Road Trips

For the last two weekends we have been hanging out west of the city in St.Jacob's, which is always terrific of course with the farmer's, flea and antique markets! There is never a dull moment and here is a little photo gallery of the "day"
We discovered a cool maple syrup museum, along with a railroad museum and much more all in one building on the main road in the town of St. Jacob's.... there are galleries, shops, pottery shops, quilting, tons and tons of fantastic stuff to browse and buy.

Such a fun time!  I'm looking forward to going to my first maple syrup festival this spring and I promise (as always!) there will be pics! 

A piece I picked up at one of the two antique markets in St.Jacob's close to the farmer's and flea market buildings.   This will be beautiful on my kitchen table!

My sisters love Little Caesars but I've never had it before so we indulged ourselves in two pizzas late in the evening after the long day out.

Jappie lounging on the sofa :) Cute as ever.

We just had to make another trip out at midnight to get some McDonald's ice cream - it's a bit of a ritual of ours :)

Here's a little field mouse I found in the morning before leaving my home, he seemed to have passed away of natural causes but I think he deserves a little tribute and since I had to run out so quickly (running late) I gently placed him in the bed of flowers. May the little sweet baby rest in peace.

St.Jacob's Country 2012

Seems a trip to St.Jacob's farmer's market has become our yearly tradition.   We love to make the trip west to visit the market and buy apples and of course those delicious apple fritters... it's always such fun!!

This year with all the rain we were worried the apples wouldn't be so good because I've been hearing this everywhere but we got a pretty good bunch of Ambrosia's and the fritters were delicious as always. Picked up a few other interesting ingredients for the first time like candy cane beets and black radishes (stay tuned to see what I can come up with)   I couldn't resist the blue potatoes and the bunch of Shiitake mushrooms (they're so healthy!)
We packed montreal smoked meat sandwiches, some sliced brie, my sister brought along some homemade oatmeal cookies that she baked and even though we originally went to st.Jacob's to buy apples I took some apples with me for snacking (check out the neat trick that I discovered for keeping sliced  packed apples from going brown) and of course we had to stop into walmart (just like the last year's trip, post here!) where we found these amazing non-alcoholic margaritas, we just loved them last year and so we continued the tradition and picked up some more along with the canned sangria's and had quite a nice lunch in the car.

Don't forget if you head over to St.Jacob's to check out the TWO antique markets, we thought there was only one but accidentally discovered another one this time.  Also the country bulk is really nice, it is right in the same building as the antique market and has an entrance on the side.  The saffron and vanilla beans are such a good price that I stock up whenever I'm there once a year.

If you want to make these apple fritters or fried apple rings try this recipe, it's one of the few I found online and from a show called "Ciao Italia" which I used to watch on saturday's on PBS's cooking lineup.  There is a video too on the site, here 

Fried Apple Rings

Anelli di Mele

INGREDIENTS

1 teaspoon active dried yeast

1/4 cup warm water (110 F)

1/2 cup dry white wine at room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Pinch salt

1 cup King Arthur™ Unbleached, All-Purpose Flour

3 large (about 3/4 pound) Golden Delicious apples, cored and cut into 1/4-inch thick rounds

1/2 to 3/4 cup vegetable oil for frying

Confectioners sugar

DIRECTIONS

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and allow it to stand for 5 minutes or until it looks chalky and bubbly. Whisk in the wine, sugar, egg, olive oil and salt. Mix well. Whisk in the flour to make a smooth looking batter. Cover and allow the mixture to rest for 1 hour at room temperature.

Dip the apple slices, a few at a time, in the batter making sure they are well coated.

Heat 1/2 cup of the oil in a skillet and, when it begins to shimmer, add the apple slices a few at a time. Do not crowd them. Fry them until golden brown on each side.

As they fry transfer them to a baking sheet lined with paper towels to drain. Keep them warm in a low oven until all the slices have been fried. Add more oil to the pan as necessary.

Transfer the slices to a serving platter and sprinkle them with confectioner's sugar.

Recipe courtesy of Ciao Italia