#so the arugula gets some of the salt and spice & the yam gets the garlic and it’s all mixed

[discworldwitches]

i have been making roasted yam & braised arugula and poached eggs for breakfast/lunch and the difference from being overstimulated in the last few moments to how i feel after i have eaten is so major and makes the cooking worth it

[afterourhearts]

food i’ll miss the most in RVA

Hi guys! This is almost more of a post for myself to think back and remember all the delicious cuisine in Richmond that I won’t be able to readily access anymore. As my last month here creeps up on me, I’ve been thinking more and more about how much I’ve grown to love this little “river” city. It’s only apt that I’m taking an archaeology class about Richmond in my last semester as it only reminds me yet again about how rich in culture this place is. Of course, I’m still thrilled to head back to Ohio (or maybe Philly if the interviews went well?), but I think I’ll always be willing to visit Richmond in the future and show my future friends around this adorable place :) ok, but on to the food (not ranked in order of best or anything just places I absolutely adore):

1) Huynh’s now turned Vietnam One Vermicelli with Tofu & Spring Roll - ok so most people have tried this popular Viet dish but I’ve tried at least like 10 of these from diff. places and nothing beats the dish at Vietnam One here. It’s the TOFU. It’s seasoned and cooked to perfection; crispy on outside and soft on the inside and bursting with flavor (as opposed to a lot of other places that have pretty bland fried tofu). Honestly I could just eat the tofu and be pleased. So many memories and probably 50+ trips to this place with my apt., definitely forever going to be in our hearts.

2) Jack Brown’s BBQ chips with mac n cheese burger - only like $6, 5 minutes from my school, juiciest homemade patty, amazing pairing of creamy mac n cheese with crispy chip pieces, and all served with the most refreshing pickle. UGH I WANT IT NOW.

3) Frank West’s Pizzeria Cheese Pizza - omgomgomg so everyone here likes Christian’s which is a NY style thin crust heavy cheese pizza and also fairly good but Frank West’s is even better though less known! A local here showed it to me and I’ve been in love ever since. Crust is on a thinner side but not crazy thin, generous amounts of sauce which I love, and the cheese is speckled with some kind of seasoning that is perfection.

4) Peter Chang’s Dry Fried Eggplant - so there isn’t much Chinese food here to rave about due to the heavily viet but low chinese population in rva but they at least boast one authentic szechuan place (though hong kong house in cbus is def better) STILL they have this standout eggplant dish here that I’ve never seen elsewhere. It’s fried eggplant “fries” seasoned in szechuan flavors/cilantro and it isn’t greasy b/c it is dry fried rather than deep fried. AMAZING alternative to fries!

5) Sugar Shack Donuts esp. lemon poppyseed and strawberry lemon - ok so RVA is KNOWN for donuts and for good reason. Sugar shack has been ranked in national magazines/food blogs all the time and it has literally the yummiest donuts I’ve ever had. Coming from cbus where donuts is just Krispy Kreme, I truly can say I’ve never known anything better existed. Sugar shack is like a bigger, better krispy kreme. It doesn’t melt away in your mouth in seconds like krispy kreme but it is still so fluffy and airy inside like lightweight bakery bread almost. Planning on bringing a dozen of these home after graduation!

6) Bombolini Pasta - a little place in Carytown that has really authentic pasta and delicious sauces, as well as a bunch of homemade frozen ravioli you can buy and cook later at home. I love that the noodles here are never overcooked, like true pasta should be served :) 

7) Honey Truffle Fries and Salt n Pepper Fries with Garlic Aioli at Postbellum - this place has a cute little rooftop bar and the most amazing thin fries!!! honey + truffle oil topped with shaved parmesan - could there be a better combo?! The only fries I like better than here are the crispy BonChon ones but BonChon can be found outside of RVA too!

8) Social 52 Crab Dip with Pita - I’ve never had better crab dip, or maybe I was just really drunk xD this bar does have a ton of tasty fusion style apps though!

9) Toast Sweet Potato Tater Tots - a gastropub right beside my school that often rotates out some really unique fusion style dishes (kimchi aiolis and shiz like that) but we always come back to their staple side dish, the sweet potato tots. MMMMMM mmm mm! People make sweet potato fries all the time, but tots? wowzaa

10) Gelati Celesti Chocolate Decadence - hands down the creamiest, thickest, chocolateyest cold creamy gelato goodness you’ll ever try! 

11) Noorani’s Gobi Manchurian, Chicken 65, Egg biryani, and Seekh Kabab - omg I could go on and on about this place forever. Yes your stomach will rebel against you the following day but it is worth the later pain hahaha. I just LOVE their gobi manchurian (fried cauliflower tossed in an indo-chinese sauce), they have the most well-spiced chicken 65 ever, biryani is on the wetter side which I LOVE, and mmm the seekh kabob is served in the most amazing sauce with sliced ginger and it’s just like pakistani heaven!!! It breaks my heart thinking about how much I’ll miss this place :’( even though service is crap, food is always delicious.

12) Zzzaaaam bibimbap bowls - this place is like a korean chipotle but it has every topping you’d ever want in your bibimbap at extremely reasonable prices, with a variety of super tasty sauce combos and topped with sesame oil drizzle. I always feel fairly healthy eating here too which is a bonus :) 

13) New Grand Market Cafe’s Jajungmyeon with Tangsooyuk = ehrmygawd this is the most amazing combination ever created!! Tasty hot noodles in black bean seafood sauce paired with crispy sweet & sour pork & bell peppers/onions = heaven on earth; place is also a supermarket so you can stock up on asian snacks while you’re here!

14) Chadar Thai’s Drunken Noodles and Curry Fried Rice - the best Thai place in this city. Ignore the overpriced and underwhelming Carytown places (thai diner, mom’s siam, ginger thai, thai top ten, elephant thai, thai palace, etc) and come here! Definitely the BEST and most flavorful thai place around!! Their drunken noodles are UNBEATABLE and yes I’ve tried like 7 other places so I would know lololol

15) Shyndigz Fruit Cake and Key Lime Pie - this place is the cutest little date dessert spot!! they have christmas lights everywhere indoor and outdoors and just the cutest little southern belle/rustic theme; grab a slice of their super moist and fresh fruitcake or absolutely perfectly tart key lime pie with the tastiest crust with your girls or a boo thang and enjoy it under the christmas light warm glow!! you’ll 100% have a night to remember :) 

16) Plaza Azteca burritos/enchiladas - so I’m not a huge fan of Mexican because I find a lot of the dishes bland but this place is diff. and they believe in heavy use of sauces/queso which I LOVEEEE. the free nachos/salsa they give are amazing (super thin crispy nachos and the smoothest/freshest salsa), made to order guac is perfect!!, and any of their burritos/enchiladas are bound to be completely covered in sauce and other drizzles and also laying in like a literal pool of more sauce so ohmygoodness yes I’m a big fan

17) Burger Bach New Zealand Burgers - def on the costlier side but comes with a side of fancy salad w like arugula and shiz not just iceberg lettuce and a bunch of creative dips for your fries; burger is also bigger and more flavorful than at Jack Brown’s but Jack beats this place based on price and bun and size and convenience and that freaking pickle ... lol burger bach to jack browns is like shake shack to in-n-out ... one is obvs more expensive and better in quality but the other is unique in taste and affordable sooooooo ya just love BOTH!

18) Mama J’s Southern Kitchen - if you want real soul food this is where its at; here is the only place I like collard greens and they have the sweetest yams and amazing catfish (only place better was in new orleans!) and these freaking awesome wings you must ask for tossed in something called Edy’s sauce. not even sure wtf is in that sauce but it’s bliss

19) Addis Kitchen’s Injera - have you tried ethiopian bread before?? liz and I came across this place when we went to a lackluster italian festival and still needed more food and tried injera for the first time. it was delicious!! it’s a sour, spongey bread that isn’t heavy at all you could literally eat it for ages and just paired amazingly with their veggie/meat dishes which remind me of indian curries a bit. def an experience i’d recommend!

20) Foo Dog’s Fried Tofu and Malaysian Ramen - ok so this place is no fukuryu but the coconut based lemongrass soup is really tasty (noodles need work) and their fried tofu app is deliciously stuffed with a bunch of flavorful veggies and sauces and if you want some bao sandwiches/asian street food combos this is def a good place!

21) Continental Westhampton’s Poutine Fries - omggg this plate of fries is not only covered in gravy but also scallions and an EGG and cheese and if this isn’t your idea of dream loaded fries idk what is

22) Galaxy Diner Malt Shakes and Pickle Chips - so this diner serves breakfast all day and is perfect for post drinking food binges that will do major damage to your waistline but all the greasy foods are just okay in my opnion; really not a standout place except for the funky atmosphere/lighting and one particularly spectacular drink: their malt shakes!!!!!! enough said

23) Don’t Look Back Fish Tacos (traditional style) and Chorizo tacos (gringo style) - it’s not quite LA street taco quality but it’s about as good as it gets around here!

24) Cookout banana shake, chili cheese dogs, chicken nugs, cheese fries, and onion rings - a late night drive through that has everything you’d ever want at 2am in the morning at dollar prices. how perf is this? 

There’s probably places I’m forgetting (as you can tell I’ve eaten out a LOT in college hahahhaa) so I’ll try to keep updating this but for now, these are the places that will always have a special place in my heart and that I highly recommend you trying if you’re ever heading to VA beach and feel compelled to stop by adorably historic and tasty Richmond!

[amatchgirl]

How To Meal Prep 12 Easy Vegan Recipes In 90 Minutes For A Beginner

How To Meal Prep 12 Easy Vegan Recipes In 90 Minutes For A Beginner

– All these things are found at your local grocery store. 99 cent store, honey. You can even go to Dollar Tree and get spices, okay? (laughing) Hey y'all, I'm Tabitha Brown and I'm here with my friend Destiny. – Hello, hey girl. – Hey! – And I'm gonna show her how to prep 12 vegan meals in 90 minutes. – I am new to this whole vegan thing. I don't really know where to start with my meal prepping. – I can help you out with this. – Okay! – So for breakfast we're gonna do tofu scramble with a little sweet potatoes in there, that's one of my favorites. – Yum. – Then for lunch, we gonna create a couple of grain bowls, you can do all kind of things with those. And then for dinner, we'll have a little bolognese as y'all call it, I just call it spaghetti growing up. But I'm also gonna show you how to like mix and match it, so it doesn't get boring and you get a variety. – Awesome, I love that. Well I'm really excited to see like if we can get all this done in 90 minutes. _ Girl, I'm up for the challenge. It's very possible. – All right, I trust you. Let's do it. – Okay, so we got our rice cooker here. And this is for our quinoa. And we're gonna use a rice cooker because you pretty much cook it the same way. And the great thing about this is it's got a little button that say rice. Hello. You just push it and it do all the work for you. – Okay. – All right, so we'll add our bowl of quinoa, okay? And then a salt. We're only gon' add a pinch. Then we're gonna add the water. Make you feel like you're doing something. Child, but this is the only part you're doing. And then we gon' add on the top. And then we just hit the rice button. (beep) – That so simple. You can just put it in and walk away. – So now we got our veggies. – All right. – Okay, this is what we gon' use for our grain bowls. To save time, we leave the skin on the potatoes. We just make sure you scrub 'em, clean 'em real good because the skin actually has so many nutrients in it and it's so great for it. – Awesome. – So tell me a little bit more about why you decided, I'ma go vegan. – In my family there's a lot of diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. And so I kinda was trying to figure out what's a way that we can like help with these things, and so I did my research and kind of found that eating more plant based is better for that. I recently also had kind of like a pre-diabetes scare. – Oh, wow. – Yeah. And that really put everything into perspective for me. So I was like, let's try this. I've tried every diet in the book, but being vegan or plant based is something I haven't tried, so. – Well good for you! – Thank you. You know I had this resting headache in the back of my head for one year and seven months. – Oh my goodness. – Every single day I would be dizzy, I had chronic fatigue. I tried all kind of drugs that the doctors, you know, prescribed, because they couldn't even figure out why I was having this. – Right. – And when I did a 30 day challenge, after 10 days my headache went away. – [Destiny] Wow! – And then after like 20 days or so, I started getting energy again, I started feeling better, and I was like wait a minute. Honey, this thing seem to be working! – Yeah, wow. – I'ma stick with this. – Love that. – And it literally changed my whole life. – Wow. – Absolutely. – So inspiring. – Yeah, girl! Okay, so we gon' put our yams here, or sweet potatoes, whichever you wanna call them, okay? And then our peppers and broccoli, and our chickpeas, and then we gon' season 'em up – Awesome – so then we can get ready. Okay, so everything gets a little bit of garlic powder. – Awesome. – I love garlic powder because, you know, you can use as much as you like. – Oh! – If that's your business. Okay. (laughing) And then a little bit of salt. And then we got chili powder for our chickpeas here. And then paprika for the yams. So now they all seasoned up, we gon' put a little bit of oil, I prefer grape seed oil, yes. Very good. Girl, yes, you doin' great. Go on ahead. Now we gon' roast them for about 20 to 25 minutes. Set a timer, but baby check it 'bout half way through. Okay? You know when you get doing' stuff and you forget that you got stuff roasting, you don't want burnt veggies. Here we have five cloves of garlic. So we're gonna use three of these for our bolognese, and then we'll use two of them later when we make our pesto. – Great. – Now the great thing about this is a little trick. All right, if you shake this really hard, the peeling off of the garlic cloves with come off. – Really? – You go ahead and give it a try, girl. – Okay. – Shaking hard enough? – Yeah! Yeah! – Oh my god! – You see that? – Look at that! – You see that? – That is so cool. – So another great way to like save time when you're prepping, is to use a food processor. Okay, so we gave our veggies here like a rough chop. We let the food processor mince 'em up real good. So we gon' go ahead and take our celery. Carrots in there. Some onion. And then let's put the garlic too. (food processor whirring) All right, so now we have these all minced up. Okay, and then we'll just at them to the pot. So now we'll take the walnuts. Nuts in general are great on a plant based diet for a meat substitute. And honey, ain't no need of you cleaning it out, 'cause it's all one together. – [Destiny] That's true. (food processor whirring) That looks like ground beef. – Very good, very meaty. And then we gon' set it aside. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna add a little bit of our grape seed oil into our veggie base. We got a little bit of our dried basil, dried parsley here, and our good friend oregano. This is gonna be our good base for our bolognese. One of the great things about meal prepping, honey, is multi-tasking. So while I am stirring these veggies, I want you to make us a little dressing for our grain bowls. All right, so this will be like you by yourself imagining in your kitchen that I'm there with you. – Okay! – You too. So we're gonna take so basil. Some arugula. We got a little sea salt here. Some lemon juice. Some water. Our garlic cloves that we had and a little bit of walnuts. Then olive oil. We gon' blend it up and make a good old sauce. (food processor whirring) – Yeah! – Oh! – We're gonna take this and we're gonna transfer it into a mason jar. So we got a little bit of tahini, some water, lemon juice, salt and some maple syrup. And you know, we could've just kept the one dressing, the pesto sauce or whatever, but we don't wanna get bored. – [Destiny] Keep it interesting. – [Tabitha] Yes! – This is like one of the first times I've been really excited about like changing the way I eat. Like I've never been excited, but I love this. – Yes! – I'm so excited. – That make me excited. – Wow, look at that. That was easy. – Girl, you'd a made pesto and a dressing. – I'm a chef now. – Honey! So see how our veggies are soft, they look good. Okay so now we gon' add a little bit of tomato paste. All right, we stir it on in. Let it get brown. Smooth it on around. Let it get brown, okay? So now we gon' add everything else that we need. So we got our veggie stock, the walnuts that we minced earlier, we got our tomatoes, a little bit of salt, and some lentils. – [Destiny] Awesome. – Stir it up til it gets all mixed in together. We gon' cover it, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 35 minutes. So now are bolognese is simmering right now. I also put on a pot of boiling water for some pasta that we're gonna make later. While of all that is happening, we're gonna go ahead and make our tofu scramble. Make it taste like some good old scrambled eggs. Ooh, I see your face now. Tell me how you feel about tofu. – The times I've had tofu – Ooh! – It just was like spongy and just kinda like no flavor. – I don't like nothing bland myself, so I ain't gon' feed it to you, all right? I put it in a towel just to kind of pat it dry. You don't have to worry about pressing it. I know tofu gives you a lot of water, but this will be fine once you break it up. It'll absorb all the other flavors right and nice. – Little oil. – Feels weird! – I know it does feel right weird, child. But it's all right. There you go. – [Destiny] Okay, looking like eggs. – So we got a little bit of low-sodium soy sauce and then we got nutritional yeast, garlic powder because you know we love garlic – Sure do. – And it makes everything better. Now this is the black salt. – Oh! – You only need just a couple of pinches of it. And the black salt it to give it a egg flavor. Now we adding turmeric 'cause that actually gives us a little bit of the color so it looks like we got some real eggs going on. But also it's great for the inflammation, especially when we add the black pepper 'cause this activates the turmeric. – I did not know that. – Okay. – We don't have time to be inflamed. – No. – [Destiny] Wow, like this looks like scrambled egg! – It is lookin' like a little scrambled egg, right? Ans we're gonna add a little bit of spinach. And you know like right here is tons of protein. Your tofu is protein, – Ooh! – Your greens is protein. So when the people be like "Oh my god, "you're gonna go vegan, how you gon' get your protein?" Message. (laughing) Give me a wrap with some guacamole and salsa, baby. – Ooh, yum! – Oh, honey. – We eating' big girl. So we have our bolognese still simmering. We always need a fresh green salad. So we have some mixed greens here, a little spring mix, with some arugula already in here. And a little fun fact, when you have 'em in your container in the refrigerator to keep them fresh, just put your little paper towel like that. And that just kina helps soak up the moisture. – Right. – I throw away so much spring mix, it's like shameful. – Right! – So that's good to know. – Let's go ahead and chop these up. – So something that I really like about everything we've bene cooking today is that these are all ingredients that I've heard of, or like can find at any grocery store. So that's really exciting – Right! I think that's the misconception, right? A lot of times, people here the word vegan and they freak out first and foremost. – I did. – Especially people in our community. Listen, I ain't even gon' lie to you, when I would hear the word vegan, I really thought "Oh, that's for white people that do yoga." Me, I'm from a little small town, it was never even mentioned. Now, it's like a movement but really in the black community, which makes me excited because need it. – We do. – We are the high percentage in all of the like, you know, diabetes and high blood pressure. And this is so great for us. Right? – Yeah, I agree. – So it doesn't have to be expensive. All of these things are found at your local grocery store 99 cent store honey, you can even go to Dollar Tree and get spices, okay? (laughing) Now we're gonna add it in, aint that pretty? – [Destiny] It's so pretty. – Ooh, I get excited about a good colorful salad, child. So the hemp seeds are great because they have fatty acids in them which is like Omega-3s, and it's so good for us. This is a life bowl. Ooh, look at that honey! – Yum! – It has simmered on down. – So now what we'll do it add a little bit of our red wine. Then a little bit of salt just for taste. Let's go ahead and stir it up. And then what we'll do is we'll leave this uncovered and let the wine kind of cook down in there for about 10 minutes. And now, it's been enough time that our boiling water, it's time to add the pasta. – Let's do it. – Voilà! Okay. So let's start with our breakfast. So we have our breakfast scramble with our sweet potatoes. You can have it just like this, or you can get fancy, and make a breakfast burrito. – Yum! – And we add a little bit of our roasted red peppers in there, you know, that add a little flavor. – You see that? – That's really good! Wow! – We have these amazing grain bowls, under the bottom we have our quinoa – Yum. – We just mix up our dressings so we have our pesto, and then we got our tahini dressing which you made. And then if you noticed you see we have half with the sweet potato and then half with the red peppers 'cause we mixed it with out breakfast burrito. That way we won't get so bored. Try it out. – Mm! – Girl, you did that. – That pesto's good. – Who made it? – Me! – Go ahead, girl! For breakfast and lunch these are using bowls that you take on the go with you. So you individualize them in containers. But with dinner, I keep the bolognese sauce in the pan and like our big salad we keep that in a container because we make our dinner at home. So we have our standard way with our noodles and our bolognese on the top. And then if you say "you know what, "I'm trying to do right with my life." You can use some zucchini noodles, or whatever veggies noodles you wanna use. And then if you get to the point and you say "Honey, I am bolognesed out." – No more. – I don't want no more. Put that thing on in the freezer. And freeze it until you ready for it again. You still got your pesto sauce that you know, you had in your little mason jar. – That's right. – Put that on your pasta, whip that up honey. Now you got a little pesto pasta. – I love that. – And then you pair it with just salad. And you can have that salad with every meal. And you can also take some salad to work, if that's what you wanna do. – It's your business. It tastes like a meat sauce. – That the lentils and, you know, the walnuts and all the veggies. So say you wanna switch it up, right? Some days you may just wanna do your pasta like how you have your pesto pasta. Use some of your veg. – Ooh, okay. – Mix it up in there. Okay, your peppers and broccoli and chickpeas. Baby that's a pasta salad. – Yeah, options. I love this. – Yeah, you got options. – Well I cannot believe we were able to make 12 meals in 90 minutes. – Yes we did. – And all this food is vegan and easy to find and healthy and good for you and feels good. – I'm so proud of you! – Thank you! – You know, 'cause the first step is being open to just trying something new. And plant based living can be super easy. If you want me to come back, comment below say "Y'all bring Tab back to the room." – Yes. – We'll come back and do some more meal prepping ideas and have some fun in the process. – I'd love it. – High five! – Love that. – So proud of you. (gentle music)

from WordPress http://sweetly.site/how-to-meal-prep-12-easy-vegan-recipes-in-90-minutes-for-a-beginner/

[arcisfoodblog]

The next destination of our British Columbia road trip was Courtenay, one of 4 stops on Vancouver Island. 

Courtenay is just a 90-minute ferry ride and a 15-minute drive away from Powell River. This was one of the ferry services for which we could make a reservation. Therefore, we left at 11.50am from the Westview terminal in Powell River to arrive at 1.20pm at the Little River terminal in Comox. As we wouldn’t be able to check into our hotel anyway, we took the opportunity to first explore nearby Campbell River.

We drove the 50 kilometers / 35 miles over the scenic South Island Highway 19A. But, first after the arrival: a great late lunch at Quay West (921 Island Hwy)

Clockwise:

Quay West Burger: Beef with aged white cheddar, bacon, and burger sauce

Ahi Tuna Poke Power Bowl: Quinoa, tuna poke, avocado, edamame, sesame seaweed, cucumber, radish, green onion, pineapple salsa, tobiko, gyoza crisps, and spicy mayo

Ultimate Burger: Beef with aged white cheddar, bacon, mushrooms, BBQ sauce, and onion ring

We washed down the food with some refreshing beers from Vernon, BC’s Okanagan Spring Brewery: The 1516 Bavarian Lager and the Extra Special Pale Ale.

We walked off lunch by strolling south past the Fishermans’ Wharf. Campbell River is the self-proclaimed salmon capital of the world and – under strict regulations which spring you can keep depending on the Chinook salmon season – you can a permit and get out your fishing rod and try to catch one from the Discovery Fishing Pier.

The weather was magnificent that day, so we enjoyed a late dinner on the enclosed patio of Il Falcone Restaurant (536 6th St).

Salumi Board with Bocconcini, Dove Creek Melon, Fruit preserves, Fresh figs from their garden, and grilled toast. Too bad that the latter were a bit caramelized…

Crisp, lightly battered Zucchinis & their ricotta-stuffed Flowers, Shishito peppers, Pesto aioli

The kids choose the classics with Buccatini: the Amatriciana (Bacon, Garlic, Basil, Green Chili, Olive Oil, Tomato Sauce, Pecorino) as well as the Carbonara (Bacon and egg sauce, Parmigiano Reggiano and cracked black pepper)

We had the daily specials: Chantal had the Eggplant Caponata with Tuna Steak, and I choose the oven-roasted lamb with 12 different roasted vegetables in a red wine jus. The 2016 Tuscan red Promis by Gaja was an elegant accompaniment with both dishes.

The next day we started with brunch at the cozy Atlas Cafe (250 6th St). Besides fresh smoothies and fresh fruit and yogurt smoothies, I had the Classic, being two eggs, scrambled, spicy Italian sausages, caramelized onions, and focaccia toast. Chantal had the Frittata (three eggs, arugula, tomatoes, leeks, and goat cheese, with focaccia toast) which was very good, but very filling. Not fancying anything with eggs, the kids choose the Chicken Quesadillas from the kids’ menu.

It was a good start for our hike in the Seal Bay Nature Park, where we took the southern part of the trails through the regenerated second-growth forest. We took the well-groomed trails on the waterside part of the park from the North/West side of the parking on Bates Road. Three trails lead down to the waterfront, where you have about one kilometer of beachfront to explore before heading back to the parking through Douglas firs, big-leaf maples, and red alders.

The next hiking stop that day was Nymph Falls Nature Park, about 5 kilometers to the east Courteney on the Forbidden Plateau Road. We didn’t know that the falls were relatively low and had loads of swimming opportunities, so we just hit the trails in this park.

Later that afternoon, we had a walk through downtown Courtenay, with stops at the small microbrewery Forbidden Brewing Company (Suite A, 1590 Cliffe Ave) and Blue Spruce Ice Cream (526A Cliffe Ave), No pictures, but the Spruce Tip (Locally harvested young spruce tips steeped in their custard base with a touch of lemon), Raspberry White Chocolate (Tart, tangy, and sweet raspberries mixed with white chocolate shavings) and the Krupnik Honeycomb (A spiced honey liqueur from Wayward Distillation swirled with sweet, salty caramel sauce and topped with made in house honeycomb candy) were absolutely outstanding.

With the rest of the family chilling at the hotel, watching bunnies hopping through the garden, I needed to fill up the car and chose a gas station close to Comox’ Land & Sea Brewing Co. (2040 Guthrie Road). No time for sampling, but I got a quart can of their delicious Glacier Cream Lager to go and also got some great tips for Vancouver Island craft breweries for the remainder of our road trip. Land & Sea started only late 2018, and the rate of expansion of craft breweries on Vancouver Island is insane: 33 during the summer of 2019, and there will be 39 by the end of the year!

Final Dinner while in Courtenay was at Gladstone Brewing Co. (244 4th St). You place your food order – options are limited to burgers and a few salads and sides – and pay at the food bar counter. Then you pick-up and pay for your drinks at the tap counter and find yourself a spot inside or on their patio. The food will come out when ready.

With 2 taster trays, we got to sample the entire range that was on tap that day: The Core Line up consisting of the Belgian Single, Pilsner, Hazy Pale Ale, and the IPA. The Seasonal ones were the Cream Ale, Kölsch, Czech Dark Lager, and Dry Irish Nitro Stout. The kids had some craft malt sodas from Victoria’s Phillips Soda Works, defintately their favorites.

The beers were great, as were the burgers. I had the superb 50/50 (Smoked brisket & locally-sourced ground beef patty, bacon, red currant ketchup, mozzarella, and smoked asiago). The kids had the Weekly Cheeseburger with Natural Pastures cheese and  additional bacon. When ordering, we totally missed the fine print that the burger’s standard serving was with Brioche buns and Aioli. Our fault for not noticing upfront given my son’s egg allergy, but the staff were so kind as to redo one with a lettuce wrap, and without aioli. Chantal had the delicious vegetarian Daredevil burger: Roasted yam & quinoa patty, guacamole, and smoked asiago.

The accompaniments were a bit underwhelming. We picked the Curry Salt Fries (great flavor, but the mix contained way too much salt) and the Poutine, which had a surprisingly bland gravy (typically, the breweries try to work in some of their own dark beers to give it more oomph). Nevertheless, a great place to hang out and enjoy some beers and burgers.

Around the World – British Columbia Roadtrip (2019) – Courtenay The next destination of our British Columbia road trip was Courtenay, one of 4 stops on Vancouver Island.