Showing posts with label food recap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food recap. Show all posts

August 24, 2010

FOOD RECAP (SORTA)

Here's a really random food recap because I'm missing a lot of meals. Like I mentioned on my previous post, I've missed out on a lot of morning photo ops due to Baking Life--oops!

3rd...Tuesday
Lunch was a mild Italian sausage with navy beans and cucumber sticks:along with mangoes, peaches, strawberries and golden kiwi for fruit:Sean picked me up after work and we headed off to the mall. We were at the mall for a while because when we got out everything was closed, including the diner where Sean wanted to grab a burger so instead we decided to make our own burgers:I also wanted some chicken wings so Sean kindly obliged and cooked those on the grill for me as well :)
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6th...Friday
Lunch was a leftover burger that Sean and I had made together on Tuesday night (I had a whole slew of food to eat between then):and fruit included blackberries from the garden and mango:Dinner was leftovers from Sean's birthday dinner the night before. His parents took us out to Mevame and I had the two lamb skewers with garlic mashed potatoes:
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10th...Tuesday
Lunch inspired by Freshii:And it didn't cost me $7.99 plus tax. When in Toronto with time to kill and a meal to eat for, I typically head to Freshii when at the Eaton's Centre where I order a Bliss Bowl. It contains brown rice, roasted red peppers, mushrooms, double avocado, diced tomatoes, goat cheese and your choice of dressing (typically extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar). My Bliss Bowl contained brown rice, avocado, corn, portabella mushrooms, goat cheese and three types of heirloom tomatoes...these ones actually:It was a totally filling lunch and definitely hit the spot. I love the items offered at Freshii (customizable also) but do not love the $8 price tag.
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11th...Wednesday
So apparently all I've got from the 11th is an iPhone photo of my breakfast. It's better than nothing, right? This breakfast is actually organic vanilla yogurt with organic instant oats on top along with chia seeds and a bunch of fruit: I wanted a little bit of variation from my usual hot oatmeal and this did the trick. The only problem is that I over estimated how much I'd be able to eat during my morning break. Oops.
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13th...Friday
Dinner on Friday was a sandwich but not just any sandwich...it was a delicious prosciutto sandwich on baguette bread:Baguette + prosciutto + goat cheese + fresh basil = HOLY CRAP YUM!
I'm not gonna lie...sandwiches on baguette bread totally remind me of the summer I spent with Jessie in Europe. We stayed in Geneva, Switzerland for two weeks, then spent one week in Paris and then another week in Geneva before heading back home. It was the summer before our last year of high school and it was glorious. We were a couple of gals spending our summer touring Europe and the best part about Paris were the ham and cheese baguettes we would pick up for $3. I will never forget those sandwiches. Or the fact that I gorged myself on cheese and all kinds of dairy while there and then came home and became lactose-intolerant. Does North American cheese really suck that much? (Note: I am lactose-intolerant but my tolerance level varies with different types of dairy. I can do ice cream, organic milk and hard cheeses but things like cream, sour cream, thick yogurts and soft cheese like goat brie set me off in large amounts.)
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19th...Thursday
Who has dinner at IKEA? Well Sean and I. Actually, we almost didn't. Sean arrived at my house Thursday night and after I told him about the Swedish meatball deal at IKEA Monday-Thursday ($2.99 for their regular 15 meatballs and mashed potatoes deal), he insisted we go. So off we went and as soon as we approached the Market Hall (more like the IKEA cafeteria), it was madness! There were two huge lineups and I suggested that we walk around a bit so that the lines die down. Sean agreed and we spent a good amount of time oogling our future kitchen (the word "dude" was repeated back and forth in one conversation far too many times for a convo in the years 2010). But then I caught sight of the Market Hall hours and realized we had 12 minutes to get there before it closed. Panic spread across Sean's face and inside my head as I knew Sean would have been really crushed if he missed out on the meatballs. We made the longest mad dash to the Market Hall possible--why is it impossible to find your way around IKEA's showroom?--but made it to the back of the line just in time. And it was still busy. And we were the third to last group of people in line. Yep, that's right, I spotted the woman standing by the closed sign just two people after us. Whew, we made it in time. I didn't even want to think of what would have happened should we have missed the line. But we made it and then waited 20 minutes before we could order our food. They were out of mashed potatoes so we subbed with veggies. Sean got some kind of smoothie and I got a ligonberry drink. Here's my complete meal:
It doesn't look like much but I couldn't finish it all. Sean had to finish off about three meatballs and in hindsight I told Sean that I should have let him finish off some more. The veggies weren't really anything to write home about but it was a healthier choice than the french fries.
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20th...Friday
Hung out with Sean in the evening. I can't really remember what we did but I wanted a sandwich for dinner. We ended up at Longo's so I could make my dinner at his place instead. I picked up a bunch of stuff from the hot/salad bar including roast veggies, bocconcini cheese balls, prosciutto and a ciabatta baguette. Also picked up some lacklustre grapes and some more Ontario peaches. They are so good this summer...mmm. Here's the dinner I put together:My sandwich contained the cheese, roast zucchini and yellow pepper along with a couple slices of prosciutto. Fruit included cantaloupe, grapes and a peach.

Sean's dinner:A bunch of concord grapes, gooseberry jam from IKEA, a Knackerbrod Rag rye cracker from IKEA with cod roe spread on top (doesn't it look delicious :| ), a strip of sesame teriyaki steak from the Longo's hot bar, bocconcini cheese and a bowl of this:
Organic plain yogurt with rye crispies (rye bread baked with brown sugar, I think), red currants and gooseberry jam. Our separate dinners always entertain me.
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21st...Saturday
I spent the day at the CNE with my parents and had a jolly good time. We spent more time there this year than the last but didn't get to do two things that we do every year: see the Superdogs and visit the Barnyard building. I missed seeing the cows and pregnant sow. It's probably just as well since seeing her makes me a little depressed. Back to the food! I decided to take the safe route this year and stuck to fish and chips for lunch. My parents had their usual roti at Island Foods, which had the longest line I've ever seen since I've been visiting the CNE. They do have the best roti there and the line just keeps getting longer every year. I ate half my fish and chips and brought the rest home. Other eats included peaches, Ruffles less-sodium chips, an ice cream waffle that I split with my parents and then we opted to head to Mevame for dinner, where we waited 45 minutes before actually being seated. It wasn't until a little after 8:30 until we were seated but funny enough, neither one of us were all that hungry. My mom and I ordered our usual two lamb skewers, mine with rice and hers with fries. My dad ordered the lamb chops with rice. No photos because I've reviewed Mevame at least three times now. The service was impeccable though. I can't remember the name of the waitress we had but the five guys seated beside us remarked that she looked like Anne Hathaway and she kind of did.
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22nd...Sunday
Sundays are great because they're lazy. When I was at the post office I used to work every Sunday. I didn't really mind since it wasn't busy on a Sunday and I could get all or most of my paperwork done. Now that I have my Sundays off, I know I should be using them for more productive things like getting my work pants hemmed but most the time, I spend them chillin' in front of my laptop. This Sunday was no exception.

Lunch was mom's stir-fried vermicelli:All kinds of veggies are in the mix. Excuse the iPhone photos for Sunday as well...I couldn't find my camera. Just as lazy at this Saturday started though, I got to doing stuff! My parents and I headed out to IKEA on a whim. I had a prosciutto sandwich in the car:Once back at home and $50 poorer (how did I get suckered into buying a more expensive CD shelf? Aren't parents supposed to help you save money?), I made myself an afternoon snack:
Vanilla earl grey tea and three small slices of raisin bread. Yep, that's the same raisin bread from Longo's that I featured a while back. That same $5 loaf of bread. I couldn't get it out of my mind after I had finished it and subsequent trips to Longo's failed me because they were constantly out of stock. Who else is rich enough to afford a $5 loaf of bread? Well apparently lots of people but eventually it was my lucky day. Promptly after taking that photo I decided to indulge even further (can I change my middle name to Indulge already?) and added Nutella to one piece of bread and PB & Co.'s Dark Chocolate Dreams (chocolate PB) to the other two. It's a toss-up as to which I like best:===
23rd...Monday
Lunch was leftovers from Mevame along with some stir-fried watercress from dinner the night before:along with a lot of mango:Notice the blue at the bottom right of the container? Well that would be a smaller lid inside my container. I was putting this together the night before and was completely obviously to the fact that I was dumping my mango in a container that contained a lid. I should have realized something was up when I couldn't fit all of my mango inside but I figured it was due to the fact that it was an apple mango and not the smaller altufo mangoes.

Anyway, that's enough food recapping for one post. Whew! More to come.

July 31, 2010

FOOD RECAP

It's going to be a post-o-rama today! I'm at Sean's house and while he's sleeping, I've got a whole bunch of posts lined up for you to enjoy today, beginning with a food recap. You've got to get through the boring stuff before you get to the good stuff, alright?

23rd...Friday
I only have one photo from Friday...a pic from dinner that Sean and I made at his place using the BBQ. Or really, I prepped the veg and Sean did all the meat and grilling. This is what we had to eat:Grilled pineapple rings, veggie kebabs (mushrooms, red/yellow pepper and red onion), chicken wings and pork ribs. There was also fresh corn and salad. I skipped on the salad and ate my corn while Sean chose vice-versa. It was fantastic Friday food but too much food. I clearly have issues with cooking for two. The other problem is pre-packaged meat at grocery stores. In fact, that's what I'm going to blame my problem on: the grocery store.
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24th...Saturday
I spent Saturday making cupcakes and prosciutto and grape crostinis with Sean for our mutual friend's condo-warming party. She and her common-law husband had bought their condo six months ago but were finally ready to celebrate these weekend. After a mass email and one person who decided to up the ante, I told Sean we had to go "balls to the wall" and knock everyone's socks off. So after browsing a whole lotta websites, we settled on prosciutto and grape crostinis. Here they are in all their iPhone glory (ugh!):
The making of said crostini involves slicing white bread baguette into 1/4" slices, brushing with olive oil and toasting in the oven for 5 minutes. In the meanwhile, saute some grapes in olive oil and after a five or so minutes, take off heat and add balsamic. (Sean and I forgot to pick some up from the grocery store so we used some kind of wine vinegar instead.) Once the toast has cooled, you then place a basil leaf on top, spread on some goat cheese, layer on a half slice of prosciutto and then place some grapes on top. It was delicious and addictive and the favourite of some of the guests in attendance.

Here are the two dozen triple vanilla cupcakes I also made:Operation Cook To Impress: Complete!

Once back home, Sean and I had leftovers for dinner while we wached The Yes Men Fix The World and then half of My Neighbor Totoro. Leftover ribs and wings (Sean had the ribs while I had the wings):My salad (store-bought mix with Ontario peach):
Sean also had a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough bread:I can't remember what kind of cheese he used but there were at least two types. One was a Danish cream cheese. We spent the evening finishing off My Neighbor Totoro (Japanese version with English subs)
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25th...Sunday
The day's eats began with a late breakfast/lunch:Two eggs sunnyside-up, three leftover crostinis, a peach and two slices of sourdough bread. Yummy and filling!

Sean and I then headed downtown to Ed's Real Scoop for some ice cream. They didn't have the flavour I really wanted (mojito) so I rolled with the Macaroon flavour (finely shredded coconut and finely grated flakes of chocolate) while Sean had the Stout, which was flavoured with Guinness. I really liked mine (which had a lot of taste but Sean's was really good and smooth). Afterwards we decided to try our luck at BBQ ribs from The Stockyards only to arrive there shortly after 5:30 with their kitchen closed. Thank goodness ribs were still being served! We ended up getting a rack of ribs:a fried chicken (which I think was actually a half of a whole):potato salad (herbed, non-dairy):and a buttermilk biscuit:All together now (with half an ear of leftover corn):Unfortunately the woman behind the counter couldn't guarantee the free-range-ness of the chicken (and she seemed so unwilling to find out, bummer) so Sean only let me have a small bite. It was really good (but a little cold so the skin was no longer crispy). This was after I asked Sean how it was was and his response was "sorry, but it's really good." The potato salad was to-die-for. Seriously. I was kind of obsessed. It had mustard seed, lemon, mint and something else (maybe) and it was just so darn good. Oh and the ribs? I wasn't totally crazy about them. They were a little too peppery for my tastes. Like there was a bit of a peppery aftertaste that I wasn't crazy about. Sean and I did drive all the way back to Stouffville so they were a little cold but still, they were good, just not totally awesome.

We had our meal with local beer:That would be Mill St. Lemon Tea Beer. It was really smooth and I mean really, really smooth. Any beer that is really, really smooth is considered dangerous by me. But I still drink beer really, really slowly--especially when I eat. Blueberry vodka and lemonade is still my drink of choice.
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26th...
Lunch was rib and potato salad leftovers from The Stockyards. No photo as I was in a rush in the morning and it ain't nothing you ain't seen before. See above. After work I went blackberry picking in our backyard. We have tons of these beauties popping up all over two huge bushes:And this was my haul after picking from one bush:That's a little under 1.5lbs of berries! This is THE best summer for blackberries I've ever experienced. Of course, it just had to be the worst summer for me yet, and the summer that Sean declared that he officially hates summer but the apricots and blackberries have been amazing!

Sean had made me some homemade burgers (beef seasoned with salt, pepper and thyme) that I was supposed to take to Clarissa's condo-warming party but with everything going on, we forgot. So instead my dad cooked 'em up for me and I enjoyed one for dinner. I started out with a sandwich thin that I spread with goat cheese and basil:and then topped with my homemade burger patty:with the addition of fresh blackberries and grapes from Ontario, it was a delicious meal:===
27th...Tuesday

No food photos but lots of strawberry picking photos! Sean and I went strawberry picking at Whittamore's for the second time this year in hopes of getting some awesome autumn strawberries. We also *had* to go on this particular day because it was the last day they'd be open late (until 8pm). Starting the next day they'd only be open from 9am to 5pm. Seriously, who decreases the hours of a pick-your-own so early in the summer? I suppose it has something to do with our ridiculously hot summer and the ridiculously good and early crop of produce, but still. Some people work until 5:30pm!

Anyway, here's a plethora of photos from the event. Sean with the ultimate strawberry:The fields:
A berry close-up:Flowers waiting to become berries:These strawberries were amazing and totally made up for the disaster that was strawberry picking on Canada Day. Back then, Sean and I only picked a $1.90 worth of strawberries. This day, we managed to pick a little bit shy of $19. Happy doesn't even begin to explain my reaction.

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28th...Wednesday
All I've got is dinner, which was kind of indulgent and therefore spectacular:Roasted organic chicken quarter with roast potatoes and Chinese broccoli. Awesome! Any time I get to eat roast chicken is truly an indulgent meal. (You know it must be awesome when I post a large version of a truly horrendous photo. Do not click to see a large version, it's not in focus!)
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29th...Thursday
Lunch was leftovers from the previous night's dinner:
Thigh part of the roast organic chicken with roast potatoes. Fruit included everything local:Blackberries from the garden, strawberries from Whittamore's and peaches from Ontario. A+ meal.
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30th...it was a No Photo Friday
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31st...Saturday
Just had lunch which was...check it out:
Kraft Dinner with a salad! Yep, that's right, sometimes this girl gets down and dirty with the blue box. But to keep things "healthy" (or just to make myself feel better), I decided to serve it alongside a salad of mixed greens, cucumbers and an Ontario peach (buried at the bottom).

That's it...stay tuned for more!