Lemon butter garlic shrimp and mussels with asparagus on linguine recipe - hard to go wrong with butter, garlic, white wine, citrus and seafood for potluck!

Posted by

Its potluck time again, and I'm racking my brains as to what to make.  This time around, I wanted simple ingredients that while hearty, would stray on the lighter side of things, since at most potlucks, there's a huge variety and volume of food to be sampled from.  And I wanted something that I could toss together quickly after work that I can scale up fast if there was more folks coming to eat than expected. In my freezer, I see a bag of large tiger shrimp and some green New Zealand mussels. Hmmm.. butter garlic shrimp sounds yummy, but how to incorporate the mussels?  I usually do my mussels in white wine, garlic and fresh basil.  Now, what if I combined the two, added in some fresh lemon juice to cut the richness of the butter, added in some chicken broth to round out the sauce and piled all that yumminess on a bed of pasta with maybe some grilled asparagus for veges? *ding ding ding!!* :D

Read more »

UNA Pizza and Wine Calgary, AB - Tasty hand tossed pizzas with gluten free choices too!

Posted by Rating Service 8/10, Food 8/10

To a start of a whirlwind weekend, we met up with some of my boyfriend's old buddies for drinks and a bite to eat on a cold wintery evening located on the trendy 17th Avenue.  Thankfully, due to a recent whomp of snow dumped onto the poor unsuspecting folks of Calgary, who counts on their Chinook  to keep things relatively warm and low snow levels... we didn't have to wait in an atrociously long line up and was able to get a table within a few minutes of entering the restaurant.  Cheerful music lends a trendy pulse to this cozy small restaurant that greets you with a comforting smell of sweet tomato sauce, cheese and truffles and warmth not just attributed to the temperature difference from walking in.  Specializing in thin crust pizzas, offering up a decent selection of wines and imported beers you usually only see at specialty liquor stores, combined with passionate staff makes for a wonderful evening out... and made me wish I didn't have supper just prior to heading here!

Read more »

Bacon, potatoes, leeks, celery and garlic are all friends in this healthy (gasp) creamy potato leek bacon soup recipe

Posted by

Its snowy, its cold. Your bed and pillows are beckoning.  Its a dreary winter day, and there's nothing like a hot bowl of homemade soup to keep the winter blahs at bay.  I don't want me (and all of you) to look like chubby michelin tires in the spring, so here's an almost guilt free recipe for a hearty creamy bacon potato leek soup.  If you're vegetarian, feel free to omit the bacon, and double the onions or leeks for more flavour.

Read more »

Ginger Beef Bistro Calgary, AB - good dim sum and great BBQ pork pineapple buns!

Posted by Service 7/10 (Its dims sum, you can't expect too much)
Food 8/10

Its a nippy wintery weekend, and if I have to get out of bed early, it better be for a darned good reason.  Hot tasty dim sum with family?  Ok, I'll scrape myself out of my nest of pillows and blankets for that :)  Trick is with dim sum, you always have to go early if you want to get a table without waiting for hours (after all, I'm not the only one that loves sleeping in!).  So after slipping and sliding a bit on the hilly roads, we enter a bustling restaurant with a glass walled off kitchen right before the lunch rush.  They only take reservations up to around 11am if you have a table of 6 or more.  There isn't enough space with all the crammed in tables and seating for the traditional dim sum carts to be trucked around and the dim sum ladies yelling out what they have in their carts -so while slightly less noisy, it's an integral part of dim sum that while some folks dislike, I missed it here as I find it adds to the atmosphere.

Read more »

Japanese Sweets Cafe Myowa 和茗甘味處 [Taipei, TW] -- Japanese Style Dessert - green tea cakes, ice-cream, cream puffs and matcha!

Posted by MatchaMeanTea

This is my first entry and when it comes to the 'first time,' things never seem to go the way you planned. As I ever so slowly try and contribute more to this blog, I should theoretically get better. You don't always think about getting pictures of the outside of the place, inside for the the atmosphere or the menu. I'll work on keeping those things in mind the future and the next time I update this entry.

Now on to our main event...

Read more »