Early Birthday Celebration

Last night Christopher's parents had us over for a fabulous dinner.  It was an early birthday celebration since both he and I have birthdays coming up this week.

We started with this gorgeous spread:

The cheeses, meats, olives, fruit, breads, and nuts, paired really well together, and tasted great.  We love snacky foods like this.

After catching up over snacks in the living room, we moved into the kitchen for spanikopita.

My mother-in-law's spanikopita is perfection.  I only had a small piece because I knew there was more food to come, but lucky for me she sent us home with some.

The main course was leg of lamb with mint sauce, gnocchi with peas, and Greek salad.

My father-in-law makes beautifully soft gnocchi.

Dessert was lemon gelato, and chocolate zucchini cake with a cream cheese icing.

Everything they served up in this feast was homemade, from the wine to the gelato.  Wow!

This wonderful meal and the quality time together would have been gift enough, but they also spoiled us with loads of goodies, including this one gift that we are really excited to set up:



What a nice way to kick off the weekend!  We're feeling very grateful.

What are you up to this weekend?
Do you grow any herbs in your house?

Thanksgiving Long-Weekend

We didn't do the big turkey dinner this Thanksgiving, but that's totally okay, because we got to spend some quality time with my mom 💙

On Saturday morning we stopped at Subway for a quick breakfast, and then grabbed coffees from Naked Bean before heading out on the highway to Saskatoon.

As soon as we arrived at my mom's care home we saw that her glasses were broken (a lens had popped out and we had to look around for it; apparently it had been popping out a lot).  Before sitting down to visit we headed to the mall to get her glasses fixed.  We had to wait a bit, so we hit a couple stores, and got a little piece of fudge from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Shout out to Lensmatic Optical for telling us there was no charge when we went to pick up the fixed glasses!  We'll remember that wonderful service in the future.  They said they fixed them up so it shouldn't pop out again.

After that it was back to my mom's to visit for the day.

Dinner was at Mi Casa:

We shared a tamal and a pupusa to start:

Then we shared the yuka frita, and chile rellano for our mains:

We were totally wiped, so we hit the hay early, but not before having a little dessert in the hotel.

We brought my mom breakfast on Sunday morning and spent the day with her again.  Later in the day we ran out to pick up some more food for her, and grabbed a quick bite ourselves at Samosa King.

A samosa each, and a donair to share - delicious!

By the time we left my mom's place that evening most restaurants we could think of were closed, and we were too tired to search for somewhere, so we just grabbed Extreme Pita to go, and took it back to our hotel room.  I had a chicken salad, and Christopher got a falafel pita.

On Monday morning we brought my mom breakfast again, and spent time with her until we had to head back home in the mid-afternoon.

We really enjoyed our time with her, and made sure she got a couple pieces of pumpkin pie this weekend, because it's her very favourite.  My emotions got to me a lot on Sunday, when my mom was having a particularly rough day.  It is really hard to watch her struggling, frustrated, and unable to clearly express what is upsetting her.  Stress exasperates her MS, causes her to slur her words, lose dexterity, and makes it almost seem like she has had a stroke.  I felt very thankful and blessed when Christopher stepped in to feed her, and help her when I needed a little break.  It's extremely emotionally draining and heartbreaking when she is having a difficult day.  Thankfully she was doing much better on Monday.  With this disease it can be like night and day from one day to the next.  My mom being sick has taught me to really put things into perspective over the years, and to think about what truly matters, and what doesn't matter even a little bit.  Having a big feast on Thanksgiving, although nice when it happens, is something that really doesn't matter.  I'd take more time with my mom over that any day ... 

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  If you were celebrating Thanksgiving, how did you celebrate?  

Happy Friday

The snow is still blanketing the ground, and it's making it feel very winter-like around here already. 

Since Christopher leaves before me in the mornings, I always curl up on the couch with a blanket and my breakfast.  It's the only meal I eat on the couch (and on weekends I eat breakfast at the table).  My morning consists of a cozy blanket, YouTube, and breakfast, which has looked very similar to this all week:

Each day I had a smoothie to get at least four servings of fruit/veggies, as well as either a grapefruit or apple on the side (PB or almond butter on the apple), and a couple cups of coffee.

This September I decided to push my wake-up time back about 30-45 minutes, so I now have a good hour to relax, eat slowly, and ease into my morning.  I take my time with breakfast, as I am a pretty slow eater, and don't like rushing.

I've been coming home from work pretty hungry after work the past little while; that always happens to me when it starts to get cold out.  Hibernation mode!  I made a white bean hummus on Wednesday, which was so good with chopped vegetables.

We had that as a snack while making dinner, which was crispy fried tofu, sweet potato, and miso-glazed roasted broccoli/mushrooms.

On Thursday night we made tempeh sandwiches on sourdough, with Greek salad.  This was really easy to throw together before heading out to our Spanish class.

Tonight we had a brown rice and vegetable mixture, with turkey meatballs and chimichurri.

I also tossed together a Saskatoon berry galette with some leftover pie dough that I had in the freezer.

A bit of coconut sugar sprinkled on top ...

I'm off to grab this from the oven!  A wedge of galette with a scoop of ice-cream will make a nice dessert.

What do you have planned for this weekend?

Where do you eat your breakfast?  Table?  Couch?  Bed?  At work?

Plants

Yesterday morning we woke up to this ...

And then we got more today.  Laaaaaaaaaame. 

See the potted plant on our front step?  We weren't ready for this, and still haven't put away our lawn furniture, covered our air conditioner, or put our potted plants into the garage.

The majority of the leaves in our yard haven't even fallen yet, and are still green! 

Speaking of green, we've been getting loads of greens in over the past week, having numerous plant-based meals.  The other evening we had salad and a green juice for dinner.  Most mornings lately I've been enjoying a grapefruit, and a smoothie with banana, spinach, blackberries, coconut water, and coconut kefir.

Tonight we had broccoli balls (made with chickpeas and veggies), chimichurri sauce, potato, and salad.  I feel my best when I load up on plants, so we're really making an effort to get tonnes of them into our meals.

Last night we took my dad our for dinner to Swiss Chalet.  I got the quarter chicken with some veggies and a potato on the side (and two dipping sauces, because they are my fave).

It was way too much food, and I left a good portion behind, but it was satisfying and delicious.

This month is off to a snowy, but great start, and I am looking forward to what the rest of the month will bring.

Is it snowing where you are?  How are you getting your fruits and veggies in?  Have you cleaned up your yard for winter?

Seven on Sunday

1)  I can't believe it's the last day of September already!  I am happy we're heading into October, and am looking forward to what this month will bring.  Yesterday we caught our nephew's last football game for the year, and then went out with friends to Bushwakker for dinner.  I had the spinach salad with chicken, and it was excellent, actually probably the best thing I've had off of the menu.

After dinner we went to our friend Tyler's to hang out for the evening, and had a really fun time. 

2)  Check out this lip balm that Christopher bought:

It smells like fresh-cut cilantro, so I really can't get enough.  For some people I am sure this would be kiss repellent, but not in this house 🤣

3)  We've gotten back into juicing lately.  The other night we had sautèed veggies with fish, and a potent green juice (celery, cucumber, pineapple, apple, spinach, lemon and ginger).

4)  We usually go to the grocery store near our house, but sometimes we make a trip to Dad's Organic Market to see what new and interesting products they have.  We bought some organic tortilla shells, salsa, and ground beef to make tacos:

We also bought these chips:

And some penne and sauce:

The noodles are made with only two ingredients, organic sorghum flour, and organic purple carrot.  They are slightly grittier than regular pasta, but I thought they were pretty good.  Sorghum is quite high in protein and fibre, and is unrelated to wheat, so it's safe for gluten-free diets.

We had the pasta and sauce with chicken meatballs for an easy dinner last week:

The noodles hold their purple colour, which was nice.

5)  Today I met up with my friend Bonnie (who moved to BC a few years ago) for lunch.  We went to Table10, which was delicious.  It was so nice to catch up with her.

6)  Christopher and I were thinking earlier this year that it would be fun to take a class together, so we registered for Spanish.  We started our class last week, and it should be a fun learning experience together.

I took a couple of Spanish classes in University, but could definitely use the refresher.

7)  This winter we're spending a week in Havana, so the Spanish will come in handy.  We're not staying at a resort, and are really looking forward to exploring the beautiful city.

How was your weekend?  Do you have any trips coming up?

Cooking Slump

I've been in one of those moods where I don't really know what I want to eat, and am not itching to cook (or really even eat) as much as usual.  I tend to get like this for a short time, at least a couple times a year.  Christopher is feeling the same way, so we've been eating quite simply, and nothing too exciting.  We haven't been tempted to go out to eat at all, or order in, so I guess that's good!

A fruit-loaded smoothie for breakfast on Sunday

Toast with Cheese Whiz (I love it, and am not ashamed to admit it), a banana, and apple sauce today:

Dinners have been things I remember having growing up, such as Shake and Bake chicken:

On the side - rice with creamed corn.

Sweet and sour meatballs with rice:

Breaded pork cutlets with mashed potatoes and creamed corn (apple sauce to dip the cutlet in):

It was really good; we need to eat this more often!

And fish with brown rice and veggies:

We've also been eating a lot of salads for meals:

And this plate of roasted sweet potato, roasted broccoli, and a veggie-burger patty with cheese:

Our fridge is starting to look pretty bare; maybe we'll get some inspiration or motivation to cook something interesting before we head to the grocery store next.  But, maybe we won't. 

Our weekend was super low-key; we stayed in our jammies and watched movies.  It was the perfect remedy for a dreary weekend. 

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  Have you been inspired to cook lately, or are you feeling the cooking slump too?  What do you cook when you just don't know what you want to eat? (We seem to just pick a meat/starch/veg when we're stuck).