In retrospect: Portland, Oregon

Right now I'm with my sister, probably on a beach on the Caribbean sea, but until I return home and share that adventure with you all, you can take a little peak at an adventure Hunter and I had last summer!

While on our road-trip in August, 2013 we stayed in Portland, OR for a couple nights. All you have to do to enjoy yourself in Portland is walk down the street with an open mind and jump on the first adventure that presents itself!

We spent our days walking, eating, drinking delicious coffee, and napping in the gorgeous weather.

 Canteen, a DELICIOUS vegan restaurant

 The best veggie bowl I have ever had (we got the Bangkok Bowl). I'm getting hungry just thinking about it

 Writing love notes

 Stumptown coffee (big hype for a reason), and Rilke from Powell's Books

 Awkward nap selfie in the park

Have you ever visited Portland? What is your favourite U.S. city on the West Coast? Where should we go on our next trip? I love exploring the West Coast! It's so accessible and so beautifully wild.

mornings

I've never considered myself a morning person because letting yourself fall back asleep in the mornings has always felt like a big treat. But i've always wanted to be a morning person. I want to be someone who gets up early with lots of energy, i've always loved the light and the stillness in the mornings. So, having to be at work by 8am didn't seem like such a bad thing. And once i started to got the early morning rhythm down it became enjoyable! Apart from those days when it's raining and cold and still dark.

Over the summer Hunter and i got into the routine of having porridge for breakfast almost every morning- we'd also have eggs but since i've found out i'm allergic they are off the menu. We played around with smoothies for breakfast, or cereal, but found porridge is really the only thing that keeps us full for hours. Plus it's quick and economical!

I have mine with a tiny bit of salt and goats milk. Hunter like his with cranberries, dehydrated blueberries, hemp hearts, cinnamon, honey or brown sugar, and this time fresh strawberries.

I'll wake up before Hunter to open all the blinds, wash my face, and get breakfast started. Hunter will get up and put away the dishes that were drying from the night before. We'll sit down and eat together, quietly, enjoying our little space.

Then i'll rush to get dressed and hop on my bike to work. Soon Hunter will be joining my morning commute - we get to bike together for a while each to our separate work locations.

What are your morning routines?

sick days

I haven't had a single flu, cold, virus or other sickness this whole winter and I was so proud of my immune system until last week. When you're working with toddlers it is easy to be contaminated with their sneezes, kisses, and little hands covered in saliva baring all sorts of lovely bacteria. The second day of work i woke up with an ominously sore throat. I stuffed myself with all the remedies i had in the house but i still got hit with a flu.

That first Friday i came home ready to throw myself into bed. Hunter had other plans, plans that involved delicious soup. He bought this Old Fashioned Beef Barley soup mix and the ground beef from our local butcher's, and had it slowly simmering on the stove when i walked through the door. I was so happy he found an equally comforting alternative to chicken noodle soup since i've found out i'm allergic to chicken.

The soup mix, Mitchell's, is made on The Island from local and organic ingredients. It's wildly popular in this area and i can see why. It was delicious and exactly what my tired body needed. Thank you Aunty K and family, I'm sure it tasted better because it was cooked in my gorgeous dutch oven!

Since then we've bought three more mixes (the butcher was having a sale): Fully Loaded Potato soup, Ginger Coconut Dahl, and West Coast Seafood Chowder. I'm excited for a rainy day when we can try them!

We drank obscene amounts of ginger, honey, lemon hot water and i was better in three days! Equal parts fresh chopped ginger, honey and freshly squeezed lemon juice in hot water and repeat until you're better. It also helps to have a warm body to snuggle and a good tv show/movies to watch.

I also tried the wet sock treatment on my landlord's recommendation and even though it felt weird the first night it wasn't that bad and i think it helped me speed through my flu. If you're interested, google it and you'll find lots of info! Socks need to be at least 90% cotton and wool, respectively. My cold socks weren't dripping wet and i didn't use any essential oils, but it seemed to help and my bed was completely dry the next morning.

What does your family do when someone's sick? Secret home remedies? Go-to cough syrup brands?
I hope you're all staying healthy.
xoxo, a+h

lately, food edition

Pictured

1. Hunter's baked yam fries with home made chipotle mayo (thank you G for the spices!). Sooo perfect. Crunchy on the outside and sweet and soft on the inside. I love yam fries, more than potato fries i think. Although i'll never really pass up any starch in frie form.

2. This chickpea salad and some framboise (raspberry) lambic. Simple and delicious.

3. Blue potatoes, my favourite kind of 'tater. One day i will finally make blue mashed potatoes and it will look fantastic next to some asparagus and corn on the cob. Eating gorgeous food seems to enhance the whole experience and make me more grateful and present during the meal.

4. Hunter is a master at kale chips. I request them almost every night.

5. The hand-made colander i wanted! So happy with it, it holds my fruit and the odd piece of ginger or avocado so cutely. Thank you Mamma and Georgia!

6. A close up of a classic dinner in this little house: roast veggies (here we had cauliflower, rainbow carrots, shallots, brussels sprouts, garlic, tossed with olive oil + fresh thyme + asian nori salt mix). We ate them over a medley of wild and brown rice but honestly i kind of wished i just had a heaping plate of these veggies.

7. Gluten-free apple rhubarb pie (and fresh strawberries) that Hunter surprised me with after my first week at my new job (a post about that in the future!). It's safe to say pie is my favourite food.

8. Hunter convinced me that we should bring up his vitamix from home and now i don't know why i ever resisted. Or how i enjoyed smoothies before this. I'm a huge texture person (i couldn't eat bananas for many years) and this blender whizzes veggies and frozen fruit into the best texture ever.


Not pictured
Every other meal we eat because it looks too boring to grab the camera or we are too busy and hungry to bother taking a picture.

What's a classic meal in your house??

In retrospect: B.C., Oregon & California

During the summer of 2013, Hunter and I lived on Quest's campus and worked for different university departments. We loved our roommates, the Squamish sun (when it appeared), and our leisure time but we still itched to get away and explore someplace new. Preferably some place that had a beach + the ocean. We booked our vacation days and went on a road trip to Nelson, B.C. then down the Oregon and California coasts.

Along the coasts we camped in our little tent in beautiful state parks and, if we were really desperate, we would sleep in the back of the subaru. One night we couldn't get a spot at a park and decided to splurge on a beach-side hotel room in Manzanita, Oregon. Definitely worth it, it was adorable and the town had a great beach and a charming vibe. Our trip flew by, but we will definitely be camping on the West Coast again.
 
The trip tested us as functional road-tripping partners. I was still hobbling around on my fractured foot and Hunter's back gave him serious grief if we drove for too long. We didn't make solid plans before we left which sometimes led to spontaneous discoveries (like the best coffee, pie, breakfast, pottery, and fries along the coast) but it also made us anxious and irritable when we suddenly had to change plans. It made me appreciate the patience Hunter has, and it made me try and be more accepting and present. What frustrated me wasn't worth the energy and time, something i am slowly learning.

 A fancy dinner with my family in Nelson

Nelson B.C., my hometown

Packing up the car

A delicious dinner of leftovers at our campsite in the Red Woods

 Awe inspiring trees, Avenue of the Giants, CA

A Cafe in Mendocino County, CA

 

The Green Salmon Cafe, OR

It was so cold and I didn't pack warm socks (I don't know what I was thinking!) 

so we had to stop at a Target and buy something to keep my poor legs warm.

 My handsome love, on the beach in Manzanita, OR

 Trying to look presentable while battling gale force winds

 I thought I packed smart for this trip: one small duffel, a few dresses and sweaters, sandals and vans. But I was wrong, I wore about three outfits the whole trip, and what I really needed was a pair of pants (dresses get cold and awkward when it's windy, which it always is), some good layering tops for the temperature change between day and evening/night, and lots of wool socks. Hunter packed pants, t-shirts, a hoodie, and most importantly socks! Next time I'll follow his example.

Have you ever traveled along the Northwest coast? What were your favourite spots to stay/eat/explore? Do you have packing tricks you've learned the hard way?

Fresh basil pesto + exploring local grocers

A week or so ago we decided to take a little walk around our neighborhood. Not down Hastings or Commercial, the two main streets around us, but around our little residential 'hood. I soon realized that barely any place in a city is purely residential: there are a few little grocers and a hidden cafe and pub or two very close to our family oriented neighborhood. One block (one block!) from our home is a little Italian grocer. Full of pasta, sauces, sweets, cheeses, sausages, olives, and kitchen paraphernalia this little gem was a treat to browse through. We decided to make our own pesto at home and bought Pecorino romano, pine nuts, really good quality extra virgin olive oil, and a bunch of fresh basil. I was hoping for one of those little basil plants, bit I'll have to find that somewhere else.

I chopped everything by hand with my shitty inappropriate knife and it was all delicious! The difference between chopping the pesto by hand versus whizzing it in a food processor is the flavour, i think. Because all the ingredients are chopped to a slightly different size and consistency, there is immense variety in each bite. When it is all put in the food processor and blended together, each ingredient comes out roughly the same size, leaving bites uniform (although still delicious). Or maybe i'm a budding food snob with too much time on her hands. Either way, dinner was delicious.

We had this pesto with ravioli and it was delicious. So good i didn't take a picture. The next day we had leftover pesto with gnocchi (and San Pellegrino) and it was even better, letting it sit for a while made the flavours really deepen.

If your curious, I used:
~fresh basil leaves
~freshly grated pecorino romano
~pine nutes
~lots of garlic
~and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil once you've chopped it all up and made the pesto "cake"


I can't wait until spring/summer when i can have my own little basil plant on my kitchen windowsill. What herbs have you grown fresh? Which ones did you have good results with and which ones died/where plant divas?

(I'll post about my birthday soon! For now, thank you all so much for the love and very generous gifts, it was definitely a special day)

Brussel sprouts w/ sweet chilli sauce

On Tuesday night, Hunter and I decided to have stir-fry, vermicelli noodles, and roasted brussels sprouts (i looked it up, it's got an extra s on the end. Weird). The wok we were using was very finicky and less of a wok and more of a slow cooker, so we just had rice noodles with brussels sprouts and it was DELICIOUS.
I found a recipe for brussels sprouts with sweet chilli sauce that i wanted to try but realized around 7pm that we didn't have sweet chilli sauce. We do live in a city now and could have gone and bought some, but my bike's front light is dead and it is glacial temperatures outside so i improvised.

I used:

  brussels sprouts

  olive oil

~

  garlic

  fresh ginger

  soy sauce

  fish sauce

  brown sugar

  red wine vinegar

  coconut oil

  chilli flakes

~

  extra firm tofu

  coconut and olive oil

~

  vermicelli noodles

  sesame oil

I did:
Heat the oven to 400, cut the ends off sprouts, cut in half and wash. Spread evenly in baking tray and coat generously with olive oil. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until almost at your desired tenderness. Remove from oven and coat with sauce. Then return to the oven and bake for a few more minutes. I put them back in the oven, turned it off, and left them in there for about 7 more minutes and they were perfectly tender without being mushy.

For the sauce: mixed together garlic, ginger, soy & fish sauce, sugar, vinegar, melted coconut oil and chilli flakes and set aside to "marinate" together while the sprouts baked.

For the tofu: cut into whatever shape you like, cook in hot wok with some oil, Asian Nori Salt, and pepper until desired crispy-ness. Set aside.

For the noodles: boiled water with some salt. Put the noodles in the bowl you will serve them in (i used a ceramic bowl), and then cover them in boiling water. Stirred them with a fork every minute or so, tasting the noodles for texture. Right before they are the perfect tender/crunchy combo for you (about three minutes for me), drained them in the sink, run a little cold water over them, and return to the warm bowl. Added a bit of sesame oil and toss.

Serve the brussel sprouts over the noodles as soon as they are out of the oven, preferably with a nice crisp beer!
My plan was to eat a whole box of Anna's ginger thins with a cup of tea after dinner, but this was so good and i eat so much i didn't even have room for cookies! I had them this morning though...

The next day we reheated the leftovers by sauteing (no microwave!) with a little extra coconut oil and soy sauce and it was as fantastic as i remembered it.

Do you have a favourite brussel sprouts recipe? I can't get enough of the little veggies lately and I'd love to try new recipes!

Movement

Moving house is crazy.
You think you're prepared, and then ... well, we've all moved so we all know the feeling. During the crazy-ness that was the past couple of days Hunter and i have moved all his stuff from Bellingham, moved all my stuff from Squamish (we unexpectedly had to make two trips- not fun), Hunter returned his parents van, stopped by Ikea with his mum on his way back up, we showed Yolanda (Hunter's mum) the place really quickly before she headed back home, we slowly unpacked all our things, and we ventured into our neighborhood to purchase veggies for dinner.
It is hard to arrange all your things into a little space that you have to share with another person and all their things. What makes it even harder is this apartment doesn't have a single closet. I never realized how crucial closets are until now. Everything we own is on display in our home; a good and bad thing. It's making me re-evaluate the necessity of a lot of my belongings.
For now, here are a couple pictures Hunter snapped on our first night!

I'd love to upload some pictures of what our place looks like now that we are settled in -and i'm taking pictures during the day- but it literally took me over an hour to upload these four. If the internet is still snail pace tomorrow, we'll have to ask L. and E. about it, but hopefully it's just a glitch and it'll pick back up!
Here's our apartment.

How do you cope with stress/the stimulation of a new environment?
*Georgia, we've already taken a bath in your big soak-er tub with the bath salts you gave me for Christmas, it smelled amazing and my skin was silky soft afterward, so thank you!