Curry Partay

Staying up until 6am is not necessarily the best idea I’ve ever had.  Nor is following up a few glass of red wine with a few too many glasses of vodka/cranberry/soda.  Needless to say most of Saturday was a write-off.  A lot of sleep, a very patient dog, a gigantic Coco Cappuccino and deli-made pasta salad saved the day.

As did my friend Laura.

My friends Jamie and Chris decided to throw a potluck with an Indian curry theme.  While this sounds like an amazing idea I realized that I have really never ever cooked anything Indian!!  Oh nooooooes!

Thankfully Laura came to the rescue with one of Chef Heidi Fink’s recipes!  North Indian Tomato Curry (with Cauliflower and Chickpeas).

My biggest concern was actually cost.  I was very worried about having to purchase many spice ingredients I didn’t have on hand to make the homemade curry powder and garam masala.  Thankfully Laura had very recently made fresh batches of both and brought me a spice gift package!!

Including fresh curry leaves!

And black mustard and whole cumin seeds…

Due to my super duper late night I pretty much slept the day away on Saturday and thanks to some glitches with my Blackberry I wasn’t hearing text messages or phone calls and actually slept right through the time Laura and I had planned to get together to work on the recipe.

Doh!

She was a superstar though and still met me later in the day to help walk me through everything.  Honestly, she pretty much cooked the whole thing…but seeing the few tricks up her sleeve make me confident I’ll be able to do it myself next time!!

I am very pleased with how this turned out.  So flavourful! 

Along with this I also did a fresh and simple Kachumar Salad.  Sweet onions for the win!

The veggie slicing took some time but I arrived at the dinner party just in time to eat!  We had such a beautiful variety of contributions and everything was delicious!

Dinner Guests:  I want that Butter Chicken recipe!  Um, and the naan while we’re at it.  Oh, and the tandoori.  Ah well, throw in the raita recipe too please!  :)  and Alex:  What was your dish with the egg??

Admittedly I avoided the cocktails.  One night of drinkin’ is enough for me this week.  Lordy.  I did indulge in a second serving of almost everything and two too many cookies though.  Fooooooood.

Some sort of ridiculous Wii game kept us all rather entertained for the remainder of the evening…

…before I brought myself home and tucked into bed for a much needed 12 hours of sleep.  Major props go out to Chibi who totally let me sleep as much as I needed.  My dog is clearly a rock star.

I’m teaching her well.  zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

CCCRT – Day One

CCCRT = Colossal Cross-Country Road Trip :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

First leg:  Halifax, NS to Fredericton, NB

Mileage:  453 km

Time:  4.5 hours

Pee breaks:  one :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Farewell to Nova Scotia…

 

Welcome to New Brunswick…

 

Even though the Halifax morning was dull and dreary, the sun appeared and stayed through our whole drive.

I missed the turnoff for the World’s Largest Blueberry…such is life.  But I did catch a glimpse of this sweet car…

 

My road treat/refreshment was an Iced Half-Sweet Vanilla Latte from McDonald’s.  Yes, McDonald’s.  And it was tasty!

Stoopy fared well on his first day on the road.  He hung out cage-free on the passenger seat most of the afternoon…until the sun started to bake him…at which time he decided my lap was the better place to be.

 

He really is not thrilled with this whole situation but he’ll survive.  Once we arrived at Tara’s he chilled in the cool, shady car for a while and then came in and relaxed in her spare room. 

Accomodation:  Tara and Stephen’s

And let me tell you people…this was a great place to spend my first night! Miss Tara cooked up an incredible meal.  Such the perfect hostess!

What What?  Yes, this is a Vegetable Cheesecake!  Recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook.  If you’ve never had a meal from Moosewood…you must.  Every vegetarian’s best friend.  Of course you don’t need to be a vegetarian to enjoy it…

Served with panzanella made with heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil from their herb garden.

 

Dining with another foodie and blogger makes me feel like less of a dork for taking food pictures!  :)

 

She also made sure to have Strongbow on hand for me (talk about paying attention to what I like!) and we also shared this crazy local beer.  Melon Head.  Yes, melon beer.  The jury is out on this one…LOL.

And if all of that was not enough, she made dessert!  And not just any dessert…a homemade French tart with fresh strawberries and fresh vanilla bean whipped cream. Feel free to drool now.

Seriously.  How freaking awesome is that?  And you guys were worried about me being on the road.  haha.  To top it off I got a few good laughs at this cutie-patootie…Samson…

…oh…AND we watched True Blood. :)  Perfect end to a first day.

Thanks guys!

Hockey Food

Hi guys.  Sorry all of my posts are a day delayed and crazy long because I’m only doing one per day.  It’s tough to keep up while in vacay/condo hunting mode.

Yesterday I scheduled six more viewings with my realtor since nothing from my “potential favourites” list really panned out on Monday.  I had intended to get up and work out before heading out to do that, but decided reading my Sookie Stackhouse book for an hour was time better spent.  :)

Ran over to Starbucks for my morning jolt.  The problem with going out for coffee is that 75% of the time I come back with food too.  This time Lemon Loaf…

I did eat half of a banana too right before running out the door to pick up my realtor.  Yes, I said pick up my realtor.  LOL.  Poor guy’s car totally died just as he came to get me…some sort of starter problem…totally beyond his control but man did he feel bad.  Thankfully Tiffaney doesn’t use her car during the day so she generously offered it up, so off we went.  I was soooo grateful to not have to put off those viewings since I’m totally in a time crunch here!  Five of the six sucked, but at least we looked!

When we were done, I decided to head to the mall for some retail therapy…and a few much needed new Summer wardrobe pieces.  While there I hit the food court for lunch.

The food court truly is a nemesis. All I ever want is tacos or Japanese.  And not healthy sushi, but a teriyaki rice bowl loaded with calories, sugar and probably MSG.

But not to worry, I had Subway.  :)  Six inch turkey on the parmesan bread, toasted.  Lettuce, cucumber, double tomatoes, pickles, and one line of the Southwest sauce. 

 

With a much needed bottle of water and two cookies to split up for treats later.  I ate one in the car when I finished shopping.  I did also stop and get a tall coffee at Starbucks on my way home, but totally didn’t even finish drinking it.

For our evening plans, Tiffaney and I were invited to watch the Canucks game at our friends Ingmarie and Alex’s.  They offered up dinner so how could we resist!?

I stopped and picked up some Holy Hummus, Stacy’s Pita Chips and fresh veggies to take with us…which I chopped up once we got there.

Ingmarie made a giant bowl of homemade guacamole, which everyone immediately devoured…

And for dinner she gave us the option of Bison burgers or Lamb burgers with gruyere cheese in the middle.  No boring frozen burgers for their hockey party!!

I chose Bison.  Ah-freaking-mazing. 

On a soft and squishy cheese bun with mayo, fancy ketchup, greens, tomatoes and a pickle on the side…

Um, yum.  That is all.

Alex offers up a wide array of fantastic beers (or wine, or cocktails for that matter) so I decided that might be the way to go with my fancy burger. 

 

Canoe Bavarian Copper Boch.  

Red, hoppy, and delicious.  One glass hit the spot!

And if that’s not enough, Ing baked off an apple pie she had purchased from a fundraiser…and served it with French vanilla ice cream…

The only thing that would have made the evening better is if the Canucks had won!  Dammit.  (oh and if the perfect condo had magically appeared on the market…that would have been nice too…)  

Condo Day

Even though my body thought it was 3am when I went to bed…it was really only around 11pm here…so I was able to actually get out of bed by 8:30am feeling pretty good yesterday.  I’ve made this trip enough times now that I can usually kick the jetlag in one sleep.  This trip seems no different…phew!

Tiffaney doesn’t brew coffee at home (gasp!) but she did hook me up with this crazy cute (green!) travel mug and Starbucks gift card to fuel me through my condo-hunting…

Isn’t it perfect?  What a friend, eh?  :)

So I did make a quick run up the block for a Starbucks caffeine fix…Grande Pike Place with one pump of hazelnut and some skim milk.  Yum.  I also made a quick stop at the supermarket for a few breakfast/snack essentials.

Bananas, apples, grapes, organic fat-free vanilla yogurt, and organic pumpkin granola.  Deeeeelish!

For a quick breakfast I made up a small bowl of yogurt and granola…and had planned on eating an apple, but ended up eating a banana instead.  I feel like bananas have more staying power.

I met my new realtor at the cafe just below Tiff’s condo, where he actually had a coffee waiting for me.  Nice, right?  Works for me!  I’m a 2 cup girl anyway.  :)

And then he and I set off on our whirlwind condo viewing day.  I’ll wait and do a full recap after I have more to tell, but we did see 9 units yesterday and although I don’t think I’ve found home yet there are a couple of potential contenders.

After the first four, we stopped for lunch.  I wish it hadn’t been a business lunch because the pizza I ordered was beautiful and would have made awesome blog food porn!

We went to Fifth Street Bar & Grill.  My pizza was on their daily special menu and included pulled pork, sliced red potato, roasted asparagus and a roasted garlic cream base.  It was to have banana peppers too, but I opted to skip those. 

It was deeeeeeeeeeeeeeelish!  Their crust is thin, crispy and just the way I like a gourmet pizza.  I ate about 3/4 of it and was perfectly satisfied.

We then set off for a few more hours of condo hunting and then he deposited me back at Tiff’s around 3pm so I could ponder the properties and relax for the evening.  I stopped back into the Cafe Fantastico when he dropped me off and opted for an unsweetened Iced Soy Latte…which really hit the spot…

With this I snacked on a Clif Bar I had been carrying around in my purse…

For dinner, Tiffaney offered to cook for me!  She has been telling me about her delicious Dirty Risotto for a long time so this time I took her up on it.  :)  She was totally right…super deeeeelish and comforting.  I was incredibly tired and only ate one serving but I could see totally sitting down with another bowl on a cozy couch night.  Yum!

I should have taken pictures of her actually cooking but I’m a little off my photography game right now.  The dish includes:  chorizo, pancetta, onion, red peppers, mushrooms, white wine, parmesan, chicken stock, etc… 

I must really try making risotto for myself.  It’s been on my “to cook” list forever!

Enjoyed a glass (or two) of white wine with dinner too…

Watched the Canucks lose in a terrible third period and then headed for bed by 11pm.  Took forever to fall asleep but now I think I’m solidly in the right time zone.  Actually got up at 8:30 again today even though I don’t really have anything on the go.  Ended up working for a few hours because of course our sales team had an awesome day on my first day off and I figured I’d help out now since I have some free time.  Nice, right?  :)

Anyway, time for a walk in the sun and wind.  Talk soon!