I LIKE OATMEAL, FINALLY!

I've been trying to convince myself to eat oatmeal on a regular basis for years. Normally I wouldn't touch that stuff with a 10-foot-pole because it's mushy and anything mushy reminds me of baby food. Halfway through my bowl of oatmeal or mashed potatoes or whatever mushy food you can think of, I ended up pushing the stuff around with the utensil I'm using and then just giving up. It's not really fun eating mushy stuff since I'm more of a crunchy foodstuffs fan.

Aaaanyway, I finally came up with an oatmeal combo that I really love! And here's the photo:


Dom's Fantastic Oatmeal Concoction:
1 packet of Nativa Organics maple sugar instant oatmeal
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
2 dollops Liberte Mediterranee mocha yogurt
a whole lotta strawberries chunks

Instructions:
Place instant oatmeal and ground flaxseed into a cup or bowl.
Boil water and add about 1/3-1/2 cup to oatmeal and flaxseed mixture.
Mix well and let stand about 1.5 minutes.
Drop dollops onto oatmeal mixture and then strawberries.
Eat!

I like enjoying this with a spoon and digging into it with a bit of everything from each layer (oatmeal/flaxseed, yogurt and strawberries) like an English trifle. So good! The Nativa Organics instant oatmeal because it's not too sweet. The mocha yogurt also gives the oatmeal a very nice taste and good texture (no longer too mushy), but I always have to remember that Liberte's Mediterranee has a bit of cholesterol and that I shouldn't dig in to it as much I normally would. And strawberries, well I just love strawberries. Mmm, mmm good! It's the best oatmeal breakfast ever. I've been having it for breakfast all week and feel great. Not to mention, my skin looks awesome (and I don't know if it's oatmeal-related but I'll say it is):Those little dots you see on my cheeks...well gosh darnit, those are freckles! More freckles than I've seen in my entire life. So yeah, I'm pretty happy about it and if it's oatmeal-related, well, bring on the oats!

FOOD NEWS AND CLIF REVIEW

I had the most amazing egg salad sandwich last week and I am proud to say that I made it myself! And no, I'm not just saying it was the best egg salad sandwich I've ever had because I made it myself, it really was "knock your socks off" awesome. This is a photo of my entire lunch that day but I'll give you a breakdown of the egg salad sandwich.

Dom's Egg-cellent Egg Salad Sandwich:
2 eggs, hardboiled
1/2 tsp capers
1 tbsp mayo (soyanaise is not easily found around these parts)
ridiculous amount of fresh dill, finely chopped
teeny pinch of salt
teeny pinch of pepper
super generous squeeze of lemon (I'm a bit lemon-crazed)

Now just mash all of the above with a fork and slather heavily onto a piece of bread, put the top of the bread on and viola! you've got yourself the best egg salad sandwich everrrrr! I enjoyed my egg salad on top of a white baguette (white bread, so bad! but it was an indulgence) and with some baby spinach for extra oomph. So good. I will never go back to the plain, old egg and mayo sandwich. Those days are over grasshopper!

In finding my recipe for the best egg salad sandwich ever, I've given up on the oatmeal breakfast cookie for now but it's only because I keep forgetting to buy soy or almond milk when at work. When it's only like 4 aisles down, you really have no excuse for why you didn't buy it except for my excuse, which is that, since turning 26, I've been forgetting everything. Count yourself lucky if you're my friend and I remember your name two weeks from now.

In other news, I finally got around to tasting my Clif Bar (Chocolate Almond Fudge or something like that) and I'm a fan! It's got a nice crunch from the rice crispy bits and a good chocolate fudge flavour that isn't crazy sweet. I couldn't finish the entire bar though, only about half of it. I kind of wish companies would make their energy bars in mini sizes so mini people like me could actually finish them off.

SNACK ATTACK!

Yesterday was a day of snacks. It probably explains why today I am feeling kind of blue in the stomach region but nevertheless, it was kind of worth it. It almost always is. There are just days when you want to stuff your face with everything and anything that is within reach.

This Clif bar is still around. And it's actually not yet made its appearance in my stomach. I'm kind of scared to eat it frankly. After having tried Vega's Whole Food Energy Bar, I was a little bit reluctant to try another natural energy bar. I have to say that the Vega bar wasn't totally horrible, it's just that I got the Natural option and while it was okay, it became a little bit too much like "mush" in my mouth. I did manage to eat half of it though so that's a good thing. I suppose the Clif bar can't be that bad...I mean, there have been a lot of excellent reviews of it but I don't have the White Chocolate Macadamia version, which I've been hearing so much about. Actually, I've never even seen that version seeing as how the grocery stores in my area seem to not care about health. I bet they'll start caring in 50 years when they're all sitting in hospital beds living on breathing tubes.

Anyhoo, perhaps now I am a mind-reader because earlier this week I was at the Sahale Snacks website pondering where I could get these fabulous goodies and wouldn't you know it, they appeared at a store near me a few days later. The store only carries one flavour, Valdosta, but I snatched them up anyway, despite not having a grand fondness for pecans. Actually, I'm not a huge fan of nuts in general but I figure that since a lot of my own cooking does not include meat, I figure I sure try to add some more protein with nuts in the mix. The nuts are great even though I don't like cranberries either. I'm a huge fan of the sweet and salty combo and I'm glad I can properly read all the ingredients listed on the back. I was initially a tad hesitant only because dried cranberries are usually mega sweet but these have just the right amount of sweetness. It's actually enough to satisfy a sugar craving if I eat a few. And I love getting a pecan with a hit of black pepper. Yummy! Who would have thought nuts could be so delicious!? Even the boyfriend liked them and he is really not into trying my "weird" health food.

Figuring that the day needed a little more refined sugar (ugh, what was I thinking?) I decided to scarf down a few of these nuggets of white, sugary goodness:Only after eating my third one (c'mon, they're mini) did I bother to look at the nutritional listing at the bottom of the packaging and woo boy, was I in for a surprise. 3 cupcakes is 320 calories, holy crap! And there's cholesterol and trans fat in these babies! Sadly I have to admit that I managed to eat all those cupcakes in about 3 days. Sigh. This just means I need to get back to exercising. And perhaps that means I should start now. Adios!

POTATOES AND BLOOD

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all those celebrating. I'm not Irish--not even a tad--but I do love me some green. I tried to make today's bento Irish-themed and I came close with leftovers Bangers and Mash as well as a two-egg omelet with all green things (spinach, mixed salad greens and dill). I accidentally over-salted the omelet so it was pretty much inedible but I did take a few bites just to make sure the Omega-3 eggs weren't a total waste. There's also some mango and red grapes and mini carrots to round things out. There's also some lactose-free plain yogurt with some pretend homemade granola. Here's a photo of the finished product and I don't know why it's vertical instead of horizontal. You should ask blogger's Image Upload software.


Tonight's culinary adventure begins with everyone's favourite, the potato! After having watched too many episodes of Everyday Italian to even count, I decided to go ahead and make another one of Giada's recipes, beet and sweet potato chips with rosemary, garlic and sea salt. My substitutions though: no beets or sweet potatoes meant we were going to have to go with regular white potatoes and I omitted the garlic.

I used my brand spankin' new mandoline to slice the potatoes and hey, why not add a finger too! So I sliced a bit of the skin on the knuckle of my ring-finger, on the right hand in case you were wondering. Good times did not ensue, as I then had to "salvage" the skin to make sure it didn't rip right off, rinse it and then place a band-aid over it. Ugh, the lengths I go through for food.

Anyhoo, I then made sure that my potato slices were still all clean and then began frying them in small batches. Anyone who knows me knows that frying and I are not friends but the whole ordeal wasn't too bad, minus the bleeding. After the chips were taken out of the small pot of oil, I sprinkled them with the rosemary and sea salt mixture. Alas, after all that, I forgot to take a pic of them but heck, they were tasty!

ADVENTURES IN BREAKFAST COOKIES

While waiting for Sean to call me from work, I stumbled upon this food blog, Soap and Chocolate, and stayed up until 2am to read every single entry. I was surprised to find out how many things this blogger and I have in common and then came upon this recipe, which she found via The Fitnessista. I was inspired by a week of on-and-off migraines to try it out and this is what happened:

My breakfast cookie included the following:

1/4 cup of oats
1/3 cup of 2% milk (not lactose-free, oi)
1 tbsp shredded coconut, unsweetened
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp pecans, chopped
1 tbsp cacao nibs
1 mega tbsp of almond butter, chunky!
1 ripe banana, mashed
squirt of agave nectar

In the morning it wasn't as thick and cookie-like as the Fitnessista's breakfast cookie but was delish. Crunch was supplied by pecans and cacao nibs and sweetened given by the banana and agave nectar. It was really good but too much to eat. I only managed to eat half of it before I got full but at least this is a recipe that makes oats edible to me.

Tomorrow's breakfast cookie is this:

I cut down the amount of oats but accidentally didn't decrease the amount of anything else so that's why my cookie looks extra wet. I had to add more oats to soak up the extra liquids, which defeated the purpose of decreasing the amount in the first place, oh well. In this "cookie" are the same ingredients as above plus some Vega Smoothie Powder. I'm kind of on the fence about it right now. It's loaded with goodness and it's green (I love me some green) but if I taste any bit of it tomorrow morning, we're not going to be friends. Unfortunately there are no strawberries in the fridge or freezer, otherwise I would have tested out the powder for its intended purpose.

So, overall, I don't hate oats as much as I thought I did. Although the photos make this look like cat vomit (as my dad would like to say in Creole), it tastes pretty darn good. And of course, anything with coconut is good with me.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

I thought it would be fitting to post a little more about myself in order for everyone to get a sense of what I like and dislike when it comes to food. First of all, I like my food savoury. If I'm in the mood for a snack, it's not going to be a chocolate bar or a pack of gummy bears; it's going to be something salty like a bag of chips or pretzels if I'm feeling strong enough to withstand the IBS-related symptoms that will occur later.

Ginger, despite being known as a nausea-reducer, makes me want to vomit every time I smell it being cooked in a savory fashion. If it's being used in cookies, cakes, anything involving sugar, I'm a-okay. But the moment it hits a bit of salt and perhaps some garlic, I'm done for. I start gagging and feeling nauseous and if the scent lingers around me any longer, I start dry-heaving. My body cannot stand the smell of it.

Of all the vegetables out there, the only two I will get tense about eating are brussel sprouts and eggplant. The latter caused me to have hives when I was about 8 years old and despite knowing that I'm not technically allergic to them, I'm still a little apprehensive when it comes to consuming my dad's famous beef and eggplant stew. I don't really have a good explanation for brussel sprouts simply because I don't like the taste of them. I don't hate the taste of them because I have been known to consume insane amounts of brussel sprouts in one sitting, but I did that because I knew they were good for me. I now find myself able to withhold my displeasure of some kind of food substance if I know it's good for me.

Fruits are my passion but just like with the vegetables, there are a couple I really dislike. The first fruit I will never again consume is jackfruit. It's a fruit of Asian decent and smells something awful! It also has the texture of brains--and I'm only guessing because I wasn't a Science major nor have I been known to mush brains around in my hands--but those who know me well know that I am all about texture and if it's mushy, it's off my list of consumables. And of course, my parents have tried numerous times to get me eat jackfruit and acquire a taste for it, but I just can't do it; once was enough for me. I guess I'm just not cut out to be a zombie, afterall. Another fruit I'm not a huge fan of is rambutan. Again, a fruit of Asian-decent, it's like a poor man's lychee.

Now onto my favourites. My favourite veggie is broccoli. Steamed or baked, broccoli is the stuff of legends! I love that green, crunchy goodness. The only problem is that it's not on the IBS-friendly list so if I'm in the mood for broccoli and really, when am I not, I prepare myself for some IBS-related symptoms. Not fun but worth it for some broccli.

My favourite fruit is the lychee but they have to be fresh ones, not the canned crap you get in any Asian market. I have been known to eat the canned stuff on occasion, but that's usually when I'm desperate for a lychee fix and my mom hasn't taken her once-in-four-year trip to Mauritius to come back with fresh lychees. (Let's keep that fact between you and me and not with the airport authorities at Pearson.) I also love strawberries, especially the ones you get from your garden. There's actually nothing in the world better than picking strawberries from your own backyard. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Some of the things I can't eat include anything with aspartame, monosodium glutamate, sodium nitrates or sulphites and other processed crap, but I'll leave those for another post.

So that's me.

IT'S ABOUT TIME!

Many of my friends and co-workers already know that I'm obsessed with food and cooking and I finally thought it was a good a time as any to start a food blog. So here it is. Simple, for now.

I'll write reviews about my favourite foods, recipes I've tried, cookies and cupcakes I've baked and more. It'll mostly be for myself...a recipe book with notes, if you will; but perhaps a few of you will enjoy reading about my experiences with food as well.

And because I'm obsessed with taking photos of my food, there be lots on here so get ready to enjoy!

Oh and the title...well, it pretty much explains itself because I'm hungry almost all the time. Seriously, there was actually a time when others (*ahemSeanahem*) would have to finish my food for me but those days are long gone. I don't even know what happened but nowadays I could take you on in a food challenge, except that I'd decline only because I'm more likely to throw up in some random parking lot hours later. For the curious, it's happened twice already.