Trekkin' through the Texas Hill Country - Part 3 - the food....

Thank you for joining me for the last part of my Hill Country trek.  Thursday, I shared about the places here.  Yesterday, I shared about my love for wildflowers here.  Today, well, let's talk about some great food.

Before I show what we sampled at the bed and breakfast, I'll talk about lavender a bit.  Our first day and night was in Blanco, where they have a lavender festival in June.  I tried lavender lemonade with my lunch.  It was very interesting.  Had a definite floral flavor.  Paired with a great chicken salad sandwich.  And the next morning as we got coffee at a local shop, I noticed lavender lemon shortbread cookies.  I did not buy any, but I was tempted.

As I said in Thursday's post, we stayed at the Rose Hill Manor for two nights.  This bed and breakfast is several miles out in the country and, while there are several great restaurants in Fredericksburg, Rose Hill has it's own restaurant on the property.  When you reserve a room on a weekend night, you receive both breakfast and dinner.  And both of these are 3 course meals - yes, even the breakfast.  Here is what I had on Saturday for breakfast and for dinner.

Breakfast started with the chef's choice pastry - which was apple quick bread.  Some delicious coffee.  A bowl of seasonal fruit with a little yogurt and a little granola sprinkled on top.  The fruit was fresh and tasty and the bread was amazing.  I ate one of the slices and then asked if I could have a baggie or something to take the rest of it with me for later.

The waffle was a sweet potato waffle with walnuts and a vanilla bean syrup.  You had a choice of ham or sausage.  I did not finish the waffle, but what I had was yummy.  Also did not eat much of the ham - it was a little salty for me.  I've been trying to cut back on salt and it doesn't take long for your taste to alter in that regard.

My husband was playing golf that morning and he had to leave before the breakfast serving hour.  The staff gave him a picnic basket with the apple bread, another pastry of some kind, and the fruit - just so he didn't miss out.  His apple bread was warm, right out of the oven.  He was delighted.

Dinner is a 3 course prix fixe dinner each night.  The menu is set, although you can order a steak as a substitute if you wish.  We did not wish.  The first course was greens with an orange blossom vinaigrette, Maytag blue cheese, apples and toasted walnuts.  There was also a little square of cornbread with a nutmeg honey sauce.  I love this type of salad.  It was light and fresh.  The cornbread was a little sweet for me.  I've been trying to cut back on my sugar too and have also noticed a difference in taste in that regard as well.

The entree course was a crab cake and scallops over golden raisin couscous.  There was a lemon cream sauce and asparagus as well.  This was amazing.  The crab cake was rich and the couscous was tasty, but not too sweet.  And I love asparagus any time.  We practically licked our plates.  Well, we didn't, but we wanted to.

Dessert course was a mixed berry crisp with a scoop of housemade brown butter pecan ice cream.  It was lovely, but I was so full by that point, I just ate about half of it.  My husband thought that vanilla bean ice cream would have been a better pairing, but I noticed that he managed to eat all of his crisp and ice cream.

We waddled out of there, satisfied and beyond.  The wait staff told me that I could ask for any recipes that I wished for.  I've emailed for the crab cake recipe, but have not heard back yet.  Not sure I could duplicate it anyway, nor that I should.  It was a fitting ending to our trip and the next morning, Sunday, we headed home.

I'm linking this post with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.  I think it definitely qualifies.