Weekend Recap

On Friday evening Christopher's brother and his wife took us out for a belated birthday dinner.  We went for all-you-can-eat sushi to Miso Ya.

Christopher and Steve are the two funniest people I've ever met in my life, so we had loads of laughs at dinner, and a wonderful time catching up.

The next morning we were up pretty early, got ready, and then stopped for a quick breakfast at Subway.

After our breakfast subs, we grabbed coffees to-go from Naked Bean, and hit the highway to Saskatoon to spend time with my mom.

My sister, Riley, and our new nephew were also in Saskatoon this past weekend.  We visited with them too, snuggled our nephew, and also went out for a late dinner with them on Saturday evening.

For dinner we met up at Number 1 Noodle House.

Their wonton soup is so good, as is the five-spice beef soup with hand-cut noodles.

Christopher had a soup with pork and pickled cabbage; it was great!

Once back at the hotel it was straight to bed for us, as we had an early morning ahead.

On Sunday morning after breakfast, we spent more time with my mom, and my sister et al. too.

It was quite a busy weekend with a lot of visiting, which was really fun, but we were wiped by the time we got home on Sunday.

After getting groceries, dinner was a big salad topped with chicken.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?

Happy Friday!

Well, I blinked and this week flew by.  Last weekend we had a couple delicious breakfasts including a fritatta with bacon:

And buttermilk waffles with bacon:

There were some extra waffles, so I froze those and had them a couple times for breakfast in the week.

Last Saturday we checked out a new shop in town called Takeaway Gourmet.  It carries a variety of cheeses that you can't get anywhere else in town, as well as local goodies, and bagels brought in from Montreal. 

Christopher was SO excited when he saw epoisse cheese. 

He had recently looked up "stinkiest cheese in the world," as he is in to that sort of thing, and he came across epoisse cheese.  He didn't think we'd ever be able to get it in town, but it turns out Takeaway Gourmet brings it in occasionally. 

The smell is not good; it's horrible.  It's reminiscent of nail polish remover - a strong, strong, acetone smell.  And, it tastes the way it smells.  But it's not horrible tasting.  Weird, I know. 

Anyway, it's better than blue cheese, the texture is similar to brie, and that's about as well as I can describe it. Haha, you'll have to try it for yourself if you are into stinky cheeses.

We also got some yummy margot cheese:

And Montreal bagels:

We'll definitely be back to Takeaway Gourmet, and we were impressed with the excellent service.

On Monday evening Christopher raked up a lot of leaves; the picture below is not even close to all of them.  He got them done just in time, as we got dumped on with snow on Wednesday.

It must be hibernation-mode time, as I have been super hungry lately.  We made a really easy and tasty new dinner this week - chicken breasts with mustard cream sauce.

Last night we had big smoothies for dinner, with banana, blueberries, spinach, chia seeds, cocoa, fermented green powder, and coconut water.

This evening we spent time with family, and we'll be doing the same for the rest of the weekend.

What are you up to this weekend?  Do you like stinky cheeses?

Happy Halloween!

After work today we got ready for the trick-or-treaters.

Some kids said, "your house smells like cinnamon buns!" Haha, the pumpkin candles are adding a nice glow to the house, and they'll have to do since we didn't bother carving pumpkins.

We snacked on cheese and crackers while waiting for the kids to arrive.

It's our tradition to order in on Halloween.  We usually order Pizza Hut, but we felt like Chinese food this evening.

There are a lot of leftovers, so we should have lunch for the next couple of days.  I think we order in Chinese food maybe once a year, so it's a nice treat when we do have it.

We didn't dress up this evening, but we got dressed up on the weekend, and went out with some friends to a Halloween event at The Artful Dodger.

  

My friend Jeff had the creepiest costume - eeeeeep!

Christopher's band was playing, along with three other bands, but unfortunately the event as a whole was terrible (poor organization, technical difficulties, disjointed) ...

His band played a great set, but since they were headlining at about 1:00 a.m., not many people were there to see them 😞

They had fun anyway!

Well, we've had 20 kids show up for treats so far tonight, but I'm thinking most are done for the evening.  It doesn't help that the city has had the street lights out on our block for weeks now; it's so dark!

Did you dress up at all today?  How many trick-or-treaters did you get?

Thursday Things

It's almost Halloween!  How!!???  I don't feel ready, although I guess there isn't much we have to do, as we have the goodies for the trick-or-treating kids already.  I tried to find a good costume, but the junk they sell in the stores here is thrown together about four-hundred times more poorly than Urban Planet clothing ... and that's bad.  I can't justify spending $80 on a costume, when our Costco garbage bags are more durable. 

That being said, it looks like Christopher will be wearing his trusty skeleton costume, and I too will be wearing something we already have.  His band is playing on Saturday night, so we're dressing up for that.

In the spirit of the season I made pumpkin pie oatmeal a couple of mornings recently:

Other recent eats have included a simple pizza, with leftover meat from Christopher's birthday sandwiches:

Smoked meat sandwiches, with sauerkraut, mustard and mayo:

And then a poutine with the leftover smoked meat:

On the weekend Christopher made breakfast both days:

And then on Sunday we cooked up a turkey, which we ate throughout the week for lunches and dinner.

Last night we had planned on eating turkey, but it was gone already, so we had nachos for dinner.

Okay, and tonight we had another smoked meat poutine 😆😝😜 #notourfault #someoneatealltheturkey #iblamethehubby #weneedgroceries 

We have a busy weekend ahead, and I am pretty sure we don't have a completely free weekend from now until the new year! 

Do you have any plans for the upcoming weekend?  Do you have Halloween candy for the kids yet (if you hand out candy)?  Are you dressing up at all over the next few days?

Snacky Evening with Friends

On Saturday we had two other couples over for a snacky evening. 

The day was spent preparing various goodies:

I made cupcakes, cookies, and a loaf of focaccia bread:

We marinated char siu pork for two days, and then grilled it and cooled it:

I opened this new condiment we found in Saskatoon recently:

And we did a bunch of other little things before our pals arrived at 7:00 p.m.

When Matt, Alissa, Fanta and Keith arrived, we started with a cheese board/ platter.

Next up we used the char siu pork in fresh rolls, and made a coconut milk-based peanut sauce for dipping.

The next snack was a beet perogy, with some sour cream and sriracha.

After the perogy we fried some cornmeal-crusted shrimp:

And then used those in shrimp po boys:

We moved down into the basement for a while and listened to vinyls, and then had super crispy chicken wings.

Finally we had some sweet snacks - double chocolate merlot cookies:

And pumpkin cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream:

What a wonderful evening with these lovely friends 💜

I have actually known Matt (on the far left) for 20 years!  His wife Alissa and I hit it off as soon as he started dating her many, many years ago; I liked her right away.  When they got married (such a fun wedding) I got to add a personal touch to their wedding by making cake pops - mmm!  I met Fanta through Alissa quite a while back, but didn't know her too well.  When Christopher and I were at Matt and Alissa's home last summer we got to chat with Fanta and her newer boyfriend Keith (now husband), and really enjoyed their company.  Since last summer we have gotten together with these couples quite a few times, and we always have a lot of laughs.  

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  

How is your week going so far?