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.

Taco Tray

While out shopping one evening we noticed something called a Taco Serving Tray. They were being sold for $10 and we seriously considered buying one. Our taco nights involve many toppings and we marveled at how convenient it would be to have them all on one tray. We didn't end up buying one, but when I got home I looked around to see if we had something that would do the same thing. Turns out we did!

A regular party tray works just perfectly. There is room for all the taco fixings and now we only have one topping dish at clean up. And dressing your taco is as easy as saying: "can you pass me the tray?"

Easily Filled Tacos

Lemon on Lemon

I recently purchased some lemon extract for fudge I'm making later this summer. I have a 100ml bottle (about 7 tbs), which doesn't sound like a lot, but the fudge recipe only needs 1 tsp (about 5ml). I had been wondering what to do with the other 95ml, and while grocery shopping last week I bought some ingredients so I could make lemon poppy seed cupcakes. I didn't have a recipe, but I figured I could throw one together with the lemon extract, a white cake mix, and some poppy seeds. Without a recipe though, I didn't know how many poppy seeds I'd need, so I bought two bags. Turns out you only need 2 tbs to make lemon poppy seed cupcakes, so I guess I have a lifetime supply.

I really want to make the most of this lemon extract, so I decided to top the cupcakes with lemon buttercream frosting. Lemon on lemon. We love lemon in this house, so the more the merrier.

In recent weeks I have set myself a rule that I'm only allowed to make treats when going to an event. The rule results in two awesome things: first, I get to share yummy baked goods with people I love. Second, I don't just eat 24 cupcakes all by myself. It's a good rule, but I have to say I broke it this week so I could try these cupcakes. Lemon sounds like a health food, so these cupcakes must be super healthy. I mean, it's not chocolate right??  Perhaps eating four of these in a row is actually good for me. Let's go with that... (please don't correct me if I'm wrong).

Easy Lemon Poppy Seed Cupcakes

• 1 box white cake mix (+ 3 eggs, 2tbs veg oil, 1 1/3 cup water)
• 1 tbs lemon extract
• 2 1/2 tbs poppy seeds
• Yellow gel food colouring

Combine cake mix, eggs, oil, water, lemon extract, and poppy seeds with electric mixer until blended (30 seconds). Add yellow food colouring. Mix at high speed for 2 minutes. Pour into paper lined muffin tins and bake at 350°F for 22 minutes.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• Yellow gel food colouring

Cream butter with electric mixer. Add icing sugar in 1/2 cup intervals, mixing well after each addition. Add lemon extract and food colouring and continue mixing until light and fluffy. Add additional lemon extract to taste (John suggests I add 2 tsp next time and I agree. We like lemon!) 

Surfing Saturday: 06/08/2013

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

Astronomy

Turns out there are a lot of astronauts on Twitter. Here is a giant list of current and former astronauts who tweet.
Want to know when the International Space Station is flying overhead? Provide your email to NASA - Spot The Station and they will email you on days when it is flying over your city.
A 15 year old girl wants to be the first astronaut on Mars. Read about her adventures and how she is educating other students at AstronautAbby.com
Wondering what the Mars Curiosity Rover is up to? Check out the website or find it on Twitter!
Ever wanted a picture of yourself from space? Consider pledging $25 to the ARKYD Space Telescope Kickstarter.

Game of Thrones

If you haven't seen the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, you can skip this section entirely as each of these links is going to contain massive spoilers! If you have seen it, check out these links about the Red Wedding.

io9 had the 100 Best Tweets about last night's Game of Thrones.
Gawker had 6 Minutes of People Losing Their Shit Over Last Night's Game of Thrones.
BuzzFeed had 25 Steps To Get Over Your Intense "Game of Thrones" Depression and The Best Tumblr Reactions to the Episode.
Maisie Williams, who plays Arya on the show, posted this fun Vine video.
HappyPlace always does pretty stellar If Game of Thrones Took Place Entirely on Facebook recaps. (Go back through and read them all if you haven't seen them - pretty funny stuff.)
Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin told Entertainment Weekly why he wrote that scene.