Sounds like a weird combination? It sure is. Yes, in this blog post I will be writing about cooking and food… and aquarium fish. Weird.

This past weekend we hosted a dinner party for our friends Liv and Rob, who we always have a fantastic time with. We decided to make a three-course meal, but didn’t try anything new since we were under some time constraints for cooking.

It’s strange, I’ve gone from being a cocktail-only person, to being a maybe-sometimes-champagne person, to appreciating both wine and champagne now. I guess I have my friend Crista to blame for that! We had quite the array of drinks on Saturday, and I was surprised the next morning to see how much we had really consumed.

I prepared the tiramisu the night before, but everything else we cooked fresh the day of. It wasn’t quite dinner theatre… we were scrambling around the kitchen in front of our guests. But I think overall it was a success!

For the appetizer we had a roasted creamy butternut squash soup with fresh cream, shaved parmigiano reggiano, chopped chives, and freshly grated nutmeg. Click here for my butternut squash soup recipe.

For the main we had beef shortrib braised in Barolo red wine, served over a bed of fresh pappardelle pasta noodles with pine nuts, spinach, chanterelle mushrooms, and parmigiano reggiano cream sauce. Click here for my braised beef short rib and pappardelle recipe.

For our sweet finish, we had my cheesecake tiramisu with strawberries and espresso wafers. The tiramisu had lady fingers soaked in Kahlua, coffee, coffee liqueur, and chocolate liqueur. Click here for my cheesecake tiramisu recipe.

The dinner party was probably a little too fun.

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On a completely other note, we bought some new discus for our aquarium! I am really as I have always wanted more discus in the tank and finally was able to convince Allan over the past year or so to be open to more discus.

We bought four new discus fish, for a total of five now in our tank. We got a Golden Master, Red Melon, Red Turquoise, and Tiger Snake Skin to add to our Red Dragon (the larger one we’ve had for almost a year now). I absolutely love them! Now we have to name them…

What did you get up to over the weekend?

This past August, Allan and I threw an engagement party for our friends and family at my parents’ house here in Vancouver. It was a blast to see all our family and friends together in one place! Here is a photo of Allan and I with my parents who were hosting the party.

It was so nice to share this special day with close friends.

My parents completely transformed their backyard… it tooks months of cleaning and clearing to get all the junk and vegetable/fruit plots out of the garden and make it suitable for a garden party. We also put up a tent and put a bunch of patio furniture out for the party.

I love this photo of all my girl friends from high school (and Allan)

We were blessed to have a few of them fly in from out of town! We’re still friends after all these years, and some of them I am even friends with from elementary school!

I created a drink list for the party. My favourite was the strawberry rhubarb gin fizz which I made with a fresh fruit puree.

Mmmm mojitos…

I also served my signature drink, which is an iced watermelon mojito.

We had a champagne toast!

It was so hot that day there was almost no ice!

My dad and Allan BBQed up some delicious ribs with my dad’s secret recipe.

My mom and dad and cousin made all the food for the party from scratch! I really couldn’t believe what an amazing spread they put out.

From calzones and other appies…

… to chicken satays and hamburgers…

… to all sorts of other dishes!

It was a hot day but we tried to keep cool with a keg, some shade and iced drinks!

Yay for awesome friends!

Enjoying the food…

Hanging out…

A planter on the patio…

My dad was making cappuchinos, espresso and coffee!

My mom served homemade gelato with homemade waffle cones!

Not to mention a lot of other dessert like her tiramisu…

… chocolate macarons…

… and a fruit parfait!

It was a wonderful day to spend with our friends. Thanks to my parents for hosting and all our amazing friends for coming! We had a blast!