Easy Weeknight Meals

We had a couple of quick and easy dinners this week.  On Wednesday we had tacos.  We often make our own taco seasoning, but this time we bough tthe hard taco kit, and just used what came in that.

We cooked up some ground chicken, with onions and mushrooms, and the seasoning.

Then, we loaded that into taco shells along with other toppings:  cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream, black olives, green onions, chopped jalapenos, chopped pepperoncini peppers.

Dinner in 10 minutes!

Last night we had another quick dinner, a calzone.  We buy frozen organic pizza dough from KoKo because the ingredient list makes us happy, and it's convenient for quick meals.  We just thaw it over night, roll it out, top it with everything, fold up the sides, and about 15-20 minutes later, we have a gorgeous calzone.

We cooked up some ground beef with chopped onions, mushrooms, and a bit of spinach.  We added some herbs and spices to that.  That went on to the dough, along with pizza sauce, cheese, chopped tomatoes, chopped green olives, and chopped banana peppers.

Then the sides came up ...

We brushed the top with some truffle oil, and sprinkled it with oregano.  Then it went into a 400 F oven for about 15-20 minutes until it was firm to the touch.  We broiled the top for a minute or two to make it a little more golden.

It is so satisfying - mmmm!

We served it with salad for some added veggies.

Another easy dinner that took no time at all.

What did you cook this week?  Do you have any fun weekend plans?

Ten on Tuesday

1)  Recently my dad took Christopher and I out for dinner to Bushwakker.  I had the pulled pork and apple pizza, and had some leftovers for lunch the next day.

2)  Last night I did some breakfast prep for the freezer.  I made a couple loaves of bread, which we use for toast, and then some buttermilk waffles, which are great popped right in the toaster from the freezer.

3)  We recently threw together a shrimp, noodle curry.

4)  Other recent eats include beef burritos, and ribs with roasted potatoes and corn salad:

5)  We had a real old-school dinner tonight - breaded pork cutlets, mashed potatoes and creamed corn.

6)  We're doing a February challenge to get rid of stuff.  You start on February 1st, and get rid of one thing. Then on the 2nd, two things, and so on, until the 29th, when you get rid of 29 things.  By the end of the month it's 435 things!  We aren't doing it day by day, just aiming for the 435 by the end of the month.  We spent about 1 hour purging things on a Sunday afternoon, and easily tossed 125 items.  We'll choose another day soon and try for the rest of it.  We should have been counting a few months ago, when we got rid of at least 500 things!  It feels so good to rid ourselves of junk - nik naks we don't display regularly, books we'll most likely never read again, clothing we never wear, kitchen gadgets that never get used, etc. etc..  If we forgot we had something, or it's been in a cupboard untouched for the past year, it goes into either a toss or donate pile.  It sounds like a lot of things, but our house isn't cluttered at all, and it's small, and yet we still managed to get rid of so much. 

7)  We recently started watching Love on Netflix, and Vinyl on TV.  We're liking Love, and are going to give Vinyl a couple more episodes before we decide what we think of it.  Are you watching either of these shows?

8)  Our "paper" anniversary gift arrived.  We got some of the lyrics from our wedding song custom framed at Michaels.  We love the way it turned out.  It's a lot bigger (longer) than the picture lets on ...

9)  We don't buy chips regularly, but the darn Lays: Do us a Flavour contest gets us every time.  We are suckers for trying new foods, and we always want to participate and vote for our favourite.  We bought these two so far:

We had a few out of the Bacon Mac & Cheese bag, and found them boring.  They taste similar to other flavours we've had before.

10)  I had a wonderful week off last week, relaxed, and got to catch up with a bunch of different gal pals over breakfasts, coffee, etc.. 

Annnnnnd, next month Christopher and I are headed to New Orleans for a week vacation!  Ya'll know what we'll be doing there ...


Getting fat.

How's your week going so far?  What's going on in your world?

Dinner Guests: Family

Yesterday morning I met up with some girlfriends, Alex, and Carrie for breakfast.  After breakfast, I came home and started getting stuff ready for dinner.  We had Christopher's parents over for dinner last night.

We started with smoked salmon, cream cheese and paratha (middle eastern flatbread):

And rosemary asiago:

Then we had French fries (tossed in truffle oil, truffle salt, salt, and pepper):

The main course was a shrimp/chicken/sausage jambalaya, with a corn salad, and a Greek salad:

Dessert was a chocolate, peanut butter, banana cream pie:

It was a nice way to spend a Friday evening!

How's your weekend going so far?  Anything exciting going on?

Long Weekend of Love: Part 3

Monday was a holiday in Saskatchewan, Family Day.  There may only be two of us, but we are still a family.  A little family.  A happy family.

We started our day with eggs benedict.

Not a bad way to start a Monday!

This breakfast kept us pretty full well into the afternoon.  Mid-afternoon my sweetie made me up some of his perfect French fries.

We had these on Saturday, and then again on Monday.  What can I say?  I'm an addict.  When you have a husband who tells you he'll make you fries anytime you want, you tend to eat a lot of fries #hungrygirlproblems.

For the last meal of our long weekend of love, we made a surf and turf dinner.  We had lamb chops with a red wine reduction, scallops, and pink mashed potatoes (made with potato, beet, dill and brie).

We had a pretty great long-weekend ... and now ... I'm on holidays for the rest of the week!

Was Monday a holiday for you?  If so, how did you spend it?

Long Weekend of Love: Part 2

On Valentine's day we headed out to Flip for breakfast.  This is one of our favourite restaurants in town, and it didn't disappoint. 

I had the 5 a.m. salad, and Christopher had the dirty rice etoufee.

For dinner on Valentine's evening, we made pan seared salmon with wild rice in a coconut curry broth.  It was perfect in every way.  We followed this recipe.

We'll be making this again ... soon.

How was your Valentine's day?  What did you do?

Long Weekend of Love: Part 1

On Saturday morning, the morning of our anniversary, we made some pink pancakes for breakfast.

Later in the day we had homemade french fries as a snack.

In the late afternoon we got dressed up in our wedding clothes, and headed out on the town.  Our first stop was at Malt City for a beverage.

We thought that this place was absolutely gorgeous, and we loved all the huge windows. 

The only thing we weren't fans of were the TVs.  The location is so beautiful, and the TVs seem so sports-bar-y. 

Next, we checked out the newly renovated lounge in the Hotel Saskatchewan. 

At 7:00 we headed to Crave for dinner.  Our table wasn't ready, but the server said she had a table right in front of the fire place if we wanted that.  Ummmm, yes!  This was the exact location where we said our vows one year prior.  We couldn't believe our luck.

It was pretty surreal eating dinner in the exact spot where we said our vows, and it brought back so many memories.

We started with the beef carpaccio and lobster bisque. 

We shared a pork dish, and seared tuna with gnocchi.

For dessert, we had creme brulee.

It was a delicious dinner at one of our favourite restaurants.

Our first anniversary could not have been more perfect.

After dinner we went and did private karaoke for two, haha!  It was the same thing we did after our wedding, and we ended up in the same karaoke room, with the same guy working.

How was your Saturday?  What did you do?

If you're married, what did you do for your first anniversary?