Mom's Visit Day 5 - Portobello Wellingtons, Cafe Rio, The Artist and Raw Peppermint Patties

 Portobello Wellington with Shiitake Duxelle, Vanilla Glazed Baby Carrots and Roasted Red Potatoes

Mom saw a recipe circulating around the blogosphere that looked intriguing... Portobello Wellingtons, why not? We decided to make it for dinner. When we went to the grocery store we couldn't find the non-alcoholic wine and we debated on using cooking wine or mixing some grape juice with red wine vinegar (which I already had at home). We decided to go with the grape-juice-red-wine-vinegar option. We realized when we got home that we didn't have any grape juice, so we crushed and strained some red grapes. Um, the reduction didn't turn out so well. It was overly sweet and too thin. This made the bottom of the Wellington turn soggy fast.

The glazed carrots were a-maze-ing. Seriously, so good. The roasted potatoes were also delicious. The wellingtons... hmmm, I don't know if it was the fact that I didn't cook off enough liquid in the duxelle, or that I added too much to each wellington, but there was something off about it. Maybe the whole problem was that glaze, not sure. Don't know if I'd go to the trouble of making these again but Mom said that she probably would. The wellingtons weren't bad and they weren't that difficult, it was just too time consuming for something that we didn't love. Perhaps I'll give them one more chance and make everything properly.

Cafe Rio Black Bean and Rice Salad 

Okay, I just skipped over lunch. The mushroom wellington was just so exciting! Mom and I went to Cafe Rio for lunch and had their veggie salad. I love Cafe Rio and so does Mom. It wasn't vegan, but it was tasty. The salad came with a fresh hand made stone ground whole wheat tortilla, green chile rice, black beans, romaine, pico, guacamole, tortilla strips, cilantro, cotija cheese, creamy tomatillo house dressing and a fresh lime wedge.

After eating our Cafe Rio Salads, we went over to Cinemark 8 (the dollar theater in the same parking lot) and watched The Artist. It was a great film, we recommend it. Well, Andrew probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as we did (there was almost no talking).

Raw Peppermint Patties

After dinner we made raw peppermint patties. The coconut we used was too large and too moist. I think that when we make these again we'll use some different coconut. The recipe said to measure the cream filling into nine patties. This made them a little too thick. I'd probably try 12 patties next time. We dipped some of the patties in the chocolate once, some twice, and some three times. The ones that were dipped only once were the best. This could be due to the chocolate we used. We didn't make her raw chocolate recipe, we cheated and mixed our dark chocolate chips with some coconut oil (to smooth and thin it out). We all agreed that this recipe is a keeper! Andrew kept talking about how we need to make these often.

Mom and I went to a digestive health seminar tonight at the Orem Good Earth store. Kiki Roesch, MPC (a natural health and supplement educator from Nutraceutical) was the speaker. When we got home, I realized that I'd thrown the flyer away, so I can't give you the actual name of the seminar, but it was in the form of a question... It was very interesting, but I'm tired and will probably post about it later.