salad with crispy bacon + poached egg

i was inspired to make this salad from one i ate at the red wagon recently. the lardon frisee salad. typically its made with curly endives, crispy bacon, and a poached egg on top.

i don't know what i used, but it was some kind of curly lettuce i got at the farmer's market.

what i did:

• i tossed my lettuce with some chopped tomatoes + a homemade mustard vinaigrette, and sprinkled some fresh thyme leaves (from my garden!) on top.
• i chopped up some bacon from moccia's, and fried it crispy. sprinkled on top of salad.
• poached an egg (though 2 eggs would have been even better)
• set egg(s) on top of salad, sprinkle with sea salt + freshly ground pepper, and enjoy.

seriously. amazing salad. light + flavorful + filling all at the same time.

for my vinaigrette i whisked together olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard, honey (or maple syrup), chopped fresh thyme leaves, salt,+ pepper. i don't measure, i just make it to taste. for some better information about making vinaigrettes, go here.

and here's a recipe from epicurious for a traditional frisee salad with lardons and poached eggs.

my food affair with eggs

love eggs.
so.
much.
i made this delicious omelet couple weeks ago.
however... i don't exactly remember what i put in it.
looks like maybe spinach, mushrooms, zuchinni?
i think i used gouda. yum.

i'm pretty particular about omelets.
i used to flip the omelet before i put filling in.
now i put the filling in and then close it up.
yummier.
and doesn't get that 'rubbery' texture.
hate that.
they sometimes fall apart.
but that's okay.
quality of taste, not aesthetic, is what matters, in the end.

the only affair my boyfriend has to worry about me having is with food.
particularly this bread, of course from a bread affair.
(i'm really bad at jokes. but its true - i love this bread excessively much.)
this particular bread: french country miche.

sangrias, workshops & photo blogs

summer is a great time for sangrias and for fish. now, its not technically 'summer' yet, nor has it felt like summer lately here in vancouver. but that doesn't mean its not a good time for eating fish & for drinking sangrias.

especially white wine sangrias, one of which i had last week (along with some tasty fish - sole almondine) at beatniks bistro in langley. i was there with a group of ladies from a workshop we were all attending. read about this workshop here, at my new photography blog:
joeyarmstrong.ca/blog!

i'll still be blogging here, of course! but maybe not as consistently as i'd ideally like to. life isn't ideal like that all the time. oh well! :)

but speaking of sangrias, anyone have a good sangria recipe? or another favorite summertime drink?

cheers to summer starting soon!

how to brew french press - thanks jj bean!

thanks jj bean*!
my favorite way to drink coffee, explained in a beautiful tutorial video:



*jj bean is a local coffee roaster in vancouver, plus they have some of the best coffee shops too. there's one 2 blocks from my work & 6 blocks from me.

ooh & they have some public coffee tastings coming up:

thursday, june 16: 1:00 pm
jj bean on powell street
1904 powell street, vancouver

friday, june 17: 1:00 pm
jj bean in the granville island public market
1689 johnston street, vancouver

thursday, june 23: 1:00 pm
jj bean on main street
3010 main street, vancouver

friday, june 24: 1:00 pm
jj bean at park & tilford
333 brooksbank avenue, north vancouver

thursday, june 30: 1:00 pm
jj bean on commercial drive
2206 commercial drive, vancouver

friday, july 1: 1:00 pm
jj bean in yaletown
402 davie street, vancouver

read more about the tastings here. i'm going to try to hit up the tasting at powell street if i can remember to!

sun + markets + bikes + coffee = happy me

it's summer guys. this weekend, anyways. I LOVE THE SUN.

today i went to the summer farmer's market at trout lake for the first time this year. i didn't go to the winter market at all this past winter - it moved locations and was just too far for my lazy little self. today however, i met a friend for breakfast at bandidas, then we headed over to the market. took back some of my growing stacks of egg cartons, bought some eggs, bought some herbs, bought some shitaki mushrooms. and enjoyed the sun.

the beginnings of summer: it is glorious.

tomatoes are pretty...

after so much fun at the market (AND i didn't even spend all the limited cash i had on me. go me!), we were thirsty. so we went to jj bean for iced lattes. yum.

OH! what's that you say? yeah that's my new bike.

sometimes craigslist is so awesome. like this week when i bought this sweet ass bike from some random stranger. apparently its a czech communist bike.

took it out for a short ride this evening to see if it works. (yes, i know i should have checked it when purchasing it, but it was POURING rain + dark + i just wanted to hurry it all up and get out of there) it works! hurrah! my legs + lungs, however... don't work quite so well as the bike. on the 8 block, slightly uphill ride home i was suffering. thankfully no one saw me suffer, as everyone else in vancouver was downtown (still is probably) celebrating the vancouver canucks' win of game 2 in the playoffs. speaking of which, i actually watched most of the game, which is a rarity. i'm not a hockey fan, nor am i really a watching-sports-on-tv type of person. but the game was pretty intense, even from my non-partial perspective. oh, and they scored (+ won) 11 seconds into sudden death overtime. crazy. still, i'm glad i'm not downtown. not a fan of hoards of people. especially hoards of people with hockey fever...

(3 gears! 1 step up from being a hipster bike!)

it was a fantastic day today. so much sun. so much exercise.
who else had a beautiful saturday?

coffee drinking + mennonite thrift stores

i don't have enough posts up about coffee. i love the stuff so much, but i guess it sometimes seems so normal & boring & repetitive that i don't bother to take photos.

last month, though, i bought some cheap, new, beautiful mugs, while i was out in manitoba. and new mugs make for more interesting coffee experiences, until the novelty of it wears out anyways.

mennonite thrift stores are THE BEST. where else can you get mugs for ten cents? not at for-profit used stores like Value Village, that's for sure.

if you haven't heard of MCC (mennonite central committee), you should go check them out. if even for their thrift shops, which usually have fantastic finds for low prices. but they also do great work in responding to basic human needs, and working for peace and justice through disaster relief and sustainable community development, etc. and i have a lot of respect for that.

sometimes when we really need 'new' things for our house, my sister and i will borrow a car and drive all the way to abbotsford (50 minute drive in good traffic) just to visit the MCC there. because its that awesome. two of our beautiful couches are from there. $10 each! yeah.

and isn't this a pretty mug? i kinda really like it.

what makes your coffee drinking experience unique from day to day?