Friday Favourites – Sleeping Dogs, Locked Out and Italian Dinner with Friends

Happy Friday folks! I’m heading to Ottawa this weekend to see my brother at university, and check out some of the events going on for the annual Winterlude festival. They’re calling for a really chilly weekend (-34C / -29.2F with wind chill) which means I’m packing as many layers and warm clothes as I can fit into my overnight bag!

When I looked through the pictures for this week’s post almost everything was a dessert or treat, but I swear that we eat salads and lots of veggies too! My favourite healthy dinner we had this week was Sweet Potato, Turkey Sausage and Spinach Hash. I loaded it up with spinach and it was oh so good.

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The slow winter pace continues. I was home with the dogs on Sunday and I swear they spent every moment of daylight sleeping in sunbeams. They just go around the apartment following the sun from room to room.

It was really hard to resist not curling up with them to sleep all day too, although I did fit in a couple of short naps while they were all warm and cozy. There have been a few nights recently where it was just too cold, so they got the chance to hop into our bed. Whiskey sleeps down at our feet under the covers and Cola tries to burrow in our necks or backs. I not-so-secretly wish we had a bigger bed so they could hang out with us all winter – for the selfish reason that I love how they keep me warm, ha!

Quick Dessert: I used my Nana’s Apple Crisp recipe to make this last minute dessert using frozen berries I keep in the freezer for my morning smoothies. It turned out so good!

Sweet Treat: Garrett surprised me this week with a couple of bags of one of my favourite treats – chocolate covered pretzels from Vermont Nut Free Chocolates. These things are so addictive!

Locked Out: One night this week we were out running errands and at Garrett’s parents’ house to do some printing and headed back to the apartment really late. After carrying all the stuff up our stairs, I went to unlock the door – and broke Garrett’s key in half. Yikes! Thankfully we were able to fish the broken key out, but then it dawned on us that my keys were inside.

It meant carrying everything back down to the car (we couldn’t leave anything because it was snowing), driving the 30 minute round trip back to his parents’ house to grab their key. By the time we got in the door it was after midnight, and we were both wiped.

Italian Dinner: Last night we had our friends Courtney and Dave over for dinner. Courtney brought an awesome salad (baby spinach, red onion, feta, dried cranberries and fig balsamic dressing – yum!) and I made spaghetti and meatballs.

 I used my Italian Turkey Meatballs recipe, which I was able to prep before they go here and then pop in the oven for 20 minutes right before dinner.

The night before, I made Giada De Laurentiis’ Simple Tomato Sauce for the first time and it turned out okay, but I kept feeling like there was something missing. I added some sugar but it was still really acidic. The hunt for the perfect tomato sauce continues!

Dessert was a batch of beignets from the mix we bought at Café du Monde on our stop into New Orleans during the honeymoon road trip last spring. They turned out pretty good! Maybe not as puffy as the originals, but still really tasty (especially with icing sugar on top!). I still have some more mix to try it again soon.

It brought back some great memories of our trip. I can’t believe that it’s almost 9 months since then!

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I hope you all have a nice relaxing weekend!