Pink To The Brim July 30, 2009

You know a watermelon is good when it disappears in a little over 24 hours, and you’re the only on eating it. This was my breakfast.

Then later in the morning I snacked on a peach, a plum, and a carrot. I had some walnuts too, that I added as an afterthought after the picture was taken and I was heading out the door.

Lunch was a very Gliding Calm inspired salad, a ton of spring mix, broccoli and red pepper, with some beet and dulse hiding underneath, along with a squirt of lime juice. Dulse is seriously tasty stuff, you should try it if you haven’t yet.

When I got home I finished off the watermelon. As good as it was yesterday, it’s even better COLD from the fridge!

For dinner I found the cucumber I got last week, which had fallen to the back/bottom of the fridge, so I sliced it up and marinated it for a bit in sesame oil, red wine vinegar, and salt. Along with a sprinkle of sesame seeds, it was a wonderful bread topper. I also went back for a couple more slice of ezekiel bread with a smear of raspberry jam, but skipped the camera step.

Now to find out who’s in the SYTYCD finale!

What you do you mean tonight? July 22, 2009

This post is either super late or super early.  Yesterday (this?) afternoon I was at work and my cubicle mate comes in, sits down, gives me a pouty face and says “Spadina tonight.”  So I just home from work at 5am.  The annoying bit is that we went on a weeknight because what we were doing should only have taken a 1-2 hours (you get more time on the weekend when the subways don’t start till 9am), but because other people were working in the same area, removing covers from things we had to inspect, we had to wait for them to move before proceding several times and weren’t able to finish.  So we”l have to go back another night.

Anyways yesterday’s breakfast was a tasty little monster containing chia seeds, kale, peach, and strawberries.  And I made a double batch to take the extra to work for an afternoon snack.

Lunch was a simply delightful salad of zucchini, carrot, and yellow pepper topped with raw mole from the freezer.

Pre evening nap I had an english muffin with tahini and raspberry jam.

And I finished off the super ripe and delicious pineapple.  I’ve gotten a several comments about how good this pineapple looks, and it is indeed perhaps the best pineapple I’ve ever tasted.  But I can’t even give any tips on how to choose a good one, because I bought this off of the mark down rack, and it was already cut in half (for $1) so I see the amazing deep yellow colour before buying it.  There is a chance it was organic though, given the store it came from, but there was no sticker on it besides the printed price tag on the plastic wrap.

Dinner part 2, before heading to work was some kabocha fries dipped in tomato paste and a scoop of my roomie’s heavenly homemade leek and potato soup.

And now I’m debating between going to work extra early (ie when the subway opens in 1/2 an hour) and leaving when I get tired, or sleeping and going in the afternoon.  However, I’m getting more and more tired as I type this so I’ll probably take the latter route.  I do think sthe rest of the strawberries are going to disappear first though.

Notice Recieved June 18, 2009

So apparently Mother Nature has been successfully notified that Sunday is the first day of summer…

That didn’t help this morning though, I left my window open last night, and as you can see, my room was rather chilly with I woke up this morning.  The solution, oatmeal.  I played copy-cat and used an almost empty jam jar as my food delivery vessel.  Into my tummy went oatmeal with banana, extra water and chia seeds, my mom’s homemade strawberry jam, and some awesome Maranatha creamy peanut butter.

Then for lunch I packed up a container of snap peas, red pepper, a little bit of carrot (hiding at the bottom) and lots of kabocha (to make up for not eating it yesterday, of course)

Plus for snacking I had a nectarine, a lychee (the other one was for the cubicle-mate), cherries and blueberries.

Then a surprise! Due to the aforementioned first day of summer coming up the building management for my office building had a free ice cream day! So despite having had a little ice cream action yesterday I went all out and enjoyed this treat. So good!

So it was no surprise that I wasn’t very hungry with I got home, but I figured I should get some protein in me so I cooked up the tofu I had started marinating in the morning along with some broccoli, instead of the full on stiryfry I had planned. The tofu was marinated in teriyaki sauce, pineapple, lemon juice, garlic and powdered ginger.  OMG it was good!  I usually eat tofu plain, not even cooked, but I might just had to include this marinating step a bit more often.

And I’m slightly annoyed that I completely forgot about So You Think You Can Dance last night, so there isn’t even a point to watching the results tonight. But it’ll show up online in a few days, I’m sure.

Out Of The Fridge And Into The Freezer June 15, 2009

Breakfast this morning was a icy cold due to the use of frozen fruit, since I realized the freezer is starting to get quite full. But it was a welcome coolness since my room was a but warm after my window decided to blow itself shut last night. In the tropical mix was kale, chia seeds, banana, and pineapple with a sprinkle of coconut on top. And along with that I had perfect, giant lychee. Seriously, this lychee tasted exactly like my memories of the awesome lychees I had in Taiwan when they were in season. And to give you an idea of it’s size, your typical lychee is about the same size as that toonie.

For lunch I chopped up a giant salad. It started with romaine, then piles of kabocha, asparagus, red pepper, and cucumber were added. Plus I mixed up a little dumpling sauce for dressing, soy sauce, sesame oil, and apple cider vinegar, delish.

And for snacking I had a big container of strawberries, a peach, and an apricot. Please pardon the slightly mutilated peach, it was nice and ripe (ie. soft), and the pit was not cooperating with my extraction attempt.

Then for dinner I fixed up a stirfry of sorts, I boiled some amaranth, then tossed it in with shitake mushrooms and Europe’s Best Nature’s Balance frozen veggie mix sauteed with olive oil, parsley, thyme, sage, and rosemary, and balsamic vinegar, plus a sprinkle of feta cheese.

And that savoury bowl was followed by a sweet dessert, kabocha with a swirl of hemp seed butter and raspberry jam. This stuff is addictive, I swear.

Steamy Creamy Kaboch-y June 7, 2009

So last night I had some breakfat/dinner after a few hours of evening napping before heading to work.  I experimented a bit with my greens and found some beets greens in the freezer which I used to make pancakes.  I used the same recipe from last weekend but subbed ~ 2/3 cup thawed beet greens for the other veggies. I think I used an extra T of cornmeal too, because I didn’t bother looking up my own recipe, and it was too long ago now for me to clearly remember what I did last night. This new combo turned out really well, especially topped with a mixture of yogurt and black bean dip. And on the side was a Devil Dawg patty and about twice the number of strawberries that made it onto the plate.

When I got home in the morning I was starving, so I finished off the strawberries topped with yogurt and some freeze-dried strawberry filled granola I found in a bulk bin. Then I had another bowl of just the granola because I was hungry and tired and too lazy to get up and get something else.

After a badly needed shower and doing laundry (subway tunnels are dirty, dirty places) I napped for a bit and woke up hungry again, so I finished off the granola, then discovered a fantastic flavour combination in a half a pita spread with hemp seed butter and homemade strawberry jam.

That snack held me over nicely until a more reasonable dinner hour when I set my steamer to work again on a pile of kabocha and broccoli. Plus I stirfried some shitake mushrooms and snow peas in a bit of soy sauce. Kabocha is GOOD. I also think it may also be what my dad actually planted the year the buttercup squashes were tastier then usual. I’ve already requested collards greens for the garden this year, now I’ll need to see if there’s still time to plant kabocha!

And for dessert I dug into some of the cutest peaches ever.

I dare you to pass by Saturn peaches in the grocery store and NOT buy them! The pits are so tiny, peanut sized!

Brought to you by the letter… May 17, 2009

B!  I noticed an unintentional theme to today while going back through my photos, beets, banana, beans, berries, bagel, balsalmic…  I seemed to be going through a certain section of the dictionary and eating all edible entries!

Let’s start off with another letter B, BSI: Bananas, courtsey of Lara at Thinspired. For breakfast this morning I fixed myself a beautiful bowl Banana Breakfast Pudding, which I originally accidentally made here. The recipe is simple, one banana, 1/3 package (~1/2 cup) soft silken tofu, 2-3 T water, and 1/3 cup oatmeal. Immersion blender, plus toppings = delicious 🙂

Though I would like to add a note that the quick cooking oats I used the first time blended more smoothly than the old-fashioned kind I used today. And my toppings of choice were raspberries and honeydew, sweet and summery.

For lunch I did a bit of chopping and trimming and came up with a fresh and flavourful salad of steamed green beans and beet root dressing with yogurt, apple cider vinegar, and tarragon. And on the side were two apricots that I picked up this morning, simply because they amused me in their extreme pointyness and non-fuzzyness (that are unfortunately a bit lost in the 2D photo). They were surprisingly too, apparently they’re “the first of the season”.

In the afternoon I snacked on half a bagel spread with strawberry, blackberry, and acai jam.

And a piece of chocolate. Cocoa Camino is awesome chocolate, but they could have added a few more (and larger) nut and berry pieces. Though the full size bar might have larger chunks in it, I may have to investigate that some time.

I was especially excited for dinner today after buying the beets in the morning. I usually don’t buy beets, because later in the summer I can easily get my fill for free from the parent’s garden, plus typically, I don’t even eat the root (that’s what compost piles are for, right?), just the greens, and grocery store beets tend to have pathetic greens. But today, I found a giant pile of beets sitting in the organic produce section with lots of BEAUTIFUL greens, and before I could even think about it, I found a bunch in my basket!

So for dinner tonight I sauteed the greens with sweet onion, tofu, olive oil, and a giant handful of parsley, thyme, and sage. Plus I pan “grilled” a portabello mushroom with balsamic vinegar and topped it with herbed goat cheese and tomato slices. Best dinner in a long time, the beet greens were so good!

And I did a even did a good job of trimming up my bountiful window herb garden. It’s grown a bit in the past three weeks, hadn’t it? I’ve even been cutting away at it before today…

And now for what will surely be a good Desperate Housewives finale, and getting ready to NOT go to work tomorrow, yay!

But concrete is supposed to crack…. May 14, 2009

Though maybe we should only outline the really big cracks so the general public doesn’t think the whole station is about to fall down….

Breakfast started out this morning with a hearty bowlful of oatmeal topped with Allbran cereal, strawberry, blackberry and acai jam, and peanut butter.

Which was followed with some sweet honeydew melon.

For lunch I made another mess salad, this time with kamut spirals, chicken, wild leeks, tomato, carrot, yogurt, and balsamic vinegar.  It ended up being really good, I was a bit concerned I may have added too large of a slosh of balsamic vinegar.

Though I had room for a little more lunch after working up an appetite climbing ladders and hammering away, so lunch dessert was some sliced cucumber and a delicious ataulfo mango.

And for dinner tonight I fixed up a quick salad of romaine, cucumber, carrot (hiding, apparently), yellow pepper, tomato, dill pickle, and a little Big Bull steak sauce.  And on the side I had a slice of sunflower seed bread spread with delicious pesto, and a medjool date for dessert.

A glorious morning BSI April 26, 2009

This morning I was excited for my BSI:almonds breakfast entry after waiting for it for most of yesterday.  I wanted to try to make a raw food type bread, but I don’t have a proper dehydrator, so I knew it wouldn’t be actually raw, which I’m okay with, because it’s still delicious.  So may I present:

Morning Glory Bread

Ingredients (I used the official weights in brackets):

• 1/2 a small pinapple (350 g)
• 2 carrots (135 g)
• 1 apple (100 g)
• 1 cup almonds (95 g)
• 1/3 cup raisins (60 g)
• 5 T dried unsweetened coconut (30 g)
• zest of one orange (15 g)
• 1 T cinnamon

Directions:

I grated the carrots, pureed the pineapple, apple and orange zest, and roughly ground the almonds, then mixed everything together, and spread the mixture out on a lightly greased, aluminum foil covered cookie sheet.  Then I dried the mix in the oven set at ~175 (below the 200 marking on the dial) for ~6 hours.

The recipe divided up in 6 servings worked out to about 50 g of bread per serving after drying with 210 calories, 11 g fat, 26 g carbs, 6 g fibre, 15 g sugar, 5 g protein.

I tore up a slice of the bread over a bowlful of plain yogurt mixed with leftover pineapple puree for breakfast and it was delicious.  I gave some to the roomie and a friend of ours that came over in the afternoon and they both love it too.  My friend even said it tasted like her mom’s carrot cake.  I’m definitely happy with this kitchen experiment 🙂

For lunch I had a red leaf lettuce salad topped with a mix of carrot, lentils, green pepper and asparagus edamummus.  And a handfull of dill pickles.  And the rest of the yogurt and pineapple (without bread), but I’m not including the picture because this post already has enough pictures coming and I’ll spare you the scrolling.

In the afternoon I had a taste of Godiva chocolate liqueur our friend brought over (just a couple of sample bottles) mixed with Natura unsweetened soy milk, so tasty, especially in the mini martini glass.

And had many cups of (Golden Mint Tea Co. Monk’s Blend aka Pomegranate Vanilla) tea in the cutest mug ever that I found in the dollar store (go year of the tiger!).

For dinner we threw a bunch of stuff into the oven, asparagus tossed in balsamic vinegar, sweet potato fries, and striped bass with orange juice concentrate and dried dill.

Then dessert was a piece of this Theobroma dark chocolate, more yum.

Then I got hungry for a snack so I pulled a slice of ezekiel bread fom the freezer, toasted it, ans spread on some strawberry, blackberry, and acai jam and sunflower seed butter.

And now I am munching on a russet apple before getting ready for bed.

And because I promised yesterday, these are the herbs I bought and planted yesterday. First is the big box filled with parsley, sage, golden thyme, rosemary, and tarragon.

Then there’s the chocolate mint.  I tested a leaf before I bought it, and it tastes AMAZING, exactly like mint chocolate!  Can’t wait to use it, I’m thinking it’ll make an excellent green monster ingredient.

And I also upgraded the container size for my spider plant.  It’s roots had started growing out of the drainage hole of it’s old container.  The yogurt is a much better fit.  I also cleaned and rearranged my room today, making a good spot to put plants by the south facing window.  I’m considering trying to grow cherry tomatoes…I know I’ll need to pollinate them myself, but has any one tried planting these indoors before?

And finally I found this old school entertainment in the laundry room.

Colours of nature

I had a very green and brown day today, ending with the planting of beautiful green herbs in larger planters tonight.  But I’ll take pictures of those tomorrow when the sun comes out.

The morning started out with a very filling green monster containing spinach, grapes, and chia seeds.  Those chia seeds really do keep you going.  I set out in the beautiful weather for a grocery expedition and wasn’t hungry for lunch for nearly 6 hours!

When I did sit down for lunch I dug into a huge salad for romaine, cucumber, lentils, asparagus, and a russet apple with lemon juice dressing.

Then a few hours later I had a delicious bowl of oatmeal containing PC Multigrain Cinnamon Spice Oatmeal, another apple, a scoope of raspberry jam, and almond butter.

And finally for a late dinner I had two red pepper tortillas filled withYves Veggie dogs and green pepper.  I got distracted cleaning the kitchen while I was making this and I realized when I sat down I took my asparagus edammumus out of the fridge, but it never made its way onto the wraps, so I went back and added it afterwards, just some extra green for the day.

Chocolate Heaven April 21, 2009

Today was a busy day at work, I never even got a change to open my gmail/reader, let alone start writing this post.  I even stayed half an hour late in order to finish up one section of what I was doing so I can start a new one tomorrow.  Makes up for all those days of nothing to do a few weeks ago.

I started off with a slice of toasted ezekiel bread with strawberry, blackberry, acai jam.

It was a small breakfast, but I made up for it by sipping on a giant, quite thick monster all morning long.  This decadant tasting treat contained a ton of spinach, soft tofu, TWO bananas, and cocoa powder.  So creamy, chocolatey delicious.

For lunch I had a giant Kath and Kelsey inspired salad.  The based was romaine, carrot, cucumber, and red pepper.  Then on top I mashed a can of sardines (alas, same brand but just packed in water), and mixed them with mustard, dried dill, and dill pickles.  Mustard + dill = amazing, can’t believe I’ve never had that combination before.

In the afternoon I snacked on a contained of tomato, starfruit, and bosc pear.  For those who are interested, a good starfruit, is firm, with no green left, but only the smallest possible amount of brown at the edges.  And I hear they do ripen on the counter if the store only has partly green ones.  And you can eat the entire thing.  And they’re very yummy, the flavour’s subtle, not hit you over the head strong or sweet, but they taste refreshingly tropical.

One my way home I dug into a Chia Razz Weil Bar.  Very good, I love the raspberry flavour.

And for dinner I was feeling lazy, so I nabbed myself a fresh sesame bagel from a platter in the kitchen at work, and spread half with asparagus edamummus, and had the other half with nuked egg whites and some ridiculously good dill havarti.  And surprisingly now, a few hours later, I’m still full.  The bagel was pretty big, but it was white bread, I wasn’t quite expecting that, but I won’t complain.