FOREVER BEHIND

I'm home with a migraine today. I've been asleep for the better part of 14 hours. I just got up now because my stomach is hurting. Cramps. Horrible cramps on top of a migraine and serious neck pain. On top of that, I'm just not going to excuse myself for my lack of posts anymore. My social life has gotten in the way. Clearly hanging out with Sean is more of a priority than blogging. I think you all understand ;) Anyway, let's get caught up!

10th...Monday
First breakfast was a leftover pancake truffle:and second breakfast was instant oatmeal with the usual fixin's. Monday's lunch was courtesy of MeVaMe:Three lamb chops with my dad's leftover rice and baby carrots. Delicious! Along with some fruit: strawberries and what looks like a bunch of pear:In the evening Sean and I had plans to go to Greek town (in the Danforth area) for some good Greek food but prices were more than we had anticipated so we decided to hit up Arepa Cafe instead, for our free meal. Photos to come.

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11th...Tuesday
First breakfast was a cup of 2% milk and second breakfast was oatmeal. Lunch was half courtesy of Arepa Cafe and half courtesy of my freezer. First up with Arepa Cafe's fish empanada with guacamole:Along with a bunch of ramp and goat cheese ravioli:Fruits included grapes and pear:Dinner was ribs with some kind of Chinese veg and basmati rice:
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12th...Wednesday
Breakfast was another cup of organic 2% and second breakfast was some more oatmeal. My breakfasts have become pretty standard lately especially when I have a giant 4L bag of milk to finish. Lunch was pretty rockin' though. I had a prosciutto and cucumber sandwich on a sesame bagel from MONTREAL (!!!) courtesy of my brother who had gone there last weekend for a wedding:Along with some red lentil soup:
strawberries, grapes, apple and pear:
Dinner was a homemade combo from Famous Sam's taken to-go and eaten at Sean's house. Notice my little pickled beet at the top:
While I ate that, Sean ate this:Clockwise from top: smoked cheese (can't remember the name of it), blackberries, mustard, pickled fish, onions, carrots and capers on pumpernickel and pickled beets.

Quite a contrast, don'cha think?

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13th...Thursday
More milk and oatmeal for first and second breakfast. Nothing terribly exciting or new so let's move along, shall we? Lunch was actually more of the same fare. Montreal sesame bagel with prosciutto with cucumber slices:along with black bean soup:Fruit was grapes and strawberries:I left work early on Thursday to attend (with Sean) what I thought was Janice boyfriend's art exhibit but there was a bit of miscommunication, so it was actually an art exhibit of someone else and his part was hand-making the artbook. Anyway, I had half a Bliss Bowl from Freshii and then went out to dinner with Sean, Janice, her BF Tony and a couple of his friends. We ended up at the Harlem Underground, which I which I had taken proper photos of because the food was fantastic. I'm sure Sean and I will end up there again so I can do a proper review.

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14th...Friday
Milk and oatmeal for the morning. Luckily I had Harlem Underground leftovers for lunch. I present you with their mac and cheese:followed by candied yams:
and grapes and strawberries:Dinner on Friday was an egg and tomato sandwich that Sean made me at his house. Later in the evening we ended up watching episodes 5-8 of Glee and while watching Rachel and Finn eat pizza, we wanted some of our own so we headed to the town's Pizza Pizza and grabbed a whole medium pepperoni for only $5! Ridiculous! I can't believe how cheap whole pizzas have become. I think an extra-large was only $9.99.

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15th...Saturday
The morning was spent making cupcakes which turned out to be an epic fail. I don't know if it was the chocolate that I used (which wasn't the usual 70% Lindt) or overbeating (is that possible for cupakes? apparently so) but they just weren't cupcakes that I could present to my old co-worker as a pre-wedding batch. I'm making 100 cupcakes for her wedding in June (less than a month away!) and I wanted to show her what they're going to look like in-person, since she's only seen them in pictures.

After major baking failure, I felt kind of defeated so I really didn't want to eat anything, let alone cook anything. In the end, I'm glad I ended up cooking because I feasted on this:I planned on making an omelette for lunch but as I was cooking the onions and leeks, creativity struck me and I decided to make a kind of spaghetti carbonara/primavera. I cooked up an onion with half a leek, four shitake mushrooms (sliced) and one slice of prosciutto (chopped). While the veg was sauteeing I was preparing the egg mixture. I cracked and beated two eggs and to that I added about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan reggiano and some heavy cream. I cooked the spaghetti al dente then added it to the pan with the veg and prosciutto. I stirred everything around and then took the pan off the heat. I added the egg mixture to the pan and mixed everything quickly. You must do this to ensure that the eggs do not cook. After a quick stir I had the most glorious late lunch.

The rest of the day was spent hanging out with Sean and food included a large cup of steeped tea from Tim Hortons, fish and a half serving of sweet potato fries from Stouffville Fish 'n Chips. We also watched Sleeping Beauty, which I had never seen before.
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16th...Sunday
It was a "No Photo Sunday" instead.
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17th...Monday
First breakfast was nil. I woke up feeling a little sluggish and not really in the mood to eat anything. I had big plans for second breakfast though. Instead of my usual hot instant oatmeal, I whipped up this vegan overnight oatmeal, courtesy of Angela, from Oh She Glows. I followed her recipe here, subbing her Amazing Grass protein for the hemp one that I currenly have. Here's what mine looked like after a night in the fridge:I meant to complete the recipe with the banana soft serve part but completely forgot about the bananas I had left in the freezer. Oh well. Anyway, I realized that I don't like protein powders--any of them. They're too grainy and I can't "taste" them. I had to choke down the overnight oats and still couldn't finish it off--even after I had added juicy strawberries to the green goo. I'm going to remake them--because they were delicious and a great substitute for hot oatmeal during the hot weather--but next time, I'll skip the protein powder.
Lunch was kind of random. I made a mushroom and tomato omelette:but then also had a Montreal sesame bagel with prosciutto. Where's the cucumber slices, you ask? We didn't have any :(Sad times all around. At least there was fruit to cheer me up:Too bad this wasn't quite enough food to keep me full. I ate all that food in 30 minutes and still felt hungry. I had a cookie that was who-knows-how-old in my lunch bag and actually ended up eating it. I was still hungry after that. I had a migraine all day long and was feeling pretty cruddy and was hoping that some food was all I needed. Unfortunately, it was not :(

So after my random lunch, I felt a good dinner was in order. Actually, I just wanted some meat. Good thing, meat was on the menu! The original plan was for fried beef but the meat my dad had bought was so tender that he actually ended up making impromptu "steaks" for everyone. I used my meat in a D'Italiano Tuscan Herb sandwich thin along with some veg and kidney bean soup:along with some really great berries and a cup of tea:Great way to spend a Monday. But I also had a migraine so I went to bed hella early, 10:30 as planned.

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And now I'm finally caught up. Wow.

MOTHER'S DAY RECAP

Following a breakfast of Pancake Truffles, my family (sans David since he was in Montreal for a wedding) headed to our fave dim sum place for lunch. Since it had only been about an hour since I had eaten I was crazy hungry but the 30 minute wait helped make some space in my stomach.

The usual suspects were eaten including these pork, shrimp and chive dumplings (none for me, evil shrimp!)Tripe (I wasn't in the mood for any):Pork dumplings (which unfortunately, this place makes with shrimp, evil, evil shrimp):Stuffed bean curd (it comes stuffed with bamboo, pork, shitake, etc):
My favourite rice dish with dried sausage and sliced pork belly (so bad but so good):And baby pork ribs?We also ordered a separate rice noodle dish. I thought rice noodle with beef and vegetable meant a plethora of vegetables but they weren't kidding with the singular vegetable spelling as this is what we got:The rest of the day was spent constantly on the go. There was a short trip to the mall, a jaunt to the cemetery and then we were off to MeVaMe for dinner for four. Oh and a 60+ minute wait. Yep, that's right. We arrived 45 minutes later than my dad and I had initially planned and because of it, our wait was more than an hour long. I kind of half expected it and thank goodness for the Kashi Dark Chocolate Coconut bar in my purse. It definitely came in handy. It saved me from having to gnaw someone else's arm off--phew!

Ordering didn't take very long and once we informed our waitress that we had waited over an hour (not in a demanding way), she brought us our salads, pita and pickles/peppers pronto:I even remembered to get the dressing on the side this time and I'm really glad I did once I saw my dad's platter sans salad; his had a small pool of dressing left--blech! I got my usual, lamb chops (medium), but this time with a side of fries:

My mom got the lamb skewers with fries:Dad got the stuffed rainbow trout (stuffed with mini shrimp, mushrooms and some other "crap"--his words, not mine), with a side of rice (unpictured):And brother #2 got the schnitzel with mashed potatoes:The photos are kind of crappy and I forgot about taking them before everyone could dig in so everyone's food has kind of been dug into already. What can I say...waiting more than an hour for food does that to people.

Anyway, I was not satisfied with my fourth dinner at MeVaMe because my lamb was seriously overcooked. I had asked for it medium and there was not one sight of pink anywhere to be seen. I ate one and a half of the chops and called it a night. I picked away at my fries and ate most of them while my mom ate one of her skewers. Her lamb wasn't as overcooked as mine but it was still a little overcooked. Anyway, our waitress eventually showed up, after at least 30 minutes, to ask us how our dinner was and my mom mentioned our meat being overcooked. After checking with her notepad, our waitress offered to see if she could get the uneaten portion of our lamb recooked. Well, I was certainly chuffed. I kind of wished I had done that in the first place but I'm always a little bit afraid of what the chef might put into (or spit into) my newly-made dish.

A little while later, my mom's new lamb skewer arrived and my plate of four new chops arrived cooked to medium perfection. It was great. It kind of made up for the fact that we had to wait over an hour, that we always have to ask for our water to be refilled, that our waitress didn't come back to ask us how we were doing until 30+ minutes later, etc.

Honestly, I kind of wonder why I've been back to MeVaMe so many times but then I remember how much it costs to eat the exact same meal at another restaurant (easily $20 plus) and then realize that perhaps all the aggravation is worth it. But then maybe I just eat there because 3 out of 4 times, I've never really had a say.

GIVE ME MEMORY!

My laptop is slowing me down. It's kind of my fault considering that my free space consists of almost 2GB. Yep, that's right...my laptop is running on only 2GB of memory. Sad, isn't it? But I'm about 96% away from burning some photos to DVD and thereby freeing up about 4GB of space. I really need an external hard drive right about now. I also need a new laptop battery but that's another story.

In other news, F man, just F. It's snowing outside and while I would normally be happy, I'm not. It's probably snowing because my birthday is later this week and the world is probably sending me snow for my birthday which I would normally be over-the-moon about, but today I feel so-so about it.

I'm in a bit of a birthday funk. I usually love my birthday. It's the one day that revolves around ME! The day that everyone says nice things to me; that everyone does nice things for me; the day that I don't have to work. This year however, this year things are different. For one thing, I have to work. I can't take the day off. I probably could have asked for it off had I not been sick for two days last week but I can't afford to take any more days off work--not anymore. Not when I'm going to need to take at least an afternoon off to get my bloody G1 all over again (that's another story entirely). I haven't worked on my birthday in oh, five years! Secondly, I'm sick--still! I don't think these meds are actually working. My throat still feels rather sore though not as sore as before though my glands are definitely hurting. It makes me really unsocial at work because I just don't want to talk to anyone.

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Food as of late hasn't been entirely interesting. I haven't really wanted to eat and on days when I have wanted to, I've been stuck with things like three-day old mushy rice noodle soup or really bland chicken broth because I think my tastebuds have malfunctioned. Here's a half-decent recap because being sick hasn't really made me want to take pics.

18th...no photos :(
I think my camera ate my photos.

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19th...Friday
Finally on day two of some antibiotics (argh, as I wanted to avoid them), I was tired of having mushy stuff to eat and decided to go all out with a bowl of Frosted Flakes and organic milk for breakfast:Not exactly the smartest idea with a throat infection but hey, I'm a rebel! I also refused to have anymore soup for lunch so instead I made myself some roast veggies and scrambled eggs:
Veggies included a couple potatoes, a sweet potato, broccoli and mushrooms. A couple hours later I was hungry again and decided to have another helping of roast veggies with an orange for some vitamin C.I can't remember what I had for dinner that night and clearly I forgot to take a pic of it but dessert was a bowl of frozen strawberries that I nuked in the micro for 45 seconds with freshly whipped cream and a couple of crushed vanilla bean meringue cookies.Yum!! This was a little bit too much dessert though so I only about 3/4 of it.

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20th...Saturday
Vacay from blogging--not really. I only had two photos: dinner and a bowl of grapes. Not very exciting so I thought I'd skip it. Plus, I spent the day just watching the Olympics so it wasn't very noteworthy.

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21st...Sunday
Breakfasts are Sunday are always kind of iffy. I either eat them or I don't. I usually attend church with my family and by the time I get myself settled it's around 11 and knowing that lunch will be in an hour, I tend to skip breakfast. Today one of those days. I just went straight to lunch:Egg noodles with slices of pork and veggies.

Dinner was steamed free-range chicken, Chinese vegetables and white basmati rice:Obviously other food was consumed throughout the day...I just neglected to take photos of it. Sometimes my mouth wants to eat more than I want to take photos.

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22nd...Monday:
I don't have a photo of first breakfast but instead will present you with a photo of second breakfast, my oatmeal. Here it is in all its glory:Instant organic oats with chia seeds, ground flaxseed, dried mulberries, cherries, coconut and walnuts. The latter was a really crappy decision on my part considering that my throat still hurt. I couldn't finish this. It was a really dumb idea since lunch wasn't until almost 5 hours later! But that's usually what my oatmeal at work looks like.

Lunch was supposed to be this:But as soon as I opened the container to snap the pic this morning, I saw all the mold. Here's a close-up if you need one:Not cool! Luckily I had a back-up for lunch:More leftovers from Mevame, which yes...are almost a week old--yikes! But no mold was present so I decided to go for it. The rest of my snacks included grapes and some dried dates:
Dinner was kind of sad because my stomach wasn't feeling well and my throat was still hurting. I just had an avocado with salt and pepper plus an apple:A little bit later I had a piece of French baguette with cream cheese and I am currently roasting some veggies for my lunch tomorrow. Stay tuned!