THE COUSCOUS THAT NEVER ENDS

It's been a hectic couple of days, I tell ya! There is seriously nothing more fun than being unemployed when your boyfriend has his three-days-in-a-row off and you can hang out without worrying about work.

Did I ever mention that while post office manager, for the entire month of December, I would dream about the post office every.single.night? And not necessarily bad dreams where horrible things were happening like an irate customer coming back to take revenge on Canada Post out on us, but just normal things like customers mailing parcels and picking up their Call-for items. It was really, really bizarre.

Anyway, here are the eats from Monday with breakfast being a square bowl of instant organic oatmeal with peaches, strawberries, chia seeds and roasted salted almonds (bad, I know). I needed the nuts to counteract the amount of mush in this bowl of tastiness. Seriously, someone needs to tell me what I can do to fix my vertical photos when they are not supposed to be vertical photos. Along with my bowl of oats, I had a mug of Trafalgar Square tea from Alice's Tea Cup (in Manhattan) which is a mix of Mauritian vanilla and peppermint tea. So freakin' good!
I still had a piece of leftover pork chop so instead of letting that go to waste, I whipped up a quick bowl of pasta by cooking a bit of Catelli Smart spaghetti with oyster mushrooms and tomatoes and then cutting up the pork chop into smaller pieces.
It was good and satisfying but I also had some leftover Israeli couscous to deal with so I had a small bowl of that along with a samosa that my dad had picked up:
I ate the samosa first instead of the couscous and so of course, the couscous was not finished. Oh well...I tried!

For dinner I wanted to go with a little bit of everything, so I made really small portions of everything that was to be eaten for dinner. First up...Chinese cabbage with stewed beef alongside some more couscous:
Then I had a bowl of lentil soup. My mom used pork bones as a stock and this made it super tasty.
Followed by two drinks: Refresh tea from Starbucks (mint with a hint of tarragon) and water with lemon):
Yet again, not all of this food was eaten. I didn't start off in the right direction so most of the soup was consumed along with the tea but half of the rest of the food was eaten and that was it.

Money spent: $0

EVERYTHING IN MODERATION

I'm trying to learn to eat properly again. Like right now...I'm craving all kinds of eats but just had breakfast about an hour ago and that breakfast was filling and I know I shouldn't be craving more food. So instead I'm going to busy my hands with a blog entry and hopefully that will do the trick.

Here are yesterday's eats...

It started off with dim sum at a local restaurant with a group of my high school friends. I took some pics of them but I don't think any of them know about this blog except for Sean (who was in attendance), so I'll just post pics of the food. I didn't eat all of this...it's a mish-mash of what the table ordered.

One of my fave things to eat...rice noodle roll with beef.
I used to order the shrimp version of this but since the introduction of my shellfish allergy in May, I'm now avoiding all shellfish, which is truly a shame because I ADORE scallops!! I miss those the most.

Steamed shrimp dumplings:

BBQ pork bun:Everyone at the table loves these so we actually got two orders. I'm not a fan of dough-y things so I passed.

Vanilla custard with tapioca:
A little early for dessert? Heck no! The secret at dim sum is to eat when it arrives because you never know when the cart will arrive again.

Pic of our table:
Clockwise-ish: Mini egg tarts, rice noodle roll, pork dumplings, custard with tapioca, some kind of smaller rice noodle roll with shrimp, meat dumpling with peanuts and green onion, more custard with tapioca and sticky rice with chicken in lotus leaf.

Out-of-focus flaky BBQ pork pastry:

After a whole lot of meat, we needed some veggies...baby bok choy with king oyster mushrooms and carrots:
Deep-fried tofu topped with shrimp:I didn't eat any of this because of my shellfish allergy. Seriously, why do dim sum places hide shrimps in everything??

Eggplant stuffed with fish paste and some kind of veggie (I think):I'm not sure what was in this because I didn't eat any of it. I have an aversion to eggplant because a) I'm not crazy about the texture and b) when I was younger, eggplant gave me the hives.

Mango pudding shaped like a fish:
This was tres-excellent. I'd consider it even better than the mango pudding at another dim sum place that Sean and I frequent because a) the pudding was softer and b) there were actual pieces of mango in the pudding.

There was also other food I didn't get photos of including curry cuttlefish and the special rice dish with sausage and dried pork. I also preferred the special rice at this place than the regular one I frequent.

The rest of the day's eats...almonds, dried cherries, brie, whole wheat Triscuits

Dinner was leftover pork chop and applesauce, Israeli couscous with mushrooms and dried cherries, baby carrots with olive oil, salt and pepper and stir-fried snowpeas (courtesy of dad). Clearly I would not cook with that much oil. :/
I tried to stay in tune with what I was eating and stop when I was full. After all was said and done, this is what I had left:
What can I say...sometimes the sides are more delicious than the main itself.

But then 9 o'clock reared its ugly head and despite having dinner not more than two hours ago, I wanted a snack while I watched Desperate Housewives with my mom, so I made myself a mug of Starbucks' peppermint hot chocolate topped with marshmallows along with a homemade raspberry oat bar and a Starbucks chocolate hazelnut biscotti.
Look at my little spoon...courtesy of Air Mauritius:
Oh and the Starbucks items were courtesy of one of my co-workers who gave me this for Christmas:You all know how much I love mugs and this mug is gigantic, which is great because you all know how much I love giant mugs of tea! And inside the mug were these:
Sigh...I'm going to miss my wonderful co-workers.

Money spent: $13 (sigh...that dim sum place is so expensive!)