Weekend Report -> Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!!!

Relatives from Toronto came up this weekend to celebrate my grandfather's birthday. 
We had a huge takeout order of Rideau Restaurant dishes for dinner on Saturday.  I think we only got through half of the food pictured.

Rideau Takeout.

Then we had 3 birthday cakes: matcha cake, chestnut cake, and my homemade lemon cheese cake.

Birthday Cakes.

We had dimsum for Sunday lunch before my relatives went back.  Between meals Susanna, my cousins and I played Azul and Quacks of Quedlinburg.

Last week was Bob's retirement lunch at Fratelli.  I got a carpaccio and arugula salad.  I got it on Becky's recommendation.  It was very good.  The raw thinly slice beef went well with the mushroom, arugula, and cheese. Good dish, but also expensive.  $22!  I had to try it once, but the $20 lasagna was huge and the better deal.

Carpaccio Salad.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAVIN!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAVIN!!!

Food last week ->
Tried the new Strawberry and Cream Filled donut last week with Ed and Steve.  It's a Boston Cream donut with a strawberry dipped top instead of the chocolate.  It's pretty good, but compared the original Boston Cream; I still prefer the Boston Cream,

Strawberry Cream and Boston Cream Donuts.

Dungeness Crab was on sale this weekend at T&T.  I decided to get one.  I tried to pick out a female one, but all the ones in the tank were male :(  No crab roe this time.

Dungenous Crab.

To cook it, I just boiled it in salty water.  I ate it by chopping it in half, pulling out the bladder and dumping it.  Then slowly disassembled it with my hands to eat all the meat.  The meat was nice and sweet.

Halved Dungenous Crab.

Made chicken soup on Sunday night.  I chopped and boiled some white potatoes, carrots, and garlic in water, salt, and dashi.  Then I added the magic soup mix: 1 can of cream of mushroom soup and 1 can of cream of chicken soup.  Stirred in the soups with about 1 can of milk (1/2 can of milk in each can to get the can bits) and then added black pepper and dried chives.  Brought it to a boil and then reduced it to a low simmer.  I then deboned 6 halal chicken thighs and sliced it into big chunks and added it to the soup when it was simmering only.  I recently learned on a cooking show that chicken meat seizes up and toughens when it is boiled.  It should be cooked without bringing the liquid to a boil to keep the meat smooth and tender.

Chicken and Vegetable Soup.

The soup came out good and delicious.  I made a big pot and ate more today for dinner.

Baba is You is Great

Dinner today -> Curry Rice.
I was watching a Twitch stream of someone making pork katsu with curry rice last night.  Totally made me hungry for curry rice.  So I made it today for dinner.  I already had everything I needed in the house: pork sausage, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and curry roe.  Made fresh rice first.  Then chopped the veggies and sliced the meat.  Threw the garlic and onions into a pot with oil to fry for a few mins, then added the meat, then the potatoes and carrots a few minutes later.  Added water til it was covered and added oyster sauce and dashi powder.  Boiled it for 20 mins then stirred in the curry roe.  Removed from heat and let sit for 10 mins to let it thicken.

Curry Rice.

Useless Gaming News:
Downloaded "Baba is You" on the Nintendo Switch last Friday.  This is a great puzzle game.  The puzzles use text blocks to set/manipulate rules and objectives to complete each puzzle.  Some are easy, but some are super hard.  I hear there are over 200 puzzles.  Totally worth buying. 
I've fully completed 3 maps: The Lake, Solitary Island, and Temple Ruins.  I have 67 completed puzzles and have 4 flowers (used to unlock more maps).  Currently I'm almost done the "Forest of Fall", but I think I'm stuck.  The answer is probably on YouTube, but I'm not going to look it up.  I may move on to the 3 new maps I haven't tried yet: Flower Garden, Rocket Trip, and Deep Forest.
Tip: Try using "not" before nouns.  Opened up some puzzles once I discovered that.

Weekend Report -> IKEA Chocolate Rabbit

Food this weekend ->
Took Thursday and Friday off to use up some vacation days.  Ate a bunch of fruit (very good green grapes are on sale at FarmBoy this week), cheese, wraps, junk food and sandwiches.  They only thing I really cooked was a steak on Friday night.  While cooking the steak I boiled some garlic chives and straw mushrooms.  When the steak was done, I finished the chives and mushrooms in the pan with the steak drippings.

Steak with Garlic Chives and Straw Mushrooms.

Useless Food News:
Hung out with Julie on Thursday.  We went shopping at Costco, Ren's Pet Shop, the House of Cheese, and IKEA.  I had gotten some IKEA chocolate rabbits last week with Susanna, but Julie and I wanted to get a couple more.  We looked and asked at IKEA, but they were all sold out already!  The staff didn't know if they were getting more, but he didn't think so.

IKEA Chocolate Rabbit.

They are so cool.  You build them like IKEA furniture!

Useless Gaming News:
4-player gaming at Brian's on Saturday night.  We played Tokyo Highway, Bob Ross, Cave Paintings, and Sixes.
We introduce Gordon to Tokyo Highway.  It's a neat game, but I think it lacks something to make it more fun.

4 Highways.

The funnest game we played was Cave Paintings.  I need to get a copy.  The object is each player has to draw 6 pictures in 60 seconds with the marker held in a fist.  Then the picture is passed to the right player to guess each drawing.  After all guesses are done, the guesses are revealed and the correct answers give points to the guesser and drawer.  Great fun drawing game, and 60 seconds is not alot of time to draw 6 pictures.

Weekend Report -> Chili

Food this weekend -> Chili
Made chili Thursday night.  It was a really big pot full and I ate it all weekend.  Used ground beef, spanish onions, diced tomatoes, red kidney beans, white kidney beans, black beans, sliced garlic, corn, and quail eggs.  For spice I used a bag of hot chili spices and a bag of regular chili spices.  It wasn't hot enough, so I used half a teaspoon of the 911 sauce leftover from Big Bone BBQ.  The whole huge pot of chili almost became too spicy!  That was only 1/2 a teaspoon too!

Spicy Chili.

Useless Food News:
Susanna and I went to T&T on Friday night.  I got some assorted Gluten.  The stupid annoying part of the trip was the cashier took the container and packed it sideways into the grocery bag!  Susanna notice but it was too late, there was sauce all over the bottom of the bag and on the other items.

Gluten and Ice Tea.

We also went to Walmart.  I tried out a Brisk Watermelon Lemonade Ice Tea.  It's taste totally like fake watermelon flavour but it was a tasty drink.  Plus the huge can was only $1.  It was $2.29 at Shoppers.

Most Stuf Oreos

Snack today -> Most Stuf Oreos
Steve found the limited edition Most Stuf Oreos at the Stittsville Independent Grocer.

Found in Stittsville.

Only 18 Oreos in the box, but each of them have alot of filling :)

Most Stuf Oreo.

Then there is Steve, making his double Most Stuf Oreo ^o^!?!?!

Double Most Stuf Oreo.

Dinner today -> Eggplant
Wasn't sure what to eat for dinner today as I wasn't very hungry.  I decided to make pan fried eggplant with melted cheese on some of them.  Pretty good.

Eggplant with Cheese.