SMILES ALL AROUND!

The new stove and fridge have been installed but everything is still kind of a mess. The fridge is in disarray. My dad put everything back rather haphazardly so I'll be spending tomorrow night re-arranging everything...like putting the milk and other such items where they should be (in the kitchen door "shelf"). There aren't as many drawers in the new fridge which is kind of sucky since I kind of had my own drawer in the old fridge. The old fridge had four drawers and each drawers was very loosely categorized into the following:

1. Pre-peeled garlic/dried Chinese items
   
2. Root Veggies (usually carrots/sweet potatoes)
   
3. Fruits
   
4. Dom's Misc. Crap

New fridge only has two big drawers and one (what I'd consider) half drawer. The rest are shelf units. There are lots of door shelves though so maybe I can claim one of those as mine. My misc. drawer usually contained a tub of cheese (typically feta/ricotta), lemons/limes, miso paste, etc. Basically stuff that I would use on a regular basis and/or stuff that wouldn't fit into the mini fridge.

The stove is pretty nifty. We haven't had a chance to use it yet--tonight's dinner was take-out roast duck but I opted for multigrain chicken nuggets and Smiles instead. We've been having roast duck on an almost weekly basis and to be frank, I'm getting sick of it. It used to be considered a treat in this house but it's sort of become regular fare. Plus knowing that I kind of "go to town" on it, if you will, when it's not really that healthy, makes me not want to eat it. Now I know what you're thinking...Smiles aren't any healthier...well yeah, they aren't, but they sure are fun to eat!

But let's back up to Monday night...The last dinner with the old stove was a beef stew with soybeans, carrots and potatoes, along with some sauteed watercress. I should have passed on the soybeans (soy is not allowed in my IBS diet) but I didn't want to go without them for some reason. I ate some, paid for it later, lesson learned.

Post-dinner snacks included half of the following watermelon:and a small bowl of Barbara's Bakery PB Puffins with almond milk:DO NOT WANT! I totally forgot that these are the same flavour Puffins I got in the States! I thought I had previously gotten the cinnamon flavour but I was wrong! I do not like these PB ones and now I have a whole box of them. Ugh!! Hopefully I can come up with some kind of baked snack mix to use these up faster. Or pawn them off to someone. Sean, I'm looking at you.

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23rd...Tuesday (back to work!)
I couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted to top my whole wheat English muffin so I used both organic coconut butter and natural PB. I also brought along this banana to eat in the car but it got eaten during second breakfast with my oatmeal:This is my oatmeal for second breakfast and the little container I use to pack my ground flax and chia seeds: I basically fill the little container with equal parts ground flax and chia seeds, shake it all up and then add about 1-1.5 teaspoons to my instant oatmeal at work. The oatmeal I'm using does have flax in it but it's literally like 10 flax seeds for the entire packet.

Lunch was excellent, however, it was 30 minutes late and I was seriously dying during those 30 minutes. Maybe it's because I was thinking about my lunch all morning long or maybe because my mixture of oatmeal, ground flax, chia seeds, kiwi and strawberries just weren't cutting it that morning. Whatever it is, it was not cool. Baked sweet potato fries, orzo pasta "salad" with roast broccoli on top, baked chicken drumstick, potato Smiles. That Smile looks a little creepy though.

Snacks included kiwi and strawberries:
and a Kashi Dark Mocha Almond bar and a very wrinkly peach:I packed the above two snacks thinking I would eat them on the way home from work but the huge flakes of snow made me angry/confused instead of hungry. I still can't believe that it's snowing when just four days ago it was 18C. I went out in the evening with only a sweatshirt as my "jacket!"

After work I came home and tried to eat intuitively. My brain/stomach told me they wanted some fruit so I obliged with some strawberries, a pear, watermelon and grapes:It also wanted something more sweet and indulgent, which is why you see the salted caramel and mojito macarons from Nadege.

Proper dinner didn't follow until almost three hours later though this dinner is probably more suited towards a five year-old:
Six Smiles and six organic, multigrain chicken nuggets. I ate them with an offending packet of ketchup from McD's. I'm really hoping that the tiny amount of high fructose corn syrup consumed from the ketchup will not lead to a migraine tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Oh wait, I forgot...I also had that with a side salad. There, healthy!
And dessert was half a square of a very grown-up piece of Lindt Sea Salt chocolate:followed by some vanilla Earl Grey in this not so grown-up mug:

Sean picked up this mug for me from Urban Outfitters. I think it's hilarious, if not ridiculously expensive (which it was!!). The mug has different cat poses around it. Sean's fave is on the left while my fave is on the right. These cats are hilarious! Between my cat mosaic, cat cookie jar, cat brooch and this mug, I really am a crazy, old cat lady! It's not really my fault though as these were all presents from other people.

I had some of this crack, err, dark chocolate covered almonds while watching 90210:

I'm probably going to regret having bought this bag of almonds. I had the above portion times two already. Brookside is addicting and now I hear they've got some wackadoo options like dark chocolate goji, pomegranate and acai and blueberry. Wackadoo, indeed! Unfortunately I couldn't find them in the store today, which is one of the two reasons I walked into certain store. Boo. Instead I ended up buying those dark morsels of addiction. And I don't even like chocolate that much. Oi. At least I got the dark chocolate ones...anti-oxidants, right? I should probably stop trying to rationalize this segment.

Adios!

STILL PLAYING CATCH UP

21st...Sunday (aka Fun Day with Sean!)
The plan was for Sean to pick me up after his 12-hour shift and for us to grab a bite to eat--that's it. It turned out to be a wonderful day together, despite the frigid temperature and the battle within my stomach. Since Johnny's Burger was closed when we drove by, I suggested Caplansky's, a deli specializing in smoked meat. It's about as close to Montreal smoked meat as you'll get so you better get there quickly. Sean and I were there around 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon and man, it was still packed! We waited about five minutes (less than the time our server stated, hoorah!) and were seated. Good stuff so far. Not so good, no photos. At all. My tastebuds took control so no photos were taken.
Sean and I both opted for the sandwich combo (both getting smoked meat sandwiches) but Sean got the matzoh ball soup while I got the fries. You'll have to take Sean's word for it when he says that the soup was good. I couldn't have a taste due to the chicken broth, which I doubt was free-range and didn't really bother to ask about. My fries arrived in a basket shortly after and the server was smart in placing the basket in the middle of us. No way was I going to finish off that entire basket of fries. No way was I even going to finish off that 7oz. smoked meat (I chose "medium" while Sean got the "fat") sandwich but I somehow did it. It was a mistake. My stomach was not thanking me for it later but my tastebuds and the tapeworm were very grateful.
We also got an extra order of pickles (yum) and Sean was practically swooning over his coffee. My water was good (har har) and their assortment of mustards was actually kind of impressive--not that I remember any beyond the one with horseradish and the extra spicy, which our server called "mango" because I think he meant that as being awesome(?).
The rest of the menu sounds amazing (the LEO looks to be right up my alley) but their smoked meat is definitely what everyone goes there for. I would definitely not hesitate to go to Caplansky's again and hey, maybe this time, I'll get a photo or two! Oh, worth mentioning as well...the waiters/waitresses were ultra friendly and not in an annoying way. They were not snobby or uptight or the least bit pretentious. They were totally down with getting into conversation but nothing too deep or lengthy (which was okay) and there was no need to ask for a water/coffee refill (it came right away) which is always a good sign.

The rest of the day was spent spending money, har har! I picked up a dozen macarons at Nadege:



And who is this blurry friend?To be honest, I have no clue who exactly this i but if I had my way, we would have smuggled him into the back of Sean's car. I just about lost my shit (seriously, ask Sean) when I saw this Chow Chow being walked along Bloor St. I had never seen a full-grown Chow Chow that wasn't in a pet store before so this was beyond exciting!

The rest of the day's eats included half a large Greek feta, half a large container of watermelon, a small bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with milk (whatever was in Sean's fridge) and some awesome cranberry apple ginger juice from Wilde, a pure, natural fruit juice that doesn't contain any sugars, preservatives and is not from concentrate. I don't usually go for things with ginger but as I've mentioned a million times already, stomach was a-hatin' this weekend so I thought the ginger would do me some good. It did.

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22nd...Monday (today, hurrah, we did it!)
There was a really gross amount of food in the mini fridge this morning so I made a half-assed attempt at emptying it out. First up, eating this peach danish from Prague:Tasty but the filling was really sweet and my sensitive teeth was not having it. Lunch was leftover orzo salad with half a salmon filet that my dad happened to be pan-frying as I was heating up my orzo in the micro--score!About an hour later my sweet tooth kicked in but remembering the ultra-sweet peach danish, I opted for a bowl of fruits instead:nectarine, grapes and strawberries.

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We're getting our new stove and fridge tomorrow and I'm beyond excited. It'll be the first time my family has ever had major stainless steel kitchen appliances. Woo! I am uber-excited for the new oven. I'm hoping that the temperature has been calibrated properly and that the my attempts at making macarons will not fail me. The first test will be a batch of cupcakes though. I've been wanting to make cupcakes or brownies for a couple of weeks now.

Oh, I forgot to mention the ridiculous weather we had over the weekend. Friday was glorious and I mean, glorious! The high was 18C and boy was I itching to get the heck out of the lab. Every time I opened the door to receive a sample, I'd get a whiff of fresh air, the warm sun and a glimpse of what I was missing out on. It was hard to sit still! But then Saturday morning rolls around and what should greet me as I head into my dad's car? Flurries! It was freakin' snowing. It was cold, really cold. I hadn't anticipated how cold it would be and didn't think I'd need mittens while walking through the woods at Kortright Conversation Area, but boy was I wrong! I could have used my winter coat as well but of course, that was an afterthought.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: HOOF CAFE (PART TWO)

So if you're born on a leap year, when do you celebrate your birthday? Would you have celebrated on the 28th or do you celebrate on the 1st? If I were a leap year baby, I would celebrate on the 28th...a day early. Who doesn't like early birthday presents? I sure do! Especially when they come in giant boxes all the way from Vancouver!

I'm not gonna lie...I was kind of bummed that I didn't have any mega-awesome-out-of-this-world birthday plans like last year (it was a two-parter!) but Sunday's plans included birthday brunch at Hoof Cafe (*swoon*) with Sean, which was good enough for me! His parents were going to join us but my birthday was in the middle of lent so they decided to stay away, which meant more food for the two of us!

We managed to get a table for two despite arriving after 10am. Could it be...has the hype died down? Or is it because they've increased the prices?...more on that later.

Sean and I were seated directly under the menu, which was great for Sean--not so great for me. I neglected to take a photo of the outside of the restaurant--again--so just re-read my previous review for the exterior description.

A few changes to the Hoof Cafe...they were advertising the bone marrow beignets (donut holes) as a special and now charging $5 for 6 donut holes. Not terribly cool, though they did taste better than the last time Sean and I enjoyed them. This could possibly be due to the fact that we let them cool down after they were served to us and therefore, the tip of my tongue was not burned. Also, I think we only received 5 beignets in our order, otherwise Sean ate one without me noticing.

After a brief break, our "mains" arrived. I ordered the tongue grilled cheese...
My tongue sandwich was super tender. The cheese was seasoned with something that I can't remember anymore. Sean was asking me about it and I think I said dill. It was a very distinct herb.

Sean ordered the French toast with a slab of foie gras and julienned apple:
Sean prepared the perfect bite of French toast and foie gras for me--along with julienne strips of apple and sugar.
This was my first time eating foie gras. I ate it so I knew what it would taste like, which was buttery and smooth but to be honest, it didn't blow my socks off. Would I order it again? Probably not. Sean and I decided to do "splitsies" so I gave Sean the other half of my sandwich and he gave me the other slice of his French toaste plus half of his foie but I found it to be too sweet. I ended up sprinkling some coarse sea salt onto my bites before consuming.

We also got a bone on the side ($8):
I'm not crazy about the new presentation of the bone marrow. Yes it is easier to eat but I prefer the shorter cuts and cheaper price. This was definitely not worth $8 considering that the entire right side of the marrow was almost as thin as paper. There was hardly any marrow on the bone. We didn't even have enough to cover all four toasts which was really disappointing. (Note: this ended up being gratuit due to "receipt failure" so I can't really complain that much.)

Sean...satiated. Our server with his t-shirt and cardigan in the background. I didn't feel like a re-do.

After our meal we headed to Nadege (which is just about one street south) so that I could pick up a dozen macarons. Whenever we're in the area--which just happens to be whenever we eat at Hoof Cafe--I always ask Sean if we can stop by Nadege.

I always feel a little bit apprehensive because spending $25 and change on a dozen cookies does seem ridiculous but Sean said that he understood why they were so expensive after he spent an afternoon making them with me last summer. I'm not sure if he was taking about the process of making macarons or the process of making them with me specifically but I'll take whatever justifies $25 cookies.

My box 'o precious:
Contents: salted caramel (yellow), olive oil (light green) x 2, mojito (green) x 3, cassis (blackberry, purple), mojito (again!), poppyseed (pink with poppyseeds), blackberry chocolate (light magenta), chocolate (light brown/beige) and salted caramel (again). Sean and I tasted a mojito macaron on the drive home to watch the mens' gold medal hockey game and holy mother f, was it good. A mint macaron--GENIUS!! I'm glad I got four.

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Anyway, I felt a little so-so about our second visit to Hoof Cafe. It wasn't nearly as exciting and pleasurable as the first time. I'm not thinking about our meal days later like I was the first time and not anticipating our next visit. I was really excited about the idea of bringing Janice to Hoof Cafe but I think I might let a couple of months pass before I go back there again.

Maybe Sean's right...maybe when something is so good the first time, you should never try to re-create that experience. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't try to re-create my 26th birthday celebration then.

I'M HOW OLD NOW?

27. Yikes! While some 27 year olds I know are living on their own or with their significant others or married and/or have children, I am none of these things. Does it bother me? Sometimes, but then I look at the course my life has taken and figure that where I'm at right now is probably where I should be. 27 does seem kind of old though. I'm on the wrong side of my 20s. I wish I was 25 again. I can't even begin to tell you the amount of times I said that when I was 26. I'm trying to change that though.

With the beginning of the new year I decided to make a change for the better. Putting an end to my beyond shitty job was first on the agenda. Second on the agenda was getting a new job and thankfully that was accomplished--though I did go through a period of feeling totally and utterly sorry for myself because I couldn't find a job within two weeks. What can I say...sometimes I have delusions of grandeur--or as Sean would tell you, they occur often.

Anyway, this year I want to read more and have decided to delve into two books I read when I was in elementary and high school: The Giver and The Chrysalids. They were both books I enjoyed during elementary school but the former was my absolute fave. The latter, with its sci-fi theme, is one that I think Sean will really enjoy so he's going to read it after I read it and finally he'll have someone to discuss a book with.

Later this year I want to start running. Or maybe jogging. Or just walking. I have no idea how my asthma is going to effect my running, or even the possibility of me running, or jogging, but it seems like something I would enjoy--or at least Caitlin's blog makes it seem like something tremendously enjoyable. I feel weird using her first name on my blog considering that I've been reading her blog religiously (ie: daily) for ages but never posted a comment (I didn't know where to start...she has like 100+ comments per day sometimes) so she doesn't even know I exist. It would be weird if I were a world-famous marathoner (ha!) and someone asked me who inspired me because my answer would be "Caitlin from Healthy Tipping Point" because Caitlin would probably be all "WHO?" Oh well. So yeah, I want to run. We'll see how it goes.

Whoa, anyway, here's a food recap:

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27th...Saturday
The rest of Saturday's eats included dinner:Parsnip "fries" with ketchup and scrambled eggs. The scrambled eggs were a very last minute addition because after eating a parsnip fry straight from the oven, my reaction was closer to wanting to throw up than wanting to eat them all like a cake from Dufflet. I realized that 5 small parsnips for dinner were not going to cut it so I decided to add a couple scrambled eggs to the mix and also added some ketchup in hopes of producing some kind of taste sensation akin to eating a slice of cake from Dufflet. (Apologies for all the Dufflet cake references but hopefully talking about eating the cake will stop me from actually eating all the cake. I've been eating WAY too much of the cake already--the scale told me so.) Dinner was eaten in the car--again--on the way to P-Mall so Sean and I could kill some time before watching Crazy Heart (starring Jeff "The Dude" Bridges). We ended up ordering noodle soup (mine with duck, his with BBQ pork) in the food court because that's what I do when I have time to kill. With our bellies full of liquid and hand-pulled noodles, we headed to Chapters to kill more time (and then bought books) and then finally watched Crazy Heart. Good movie but I prefer The Wrestler.

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28th...Sunday...check back for a separate post.

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1st of March...Monday
Having spent the previous evening at Sean's catching up on the fifth season of Weeds (WTF is up with that show sometimes??), I came home late and did not prepare anything for lunch the night before. What resulted was a day full of "FML."

First breakfast wasn't so bad...a raisin bun that I toasted, split in half and spread with natural, organic PB and Crofter's Asia spread:But from there it kind of went all downhill because someone at work threw out or stole my dressing (the only dressing that was originally in my house that did not contain sulphites) and so I was left to eat this, plain:Iceberg lettuce with three small-size, hard-boiled eggs. Not cool! Seriously, not cool at all. Iceberg lettuce isn't even good with dressing but without dressing and with three measly small-sized eggs, ughhh! I wanted to eat my arm!

I did have a container of these grapes handy but not realizing that someone had stolen my dressing from the work fridge, I ate them during second breakfast! So along with my sad, sad, the-saddest-salad-in-the-world, I ate a piece of birthday cake:And thank goodness for that piece of cake, because otherwise, I probably would have eaten a sample at work and who knows what kind of bacteria it would have contained!!

I met my dad at the soccer dome after work. I normally wait about 25 minutes for him but I didn't want to sit around the lunchroom thinking about how hungry I was so I decided to walk to the soccer dome instead. As soon as I reached home, I ate the following macarons from Nadege:The yellow one is salted caramel and the light green is olive oil. Dinner consisted of the previous night's leftovers with rice:Steamed chicken, stuffed mushrooms, steamed preserved pork sausage, stir-fried veggies. It was a lot of food but I finished it all because I was REALLY hungry!

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2nd...Tuesday
I woke up this morning not wanting another banana or bowl of oatmeal. I was craving eggs and bread and decided to really "do it up" for breakfast so I had the following for first AND second breakfast:Two small fried eggs on a whole wheat bagel with processed cheese and spinach. With first breakfast I had the remainder of my chocolate milk (a little less than 1 cup) and for second breakfast I had some water. It was super delicious and satisfying and it made my co-workers jealous...not that that's what I was going for but they were sad when comparing their yogurt and chocolate chip cookies to my breakfast bagel.

Lunch was also spectacular and featured a proper salad:Spinach with two maple breakfast sausages and goat cheese as well as a baked potato with crumbed feta, olive oil, salt and pepper:I didn't use any dressing on the salad as the goat cheese and sausage were flavourful enough. I often prefer my salads without dressing, as long as the additions to the salad have enough flavour to hold everything together...plus, I didn't use Iceberg lettuce this time.

Grapes and some dried dates rounded everything out though I didn't finish those all. Although I was a little bit full from my banana after work, mushrooms couldn't keep me away from dinner so I dug into a huge plate full of mushrooms. I'm kind of a mushroom addict...of the non-illegal variety. I absolutely love mushrooms, all of them. Straw, shitake, button, porcini, brown, oyster, king...mmm, delicious! The only mushroom I don't really care for is the enoki mushroom. I really dislike the stringy texture once it's cooked. It kind of grosses me out in the mouth. Anyway, my love of mushrooms resulted in this plate of mushroom and rice (with other stuff) goodness:
I am now in the process of making some buckwheat "cereal" so that I can have something other than oatmeal for second breakfast at work tomorrow. I still want something with enough soluble fiber to keep me satiated for four hours but I'm really tired of oatmeal considering that I actually really dislike oatmeal to begin with. Plus, I ran out of the oat and flax variety that I preferred and am now stuck with flavours like cinnamon spice and apple 'n cinnamon, the latter of which contains little chunks of freeze-dried apple and it grosses me out too.

Goodnight, all!

MACARON WEEKEND

I spent Friday making black sesame macarons (using black sesame powder) and while they did rise with feet, they turned out a little more brown than I would have liked. They taste great but I still have yet to fill them. On Saturday I woke up early and made more macarons, this time a batch of chocolate macarons, a second batch of black sesame macarons (this time using a different recipe) and today, a batch of strawberry macarons (using powdered freeze-dried strawberries).

Out of all four batches, the only ones that turned out perfectly were the chocolate macarons that I filled with chocolate mint ganache. I'm usually a stickler for perfection and while I wouldn't normally post my imperfect macarons, it would probably serve me well in the future to document my mistakes. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos right now. I want to fill them first and then photograph them and then I'll post about each one in detail. (I'll edit this post accordingly.)

Chocolate macarons with chocolate mint ganache:
Tumbled onto the plate:A yummy mess:Inside of the macarons:
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I'll be starting my new job in 12 hours! I'm still really nervous but excited. I'm just nervous because I really want this job to work out. I really want a steady job; a workplace I can stay at for at least the next five years, where I get along with my co-workers, a friendly and supportive environment...and I'm really hoping that this one's THE one. I also don't want to get over-excited about it...I am nervous about it; I want to fit in, I want to understand the training, I want to get it. I'll report back about my first day tomorrow!

CHOCOLATE MACARONS!

Just finished making chocolate macarons with chocolate mint ganache. Here's a teaser...More to come...

MACARONS BECAUSE I LIKE YOU

I made macarons for Sean today. They were vanilla bean macarons with mixed berry filling. Mmm, mmm, good. I just finished making them and stuck them in the fridge as I find cold is the best way to taste them. He doesn't know about them yet so I'm going to surprise him later. And by that I mean I am going to tell him I baked him something over the phone. Hahaha. This is the reality when you don't live together.

For this round of macarons I used the ingredients from the Martha Stewart "Parisian Macaroons" recipe. I had to find ingredients using the US system since I couldn't find my scale and can't figure out how much 100g would be. I suppose I could have looked it up but I was having a rather frustrating day already and just wanted to bake something.

Baking makes me calm. Whenever I'm stressed out it's nice to come home to an empty kitchen and whip something up in the oven. Sometimes I have to wait for an empty kitchen though. With four other people living in this house, all of whom are older than me, I don't often find the kitchen empty so when I do, I relish in all the space and time I have to bake.

Anyway, here are my macarons that I am VERY proud of.Aren't they pretty? I made macarons with swirly tops!They didn't all turn out pretty. In fact, I ended up burning the second batch (which ended up having prettier swirls and hearts) because the kitchen ended up being too crowded with my mom puttering about. I tried to make an even number of pink and blue ones but ended up cracking a few while transferring them to a rack to cool. Ah well. At least I have a bunch in a box for Sean to enjoy.The burned ones aren't a complete waste. They are crunchier than they should be and a little brown around the edges but almonds that are a little burned actually taste pretty good! And nothing could possibly taste bad with wildberry buttercream, right?

Oh and then I decided to take them outside for a photoshoot:
I wish I hadn't burned the second batch because the hearts turned out better than I had expected. J'aime les macarons.