Five on Friday

1)  We found some Montreal smoked meat at our corner grocery store.  In addition to the smoked meat poutine that we had the other day, we also had to have smoked meat sandwiches, loaded with mustard.

On the side ... perfect homemade fries.

2)  We are absolutely hooked on pho.  I'm a soup fanatic as it is, but this stuff is just over. the. top.  We are totally making homemade pho soon.

3)  My sweetheart makes the best breakfasts.

4)  But, when he's gone to work super early during the week, I'm on my own to make breakfast.  This week, I've been on the oatmeal (with toppings of course).

5)  Last night we had meatballs and spiced, veggie quinoa for dinner; it was sooooo good! 

What are your Friday things?

What are you up to this weekend?

Frozen

We are in a deep freeze.  It has been -40 ish the past couple of days - awful.  To warm up we had homemade borscht for supper last night.

For dinner tonight I've whipped up potato soup with dumplings, and I have biscuits all ready for the oven.

We've also been having a lot of cozy evenings inside, watching the new (to us) series we're hooked on, Lost.  It's definitely weird, but it keeps us wanting more.  Although, I seriously cannot stand Jack.  There is nothing likable about that guy - ugh!

What's on the menu in your house tonight?

Did you watch Lost when it was on TV?  What did you think of it?

Weekend Eats

January has started off rather cold ... but it's fine by us, we don't plan to leave the house in January at all, other than for work and to feed the 'rents cats/shovel their driveway when they are away.  This weekend, our first of many cozy weekends inside this month, has started out rather delicious ... and it's only half over.

We've had hearty spaghetti and meat sauce, which is one of my all-time favourite dishes.  It's even better with garlic bread, and red wine.

This morning Christopher made some pico de gallo, while I cooked the bacon and scrambled eggs, for a perfect little breakfast.

Our lunch was inspired by our Montreal travels - smoked meat poutine (with homemade fries of course)!

Dinner this evening was stir fry, loaded with kimchi. 

We have some tasty plans for tomorrow too!

What are you up to this weekend?

New Years Day and Stuff

On New Years Day we were up at about 4:30 a.m. to drive some peeps to the airport, then it was back to bed until about 11:00 a.m..  We promptly ate a piece of KFC chicken, because we figured that was a good way to start a 2015.  Next up, we made a more proper breakfast.

The rest of the day was spent lounging around watching TV and movies.  For dinner we had cheese fondue.

It was a super satisfying dinner, and fun to eat too!

Today is my last day of holidays, but now it's the weekend - yay!  I've been off this week, and have kept busy doing stuff around the house, running errands, and making sure to have lunch ready for the little guy when he came home at noon.

Today I went to Chapters to spend a gift card I got back in October.  I also grabbed a yummy coffee. 

It's blustery outside, with a snowfall warning ... I just finished shoveling so that when Christopher gets home there's nothing left to do but snuggle ;-)  I'm sneaky like that.

What are ya'll up to this weekend?

New Years Eve

Happy New Year!

Last night Christopher came home with loads of seafood for a feast.  We started with tuna sashimi.

Next up was escargot ...

Then we had raw oysters ...

And tiger shrimp ...

Then we had lobster tails and garlic bread.

Dessert was a pumpkin tart with ginger crust that I made that morning.

Cheers to 2015 homies!

How did you ring in the new year?

(*Okay, we didn't ring in the new year ... we were asleep before midnight).

Family Christmas

On Monday we went to my brother David, and his lovely lady Jessie's house for Christmas with my family.  We brought homemade perogies and cranberry sauce:

And gifts of course!

Their home is beautiful ...

And the spread was pretty great:

I tried to take a little bit of everything; there was so much food!

Jessie makes some fantastic cabbage rolls!

It was really nice to have a turkey dinner, since we didn't on Christmas day.

Did you have a turkey dinner this Christmas?

2014 Year in Review

Well, 2014 was an amazing year, and the best of my life so far ...

We did some traveling to Denver, Mexico, Montreal (yum), Denver again, and then Vegas ... in addition to about 12 road trips.  We went to many concerts, seeing Black Sabbath, Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, Death Cab, Canned Heat, Bonobo, The Black Keys, Jake Bugg, Arch Enemy, etc., etc..

We developed many new, fun recipes, including a favourite of ours, Thai Yum Yum Bowl.

We celebrated so many times, and so many things, and had many themed weekends of eating.  We spent more time in our backyard than ever before.  My blog grew with my first four paid writing gigs, being a featured blogger on Gourmandize, and Food Bloggers of Canada, my TV debut on Pizza Wars: Regina, and a five year blog birthday.

We had one really sad time at the start of this year, when my grandma passed away.  She was an amazing woman, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.  We all miss her so much.

Some exciting moments of the year included milestone birthdays ... Christopher turned 30, his mom turned 60, and his dad turned 70.

We went and played Laser Quest for our nephew's seventh birthday (I don't know how he's seven already), and had some bonding time when Christopher taught him to make sushi.  His mom, my sister, celebrates her birthday today - Happy birthday Leah!  

We got to meet and snuggle the cutest kitten I've ever seen, Finn.

The Screaming Daisies played a lot of gigs, recorded, and released their second full-length album!  It is really, really impressive!

We had our first family dinner out in Indian Head at the church that Victoria and William are converting into a house.  Some friends got married, and a couple are expecting ...

But, the happiest time of the year was when our niece, and goddaughter Charlotte was born.  She has brought so much joy into our lives in these first few months. 

We feel pretty lucky to have both a niece and a nephew now - one of each is great!  We're not planning on having kids, so we hope to have a lifetime of bonding with the two most important little people in our lives.

In one surprisingly popular post, I wrote about Happiness ... what I think it is, and how I have reached in 2014, at 32 years old, the happiest I've ever been.

2014 has been an amazing year.

What are your highlights of 2014?