The crab cakes were good....not great...good.  I used both lump and claw crab meat that was in a pouch (on sale at work btw). I also used panko crumbs, 1 egg white, about 1 T mayo, Old Bay seasoning, worshire sauce, and some dried mustard.  The mixture formed into great cakes and I put some butter into a nonstick pan and just pan fried each cake.  I tried to make a sauce with just adding Old Bay to mayo. Not good and not needed.

I also grilled 1.25 lbs of skirt steaks from Dorflers. They make these great spinach and crab stuffed mushrooms, which I also cooked two of those.  So delicious!

None of the kids liked the crab cakes, S and I ate a few each.  Just ok....

Tomorrow we leave and have reservations at one of the best restaurants in Toronto. I can't wait!!!!!!

Ordered in pizza tonight. Jet's for everyone but me. S said he really likes their pizza - especially with their "turbo" crust. I ordered Lou's thin pizza for me. I LOVE Lou Malenati's thin cheese pizza. Crunchy crust, tangy (not too sweet) tomato sauce and just enough cheese.

I am going to make crab cakes tomorrow. Sounds SO good! Hope it is good.  I am kind of making up the recipe from looking at a bunch of other recipes.  I will also buy some skirt steaks for everyone as well.

Keep an eye out here and I will let you know how it goes.

Today was a simple food day...starting with a food decision....Count Chocula or not.  Due to it being Halloween today and the fact that I don't want the roof of my mouth to be raw again, I decided no.  But I am going to hide a box.  (No,S, I am not going to tell you where it. Every women has her secrets!)

For dinner today, instead of chili, I made matzoh ball soup - from the mix.  It is nice to have something hot for everyone to come home to after hours (about 3 hours per kid) of trick-or-treating.

I have a customer at work that bought sunchokes today.  She bought them last week to try them and said they were so good, she was buying them again.  She says she roasts them with her vegis like I described yesterday.  I must try that next time I roast vegetables.  Don't peel them, but cut them up and put them on the baking sheet with the other stuff.  I will let you know how it goes.

Alright, I am done for the night.  Time to go to bed and dream about all the candy wrappers I will be seeing around the house and in the car for the next couple weeks.

Dinner tonight was delicious - if I do say so myself.  I made ribs and roasted vegis.  I have a wonderful way to make the ribs and vegis.  This is one of my family's favorite meals.

For the ribs: I put water in a stock pot and put poultry seasoning, black peppercorns and minced garlic. I put the ribs in the water and boil it all for at least an hour. I then take the ribs out of the water and put them on the grill with bbq sauce on them.  I love Lum Taylor's sauce.  It is SO good - great combo of sweet and spicy. Watch it closely so that it doesn't burn.  Turn it a few times.  Your goal is just to cook the sauce onto the ribs.  Here's the best part....when you are having people over, you can boil the ribs ahead of time and then put them on the grill to warm them back up.

For the roasted vegis: Preheat the oven up to 450 degrees. I cut up the vegis into bite size pieces.  You can roast just about anything. Parsnips, cauliflower, carrot, brussel sprouts, potato, sweet potato.  Line a baking sheet with tin foil.  If you are making potatoes, you can use non-stick foil  BTW....this is a great product.  I wish they would make it in a larger width and a larger roll.  Toss the vegi's with olive oil or I like Smart oil.  Let it cook for about 15 minutes.  Toss it around and put it in again.  After about 10 more minutes, sprinkle sea salt on it.  That's all....it is SO good.  I have converted vegi doubters.  My kids say their favorite vegetables are cauliflower and brussel sprouts.  Do you know any other kids who would pick those as their favorites?!?!

Tomorrow is Halloween....chili tends to be the easiest thing.  I will make it around 3p and put it in the slow cooker to keep it warm.

I didn't write yesterday night because we had a bat mitzvah - so I have A LOT to write about today.  Sit down and get comfortable.....here I go!!

So we had lunch at I Am Siam.  I love their Pad Thai.  And my wonderful husband shared the dish with me and ordered it with tofu, just like I like it!

Then the bat mitzvah.  One of the appetizers were these very thin crusted "pizzas", two different kinds.  I had the one with grapes, pine nuts and goat cheese.  Pretty much anything with goat cheese is good to me.  By the way...when is a pizza a pizza and when is it not?  Good question but for another time.  There were also lamb chops carved fresh and sushi.  All was delicious.  They also passed around HUGE shrimp with cocktail sauce in shooter like glasses, mini potato pankcakes (with sour cream and applesauce if you chose to be a dipper) and mini crab cakes.  Those were delicious.  I love when crab cakes are more crab than cake.  These were like 95% crab.  I might just have to try to make some for dinner this week.  Keep a look out....

And I also drank quite a bit....let me think.....first a cosmopolitan, then another, then a bloody mary, then another.....then these shots (yes, people my age still do shots).  It was yummy....called a Vegas, I think.  It had Red Bull (I have never had that before) peach schnapps and not sure what else.  It was smooth and great.  I had two of those.  Needless to say - I had a blast.

Dinner was skirt steak on a french roll, onion straws and sweet potato fries.  It was delicious, but I was truly anticipating dessert.  We were really psyched up for dessert and it did not disappoint.  Fresh made doughtnuts....made right there, right in front of us.  They smelled heavenly.  One guy at our table ate 14 at the host's eldest son's bar mitzvah a couple of years ago.  He didn't eat near that many this time.  Time for a confession here....I didn't eat one doughnut.  I don't really like them, but S does and said they were "the best he had ever ate".  I had vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and lots of whipped cream.  To me, simple is best for just about everything (food and life alike).  It did like how the plates of pastries all were labeled using chocolate writing on the rim of the plate.  Great idea!

I went out for breakfast alone this morning.  That is one of my favorite things to do....eat alone and read.  I had one of my favorite breakfast splurges....eggs benedict with potato.  And of course, I have to get extra hollandaise sauce.  I LOVE a good hollandaise sauce and DESPISE a bad one.  To me they are good when they are smooth and tangy with lemon.  It is also very important that the egg on the english muffin has not been over poached, so that there is quite a bit of yolk running all over the place.  Then I like to have the potato (whatever form, cubes or shredded) dipped in hollandaise sauce and ketchup.  It's SO good and SO bad all at once.  YUM!!!!

I will come back later and write about our dinner tonight...and it is going to be a good one.  Ribs and roasted vegis.