Qualicum and the Beach and More Seafood

Hello everyone! So here I am, finally catching up on all the posts I've missed out on in the past little while! After Parksville we headed to my Grandma's house on Christmas Eve, and there is no wireless at her house! Then we headed to Seattle where the hotel conveniently had the cord type of internet (i apologize for my lack of tech-y knowledge) which did not work out well with my Macbook Air. Anyways I am home again and have a lot of post catching up to do! I think the way I'm going to do this is just do a post for each day that I missed out on posting about, instead of one giant post...that would be just tooo large (I do have to fit a whole Christmas dinner post in here)! So here is the last full day of Parksville!

This day started out with a nice hearty breakfast...pie and ice cream. Okay, maybe not so hearty. But delicious none the less. Every once and a while I absolutely love to just have a piece of cake or pie for breakfast!

After breakfast a few of us Flanagans headed just a little up island to Qualicum where we perused some antique stores and us girls took a few pictures!

So many pretty and interesting things.

Our little adventure really worked up an appetite though so it was back to the condo after Qualicum to have some delicious split pea soup made by Aunty Daphne. With this I had a rice cracker with some yummy home-made hummus spread on it!

After lunch we lounged around watching the Jamie Oliver marathon that was on the food network that day for quite a while. We had checked the tide chart that day, and low tide was at about 4 PM, which unfortunately was close to dusk! But we trekked down to the beach regardless, and it was so beautiful!

Here is Chloaye looking stunning on the beach!

It felt so surreal walking around the beach with the tide out and the night approaching, it was a little bit foggy too...I felt like I was in a dream!

When it got dark we headed back up to our cozy little place where I cooked up some dinner. Dinner this night was just a simple but tasty pasta with shrimp. As the pasta boiled I cooked the shrimp in a little butter and garlic, and when they were done I set them aside. Then I made a simple garlic, butter and white wine sauce which I poured onto the pasta in the pot when it was done!

Mom made this DELICIOUS "salad" from the Hippie Gourmet which was a big hit!

Here is the recipe copied exactly from the Hippie Gourmet cookbook!

This isn't your usual eggplant salad, made from those big, bitter eggplants that look like some kind of giant purple monster's pod. Instead it uses slim, long, graceful Asian eggplants. If your eggplant is shaped like a cucumber, you've found the right vegetable.

2 Asian eggplants

2 large tomatoes, sliced as thin as you can

2 tablespoons chopped white onion

6 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

5 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons vinegar of your choice

salt and pepper, to taste

large leaf of romaine or several endive leaves, for serving

greek olives or sliced radish, for garnish

Preheat the broiler.

Slice the eggplants in half lengthwise and broil until soft, approximately 10 minutes per side. Be sure they're cooked through.

Let them cool, then peel off the skin and discard it.

Chop the eggplant into bite sized chunks.

Mix the chopped eggplant, tomatoes, onion, parsley, oil, and vinegar.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve on either a large romaine lettuce leaf or several endive leaves, garnishing with Greek olives or sliced radishes.

Mom served them on the endive leaves, which was delicious! Also, a change she made to the recipe was that she added the greek olives and radishes right into the mix...which was a good choice!

And of course there was wine going around the table before and at dinner!

It's so much easier to do a "serve yourself" dinner for  more than a couple people...so that is how we ate the whole time in Parksville. Here's Tate plating up her pasta!

Here is my plate! Dinner turned out very yummy.

Pasta with simple white wine and butter to dress it is my favorite sometimes. It is so much lighter than rich, creamy sauces...and always delicious with all types of seafood (with clams is my favorite).

xoxo

Mariel

Beaches and Sunshine and Seafood

Hey folksies! Today was such a gorgeous day, I cannot believe it! It is good and bad: good obviously because it was so warm that I got HOT in just my hoodie walking along the sun lit beach, and bad because it does not feel like Christmas at all today! Just look at this...I feel like it's summer!

Tatomme, Chloaye, Ian and I went for a nice little walk on the beach this morning (pretty shortly after I woke up, so I didn't have a chance to eat any breakky) and it was SO BEAUTIFUL!

Here's a little picture of my gorgeous cousins and I!

And here is a picture of my slightly "out of it" little brother and I...

And here is proof that I've always got my blog in mind! You have no idea how many pictures I take now a days (especially since I've over come my public photo taking fear)...today alone I took 245 photos!!!

This is my favorite beach in the whole world...mainly because there are SO MANY edibles on it! For example: it's a little chilly for wading in December, but in the summer when the tide is low you can wade right out and catch amazing, delicious dungeness crabs!

Also in the wonderful summer months, you can go clamming and fill bucketfuls full of these delicious little creatures!

And of course...oysters! But you already know all about these puppies! I am very happy that ONE of these three seafoods are easily attainable during the winter months!

Look at these girls...so incredible! And this beach and the weather!

Side note...I have recently taught myself to crochet...and I whipped up these little mittens on this little vacay! I am quite proud of them...

After our walk we headed back to the condo for a little bit of lunch! Aunty Daphne made this amazing soup, and I had it with a rice cracker with cream cheese, cucumber slices and salt and pepper! Delicious and filling, and good healthy fuel for the afternoon's busy schedule!

After running around doing a couple of errands, we finally got back on track doing some "food related" activities! We went to this great little fresh seafood place in French Creek to pick up some things for dinner...of course we have to have a huge seafood feast before we head off to Victoria! This seafood store is great, it's just tucked away in the marina at French Creek where all the fishing boats dock. It was so pretty there by the time we had gotten there! Industrial...but pretty industrial.

Here's the ocean view from the French Creek, just incredible.

This was a little spot of rust on a dumpster by the fish store...but it was so pretty I thought.

After we stocked up on HOARDS of seafood at the marina for dinner, we drove inland a bit to Cathedral Grove to go for a little walk amongst the humungous cedars! Inland there was a little bit of snow on the moss and trees which was a little bit of a surprise!

Here is the WHOLE Flan gang at Cathedral Grove...I love my family!

And the classic shot...

Our little walk really worked up an appetite, so it was straight home afterwards to cook up the feast! We started off toasting up a little bread with olive oil to sop up the delicious broth from the seafood.

Uncle Peter volunteered to cook up the seafood, so I helped out with salad duty. It was just a super simple salad: romaine, tomatoes, green and orange pepper, and parmesan.

The dressing was just olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a little dijon, salt and pepper and (this is weird...but it tasted really yummy...) caesar drink rimmer!

Tonight to drink there was more wine, more caesars, and the addition of some tasty vodka sodas!

Here's a shot of Uncle Peter (literally) whipping up some food...doin' a little deglazing.

I have to admit, us girls were a little worried about his cooking techniques at some points of the preparation, for example when we said "did you de-beard the mussles?" and he replied "what's debearding?!?!", but our insecurities in his seafood quickly vanished when we saw the final product...and then tasted it! Oh my god!

He presented us with a huge pot of mussels, clams and scallops steamed to perfection in a beautiful butter, garlic, red curry, coconut milk and white wine broth. It was the perfect combination of a little heat, richness and complexity...as well as montrous volume...there was SO much food!

On top of that he also fried up some halibut and snapper! It was equally incredible. He fried it up in sesame oil, and topped it off with a little more red curry paste. Wow.

Oh yeah...we had some crab steamed up too...Oh my god!

Look at this plate!!!

The feast of seafood was so wonderful...one of the most flavorful, delicious meals I have had in a while! I love seafood so much you have no idea. Especially seafood while in Parksville! With my amazing family.

Mmm...

Anyways, LOTS of pictures for today! I have many more to come too! I wonder how large the Christmas dinner post will be...I can't wait.

xoxo

Mariel