A great weekend, a good recipe and a bad start to the week

Not quite the good, the bad, the ugly, but it’s true.

Pat and I are back from an amazingly wonderful weekend away. It was exactly what we needed and I wish I was still there, hiding on a private island, surrounded by the most beautiful lake and trees and chirping chipmunks. Sigh. But first, lets back it up.

Thursday night I was at home, bored and broiling. Pat was at another double karate class night, so I was by myself and roasting in our A/Cless house. I was bored of all the food we’ve been eating, so I decided to throw together this recipe that I came across on pinterest (PS, is it really spelt Brussels Sprouts? I have been spelling it brussel sprouts my whole life. Hrm).

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Bacon

Bacon, all set to go

I mean, it’s a pasta recipe, from Martha Stewart with bacon. How could I resist?

Shallots and garlic, sizzling away with some bacon grease

When I saw Shallots, Garlic and chicken stock, I knew it was meant to be. I had all of these sitting around, wanting to be used.

Brussels Sprouts. I love these little things. I know they are hated by many, but I love these thing bitty bundles of green awesome

The only difference in my take of this recipe is my use of frozen brussel sprouts. I nuked them for half the time the bag suggested -just enough to defrost them-, and then followed the recipe the rest of the way.

All together now

The verdict? Pretty good. I would definitely like to try this with fresh veggies and see if it ends up being more flavourful. I think some tomato might be what’s missing. Pat liked it too, but requests more cheese. Then again, this mind works like this: Brussels Sprouts = CHEESY GOODNESS with a bit of green healthy stuff. Overall, a good meal. Definitely would make it again. It’s just missing….something. Must investigate further.

So, Friday morning Pat and I got up, got packed and made our way out to the country. Sharbot Lake it about an hour and a half away from where we live in the west end of Ottawa. It was a beautiful drive on a really warm and sunny day. We arrived right on time, and met up with our girl, Ali, who picked us up in her boat and took us to her family’s PRIVATE FREAKING ISLAND.  Yep, it was amazing. We spent the next couple of days getting to know Ali’s friends, eating lots of food (specifically lots of bacon), spending lots of time outside and even more time in the incredible lake. I even went skinny dipping for the very first time (with the girls, as the boys played poker. We returned to discover that we had been bet and lost as “prizes”. Pat lost me, but gained two of the girls. I was won by the very lucky Justin, who declared me to be an elven queen, thus more valuable than the two humans that Pat won. Confused? Yep. Me too. And flattered, so I’ll take it.)

Some pictures from the weekend:

Pat and I, about to board the boat to AWESOME ISLAND

Pat and I swimming!

Me in my little reading nook

Breakfast bacon, about to be cooked.

Yeah. Amazing.

We hated to leave, but leave we had to. Sunday afternoon we had one last swim, packed our stuff into the boat and then began our journey home. We made it home in time to quickly shower and change before meeting up with S&K for our evening of HARREH POTTAH!

Yeah, it was great. I laughed, I cried. I crushed Pat’s arm. We loved it. They definitely had their work cut out for them to condense a massive book into these two relatively short movies. Things got cut and changed, but I think they did a good job of getting the main ideas across (though Pat was confused by a couple of things that weren’t properly explained by the movies. ie: Tonks has a baby and a husband? Is Snape Harry’s father? WTF?)

After the movie, we decided to catch a quick dinner (S & K are about to have their second child, so it’s the last time in a while that they get to be out with friends so we took every excuse to stay out and have fun) only to be hit by OMGWINDS and the craziest storm Ottawa has seen in a while. We were fine, though soaked, by the time we were headed home at the end of the night.

Yesterday was pretty standard at work, but today has been hell. There’s been major issues with the estate (long story short: Estate taxes never got paid. I am very angry with Canada Post), I’m swamped at work, not feeling great and the husband is home sick.  Hopefully the week improves, because I was ready to snap today. I just have to go back to thinking about the weekend and hopefully that’ll calm me down.

On that note, the day is over! I’m outta here!