Five on Friday

1)  I was on holidays this week, and it was nice to catch up with some of my peeps that were also off.  I met up with my sister and nephew for breakfast one day.  We went to Breakfast Bistro, which moved locations a few months ago.  The restaurant is really nice, and the menu has a lot of selection, however none of us were overly impressed with our meal.

Sriracha benny

My nephew turned 10 earlier this month - can't believe it!

Some exciting news about my sister ... she's expecting!  Christopher and I will have another little nephew sometime around the end of June 💗

After breakfast we all went to my brother and sister in law's place to visit our niece Remi, who is growing so fast.  I got to snuggle a few other friends' babies this week too - lucky me!

2)  I baked a banana, chocolate chunk cake this week using this recipe.

The recipe says to bake it for 30-35 minutes.  I took it out at 25 minutes, but I think it should have come out even earlier.

3)  It was my friend Alaina's birthday on Wednesday, so we met up for a visit, a walk, and some lunch.  We ate at Lancaster, where I had soup. 

4)  The people at Starbucks sent me a surprise gift card recently to try out their new Blonde Espresso.  The Blonde Espresso is more smooth and sweet than the regular Espresso Roast, and pairs better with certain flavoured beverages off of the menu (e.g. fruit flavors), than the Espresso Roast.  It was also created to work especially well in iced drinks.  I tried it this week in both a flat white, and an almond vanilla iced latte.

It's definitely more mild than the Espresso Roast, and although I didn't try it with a fruity drink (I'm not one for fruity beverages), I could see it pairing well with those flavours. 

Thanks for the bevvies Starbucks!  It's always nice to pick up a coffee to-go when I'm on holidays and running around town, or trying to power through some cleaning etc. at home.

5)  We made a simple veggie pizza for dinner one evening this week, with carbonara sauce as a base.

Other toppings included loads of black olives, red onion, mushrooms, and a three-cheese blend.

Have you tried the new Blonde Espresso at Starbucks?

What are you up to this weekend?

Family Day Weekend

Happy long weekend friends!  We're taking it easy this weekend, and doing absolutely nothing.  We had an eventful week, with our anniversary on Monday and Valentine's day on Tuesday. 

Since we went out for our anniversary, we just stayed in on Valentine's evening and snacked for supper.

It was a delicious spread of meats, cheeses, smoked oysters, olive tapenade, and my favourite chocolates ever, Bernard Callebaut chocolates.

Because this meal was lacking in vegetables, we made up for it by having a giant roasted vegetable salad for dinner on Wednesday, and a veggie-loaded shrimp curry on Thursday.

The curry was so good, that we just had to make another one on Friday evening, but with the addition of noodles, and topped with trout.  We don't have an actual curry recipe, instead we just throw it together each time.

We always start with ginger, onions, garlic and other veggies cooked up in coconut oil and curry paste, then add a bit of turmeric, curry powder, and pepper.  We have discovered that adding a dash or two of  soy sauce and about a tsp of fish sauce really adds to the flavour and umami of the dish.  Once the veggies are 1/2-3/4 cooked, we add a splash of white wine to de-glaze the pan, then we add coconut milk, bring it to a boil, and let it simmer until veggies are softened to our liking.  Then we'll taste and add a bit more curry powder, and a bunch of fresh lime juice.

This meal was fantastic, and didn't take too long to make.

Other eats this weekend have included sweet potato fries:

Nachos:

And salmon with brussels:

Today is Family day in Saskatchewan, so we have the day off; I actually have the whole week off - yay for holidays!  We started a turkey/duck stock this morning, and will let that simmer all day:

We started the morning with a green drink and some fresh coconut:

A few hours later we had a skillet brunch:

And the rest of this beautiful day is still ahead ... 

What are you up to this weekend?  Is it a long weekend for you?

Weekend Things

On Friday evening we headed out on the highway to go see my mom in Saskatoon.  Due to schedule changes, we no longer get out of the city as early as we used to when heading to Saskatoon, and so by the time we arrive, we're usually completely wiped.  It doesn't help with it being winter and getting dark so early.  We don't like going out to eat when we arrive, since we're usually almost ready for bed, so we just ordered up to our hotel room.  Hotel room picnics are sort of our thing anyway ;-)

Christopher had the pizza, and I had the chicken cobb salad.  We shared some peanut butter pretzel cheesecake for dessert.

On Saturday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast at Poached, before going to spend the day with my mom.  We've been to this restaurant numerous times before, but the past few times we haven't been impressed with the service.  I don't know if we'll go back in the future ...

On Saturday evening we had dinner at a Thai restaurant, Keos, then headed back to our room to relax and get to bed early.

We were up early on Sunday, and beat the rush to Grainfields for breakfast.  We usually order our breakfast, and when we're almost done eating, we put in another order to-go and take that to my mom.

On Sunday evening, once back home, we went to Christopher's parents' house for dinner.  They had snacks set out in the living room to start.

After snacking and catching up, we went into the kitchen for a fabulous meal.  We had ribs, Peking duck, Greek salad, and rice.

Yummm!  My in-laws are such good cooks!

I went back for another helping of the salad, and shared a few bites of dessert with Christopher.  Dessert was a homemade, super moist banana cake with cream cheese icing.

What a meal!

It was a busy, wonderful weekend.  This week is flying by already, and we're looking forward to a quiet, long weekend at home in a couple of days.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  

How is your week going so far?  Did you do anything special for Valentine's day?  

(I'll tell you about our V-day in the next post)

Second Anniversary

Two years of being married to the man of my dreams, and life just keeps getting better.  I have such a crush on this guy - it feels pretty incredible that we get to spend our lives together, and keep growing more and more in love each day.

Our first anniversary fell on a Saturday, which was nice because we had the day to relax, and were able to go out on the town feeling refreshed.  We worked today (as we did on our wedding day), but we still wanted to go out to celebrate, so we donned our wedding clothes (which we've decided will be tradition for each anniversary), and headed out to our favourite restaurant in town, Flip.  The weather today is absolutely gorgeous, and the snow is melting, so it wasn't too bad wearing my sleeveless dress out.

We started with the crispy chicken skin as an appetizer.

Yes, I know how #fat that sounds is.

Christopher had the soba noodle bowl:

And I had beet risotto with duck confit, goat cheese, arugula, pancetta, and other deliciousness:

It was absolute perfection.

I swear this restaurant can do no wrong.

After dinner we headed home for dessert and snuggles. 

And in true #everydayfoodiecouple fashion, we're going to carry the celebration on through tomorrow, and likely through the upcoming long weekend #celebratelife. 

How was your weekend?  

If you're attached, when is your anniversary?

Over It

I am SO over winter.  This week has been absolutely frigid, with buses cancelled for the third time this year.  I am also over the darkness.  It's dark when I'm eating breakfast, and dark when eating supper.  We've been less motivated to cook than usual, and mostly just want to snuggle up on the couch and do absolutely nothing.  Even getting groceries, which we normally enjoy, has become a chore, just because it's soooo cold.  I swear we were not intended for this climate.

Breakfasts have been very simple, either smoothies, yogurt bowls, or oatmeal.

Lunches have been leftovers, and for dinner we've been craving warming, spicy meals.  We shared a giant plate of borscht perogies for dinner one evening recently.

We had pork, bok choy noodles last night:

Loaded up with sriracha:

Tonight we made dak galbi:

How's your week going?  Are you as cold as we are?

Mexican Evening

On Friday evening we spent some time in the kitchen prepping things for the dinner we'd have on Saturday.  We made soup, marinated a pork loin, and prepared a meat mixture for empanadas.

We cleaned everything up, and got the stuff we prepped into the fridge, and then got a good night's sleep.  On Saturday morning we fueled up with smoked salmon bagels, and then got to work in the kitchen again.

We roasted poblanos ...

Chopped about three bunches of cilantro ...

Worked on a sauce ...

While simmering the soup, and slow-cooking pibil pork ...

And then we got to work on a bunch of crepes ...

We made corn salad, and pico de gallo, and then let the flavours meld together for a few hours.  Finally, we made guacamole, stuffed puff pastry with the empanada mixture, and rolled the crepes with pulled pibil pork and cheese.

Christopher's parents came over at 4:30 p.m., and we enjoyed some pico de gallo, guacamole, meat and cheese in the living room while visiting.

Next we had empanadas with sour cream.

We moved to the table for chicken vegetable, chipotle pepper soup.

Toppings for the soup included avocado, cilantro, sour cream and lime.

The main course was pibil pork stuffed crepes, topped with a poblano pepper sauce, with corn salad, and spiced rice on the side.

Dessert was apple crisp with vanilla ice cream.

We had a wonderful evening hanging out with Christopher's parents.

Today was spent relaxing and eating leftovers.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?