Too Many Mushrooms.

#MondayMealPlan

After overestimating the amount of food needed for the cast barbecue on Friday night, we were left with an abundance of portabella mushrooms. While I don't detest mushrooms, I don't love them. They are better eaten when I can disguise them in things, so this weeks meal plan is all about using up mushrooms.

Monday - Mixed Mushroom Soup - Rob cooked tonight, so I could go hang out with the beautiful Loukia at The Beauty Room and have my nails painted. Stay tuned for that update, its amazing!

Tuesday - Spaghetti and Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce - Rob's mom suggested a good way to use up the mushrooms would be to make them into pasta sauce. Since we are about to come into a lot of tomatoes, it seemed like a good plan to get on top of them now. I picked as many as I could find and tossed them in with zucchini, some of my baby eggplants, onion, my amazing green peppers that my teeny tiny pepper plant produced, garlic and a bunch of the leftover mushrooms and made two jars and another glad container of pasta sauce! Rob is away two nights this week, so pasta and pasta sauce make for an easy dinner for me. Along with the incredible bread Shima from the Smalltown cast traded me in return for fig jam.

Wednesday - Spaghetti and Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce  - More of the same, with a side of Gossip Girl. My nights are finally my own again and Amber and I are in serious girl time withdrawal.

Thursday - Sidney Street Market - One of my very favourite things about Victoria in summer are all of the markets. I think I've talked a little about the Moss Street Market on Saturdays, where we get lots of produce and our sea salts... and another favourite is the Sidney Street Market out in Rob's hometown. It runs every single Thursday night in the summer time and is several blocks long, filled with everything you can imagine, carnival food, artisan jewelry, home made kids toys, spices, pies and produce, live music. This is its last week, so Rob and hope to meet out there (if he is in from the ferry from Vancouver in time) for some greasy food and maybe some Saskatchewan Christmas gift shopping.

Friday - Barbecue - A wildcard, we have frozen hot dogs, turkey dogs, beef burger, chicken burgers and kebobs, mostly leftovers from our barbecue, so whatever I pull out first Thursday night I guess. This will be Rob and I's first Friday night in in I don't know how long!

Saturday - Fish on 5th - Samantha is coming! Samantha is coming! We have an unexpected much anticipated visit from our little Sam! In honour of this we will take her directly off her flight into Sidney for my 2nd favourite fish and chips in town, Fish on 5th. Only second to Red Fish Blue Fish downtown. Fish on 5th is open later and closer to the airport. Also indoors, so after Red Fish Blue Fish shuts down for the winter (in the summer months you can sit on the pier and eat your fish and chips while watching the float planes take off... Oh Victoria, I love you so) Fish on 5th becomes our regular fish and chips.

And once Samantha is here, this girl is taking some much needed time off ... to can all of those tomatoes! Stay tuned for tomato everything! Let me know if you have any amazing suggestions!

#SundaySnapshots --- Smalltown: A Pickup Musical and two weeks of Theatre SKAM

Guys.. All I've wanted to do is write an amazing blog post about premiering a musical on the back of a pickup truck, and how little me managed to get the cheques written and two parties thrown in two days. And somehow in the midst of that canned an overwhelming amount of vegetables from the garden. An then throw another party at my house and stand in for the Stage Manager one night of the run, but this past two weeks I've been doing all of that, so finding the time or energy to write anything about it has been scarce.

So... Instead, a photo roundup, starting over two weeks ago when the Smalltown/Theatre SKAM truck became a reality.

The truck arrived.

And unpacked into a show.

The chairs were delivered.

We traded Figs...

For Ice Cream!

We Christened the truck

(it's hard to see here, but his name is Bob, in honour of Bob Milne -- Standing on my left)

We took the show on the road and previewed it in parks around the CRD.

While we scrambled to preserve everything we could.

I broke down and bought a canning set. Unpacking it was like Christmas and I had no idea how much it would revolutionize preserving.

Pickled Beans

Round 2.

We ate more figs. This time fried in oil and honey.

With a side of Cold Comfort Pina Colada Sorbet.

We baby sat our adorable niece.

Before heading into the run of Smalltown: A Pickup Musical... we threw the cast a pizza party.

With the help of some lovely board members.

The show opened, and we celebrated.

My lovely date, Pat Rundell

(and Kate photo bombing us in the background)

Jello Shots, love - the Playwrights.

Anna learns how to use draught taps.

Flowers from my amazing Best Friend.

We devised a rain plan (and were never once fully rained out!)

I did some Stage Management time.

We spent some (more) cuddle time.

I started refusing to want to get out of bed.

We got some more canning done.

(Pickled Zucchini!)

And we threw another party!

This time at our house. A barbecue for the whole cast and crew!

Saskatoon Berry Pie

Salad for everyone!!

Munro came to supervise.

And Ladies and Gentleman, this brings us to closing night!

and another party! off to ice the keg

Good thing too, Rob just showed me the forecast for the next week. Rain, rain and more rain.

Now that we have some breathing room I will try to find the time to actually tell you all about everything you see here.

A Busy Meal Plan

Whew! What a busy weekend, and the week ahead looks just as busy. I'm so happy to be meal planning again so I at least know ahead of time that I will try my best to eat well every day, even if it's on the go.

#MondayMealPlan

Monday - Vegan Field Roast Hot Dogs, Zucchini Fritters and leftover potatoes - The hot dogs were leftovers from Bike Ride and gourmet vegan hot dogs without soy from Seattle. You can find them here: Fieldroast Frankfurter. I've linked to the Zucchini Fritter recipe in What's Cooking?

Tuesday - Mom's Stew - It isn't really the right weather for stew, but I've been wanting to use up the peas we harvested last week. Also, we have been getting local meat from this great program called The Local Food Box. We payed in advance for meat for the span of time between mid June to mid September and every other Wednesday we are able to pick up a bag of meat from a community centre near by. The meat is always chicken, pork or lamb. The cuts are always a surprise. I don't eat beef anymore and Rob really enjoys lamb... so, this one will be lamb stew. I have no idea if I will like it or how my body will react, but here goes nothing. Mom is going to come over tomorrow night and teach me how to make it.

Wednesday - Pork Kebobs on Garlic Scapes with Spaghetti Squash - I saw this on the internet just a few days before we went to one of our local food markets. The garlic scapes were out in abundance and I knew I had to try it. Amazing. It's a bit of work because it works best if you pre skewer the meat. This time I bought pre skewered, pre seasoned meat from the market and I will just steam the Spaghetti squash and eat it with Earth Balance and salt, easy weekday meal.

Thursday - Leftovers - First preview of Theatre SKAM's Smalltown: A Pickup Musical is this night. I may be lucky if I get time for supper. Rob's in charge. Also... Have you figured out what's happening on that truck yet?

Friday - Chicken Sausage and Perogies - The Chicken Sausage is also from the local food box and so far all of the other kinds of sausage have been a huge hit. I found locally made dairy free perogies at the market today too! I will try to highlight the local meat as I use it over at What's Cooking? This is also a preview day with SKAM and Smalltown: A Pickup Musical, so we will see how getting to dinner goes, at least this one is nice and easy.

Saturday - Red Barn Fajitas - The other day we checked out the smaller version of The Red Barn Market  that is close to our house. It's teeny and doesn't have the selection that The Root Cellar has, but it has a great deli and we spied a chicken fajita mix that I can't wait to try. Since we will still be in previews over the weekend and I don't know what my schedule will look like, this looks like an easy solution.

And the Figs, Oh My God, the Figs. We canned another 5 dozen tonight, preserved in honey and made into jam. I will post the jam recipe soon!

What will you eat this week?

Sunday Snapshots. Edition 1

I'm going to try something new weekly, and bring you a round up of my favourite moments from the week in photography form.

Welcome to #SundaySnapshots. Edition 1.

Week of August 29, 2013

Photo Round Up

SKAM bought a truck this week. Getting it here was a small fiasco. But in the mean time, I licensed it!

Now wait and see what we are planning to do with it!

During the truck delivering fiasco, I had time to take Rob for lunch. He took a week of his holidays to bum around and start work on the teardrop trailer this week (but I sort of usurped some of that time with, "honey, since your free this week" sorts of things... like, accompanying me to a root canal), so we went for lunch at the newish bistro just around the corner from our house. 

The Truck arrived and we gave SKAM fans a sneak peak. And because you folks live on the internet, you only get a sneak peak as well ;)

                                 

Rob got started on the trailer after all.

We discovered plums in our yard. See. I think it is our plum tree. What do you think?

The figs ripened!

Last rhubarb harvest, but Hello Figs!

And then we immediately realized that we would soon have dozens and dozens and dozens of figs and we'd better start figuring out what to do with them all.

First attempt at preserving Figs.

And a popsicle experiment.

Max and I had our suspicions that the fax machine doesn't work. Max mused, "I wish we knew someone with a fax machine that could tell us if they've received it" I said "WE HAVE A FAX MACHINE." -- What followed was a series of total failures in the use of outdated modern technology. And Rob's exasperation.

The verdict. Its sends out. But we can't receive anything. Don't send us a fax.

I drove the truck. It was terrifying. I'm still not showing you the rest of it.

After my distractions and a day of rain. Rob finally began welding.

And while kitten and I cleaned the house, I found her spying on Rob from the upstairs window.

We also went to Vancouver for the annual Vancouver Pride Parade. It was pretty amazing and very very long. Also, day trips to Vancouver are also very long, so this post is a day late and a proper Pride Photo Round Up will follow!

I hope you have all had a really great long weekend! Happy SK Day, BC Day and what ever the day you are celebrating in your corner of Canada is!

Now off to harvest more figs!