I’d heard of Little Nest before and finally got to try it last weekend. If you don’t like kids, don’t go there! Luckily, I love the little buggers and the restaurant was teeming with the good natured little ones! The restaurant is on Charles St. just off of Commercial and is only open for breakfast and lunch and then sweet things til 4pm. They serve wholesome delicious meals made with local and organic ingredients and it’s lovely and bright!

I like this quotation on their site:
“Food is family, family is life, life is everything.” George Calombaris

LittleNest.Ca

Tea and bread and polenta (YUM!) with goats cheese and mushrooms and spinach and poached eggs oh my! You can see the little bowls of homemade jam in the back – they were so good! I spread the goat cheese on my bread with some fig jam and it was heavenly :)

TP… for totally posh. hehehe

That same evening, I ended up in Richmond in some empty warehouse behind Ikea… to eat Japanese food! Let’s just say you don’t go there for the ambience! lol.

It’s basically three of these trailers parked next to each other. They sell ramen, cones, giant takoyaki and each trailer has a specialty kitchen. (Sean approves!)

At the ramen place you choose your soup base, and then three other items (it also comes with seaweed, green onions, cabbage, and bean sprouts).

It’s not especially cheap (about $8 per bowl) but there’s something novel about ordering your dinner from a truck… lol.

Speaking of Japanese food, I’m off to have some for dinner now!

Sayōnara! :D

Only a couple days away, yet there’s still so much to do before Got Craft…

I got busy today and prepped my little signs for my table. I got the frames from Ikea… I think they were only $3 or so for a 3 pack. C’est mignon, oui?

Baked a large batch of lemon sour cream cupcakes (to be frosted). This is a fantabulous recipe which I found here at All Recipes. I don’t generally make the frosting like they say, instead I just do a simple glaze of icing sugar and lemon juice. Also I add about just under 1/4 cup lemon juice to the batter for a more lemony flava. The brown crispy parts are the best while the insides stay nice and moist. They might not be much to look at, but they are SO good. I bring them to work and they get totally devoured every time!

Finished up a couple of bags today too…

The lining is such a cute little pattern with bumblebees, clovers, and strawberries! I got this fabric during my trip to Japan last year… personally imported! lol ;)

I think I’m going to pass out now… have been up since 6:30am and now it’s 2:30am. AI YAH! There’s just not enough time in the day. :P

For some reason my sister double booked reservations tonight for West and Chambar for the Dine Out Vancouver special menu. So lucky me, I got to take her resos at West and treated myself and Sean to an early 10 year anniversary dinner. woohoo! :)

And so, here we have the food pr0ns:

We started off with made-in-house bread and butta. mm.

then we chose the sweet onion soup – it was delish… and very light. I assume it had been whisked or something like that. I dunno, I can’t cook. :)

And for our second starter we got smoked salmon tempura on a bed of something. hahaa. so descriptive. anyhow, it was very tasty. can’t go wrong with smoked salmon or deep fried!

this wasn’t part of the Dine-Out menu, but since they were on special, we had to get some. And dizzam, are we ever glad we did! Each oyster is different… the one that stood out the most was the small looking one on the right called “kuushi”. They were $3.75 each.

Tagliatelle with truffle sauce and local mushrooms. Oh. so. good! The noodles were perfectly cooked and kind of light in texture… like an egg noodle crossed with ‘yee mein’ if you know what that is. :)

Lamb shank – the meat fell off the bone. enough said.

I’m not a huge dessert person… and I found these ones not *fantastic*

this 1st one here is coconut genois (fancy word for sponge cake?) and pineapple.

And this one is grapefruit with basmati rice custard and raaspberry marshmallow ice cream.

and the verdict? Well, it looks like Sean seems to approve! :D Glad we tried it out at such a great deal and it was over-all very tasty. The atmosphere was nice too – classy yet unpretentious. If you get the chance you should definitely take advantage of the great menus being offered during Dine Out.

here’s the link to the West menu in case you’re interested: http://www.tourismvancouver.com/visitors/dining/dineout.details.php?id=988

HAPPY EATING!

“Lady of Leisure” my ass! lol! That’s what my friends call me since I haven’t been at a real day job since October. I left my job at that time in preparation for a big trip to Japan with my boyfriend… but that hasn’t happened yet so I’m looking for a new job while we wait.

In the meantime though I’ve been doing some craft fairs and poking around and doing this and that. Most recently I’ve been prepping for the Etsy fair coming up (see below) and have been sewing like a banshee!

Here are some pics of the bags I’ve been making…this particular one is being donated to Global Agents for Change for a silent auction. Yay! I wasn’t sure about the colour combination at first… but I like it now! It’s kind of quirky I think :)

A smaller version with one strap and a button closure.

A pile of purses.

OK, I must go now, I’ve been puttering around online for too long! My Bubs are waiting for me… will have pics of them soon!

Here’s a pic of Milo just for good measure. :)

*meow*

That’s all :)

Whenever I need a chocolate chip cookie fix, I go to this recipe. I call it “cookies filled with love”. Hehe. This recipe makes about 30 or so cookies depending on size and they should be chewy (as long as you don’t over-bake them!)

Ingredients
1 cups all purpose flour
1 cups oats (you can blend them if you want)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup butter or margarine (room temp is best)
1 cups dark chocolate chips
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. In a medium bowl combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
3. In a large bowl combine brown and white sugar and butter. You can use an electric mixer if you have one. If not, then you’ll have to use some arm power and a fork (this is the part I call “love”)
4. Add vanilla and egg to the sugar/butter mix and b-buh-b-buh-b-b go Bayside! I mean… beat. Beat the eggs in (again, with “love” or with a mixer).
5. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ones with LOVE power and then add the chocolate chips with more love.
6. Make little balls (I like them smaller than a golf ball, but you can have your balls however you like. teehee) of dough and place them on a buttered cookie sheet.
7. Place cookie sheet in oven in the middle rack and bake for 8-11 minutes until they no longer look “wet”.
8. Let cookies cool then get a glass of milk from the fridge and enjoy!