GO CANADA GO!

Holy crap! I can't believe it's been almost an entire week since a new post! What the heck is happening with February!? A lot has been going on. Since my return home I haven't really been able to catch up on my blog posts because I've been sick. Ever since Sunday morning, I've had a sore throat and my cold symptoms now include a slight cough, runny nose, body aches, headaches, bloody mucus, etc. It's not fun. I was paranoid that I had caught the E. Coli, Salmonella or Listeria bacteria but no diarrhea so I'm in the clear for now. I've just been feeling pretty awful and the worst part is that I look fine so when I tell people I'm sick, they probably don't believe me--though my cough, raspy voice and constant sniffling at work are probably turning a few people off by now.

Anyway, Here's an attempt at a quick recap of a week's worth of food:

Monday...the 8th

First breakfast was a slice of wheat and oat bread with peanut butter and banana slices. I also had a pear.Second breakfast was organic instant oatmeal with ground flaxseeds, chia seeds and a whole bunch of blueberries.
Lunch was fresh and light, exactly what I needed after the mega binging during the Super Bowl the night before: Romaine lettuce with mini carrots, radish slices and a can of flaked tuna in water. I also had some sweet potato balls on the side. I dressed it with a tiny bit of Kraft Aged Balsamic Vinaigrette, mostly letting the remainder of the tuna can water act as the dressing.
Snack bento consisted of grapes and blueberries (most of which I used in my oatmeal):Dinner was pretty boring:Rice with eggplant, two kinds of mushrooms and peas. I don't normally eat eggplant (I don't really like the texture and it gave me hives when I was 8) but I really wanted the mushrooms and peas and thought eating rice with just mushrooms and peas would be weird. Since my bowl of rice was pretty small, I ended up having this as some "extra" dinner:A whole wheat pita pizza with zucchini, king oyster mushrooms, red peppers, tomatoes and pear. It was basically a leftover pizza from the pizzas I was making for lunch the next day. Here's a closer look:===

Tuesday the 9th

First breakfast was a slice of toast with peanut butter and banana slices and second breakfast was the same as yesterday:Lunch was my whole wheat pita pizzas prepared the night before. Here it is on the cutting board:And here it is all packed in my bento:My snack bento container grapes, a couple clementines and blueberries, which again, I used for my second breakfast oatmeal:I wasn't really looking forward to dinner that night, my sore throat was getting the better of me, but we were having asparagus and I can't say no to asparagus:Rice with asparagus, tomatoes and beef, along with a side of brussel sprouts.
I also had an orange about four hours later for some extra vitamin C:Lastly, look at this bag of evil:But it turns out that two cups is only 140 calories so I no longer feel bad about my massive kettlecorn consumption!===

Wednesday the 10th

First breakfast was a PB&J sandwich with a small glass of orange juice. My jam this time around is special because I went to the "fancy" grocery store the night before and while looking for something I can't remember right now, I came across Crofter's Super fruit spread which everyone food blogger has been raving about lately. I checked out the Europe version that everyone seems to love but settled on the Asia since I'm not a huge fan of cranberries.Second breakfast was instant organic oatmeal with chia seeds, ground flaxseeds, peaches and strawberries that I buy frozen and are defrosted by the time I get to work and have second breakfast around 10:30.
Lunch was butternut squash ravioli in a homemade tomato sauce of mushrooms. I bought the ravioli in the fresh pre-made pasta section of the grocery store and these aren't bad!I also had my version of Laura Calder's warm goat cheese and bacon salad but mine wasn't very successful. In fact, it's not a recipe I would make again, or maybe my version was crappy because I tried to take the easy route and used the toaster oven instead. Anyway, here it is:Romaine lettuce with goat cheese wrapped in bacon.
Snack bento was what remained of my thawed-out strawberries and peaches:I also packed myself this small container of kettlecorn but never got around to eating it :)Once I came home I immediately ate this orange along with a banana and peanut butter and Crofter's Asia spread:I can't remember what the heck was really for dinner but I must have eaten a little bit of it.
I spent the rest of the evening making cake pops which I will post about later. It was a long night; I was up until 3am.

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Thursday the 11th

Breakfast and lunch from the 11th were the exact same as the day before so I didn't bother taking photos of any of it. I also still felt pretty crappy because of my sore throat and taking photos of food was the last thing on my mind--especially after only five hours of sleep. The only thing I do have a photo of is half a slice of sour cherry cheesecake that I bought from the Valentine's Day bake sale at work to benefit the Hospital for Sick Kids:I normally really dislike cheesecake but this one was really light and the cherry topping was a great contrast to the cream cheese.

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Friday the 12th--let the Games begin!

Yay to the start of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics; boo to being totally sick and miserable and having to stay an extra hour at work on a Friday night. Sean ended up having to wait for me in the lobby for 30 minutes too. Boo-urns to that.

Friday's first breakfast was a sunnyside-up egg with two slices of bacon and wheat 'n oat toast. Second breakfast was organic instant oatmeal with the usual defrosted strawberry and peaches.
Lunch was quite dismal because I ended up eating most of this:Yep, that's right...Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, which I realized, just because of the night before (because I had snuck in a taste), tastes disgusting. Seriously!! I can't eat this crap anymore. It was so gross. I can't imagine how I managed to palate that orange gunk all these years. That was definitely my last box of the blue stuff. I finally understand what the heck Sean has been talking about all these years.

Along with my Mac 'n Crap, I had sweet potato balls (unpictured) and the remainder of my strawberries and peaches:To the right of my sweet potato balls are two chocolate meringue cookies with chocolate chips. They are ridiculous light and airy and really, really addictive. Despite not having an addiction to chocolate, I ended up eating six of these the night I baked them. Good thing to recipe makes a whole bunch of them. You can check out the recipe here. I modified the recipe by splitting the batter in half and adding chopped-up dried cherries to one half and chocolate chips to the other. They were both great but I prefer the cookies with the dried cherries.
Sean and I picked me up after work and after running an errand or two, we headed to Famous Sam's for a couple of homemade burgers and fries. I forgot to take photos. I was really, really hungry and the pre-Olympics opening ceremonies were on TV in the restaurant. Sean and I headed back to his place and watched almost two hours of the opening ceremonies with his mom until we all gave up and then Sean and I watched the first two episodes of Weeds season five. I sipped on a mug of tea and ate two out of three of the following:
There was also a chocolate pretzel stick that was eating but I'll leave that up to your imagination.

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Now it's time for me to get back to watching the Olympics coverage! Oh by the way, what the hell is up with the coverage on CTV?? BRING BACK THE OLYMPICS ON CBC!! And where the heck are the mascots?!

WHERE'S THE HEAT?

My toes are freezing. It's hard to believe that the space heater in my room is currently on because my toes feel like they're going to fall off. It's too cold out. I don't know what the heck is going on with my body but it has not been able to adapt to the cold this winter. As a result, I am not a fan :(

Today's eats were pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I've now figured out a good schedule for first and second breakfast. Today's first breakfast was two small slices of rye bread with peanut butter (I had the ends of a loaf of bread) and second breakfast was instant organic oatmeal with frozen peaches (that had thawed by the time 10:30 rolled around), blueberries and freeze-fried pineapple bits. My only problem is that instant oatmeal is NOT filling and I keep forgetting the bring along some chia seeds. When I'm eating instant oatmeal at home I always add at least one teaspoon of chia seeds to keep me satiated and especially considering that my next breakfast isn't until another four hours later, I definitely need to remember the chia seeds for tomorrow.

Lunch was pretty stellar but pretty much a repeat of yesterday's dinner:Baked salmon and potato with olive oil, salt, pepper and crumbled feta along with leftover roast veggies. Yum!! I definitely didn't want this lunch to end--nor my actual lunch time.

Fruit bento consisted of canteloupe:
The other fruits you see in there (blueberries and peaches) are the ones I used for my oatmeal. I'm trying to pare down the amount of tupperware I bring to work so that I don't have to wash as many containers when I get home. At my previous workplace I didn't care because I could just wash my containers at work but at my new place there are far too many employees and nowhere to let your dishes/containers dry.

Tonight's dinner was a mish-mash of stuff:
Flax-encrusted sweet potato balls (from Healthy Tipping Point), kidney beans and what my dad actually cooked for dinner: spare ribs with sea cucumber, mushrooms, red pepper, tofu and baby bok choy. I am NOT a fan of weird mish-mash things like that so I tried to avoid his dinner all together but couldn't just eat kidney beans and sweet potato balls for dinner.

I was also bad and ate a chocolate cupcake (unfrosted) and then another mini one with frosting. I also had a white tea jelly with fruit thing and a square of Lindt's sea salt chocolate bar, which I will be reviewing later.

Today's post is short and sweet because I need to get some sleep!!

YAY FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE!

Facing yet another $125+ cell phone bill in which I couldn't understand my data usage, I finally called my cell phone provider and guess what, she was able to remove those charges and go back three months to figure out why I was being charged extra! It resulted in a in a credit of $160!! Plus she advised me on adding $6 for unlimited texting considering that my monthly text charges were hovering around $25. She was great. I wish I had remembered her name so I could have sent in a thing about her to my cell phone provider. Ever since working in retail and being a manager, I now realize the importance of making sure companies know just how happy/unhappy you are with the service you are receiving; this is why I try to voice my complaints/compliments whenever I see fit. I'm actually in the process of sending in a compliment to the TTC for the fantastic service I received earlier this month. Crazy, right? Well, as crazy as it does sound, the driver of my bus (I wish I had remembered to check the bus number) did a fantastic job of getting everyone to their destination in a great time and when he forgot to stop at my stop (it's too close to a previous stop in order to ring the bell in time), he asked if I had boots on so I wouldn't have to walk through the really tall snow. What a great guy.

So I'm done with my first week of work and wow, what a crazy week! So much going on, not just work-related. I feel like I was constantly on the go without much down time. I am really ready for this weekend except that Saturday's already over and the only thing I've managed to get done is the laundry, boo.

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Now onto the eats...from the 27th:
Breakfast was oatmeal with frozen peaches that I nuked in the microwave for a minute. No picture because I was running late. It's ironic that I constantly am running late even though I live like five mintues away.

Lunch was the following:

Orechiette with organic all beef hot dog (that I cooked out of the sausage lining) along with the roast veggies.
For snacks I brought along Garden Fresh Gourmet salsa and blue corn and unsalted chips:And fruits of the day consisted of grapes, a clementine and blueberries:Dinner that night was brown rice, liver and onions and a whole lotta veggies:I have to admit that I actually hate liver (this was veal liver--ew!) but if it's loaded with a TON of caramelized onions I'll eat it on the odd occasion--mainly because I can't taste the liver. Today was not that kind of night though.

Later in the evening I headed over to Jessie's and we made creme brulee:Do you like our Mickey Mouse set up? Jessie, her mom and I ate the big ramekin and her dad already sneaked away one of the small ones. I also had an Oreo McFlurry and medium French fries after the veal liver debaucle.

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From the 28th...breakfast was organic maple spice oatmeal with blueberries and peaches and a mug of milk tea:Lunch was leftover orechiette with the hot dog and roast veggies, mini carrots, grapes and blueberries hidden underneath the grapes.
I also brought along a snack bento of TONS of fruit:Two clementines, a pear, grapes and strawberries. I also never got around to the salsa and chips from the day before so I brought those back again:For dinner Sean and I went out for sushi. I thought we were going to our standby, Sushi on 7, an all-you-can-eat buffet but Sean wanted to try somewhere different, so we headed to Ginza Sushi instead. Sadly, I have no photos of the meal. I do remember most of the stuff we ordered which included sweet potato tempura (even though we had ordere purple yam tempura), two special rolls (Black Pearl roll and a deep-fried California roll), a tuna maki, crispy salmon maki, a few handrolls and I think that's it. It was definitely too much food but really, really good. The handroll was so fresh and delicious. I absolutely love handrolls (salmon and unagi being my fave) but can never order more than one or two because they fill me up too quickly. We took the leftovers home, which included half of each of the "special" rolls.

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From the 29th...Friday's breakfast #1 was two slices of rye toast with jam and a bit of leftover omelet which you will see later, plus a mug of 3:15pm milk tea (which I will review in another post). I neglected to take a pic because I was in a rush. Then at work, breakfast #2 was two hash browns (cooked at Sean's the night before), plus a two-egg omelet with mushrooms):This was definitely a great idea. I had a 30-minute break at 10:30 so along with my 3:15 milk tea, it was a great second breakfast.
Lunch was at 2:30pm and I had leftover sushi from the night before along with this snack bento:Strawberries, mini carrots, grapes and a clementine. I didn't finish it all but saved the rest for later, which ended up going in the fridge when I came home late at night.
Dinner for the evening was take-out from the hot section of T&T Supermarket--you'll see it later.

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Now for today's eats!!
I slept in until noon (man, it felt good!) so I had my leftover Chines food for lunch:Rice with roast pork and duck and some veggies. After eating this I still felt hungry and then ate two Pot of Gold chocolates (when did those boxes get so tiny?!), one chocolate crepe biscuit and a banana some time around 4:30pm. I really need to get back to photographing my food. It seems to help to photography my food because it keeps what I eat in check.

Dinner tonight was honey garlic ribs with mini carrots, fried plantain and some kind of Chinese green. I think they're called garlic bulbs but I'm not sure, along with a mug of mango juice:

And you'd be right in assuming that mug is from Petro-Canada and features the Vancouver 2010 Olympics symbol! On the ride home from Jessie's on Wednesday night, we popped by the Petro-Canada to see if they had the latest mug in stock (see above) so Jessie could pick one up and of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pick up more Olympic swag. So I picked up two of the mugs above and two other mugs, the Robson, a 14-ounce glass featuring the symbol as well as the bear and person. The back of the glass above features the bird along with a person. I kind of want a set of four of each (there's four in total) but that means 16 Olympic-themed drinking glasses/mugs and considering that Sean and I are only two people, it seems a little excessive. It's just that most mug/glass sets always come in sets of four. Oh well.

GOOD FOOD FOR 2010

The food for 2010 has already started off rather well. After mass, 4/5 of my family headed out for dim sum and after a short 10-minute wait, we dug into various small dishes of yum! We had pork dumplings (siu mai), beef rice noodle rolls, beef balls, curry tomato cuttlefish, fried sardines, special rice dish with sausage and dried pork, beef spare ribs and some other stuff I can't remember. It was too much food but I really have not had a meal like that with my family in months; not one where we all sat around and enjoyed ourselves. I genuinely had a good time and good chats with my parents. Sadly I have no photographic evidence of this meal as the only thing I brought with me as we left the house for church was my set of keys.

After an afternoon of stomach unease (too much dim sum and I knew it would happen), I decided to whip up a batch of cupcakes (more on the next post) to take to my aunt's house for New Year's dinner. It's a tradition to go to her house for dinner but since the weather was really bad in Sean's town and he didn't feel like driving and I didn't want to go alone (my family would be there but I haven't seen my extended family in like...4 years), I stayed home alone. There was almost nothing in the fridge beyond some rotting produce but I did manage to whip this up:Orechiette with zucchini, mushrooms and tomatoes. The 1/4 of a zucchini was randomly on the counter and once I saw the mushrooms that were about 24 hours away from their expiry date, I knew a pasta-veggie dish was in the making. With the addition of some thyme, it was really tasty!

And then a few hours later I was craving some sweet but despite all the treats we had in the house (including those cupcakes and other leftover treats from holiday parties), I wanted something warm. I had intended to microwave some frozen fruits and top them off with a bit of whipped cream but there was none in the house so I just settled on the warmed fruits: