What's Cookin' at Inn at Riverbend

Sweet Potato Biscuits…yum!

innatriverbend — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:49:14 +0000

The most requested recipe from Inn at Riverbend holiday parties is our Sweet Potato Biscuits. Served with ham and Mike’s Tomato Jam, they were the hit this week! Good news is you can make the dough, cut them, place them on a baking sheet and pop them in the freezer until firm. Then just place them in the preheated oven when you need a biscuit or two…better make that three since they are irresistable…must be the shortening!

Sweet Potato Biscuits

3 C all purpose flour
¾ C sugar
7 tsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt
2 C canned sweet potatoes, mashed, hot
½ C Crisco shortening

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
Mash and heat sweet potatoes.
Add shortening to sweet potatoes; combine with flour mixture.
Roll out on floured board, ¾” thick-dough will be very soft and sticky so add flour to the board and your hands.
Cut with a biscuit cutter to the desired diameter.
Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush tops lightly with butter.
Bake 10-12 minutes or until very light brown.

Make 16 large biscuits or 30 small biscuits.

This recipe originates from Pickett’s Harbor B & B but was given to me by Temple Lawrence.

Calling all breakfast cooks…

innatriverbend — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:55:33 +0000

Over the years, I’ve used recipes from many guests, past business clients, friends and relatives resulting in Suzie’s Sour Cream Pound Cake, Mike’s Tomato Jam, and Susan’s Cranberry Walnut Bread to name a few.

So now it’s your turn to send me the recipe for your favorite dish that we should serve for breakfast. Once we make the selection, we’ll invite you to the inn to be our Breakfast Chef of the Day and help us make your recipe.

All entries are due no later than January 15th. Please send all recipes and your comments as to why we should serve it to stay@innatriverbend.com. In the subject line write: ”Calling all breakfast cooks”.

Sometimes it’s all about the shoes….

innatriverbend — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:37:55 +0000

The shoes of the groom and the groomsmen!

Weddings at Inn at Riverbend include lots of planning and details, on our part and especially the bride’s part. Usually, the groom is involved in just a few essential parts-the ring, the proposal, the flavor of the cake, and the beverage of choice.

Last month, the Inn was the site for a wonderful wedding. The weather was perfect, the bride was beautiful, the groom drank Mike’s Lemonade but it was all about the shoes…not the bride’s but the guy’s! I love this photo take by Laura of Laura’s Focus Photography!

Steppin’ Out Summer Festival Aug 7-8

innatriverbend — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:25:49 +0000

More than 150 artists, crafts people and musicians from all over the US will be selling handcrafted items and featuring musical entertainment. Entertainment begins at 10:00 am on Friday and continues on 3 stages throughout the day. Located in the heart of Blacksburg near Virginia Tech. Just a few rooms left at the Inn!

Vacation…a necessary evil!

innatriverbend — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:01:37 +0000

Being in the hospitality business, we meet guests each day who are on a getaway, a staycation, a working vacation, a honeymoon, babymoon, or just plain relaxing. So it’s easy to be jealous as you watch a guest read the entire newspaper in one sitting, finish a newly released novel, fall asleep in the afternoon, or enjoy the last chocolate chip cookie in the cookie jar!

I just returned from doing all of that…and it was great! Here’s a few highlights of my trip.

The prior post shared the first few days in Coeur d’Alene for our cooking experience. The rest of my 12 days away in Washington state included time in Issaquah, Whidbey Islands, and Orcas Islands.

My husband is passionate about his dog, Jackson; fly fishing any day of the week, playing golf, good wine and cigars. I’m passionate about cooking, our guests, running our bed and breakfast and more cooking. Do you see the problem? I love to work and he loves to play. Not that he doesn’t love our business but…

As a remedy, I decided to reach back to the early 80′s when I learned to weave in Coral Gables, Florida. I was pregnant with my children and weaving was a wonderful, relaxing and creative outlet. I’ve hauled my basic rigid heddle loom with me since then and only last year began to weave again.

My favorite inspiration has been a magazine, Handwoven, so when I discovered that Madelyn van der Hoogt, owned the Weaver’s School, in Whidbey Island, WA. I registered for a week long class.

What a great week of waking to views of Mt. Baker, sitting and enjoying breakfast with three other weavers staying at the Blue Goose Inn in Coupeville, then walking to class in the cool, fresh morning air. Madelyn, a former college English professor, was the perfect instructor for me: just enough spoken instruction balanced with lots of hands on weaving.

Our class at The Weaver's School

So one week later, I had created large samplers on 13 looms, de-mystified drafting, warping, treddling, and much more and found a new passion.

Double weave color block

Two weeks later, my new 8 shaft Baby Wolf cherry loom arrived and I’m hooked. Now if I can just figure out how to tie it up and get a warp on, I’ll be weaving beautiful new things. If you visit the inn, I’m sure you’ll meet Lynn’s buddy, Jackson and if you ask me, you’ll meet mine too.

Baby Wolf

Cooking with the Chefs at Coeur d’Alene

innatriverbend — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:13:40 +0000

Our prize for winning the Select Registry 2008 Inn-Credible Cook-off was a trip to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to the resort overlooking the lake, the site of the 2007 Cook-off and Select Registry meeting.

Eric and I arrived to beautiful spring weather with snow still on the mountain tops but lots of motor boats and sail boats in the marina. This photo was my view each morning as I awoke.

Morning at Coeur d'Alene Golf and Spa Resort

Our day began with a full tour of the many operating kitchens throughout the resort with Executive Chef Rodney Jessick. Seeing the storage, prep areas and kitchens was fascinating.

Most of our time was spent in Beverly’s, their top restaurant in the resort. Here we are in chef gear with Chef de Cuisine Tyler Schwenk and Executive Chef Rodney Jessick.

Eric and Linda with the chefs

The best part of the day was seeing the new spring menu items prepared and presented to the staff. Then…we ate them! Lobster corndogs bring a whole new meaning to typical county fair food! They were deliciously filled with lobster mousseline and battered and served with a tobiko aioli as just one of the sauces.

One of our favorites was the Strawbery Rhubarb Salad shown below. A base of spring greens with a marinated chicken breast, candied balsamic onions, strawberries, hazelnuts and a rhubarb chutney are just a few of the components of this decadent salad.

Strawberry Rhubarb Salad at Beverly's

The seafood tower was a beautiful salad with a vertical element composed of choped avocado, bay shrimp salad, cucumber relist, dungeness crab salad, tomato concasse plus prawns and more and then topped with a quail egg. And this is just lunch…

Beverly's Seafood Tower

All in all, we relaxed, ate too much and learned many new ideas. Thanks to Exec Chef Rod and Chef Ty for a great experience. Visit www.beverlysrestaurant.biz for more information about this great restaurant and resort.

Something new for breakfast

innatriverbend — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:56:36 +0000

Since winning the Inn-Credible Breakfast Cook-off, I’ve continued exploring new vessels for breakfast.

Tortillas come in so many great flavors that they seem to be the perfect holder for some wonderful sauteed vegetables topped with either a poached egg or an herbed egg scramble.

While these are flour tortillas, using the spinach or roasted red pepper tortillas adds great color and flavor. I found these tortilla shapers from The Good Cook.

So for breakfast last week at the Inn, I placed the tortillas in the shapers and let them crisp for about 10 minutes in oven at 375 degrees. Cool for 10 minutes out of the oven but in the shapers. Then remove and set them on a rack.

While the tortillas are crisping, roast sweet potatoes fries in the oven. Remove when crispy and keep warm.

Next, with a little olive oil, saute onions, roasted red peppers, mushrooms, Italian herbs, etc (artichokes or asparagus are great too so pick the things you enjoy!). In another pan, scramble eggs until ready to serve.

To plate this, place the sweet potatoes in the bottom of the tortilla, add the scrambled eggs, then the sauteed vegetables and top with grated cheese. Let the cheese melt and you are ready for a yummy savory breakfast entree.

Mystery in the meadow

innatriverbend — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:26:21 +0000

The big question last week was “what is that pattern in the meadow?” First, we saw someone ride a mower to the middle of the meadow. Next he mowed a fat “T” through the grass. Then he left.

A few days later a truck shows up and I snapped the picture below. Any guesses? We now have a runway for a small remote controlled plane and a helicopter! After getting over the surprise, it’s actually pretty awesome to watch these planes from the deck, as they make their landings and do dare devil tricks.

Hello from Linda!

innatriverbend — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:07:48 +0000

When I attended the Select Registry Innkeepers Conference last November in Williamsburg, the keynote speaker cautioned everyone that this upcoming year’s theme would be CHANGE. I listened attentively and decided right then and there, that I would embrace CHANGE and see what happens.

So here I am with a blog, a facebook page for Inn at Riverbend, a twitter account and Constant Contact for sending out great new stuff to our Inn at Riverbend fans. Plus newly created wine tours, the Jackson and Me photo contest and more.

Stay tuned. I’m excited to share What’s Cookin’ at Inn at Riverbend!