Good Eats & Tuna Poke Bowl Recipe

We've been eating well around here!

Click here for the recipe.

Poutine - homemade fries, gravy, cheese curds, parsley

For Christopher's birthday last week, we made tuna poké bowls.

Tuna Poké Bowls

(for two)

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp grated ginger
2 green onions, chopped
1 chunk of raw, sushi-grade tuna (enough for two), cubed

Combine the above ingredients and refrigerate while making the rice and chopping the ingredients below.

For serving:

Cooked sticky rice (we made two servings)
1 avocado, peeled and chopped
green onion, chopped
cucumber, julienned (or use a food processor)
carrot, julienned
pickled ginger, chopped

Layer the rice, fish, and toppings into a bowl, and pour the extra liquid from the marinade over everything.  Yum!

After getting groceries on Friday evening, we just wanted an easy dinner and some TV shows.  We made spinach with chorizo, roasted asparagus, and a plate of raw veggies.

Weekend breakfasts included pumpkin pancakes one day, and fruit, cheese, and olives another day.

We had a really fun night out on Saturday.  We met up with friends at Cathedral Social Hall for dinner and then walked across the street to do some private karaoke.  The friends all had babysitters, so it was nice to have an adult night out on the town.

Sunday was a relaxing day; we didn't do too much.  I did whip up a pumpkin cream pie, dinner buns, and cranberry sauce, and we put a cook-from-frozen turkey into the oven. None of that took too long though, so we were chilling out in no time.

We never like to cook the whole turkey feast in one day, so we just picked at the turkey and stuffing, and waited until the next day to make the gravy, cheddar jalapeno mashed potatoes, and veggies.

This was a nice belated-Thanksgiving meal.

Dessert was pumpkin cream pie:

Today was all about the leftovers 🦃😋

It's been really nice out lately, and Friday is supposed to be 15C!  We should start thinking about Halloween, but it's just not feeling like that time yet, and that's fine with me.  The leaves in our yard haven't fallen yet and are still green!

How was your weekend?  How is your week going so far?  

Have you started thinking about Halloween (costumes, candy, etc.)?

Last Week of Holidays & Udon Noodle Recipe

I went back to work on Monday, which went well.  It doesn't take long to get back into the swing of things, and I feel prepared and excited for the new school year. 

Buuuuuut the week before I made the most of my last week of holidays.  I spent plenty of time outside and went for a walk around the lake each day.

One day I met up with my sister and nephew for lunch at Roots.

This was our first time visiting this restaurant, and we were impressed with the food.  The menu was big and had many things that sounded good, so I am sure we'll be back.  I want to try their breakfast next time.

Giovanni had the spicy shrimp tacos and thought they were great, and my sweet potato fries were perfect.

We stopped for a coffee at Perk & Taps after lunch.

Another day I met up with Christopher for lunch at Western Pizza.

In the afternoons I usually sat outside with iced tea, Spitz, and a book.

We BBQd bison sausage with mushrooms and potato one evening:

The leftovers were good for breakfast the next day:

I am feeling non-traditional breakfasts lately.

Another evening we had Korean chicken with halloumi stuffed bell pepper:

On cooler evenings we ate beetnicks and beet risotto:

On the Friday night we had Chinese food at Christopher's parents' house:

Then we went back there the next day for an early birthday celebration for our niece Charlotte.

Last Sunday I had my friend Fanta's baby shower which was fun!

Later in the day, we started to get some food ready for the week.  We made coconut braised chickpeas with spinach and roasted sweet potatoes for my breakfasts:

Enough for a few days, and SO filling.

And Udon pork noodles for our lunches:

Udon Pork Noodles

Ingredients:

- 1-2 T sesame oil
- 3 T ginger, minced (or more to taste)
- 4 cloves garlic, minced (or more to taste)
- 1 pkg. ground pork (about 1 lb.)
- 2-3 cups bok choy, thinly sliced
- 4 packages udon noodles
- sriracha to serve

Sauce:

- 4 T soy sauce
- 4 T sesame oil
- 4 T brown sugar
- 2 T oyster sauce
- 2 T sake or white cooking wine
- pepper to taste
- 2 T cornstarch dissolved in about 1/4 cup cold water

Heat sesame oil in a wok over medium.  Add half of the garlic and ginger, and cook for a minute.  Add the pork, and cook until done.  Drain some fat if it's fatty.  Add the bok choy, and rest of the garlic and ginger, and cook for a few minutes. 

 * Meanwhile, mix up the sauce, combining everything except the cornstarch slurry. 

Add the sauce and noodles to the wok, separating the noodles with your hands as you add them.  Stir and cook a few minutes, until the noodles are softened.  Add the slurry, and cook another couple minutes.  Serve with loads of sriracha.  Reheats really well.

How was your week?  

What are you up to this Labour Day long weekend?

We're going out on the town tonight!

Sweet Summer

This summer has been full of simple pleasures, and I can't wait to see what else the rest of summer will bring.

Last week we walked over to our friends' house for a casual Monday evening visit, and some snacks on their deck.

It was so nice to spend time with Matt and Alissa, and the eats were delicious.  We love having friends so close.

Today is our niece Elizabeth's birthday.  We celebrated with family on the weekend.

Another niece, Remi, had a birthday yesterday, and we'll be celebrating with family tomorrow.  Since many of the little people in our lives have summer birthdays, it means we get a lot of family time in the summer, which is really nice.

Another sweet thing about this summer was finding these guys on the patio one morning:

Christopher's parents gave us some rhubarb, which we froze for use at a later date, and these Juliet cherries from their yard.  I had never worked with these before, and couldn't find any recipes for this type of cherry, but I love a challenge.  The first thing I made was a galette.

I had about 3/4 of a cup of cherries left, so I thought I'd make BBQ sauce with them.  We had picked up wild boar ribs from the farmer's market, and I think fruit pairs well with pork, so I went with it. 

This is the recipe I came up with:

Juliet Cherry BBQ Sauce

- 3/4 cup pitted Juliet cherries
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 2 T Worcestershire sauce
- 2 T brown sugar
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- dash or two hot sauce
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp mustard powder
- a few dashes of liquid smoke

Blend the cherries until smooth.  Combine them with the rest of the ingredients.  Simmer for a minute or two, then cool.

It tasted great on the ribs!

Other tasty summery eats have included farmer's market peas and carrots:

And a tomato burrata salad:

One of the sweetest days of all was this past Saturday.  We sat in the yard all afternoon and evening.  We read, visited, had a fire, made s'mores, and soaked in the most beautiful day.  I hope for a few more days like that before summer is over.

What is something "summery" that you did recently?

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf

I've got a great recipe for you!  I recently had some canned pumpkin to use up, so I whipped up a loaf with it, and it turned out so well that I made another loaf a couple days later.

It is easy to make, very moist, and super flavourful. 

For the spice in it I used 1.5 tsp of my homemade gingerbread spice:

It just takes minutes to throw together and is great to have on hand, but you don't have to use this.  The recipe for it is from Food Network (2 T each ground ginger and cinnamon, 2 tsp ground allspice, 1/2 tsp each ground nutmeg and finely ground pepper and 1/4 tsp ground cloves), and they also have numerous different recipes that you can make calling for this spice mixture both here and here.

If you don't want to make the spice mixture, you can just use pumpkin pie spice instead, or 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pie mixture)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 tsp gingerbread spice (or pumpkin pie spice, or 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice)
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Pre heat the oven to 350 F and spray or grease a loaf pan.  Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.  In a separate bowl, carefully stir together the pumpkin, oil, egg, water, and spice.  Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed; don't over mix.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Pour into a greased loaf pan.  Bake 50-60 minutes (test with a wooden skewer/toothpick). 

This is a recipe I'll be making again and again.  I actually don't make a lot of loaves, and didn't really have any stand-by loaf recipes that I swear by ... but now I do!

Do you make loaves?  What is your go-to?  Banana?  Lemon poppy seed?  Chocolate zucchini?  Pumpkin?  

Have you done any baking lately?