Some Good Eats Lately

My friends, it's another edition of "Amy posts a few of the photos that have been sitting on her phone"! How excited are you?

Oldest photo here is of my meal a week or so ago when we were out for dinner. There's just something about having someone else cook for you that is so wonderful. I'm a serious seafood order-er in restaurants. If it's not fish, it's nachos. If it's not nachos, it's fajitas. Or salad, or stirfry on rice! Okay, I'm done!

I was invited to a potluck brunch last week and was told most people bring sweet dishes like muffins and scones, so more savory (eggy, cheesy) dishes are much appreciated. I baked up these cheddar-scallion popovers... and then I wasn't able to make it. I managed to choke them down ;) By the way, popovers are super easy - combine equal parts flour and milk (maybe 1.5 cups) and whisk in a ton of eggs (like 4 - 6) and some salt and whatever flavour you're going for (I did cheddar and scallions of course). Heat your oven to surface-of-the-sun hot and put a buttered muffin tin in to warm up for like 60 seconds, then pull it out carefully and ladle your batter in. Keeping the oven closed, watch through the door's window (if it's clean enough, wink) until the popovers have puffed, then drop your temp to 350 and bake til they're cooked through - like 20 minutes. I know that doesn't sound very exact or scientific and it's not. I don't ever follow a recipe for popovers and they're perfect every time.

One morning I topped a warm popover with a fried egg. Hello!

Here's the power of VSCOcam.... This is the photo I posted on instagram of my golden latke sandwich with goat cheese, arugula (from my mom's garden - wow!) and a spicy apple compote. With good lighting, an interesting angle, and the magic of filters, it looked like this...

 
Here's a crappy photo I took of it while caring less about instagram. See the difference?

I like to sprinkle a few hideous photos in there as well so you guys remember just how real I am. This is me literally trying not to rip my skin off my body at how good this black rice noodle bacon carbonara was. I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating. I was stopping after every bite to scream OHHH MMYYYY GOOOOOOSHHHHH. To make it I crisped up bacon in the oven (you guys do know that bacon is 200x better in the oven right?) and crumbled it up into a mixture of beaten eggs, cream and Parmesan cheese (okay, and salt and pepper!). Boiled and drained the noodles (organic black rice noodles from mama - thanks) and then stirred the hot noodles into the egg mix, thus cooking it into a creamy, magnificent sauce. Also threw in some parsley for good measure. Served with a salad.

 

On Saturday we knew we had plans to be out at a winery event (and then devour a meat and cheese platter after) so we ate a late lunch. Around 2pm Cal started cooking up this seriously glorious potato soup. The sweet lad topped mine with hot sauce, because clearly he knows the key to my heart. Served with a yummy grilled cheese.

This spread of meat, cheese, crackers, fruit, nacho chips and guacamole was literally inside our bodies within 10 minutes. I placed it on a low coffee table in the basement and as a joke I pulled up a pillow and sat directly in front of it and was delighted to see my friend Mary had already done the exact same thing, so we literally just parked our butts right there on the floor and just kept our hands moving to our faces as quickly as possible. We also might have single handedly (double handedly?) downed a bottle of red and a huge bottle of hard cider, so needless to say church in the morning was accompanied by a headache. I'm getting so dramatic in my old age.

One night I was feeling the German vibes and made this super Bavarian SEHR SEHR GUT dinner of sausage, schnitzel with mustard, fresh apples and INCREDIBLE fried cabbage. I'd like everyone in the world to learn to make good fried cabbage, it's cheap as eff & tastes like heaven. It does however make your house smell bad - make sure you're married to a Bath & Body Works candle addict before attempting.

I might be the reigning taco champion of this city. This is just my standard go to of ground meat, avocado, peppers, lettuce and salsa. On 6" flour tortillas.

This is a used up lime, two avocados and a chunk of red onion. You do the math.

Three Birthday Dinners Out

I managed to bamboozle my way into three nights out for dinner this birthday season. Definitely need to milk this special time of year for all it's worth. We went to three places to eat, two of which I'd never been to before. Originally we planned to eat at Beertown but we've been there a lot and changed it at the last minute. Here are my reviews:

Byron Freehouse

At first the parking situation was stressing me out because I hate finding street parking (and paying for it!) but luckily we grabbed the last spot in a side lot off Springbank. (Is that the road I'm thinking of? Yes... I think so!) The place is super cute, and I love all the visual marketing - not just saying that because my sister in law designed it ;) Our server was flawless - honestly. She was like a doppelganger to Lily Aldridge and gave us incredible service. She wiped up every water spill Ollie and Kota could manage and happily accommodated our 3 gluten allergies.

I ordered fried pickles to start and chorizo nachos. By the 3rd nacho I was already full, haha, so those ended up in a leftovers box for Calvin to eat the next day. The pickles were seriously good though - huge and all dusted with a kind of ranch-spice powder, served with dip. I loved them. The kind of pickles that you like open-mouth eat while panting because they're magma-calibre hot but too good to not devour immediately. Yes, you can picture that.

Good food, great service.
(After we headed to my parents place to watch Survivor and eat a glorious gluten free dark chocolate cake filled with a creamy whipped cream layer and topped with tons of peanut butter cups. Mmmm!)

Toboggan

This brewery/restaurant is new-er to London and I've been meaning to check it out for a while now. We were originally told there'd be an hour wait for our party of 6 but when we upped our group to 8 suddenly a table opened up and we were seated right away. Fabulous. Our server was friendly and knowledgeable, but I'll admit he never brought us any of the water we asked for (and we needed it! I guzzled 2 glasses when I got home.)

My friends took on the challenge of choosing beer for me so they ordered me a flight of Pomegranate Wheat Beer, the house Blonde, a Stout, and Lime-ginger Cider. While all four were really good, my favourite was the stout - it was so smooth and caramelly and had that really satisfying coffee-type bitterness that I love. The blonde was probably my least favourite, although still a really, really good beer just not my usual choice. The pomegranate was nice and fruity, it was a good one to start with. And the cider was actually really unique and cool - loved the gingery kick, not too strong just a hint.

I ordered the salad trio which came with an edamame salad, a quinoa salad (really strong sweet sesame flavour - wow!) and a lentil salad. They were all delish. But they were served with a spoon instead of fork, haha.

I also had friends order me a South Side which is this maple syrup-y Crown Royal based drink. I really liked it, and in my usual fashion I added the apple slices on top to the list of garnishes that I would eat as part of my meal (thanks for the peppermint too, friends who ordered dessert! I am such a garnish eater, it's super gross).

Overall, it was semi-loud but actually a nice vibe. It definitely wasn't bar-y in the sense that people are just mingling with strangers and making me feel awkward, it was definitely a stick with your party type place - which I prefer. Awesome menu, awesome drinks. And the Leafs game (which we won) was playing on about 20 big screens so I approved of that greatly.

McGuiness Landing

I've been here quite a few times in my life but not in the past year. Our experience was pretty average. I ordered the grilled salmon which had a nice mustard sauce on it. It also had garlic mashed potatoes and zucchini in tomato sauce on the side. It was just enough food to share with Dakota. 

Apparently on Sundays moms eat free so that was a cool surprise. Also, they offer a gluten free option for all of their butgers: helpful.

And special mention to...
My in-laws house

They made an awesome meal for me the night before my birthday and though it's not a restaurant I'm still so grateful.

We had halved mini bell peppers filled with cream cheese and salsa to start. What a yummy and healthy app, I loved it. Then we had a creamy (dairy-free, almond milk based) pasta made with broccoli, chicken breast and whole wheat macaroni. She had used coconut oil in the recipe and there was a hint of coconut-y sweetness that I adored. And we had sparkling wine which we call Paul's, I'm not sure why. And then dessert was a Clementine-date loaf and raw pumpkin energy balls. So yummy. Served with coconut chai tea. A super tasty homemade birthday dinner - loved it.

Packing Veggies into Average Dinners

I am starting to realize that my nutritional strategy for my own self and for my family is: eat what you want, add lots of good stuff to it. I just cannot get behind diets and health philosophies that cut out, or even overly limit, things like bacon, donuts, sweetened iced coffee.. okay, clearly this list is very specific to my life. Bottom line, I cannot fathom enjoying life if I had a perfect-10 body but no joy from food. (Oh my gosh, I totally just typed that as "phathom" .. I think a viewing of Phantom Menace is calling my name. Star Wars marathon anyone?)

When I plan meals for my family I do it based on what we love and then I make sure I'm packing it full of the good stuff. So, not a "Low Fat Dinners" Pinterest search but a, 'hey, how can we make philly cheesesteaks healthy??' brain-search. This works fabulously for us. We don't have to survive on endless plain oatmeal, with iceberg lettuce salads for lunch and underwhelming fish for dinner. And we don't have to, like, get scurvy and stuff. Win-win.

Here are some of my favourite strategies for pumping totally run of the mill, but yummy, dinners, full of healthful veggies. They're all relatively easy to make and not super expensive, or else they wouldn't make my list at all.

- Philly Cheesesteaks! Starting with the meal I mentioned above, since it's what I'm cooking for dinner tonight, this one is a hit. I season and grill some steak - it can be a cheaper, thin cut like flank or skirt, because you'll be slicing against the grain. Our favourite steak is striploin, if you see it on sale buy it. While the meat is resting (never, never cut your steak before resting please) I stirfry bell peppers, onions and mushrooms. Lots of them. Then I throw a whole grain bun for each person (2 for Cal! Only 1/2 one for Oliver. Yes, that means Dakota and I both eat a full!) topped with a little cheese, into the oven to broil. Once the cheese is melted and the bun is toasty I top it with sliced steak and stirfried veggies. Delish. Mashed avocado is a wonderful addition. You could also make a killer vegan version by grilling Maple Tempeh and using Daiya jack cheese.

- Perogies! There's something about a layer of perogies at the bottom of a plate that makes anyone able to eat a mound of vegetables. Cook up some broccoli, yellow zucchini, orange bell pepper, spring onions, portabello mushrooms, whatever you can think of. Place them on top of a layer of boiled perogies. Watch the magic.

- Baked pasta! If you stir up some cooked noodles (any type - whole wheat if you're fancy) with like 5 cups of frozen veggie mix - the broc/cauli one, the Asian one, pick your favourite - with a little melted cream cheese and a can or two of either tuna or salmon - this will bake up gorgeously in the oven.

- Homemade pizza

- Quiche

- Pot roast soup

- Stirfry

- Loaded sweet potatoes

Birthday Cottage Weekend (2 days of meal photos)

This past weekend my family and I drove up north to our cottage. I unofficially dubbed it a "birthday cottage weekend" so I could maximize how many days this year would be spent celebrating my birth - ha ha. My little family of four was there along with my parents and my two sisters, and one sister's boyfriend. (The place sleeps like 15+ so lots of room for everyone.)

My favourite place to be at the cottage (and in any home) is the kitchen, so I spent a lot of time there. Here are two days worth of meal photos and then some random ones for fun.

Breakfast on day one was a Greek-ish egg scramble. We whisked up like 18 eggs and cooked them til soft and wonderful. Served with tomatoes, olives and feta. Naturally mine is drowning in Frank's Red Hot, which is the sauce of life. Could drink it, seriously.

We served that with fresh out of the oven butter pecan muffins. They taste so, so, so good, but because they're gluten free they are approximately the texture of sand castles. So we had a good laugh over imagining if you had to eat one in your CEO's car on a business trip. Angela said she would just slam it down her throat in one bite, which was probably the best answer.

Our first lunch was fish tacos. We had enough fish to feed the entire NHL, and their wives. We made a crispy club soda-based batter and fried bite sized pieces. We served it with corn tortillas, cilantro, green pepper, spicy chipotle mayo, a corn and black bean salad, cabbage slaw and limes. We were still eating battered fish leftovers when we left the cottage.

Dinner #1 was pulled pork made in the slow cooker. It had a nice spice rub on it and was super moist. I prefer it plain (salted) but some people like it doused in sauce. I also made sweet potato wedges, like a really large fry. Served with sour cream. And we had a standard garden salad, mine in this photo has a yogurt dill dressing.

The next breakfast was hashbrowns. I fried up onions and orange bell pepper as well as cubed sweet potato (leftover from the night before) and an absolute ton of cubed white potatoes. There was cheese and leftover pulled pork out if you wanted to add it to your hash. And then Angela made some perfect runny-yolk eggs. My absolute favourite. I'm the captain of Team Runny Yolks.

Lunch that day was a perfect chili. Clearly I over sour cream-ed mine here, but what can you do? Served with 250 pounds of toasty nacho chips right out of the oven. Again, we could invited about 10 friends each and we would have still had enough food.

Our final dinner was Calvin's specialty: homemade burgers. The one pictured here was made specially for my dad: a double decker with a swiss cheese center. (Clearly he likes a 1:1 ratio of meat to raw onion.) We didn't need much for side dishes but we had lots of cabbage so I fried it up.

This is the cottage. We're on Foote Lake north of Huntsville. The building to the left is the garage and the building to the right is a shed. You can also see the roof over where a hot tub used to be. 

This is our lake view. In warmer months we'll jump right off the dock and swim in the island, and then back, which takes like 45 minutes. I did an island-and-back swim a few days before I gave birth to Oliver. That's my life's claim to fame.

Does anyone want to split some wood? I think we have about 8 cords here.

 

"Poppin' bottles with models." 

My sister, Angela, always an Occupational Therapist. She taught Oliver how to use a can opener independently. This was helpful when we needed about 10 cans open to make chili.

That time I was almost shot by a hunter. 

 

Time between me suggesting we go jump in the lake, and my sister collecting this hail: about 10 minutes. 

"Sarah, we're going for a walk. Come."

"Okay, how many beers long will we be gone for?"

Little sisters, asking the real questions. 

I never met a steamy window I didn't wanna Leo. This is where I sleep, the window view is of the canoe. I love that.

Mama loves a dark beer. This one is seriously yummy. By mama, I mean me, my actual mother is gluten free.

Speaking of gluten free drink options: a dark and stormy hits the spot!

Some how this card game ended up being called Spit: Three girls, two decks. The classic tale of ol' Johnny Two Hands. We're pretty good at naming things for maximum YouTube hits. See our previous hits "Cold sisters in a Lake" and "Bible study girls on 50 foot water slide". Monetizing since 2002 baby.

The ultimate. Just give this girl a forest and mason jar of coffee. Honestly, what a fabulous birthday weekend. 10/10 would do again.