Burgoo

Remember when I went to new restaurants all the time? Yea, that was fun. I told Chad if we ever won the lottery that’s what I would do with my life. I would dedicate it to food. And restaurants.

For my birthday dinner this year we ventured into the hipster neighbourhood of Main Street and checked out Burgoo. It was a very hot day and despite the fact that everyone around us was ordering salads and sandwiches, we decided to order dishes that would have been suitable to eat in the middle of winter. Needless to say, despite their absolute deliciousness, we could not finish them. Heat overload.

Burgoo
Burgoo
Burgoo
Reading
Strong Strawberry Lemonaid

I’m a sucker for strong lemon aids. Especially ones with strawberries in them.

Hummus
Hummus

Hummus is our latest obsession. This one was TO DIE FOR.

Beef Bourguignon
Beef Bourguignon

Beef Bourguignon hon hon. I had it for lunch the next day. Mighty fine indeed.

Macaroni & More
Macaroni & More

Mac & Cheese is something I try to make but am never happy with the results. I guess it is best left to the professionals.

Beer Face
Yo
Model Face
Necklace

I love getting new jewelry from work and then putting it in a drawer at home and never wearing it. I am a great collector. This time I actually wore something.

Desserts
Dessert in a Glass

I may be obsessed with Moscato now thanks to my God Father.

The Ciavarros

 I finally learned to ask for pictures to be taken to commemorate events. If you don’t have group shots, you have nothing.

Fashion Shot
Fashion Shot

Whoa whoa whoa. Whats this? An outfit photo? I know, right? So bizarre. I figured since I liked this little outfit I put together, I should probably get a shot of it. Chad reminded me that I only look good in these photos when I make an angry face or look away from the camera. He was right. Smiling directly into the lens never works.

Also, flickr decided to go and makes itself all fancy, which I’m not too happy about and even though all the ratios of my photos are correct, the vertical ones look weird, right? I don’t know why people can’t leave well enough alone.

Happy Belated Birthday to ME.

Birthday Burgers for Shazzi B

Last Saturday we celebrated Shazzi’s early birthday by stuffing our faces at Burger Heaven.

Burger Heaven
Everett, Shaz & Chad
Kelsey & I

These two needed to get a room…

Shaz & Chad
Gross
Really Gross
Checking Out
Messing Up
Fixing It

See, I told you.

Burgarz

I got the #6 – The Breaded Chicken, Cheddar & Mozzarella Burger and it was perfection. I was actually able to finish the whole thing, which I thought was pretty impressive.

Now I know I have stated before that I am NOT a burger person because I essentially hate ground beef, but I gotta say, I think I am slowly getting off my wagon of hate. Now, clearly I did not order a burger made with beef, but they all looked so damn good that I think I need to go back to Burger Heaven and have a real burger; maybe even the Insanity Burger, because I am CRAZY.

Chomp

Look at that yummy goodness. Does Guy Fieri know about this place? It was MONEY.

Moi

Gratuitous Selfie! Friggin Selfies. I invented Selfies.

After stuffing ourselves we came back to our place and watched Youtube videos on the big screen, our newest favoritest past time. Cat videos and 90s rap for all! Then I realized it was day light savings and instead of it being 12:45 it was really 1:45 and I cursed the world.

Damn you world!

Diced Pineapples

IMG-20130226-00468

I went to Matt’s for dinner last night. I cooked him two types of pasta; Amatriciana (tomatoes with onions and pancetta) and a pesto made with walnuts and ricotta. It was all so good and so damn filling. Look at how classy our dinner set up was. Ugh. I want to steal everything that Matt owns. He has the most amazing design eye. I know I always say that but it is always true. The man is a GENIUS. Sometimes I just can not handle it. Every time I need to be inspired I should just go to his place.

We spent the rest of the evening watching the Nanny, because its the best show of all time and watching rap videos. I discovered the formula for creating a rap video, which I am sure most of you have. Ciroc, dudes in chains, mostly naked woman shaking there ass, and a lot of talk about cats, but not actual cats. We also watched Drakes newest video, because we are that predictable. It’s filmed inside a Shoppers Drug Mart which is hands down the most amazing thing of all time. Really!? Shoppers!? LOVE.

The great thing about staying late in the city is that driving home is so much easier then during rush hour, that is unless a Canucks game has just let out, the hwy was previously closed because of an accident, there is construction on said hwy, and it is raining like a mother trucker. I encountered all 4 of these things last night. Sweet Mother of Mercy. There was a point in time where there was so much rain and so much construction I could not tell where my lane was, you know, because they like to move the lanes every other day and there are no proper lines on the actual road. Worst ever.

Also, Rick Ross is really unattractive.

My German Valentine

Prawns at the German haus We call them breaded cutlets
Nothing says love like a giant schnitzel. Moose sans antlers
Eins vines. Helga Schnitzelvoss

I put Mr. Ciavarro in charge of Valentines Day this year. What happens when you put Mr. Ciavarro in charge of Valentines Day? He takes you to a German Schnitzel Haus.

Priceless.

The whole time he was making the plans he kept asking me if I was sure I did not want any input and I can’t tell him I was sure I did not want any input. I wanted to see what HE would come up with. And I got just what I expected, something interesting.

Turns out trying to make reservations for a restaurant one week before Valentines Day is more difficult then it sounds. This led Chad on a while goose chance, trying to find a good restaurant that had room for us with out forcing us to wait in a giant line up for hours on end. He was left with two choices, the Boathouse or the German Haus. He chose the German Haus.

I have to say, the food was really good. We both ordered schnitzel because how can you not. Chad had the Schnitzel Cordon Blue, and I have the Schnitzel with mushrooms and Bearnaise sauce. Nom nom nom nom nom. Schnitzels are damn tasty, especially when eating at a restaurant that specializes in them.

The Old Bavaria Haus is obviously a very popular place because it was packed. People clearly wanted to spend Valentines Day with their two loves, their significant others and schnitzel. Thats exactly what Chad wanted to do.

Overall the evening was a success. Even though I probably would not have picked the Old Bavaria Haus, I am glad Chad did because it was something different then what we usually do and we had a fantastic time. Plus, nothing says love like a giant schnitzel!

There Is Pork On My Turkey

My sickness got the best of me on Friday and I ended up going home early. It was nice to go home, rest and turn my brain off for a bit. I hardly ever give myself the ability to do that when I am sick but I knew that I had to. At the same time, I did wake up from my nap at 9 pm realizing all the trim that was sitting in the living room was finally installed which meant I didn’t have to trip over it every day, so naturally I got up and swept, vacuumed and washed all the floors. HAHA. Of course I did.

The weekend was pretty relaxed in terms of working on the house. I just didn’t have a lot of energy and felt like being lazy for once.

Saturday we went over to Dario and Ginas for a Christmas Dinner. I made a Rosemary Focaccia and Wild Rice stuffing that turned out pretty good, as well as potato latkes which I love.

Pork Sausage Covered Turkey
Pork Sausage Covered Turkey

Ginas family has a tradition of covering their turkey in pork sausages, something none of us had ever seen before! Its neat to get together with friends and learn about different traditions. There was also a huge discussion as to whether or not you open up your Christmas crackers before or after dinner. Chad was the only one who does it after. Our family traditions revolve around decorating the Christmas Tree while listening to Boney M. Classic!

Cookies!
Sprinkles
Mauro

Gina also set up a cookie decorating table which was genius. Mauro made a cookie sammich and quite a few people had to deal with exploding icing bags, but all in a days fun.

15 people came for dinner. With the madness of me cooking in the kitchen and then my cold getting the best of me at dinner time, I didn’t take a lot of photos. There was so much food and all of it was so good. Between appetizers  dinner and dessert we could have fed a small army. Not to mention the 10L of eggnog Dario bought!

It was sad that we had to skip another year of hosting our balls party, but getting together with friends around a giant table overflowing with food more than made up for it.