Surfing Saturday: 06/15/2013

 
Surfing Saturday: a weekly round up of some of my favourite links on the interwebs.

Geeky + Baking

If you want to bake something Star Wars related, a good place to start is Sugar Swings! Serve Some. Click through Michelle's Star Wars posts and just spend the afternoon scrolling through all the awesome. Also check out her posts labeled geek for even more awesome things to create.

Rosanna at Nerdy Nummies showcases how to make a lot of geeky treats on her YouTube channel. Felicia Day stopped by to make these cool D20 cookies (which I need to make for our next gaming night). I'd also love to try making this Lego Cake or the Lord of the Rings shortbread.

Found these amazing D & D dice cake pops at Midtown Sweets. I bet they would be difficult to make (especially the D12 shape) but they look so freakin' cool. I also love the Hellboy cake pops and the Megaman cake pops. So fun!

Just Plain Geeky

Gillette has been promoting it's razors by using geeky/science celebrities to answer a classic question about Superman: How does he shave? I know it's advertising, but watching Bill Nye, Kevin Smith, Mayim Bialik, and the Mythbusters give their theories is kinda cool.

Remember the awesome dinosaur chasing the wedding party photo from a few weeks ago? Well now there is one with AT-ATs from Star Wars chasing people. I hope this trend continues and can't wait to see how far people go for comedy gold.

Lastly Commander Hadfield announced his retirement from the Canadian Space Agency this week. io9 has a lovely article about it. After he takes some time off, I really hope he writes a book/does a speaking tour/continues being awesome (that last one is a guarantee).

Weekend Walk

Went walking on the local biking/walking/ATV trail last weekend. The trail is situated around the Wye River, so I got lots of great photos of the water that surrounds it. I would have taken more photos but there was a serious amount of flying bugs biting at me, so each photo left me with two or three bites (mosquitos/black flies/other flying jerks are suckers for my blood...see what I did there?). Next trail hike, I will douse myself with an entire can of bug spray, and maybe bring along a second can just in case. 

**Click on photos to Embiggen**

On the trail bridge looking towards to road bridge

Shadow me taking a photo from a trail bridge

A country road (view from a trail bridge)

Lone flower on the side of the trail

A view of a creek from another trail bridge

The other side of the creek

Chili in a Bread Bowl

Yow know what’s ridiculous? Chili in a bread bowl. You know what’s even more ridiculous? Homemade chili in a bread bowl. For real.

First we made awesome chili. Do you have a favourite chili recipe? We throw multiple varieties of beans into a pot with ground beef or turkey, onion, mushrooms, pasta sauce, and spices. It is a definite hit at our house.

Next we made a bread bowl. We used a loaf from our bread machine, cut it in half lengthwise, and hollowed it out in the shape of a bowl. I think it is over the top and awesome that we did this, but please know this was John’s idea. My brain wouldn’t come up with something this awesome/ridiculous, as I usually think foolish things like: “I can’t eat half a loaf of bread.” I sometimes underestimate myself!

We toasted the bead bowl in the oven (after basting it in a garlic powder/olive oil mixture) and then we put chili in the bread bowl!

We had a crazy fun dinner and laughed at how silly we are sometimes.

My Adorable Small Town...

There are many pluses to being in the country. Easy access to nature, ample space, many beautiful places to walk, bike, and take photos. Another plus (for me) is the lack of conveniences; if I want a Tim Hortons it is at least a 12 minute drive, a 90 minute bike ride, or a 2.5 hour walk. And don’t forget it’s the same time/distance back.

Well this is no more. A Country Style doughnut shop opened a 5 minute drive away. This means I am 5 minutes away from doughnuts AT. ALL. TIMES (within store hours). Plus, that five minute drive is a bike ride I’ve done loads of times. It takes maybe half an hour. HALF. HOUR. FROM. DOUGHNUTS.

So, my new life goal: bike to doughnuts. They’ll be carried in my backpack for the ride home, so maybe I’ll avoid ones with drippy icing. And because I’ll have rode my bike there and back, I get to eat all of them! YAY!

This is the doughnut I ate doing research for this blog. You're welcome!

We Love Leftovers

Leftovers are my favourite. They are great for a quick lunch or a just-reheat-it-and-it's-ready dinner. You might even find us eating them for lunch and dinner (Pesto Pasta is a good one for that). And why not? The flavours of some foods can intensify overnight, and with the simple effort of making one dinner, you get two. Or three. Or more. Love it! And if we know we can't use them within a few days, we pop them in the freezer to feed our future selves (future us loves presents from the past).

This week we were able to use our awesome taco leftovers in two different ways. Leftovers have to work in this house!

Taco salad looking pretty for the blog.

Taco leftovers made an appearance in my all time favourite leftover lunch: taco salad. I'm sure this salad has more taco shells, meat, and cheese than, say, a garden salad would, but that is why it is so awesome. It is in my top three salads for sure. This is also a great way to use up those two extra taco shells that we normally find stale a few weeks from now.

All mixed up and ready to eat!

This magic salad has green leaf lettuce, green olives, broken taco shells, taco meat, shredded cheese, and salsa for dressing. Always love adding chunks of avocado when I have them too. I love love love this salad.

We also turned the taco leftovers into a pizza topping. It was as tasty as it sounds. We often make over the top pizza, but this one was crazy delicious. And leftover bonus: I had leftover pizza for lunch the next day. LEFTOVER WIN!

Piles of toppings, starring taco meat.

Oh what the hell, let's add more cheese!

Finished pizza had all the win.