My brother went halibut fishing and came back with 40lbs of the most beautiful white, almost translucent meat to share with us.

Here’s how it went down:

• one halibut cheek salted and fried, finished with butter and lemon juice. Split three ways. So amazing (I’m still thinking about it 3 days later). Not pictured.
• Pieces of halibut filet topped with herbs and a bit of cream cheese baked at 350 for 15 minutes.
• Potatoes roasted with a bit of duck fat (sweet, magical duck fat).
• Half a tomato stuffed with bread crumbs, herbs, and mozzarella cheese. Baked at 350 for maybe 20 or 30 minutes.
• Salad greens drizzled with maple balsamic vinegar.

I was really happy with the topping I created for the halibut, so here’s what I did:

1 bunch of Italian parsley
1/2 bunch of cilantro
2 wedges of preserved lemon
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 T of cream cheese

• blend first 4 ingredients together using a little bit of olive oil as lube. Mix in cream cheese
• spread mixture on halibut fillets and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Keep an eye on the fish, you don’t want it to overcook. I found that it still looked translucent (which I thought meant “not cooked”) even when it was done. Luckily I gave it a light squeeze with my fingers and found it to be perfect, so it didn’t get over cooked as it would have if I judged just by sight.

It was so easy and tasty. I love cooking fish - as long as it’s not overcooked, I find it very hard to do wrong. So don’t be scared of it! :D

I love pumpkin pie. This year for Thanksgiving, our dessert was ice cream cake to get in some belated birthday celebrations… they’re such sweet birthday boys, so I can’t begrudge them depriving me of my pumpkin pie (I guess).

Last night I made my first attempt at a traditional pumpkin pie. I’ve made some yummy pumpkin cheesecakes before, but after trying this, I think I’ll be replacing the cheesecakes with this. I also had some for breakfast this morning ;)

My pie turned out a little prettier than the one above but unfortunately, I did not get a picture ;)

Here is the recipe I used. I really think you should try it if you like pumpkin pie. It was super easy too.

1 can of pumpkin
2 eggs
1/2 c whipping cream
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c Red Racer Pumpkin Ale (I used Imperial Pumpkin Ale because that was all I could find, but the leftover beer I had to drink after was a bit bitter for my taste)
1 Tbs flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp allspice
2 frozen pie shells

Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk all ingredients together until smooth, then add to the shells.

Bake for 30 minutes and let cool.

Ok here’s what went down with the fenugreek adventure last week:

First, I gathered some ingredients:

• Fenugreek
• Ground beef
• 1 Onion
• 1 Eggplant
• Garlic
• Zataar (get this spice! It’s so good!)

Then, I washed and cut everything up and started cooking it up on high heat in my wok.

I started with these things and let them brown.

Then I added the rest of the ingredients:

When it was all cooked up, it looked like this (oh yeah, I added some lemon later on):

I served it over rice and it was pretty tasty! It was even more tasty the next day.

It’s been a while since my last post. For that, I’m sorry! But guess what? This is my 100th post! Yay for bloggy milestones!

I have a few things I’d like to update about in the next few days/weeks:

• My garden is still a jungle, but it’s sooo relaxing to hang out there. I will post some pictures 
• How my Cooking DIY projects turned out 
• Our basement suite renovations (Oh my goodness - what a snowballing project!) 

For now, I’m just going to share this photo from last weekend. It was my fabulous friend’s 30th birthday. We had a surprise party for her in the back yard. For something to hold the birthday candles, I made her a tiramisu (great and easy recipe here). The tiramisu turned out pretty darn good but the evening breeze did not allow for the candles to stay lit for very long. *sigh*