photos from the weekend

despite there still being tons of snow on the ground, eric and i wanted to make the best of the weekend and get out and do some things.

we started off saturday morning with brunch at cantino dos segundos.




we eat here quite often, and one of the reasons is they have amazing chips and salsa.


i always say i am going to order the french toast, and never do, but saturday i was craving it.
this is the best french toast i have ever had, hands down. it was so delicious that it was dangerous. it tasted similar to a funnel cake, which i did not mind.



eric went with a burrito that included tempeh bacon, rice, beans, tofu and avocado.



his burrito was gigantic. it was the size of my head.



no seriously.



after brunch we walked a few blocks to check out a farmer's market they just started in our area. but we were only greeted by snow. i guess they canceled it?



later in the afternoon we rounded up some friends to head to yard's, a local brewery that is a few blocks away from our place.

we started off by tasting a few of their brews.



eric and i had gone on the tour before, but it was still fun to go again.









saturday evening we met up with more people and went by an art show in our neighborhood.





but i got side-tracked when i found out i could get a free beer at PYT, next door.



after hanging out at the art show we all went to dinner at cantino dos segundos! yep, we ate there twice in one day.









we woke up sunday morning not feeling our best, but i eventually got up to make heart-shaped pancakes in honor of valentine's day.



and for lunch we were feeling lazy and just made fried rice and spring rolls.



spring rolls are our way of cleaning out random veggies in the fridge.



after being lazy most of the day we decided to get our lives together and figure out something to make for dinner.
we pulled out some old favorites and some new ones.



we ended up relying heavily on the conscious cook, which has some great recipes!
i decided to make the focaccia.





while the dough was rising we headed out to get a few last minute details.
there is a great tiny grocery in our neighborhood. it's pricey, and only has a few things, but everything is fairly high quality.





and then we got to cooking!

we started off our meal with a new brew by bell's brewery called cherry stout.





this beer was very nice. it was dark, but not too dark.



and we had arugula salads. eric made a blueberry vinaigrette that he adapted from the conscious cook.



and we had our salads with some focaccia, which turned out really declicious.



our second beer of the evening was a st. feullien cuvee de noel. eric enjoyed this beer but i was not as big a fan.



we also had asparagus, artichokes and quinoa pasta with arugula pesto that eric made.



and on the side we had twice baked potatoes with cashew cream on top. we got the idea for this from the conscious cook. eric and i sliced the potatoes very thinly and cooked them in the oven till they were almost done. then we topped them with cashew cream (which is simply cashews that have been soaked then placed in the food processor until you reach a creamy consistency). we then seasoned the cream, some had salt and pepper, some cumin, some cayenne pepper and a few rosemary and salt. we then broiled the potatoes until the cream started to brown.



they were delicious and gave me a bunch of ideas for other ways to use the cream.

all in all a very delicious valentine's day dinner without the cost or crowds of a restaurant.