This past Saturday, Allan and I headed up to Whistler Blackcomb for a gorgeous, sunny blue bird day of snowboarding fresh powder. It was quite busy up there, but we still managed to find our stashes of powder.

We also brought along our new GoPro HD Hero helmet camera to capture some of the action. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you know that we had the regular GoPro camera before. I can say that the HD is a real nice upgrade. Much clearer photos and videos! Hopefully I’ll be able to edit the videos into a little movie soon.

Here I am wearing my new Volcom jacket and pants (both Gore-tex)… I’m loving how the wide angle really captures everything!

Powder spraying up on the sides.

Riding down one of the bowls on Blackcomb.

Even Allan got into the fun of it and attached it to his helmet for a while.

You’ll notice most of the shots are from the back of my board… we used the suction cup that we normally use for surfing to attach it to the back of the board… but be warned… sometimes it falls off in the deeper powder and you really have to keep an eye on it, or tether it to your board

All in all, a really fun day… and really nice to get back onto the mountain for some boarding. And, I thought this would be a great time to give away a BRAND NEW Women’s Volcom Snowboard Jacket on the blog! It’s the same jacket I am wearing in the photos above, but of course brand new with tags. All you have to do is leave a comment below, and I’ll pull a random winner on Sunday evening. If you remember my last contest, we gave away a snowboard outfit. Here’s the winner Rosy, who sent me a photo of her in all her new gear!

2010 Volcom GORE-TEX Satellite Snowboard Jacket Contest:
Sponsored by Volcom

Prize: 2010 Volcom Satellite Nimbus Women’s Snowboard Jacket in Bluebird, Size Medium
Value: $500 CAD
What you have to do: By Sunday, January 24th before 10:00 PM PST… just leave a comment on this blog post!
Who can enter: Anyone! You can enter for yourself, or for a friend, significant other etc etc…
Details: I will draw a random winner Sunday night, and I will ship the prize to the lucky winner anywhere in the world!

About the jacket: Yup, it’s totally GORE-TEX so awesome waterproofing. It’s got the works… fully taped seams, pant-to-jacket zips, Recco® avalanche system, Riri® waterproof zippers, a hood, a chin guard, vents, a powder skirt, a goggle pocket and audio pockets. My two favourite features? The built-in face mask and the Lycra hand gaitors to keep your hands warm in your gloves (you can see these in one of the photos above over my hands). Plus… I love the liner pattern!

That’s it! Good luck to everyone

I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I’ve started and owned about 4 different companies, and sold 3 of them… sometimes by myself and sometimes with partners. I’ve always loved the idea of working for myself, and it’s part of the reason why I ended up going to business school in the first place. However, straight out of university I ended up working at a video game company.

I’ve been working in the video game industry in Vancouver for the past 4 years. In all honesty, I can’t imagine myself working in a different industry… at least not for a long, long time. Still, I often find myself thinking of new business ideas, thinking of new opportunities… and how to implement them. The strange thing is, out of all of the ideas… the one I want to do the most is the simplest one.

When I was growing up, I always wanted to open a bed and breakfast. In recent years, this dream and desire has intensified, and I am sure now that I would open it in Tofino. I’m so passionate about this idea that I find myself thinking about it almost every night.

I’d like to purchase a home in Tofino, and move out there when I am 40 or 50 to open it as a bed and breakfast. I’ve always known that I wanted to get out of the city and move to the Island when I am older, and it just seems like the perfect plan for Allan and I. Sure, we’d be old farts out there surfing… but we’d have our piece of land, a home, a business to get us by (cost of living is a lot lower out of Vancouver), and we’d get to surf whenever we wanted. And still be close by enough to do trips every once in a while to Mount Washington to get our snowboarding fix.

And of course, the next level to this idea is to also own a bed and breakfast on Mount Washington, or a small mountain town somewhere in BC. We’d work at the Tofino B&B in the summer, and the mountain B&B in the winter, and have a manager to run the operations in the low seasons.

It would definitely be a dream come true.

I feel like it is well-suited to our skills and interests as well. Both Allan and I love entertaining, we can cook and clean, and we love meeting new people. We’d have a social media strategy for the business, and we’d use our other interests like photography and filming to round out our offering. Allan is great at teaching surfing and snowboarding, so it could be a nice little package add-on with photography included. I could go on and on with more ideas we’ve thought up.

I’d love to think of new breakfast ideas to serve to our guests each morning. There would be numerous personal touches to surprise our guests at every turn, like freshly baked warm chocolate chip cookies with milk before bed on stormy nights.

The property would be west-coast style with vaulted ceilings and exposed wood beams, with a focus on earthy elements like wood, stone, and plants.

However, it would be warm and cozy in décor…  lots of lamps, comfy couches, flowers, and warm colours.

Ideally, we’d be living on the beach… or at least with a view of the ocean. The property would be heavily treed, so that guests feel like they are living on the ocean and in the forest at the same time. There would be wooden walkways around the garden where we grow our own produce, surrounded by flowering vines and foliage. The walkway would be lit with lanterns at night, leading to a secluded hot tub where you could gaze at the stars or at your loved one.

At one point, I even spent a few days creating the business plan and some spreadsheets. I crunched the numbers… I did the cashflows and investments required and even detailed licensing and legislature considerations. It looked good on paper. But paper is very different than reality.

I guess we’ll just have to see if the dream ever comes true…

What’s your dream?

In continuation of posts from baking and cooking over the holidays… a crepe and cheese blintz recipe! I’ll be back to my regular programming soon. Although, I’m not really sure what my regular programming is… and maybe it’s better that way. A mix of things, right?

I woke up one morning over the holidays having a craving for a breakfast that I had with my dad every once in a while on Sundays when I was growing up. Cheese Blintzes. Of course, that requires making crepes which scares me half to death, but I thought I’d give it an attempt anyway, especially after having some mild success with croissants.

First up, making the crepe batter. I used Julia Child’s recipe, because well… is there anyone better (and safer) to use than Julia?

Julia Child’s Crepe Recipe (for about 14 crepes)
1 cup cold water
1 cup milk
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 Tablespoons previously melted butter, plus more butter for cooking
I also added a teaspoon vanilla and a Tablespoon of sugar since I was making sweet crepes.

1. Mix all the ingredients in a blender. I recommend sifting the flour in if you have a small sifter, because it really makes for a nicer texture. After blending (do not overmix), strain all the ingredients through a sieve. Refrigerate mixture for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

I also wanted to include my own recipe for the filling, for the cheese blintzes. I like the filling to still have the cottage cheese lumps (I like the texture), so if you don’t like that, you can just mix all the ingredients together until smooth.

Cheese Blintz Filling Recipe for Strawberry Cheese Blintzes
1 large container of cottage cheese (approx 14-16 oz)
Half a package of cream cheese (about 4 oz)
1/3 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla (or a vanilla bean if you have one)
Squeeze of lemon to taste

1. Combine the cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla together with a whisk or electric beater till smooth. Carefully fold in the cottage cheese until combined, but do not overmix so the texture of the cottage cheese remains.

Procedure

Now it’s time to make the crepes! It’s nice to have a bit of a “crepe making station”… I recommend having a bowl of pre-melted butter with a pastry or silicone brush on hand… as well as a long flat spatula, a 1/4 cup (for measuring the batter), and a good medium sized non-stick frying pan.

Step 1: Prepare your fillings (see below for ideas).

Step 2: Heat the sauce pan to medium heat. Melt a very thin coating of butter on the pan.

Step 3: Ladle a 1/4 cup of batter into the pan, and QUICKLY tilt the pan to cover the bottom with a very thin and even coating of the batter.

Step 4: When the edges shrink and brown away from the pan, it is time to flip it. Flip with the pan, or use a long spatula to turn it over. Repeat with the other side until golden brown.

For Banana-Caramel Crepes: Fill the insides of the crepes with thinly sliced bananas and some chocolate sauce, maybe like nutella… and roll up. Drizzle caramel over and serve with vanilla bean ice cream and fudge or chopped chocolate pieces.

For Strawberry Cheese Blintzes: Fill the inside of the crepes generously with the cream cheese/cottage cheese filling. Roll up. Generously drizzle maple syrup over and top with lots of sliced strawberries.

A good way to start the morning!

A lot of baking (and cooking) happened over the holidays… and I’m just trying to catch up now with my posts.

Croissants are my favourite item to buy from the bakery. Cheese croissants heated up a little, fresh chocolate croissants… buttery, flaky… so good! I didn’t have a recipe on hand from anyone that I knew, and none of my cookbooks really covered it at all. I did a search online but was pretty unsatisfied. I finally found one that looked like it would work (and altered the steps a bit, added fillings etc), and I set out on a baking mission. I knew it wouldn’t be easy!

Note: You will get dirty. It’s a lot of work. You will need 2 days. Also — you will need a scale for this recipe. I know it seems like a pain, but once you have one you won’t be able to live without it. Baking is a million times more accurate by weight, as the volume of flour and other ingredients changes depending on the season, humidity and your room temperature, etc. You can pick up a scale for $10 at any cooking store, or you can splurge $30-80 on a digital one.

Here’s the recipe and photos of my steps:

Stuffed Golden Flaky Croissant Recipe

350g unsalted butter
50g icing sugar
30g sunflower oil (I buy mine from Gourmet Warehouse/Whole Foods. You can also sub for olive oil here)
7g salt
2 large eggs
42g FRESH yeast (this is important! You can find fresh yeast at most bakeries or at Granville Island)
200mL milk (2%)
500g all-purpose flour
An additional egg yolk to brush the croissants and different fillings such as cheese, chocolate, fruit, etc.

1. Cover your working surface with parchment paper. Knead down the butter by hand until it is relatively flat. Then fold the parchment paper over and use a rolling pin to get the block to be very rectangular. Use a measuring tape or ruler and try to get the butter block to 8.5×6.3 inches and about 1 cm thick. Place the block in the fridge to chill no longer than 30 minutes.

2. Now make the dough. In a mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in slightly warm milk and then combine with the sugar, eggs, oil, flour and salt. Mix gently and then knead very lightly.

3. Form a rectangle with the dough that is double the size of the butter block (approximately 19 inches by 13 inches). Place the chilled butter in the middle and then fold the dough over the butter. Do not stretch. It’s really important that the sides are covered with enough dough, as if it gets to thin, the butter will ooze out when you are doing all the folding. Carefully press the edges together and seal in the butter. Make sure all air as been released by pressing on the dough.

4. Roll the dough package with a rolling pin (dust the outsides with flour), turning the dough over occasionally to keep the edges event. Try not to let the the dough get so thin that the butter squeezes out. Continue until it is very thin, about  1 cm thick or as thin as you can get it.

5. Now start folding the dough. The folds of the dough are what make the croissants so flaky… so the more folds you do, the flakier the croissant is and the more it will puff up! Fold the dough into thirds (like a letter). Now rotate the other way and do the folds again. Now cover with foil or saran wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

6. Do several more folds (I did about 6, but 2 or 3 should suffice) and then cover and chill overnight.

7. The next day, cut the dough in half and roll out to about 3mm thick. Cut in pointed triangles and fill with different stuffings… I used cheese blocks and some nice bittersweet chocolate… don’t put the fillings too close to the edge or they will ooze out while baking.

8. Start forming the croissant crescents by rolling the shortest side up to the tip of the triangle. You will want to roll these VERY tightly. Press together all the sides and make sure they are sticking while together. When placing on the baking sheet covered with parchment paper, make sure to put the tip of the triangle underneath the croissant so that it cannot fold out. If you do not wrap the croissants taut enough, they will unroll while baking (as I learned from experience… it was a disaster). So make sure to stick them well together

9.  Brush the croissants VERY lightly with egg yolk… if you like your croissants darker, brush more egg yolk. Let rise for 15 minutes.

10. Bake in pre-heated oven (355 degrees F) for 15-25 minutes until golden brown.

And that’s it! Here’s a photo of my croissant torn apart while I was eating it so you can see the flakiness They tasted SO good… just as good as bakery if not better, but I wish they looked a bit better. Rolling the dough a bit thinner and rolling the crescents more tightly would fix that next time I think. I also would drizzle chocolate over the chocolate croissants if I had a bit more time!

Cheesy Tomato Basil and Green Onion Savoury Scones Recipe plus Cranberry Breakfast Scones Recipe

I will post the recipe in the comments to save space. These scones were a huge hit on Christmas morning. So savoury! I split the mixture into half to make two different kinds of scones… but in retrospect I would just make the cheese scones again. So good!

Parmesan, cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes, basil, green onions… mmm! What more could you want in a savoury scone?

Dried cranberries and a little sugar added for some sweeter breakfast scones.

The finished result!

What do you think? Let me know if you have any questions

For the first time in a long, LONG time… Allan and I did absolutely nothing for our vacation. It was absolutely fantastic. In the 25 years I have been alive, I can’t remember a time that I have done absolutely nothing. So… it was a nice change, and a welcome one after a very hectic year. And so, I don’t have very many posts from over the holidays… which were spent playing video games, baking, and cooking. We didn’t even get up the mountain to go snowboarding once! *gasp* ‘Twas quite shocking if I do say so myself. However, I do have a few posts with some recipes coming up though, so check back for those!

Christmas is my favourite holiday, and what I look forward to most every year is Christmas morning breakfast.

My mom and dad get in the kitchen together and make delicious homemade waffles. Ice cream, maple syrup, strawberry sauce made from our summer strawberries, blueberry sauce, and fresh fruit like papaya become our fuel for a busy day of family and celebrations. Mmmm… so good!

Of course, Christmas earrings are a must!

One thing I miss about living at home is missing out on putting up the Christmas tree decorations…

Christmas tree and presents…

Allan and I trade off on the Santa Hat wearing on Christmas Day. We were trying to take some photos for my Twitter profile photo, but unfortunately I never got around to using it… I don’t look very happy here for some reason, so maybe it’s for the best

My mom and dad always make Christmas dinner, so it’s nice to relax and not have to worry about any cooking. I took care of the place settings this year.

No such thing as being too gaudy on Christmas!

My mom made stuffed mushrooms and a soup/souffle for appetizers.

My mom’s panettone bread is so famous in our circle of family and friends, that no matter where she travels… she always has to bring a luggage full of panettone wrapped to satisfy the requests. It’s always  a treat.

Christmas dinner is always traditional. My dad brines the turkey overnight, and then roasts it all day before finishing it off by smoking it in the BBQ. So. Good. There’s also a beef roast, vegetables, potatoes, gravy, and stuffing.

Dessert this year was some bread pudding (made with my mom’s homemade brioche!) and my favourite… leche flan… a Filipino version of creme caramel.

After dinner it was time to open presents with my mom, dad, Allan, my brother Byron, our grandmother, and several of our cousins and relatives. There was definitely spoiling all around! I was happy to get a very useful step ladder (pictured in the background!), a martini kit, socks (so needed), and some memory cards.

Allan was shocked and happy to open his brand new Burton CO2 EST Bindings from all of us His bindings are several years old, and are not only broken… but don’t work as well with the new Burton EST Supermodel board he bought this year. I think it’s safe to say he’s stoked to ride them.

So, Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year! I hope you all have a fantastic 2010! What did you do for the holidays?