Recent Eats

We had some random food products to use up the other day, so we whipped up a Thai crab bowl.  We made rice with coconut milk, and then cooked up some veggies and crab, and added these to the bowl along with green onion, cilantro, and lime.

We ate pizza at Tumbler's yesterday before heading to see the final installment of the Before movie trilogy. 

For $20 even, we got a medium pizza, giant drink, and some cinnamon bites.  The sauce on the pizza was some of the best we've had.

The other day we had vegetarian burritos made with sweet potato, white beans, onion, garlic and spices.  We added cheese, and topped them with sour cream.  We made extras to have for lunches.

What are some of your recent meals?

Family Weekend

Our favourite people to hang out with are our family members.  This past weekend, we got to spend time with almost everyone in our immediate families.  On Friday night we met up with Christopher's sister Vicki, and her husband Will at The Artful Dodger.  We ate incredible pizza, and watched stand-up comedy, which was part of a new event called Homegrown Comedy (featuring Saskatchewan talent).

 
On Saturday we had my sister Leah over for a little visit, before heading with her to the Cathedral Village Arts Festival.  We ate some snacks, and she insisted on taking a silly picture of us:

Aside: my sister got a second cat (brother of her first cat), and I'm pretty much obsessed.  Finn slept on me the entire time I visited him recently.

He's cross-eyed.  I don't think he could get any cuter.

After the Cathedral Village Arts Festival we went to Christopher's parent's house for a visit.  We sat out in the backyard, before enjoying a lovely lamb dinner.

And just when we thought Saturday couldn't be any more fun, we went to see three awesome bands, including some of our pals, at The Artesian. 

Pandacorn:



Grain Report:



We had an awesome time.  When the music was done, we walked home so Christopher could make me snacks.

On Sunday we did a bit of yard work:

We then spent the afternoon at Christopher's brother Steve, and his wife Mel's home.  We visited with them in the backyard of their new place.

In the evening we went out with my dad, my brother and his girlfriend, my sister, and my nephew to celebrate my dad's 73rd birthday.  We ate at Silver's, but I wasn't feeling well, so I took my meal home.



The only person we didn't get to see was my mom, but we'll be seeing her in two weeks when we go on a little road trip.

How was your weekend?

Did you spend time with any family members?

Uncle Steve's Tomato Sauces

We both absolutely love pasta.  I was super excited when the kind people at Nancy Seltzer & Associates, Inc. offered to send me some sauces to try.  These are Steve Schirripa's (Sopranos star) new line of organic tomato sauces.



They are USDA certified organic, vegan, dairy and gluten free, and non GMO, with no added sugar, and nothing artificial.  There are three varieties, and the ingredients are all recognizable, including organic tomatoes, olive oil, basil, sea salt, garlic, and pepper.  We wanted to get a real feel for the sauces, without adding any of our own spices or herbs.

We enjoyed the tomato basil sauce with some spaghetti and meatballs:




We warmed the spicier arrabiata sauce, and poured it over fried polenta:




Finally, the marinara sauce in a simple vegetarian lasagna:




I'm glad we didn't add anything else to these sauces.  They were fabulous on their own, and needed no further seasoning.  I'm really hoping we can find these sauces in our local stores, as these will be our new go-to sauces.  They are the freshest-tasting we've tried.

 Do you have a favourite jarred tomato sauce?

Disclosure:  The sauces were provided to me free of charge, but all opinions are my own, and I was under no obligations to post.

Ten on Tuesday

1)  Sometimes we need quick and easy dinners, so we decided to try these soups from the grocery store deli.  The chicken noodle one was pretty boring - very similar to average canned soup.




We haven't tried the Thai chicken one yet.

2)  We bought shimeji mushrooms the other day ... mostly because they look cool.



Warning: These are not good raw.  Just tried one.  Barf.  Anyway, they are good cooked.

3)  We can't stop thinking about the Laotian salad we had the other day.  You really do need to make this.



4)  This chicken ranch pizza from Vern's was pretty good:



5)  We're headed to the library this evening to see a movie.  We went last week to see Before Sunrise, tonight we'll see Before Sunset, and then next week, Before Midnight.  Have you seen this series?

6)  One of our breakfasts on the weekend was lemon loaf from the farmer's market, with apricot, pomegranate, and Greek yogurt with toppings.



7)  Why is goat cheese so good? 



It's been our after-work snack as of late.

8)  33 Pictures that will make you proud to a human being again.  These made me smile.

9)  We made lattes at home on the weekend, and they were awesome!  We used espresso, unsweetened almond milk and vanilla stevia.




10)  We had our lattes with breakfast skillets which included potatoes, summer sausage, green onions, mushrooms, tomato, herbs, and egg.  We grated some parmesan cheese on top.

What are your Tuesday things?

Flavours of Asia

This past weekend we cooked some new dishes, including a Thai soup, a Laotian salad, and Singapore chili crab dip.

We found the Thai soup recipe in a cookbook, but it seemed bland when we were done, so we added a bunch of ingredients to make it our own.  It turned out really well.

The Nem Khao (Lao crispy rice salad) was incredible.  We realized after we were done eating, that we had forgotten to add the peanuts, but it was great without them.  You start by frying up seasoned rice into little patties:

These are then tossed with ginger, lime, shallots, chillies, cilantro, etc., in the most harmonious blend of ingredients ever put into one bowl. 

The textures and the flavours in this dish are to-die-for.  You can find the recipe here.

The next day we made Singapore chili crab dip, which tasted way better than we even expected it to.  We will absolutely make it again.  It's got a great bit of kick from the sweet chili sauce and hot chillies.

We dipped potato wedges into this dip, and had a bit left over.  You can find the recipe here.

Did you cook any new recipes recently?  How was your weekend?

Delicious BBQ

Who needs Fatburger, when you come home from work and your sweetheart has prepped homemade lamburgers, with a cilantro-mint yogurt sauce.  Wowzers!




In addition to the yogurt sauce, we put kale, cheddar, and tomato on the burgers.  On the side, we had corn on the cob.  What a perfect dinner.




We also tried wild boar ribs the other day, and they were incredible!  They are even better than regular pork ribs.  They have more flavour, and more texture, but also more fat. 



They are especially good marinated for a day or two.  We just used a ready-made Diana Caribbean Jerk marinade, that was perfect on these.  If you're local you can pick up wild boar ribs at Dad's Organic Market or the farmer's market.



We had roasted potatoes and broccoli on the side.

What have you BBQd recently?