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1. We registered! Woohoo! It was actually a pretty funny process to me. We don’t need a lot of stuff so it only took us about 10 minutes to get it done. (Thankfully. N hates shopping!)
2. All the ramen! Two new ramen places opened up recently in Calgary & I had to have them both. They are both amazing, welcome additions to the restaurant scene.
3. I’ve spent more money this year on my hair than ever before & I haven’t even coloured it. Just trying to keep the ends looking good for this summer.
4. Keeping up with long runs & trying out new routes. I definitely miss my training partner (who’s still out with his injury) so new routes make things a little more interesting.
5. H & I went on the Poutine Crawl this year & it was amazing! I also have a blog post coming about that at some point. Oh man, I’m so behind!
6. Checking out the Black Pig Bistro (replacing DeVille’s Bridgeland location). Should be delicious!
7. Tuesday Yoga at lunch at work is a thing & I’m really excited about it.
8. N’s brother is back, which is awesome for many reasons – one being that I’ll get my chocolate lab fix. Kora’s so gorgeous!
9. One of my bests was home for Easter. As always, it was far too short of a visit, but we did have some fun at National.
Happy Cinco de Mayo, friends! Have a margarita for me – I’m at work tonight!
I’ve been catching a ride with N into downtown lately so I haven’t had my usual morning walk. This morning, however, I dropped him off at the airport before work and, as a result, found myself walking in.
As you reach the top of the stairs, the trees part to reveal the city, & what I personally believe to be one of the most striking skylines. While the spring air was moist & heavy in the park, it seemed to lift as I headed towards downtown. “I love this commute”, I thought, sipping my coffee. After this particularly harsh winter, this kind of spring morning was just what I needed. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect way to start my day.
While I do a lot of cooking at home, it isn’t often that I post a recipe on here. Our kitchen is pretty tiny, with dark counter tops & terrible lighting, so I don’t often bust out the real camera. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen a lot of my food iPhoneography already (although that’s only picking back up again now that the sun stays out later). I spend most of my day thinking about what I just ate, what I’m going to eat, or what I’d like to eat. My love of food definitely isn’t the reason for the lack of recipes on here.
I love experimenting in the kitchen. It doesn’t always turn out right, but the more I take chances, the more I get a sense of what works & what doesn’t. I’m not anywhere near as good of a cook as I’d like to be, but I’m definitely proficient. & I get better all the time.
In that last few years, I’ve come to realize that I’ve surrounded myself with people who are pretty similar in that respect. My friends all love food. I suppose it’d probably be pretty hard to hang out with me if you didn’t. In the summer especially, we throw a lot of potlucks. I love trying out new recipes, but one I come back to regularly is deviled eggs. I just love them! & I’ve made quite a few variations of them over the last couple of years. Many are a little on the complicated side, but one of my favourites is from George, the Civilized Caveman.
A couple weeks ago, I was headed out to a potluck after CrossFit & I couldn’t decide what to make. We had a bit of a busy weekend planned so I wanted something quick & easy. None of my usual recipes are very hard, but I didn’t feel like messing around with an avocado. I just wanted to be super lazy. So I came up with this modification on my usual recipe.
I don’t like measuring so this recipe involved me eyeballing everything. As a result, none of these measurements are exact. I think it’s hard to mess up devilled eggs anyway. Don’t stress if you like exact measurements. This isn’t baking. It’s going to be alright.
Ingredients
– 4 strips of Bacon
– 1 T of Green Onions
– 3 T of Wholly Guacamole
– 2 T of bacon fat, melted
– 1 T favourite hot sauce
– a dozen eggs
– dusting of Paprika
Start with your bacon. Cook up about 4 pieces. I like this gluten-free bacon in the picture because there also isn’t a lot of added nitrates or soy (I prefer to avoid unfermented soy). You can use any bacon you like. I’m not the bacon police.
You’re going to want to start boiling some eggs now too. Everyone has their own method so I recommend going with that. Whatever works for you. Personally, I put all my eggs in a pot & bring it to a boil. Once it boils, I take it off the heat & put a lid on it, setting the timer for 15 minutes. Once that timer goes off, I dump the hot water & put those eggies in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Everyone says this method is foolproof.
Everyone is wrong! (Just kidding!) Sometimes this works for me & sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, hard boil some eggs. Then peel them, cut them in half, & put all those delicious yolks in a bowl. I put my egg white halves into the container I plan to use now to save time & dishes. (See? Lazy!)
Now you can start adding your other ingredients. Chop the bacon into small pieces, reserving a few pieces for a garnish if like. Add the bacon, guacamole, bacon fat, & hot sauce to the egg yolks & mix it all together.
Once it is all combined, grab a plastic bag & put your filling into it. (You can also use a pastry bag, I guess. I’m just not that fancy.)
Cut one of the corners of your bag on the diagonal. Your hole should be medium-sized. If it’s too big, you’ll have trouble controlling your filling, but it’s too small, it won’t dispense. You want it to be juuuuuust right.
Now just fill your eggs with the filling. I like to do each in a circular motion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it totally fails. I probably cut my hole a little bigger than is ideal this time, so there wasn’t much pattern to this filling. They still look & taste good, so don’t stress.
Garnish with green onion and paprika (& bacon, if you reserved some). Tada! Easy peasy deviled eggs with no weird mayo products. Give them a try!
This month’s Instagram Recap was this close to being only food pictures. It was a good month for eating, guys. A very good month. Between Big Taste, birthdays, ski trips, & dinner dates, we got fat & happy in March. I decided to throw in a few non-food photos though since not everyone is as into shoving food in their face as I am (Blasphemy! FYI – we could never be friends).
Now that April is here though (& everyone keeps reminding me I’m getting married in less than 5 months), I should probably think about eating better. Maybe. I probably won’t, but it’s a nice thought.
Anyway, here’s what we got up to in March according to my Instagram.
1. We weren’t able to ski for N’s work trip (boo broken ankle!), but we did enjoy some time in Banff. Love this little town.
2. If you’ve never experienced Big Taste YYC, you really need to check it out. Restaurants all around town put on set menus for $15 – $25. Duck Fat fried Brussels Sprouts were just one tasty piece of our week. Check it out next March!
3. I’ve registered for the 50th Annual Calgary (Half) Marathon! Got some new shoes & started my training runs. Let’s do this!
4. N’s brother came to town so we had brunch at noTABle again. It was incredible again. That steak. Those hash browns. I’ll go there anytime!
5. Drinks with the future SIL for St Paddy’s Day. N’s brother was in town, working at the Earl’s Tin Palace for the re-opening, so we hung out there for a bit.
6. We headed out to BC to ski Panorama for the weekend. This mountain has one of my favourite views from the summit.
7. This was taken last week. Yes, you read that right. As in the end of March. Thanks, yyc.
8. We tried a new pizza place with a couple friends. Our first time trying Chicago Deep Dish & that is too much pizza for this girl. My california style was delicious though, as were the meatballs. They’ve got some kinks to work out with the service, but the food is delicious!
9. I haven’t been practicing my handstands as much this month, but I think I’ve gained some strength doing the open. It doesn’t look like much, but that there is handstand push-up progress, people!
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| Edmonton Kinsmen Center 1999 |
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| Rookie Party 2003 |
I’m no stranger to early morning workouts. Competitive swimming was a huge part of my life growing up & the sport is known for it’s grueling practice schedule. I resisted these morning practices for as long as possible, citing every excuse from not having a ride to too much homework. Eventually I got my licence & started driving myself to morning practices. I’d wake up around 4:15 am, eat breakfast, & head out for the day. I was often the only car on the highway as I headed down to Lindsay Park (I’ll never get used to calling it Talisman Center, guys).
We were expected to be on the pool deck by 5:15 to warm up before jumping in the water. Practice started at 5:30 sharp & none of our coaches were very understanding if we weren’t in the water by then.After practice, we’d do weights before getting ready for the day at school. At 4:30 pm, we’d be back on the poll deck for round 2.
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| Dinos 2003 |
It’s no surprise that I didn’t have too much of an issue with opening shifts at the Y or Starbucks once I left the competitive swimming world. 5 am wakeups are a walk in the park when you compare it to my former swimming schedule. I took a lot of open shifts at both of those jobs. I still prefer working early to staying late.
This morning I relived a bit of that crazy competitive swimming life. We’re heading out to Panorama this weekend with some friends, so I won’t have the opportunity to do the )pen workout tonight or Sunday morning. They run a 6 am class throughout the week so I hauled myself out of bed at 5:15 am this morning to complete this week’s workout (14.4).
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| Richmond, BC 2003 |
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| Richmond 2003 |
Honestly, I was dreading getting up at that hour. Surprisingly, when the time came I didn’t even have to hit snooze (N would probably tell you I’m a slave to that snooze button). The only downside to weekday morning CrossFit is that it’s pretty hard to make it back from Airdrie during rush hour.
It’s nice to get the workout out of the way right away. Now I can focus on enjoying our ski weekend. I scored 139 reps (not amazing, not terrible) &, as usual, am replaying the workout in my mind. What things I could have done differently in order to get a better score (uhh row faster, pick that med ball back up right away)? That’s the nature of competitive sports though &, if you ask me, half the fun of it.
ps. I hope you’ve enjoyed these hilarious old swimming photos. Nothing says beautiful like goggle marks & dry skin.
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Let’s get caught up here, okay!
Reading
Wild. I finished Game of Thrones. Finally. I liked the story & the writing is good, but I don’t think I’ll continue with the series. I’m up to date on the Television series so it makes it much harder to get into the books. Fail, on my part. Wild though. I love Wild so far. Now this is my kind of story. I look forward to reading a little bit every night at bedtime.
Watching
How I Met Your Mother. I’m not a huge TV watcher & we haven’t been home a lot in the evenings. I tend to spend my time cooking, working out, or seeing friends & family which is definitely fine with me. I’ve been finding I need a night at home once a week though, especially when the weekend has been particularly busy. I like having a show that both N & I enjoy to curl up on the couch together with. I’m not sure what we’ll do once it’s over. Maybe I’ll finally convince him to watch a little more Anthony Bourdain with me.
Making
I’ve been making a lot of plans lately. We usually slow down in the winter, but with all this wedding planning, I feel like things have been busy. I’ve also been making time for runs and workouts. I’m running the Scotiabank Calgary Half Marathon in June so training has officially begun.
I’ve been doing CrossFit for a couple years now, mostly on my own, but I’ve also at a couple boxes around the city too. I was never able to find the money to fully commit to a gym though, so I only did a few workouts a week & mostly chose ones I was comfortable with. It’s hard to improve much when you’re only doing workouts you’re comfortable with.
I’m not going to lie; it’s not easy seeing the people you were at the same level as doing so much better than you this year. (That’s also not to say I’m not happy for them!)But while I am having a hard time when I find myself unable to do the WODs at the level I was able to last year, I’m also happy to be back in the gym, happy to be getting stronger again, & happy I decided to participate.
1. Our friends hosted a potluck to watch the SuperBowl. I don’t like football, but I do love getting together with my friends for a potluck. It was delicious as always.
2. I’ve been working at the Bow Building a lot lately. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this incredible view of the city.
3. Cafe Gravity is not only a great coffee shop, but they also serve wine, craft beers, & delicious food. I’ve been stopping by with various friends or my mother frequently this month. I’d forgotten about it, but now that I’ve rediscovered this gem, I can’t seem to get enough.
4. The perfect Valentines gift is a meal out with N. We celebrated a day early this year with a lovely dinner at Yellow Door Bistro. That’s a lovely foie gras and rabbitte terrine. Yum!
5. We can’t drive through Canmore without stopping at La Belle Patate. On this particular occasion, we shared one that was bigger than my head. It was ridiculous & awesome.
6. We spent the Family Day Long Weekend with my parents at the lake, celebrating dad’s birthday & tasting this delicious Cipes Brut Sparkling Rose.
7. My dancing partner has been out of commission of late. Luckily his friends are willing to step in for now.
8. We woke up at 4:15 am to watch Team Canada win the Gold Medal in Men’s Hockey. There was Beer. There were tots. & there was this moment of pure joy.
9. The CrossFit Open is back. & I’m participating. The first WOD was Friday night so I headed out to Airdrie to complete it.
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