Sunday Breakfast

Homemade sourdough rolls, hot out of the oven, with choice of butter or our strawberry-tarragon jam.  Farm fresh scrambled eggs with brown butter-fried sage & chives, followed by an apple-oat crisp.

Saturday Breakfast

Homemade sourdough rolls, hot out of the oven, with choice of butter or our strawberry-tarragon jam.  The first breakfast course consisted of raspberry-cornmeal muffins (made with our own homegrown & handground heirloom cornmeal and red raspberries, & sweetened with local honey).  The second and final breakfast course consisted of lemony quinoa (cooked in our own freshly-pressed apple cider) with maple-cinnamon sauteed apples (off of our heirloom apple tree).

Patriotic Breakfast

In honor of the 4th of July holiday weekend, I made red, white, & blue-hued melon cups!

What's For Breakfast?

We recently had a 3-day booking here at the B&B (with some of the nicest guests in the entire world, might I just say), and I had a great deal of fun composing the breakfasts each morning.  Now is the time of year when the garden is really beginning to come online production-wise (as well as the fruit - cherries were ripe last Saturday!), so the meals just keep getting better...

At 7:30 am each morning, we always start with freshly-baked sourdough rolls with choice of butter or one of our amazing herbal jams.

At 8 am, the main breakfast begins.  You might enjoy:

Farm fresh scrambled eggs with brown butter-fried sage and chives

Individual watermelon cups with raspberries and chocolate mint

Raspberry-Cornmeal muffin sweetened with honey and made using our own home-grown and hand-ground heirloom cornmeal

Veggie-Bacon Frittatas (with vegetables and herbs out of the garden, and locally-raised bacon)

Apple-Oat Crisp made using our own apple butter and heirloom apples (when in season)

Birthday Bookings

It's been a crazy week (ok, it's pretty much been crazy all year...but it was really crazy this past week) here at the inn.  We've had more bookings than normal for May, which has been a pleasant surprise.  The inn was actually completely booked on my birthday, which was excellent for the bank account but kind of put a slight damper on any sort of birthday celebrations.  We did manage to run over to Red Lily Vineyard on Saturday in the late morning, which is one of my absolute favorite places to relax.  

Because it was Memorial Weekend, they had some food platters available - including a delicious antipasta platter and the most amazing chicken caesar salad I have ever eaten!



I wore my 1940s navy blue suit and my ridiculously-expensive Frank Palma hat.





We sat at a table overlooking the property and munched our way through a delicious lunch, while sipping glasses of their phenomenal tempranillo.



CHEERS!

Monday Breakfast

Our veggie-bacon frittatas have been an enormous hit! They are made fresh, using local ingredients. The eggs come from our flock of chickens and ducks, and the kale, baby garlic, oregano, thyme, and borage flower decoration are also from our property. The bacon & asparagus are naturally grown by our neighbors up the road, and even the breadcrumbs are from our own homemade sourdough rolls!

Four fresh frittatas, made to order! 

Another delicious new dish appearing on the breakfast menu this year: Apple-Oat Crisp with maple syrup and our own apple butter. This dish is sweetened without using additional sugar. Instead, we let the natural flavors of the maple syrup and apple butter sweeten it, and the lemon verbena adds a refreshing citrus finish that helps to cleanse the palate! The dish is garnished with lemon balm and borage from the garden...a bright and cheery breakfast plate! I like to call this "edible art."

 

Saturday's Breakfast

Spring veggie & bacon frittata, & individual watermelon cups with local strawberries & chocolate mint.

Insanity & An Early Tourist Season

It's been hectic around here in an over-the-top manner that I did not think we were capable of achieving!  I've felt terribly guiltily for having had to actually turn potential guests away, simply because we had too many projects going on to manage guests on top of that.  Well, the projects are still not complete (sigh), but we've finally got guests staying here again.  This week/end is actually perfect for B&B guests - temperatures in the high 60s, partly cloudy, ripe strawberries, and loads of fragrant flowers!  I've filled numerous vases around the inn with irises, valerian, heirloom roses, and honeysuckle.  The entire house is perfumed...

Lots of tasty breakfasts planned for this weekend too!  I have added two new dishes to my normal repertoire: a frittata, and an apple-oatmeal crisp.  Your taste buds will love you for staying here, and your eyes will be delighted by these culinary masterpieces of color and presentation!  But don't take my word for it (I'll let the prior evidence speak for itself)...

Trip to the Coast: Faves & Raves

After three tortuously long years, Ryan and I finally took a much-needed vacation!  We briefly visited Portland, then headed up for a few days to Seattle, and finally spent the last couple of days of our trip slowly meandering our way back down the Oregon coast.

Here were the highlights:

• Best Place to Stay in the Portland area - 

Nob Hill B&B, Casablanca Suite

• Best chowder (and seafood lunch!) in Astoria (or pretty much anywhere...ever!) - 

Charlie's

• Best Tuna Appetizer -

"Poke" dish at Clemente's, Astoria, Oregon

• Best Place to Eat Lunch - 

Rockfish Bakery, Lincoln City, Oregon.  

Everything is made fresh, and locally-sourced.  AMAZING FOOD!  And incredibly economical prices!

• Most Relaxing Inn - 

 

 

Tyee Lodge, in Newport.  

 

Ocean view rooms, 

complimentary wine, 

 

 

and a path leading down to the beach...

what more could you ask for?

• Most Terrifying Adventure - 

 

 

164 feet up in the Astoria Column in Astoria, Oregon!  

 

Those stairs just keep going up...and up...and up...

• Most Beautiful Lighthouse - 

Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Newport, Oregon (also great whale-watching location!)

• Happiest Seals - 

 

 

Aquarium in Seaside, Oregon

• Best Place to Buy Crabs - 

Historic Bayfront in Newport, Oregon

Not "Just Another Monday" Breakfast!

Today's Breakfast: fresh sourdough rolls hot out of the oven, with choice of butter, blackberry-basil, peach-rosemary, or strawberry-tarragon jam (made with locally grown ingredients!); Healthy Citrus-Blueberry Breakfast Muffins topped with Apricot Jam; Lemony Quinoa (made using our own apple cider!) with Maple-Cinnamon-Sauteed Apples!