Dinner at the Parents'

On Monday evening Christopher's parents had us over to celebrate our birthdays.  They spoiled us with an amazing dinner, and presents.

The meal started out with my mother-in-law's spanakopita.

It was so flavourful, flaky, and mouth watering.  She sent us home with some of the leftovers, and it made a wonderful lunch for work.

For the main course we had stuffed salmon, which was excellent, asparagus, corn, bread, and Florentine rice with lemon-yogurt sauce.

Everything was super tasty, and I especially loved the rice dish.  I am a sucker for sauces, so anything with a sauce to pour over it, or a dip, is usually my favourite. 

For dessert Christopher's mom served homemade, peanut butter ice cream, along with an apple pie.

Wowzers!  The ice cream texture and consistency were perfect, and it paired really well with the pie.  I suppose I've put peanut butter on apple slices before, so I should have known PB ice cream would taste great with apple pie.

This was a really nice way to start out the work week.

And tonight my dad is taking us out for dinner!  We are feeling pretty fortunate this week.

How is your week going?  Any plans for the weekend coming up?

Do you like PB ice cream?  Have you ever made ice cream yourself?

I only made ice cream as a kid, in this strange bucket thing that I got as a gift (it was all over the Saturday morning toy commercials).  The ice cream was hard as a rock, so I think I made it all of two times before giving up.  My mother-in-law's was way better, and didn't require a silly, gimmicky toy.

Birthday Boy

One of the things I admire most about my husband is his lack of wanting; he is always content, happy, and not in a constant pursuit of acquiring more.  He basically spends nothing on material objects, other than necessities.  The simple things in life make him happy, and he soaks up the joy of everyday moments that many seem to take for granted.

I have never in my life met someone who is more in the moment than he is; stopping to smell the flowers is not a cliche for him, he literally does it all the time.  He has also never experienced the feeling of boredom.  I love the calmness and peace that he radiates, creating a warmth and comfort that is so enjoyable to come home to every day. 

I am truly blessed and thankful to have this man as my husband.

The only objects he really ever acquires are those given to him as gifts, and I have no problem spoiling him (usually with music, sometimes clothes, books, and consumables).

When it came to choosing what he wanted for his birthday dinner today, I had offered to take him out for Indian, to order in Chinese or Thai - he could have picked anything the city has to offer ...

What does he choose?

Sandwiches.  Haha!

Actually, when Christopher was a kid and his wonderful parents let him choose any meal he wanted for his birthday, he often just asked for soup and sandwiches.

So, tonight we celebrated Christopher's birthday with sandwiches.  I got a variety of meats, some cheeses, and other toppings:

We had roasted veggies on the side:

He told me that every day feels "like [his] birthday," and he just wanted to stay in and spend time together, and snuggle with TV after dinner like we usually do.  Talk about melting my heart 😍

Happy 33rd birthday to the man of my dreams!  I can't wait to spend forever and ever with this man 💙

Safe to say, I'm a lucky lady.

Happy birthday Christopher!

I love you more than the whole wide world xo

Our Weekend

We're feelin' all things Fall lately.  It looks very Autumn-y outside, but sure doesn't feel it.  We are supposed to get up to +22 C this week! 

Yesterday morning we made pumpkin pancakes, with bacon.

Later on in the day we shared a smoked meat poutine.

We had a super fun evening last night ... more on that in another post ;-)

This morning we were up early and done eating breakfast by about 8:00 a.m.  Christopher made one of my favourites, a pico de gallo omelette with truffle potatoes. 

This was a perfect birthday breakfast.  He had offered to take me out or to cook breakfast and dinner, whichever I preferred, and I chose to stay in (I know my hermit husband didn't mind that one bit).  Home cooking is better than restaurant food anyway.

After a little snack and TV, we did leave the house for a bit.  We went out to the theater to see The Mountain Between Us.

I turned 35 today, and it was a wonderful day spent with my favourite person.  Christopher spoiled me with breakfast, presents, an afternoon movie date, and he made one of my favourite dinners (bee bim bop) to top it all off.  I'm a lucky wife!

We'll be seeing some family this week, and celebrating Christopher's birthday, so there is a lot going on in the next few days.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?

Friday the 13th

Happy Friday!  Christopher and I celebrate every Friday the 13th, and we decided to start by meeting for lunch today.  We didn't have much time (you know ... work), so we met at Taco Del Mar for a quick lunch:

I had fish tacos, he had a fish burrito, and we shared chips with queso.

After work I came home to these lovelies:

We actually have a bunch of celebrating ahead, and a really fun next few days, as Sunday is my birthday, and Tuesday is Christopher's.

For dinner we had a veggie and seafood feast on our raclette grill.

We buttered up the raclette grill and cooked shrimp, scallops, salmon, asparagus, golden beets, zucchini, portobello mushrooms, and okra.  We had a couple kinds of bread, with bruschetta mixture, and Gruyere and raclette cheeses to broil under the grill.

The fun this weekend is just getting started ...

After dinner we hung out in the kitchen while I whipped up a pumpkin cream pie:

It's as easy as can be, and simply delicious.

Have you made anything with pumpkin yet this fall?  

How are you spending Friday the 13th?

Slow Cooker Beef and Noodles

I made a wonderful new recipe yesterday - creamy slow cooker beef and noodles.

The only real work I had to do was sear a 2lb roast.  To get a good sear on meat, dry it well with paper towel, salt and pepper it, and then put in a pan with oil that has been heated to medium-high.  I seared each side for a couple minutes.

Then I just put the roast in a slow cooker, dumped some onion soup mix, and a couple cans of soup over it, topped it with sliced mushrooms, and let it cook for six hours.

We like saucy dishes, so I added about 1.5 times the mushroom soup and consomme called for in the recipe.



After the six hours were up, I threw in egg noodles, waited another hour, and then topped it off with some 1/2 and 1/2.  Delicious!

The smell in the house was incredible while this was cooking.  We served it over mashed potatoes, because that was what Ally recommended, and it was perfect.  It was like a good, old fashioned farm meal, like something my mom would have made when I was growing up.

This dish is so easy, and we're definitely keeping it around to make again.  Find the recipe here.  Again, if you like saucy dishes, you might want to up the mushroom soup and beef consomme as I did; I don't regret it.  The leftovers were so good for lunch today, and we polished off the rest for dinner tonight.

I don't think I had ever had a beef & noodles dish like this before, but as soon as I saw the recipe, I knew it would be good.  This is a perfect fall dish, as it is warm, comforting, and hearty.

Another tasty meal that we had this week was a roasted veggie salad.  We roasted rutabaga, asparagus, cauliflower, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and just sprinkled those with a bit of Asiago cheese, and some dressing.  Plants for dinner make us happy!

What have you been cooking lately?  Have you ever had beef with noodles?  It's almost the weekend!  Any big plans?