Picnic with Sabra Hummus

July is National Picnic Month, and since it's been so beautiful, and there has been a lack of mosquitoes, we thought it would be fun to head out to the park for an evening picnic.  We found a perfect spot just a few minutes walk from the house:

Our picnic dinner featured Sabra's Roasted Garlic Hummus.

We are huge garlic fans, so we love the big pile of garlic in the middle.  We also love that the ingredient list is very simple.  We used this hummus as the spread for our veggie sandwiches.

We tossed the hummus into the basket to use as a dip for our farmers' market veggies.

An easy picnic dinner:

We also tried Sabra's Supremely Spicy Hummus this week.

We were BBQing burgers, and used this hummus as a creamy, flavorful burger topping.

It has a mayo-like creaminess with a spicy kick.

For more information about Sabra, go to Sabradips.ca, visit @sabracanada on Twitter or Instagram, or check them out on Facebook.

Have you had a picnic yet this summer?  What do you like to pack in your picnic basket?  Do you like hummus? 

 * The Sabra products were provided to me free of charge.

Sandwiches and other Eats

On a warm evening this week we ate dinner outside.  We made sandwiches on French bread, with cheese, bacon, red onion, tomato, kale that we grew, mustard, and horseradish mayo.

Couscous salad and pickles on the side, and watermelon for dessert.

Christopher loves sandwiches, so I made some again today.  When he came home for lunch we had Montreal smoked meat sandwiches on rye bread, with mustard and sauerkraut. 

For breakfast yesterday I made a mushroom, green onion, and cheese omelet.  Bacon and Saskatoon berries rounded out the plate.

This morning I made a breakfast skillet, with roasted veggies (potato, yellow zucchini, red onion), bacon, cheese, arugula, and egg.  As you can see I put loads of pepper on the egg - mmm!

I had coffee, juice, and a bit of berries too.  This breakfast kept me fueled up for a long walk around the lake this morning. 

We tried something new for dinner last night, having a grilled veggie salad.  We threw all the veggies, except the spinach/arugula mixture, on the BBQ, along with chicken breasts.  Once everything was cooked, we assembled the salad, and drizzled it with a very simple, light dressing (sesame ginger balsamic mixed with olive oil).

Have you made any sandwiches lately?  Any fun weekend plans?  Have you had a grilled salad (either like the one above, or perhaps grilled romaine leaves for a caesar salad)?

Summer Weekend

This past weekend was absolutely beautiful, and we soaked it up by being outside a lot.  Once we were home from camping on Friday afternoon, and we had met our adorable new nephew, we went home to make supper.  We were craving vegetables, so we threw veggie skewers on the BBQ, along with portobello mushrooms stuffed with broccoli, green onions and cheese.

Plants for supper - mmm!

On Saturday morning we got up early and went to the farmers' market.

This empanada was our breakfast:

We ran into our niece Remi (well, and her parents 😄) and visited for a few minutes, before carrying on with our shopping.

We stopped at the butcher too, and then dropped the meat and veggies off at home, before heading out again to the grocery store to grab the rest of our week's groceries.

We were home by about 1:30, and enjoying lunch in the backyard.

And that's where we stayed for the rest of the day and evening.  Our afternoon snack was a bowl of shelling peas, which we had snagged at the market that morning.

It took about 15 minutes inside in the evening for us to get prepped for dinner.  I got the potatoes ready, and Christopher made a BBQ sauce.

We cooked ribs low and slow, and sauced them up multiple times throughout their time on the grill.  The potatoes were cooked slowly too, with parsley, green onion, salt, pepper, and a generous amount of butter.

Farmers' market cukes on the side:

When I was little, someone taught me that these little cucumbers are best when first sprinkled with salt and rubbed together like so ...

I do this any time I eat these now, and it always brings back memories of childhood.  Am I the only one who does this, or is it actually a thing?

After making our banana French toast on Sunday, we were back in the yard for another day of sunshine, music and relaxing.  We ate lunch outside again:

For dinner we grilled salmon and golden beets, and had those with a couscous salad:

Have you been eating any of your meals outside?  How was your weekend?  What did you do?

Ten on Tuesday

1)  I made a pie on the weekend, as I know that pie is one of Christopher's favourite desserts.  Caramel and banana cream pie:

Perfect for hungry husbands.  You can find the recipe here.

2)  He worked a bit of overtime on Saturday morning, so we didn't have a sit-down breakfast, but he made this lovely breakfast on Sunday:

3)  Pomegranates aren't in season anymore, so we were happily surprised when we saw some at the grocery store the other day.  My breakfast yesterday:

4)  Have you ever had bacon-wrapped scallops?  Water chestnuts?  What about brussels sprouts?

We tried some brussels wrapped in bacon, and they were great!  We used 1/2 piece of bacon for each, and roasted them for about 30-45 minutes at 350 F.

5)  Yesterday we BBQd pork meatballs, and then whipped up a chimichurri sauce to pour over top of them.  We made Greek pasta salad, and a beet/ radish mixture to have on the side.

6)  The meatballs were an extension of our BBQ weekend.  We grilled pretty much everything we ate on the weekend, including this rib dinner on Saturday night:

One of the only things we didn't grill was this tray of nachos:

7)  I made a creamy spaghetti carbonara for dinner this evening.

I just made it up as I went along, as I usually do with pastas.  Some garlic, some cream, cheese, herbs, bacon, love ...

8)  I have an easy appetizer recipe for you!

Just spread prosciutto with herb and garlic cream cheese.  Wrap this around raw asparagus spears.  Grill on low until it looks tasty, or toss in a 350 F oven for about 30 minutes.

9)  Christopher's band Lunar Lander Dance Commander's debut EP is out!  They are having the CD release party this weekend, which will be a great time.  Until then, I'm pretty pumped to spin this in my car:

The CD has five songs, as well as a dance remix of one of the songs. 

10)  Creative outlets are a wonderful thing.  My brother-in-law Steve (Christopher's brother) recently started a blog ... not about food like me ... but about vaping!  Although I've never vaped, and know nothing about it, I really enjoy reading his posts.  He had smoked for many years, but vaping helped him quit, and I think it's cool that he found a niche in the blogging world where he can share reviews, etc. with others.  If you vape, or know someone who might be interested, you can check out his blog here.

How is your week going so far?  Have you ever had bacon-wrapped brussels sprouts?  Do you have a blog?  If so, what do you write about?  If not, have you ever considered starting one about something you're interested in?  What are you grilling these days?