Bed & Breakfast getaway

A few months ago, I found a deal on Living Social that sounded absolutely wonderful. It was a 2-night stay at Wakefield Inn in New Hampshire. During the stay we would get to take a cooking course and get some massages. On the last weekend of April, we hopped into the car and ventured a few hours north to our destination.

The Inn was nice, as was our room.  The sheets on the bed were super soft and comfy.  Even so, I didn't sleep particularly well there, but that was ok because there were other aspects that made the trip wonderful.

Some of the drive to show you the countryside.

On the first night, we were on our own for dinner, so we drove to Wolfeboro, about 25 minutes away.

drive to Wolfeboro

We walked around the town looking for a restaurant that had been recommended by our B&B owner. It had just been renovated, and we walked by it a few times as it didn't have the name outside of the building yet. We eventually found the place, and the food was really good. So if you are ever in Wolfeboro, check out Garwoods.

Town of Wolfeboro

There was a wait for dinner so we strolled around town and found a lovely park overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee (2nd place for best lake name, behind Lake Titicaca  -- according to Kyle).

Not sure if you can make out Santa's Hut there in red. St. Nick's summer home?

The next day was our big day at the Inn. We started out with a breakfast that was a little too gourmet for me, but Kyle loved the Cheddar Apple bake. Luckily, there was plenty of other food for me. After breakfast we headed out to visit the chickens and enjoy the beautiful scenery. The chickens saw us coming and came racing across the lawn to see if we had any food for them. Sadly they were out of luck.

In mid-morning we took our cooking class. I have to say that I really learned a lot, and it was a ton of fun for me. I think even Kyle enjoyed the time. We prepped some bread for dinner, made a pretty amazing carrot soup, and baked a chocolate torte. We also prepped our fish in parchment for lunch and made some polenta (really good, similar to grits, but better in my opinion).

A mother and daughter along with a young couple, Jeff and Laura, were our cooking partners.

Prepping flounder in our parchment paper.

Showing the final fold of the parchment paper. Then all you do is bake for 15 min. Easy.

You might all know these, but in case you don't, I thought I would share the top 3 tips from our class.

3. You can freeze fresh ginger. I knew this and already do it, but no one else knew it, so it seems worth passing on. I use ginger all the time, so it is a great saver.

2. When grating ginger, you don't have to peel it. I didn't know this and am really excited to save myself time moving forward.

1. We have been using our peeler incorrectly. I don't know about you guys, but I usually run my peeler down the length of, say, a carrot and then pick it up, bring it back to the top and run it back down. Don't do that. Run it down the carrot and immediately back up. Go back and forth. No need to pick up the peeler at all. To me this was the most obvious thing once I thought about it, but I found it funny that not a single person there did it that way. I have been asking friends since we got home and no one else goes back and forth either.

After class was over, we got to eat the food we prepared!

Then Kyle and I were off to our room for our massages. As usual we thoroughly enjoyed them and highly recommend that people get massages more often.

Before dinner we headed back into Wolfeboro to visit a kitchen store that our chef recommended. We also picked up some spices she highly recommended that come from this area: Victoria Gourmet.

Our dinner was prepared by the rest of the guests that were staying at the inn They made a Swiss Chard bake, some duck and lamb and a lovely dessert. We all sat a large table together enjoying each other's company.

In the morning we enjoyed one last breakfast of puff pancakes (you can get the recipe here). We had a fresh berry mixture on top. It was pretty awesome. Then we said our goodbyes to the chickens, took some photos of the enormous back window from the dinning area overlooking the back yard, and headed out.

This was the largest single pane window I have ever seen in a house.

Our weekend didn't end there, but I will write about our final day in the next entry.