FOOD RECAP

6th...Tuesday
Lunch on Tuesday was epic! It featured a bunch of stuff from Longo's' (is that one too many apostrophes? Where do I put that last one?) salad bar plus a bunch of fruit:and some more fruit, including frozen grapes at the bottom:Let's take a close-up of that cold salad bar container:
You can't really see what's going on in there but there's a couscous salad (with corn, red peppers, red onions and some other stuff), fake crabmeat salad (that I mixed with plain crabmeat since it was dressing overload), romaine lettuce with some croutons, a few strawberries, a mango, some pasta salad (penne, feta, red peppers, some other stuff) and a chopped up beef burger from a local farmer that I picked up at the Stouffville farmer's market. The burger is hormone- and antibiotic-free and grass-fed. Yay for healthy beef!

Tuesday night I headed off to Sean's but not before stopping off at a new-to-us restaurant for dinner. Suggested by Janice during our brunch on Saturday morning at Cora's, we stopped by Xin Jiang Restaurant for their western Chinese food. Sean and I scanned the large menu and went with a couple of Janice's suggestions and a handmade noodle with beef dish ($7.99). Unfortunately no photos because I left my camera at home and I knew my iPhone wasn't going to cut it. We ended up ordering a lamb skewer for each of us ($1.60 each) plus a lamb dish that came with these fried naan (crouton-like) things and veg (onions and red/green peppers, $9.99). The dish was seasoned with lots of cumin and was really delicious. There was even enough for me to take leftovers of each of our larger dishes home.
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7th...Wednesday (day 3 of dreaded heat wave; I had had enough already)
Lunch was a mixture of leftovers and whatever cold produce I could find in the fridge. In the fruit container I had pineapple slices, blueberries (used for second breakfast oatmeal consumption), grapes and cherries). In the veg container was cucumber sticks, baby carrots (yeah, we're back with those again) and red/orange pepper strips. At the very bottom left is leftovers from last night's dinner with Sean. It tasted just as good or even better than the night of.Delish!
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10th....Saturday
Moving right into lunch on Saturday, I had a small bowl of vermicelli noodles with pork and veggies:Followed by a half an apricot a couple hours later:What's so special about this apricot you ask? Well it's from my backyard! Yep, apricots are ready early this year. I remember almost a decade ago they weren't ready until August! This season's produce has been super early...I should have known that with the early fiddleheads back in April. A few hours later I consumed a bowl of cherries, sadly, not from my backyard:And I have no clue what dinner was. I do remember eating this blueberry-banana yogurt pop because I have evidence of it:Yay for photos!
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12th...Monday
Lunch was pasta salad. It contained Catelli Smart macaroni, cucumber, garlic scapes, romano beans (because I didn't have black or navy beans), canned corn kernels and canned salmon.I also had more veggies on the side including baby carrots and red pepper strips, along with green grapes and cherries:
and strawberries:===
13th...Tuesday
Lunch on Tuesday was more pasta salad but this time, I had variety! It was rotini pasta with king oyster mushrooms, red peppers, cucumbers, garlic scapes and that's about it. Along with the strawberries that I had for second breakfast with my oatmeal and the grapes and cherries that I had with my lunch, it would have been a perfect vegan morning had it not been for the small container of honey lavender ice cream you see in the bottom right corner: Hehehe, I brought my own ice cream to cook. That's the best perk of working 5 minutes away from home. Now do I really have to move out? Uh, yes.

I had some leftover pizza at Sean's house (pepperoni, mushrooms, garlic from the Pizza "Nazi") since we spent the early part of the evening at the mall getting summer-ready clothes. The pizza was totally awesome. It was thinly-sliced mushrooms galore! And with minced garlic! I could not have been happier. Well, actually...it would have been awesome-r if I could have heated my slice in a toaster oven instead of the microwave but Sean doesn't have one. Boo-urns to that. His family really needs to get with the program.
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14th...Wednesday
Lunch was a lot of food. I brought it all along just in case I needed it all but I didn't. In the left container I had last night's dinner (from my house) which was baked salmon with veggie stir-fry (zucchini, portobello mushrooms, red/orange peppers). At the top I have more pasta salad and for fruit I had strawberries, cherries and green grapes hiding at the bottom:===
15th...Thursday
I'm not going to be ashamed...I had half a honey lavender ice cream sandwich for first breakfast. It was hot outside and I felt like it! Second breakfast was the usual oatmeal. Lunch was more pasta salad (no need for another photo) along with more grapes, cherries, strawberries and cantaloupe--the latter of which I forgot to take a pic of. Nothing new but at least I didn't have to cook anything for three days. Score!

FOOD BABY IN MY BELLY!

I ate too much food today. I had the best of intentions when I woke up this morning, but then breakfast manifested itself into this:Olympic organic green tea and vanilla yogurt, 6 water crackers with 1 slice of prosciutto, half a whole wheat English muffin with PB and coconut butter and 3 strawberries, plus a small glass of OJ, unpictured. Breakfast overload! But it was all rather small-portioned stuff and totally worth it!

I wasn't going to eat my usual second breakfast oatmeal but I knew that skipping out on food for a full five hours was not going to be fun. I struggled with the idea of eating oatmeal with chia seeds and ground flax yet again (I actually really hate oatmeal despite eating it every.freaking.day) so I decided to add two squares of Lindt's Sea Salt dark chocolate to my oatmeal this morning. I added it just after adding the boiling water and it melted into a wonderful brown gunk. It smelled yummy! Then I added strawberries and grapes:Tastebuds satisfied? Check. Stomach satisfied for four hours? Double-check!

Lunch was equally delicious:A salad of mixed greens, beans (my dad says they're kidney beans but I don't think they are because they're really light in colour), strawberries and 1/4 salmon filet). I made the mistake of packing this all together instead of packing the beans and salmon separately. I knew I was going to heat the salmon and beans in the microwave before consuming at lunch time so of course, the strawberries and greens were a little mushy upon consumption. It was okay...still delicious, tastebuds rocked!

Snacks included the rest of my grapes and strawberries:And perhaps 2/3 of the following brownies:
Despite hating walnuts in their natural form, I adore walnuts in brownies. Yum!

Came home from work and immediately decided to enjoy leftover orzo with light red kidney beans:Maybe times two--oops! Quite some time after that I had a small bowl of broccoli and mushrooms and then a pickle. It was too much food. Belly is currently not happy with me--double oops!

THREE CHEERS FOR LOBLAWS

I made another trip down the natural/organic section of a chain grocery store today and thank goodness it did not cost me $75. This time the store of choice was Loblaws and the cash out of my pocket was a measly $33, thanks to a $30 cash bonus from my dad. Thanks dad!

Today's buys were not as plentiful...I think partially due to the fact that the natural section of Loblaws is in one section and not spread out like Sobey's and it was far busier than the last time I had been in there. It was actually very surprising! I could not believe the amount of people looking at natural/organic and alternative dairy. One guy was looking at at a soy cheese product, another guy was buying organic frozen meat for him and his daughter for dinner that night. Another woman was checking out rice milks and cereals. Overall it was very refreshing.

The variety of stuff available at Loblaws has also greatly increased as I was able to get my hands on Earth Balance! Yeah, that's right bloggies...I'll now be able to partake in the vegan butter goodness! I can't wait to try it out. I think I'll wait for some bananas to ripen and then hope that my mom's cold has gone away by then so that she can make some of her famous banana bread. Nothing in my mind is better than spreading butter on some freshly baked banana bread. And no one does it finer than my mother.

Other things that made it into today's shopping cart were three boxes of Carr's water crack(ers), a pack of prosciutto (sans sodium nitrate--woot!), Nature's Path Rice Puffs (for some granola bars I'll be making later), Garden of Eatin' Crunchitos (another form of my crack), Wonder+ whole wheat English muffins, organic 2% milk, Olympic organic probiotic yogurt in Green Tea and Vanilla flavour (I can't wait to try this out!) and random stuff my dad bought (a couple salmon fillets on sale, Kashi cereal, Kashi PB granola bars and basmati rice).

After today's super duper lunch with Sean and his folks, I figured a little health and wellness would do me some good. Nice segue way huh? Sean and his parents picked me up and we headed into the city to grab some grub at, you guessed it...Caplansky's! Or maybe not since Sean and I had eaten there just a week ago, hahaha. Funny thing is that once again, I managed to not take a single photo the entire time we were there! I had remembered to charge my batteries and clear up my memory card and pack the camera before I left the house, but for some reason, once we were seated, I just plum forgot...oops!

It was still a good lunch. Sean's parents both had the smoked meat sandwiches while Sean had the Leo (lox, eggs, onions) and I had the smoked meat hash. I was smarter this time around and only consumed half of my all-day-breakfast menu item and packed the rest to-go. I also snagged a bite of Sean's sour cherry pie (I think it was better this time compared to the first) and a piece of Mama Sean's dark chocolate bread pudding (yuuummmm!!!!). The pickles were also extra crunchy and sour this visit and a second plate just had to be ordered. The food definitely made up for the lengthy wait. It took an extraordinarily long time for our food to arrive. Actually, scratch that...it took an extraordinary long time for Papa Sean's soup to arrive. So long in fact, that I had completely forgotten that he had even ordered the cabbage borscht. It looked really good though and both he and Sean seemed to enjoy it. I didn't bother with a taste just in case it was made with chicken stock.

The rest of the day was spent vacuuming my room and cleaning my drum set. It was the first time I had cleaned my drum set since I got them over 11 years ago. Pretty pathetic right? I mean, I've cleaned them rather quickly, like a quick wipe down with a cloth here-and-there, but this time I wanted to do a really thorough cleaning. I ended up Googling how to properly clean my cymbals and the drums and while I didn't have any furniture polish or Windex around, I did have some safe and nonabrasive metal polish for my cymbals so I got to work. I put a LOT of effort into and man, my wrist was killing afterwards. Sadly, I wasn't even done! I wasn't even halfway done when I realized that I was going to finish off my dad's bottle of metal polish so I opted to stop and pick up my own bottle in the city in a couple of days. I know that a trip to one of the city's musical instrument stores will result in a lecture about keeping my drum set in tip-top shape (which I know I should have been doing), but I'm hoping it also results in a giant bottle of drum set cleaner. I have to get my drum set ready for the summer--details later!!

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Saturday eats...I did manage to get something into my stomach:Buckwheat cereal and Optimum Slim with unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze. It was my first time tasting the unsweetened vanilla version. It's going to take some getting used to, hahaha.

I did some intense weight-lifting Saturday night and decided to replenish with this:

A purchase I made at Sobey's a while back...Metromint Lemonmint water. And that was it for Saturday's eats.

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For Sunday, this is all I've got...I have photos of my leftovers, which I decided to eat as an appetizer to dinner earlier tonight...Leftover smoked meat hash (smoked meat, potato matchsticks), one egg, half a slice of rye with butter) along with two garlic dill pickles and a small but very full glass of OJ (unpictured).

Proper dinner was eaten not too much later than that because my dad was in the midst of baking the salmon filet you see below but I was too hungry and needed something to nosh on anyway:Second dinner (oops) was 1/4 of a salmon fillet on top of beans, with a side of sauteed romaine lettuce (don't knock it 'til you try it) and orzo cooked in organic chicken broth. Tasty but too much food. Now I feel a little bit ill.

WHERE'S THE HEAT?

My toes are freezing. It's hard to believe that the space heater in my room is currently on because my toes feel like they're going to fall off. It's too cold out. I don't know what the heck is going on with my body but it has not been able to adapt to the cold this winter. As a result, I am not a fan :(

Today's eats were pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I've now figured out a good schedule for first and second breakfast. Today's first breakfast was two small slices of rye bread with peanut butter (I had the ends of a loaf of bread) and second breakfast was instant organic oatmeal with frozen peaches (that had thawed by the time 10:30 rolled around), blueberries and freeze-fried pineapple bits. My only problem is that instant oatmeal is NOT filling and I keep forgetting the bring along some chia seeds. When I'm eating instant oatmeal at home I always add at least one teaspoon of chia seeds to keep me satiated and especially considering that my next breakfast isn't until another four hours later, I definitely need to remember the chia seeds for tomorrow.

Lunch was pretty stellar but pretty much a repeat of yesterday's dinner:Baked salmon and potato with olive oil, salt, pepper and crumbled feta along with leftover roast veggies. Yum!! I definitely didn't want this lunch to end--nor my actual lunch time.

Fruit bento consisted of canteloupe:
The other fruits you see in there (blueberries and peaches) are the ones I used for my oatmeal. I'm trying to pare down the amount of tupperware I bring to work so that I don't have to wash as many containers when I get home. At my previous workplace I didn't care because I could just wash my containers at work but at my new place there are far too many employees and nowhere to let your dishes/containers dry.

Tonight's dinner was a mish-mash of stuff:
Flax-encrusted sweet potato balls (from Healthy Tipping Point), kidney beans and what my dad actually cooked for dinner: spare ribs with sea cucumber, mushrooms, red pepper, tofu and baby bok choy. I am NOT a fan of weird mish-mash things like that so I tried to avoid his dinner all together but couldn't just eat kidney beans and sweet potato balls for dinner.

I was also bad and ate a chocolate cupcake (unfrosted) and then another mini one with frosting. I also had a white tea jelly with fruit thing and a square of Lindt's sea salt chocolate bar, which I will be reviewing later.

Today's post is short and sweet because I need to get some sleep!!

iPHONE-IRIFIC

I have no food photos for today except for my dinner, which was pretty awesome:Baked salmon with lemon and crumbled feta, baked potato with extra virgin olive oil, pepper and crumbled feta, broccoli and red peppers. Delicious but way too much food at 10pm.

The rest of the day's eats were equally delicious but I had no time to take photos in the morning because I left the house at 9:23 (holy mackerel!) and swiped in at work at EXACTLY 9:30. There was actually a bit of traffic in the morning so it took longer than usual to get to work. I'm laughing inside because taking two minutes longer than usual to work is what I consider traffic. Hoo-ha, I love my new workplace.

And when I say, I really do. Besides the tedium of triaging (is that a word? Blogger doesn't think so) and logging in samples, it's a great environment. The people are friendly and make me want to have conversations despite being ridiculously shy around new people. The work is new and challenging but wanting to make this job work is what makes me want to learn and not give up. This is definitely a job where I will never say I know anything and it's nice being able to say I have a job in a completely unrelated field because at least I'm learning new things everyday. The only thing I'm not so happy about is being surrounded by pathogens all day long, especially when I have the most inane fear of contracted E. Coli. I avoid eggnog and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in fear of contracting E. Coli! I don't even care if the eggs are pasteurized or if no eggs are included as an ingredient; I'm not taking any chances.

Anywaaaaaaaaay, back in food land...I forgot to post about Monday's! How could I forget all about the first day of February!? Here was yesterday's food at work:Second breakfast of mushroom omelet with two slices of rye bread. I ran out of breakfast time and only ate half of what you see above).

Then for lunch I had Sunday's leftovers:Tagliatelle with tomato, zucchini and leftover honey garlic ribs.

My fruit bento consisted of a couple clementines, mini carrots and grapes:No photos from dinner because apparently I was hungry and eating was more important than photographing.

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Oh yeah, I totally forgot to mention the title of my post! As you may have guessed, I got an iPhone! It was a good deal and my new awesome rate plan is only $5 more than my previous one. So all in all, I'm still impressed with Telus even after al these years. Heck, they did remove $165 worth of charges on three previous months' worth of bills.

Anyway, I'm still getting used to using my iPhone. I haven't had a chance to check out the manual yet--does it even come with one?--so I basically know how to make/answer calls, send/receive text messages, browse/download apps, access Facebook and I guess that's all that matters, just kidding! In time I'll figure out what the heck the rest of those buttons are for.