Mushroom Soup – a tasty Italian (??) soup with white wine and lots of mushroom and parmesan

I used some fresh tomatoes instead of tomato juice, and I also added leek because we had it in the fridge and needed to use it up.

4/5

 

Spanokopita – spinach and feta in phyllo

We just made a small half batch. They were yummy, but very very salty. Didn’t add any salt though, it all came from the feta, so not sure what can be done about that. Didn’t even use the full amount of feta.

3.7/5

 

Warm Beetroot Salad – beets with cumin and sour cream

Nice to have something different. Tasty.

4.2/5

 

Sichuan (although not really because I didn’t actually use Sichuan peppercorn) Eggplant – eggplant with tofu on rice

Super super tasty. One of my fave dishes to make. I vaguely followed the recipe, but also added in tofu near the end to beef tofu it up.

4.6/5 (I rated it 5/5, but Scott is a tough critic apparently)

 

Kylie Kwong Fried Eggs – fried egg with green onion, sriracha and soy sauce on top

An interesting new way to eat an egg. Quite salty.

4.3/5

 

Sour Cream, Cheddar and Green Onion Scones – savoury scones

SUPER DELICIOUS.

5/5

 

Ricotta Gnocchi – potato-less gnocchi

This gnocchi recipe does not use any potato and is super super easy. It tastes great! I have no idea how cheese could be a substitute for potato but apparently it us. I just did the garlic & butter thing to serve it. If I could find a cheaper source of ricotta I think I would make this often.

4.7/5

I wish all food floated when it was cooked.

I feel terrible. Last night was one of the worst sleeps I have ever had. I started taking melatonin about a month ago and thought it was helping to at least improve the quality of sleep I was getting, but last night was just back to square 1. Pretty sure you are never supposed to see a clock say 4:00 AM. Why do I feel the most awake out of the whole day when I’m lying in bed?

In other news my new laptop is successfully dual-boot-ed and running great. I love it and loved sitting outside on the patio with it yesterday. On our new patio chairs that I found at the grocery store for $7.24/each. Sweet deal. The weather has been lovely for the past couple weeks.

Rosemarie came back to Vancouver and stayed with us for a night. We did errands and shopping all day, then painted our nails, went out for sushi, and played games. A fun day. Unfortunately now she has gone back to uni and is busy every day for the rest of her life, it seems.

Sushi was SO GOOD. We went back to The Eatery. It was really good going with Rosemarie because it meant I got to share and try 5 rolls, instead of only 2 or 3, since I can’t really share with Scott. We ordered a big list of rolls and they brought them all out on a huge platter that the three of us demolished. Yum yum yum. Again, no pictures because the giant paper maché octopus on the ceiling blocked out all the light.

We tried:

  • Italian Stallion: prosciutto, papaya, eel and cream cheese, hot pesto sauce (5/5 delicious! papaya was awesome)
  • X-Rated Roll: tuna, salmon, crab and eel, spicy misonnaise (5/5 yummmm)
  • The Beautiful: scallop, avocado and mayo topped w/ smoked salmon (3.9/5)
  • Jenny Salmon: salmon, green onion, avocado (3.6/5 good, but zzzz)
  • Miss Piggy Roll: bacon, scallops, asparagus, roe, unagi sauce (3.4/5 pretty weird, too salty)

Scott had:

  • Buddha Roll: tempura yams, red pepper, asparagus and lettuce, with dragon sauce (3.8/5 great sauce, needs avocado, tempura not crunchy)
  • John Lennon: asparagus tempura, carrot, avocado, cucumber, wrapped in a soybean sheet (3.1/5 tempura not crunchy, roll fell apart)
  • Yummy Yam Roll: loads of tempura yams (4/5 poorly tempura’d, but still nice)

Here is Rosemarie warming her hands on a fireplace on the outside of a McDonalds. What???

Oooh other exciting news: we booked a weekend trip to Seattle in early September. We are taking the train and only staying for one night. We get to stay at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle thanks to Priceline’s Name Your Own Price thingy. Four stars!! I can’t wait!

I tried a new recipe the other day, another thing I found on Pinterest. Homemade Peppermint Patties. It was a pretty easy recipe, with pretty normal ingredients that I mostly had already. I didn’t have (or know what is) shortening so I just used cold butter, and that worked perfectly fine. They taste great, but I have zero skills in chocolate coatings so they look a little rough. Need practice. Here is my slightly adapted recipe.

Yield: 24 patties

  • 2.5 cups icing sugar
  • 1.5 tbsp corn syrup
  • 1.5 tbsp water
  • 0.5 tsp peppermint extract
  • 1 tbsp cold butter
  • 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • splash of milk

Mix the icing sugar, corn syrup, water, peppermint extract and cold butter in a bowl. I smushed the butter with a wooden spoon until it was in pretty small pieces, although it’s not important to get it totally totally mixed in. It should be a crumbly mixture.

Then dump it out on the counter and knead it until it makes a nice smooth white blob. Sprinkle icing sugar on the counter if it is sticking.

Roll/press it out on wax paper to about 1/4″ thick and put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. I highly recommend just using a simple circle shape. I didn’t have that so I used my star cutter, but it made it hard to coat in chocolate later, so I wouldn’t do that again. Put your cutouts on wax paper and then put it back in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Melt your chocolate, butter and a splash of milk if necessary in a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. Dip your minty pieces in the chocolate, lay on wax paper and put back in freezer for another 20 minutes to firm up. Store in fridge.

As you can see, my chocolate skills are kind of lacking. My second batch of chocolate seized up. Ugh. Also the mint parts warm up when you put them in the chocolate and some of them broke. Circles would be a lot easier.

About one month since my last book post. Twelve books. Not bad!! All audiobooks while working.

  •  Beauty Queens – Libba Bray (kinda funny, about a plane of beauty queens that crashes on a remote island)
  • The Giver – Lois Lowry (never read this as a kid)
  • Going Bovine – Libba Bray (didn’t really like this book, got bored, about a kid who gets mad cow disease)
  • I Am The Messenger – Markus Zusak (this book was weird, I didn’t really like it)
  • If I Stay – Gayle Forman (a book about death)
  • The Kitchen Gods Wife – Amy Tan (makes me miss my mom’s side of the family)
  • The Lovely Bones – Alice Seabold (another book about death)
  • Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka (I always thought this book would be so hard and intimidating, but it wasn’t at all! It was funny and interesting and so short!)
  • One For The Money – Janet Evanovich (Scott tells me they are making a movie of this too. I have no interest in seeing it)
  • Room – Emma Donoghue (this book was SO GOOD. I thought it was so fascinating and interesting and sad. I felt so emotional, I nearly cried at work. Really, read this, please.)
  • Saving Francesca – Melina Marchetta (aussie, ok)
  • She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb (a book about a girl who gets totally messed up by some horrible things that happen to her as a child)

Seriously Room was so good. I already kinda want to listen to it again! It’s a weird book to have as a favourite but it is definitely way up there on my list.

I thought I was going to have some exciting news for you, but I found out on Friday that I didn’t get the job. I had applied for a paid blogger position for BCIT where you blogged about what it’s like to be a student there every week. I got pretty excited because I was sure I was going to get it, I wrote a great cover letter and I have 5 years of blogging experience! But alas, I got rejected. WHYYYYY? The part that sucks the most is that I’m pretty much still going to do the job by posting in MY blog, but now I don’t get paid. Wahhhhh. That was a bummer.

On Friday night we went out to a concert at the Commodore. We saw a Mexican chick who was ok, Oh Land who was pretty awesome, and Sia who was hilarious and great and sooooo weird. It was a fun fun show. I liked that in between each song she would chit chat with the audience. 99% of what she said though was not blog appropriate. The set was very crafty DIY. She had a big back board with dot paintings and pom poms spelling out her name, and there were crocheted (that word does not look how it sounds!) blankets all over the place, and every microphone stand had a crocheted cozy for it. She also wore this crazy ruffled costume with neon lady parts embroidered on it.

Then after the show we dropped by Ryan’s goodbye party which was unfortunately in an extremely hot, sticky-floored, smelly dance club. We stayed there too long and missed the last Skytrain home. We had to take a bus that turned out to be a horrible horrible experience. I am never staying out past 12:45 am again!!!!

I slept in a lot on Saturday. Scott did not though, he woke up with a horrible toothache and swelling so he had to go to a dental clinic. They gave him some drugs, and I dragged him along on the plans we had already made for the day. Zsofi and Dylan picked us up and we went out to Alouette Lake, since it was TWENTY NINE DEGREES. WHATTTTT????

It was super nice there, very picturesque, but the water was soooooo cold! Didn’t do too much swimming. It was still nice though, and relaxing. We stayed there until Scott’s tooth was hurting too much and then we came home and I made quesadillas for dinner.

Zsofi and Scott.

Dylan, the only one of us who went all the way in!

See that annoying tree?

All of us!

Now Scott is out golfing with his work, and I am bumming around the apartment. I am officially on holiday now and that feels really nice. I expect the next couple weeks to be pretty busy though.