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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.

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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!

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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.

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Saturday morning headed out to Michael’s early because they were having an extra 25% off sale in the morning. We got big canvases for super cheap. I thought they were $9.99 for each pack of two, so we got two packs, but then they rang up as only $4.99, and then 25% off of that, so I made the cashier wait while I grabbed another pack! Immediately after we left the store I realized I should have gotten the bigger size, since they were so cheap. I really wish there was such thing as rewind of life.

Anyway, 6 canvases for $11 is pretty good. Now we can do tons of masterpieces. Scott has another video game-y one in mind, and I have a geometric series idea and also a melted crayon thing I saw on Pinterest that looks super cool. It needs a hair dryer though and I don’t have one. Rosemarie???

After Michael’s we went by the old house to pick up our mail and then to the farmers market. We spent too much money a coffee, a korean short rib taco, homemade ginger ale, strawberries, tiny peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes. I wanted to get some plants too, but we need to do a bit of research about what can grow indoors, in the dark.

We came home, and started the squares project. Then I decided we REALLY needed a level to do it so we hoofed it over to Metrotown to pick one up. We also got some Coldstone ice cream with a 50% off coupon. I had a cup with cookie dough, choc chips, caramel and fudge, and Scott had a mint one with brownie, choc chips and fudge. They were both very good, but too large, and neither of us really liked the chocolate chips. If we go back we will definitely share. On the way home we stopped by a girl’s apartment to pick up a desk chair I saw on Craigslist. It’s green and funky. She lived right around the corner so it was super convenient!

Scott made a pizza for dinner with sweet potato and lentils and some other things. He’s gotten quite good at making the crust, but the toppings were too carbolicious.

I just realized I never actually took any pictures of the other paintings I did, at the old apartment. I will, I promise! I only have one more week left of work (WOOHOOOOOOO) and then I will have lots of free time.

Sunday was mostly spent bumming around. We watched some Masterchef, the movie Paul, played Agricola, talked with Rosemarie, and now Scott is out at The Keg with some of his friends. I don’t know what he will get to eat there!

I also did some online shopping. We ordered this antenna thing to pick up free HD channels (bet you didn’t know about that!). Apparently there are 6 free HD channels floating around in Vancouver and all you need is an antenna to pick them up. You can get CBC, Global, CTV and three others that I forget right now. That’s all we need! We also ordered some new jeans for Scott and more of my favourite t-shirts for me. Yay!

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Last Thursday we had a really fun impromptu night.

It all started at 3:45 PM when I got a text message from Brian saying that they were at a bar on Granville Island with $1.59 beers and that we should join him. That’s pretty close to my work so I was first to arrive. Scott headed over too. I don’t drink beer but they also had $4 bellini slush thingies too which were very tasty.

I only planned on staying for a bit, but we were having fun and the drinks were good and more friends kept arriving so we ended up staying.

Then another friend said we should meet him at the beach so we took a funny little ferry over to English Bay and chilled there for a bit, killing time.

Brian had been recommending this all-you-can-eat sushi place for a while and when I brought it up again he said we should go RIGHT THEN. So we did.

It was only $14 but you have to wait until 9:30 PM. Ack. Anyway it was decent for all-you-can-eat sushi, but definetely no Tojo. ;) Service was pretty bad- they kept not bringing us some things (like yam tempura) and that meant Scott and Morgan had nothing to eat for a very very long time. Also they didn’t have yam rolls for some reason.

I ate lots of salmon sashimi.

It was very difficult to get home from all the way in the west end of downtown. It was a very late night for me considering it was a weeknight, plus insomnia, as usual. I was tiiiired on Friday, but I can handle it on Friday’s because I know the weekend is coming soon.

I asked Scott at the end of the night if he would rather have all-you-can-eat sushi six times or Tojo one time. He said all-you-can-eat, but I say Tojo’s. What about you?