In the Kitchen with Mandy

Don't pay the ransom! I made it back!

Well, my friends, it has been a minute since we last chatted! I would love to tell you I'm rested and rejuvenated after two weeks but I am neither of those things!

We went to Canada to visit Husband's family and it was hectic and chaotic in the VERY BEST ways! Husband comes from a big family so there were LOTS of brothers and sisters in-law, nieces and nephews, and family friends to see. There were no less than 20 people around on any given night and that number shot up plenty some evenings.

The only negative was that Big Girl didn't make the trip with us. After getting married in the Fall, she just didn't have enough vacation time banked to take off from work. Boo.

I hate she missed it because y'all, I kid you not, the rest of those “kids” (teenagers and young adults) played the whole time. I mean, they actually PLAYED like children! It was such a delight to see all the cousins drenched in sweat, filthy dirty, running around chasing each other, playing cornhole, hacky sack and at least a dozen made-up games like they did when they were little. I feel certain the past two weeks have reinforced an already close bond among the cousins and pray they all stay close and keep loving each other through the years.

I haven't done much cooking but I'll share some of the best recipes I've learned from (or because of) my Canadian family and hope y'all might try some of them!

The note above about my SIL thrusting a pot of noodles at me with instructions to “make something with them” is why I like her so much! She was suddenly tasked with feeding a dozen people lunch unexpectedly and didn't bat an eye. She set my BIL to cooking burgers on the grill (or as they say, on the “barbeque”) and set the noodles on to boil while she did ALL THE OTHER THINGS that needed doing and fully trusted that I could manage some sort of pasta salad. Having been in that position many times, I didn't ask questions or bug her, I just started digging around in her fridge and cabinets until I figured something out on my own. I love being in a kitchen with someone like that! I also love that when we were making plans for the following day she said, “we can make homemade pierogi or pottery or something and drink wine all day” and I was like YES! Let's do all of that!

So, we're home now and things will settle back down to normal for a good while. I'm excited to spend some time with The Boy and Baby Girl while they're home for the summer!

I missed y'all!! If you try any of the Canadian(ish) recipes, let me know what you think! Also, I can't mention Canadian food without begging you to someday, somehow try Poutine and Nanaimo Bars!

Poutine is just hot french fries topped with cheese curds (think soft fresh mozzarella) that's then topped with steaming hot brown gravy and how it's never become "a thing" in the South is beyond me because we love fried food and we love gravy!

Nanaimo Bars are a layered dessert bar with a chocolate coconut bottom, a vanilla custardy filling and a topping made from melted chocolate and they are TA DIE FOR! I've never made them because they require something called custard powder but I have it on my list to make this summer! I'm going to try to use vanilla pudding mix instead of custard powder and see what happens!

Thanks for letting me tell you about our family trip! I feel like this is the first time I have “mentally debriefed” since we got home haha!!

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Lexington, SC 29072, United States