TEMPTATION ALL AROUND

My plans for the 6th were as follows: doctor's appointment downtown, find CDs for Sean and find boots for myself. (The boots are an early-birthday present from my parents.) Other than that, the plan for the day was to not spend any money. In order to make my life a little easier and because I would be downtown during peak lunch hour (my appointment was at 10 and I knew I'd be downtown until at least noon), I made myself a snack bento:Whole wheat Triscuits, clementine, Life Choices organic mac 'n cheese and roasted salted almonds. They definitely did the trick while I was on the subway on the way home. I devoured the nuts and clementine.

Once at home I lamented the fact that there was nothing to eat right away (I really did not feel like cooking) but remembered Sean's turkey vegetable barley soup in my mini fridge and quickly heated it up on the stove. Minutes later, I was enjoying this with the addition of some leftover basmati rice for bulk:This soup was so flavourful! The addition of herbs is really what did it. Typically, when my mom makes turkey soup with the leftover carcass from our Christmas turkey, she kind of just throws everything together in a pot and about 45 minutes later, I get soup. Sean's process was lengthier but definitely worth it. As a result I've been hoarding the photos away and have asked him to do a special guest post about his soup. Stay tuned!

As satisfying as this soup was (I went back for seconds), my mouth was still craving more food so I popped some organic multigrain chicken fingers into the toaster oven while I did some chores and talked to Sean on the phone. 20 minutes later I was enjoying this (though this is a re-created photo).

Sean picked me up shortly after that and we had plans for skating at an outdoor skating rink but alas, damn those hockey players for ruining our plans! Instead we headed over to one of Sean's friends' places nearby, watched the hockey game (Leafs vs. Flyers), ordered pizza and after the first period (boo Flyers!) tried to go skating again--this time with success!

Sean and I ordered a medium pie from Pizza Pizza. Half of it was Hawaiian and the other half was spinach, mushrooms and black olives:I had this times two plus one slices of Hawaiian and that was that. I should have stopped at two slices but I had been craving pizza for two, three days and when it comes to me and cravings, I know that I have to conquer the craving, otherwise I'll just eat everything in sight until I get to eat the one thing I was craving anyway. But back to skating...

Note to self: when you have a funny ankle bone that sticks out just a little bit too much, it's important to wear proper socks when going skating in skates you haven't worn in years and are fairly new. Otherwise skating is totally unbearable for more than 10 minutes. Seriously, as excited as I was to skate...Sean and I haven't been skating in at least a year, possibly a year and a half and I bug him to go skating every winter, this was just too painful.

So, in regards to being downtown and being surrounded by post-Christmas sales, aside from purchasing the winter boots which was an early-birthday present from my parents, I managed not to spend a single penny! I am extremely proud of myself! There were many things on sale and many things I wanted to buy (Capezio had an awesome pair of bronze metallic Pumas for $89), I knew that I had to save instead. Honestly, after going to four different HMVs and at least seven different shoe stores, I was done with shopping that day. I'm pretty much done with shopping all together nowadays. It's so much easier to just sit in the comfort of your home, in your PJs browsing the internet for what you want than to run around a mall looking for your item, dealing with rude or slow sales associates and then waiting in line to make your purchase.

Money spent: $0--Sean paid for the pizza :)

BAD FOOD CHOICES + FUN WINTER TIMES

To be honest, I can't remember anything that I ate on the 5th except for my breakfast because I have photographic evidence of it. So here's my breakfast of instant oats with the same elements as yesterday:Peaches, strawberries and more almonds. And just so you don't think I'm actually eating a bowl of just fruit and nuts, here's evidence of my oatmeal:
Oh no...now I remember why there wasn't any photographic evidence of lunch...it was McDonald's...from a Walmart, no less!

Since there was no Quarter Pounder value meal, I went with a double cheeseburger, small fries and medium Coke option. It was $4.50 all together...kind of expensive for a small of everything. I had originally anticipated Sean carrying around his McD coupons but I guess he switched coats or something because his coupons were not on him and because I wanted something cheap and not sit-down, I opted for McDonalds. Hey, I'm unemployed...I don't have all kinds of cash to put to good, homemade food!

Anyway, dinner was a little more responsible (health-wise) and tasty, courtesy of Sean's parents, Sean's mom to be exact! She made beef roast with roast broccoli, canned corn and a baked potato. It was ridiculously good. It was so good I had one and a half slices of beef, despite knowing that beef is a major IBS-trigger for me. I was kind of nervous about that for the rest of the night--especially when Sean and I had plans to go tobogganing in the dark after dinner--but a quick lie down did the trick and it was fun times after that!

Evidence...pre-tobogganing photo:


Post-tobogganing photo:


Sean's snow angel on the left; mine on the right (look at how small mine is compared to his):

I love the winter time like crazy! Tobogganing was super fun but also kind of cold. I wish I had had proper footwear (borrowed Sean's mom's boots) and snowpants. It kind of sucks tobogganing in jeans (they do NOT keep the wet out) but it was hella fun. I totally want to go again--soon!

Money spent: $7.99 ($4.50 McD's + $3.49 Tims)

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!)

POMEGRANATE LEMON CUPCAKES

I wanted to start the year off right so I decided to make a batch of cupcakes for my family to take to my aunt's new year's dinner. It's a tradition that we go to her house for dinner on new year's day but I had other plans but wanted to whip up a batch of cupcakes anyway. I settled on pomegranate cupcakes seeing as we had a couple of white pomegranates in the fridge about 24-hours away from the compost bin.

After frosting and decorating, this is what I came out with...24 standards, 12 of which I frosted:and the other 12 I left unfrosted for my mom and 20 minis for my relatives:Here's a standard aerial close-up:and a mini in profile:Pomegranate lemon cupcakes with pomegranate frosting, topped with white sugar dust and pink sanding sugar. There are actual white pomegranate arils in the cupcakes that held their shape during baking.

The frosting was a little too tart for me. Instead of using some kind of pomegranate juice, I ended up using pomegranate molasses, perhaps a little bit too much, but Sean said he'd probably like them so I'm going to give the rest of them to him and his family.

I also used white pomegranate instead of the regular red pomegranate because that's what I had in my house but if I ever made these cupcakes again, which I probably would, altering the frosting (perhaps cream cheese would be better?) I would use red pomegranate seeds for the batter instead.

Anyhoo, great way to start off baking in 2010!

WHY SO MUCH FOOD??

A lot of food went into my mouth today. I have no excuse except for the fact that nothing was entirely satisfying and all these extra snacks were around so I just kept on snacking. I did plan on exercising after it all went down but a 90-minute conversation with Sean but a halt to those plans.

The day started out all well and good...
There was a bowl of rice noodle soup for lunch. Besides the rice noodles there was slices of pork and various Chinese veggies in a beef broth. I didn't even eat the entire bowl set out for me by my parents. I only ate half and then left the rest for later on.

But then later on I decided to eat this banana tart...And then finished off the rest of my noodle soup.

And then dinner rolled around and because we had something different than our usual pork with red and green peppers, I ended up eating the whole thing. I present you with, pork chop with applesauce.It's probably nothing new to you but it's something entirely new to my family. After pan-frying the pork chops, my mom and I teamed up to make the sauce of apple cider vinegar, applesauce, a chopped-up apple, thyme, cinnamon, salt and pepper. It was a little bit too vinegar-y and my mother disallowed me from adding nutmeg or more cinnamon to the mix (she's not a fan of those spices) so we added a little bit of sugar and that was that. To be honest, I'm a big fan of sour/tart flavours so I thought that the sauce was great. But that meant eating the entire plate's worth of food, which I should not have done.

And then I didn't stop there. I also ate (unpictured) a slice of leftover meat pie, a mini salmon tart thing and a mini mushroom tart thing (both from M&M's). Then a couple of hours later, I had this for dessert:A cup of vanilla Earl Grey with a pomegranate lemon cupcake. The frosting on the cupcake was too tart for my liking (is that even possible?!) but I ate it because nothing I had eaten that day was entirely satisfying. While I was really excited about the pork chop and applesauce, what I really wanted alongside it was a baked potato and steamed carrots.

So the whole day was kind of a write-off in terms of food. I also ate some Lay's lightly salted chips as well as drank about 3/4 of a can of Coke. Tomorrow is going to have to be more of a healthy food day. Oi.

GOOD FOOD FOR 2010

The food for 2010 has already started off rather well. After mass, 4/5 of my family headed out for dim sum and after a short 10-minute wait, we dug into various small dishes of yum! We had pork dumplings (siu mai), beef rice noodle rolls, beef balls, curry tomato cuttlefish, fried sardines, special rice dish with sausage and dried pork, beef spare ribs and some other stuff I can't remember. It was too much food but I really have not had a meal like that with my family in months; not one where we all sat around and enjoyed ourselves. I genuinely had a good time and good chats with my parents. Sadly I have no photographic evidence of this meal as the only thing I brought with me as we left the house for church was my set of keys.

After an afternoon of stomach unease (too much dim sum and I knew it would happen), I decided to whip up a batch of cupcakes (more on the next post) to take to my aunt's house for New Year's dinner. It's a tradition to go to her house for dinner but since the weather was really bad in Sean's town and he didn't feel like driving and I didn't want to go alone (my family would be there but I haven't seen my extended family in like...4 years), I stayed home alone. There was almost nothing in the fridge beyond some rotting produce but I did manage to whip this up:Orechiette with zucchini, mushrooms and tomatoes. The 1/4 of a zucchini was randomly on the counter and once I saw the mushrooms that were about 24 hours away from their expiry date, I knew a pasta-veggie dish was in the making. With the addition of some thyme, it was really tasty!

And then a few hours later I was craving some sweet but despite all the treats we had in the house (including those cupcakes and other leftover treats from holiday parties), I wanted something warm. I had intended to microwave some frozen fruits and top them off with a bit of whipped cream but there was none in the house so I just settled on the warmed fruits:

2009 FOOD RECAP

Sadly this will be my last recap of food from 2009. There's going to be a little bit of everything to cover. Double sadly, not all of it is awesome but at least we're starting on a good note.

So you know your boyfriend is totally awesome (and so is the rest of his family), when they smuggle coconut macaroons from the Mandarin for you and then wrap it up as if it's a Christmas present:Christmas dinner at my house...salad, roast potatoes, turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce.

Late night snack in my new favourite Olympic mascots mug...Tetly chai tea (from a tea bag!) steeped in organic 2% and below is a white pomegranate.
I love these Christmas bowls I picked up from the Dollarama a couple of years back. They're perfect for mise-en-place baking and for holding snack foods. Only half of this pomegranate was consumed.

Lunch at work on the 30th...turkey soup with potatoes, carrots and barley.
Snack bento of cherries, clementine, whole wheat Triscuits and brie.
And then late at night, this was consumed because it was hanging around:
A Cadbury Triple Chocolat snack cake. It was okay considering I'm not a huge fan of chocolate. I got this for free from Blockbuster while renting Food, Inc so don't count me as one of those people that would ever buy this again.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I really cannot express just how happy I am right now...and not just because 2009 is over and done with. I quit my job! Yes, that's right...after three months of complete stress and frustration, enough was enough. As much as I loved the job itself and as much as I'm going to miss the people, I can't for one more minute, be there and take it from the back (if you know what I mean)...because that's really how I felt for the past three months. Working for what is known as one of the worst companies in Canada, I am so beyond relieved right now. I am on Cloud Nine.

And yes, I know I'm unemployed and that this isn't the greatest time to be looking for a job, (I quit effective immediately) but I'm happy...for the first time in three months and everyone that's important to me (my parents and Sean) already see the difference even though it happened less than 24 hours ago.

I was actually afraid that my dad wasn't going to take it well...he's always of the mind that's it better to have a job than no job at all, but he actually said to me "to hell with them" after I told him in detail exactly what had happened that made me come to the decision that I had to quit. And then today, on our drive alone to and from work so I could pick up the last of my things, he said that on principle, I had to quit. So I'm glad he was on my side this time.

So to new beginnings! I know that 2010 will bring bigger and better things. Sean and I plan on moving out. There's snow falling outside. It is cold and wintery. What better way to start the new year?

Cheers everyone...(aka my two readers)