Taste of the Valley

I recently went for a drive through the Valley of Nova Scotia to enjoy the Autumn leaves.What started off a trip to get apples turned into an adventure to The Lookoff, Cape Split, Provincial Park Blomidon, Fox Hill Cheese House, Grand Pre winery and a local farm market.

I highly suggest taking a lazy drive through Wolfville and the Valley on a nice day in Autumn. The vibrant

Fox Hill Cheese House
Fox Hill Cheese House is never a disappointment for cheese. They sell at the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market and you can buy it on-site. They sell not only their cheese on-site, but as well other companies.

Grabs:

• Jalapeno Gouda
• Peppercorn Gouda

Grand Pre Winery

The store for the Grand Pre winery is gorgeous. They have taste testing available for the wines before you buy them. They not only sell wine, but other wine accessories as well. The Pomme d'Or is always a fall-back for me; it's sweet and not overbearing.

Grabs:

• Moulin Rouge
• Sparking Peach
• Sparkling Maple
• Sparkling Blueberry
• Acadia Blanc (not shown above)

Moulin Rouge

The Moulin Rouge is a sweet but decent wine. It would make a great Sangria. The only downside I had with it is that at the bottom it had solids floating about.

Sparkling Peach

This was a very delightful sparkling wine. I was very happy that it wasn't overly sweet. It had a delicious taste of peach without tasting like peach drink. I mixed in rose syrup to make a sparkling rose drink; it was delicious! It mixes very well with other flavors.

Sparkling Blueberry

I love blueberries and I loved this wine. It was fantastic. I didn't try meddling other flavors in with it; it held its own very well

Sparkling Maple

The Sparkling Maple would have been better as a desert wine. It tasted too much like maple syrup to be really enjoyed as a sparkling wine.

Acadia Blanc

This was the only wine I didn't like. It had distinct fruit flavors but just didn't taste too well mixed together. To top it off, I came down with a massive headache after drinking one glass the two times I tried it.

Thanksgiving Poutine

This past Thanksgiving wasn't full of traditional fare nor with an overabundance of family. I sprained my ankle and worked over the weekend meaning I wasn't traveling back to New Brunswick nor cooking.

Although I wasn't having a traditional dinner, I was craving some of the Thanksgiving dinner fixings like gravy. Myself and my boyfriend went to Sobeys to stock up for food for the Thanksgiving Monday as everything would be closed. I found a Brown Gravy Gluten-Free mix. It's of the "Just add water, heat, and stir" variety so it'd be easy to do on crutches. Hobbling around the cheese section, I found a package of Canadian cheese curds. Once we picked up ready-to-bake fries, we were on our way.

Poutine is one dish I miss being able to buy with ease. Smokes Poutinery does have a gravy with no gluten ingredients, but cannot guarantee it won't be free from cross-contamination. The basic recipe is very simple: fries, cheese curds and gravy. Throughout Canada, you can find a variety of Poutines ranging from Montreal Smoked Meat Poutine to Donair Poutines in Atlantic Canada.

For Thanksgiving wine, instead, we opted for beer. I found Snitzer Brau for myself which is the most common gluten-free beer found in restaurants around Halifax and the NSLC. I enjoy it.

At the end there are notes about ingredients and beers.

 Poutine:
Base:
- Cheese Curds
- Fries
- Gravy

Options for toppings:
- Meat (steak, Montreal Smoked Meat, Donair, etc)
- Vegetables (Onions, green peppers)
- Chili
- Different Cheeses
- Sour Cream


Notes:
Brown Gravy vs. Chicken Gravy
At Sobeys there are two different easy-to-make gluten-free gravy. One is the Brown Beef gravy and the other is a Chicken Gravy. I've tried poutine with both; the chicken gravy is not good. It's actually really gross.

Cheese
At Super Store and maybe Sobeys you can get Daiya cheese-inspired products if you have an allergy to casein or are lactose intolerant. Although I'm lactose intolerant, I still prefer the regular cheese curds. This could also be done with Gouda which naturally has less lactose; some Gouda is lactose-free.

Beer
Gluten-Free beers that can be found around the city if you look for them:
- Snitzer Brau (very good)
- Bards (very good, tastes a lot more bitter than the other gluten-free beers)
- La Messangere (decent)
- Glutenberg (haven't tried, Garrison Brewery only from what I can find)