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.