Bannock: Canadian comfort food

I love trying new restaurants. One of my many pretend jobs is food critiquing. I drag Dustin to a new restaurant, convince him to get what I want him to get, and then I judge the food as if it's my job.

I've shared some of my past restaurant experiences, but there are so many more that I don't post about. It's usually because I don't have nice pictures to accompany the gastronomic experience. And what's a food post without pictures of the food?!

Last week, we celebrated a coworker's upcoming wedding at the new O&B restaurant: Bannock. We've been eagerly awaiting its opening as it boasts a menu of Canadian comfort food: poutine, tourtiere, pea soup, PEI mussels, pot pie, lobster roll, and of course, the deliciously simple, native bannock bread. Are you drooling yet???

I ordered the steamed PEI mussels with fennel and celery root. The flavours were divine. Tasty and light, a touch of the sea. I'm a fennel fanatic, and I think it pairs so well with shellfish.




My lucky coworker (lucky because he was sitting across from me and was therefore obligated to share some of his meal with me...) ordered the roasted duck poutine pizza. It's exactly what it sounds like. Crispy french fries smothered in a roasted duck gravy, all atop a thin slab of bannock bread.




It's always great when coworkers have happy moments to celebrate, especially when you're looking for a reason to try the great new restaurant on the corner!

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Under there. Underwear?

Remember when Jenn and I went lace shopping on a beautiful Saturday morning? We had signed up for a class at the workroom to learn to sew our own underwear. The class was great. We learned to make two different types of underwear: a Brazilian Hipster (shown below my post) and a Low Rise Bikini.

I hadn't shared with you the end product of the class because, well, although I had fun, my sewing wasn't great and I knew I could do better. The plan was to go home, try it all again, and share about the really great underwear I learned how to sew.

That's exactly what Jenn did. She immediately went home, sewed a few more pairs and posted about it. Both classes.

I wasn't so studious. It wasn't until a month ago when I realized that I desperately needed to go underwear shopping and remembered my vow that I would sew my own underwear.

I'm so glad I did.

Here are a couple things I did to make the process a little easier.

1. I focused on the Low Rise Bikini: no need to find stretch lace material, and no need to figure out sizing adjustments because the fit wasn't perfect.

2. Reduce the amount of decorate trim: that was the hardest part in the class, learning how to sew the stretch trim to the underwear. I stuck to a top trim and nixed the trim around the thigh. Bonus: I had smooth, panty-line-free underwear.

Once I reminded myself of the sewing steps, the cutting, sewing, and applying of trim took a total of maybe an hour.

It's actually a really great on-going project to have hanging around. When I need a break from a large quilting project (I've been working on one for several months now...) I just pick up the stretch jersey, cut out the three pieces and sew them together. In one meter correction: 1/2 meter of fabric, I can get at least 4 pairs of underwear. And they fit perfectly!

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Camping meals

Dustin and I love to camp. It's our preferred vacation when factoring cost, proximity to home, peace and quiet, and a little challenge. (Sometimes a little too much challenge...)

This past Labour Day weekend, we made our second trip to Massasauga Provincial Park.  The Massasagua is where we go when we have limited time to hike or canoe deep into the back country. From Pete's Place access point, a short 20 minute paddle gets you to some decent interior camp sites.  There are still motor boats that frequent the area, but in general, the sites are quite isolated and the lack of portages allows us to bring more equipment with us despite the two-person trip (Mackenzie has yet to prove useful in anything other than squirrel/chipmunk chasing.)

One of the (many) things Dustin and I look forward to is camping food. It gives us the excuse to be a little junky, indulging in all those "convenience foods" justifying that while camping, we just don't have the space to bring raw ingredients, spices, and cooking tools. We have one camping stove, a small pot set, a swiss army knife, and usually a spatula.

Planning camping meals is always a little tricky -- that is, if you don't resort to the dehydrated packaged food from the outdoor stores.  Any meat that we bring starts off completely frozen, then over the course of the camping trip, the bacon, ground meat, or spaghetti sauce slowly melts.  When picking foods, we pick things that are dense or flat so we don't have to worry about squashing it.  Things like bagels, tortilla wraps, rye bread or pasta work really well. (And crunchy cheetos...) Our favourite lunch and dinner meals include spaghetti, shepherd's pie, fajitas, or BLTs.

Our first lunch meal, grilled cheese. Made with Kraft Singles. Two slices each. Mmmmmm.



One of our dinners was a beef fajita made with stir fried beef that we froze with the marinade. As the beef defrosts, it soaks up the delicious marinade and helps make a little bit of a sauce. A little ziplock bag of premixed sour cream and salsa adds a little fajita tang.



Breakfasts are always a little easier. Bacon keeps well, and the fat doubles as cooking oil (don't judge. We're being resourceful here.) Oatmeal packages take up next to no space in the pack. Pancake mix (the just-add-water kind) is ever so easy.  If you don't want to risk bringing maple syrup (no one likes sticky leaks) we add chocolate chips to the pancake mix. If you're extra lucky and have some Ah Caramels leftover from snacktime, throw that on top of the pancakes. Double mmmmm.



This year's Labour Day weekend boasted rain, wind, and plenty of cloud cover. There were short breaks of sunshine where we did a little fishing off the rocks and out in the canoe.

No fish for us, but nothing beats that peaceful whir of each cast (if I don't tangle my hook on nearby vegetation.)








The Massasauga has a knack for giving us troublesome camping trips. Our first trip 4 years ago included an encounter with a bear and a small incident with a nest of wasps. This year, Mackenzie cut open her foot and the wind and rain gave us a scary paddle back to the access point. Like I said, a little peace and quiet with a dash of challenge.

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