Sweet Street Cafe

You have probably tried their desserts.  After all, Sweet Street desserts are featured by restaurants in over 60 countries.  They are as creative as they are yummy. 

This local success story takes place in Reading - only about half an hour from the inn.  Last fall, they opened a café.  Café Sweet Street.  It's only open for breakfast and lunch, but don't worry - they don't close until 6 p.m., so if you've had a substantial breakfast (perhaps at The Artist's Inn), you've got all day to work up an appetite!

A scoreboard announces the offerings of the day.

Our Chinois and classic Cobb salads were full of organic greens and local produce and the mushroom soup was yummy.

 

 

Don't worry if you're on a limited time frame - our food was out in a jiffy. 

They offer lots of burgers - beef, chicken, turkey or veggie, lots of sandwiches, salads, soups and hearty fare.

And pizza - can't wait to try that when their outdoor patio opens for the season.

Oh, and they serve desserts.  Wow, do they have desserts - huge cookies, cupcakes, pies, cakes and everything in between...available by the piece or the whole. 

 

 

 

Since the café is connected to the factory, the freshness is guaranteed. You need to try this place!

Spinach and Quinoa Salad

Our friend and neighbor, Kathy, brought this salad to our annual New Year's Eve Party at The Artist's Inn.  I promised to share the recipe!  It was quite yummy and pretty healthy.  Hope you like it!

Salad

1 cup quinoa (or orzo pasta)
4 - 6 oz. baby spinach (cut up)
1/3 cup oil packed sundried tomatoes (chopped)
small cucumber peeled and diced
1/4 cup Kalamata olives - (cut in half)
3/4 tsp. dried oregano
3 oz. feta cheese

Red Wine Vinaigrette

1/2 tsp. chopped garlic
1 tsp. chopped shallots
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup canola oil

To prepare the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients in a jar - shake to mix.

Cook orzo or quinoa according to package directions.  While that is cooking, combine spinach with sundried tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and oregano in a large bowl.
When the pasta or quinoa is cooked, drain under cold running water until room temperature.  Toss quinoa and the other ingredients with mixed vinaigrette to taste (I don't always use the entire dressing mix).
Serve at room temperature, topped with crumbled feta.

Makes 6 - 8 servings.

 

Chocolate for Dinner

We received a dinner invitation from friends who are local innkeepers at The Smithton Inn in Ephrata. The theme was chocolate. Well, I thought, I’ll just whip up a batch of double chocolate macadamia cookies. Would that be enough for dinner? I certainly could survive for one night on chocolate and wine, but I’m married to a salad lover.

So I thought back to a wonderful dinner I had at Carrs (a great restaurant in downtown Lancaster) – it was part of our Chocolate Tour. Tim had served a unique white chocolate dressing on the salad. I know what you’re thinking – my brain also struggled to marry the tastes, but it was delicious.

And so I set out looking for recipes on the internet. I found plenty, but several called for ingredients that I didn’t have – chocolate extract, walnut oil, raspberry vinegar......and so the search went on. I came upon Recipe Zaar’s Chocolate Balsamic Salad Dressing.


Recipe Zaar is one of my favorite sites and allows you to adjust the measurements from metric to US and increase the amounts.

Three ingredients meant that the one hour I had to dress, make a salad, greet guests at the inn, and drive to the party should be plenty of time.

I changed the salad to include the ingredients I had on hand: red leaf and romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, shaved asiago cheese, toasted almonds and vanilla poached pears. To be honest, I think greens with a little more bite would complement the dressing better, but I had to work with what was in my pantry.

It’s best to serve this dressing slightly warm – a lesson I learned on a cold night when it began to congeal! A slight reheat did the trick. You also shouldn’t refrigerate this dressing.

Everyone loved it, and the salad was a nice complement to the mole chicken and Cincinnati chili that were also on the menu. Oh, yes, I took the cookies too – just in case the other three desserts wouldn’t be enough – after all, you just can’t have too much chocolate for dinner.

So the next time you are looking for something unusual, try my newest salad and dressing combination. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the salad....we ate it!

Chocolate Balsamic Dressing (Serves 14)

1 1/3 cups Balsamic Vinegar
10 5/8 ounces sugar
3 squares dark chocolate

Melt over low heat and stir occasionally. Serve warm.