat from Primal Cuts already to use to make the fries!

Looks like it's going to be a delicious weekend!

Back on air, folks!

So after a year's hiatus, I decided it was time to get back into blogging! I have really missed having a blog since I stopped last year. Life just got away from me a bit. But within the next month I'll be moving to a small town and getting married (Eeee!). It's time to reevaluate my priorities and I definitely want a blog to be back in my life.

I can't say that I'll be focusing on any one area. You'll probably get some recipes, some hiking and camping stories, a few features on stores, restaurants, and bars in the Kawartha Lakes/Peterborough area. Maybe some DIYs or reviews on gear or makeup and skincare products. Most definitely silly little stories and catch-ups from mine and Tim's lives.

If this isn't enough and you want to see more of us (so exciting!), you can follow us on Twitter at @trollwag and @lolastephenson or follow me on Instagram at @laurarollwagen.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of my farmer's market purchases this morning. The start to every perfect Saturday!

  

Cherry and vanilla custard tarts - one of my favourites, but these are for Dean and Wendy.

 Fresh beets and kale! You can't tell really from this photo (nothing for scale), but this is a ton of beets. The greens took up fully half of my gigantic size market bag.

Three pounds of fresh sweet cherries. All meant to be pitted and frozen for the cherry mustard for the cheese course at the wedding. We'll see how that goes with my dinky little cherry pitter. First world problem, given that I even have a cherry pitter.