First Day of Winter

I woke up to rain, which is definitely not typical for the first day of winter.  The day started out great, and ended the same way.  I had a wonderful last day of work for 2018, got off early, ran a couple of quick errands, and then headed home to do the last of the gift wrapping.

This evening I baked buns for dinner at my brother's place tomorrow evening. 

Other than that, I'm just kicking back and relaxing with Christopher.  It was a really busy week for us, so we didn't do a whole lot of cooking over the past few days.

On Monday evening we took my dad out to Swiss Chalet for dinner.

And on Wednesday we went out to Bushwakker.

Last week's eats included a big chicken:

We used it for hot chicken sandwiches:

And cold chicken sandwiches:

Then we made stock with the bones for a soup:

Our AeroGarden is growing out of control!  We used some of the herbs to make a really green sauce for our pork chops recently.

I loved the baked potato on the side; we always forget about baked potatoes, but really enjoy them when we eat them.

Speaking of potatoes ...

Christopher made his amazing crispy oven-fries for poutine both last week, and again tonight.  Yum!

I think it's about time to gather a plate of goodies, and put on a Christmas movie.  We'll likely have a couple of these too:

Christopher's coworker sent him home with them.  They are spicy, but not too spicy, and absolutely delicious!  We're having only a few a day to make them last (and to avoid eating an entire bag of cheesy puffs in one evening, because we totally could do that).

G'night!

Are you all ready for Christmas?  What are your plans for the weekend?  Do you have any time off around Christmas?

Christmasy Weekend

I went a little overboard in the kitchen this past weekend.  This always seems to happen when I make the cooking or baking list unsupervised 🤣

But, to be fair, Christopher never stopped me when I put seven pounds of butter into the shopping cart.

We had been looking forward to this weekend for a while - our Christmasy weekend!  We decorated the house earlier in the month, but held off on watching any Christmas movies, or doing any baking.

 

 

 

On Friday evening we came straight home after work and got into the kitchen.  First up - Nanimo bars:

Then chocolate mountains:

We popped these into the freezer, then relaxed for the rest of the evening.

After a yummy breakfast on Saturday morning, I got busy baking.

My plan was to start with the treats that required the lowest temperature, and work my way up.  I started with snack mix and caramel corn (not pictured):

Then shortbread:

Candy cane, white chocolate cookies:

Oat bars:

 

Pretzel bites (some with a Rolo and pecan, and others with a Hershey's Hug and M&M):

Cinnamon twists:

Buns, and buttertarts:

And finally, peanut butter blossoms:

I bailed on the sugar cookies that I was going to make, and put the dough in the freezer.  I had been in the kitchen long enough for one day, and didn't feel like rolling out, baking, and decorating another 50 cookies or so ...

Those will have to wait for another day.

Christopher was the baking assistant, taste-taster, and drink pourer.  We finished around 6:00 p.m., and then retired to the living room with snacks and a couple of Christmas movies.

On Sunday we didn't have anything we had to do, so the whole day was full of festive fun.  We had eggnog French toast for breakfast:

And then we wrapped gifts, watched TV Christmas specials, and nibbled for the rest of the day.

All in all, it was a pretty sweet weekend. 

This is my last week of work before two weeks off 🎄🎅

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  

Did you do any Christmas baking this year?  

What is your favourite to make?  To eat?

Best of Bridge: Weekday Suppers

A while back I reviewed the Best of Bridge: Sunday Suppers cookbook, which we love!  When the people at Robert Rose offered to send me Best of Bridge: Weekday Suppers, I was excited to dive into it.

The recipes are all pretty quick and easy, but flipping through it, they didn't appeal to me as much as the Sunday Suppers did.  We ended up choosing three recipes to make.

First up was buffalo chicken quesadilla pie:

It was okay (better with sour cream on top), but not something we'd make again.  It wasn't very visually appealing either ...

We layered tortillas with a cheesy chicken mixture, and then baked it for 35 minutes.  The leftovers were better than the first day we had it.

Another dish we tried was baked sausage and pepper sandwiches with goat cheese and avocado.

The recipe didn't call for any sauce, so the goat cheese was the only spread on the sandwich, and we felt that it needed something more.

We ended up topping them with mustard and hot sauce to give them a bit more flavour.  Mushroom soup on the side rounded out our meal.

The third recipe we made was no-bake chocolate oat squares.  I found the recipe really weird, and wasn't so sure about it while making the squares.  I didn't think they were going to turn out, and felt like the recipe could have used more oats.

I was wrong.  After cooling them, they cut really well, held together well, and tasted quite good.

They are a nice combination of peanut butter, chocolate and oats.  I'll probably make them again. 

You can find the recipe for the oat squares here.

There are loads of recipes in this cookbook, and we only made three of them, so we're still going to pick others to try and really get a feel for it.  But, as of now, I don't think this book is as good as Best of Bridge: Sunday Suppers, and few of the recipes are catching my eye.

What is the last new recipe you tried?

* The cookbook was provided to me free of charge.  All opinions are my own.

The Weekend

We had a really fun weekend!  On Friday night we went out for my work Christmas party, where we visited, laughed, played games, and then kept the evening going with some karaoke.

It was a much needed night out, and we were out late!

After sleeping in on Saturday morning, Christopher went into work for some overtime hours (which are easy to come by this time of year), and I lounged around on the couch.  We napped in the afternoon, and then got ready to go out again on Saturday night for our friend Jeff's birthday.

The birthday party was at Cathedral Social Hall.  We ordered pickle spears to start - mmm!

Then I had the chicken salad, and Christopher had the poke bowl.

It was another pretty late night, so we slept in again on Sunday.  We were eating this breakfast closer to lunch time ...

December is one of the busiest months for us, as I think it is for most people, so we made a point this year of planning easier meals, or cooking larger amounts on the weekend to have leftovers for the weekdays.  It's nice to come home from work and be able to just warm something up, before going out Christmas shopping, or heading to a get-together.

On Sunday evening we cooked up a batch of chili, and also roasted a leg of lamb with some parsnips, carrots, and potatoes.

We ate the chili last night and for lunch today, and then we had the lamb for dinner this evening after doing some Christmas shopping.

There is enough left for tomorrow's meals, and lunch on Wednesday.

After a busy weekend out and about, we're looking forward to a cozy weekend at home next weekend, with loads of Christmasy snacks, baking, and movies!

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  

Is this month busy for you?  

Are you done your Christmas shopping? (We're alllllmost done.)

Wiped Out

Last week started out okay, and just got worse and worse.  I rarely get sick, but I came down with what I think was a flu, although it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before in my life.  The incredible fatigue was the worst part.  I could barely get up off of the couch, and every small movement completely exhausted me.  All the meals we had planned to make last week we pushed forward to this week, and I basically did nothing other than lie on the couch.  Christopher took really good care of me.  Surprisingly I still had an appetite, so he made salads, or I just had soup or smoothies, but it was an effort to down them, and I usually gave up long before I was full.  Most evenings I went to bed at 8:00 p.m., and was still completely exhausted in the morning.  Ugh. 

Luckily I was feeling well enough by Saturday to go to Saskatoon to visit my mom.  We enjoyed her company, and then picked up soup to have in our hotel room, as that was about all I had energy for.  On Sunday I was starting to get some energy back.

I was looking forward to cooking today, as it felt like a long time since I had been productive in the kitchen.  This evening we made scallops with parsnip puree, from the latest issue of Food Network Magazine.

We thought it was pretty good, but not good enough to make again.

I am so happy to be feeling more like myself again, as we have some fun get-togethers coming up later this week.

Have you been sick this winter?  How was your weekend?  How is your week going so far?  Do you have any social engagements coming up?