Weekend Breakfast

A lazy weekend was had by all. Sleeping in, reading/finishing a book I've been reading, and wandering by the grocery store. It was started with this scrambled eggs and avocado recipe I found on the Toronto Star website. Since I didn't have any crème fraîche, I just put some table creme in with the eggs.

Avocado Scramble on Toast (Makes 1 serving.)

Ingredients

1/2 avocado, sliced

Juice of 1/2 lime

2 eggs

1 tbsp (15 mL) crème fraîche

1 slice bread, toasted

Freshly ground black pepper

What to do

In small bowl, mash avocado slices and lime juice with fork.

In another bowl, whisk eggs and crème fraiche.

Heat small, non-stick skillet over medium. Add eggs. Cook, stirring in figure eight pattern with wooden spoon, until just scrambled and still moist.

Spread avocado on toast. Top with eggs. Season with pepper.

Spinach Pasta and a Puppy

I started my internship at the Hockey Hall of Fame about 2 weeks ago, and when I spend some of my days digitizing, I spend a lot of time looking up recipes. I drafted up a menu for the rest of the week using new, found recipes almost all week! Yesterday, I started it off with Herb and Spinach pasta from Canadian Living.

This recipe is alarmingly easy to make, even by my standards.

Ingredients

1 pkg fresh spinach, shredded 3 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt 12 oz (340 g) linguine 1/2 cup (125 mL) minced fresh chives 1/3 cup (75 mL) chopped oil packed sun dried tomatoes 2 tbsp (25 mL) extra-virgin olive oil 1/3 cup (75 mL) grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

In large bowl, combine spinach, garlic, pepper and salt ; set aside.
In large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until tender but firm, about 8 minutes. Drain, reserving 3/4 cup (175 mL) of the cooking liquid.
Add pasta and cooking liquid to spinach mixture; toss until spinach is wilted. Add chives, tomatoes, cheese and oil; toss to coat.
*I recommend putting a lid or plate over the bowl you're mixing the pasta
 and water in to allow the water to soak in a bit more; it's a bit drippy otherwise.

Last night was also a housewarming party for a old friend of mine that was back in Canada after a year abroad in New Zealand. He celebrated the new place by getting a puppy. Betty was the center of attention for the evening, sorry Mike! She doesn't like holding still, and would even when sleeping would wake up before someone had a chance to take a picture. Video is the best I could do.

 

Ain't she a cutey?

Insomniac!

I know it's only midnight or so, but I didn't sleep, at all, last night and I'm struggling to fall asleep now. So, I thought I would decorate my lunch to pass the time.

This was loosely inspired by this post on Craft website back at Easter, which I desperately wanted to try, but never got around too. I don't even own a phone capable of having Angry Birds, I steal my friend's phone on occasion.

I'm Back!!!

I am back from Paris! The jet lag is over with, most of the pictures are on my computer and the suitcase has been more or less unpacked. My friends and family tell me that they did get their postcards, so most of them arrived before I actually came home! Also, one of the girls on the trip sent me one, so I had a lovely, vintage reminder about my trip waiting for me a few days after I got back.

Now all I have to do is go through the 2000+ photos and notes to write my journal for my final project!
*sigh

It's a lot of porn/art to sift through, but somebody has to do it. Here's a small selection for the great wide web.

This is a wonderful place called the Albert Khan Museum and Gardens. He was a pretty cool (and rich) guy that wanted a record of the world. As a result, he commissioned a little over 72,000 autochromes to be taken of people, places and things. Autochromes are some of the first colour photographs, and are unbelievably stunning to see in the flesh. They are also fairly hard to get a hold of in North America, so seeing as many as we did here, and at other collections is pretty insane.
The gardens at the museum are really beautiful, they're filled with ponds and little waterfalls that block out the noise and smell of downtown Paris.

These autochromes are from the Société Française de Photographie's collection. Note the early, colour "art" (ie porn) on the left. They've held up beautifully, especially being about 100 years old.

We lucked out while we were there, since not only was it International Museum Day, Paris was having a "Night at the Museum" evening, where admission was free to several museums and galleries! Most were also open later than usual, closer to midnight. The Paris Museum of Natural History was the one my buddy and I went to. They like their bugs and lack of decent lighting on their exhibit cases. Despite that, it was really cool!

This is the minor issue with glass plates, occasionally they don't make it from one place to the other very well.

Don't think we didn't go flea marketing! This is one of the many, many flea markets in the larger area of Saint-Ouen. We got some amazing photographs, including autochromes, and spent well too much money. So far as souvenirs go, they're pretty awesome. I have some great cabinet cards of the Arc de Triomphe and the Saint-Michel fountain.

We spent many an evening and afternoon picnicking on the Pont des Arts. Nice view eh? We had a picnic dinner on the lawn outside the Eiffel Tower one evening. As the evening goes along, the tower starts lighting up, and than at 10pm, the sparkly, twinkling lights turn on. A very nice backdrop for some cheap wine, smoked salmon and a lot of cheese and baguettes.

I have a lot of photos to go through, and I have every intention of posting some of the food pictures  I have of the picnics and escargots.