November 24, 2009

FOOD RECAP!

Yesterday's eats...
No breakfast, which ended up being a bad idea because somewhere around 11:30 in the morning, a very unhealthy steamed spicy pork bun was consumed which probably contained copious amounts of crap.

Lunch was then had about five hours later when my relief finally showed up and I grazed on the following:Organic chicken strips (MIA because they were in the oven at the time), leftover roast veggies (beets, broccoli, orange bell pepper), oat and orange scone, grapes.

I hardly touched the veggies and instead decided to find some hot dogs (bad, I know!) and had three of those with some more ketchup. Oi. It was one of those days.

Then while my mom and I waited for my dad to pick us up from work, I decided to grab one of these:a Tall white chocolate mocha. With whip. Yes, it was REALLY one of those days. But I quickly followed that up with a mug of 1/2 orange juice and 1/2 pineapple/banana/orange juice and wouldn't y'know it, that's exactly what a person needs to empty their bowels! Good times were had!

So after that I was feeling pretty empty but crappy so I had an apple, a Braeburn...which was super crunchy and slightly tart. A pretty good sub for a Red Delicious. It was then nearing 9:30 and while I didn't feel super hungry, I knew I wouldn't last very far into the morning without food if I didn't eat something that evening. I ended up making this for dinner, which looks like a face:A couple of eggs (sunnyside up) on a whole wheat English muffin along with the rest of my apple.

Today's eats (for later today at work)...
*sigh* Stupid vertical photos. Anyway, we've got Catelli Smart spaghetti with leftover roast veggies (contains BBB), mushrooms and pancetta (mmm, pancetta) along with a snack container of mini carrots, dates, grapes and golden raspberries with more grapes hiding underneath.

Breakfast is going to depend on how early I wake up in the morning. If I wake up early it's going to be a whole wheat English muffin with an egg. If I don't wake up early enough it's going to be instant organic

November 19, 2009

DESPERATE TIMES...

calls for really desperate measures.What's inside my bag of red and yellow evil? Well a six-pack of chicken McNuggets and a McChicken sandwich, of course! Blame my dad--although I did ask him to pick them up for me. I'm desperate and I mean REALLY desperate. I haven't had a good bowel movement in who knows how long and I feel all backed up and seriously, it's making me cranky. I've eaten everything in the world that will make me sick but with the no results, I am now forced to deal with "chicken" products from McDonalds.

So here are we are...Six nuggets of white meat with BBQ sauce and a McChicken for good measure.I can't even remember the last time I had a McNugget and the McChicken...I don't even think I've ever had one of these!

So here they are:and you know, call me crazy but that chicken McNugget was seriously good! As you can see, the McChicken left something to be savoured. It was actually kind of crappy. People really pay like $3 and change for that? Look at it, people! That is not awesome!

But wouldn't ya know it, just a short while later, me and the porcelain met for a wonderful date. Ah, good times. McDonalds never lets me down.

And just so the day wasn't full of total crap (bahaha, here's my breakfast...a bowl of organic instant oats with frozen raspberries that I nuked in the micro for 90 seconds along with the last of the cacao nibs.
Good day to you all!

November 18, 2009

YAY TO DAYS OFF!

Sean and I both had this past Monday off. I had an appointment in the afternoon but after that Sean and I were free to spend the day together--yay! We headed over to Toogood Pond to enjoy the beautiful weather and then decided to take some photos together. Here's two of my faves:
We're a purdy couple, aren't we? I miss the photos we take together. Smiles that appear on my face from photos with Sean are I think the only smiles from me that are genuine.

Toogood Pond was extra pretty that day. Here's one of the photos I took:The ducks and geese were also very alert that day and proceeded to swim towards Sean and I, probably in hopes of getting some food, but Sean and I arrived empty-handed--sorry birdies! Oh and Sean showed me how bulrushes "explode" upon contact. I have videotaped evidence of this but don't think I can upload it on my blog but you can check it out here on Facebook. Other than that it was just an awesome day of hanging out and being lazy. The best way to hang out with your best friend.

FOOD RECAP!

I've decided to stop calling my food recaps "bento recap" because it's mostly random meals here and there. I no longer have the time to take pretty photos of my food at work because work is just too busy. I miss the days where I would take lovely "put together" photo montages of my food containers. Sigh. What happened to the good old days at the post office?

Anyway, here's food from the past few days...

When you're at work and it's ridiculously busy and you can't take a proper break, you end up eating a bowl of strawberries and rambutans. Score a plus one if you have them in a Christmas-themed bowl like mine:My friend, Jessie, and I made mini Oreo cheesecakes. We get together about once a week to bake and watch Grey's Anatomy and 90210. I don't normally watch Grey's Anatomy but Jessie is a die-hard fan and I got hooked after two episodes--except I missed last week's episode because I was out with Sean and then the week previous to that was my dad's birthday but Jessie caught me up with what I missed. Anyway, here are our cheesecakes:And a cross-section close-up:
One of my days off was spent with Sean. I tried to document my days' eats but I forgot after these two pics. First up, plain Liberte yogurt with strawberries and Optimum Slim (yay for free cereal through Shoppers' Optimum program) and then a bowl of grapes during our Weeds marathon.Breakfast at work on Sunday was this:
A bowl of instant organic oatmeal with chocolate PB, strawberries and cacao nibs. Oh how I do love that combo. The grocery store by my work is out of raspberries so for now, strawberries will have to do. I actually picked up a bag of frozen berries today because I just don't know when they're going to get another shipment of raspberries in. I keep going on to check but am tired of walking back to work empty-handed.
Snack bento for that day at work:
More strawberries, grapes, mini carrots and eggplant hummus.

This past Sunday I made scones. I was skeptical about the recipe because a) the dough was mega sticky and b) the dough was hella pale. It was practically as pale as the bowl in the above photograph. How on earth was I supposed to end up with golden brown scones when I wasn't even instructed to brush the tops with egg or milk? Anyway, I trudged along with my recipe and wouldn't ya know it, playing Bejewelled Blitz (to which I have a weird obsession) and watching Desperate Housewives while making scones, isn't a recipe for picture-perfect scones. In the end, my raisin scones looked like this:But they tasted delicious and then I had another one with jam, straight from the oven. Two days later and there is only one remaining scone in the house...and only because I've stashed it in the mini fridge in my bedroom for my breakfast tomorrow.

November 17, 2009

STOMACH WOES...

The tomatoes have won. I officially give up. It's game over. I can no longer eat any kind of tomato sauce, be it homemade or not. Every time I do, I end up with days' worth of stomach pains. I don't even know where to begin in describing them. It starts with what feels like heartburn but no amount of antacids work. Then noises in my stomach begin but nothing seems to find its way out and this goes on for days. I've felt this way for about a week and a half now. It all started with some tortellini with tomato and sausage sauce at Sean's house that I thought would go down easy but four days later, I was still experiencing small amounts of pain--though nothing compared to the amount of pain induced by homemade tomato sauces. A little less than a week later I found myself over-pouring a jar of tomato sauce (tomatoes, basil and salt) into a pan of mushrooms for some pillowy gnocchi. Since the pain wasn't nearly as bad as the pain associated with homemade tomato sauce I didn't really put the two together until today. I have been a-hem "backed up", if you will and nothing I have eaten in the past two days has helped. I have overloaded on dairy and citrus (the two even together!) in hopes of inducing some kind of visit to the porcelain but nothing! I'm now just hoping this passes and am now avoiding all things tomato. Damn you lycopene!

I'm tired today. I've spent the past two days over-eating in an effort to come up with an excuse for a good bout of diarrhea but no positive results. Instead I am just tired, probably because my metabolism has been shifted into overdrive.

In other non-gross-related news, here's my food from yesterday.
Breakfast...instant organic oatmeal with chocolate peanut butter, cacao nibs and strawberries and a homemade raisin scone:And the snack bento, which contained grapes, mini carrots, a clementine (stolen from Sean's, shhh) and a mini Oreo cheesecake):Other eats for yesterday included leftover pizza from Montreal from Toto's Pizza (thanks Sean's parents!) and half a sushi dinner set from Sakura sushi restaurant (in the plaza where I work). It was a crappy Tuesday night at work and I was sushi always makes things better. My dinner contained salmon sashimi, salmon sushi, bulgogi (korean stir-fried beef), rice, edamame, miso soup and salad). I ate all the salmon, the soup, a bit of the rice, bulgogi and 3 pods of edamame. The rest is for tomorrow for someone in my family.

Okay seriously, I don't get this stupid electronic book fad. Who the hell needs to store 1500 books "on the go?" And are they stored on some kind of screen that you then have to select and read? Personally I find screens rather annoying. I spend no less than 8 hours a day looking a dumb screen, reading off all kinds of numbers in tiny-ass font to customers all day long. The last thing I want to do is read a book off another tiny-ass screen in tiny-ass font!

Fuck I'm grumpy. I'm going to bed.

November 15, 2009

DUPED, YET AGAIN!

I really like trying out new things so it should come as no shock that I'm sucker for trying out new things that I read about on the internet. Sometimes these things turn out to be cosmetics or bath and body products or sometimes even foodstuffs I read about on various bloggers' blogs.

Sometimes the bloggers have steered me wrong. Case in point: Kombucha fermented tea drinks, Clif bars, Popchips and so on. Follow me as I decide to take on three more blogger foodstuffs:

First up: Oikos. At $2.99 a pop for the "snack size" (150g) version, I figured this stuff better taste like heaven. I figured it better taste better than Liberte Mediterrean or at least quite similar. While also confronted between $2.99 for a plain or flavoured version, I decided to go with the flavoured version. As you can see, I chose honey. I figured it would be the least offending to my palate since I'm not a big fan of flavoured yogurt in the first place.
Verdict: Blech!
As you can see, I decided to add some raspberries and cacao nibs into the mix to drown out the taste. I almost used an entire pint of raspberries just to get this stuff down. It was not a fun Sunday morning while trying to finish off this small-ish 150g container of crapola. I probably should have just stuck with the plain version.
Second on the bill: Lesley Stowe's Raincoast Crisps. These crisps come in a variety of flavours and being a fan of both olives and figs, I chose the fig and olive crackers. I've been drooling over these crackers for months. I first saw them in Whole Foods months ago (when Sean and I used to frequent Bloor Cinema on an-almost weekly basis), but just couldn't get myself to shell out $7 for crackers. I mean, really, how awesome could these crackers be?But finally, when on a shopping trip with another friend, I left my rationale outside the door of the upscale McEwan market and dropped the box of $7 crackers into my cart. Hey look, they sponsor the Canadian ski jumping team--yay! and there's "recipes" on the bottom of the package. My favourite features the rosemary raisin pecans crips--obviously because of my obsession with proscuitto. Here's a close-up of all the fig, olive and other seed and grain goodness:
Verdict: Meh.
Are they worth $7? Not this flavour. The texture is nice but the taste of the olives that hits you right after the sweet, subtle taste of the fig isn't particularly pleasant. It's almost a bit "off." I'll probably try another flavour combo to see if it's just this particular combo I don't like but this fig + olive one is definitely not a re-purchase. Oh well. So far, 0 for 2.

Lastly, Ayala's Herbal Water. I can't remember where I first saw this but I immediately went to their website where I saw that I could purchase this stuff online but only in 12-pack cases and only if I was located in the States (if I remember correctly). Immediately following this depressing discovering, I tried to see if Whole Foods carried this brand of hyped-up herbal water but could not find it at the time (I'm still not sure if they carry it now) but did find it at the fancy McEwan for $2.09 a bottle. They only had 2 out of 3 flavours in stock so I picked up a bottle of Lemongrass Mint Vanilla (pictured below) and Lavender Mint Lemongrass Thyme (unpictured).
Okay, first off, what the hell is with the ridiculous flavour combinations? Can we please just stick to one or two herbal combos when it comes to water? I'm all for "lots of things all at once" but when it comes to herbs and water, one or two will REALLY do. And all of all things to add this lemongrass and mint, vanilla?! VANILLA?! UGH! Nevermind the fact that "vanilla" is listed in font way smaller than "lemongrass" that I completed overlooked it in the first place!
Verdict: OBVIOUSLY DISGUSTING!
It takes like a really gross mix of Listerine and something else I can't quite put my finger on. It might be Listerine and flouride from the dentist. The first sip I had almost made me want to gag. I had to hold my breath halfway through drinking my first sip so I wouldn't fully taste it. It really is that bad. I am obviously not looking forward to tasting the second bottle which contains four (count 'em FOUR!) different herbs. *shudder*

In other news, raisin scones are currently baking in the oven. I cannot wait for them to come out; they smell fantastic!!

DOM + RASPBERRIES = LOVE

I think I love raspberries more than life itself...

Breakfast on the ride to work (thanks Dad!):
Instant organic oatmeal, chocolate PB, raspberries.

Breakfast on a lovely day off (it was my dad's bday!):Lactose-free yogurt, walnuts, apple, raspberries.

Snack bento for a day out with Sean...
Fudge babies, Lindt chocolate, raspberries, walnuts, Lindt chocolate, grapes.

Breakfast on a Saturday morning: whole wheat pita with chocolate peanut butter, raspberries and cacao nibs.I thought this would be a good "take-along" breakfast; it ended up being weird. This was thought up "on the fly" because my mom and I were heading to the Shiseido warehouse sale. It looks like a weird muppet but it was tasty.

November 5, 2009

ONE BENTO RECAP

Lunch from a couple of days ago:Leftover egg noodles with veggies and beef and a side salad. This was a delicious lunch and only because I amped up the veggies within the noodle dish. The noodles were bought from the restaurant next door and while it was advertised as beef with vegetables egg noodles, what it really was was a container of noodles with beef and 6 half-pieces of bok choy. Not cool! (Please someone, anyone, remind me to stop ordering from that restaurant when my co-workers want Chinese.) Anyway, I decided not to waste my leftovers and took them home to jazz it up. I added a whole bunch of veggies (broccoli, zucchini, red peppers and mushrooms) and the leftover sliced beef. The leftover bok choy was so limp and lifeless that whatever was leftover pretty much disintegrated with the beef.

So in essence, what I am saying is that sometimes the food you make yourself is 1000 times better than the crap you buy in a restaurant. Plus a whole bunch cheaper to boot! I think that's one thing I find myself rather disappointed with; the fact that the more and more I cook at home and eat fresh and relatively healthy, the more and more I become disappointment with the food I find myself eating when I'm out. It's always too salty, too pricey, too little,

Oh and my snack bento. I forgot all about it during my rant...
Walnuts, grapes, 1/2 persimmon.

I'm a little iffy on persimmons. I don't know if I like them or not. I'm not 100% convinced yet. I recently saw a recipe on Vanilla Garlic for persimmon chips and to say I'm intrigued is a mega understatement as I'm a huge sucker for crispy fruit things. Actually, I think I just like the photo. Sadly I have no more persimmons to try this out. Boo-urns!

November 1, 2009

RANDOMS!

Random meal of the day: Dinner!
- 1 whole wheat pita
- laaaarge spoonful of cucumber salad
- stir-fried garlic kale
- bittermelon with a couple of bites of pork
- 1/2 persimmon
- mug of organic 2%Oh how I missed Harmony Organic. There really is nothing quite like this organic milk. The store used to carry it but then they switched to a more generic brand of organic milk and now they've completely stopped carrying organic milk altogether. It's actually quite a disappointment considering how many families in the area were fanatics for the Harmony Organic 4L bags. I was actually quite surprised at how many of them were willing to pay $9 for it!

Because of my dad's spike in blood sugar, our family has completely switched to brown rice. It was a quick switch, cold turkey, and I didn't think my family would take to it (especially not my dad), but he's been rather fond of the change. He enjoys the nutty, chewier taste of the brown rice. He's also cut down his white sugar intake. In fact, I think he's completely cut white sugar out of his diet in favour of agave nectar, which I just so happened to have in the house. I'm glad his tastebuds are finally adjusting. I'm glad that despite being considered a senior, he isn't considered old enough to be hesitant to change. He's even accepted my choice to consume solely organic milk and all-natural/organic or no gelatin yogurt. I'm slowly converting him to an all-natural, super foods diet (a la Heidi Swanson) and despite

Woke up this morning and felt particularly skinny in the clavicles so I decided to weigh myself. 1.6lbs lighter. Seriously? After a full serving of deep-fried halibut and chips, almost an entire bag of popcorn, orange juice, water and Reese's Pieces? Are you kidding me, body?? But I think it's because aside from that, all I ate was some organic instant oatmeal so everything kind of evened itself out.