by ·2 Comments

Sooo let’s just ignore that some of these pictures are like three months old……

Rosemary Rocksalt bagel with salmon, avocado and cream cheese. How can you even improve on this?? Perfection.

Two kinds of ceviche, guacamole and pico de gallo at La Mezcaleria. OM NOM NOM. With a ludicrously expensive margarita. (Best margaritas in town though).

GIANT VOLCANIC BOWL OF MOLTEN CHEESE AND CHORIZO. So greasy, so amazing. This is a once-a-year (or less!) food.

Pork tenderloin kebabs with vegetables and halloumi. Homemade tzatziki and tortillas. This was a team effort meal with Scott, Rosemarie, Lauren and I that magically all came together perfectly despite little planning.

Rosemarie and I finally did the crayon art project that she gave me for Christmas/AFFH. Making the crayons melt was so addicting.

The Jornas, at the PNE this year. Lesley took this picture.

I had a jalapeño popper grilled cheese. It took them like 30 minutes to make. Le sigh. But it tasted pretty good, it had cheese, peppers, cream cheese, corn chips!

Me broad jumping at the bobsleigh/skeleton summer tryouts. I did pretty bad, it was sort of embarrassing. But still fun, kind of. I think I was a lot better at running this year compared to last (still too slow though) but I actually got worse at broad jump (down to 1.75 m from 1.78 m). Yikes. And I was HORRIBLE at the underhand medicine ball toss. It kept slipping out of my hands!! Lots of work to do if I ever plan on being competitive.

So many more people than last year!! It was nice seeing some old friends from last season, and great to see some new faces! I am hoping that the group of recreational (and BC development) sliders gets bigger this year. It would be fun to have races with more people, especially girls!!

Manicure from last week. Stained glass/negative space. I did my left hand. Scott had to help me with my right hand. Maybe Rosemarie will post a link in the comments to the Salon Jorna picture she took.

A made pie! Peach pie! We had picked a dozen or so giant freestone peaches in Osoyoos last week at a giddy u-pick session. I whipped up two pies with homemade crust and everything. I usually don’t like pies because I hate cooked fruit, but peach pie is pretty good. Maybe because the texture of cooked peach isn’t very different than raw peach? This was my first time making crust and it went… ok. It’s a little tough. I think that happens when you overwork the dough? But overall the pie tastes GREAT. Making pies is very satisfying.

by ·0 Comments

A few weeks ago the good people at Nairn’s sent me a bunch of oatcakes for me to try and review. After much consideration, here are my thoughts.

There were four types of savoury oatcakes. My first impression was that they were very dry. But putting a piece of cheese on them made them palatable. And then they started to grow on me and I started liking them more and more. My coworker told me that she used to eat oatcakes with butter on them when she was young.

The organic ones and the roughly milled were the most plain. The cheese flavoured one had a slight cheesy taste, mostly at the end. And the sunflower ones were slightly thinner and very nice. The sunflower ones were the most like traditional crackers we eat in Canada.

I liked that the list of ingredients was very short with simple things like oats and baking soda and sunflower oil. They aren’t gluten or nut free though, unfortunately.

The sweet oatcakes were way easier to eat. They taste delicious! Just the right amount of sugar so they’re not too sweet or too bland.

Scott and I liked the mixed berries one a lot (chewy raisin type bits) and the chocolate chip ones tasted like Dad’s cookies. Yum. The ginger ones were a bit too gingery for me but Scott and Rosemarie enjoyed them.

You cannot deny that they do slightly resemble a coaster though. Haha.

I ended up eating a lot of oatcakes in the past few weeks. The absolute best part about them in my opinion is that they keep you feeling full for a really long time. I had two chocolate chip ones before my skeleton tryouts and felt energized and not hungry the whole time. And a couple oatcakes before going into the angiography department for a few hours keeps the tummy rumbles away when I used to have troubles with that before. The oats have tons of staying power and I’m glad I got to try them!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post other than the free product, and all opinions are my own.

by ·0 Comments

Hangover Helper – poached egg, back bacon, hollandaise, green onion

Abba – avocado, bacon, brie, apple, balsamic reduction

Scott and I went out for breakfast on the weekend. We ordered these two waffles and then traded halves. The waffles were really nice, crunchy and chewy, delicious. The toppings were good but had a few flaws, the poached eggs were poached hard, which is unfortunate in my opinion, and the Abba waffle needed three times as much brie and some kind of sauce to stop it from being a little dry. However, the hollandaise was nice and tangy and the bacon was plentiful.

I would like to go back and try some of their sweet waffles some time.

Scandilicious Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

by ·2 Comments

Lauren came to visit a little while ago. My Lauren, not Rosemarie’s Lauren, haha. So confusing. She stayed with us a few days. Scott and I were working every day but it was fun hanging out in the evenings. We went to the fireworks one night, and she took us out for a nice dinner too. We picked Sushi Oyama because I’ve always heard good things about it but hadn’t been yet. It did not disappoint!

Tataki Roll (deep fried prawn, cucumber, avocado, tuna tataki, house special dressing).

This roll was really nice, it was light and refreshing. It didn’t taste like any sushi roll I have tried before. The dressing/sauce was yum. What a pretty roll too.

Green Dragon (eel, cucumber, avocado, three types of tobiko, bonito, mayo).

This roll was also awesome. I love the presentation. I’ve never had different types of tobiko before, although I couldn’t really taste the difference between them. Creamy avocado and bbq eel is always great.

Yam Tempura Roll & Vegetable Roll.

The yam one was decent but the vegetable roll was pretty boring to be honest. Definitely overshadowed by all the special rolls.

Las Vegas Roll (5 kinds of sauce, cream cheese, spicy salmon, crab, cucumber, tobiko, bonito).

Now this one was ridiculous. And I pretty much had to eat the whole thing because SOME PEOPLE don’t like mayo, hehe. The whole thing was deep fried and slathered in sauces. I enjoyed it.

I loved Sushi Oyama and would definitely go back. I think it’s so cool that the restaurant is in a big house too, so many different sections! I’ve heard it can get really busy but we had no problem at dinner time on a weekday.

Thanks for the great dinner Lauren!!

Sushi Oyama Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

by ·2 Comments

Last weekend Scott, Rosemarie and I headed over to Vancouver Island to camp and go tubing down the Cowichan River. The weather wasn’t great but luckily the water was suuuuuuper warm so we could still tube.

The tubing is pretty neat, it’s about 2.5 hours long of floating. You can bring drinks, they even have floating recycling bins at various points down the river. Most of it was pretty calm but there are a few sections that go a little quicker. It’s definitely a lazy river rather than anything XTREME though. You do kind of have to paddle with your arms sometimes to make sure you go the right direction. I enjoyed myself though and I’m sure it’s a lot more fun when it’s a really hot day out and there are more people.

While it was kinda fun to be camping, it was too cold to swim or lay around and there was a fire ban… so we didn’t have a whole lot to do. Camping is all about the campfire!!! We played some games but it sprinkled rain on and off and the wind kept picking up our cards (and placing them into Scott’s hand). Eventually we just went to bed and read by flashlight.

nanaimo bar cheesecake

We decided to spend the last day in Nanaimo going on a Nanaimo Bar Crawl. They have a brochure that has 34 different places you can get Nanaimo Bar things. Unfortunately because it was Sunday A LOT of the places were closed. :'(((( We must have gone to at least 10 shops that ended up being closed. Bad luck.

But we did enjoy a slice of Nanaimo bar cheesecake that was SUPER YUM at Minnoz Steak & Seafood.

salted caramel nanaimo bar

And a salted caramel Nanaimo bar at Bocca Cafe that was also very good. I kind of want to sprinkle salt on all my Nanaimo bars now. They also had peanut butter, and chili Nanaimo bars and a lot of other really good looking food.

deep fried nanaimo bar

And then a deep fried Nanaimo bar at Pirate Chips. It tasted ok, but not as good as I expected.

All three of us liked the cheesecake one the most.

Then we waited 5+ hours in the line for the ferry back to Vancouver. UGH. It started off fun, we were playing Carcassonne on the ipad.

Then it got more tedious. And we got hungry, so I prepared a charcuterie dinner using a paper bag as a cutting board. SAFETY.

Ugh then we found out that the ferry price was not a return fare (like when you go the Sunshine Coast) and we all cried while we emptied our wallets. Yeesh going to the island is expensive!!!!!! We totally should have smuggled Rosemarie in in the trunk.

Eventually we did get on a ferry and we snagged a good games table to squeeze in a couple more games of Settlers before the weekend was over. I kept my eyes peeled for whales in between turns but didn’t see any.

Soooo in conclusion, tubing was fun-ish, camping was fun-ish, Nanaimo bar was fun-ish, etc. etc. And visiting the island costs A LOT and is terribly annoying on the weekends. Well I’m glad we went, but I’m not in a huge hurry to go back, at least not for just a weekend.