Seattle

The day after boxing day this Christmas, my family and I packed up all our things, and headed south to Seattle to go shopping for our real Christmas presents! A favorite pastime of ours is outlet shopping...we go hard.

After a nice 3 hour wait at the border, we zipped off as fast as we could to the Auburn supermall just out of Seattle to shop till we dropped! I told you...we go hard! No stopping for food while outlet shopping is a major rule...even for me!

When we finally couldn't take anymore (or had blown all our money...) we finally left the mall to grab a bite to eat before we headed back to the hotel to crash.

We ended up at a place that I had supposedly been to quiteee a while ago, and was great back then. And thank god, it was still great! We went to a delish, beautifully kitschy little place called Wally's Chowder House. Hands down best clam chowder I've had in my entire life! This great little spot is in Des Moines, WA. If you are ever near there...try this chowder!

I also made a wonderful discovery this night: apparently there is a soda that exists in this world called Mr. Pibb...it's pretty much exactly the same as Dr. Pepper, but I swear it is better! So anyways, to go along with this incredibly healthy meal, I drank Mr. Pibbs all night...

Oh yeah, and I ordered the all-you-can-eat shrimp. Shopping makes me VERY hungry, okay!?

I had 18 shrimp... By the way, they were very large! You just can't tell in this photo...

The next day we continued to eat extremely healthy, and went to a great little place called Burgermaster! Yet again, it was a very delicious choice of restaurant.

Now seriously though, it was kind of fun...it was a legit drive-in! The waitresses came to your car and took your orders, then placed them on your windows on trays when they were ready!

These were some of the tastiest french fries ever!

And of course the combos had to come with milkshakes! I ordered a "ben and jerry" which is apparently eggnog flavored...who knew? It was amazing.

And a very juicy, fresh, home made burger too!

Finally we shook ourselves out of the junk food mode and headed downtown to peruse around Pike Place Market. It was so much fun! Apparently I'd been here before too, but did not remember it at all so I had such a good time exploring!

Another reason for me loving Pike Place so much: it was practically foodie heaven!

There were stands upon stands of fresh fruits, vegetables, baked goods, meats and most famously, seafood.

It wasn't just your plain old Strathcona farmers market fare either, all the fruit, vegetable and seafood stands had so many exotic goods! And I am a real sucker for anything that I don't see too often or new.

One of the best vegetable stands had the most gorgeous selection of mushrooms, both common, bizarre, and exotic! I was very impressed. They even had truffles...mmm.

All the stands were so aesthetically wonderful, too.

Last but not least, let's talk about the SEAFOOD!

It was such a spectacle down in the seafood section of the gigantic maze of stands at the market. Fish were flying all over the shop as the fishermen tossed them to one another to get packaged up to sell and display, people were crowded everywhere trying to get their hands on a salmon or two, it was crazy!

It smelled wonderful too. Now that may seem odd...but everything was so fresh that it had a really pleasant odor to it...not fishy at all!

These lobster tails were UNBELIEVABLE! It's hard to tell in the picture, but I swear, they were as big as your forearm! $40.00 each!

These scampi were the size of regular lobster tails!

And so much fresh pacific salmon at every stand!

It was so gorgeous down at Pike Place. The sun was just setting while we browsed around, and it was so warm out it was wonderful. Oh how I wish I lived in downtown Seattle though! I would buy fresh groceries from the market every day! I was so surprised at how reasonable all the produce and most of the seafood (excluding the gigantic lobster tails) was, for it being such a busy spot!

This was our last night in Seattle before we piled back into the car for our 14 hour drive home back to Edmonton (not the best drive ever). I love Seattle!

Also something I love: I am almost finished catching up on my posts from the holidays so I can go back to my every day posts full of recipes, tips, and more! Can't wait.

xoxo

Mariel

Christmas Day!

So here it finally is...the Christmas Day post that is just about as large as the turkey we devoured on the day itself! What a wonderful Christmas it was this year. I will try to keep the stories to a minimum as I have enough pictures for this day to choke a horse!

We woke up at Mer's house to a cute little Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree all lit up and decorated, complete with a load of colourfully wrapped presents stashed underneath. Very shortly after we woke up, we had to start thinking about getting the 28 pound turkey into that oven, as 28 pounds of poultry tends to take quite a while to cook!

Okay, I know putting up a picture of a giant, raw turkey is kind of gross... but I really wanted to do the before and after thing. It looked incredible after! You will see...

Christmas day was such a GORGEOUS day! It was sunny and extremely warm, look at these blue skies through the sky light!

We opened up our presents before breakfast (the way Christmas presents must be opened). It was so much fun this year. My immediate family and I made all home-made gifts for each other to open on Christmas day, since we were going shopping in Seattle later on for our real gifts...

Here is a picture of some of my stash from Christmas morning! Mom knit me those gorgeous, soft mittens, and Dad SEWED me an apron (I have the best Dad in the entire world)! Ian made great gifts for my parents in his shop class, but apparently ran out of time to make a third item...so from him I received a box of chocolates. It was equally appreciated though (I'm sure you've noticed my love for chocolate by now)!

For breakfast we had poached eggs with hollandaise sauce (a favorite of mine), bacon, and Italian Christmas bread.

And some tequila...

I am obviously not a big enough drinker, I think the tequila at breakfast really knocked me out... I had a big nap after opening presents and eating breakfast!

When I finally woke up, I had a shower and got a little dressed up for Christmas. Very shortly after this (as my showers tend to take quite some time...) the guests started to arrive!

Mer had a party of 15 over (very impressive) for Christmas dinner, and we laughed and took pictures and munched on Mer's delicious salmon mousse as we waited for the much anticipated feast to be ready.

I think me and Chloaye polished off almost the whole plate of the mousse...

And then finally the moment we had all been waiting for had arrived...the turkey was crisp and golden and most importantly out of the oven! Nice work Uncle Peter.

With the cooking of the turkey complete, the kitchen quickly housed a flurry of activity as everyone rushed to heat up and finish up the dishes they were told to make!

Here's Peter and Chloaye whipping up some gravy!

And very importantly, the stuffing turned out beautifully!

Soon enough, everything was prepared and laid out, ready for the taking!

Here's everything that was on the island!

This is what Tatomme had instead of turkey...tofurky! You can get the recipe for it on her blog here.

Here's my LOADED plate. I hadn't eaten so much in one sitting in a long time... It was wonderful...

The turkey was moist and perfect, the gravy flavorful, and all the sides delectable. The sides were: brussles sprouts with hollandaise sauce, peas with a little bit of a curry flair to them (very tasty), ambrosia salad, mashed sweet and white potatoes, and a wonderfully festive broccoli salad with dried cranberries. Mmm!

For dessert, Aunty Daphne made a gorgeous and extremely tasty hazelnut torte!

After dinner, my family and I dragged our bloated selves to the living room to do a little Chinese gift exchange type thing, which was very funny.

As you can see, I take my present picking out very seriously...

It was a wonderful Christmas filled with food, family and Flanagan noses. I couldn't ask for anything more, I loved it!

xoxo

Mariel

Christmas Eve!

Hello! So, this is how my Christmas Eve went down this year! The eve of Christmas began with a scrumptious pancake breakfast in Parksville before packing everything up and heading down to Victoria to join the rest of the Flanagans!

It was SUCH a gorgeous day! It certainly did not feel Christmas-y though because of the sunshine, green grass and sweater-only worthy temperature! I sang Christmas carols in the car the whole way down to Victoria to try and convince myself that it was in fact Christmas...

Here is the token Empress hotel shot from the car to show you what I mean! Does this look very Christmas-y to you!? No!

And again...it honestly felt more like summer than December 24th!

Things started looking up when we got to my Grandma's house though. She had left the tree decorating up to me and Tatomme, so that definitely helped me get into the Christmas spirit!

Uncle Peter was on turkey duty this year, so he whipped up the stuffing for the massive bird the night before!

He put apples in the stuffing...it was a delicious addition!

For dinner we had Mer's (this is what we call my Grandma...) famous tourtiere, I get to eat this once a year (usually at Christmas time) and it is one of my favorite dishes of all time! I should have asked for the recipe! I will get my hands on it some time...

With dinner we had some beets and new potatoes with a little butter and bagels with tomato sauce and mozzarella!

Dad kind of butchered my slice as he took it out of the plate...but it still TASTED incredible (as always)!

After dinner I went to church with Aunty Linda, and then dropped off some presents with her. By the time we got home it felt incredibly Christmas like, which was so wonderful! I took one last look at the Christmas tree and the presents underneath it before heading off to bed!

It was so nice to be at Mer's house for Christmas, usually we stay home for Christmas, so being surrounded by so much family this year was so lovely.

xoxo

Mariel

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