Last Week's Eats & Halloween

On Monday and Tuesday last week it was really cold!  We warmed up with some hearty eats, including one of our favourite pasta dishes, Linguine with Green Olive Sauce and Zesty Breadcrumbs:

If you like briny flavours (capers, olives) you need to make this dish!

It reheats well the next day, but good luck having any leftover!  Mmm!

We also made a new recipe, Thai Red Curry Chicken Thighs with Zucchini:

 

This was really easy to make, and it hit the spot.  I love zucchini, and you can never go wrong with a Thai curry.

Christopher smoked a couple chunks of salmon outside in the cold, and it smelled incredible in the cool air.  I went outside with him when he was glazing it, just to take in that wood-smoke smell.  We enjoyed some of the salmon one evening with cream cheese, paratha, and fresh dill.

My breakfasts all week mostly looked like this:

The weather warmed up for Halloween, but we only got 13 kids!  We bought way too much candy, so I guess I'll be taking it to work to share.  Our Halloween tradition is to order in pizza, so we called for Dominos and got comfy on the couch, so we could easily hop up to get the door.

We didn't dress up or go out for Halloween this year.  It was very low-key. 

How was your Halloween?  Did you hand out candy?  Take someone out trick-or-treating?  How many kids showed up at your door?  Did you dress up?  Do you order in on Halloween?

The New Pickle is a Bean

I've eaten green beans prepared a lot of different ways, but my favourite would have to be pickled; to be specific, Matt & Steve's The Extreme Bean pickled beans.

Matt & Steve's was founded in 2000 by college roommates.  The products are made with nothing artificial, and all the ingredients are recognizable things, you likely have in your fridge or cupboard:

When the people at Matt & Steve's sent me some of these to try, we busted into the Garlic & Dill ones right away.  I'm not going to lie - they're gone.  I couldn't photograph them because we ate them up too quickly. 

The other bean flavours are Hot & Spicy, and Sweet & Savoury.  They have a really bold flavour, and a lot of crunch, which is really appealing.  These are not soggy green beans!

They would be great as a burger garnish, wrapped in prosciutto, or paired with a sharp cheddar cheese.  Of course, they are also delicious on their own, or as a drink garnish.

My favourite of the products I tried are the B'n Olives.  These are ridiculous; so garlicky, and some of the best olives I've ever had.  They are perfect for a grown up drink garnish.

Also perfect for a grown up drink garnish is the caesar rimmer - yum!

We plan to use the rest of the beans to make different fun hors d'oeuvres ... if we don't devour them all straight out of the jar first ... standing by the fridge ....  Okay, that might have happened. 

If you want to try Matt & Steve's products for yourself, check out their website here.

Do you like pickled products?  

* Full disclosure:  These products were provided to me at no cost for review consideration.  All opinions are my own.