Eat! Vancouver & the rest of the weekend.

First, since I am an American I would like to take this time and say thank you to all of those who have given their lives for us to have the freedom's we have. This includes those who served past and present. Being a military member is a commitment that take pure heart and commitment to get up and do everyday. There are men and women out there who are trying to make do as their spouse is off facing dangers most of us can never imagine. So, even though we don't have the day off here in Canada it is important for me to take a minute and stop and say a few words of thanks and appreciation for those out there who gave their life to help keep America a safe and free place for it's citizens.

Moving on....

This weekend we had a rare moment where it was just hubby & I when our daughter took a weekend trip to Victoria over on Vancouver Island with her Girl Guide Unit. We had some friends over & played games until way too late on Friday night. Then, Saturday I got up to workout and made us this amazing breakfast pizza. I made our crust from scratch using the quick & easy pizza crust from Clean Mama.

Then, I did a DIY Shellac. I'll say they looked really pretty but they did not last very long. I did it on my nails and the kiddo's nails the next day we still had chips. Today, basically 3 days later and they already need to be redone. I will say though using the Hard as Wraps and the no-chip acrylic top coat my nails are feeling quite a bit stronger than normal. So, I'll continue to use them...especially since I bought them but it doesn't last as long as the Shellac I got last summer prior to vacation. That lasted the full 10 days of vacation.

So, after the nails were done and my amazing husband did the dishes for me:

We go going to Eat! Vancouver. Now, after you buy your admission fee you did need to purchase tasting tickets in order to taste some things. Some booths were giving regular samples, but others mostly higher end restaurants and alcohol you needed tasting tickets. The servings you got with the tasting tickets were quite a nice portion. So, through pictures I'll fill you in:

Us in line for the amazing cheese that follows. It was really good!

Raclette Cheese

This is a delicious melting cheese. At home you basically just whack off a few slices & heat it up under the broiler for the the same effect they got here. The company is Cheeses from Switzerland.

These are the bags we were given to carry our goodies home in. The Swiss Cheese place gave us a really nice bag to help keep the cheese cold while we made our way around the rest of the festival. 

So, we bought two different types of cheese from the company the easy melting Raclette and Gruyere. We did try the Appenzeller but it was too mild for us. We like for our cheese to pack a flavor punch!

Next, we hit the adult tasting area. I forgot to take pictures here. Basically you put down a two ticket deposit & grabbed a glass then you'd go to each booth & decide what you want to taste. Everything in this area cost tasting tickets. Liquor is very, very expensive up here but the Mr. & I were quite surprised at how fair the pricing was for everything. I tried one skinny moscato, it was terrible. Had no flavor at all. Then, I tried a shot from a whiskey place it was Licor 43 it was amazing! It was a shot with whipped cream on top. Sweet and warm, just what I was needing that day! ;) I'll have to stock up for the winter for sure! Otherwise I didn't really try too much in that area. There was a lot of beer & I am not a beer drinker and the Mr. doesn't drink at all so we quickly moved on to more food! 

The first thing I tried & it was very messy because they gave me a lot so sadly I didn't get any pictures was Butter Chicken with Jasmine rice. It was pretty good & I was glad to get to try it as I see it on many menu's around here but wasn't sure if it would be spicy or not. This was spicy but it was good. We then moved on down to Dunn's Smoked Meats & Beaver Tails. We'd seen the smoked meats place before but had never given it a second thought to try. I was really tasty!!!

This is the open faced sandwich with mustard. I thought the mustard gave the meat a great flavor. I actually gave quite a bit of my meat to hubby because it was almost too much for me. 

This was hubby's sandwich without the mustard. He thought it was decent. It wasn't as good as his favorite brisket from our fave BBQ place in Texas, but it was nice for something a little different. I think if they had a thicker crust with the rub on the outside he would have liked it a lot better. 

This is just a silly picture of a pickle outside the Dunn's booth. This pickle makes me smile!!! 

YES, there is a place called Beavertails!! It is flipping delicious! If you are ever near a place that sells them I HIGHLY recommend not missing trying one!

Hubby bought these so I don't have the name of it but basically it is a sweet fried flat dough (almost like a flat doughnut) with chocolate hazelnut spread on top with reese's pieces & a drizzle of peanut butter. I savored every last bite. It was amazing!

This was hubby's. It was just the fried dough with cinnamon & sugar. It was very tasty too. I think it's more a "classic" of their line. 

Later Saturday evening after just relaxing we decided to play around with our cheese and hubby decided he'd cook up his portion of the food: 

Basically what he did was to a bowl he added Nature's Seasoning, Onion Powder, and Garlic Powder. Then he dipped each piece of meat into the mixture & fried it up in a pan. 

This is the meat being fried up. It was really tender when he was done. It was served with the Raclette we bought, after it came out from under the broiler he just scraped it directly on top of the meat. 

Proof he actually did cook!!! He was feeling very domestic this weekend I guess between cleaning the kitchen then cooking! 

That is our weekend in a nutshell. Sunday we sat around re-watching the first few episodes of Newsroom since that is going to premiere soon. Then, we had to go pick the kiddo up from the Ferry terminal. It was an hour drive, but it was a very nice drive. I'll leave you with some pictures of that: 

The tide was really, really low here. There appeared to be almost no water!!

Tsawwassen. I have no idea how you actually say this....I say it with a silent "T" but the other people I've heard say it say it with this weird-to-me TS blend.....

Storm was rolling in.

Stormy clouds with boats out on the water.

There we have it! Our fun weekend in a nutshell! What all did you do this weekend?