I hate taking my lunch to work. Ideally I would love to come home for lunch… but since that isn’t going to happen, what do people pack in their lunch? I have access to EVERYTHING - microwave, toaster oven, oven, stove… so any ideas are helpful. Just need to get remotivated with ideas…
Finally got my new sunglasses - they’re pretty cool, an orangy tinge (actually make a gray day seem bright) but have anti-reflective coatings on both sides so I won’t be seeing my eyeball when the sun is behind me, and scratch resistance so they won’t suffer the same demise as my last pair. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be getting many sunny days to try them out anytime soon.
Made some interesting meals this weekend - brushetta this evening, a Thai soup last night, finished up the sweet potato pancakes this morning, and rice pudding for dessert last night. We had Ikea for breakfast on Saturday, then Lick’s for lunch, and Kraft dinner today for lunch - those were Jenn’s contributions. 
This whole weekend has basically revolved around the Super Bowl, well, at least I’ve been really excited about it all weekend. I bet halftime is almost over.
I’m reading a good book “Blood and Rust” - a collection of short stories about fighting. Somewhat disgusting, but heck, it was reviewed by Brett Easton Ellis, so what d’ya expect?
Does not the title alone make you drool? Wow, and it was as good as it sounds. The outside of the pancake was a little crunchy, and nicely browned. The inside was moist and soft, but not fall-apart like McDonald’s crappy pancakes. Jenn ate hers with syrup (and I too indulged for my dessert ‘cakes), but my main course was served with sour cream, cheese and salsa. Fantastic!
I think this would look great in my kitchen - it’d really accent the wooden utensil bucket!
Keep December 17th open. We may be having a Christmas Open House that day - probably during the afternoon and/or evening. Lots of food and wine and music. Confirmation of date/time will be forthcoming. It would be great if y’all could come. Let me know ASAP if you can’t make it. Requests for food items will be considered.
Doug thinks that cheese curds and tofu are the same texture and is confused as to why I don’t like tofu. Do other people agree that they are similar? Just curious…
On Thursday night I was craving a dessert since our Fro Yo disappeared somehow, so I made this Hot Milk Cake with Caramel Coconut topping - it’s this deliciously moist, springy, moderately heavy white cake. I think I ate 1/2 that night, and 1/2 the next day. So Saturday morning I needed some breakfast, so I baked up this Strawberry Rhubarb Apple Crumb Pie - it had yogurt in it, so it was kinda like a Dutch Apple Pie, but with spring fruits instead. I had it for breakfast, lunch and supper’s dessert. It took will power to not finish it up so I can enjoy it for breakfast tomorrow.
Jenn get’s 1/8th of each of these, and then I pig out on the rest. Is that selfish? I rationalize it that I make the temptation disappear for her - I sacrifice my own opportunity to develop self control so she is not tempted.
I went to a potluck last night and had this incredible dessert. I’m not certain that it’s the same recipe but it looks about right. It is a dessert cheese ball. Thank goodness someone pointed out that it was a dessert since I don’t usually try regular cheese balls!
First I made a pumpkin pudding, but it didn’t work - I used pancake mix instead of white cake mix, so now I’m going to try to turn them into pumpkin pancakes. But then I made a Pumpkin Coconut Bread I pretty much followed the recipe (omitted nuts), and it’s really quite good - very moist with a subtle pumpkin flavour. But the real treat was my Pumpkin Nog It was supposed to be vegan (rice milk, non-dairy frozen dessert), but I had some leftover evaporated milk (hmm… it’s like a melted McDonald’s milkshake) so I used that instead of the rice milk, and added vanilla frozen yogurt.
Pumpkin Nog
* 2 cups pumpkin puree
* 1/2 can evaporated milk
* 1/2 cup vanilla frozen yogurt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* dash of ground cloves
It tastes like liquid pumpkin pie, without the crust! Absolutely delish. I have some more pumpkin, so I think I’ll try making it with regular milk, fro-yo, and maybe a bit of whipped cream to fluff it up.
Today’s Menu:
I only hope that the meat isn’t tough for cooking a little too long, and that the potatoes don’t just fall apart, and the wine is good, and…
I know it’s not really over, but I’ve used up my $30 worth of strawberries. I froze 6 bags, and today made a strawberry coffee cake, strawberry crisp, and strawberry uhh… well, it’s basically strawberries, blueberries and cantaloupe drizzled with a bit of lemon juice and topped with brown sugar, butter, and walnuts and broiled in the oven …yummy on ice cream. I had my last strawberry sandwiches last night for supper. My carb diet (that is, all carbs) is almost over, and I can soon return to balanced eating (at least until raspberry and blueberry seasons swing in - ah, I just wish I had cherries available via u-pick).
I picked $30 worth of strawberries on Tuesday, which is probably the equivalent of … well, you know the 2L ice cream containers (I think they’re 2L)? - probably 8! So Jenn and I have strawberries comin’ out our ying-yang (literally and figuratively). From shortcake to milkshakes to desserts, to strawberry sandwiches, we’ve pretty much done it all. Today I even tried putting them in my fajitas (note: weird effect - I had grapes once before and it was tasty, but mixed with pepperoni and salsa, strawberries didn’t really work). Any ideas for what else I can do? I’ve got 4 bagged and frozen already, and I’ll probably have another 6-8 bags when all is said and done.
My friend Jamie came by this morning after dropping his wife off, so together, the two bachelors, we went out for breakfast before starting work on putting up eavestroughs.
Breakfast was in this quaint breakfast restaurant out by our house. It looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, but the inside was clean and inviting, the owner/waiter was friendly in a quiet way. The food was hearty, and I was filled to satisfaction with an omelette, potatoes, toast and coffee.
After breakfast we put up the eavestroughs - well, actually eavestrough. I was going to do two sides, but the one side was too high and it would serve no useful purpose, so in an effort to save time and effort, reduce the cost, and avoid the fear associated with being up so high with inadequate supports, we only did half - the part over the deck, windows, flowers, and poorer drainage. The other side will be fine without. We also did our neighbour’s troughs as well - they’re so nice they have easily earned favours.
By the way - I’m calling them eavestroughs (a search for eavestroughs came up with a small number of results - mostly from Canada). I then searched for gutters and that I’m guessing is what Yankees call ‘em. I think I grew up with gutters - I don’t know when they became eaves.
Lunch then was in a nice pub, with a big glass of Hoegaarden, in front of the big screen hockey game, eating Cream of Chicken and Cheddar and Broccoli Chowder and Brushetta.
Went home, and watched the rest of the game, then surfed for a few hours (who knew that 2 computers could be a tool for entertaining visitors?).
Supper was a chinese all you can eat buffet - aughghgh. It was yummy. There were so many delish meat dishes. I didn’t even get to dessert… you see, I had to leave quite quickly. There was an urgent appointment I had to get to - in a special room of my house. Chinese I think does that to me. But it was worth it.
So now I’m ready to go to bed. I’ve talked to my honey and she’s good. I’m tired though. Have a great rest of the weekend.
Most people know that I am a picky eater… my neighbours included. I try to be a good guest when eating at other people’s homes, but sometimes that just isn’t possible. Last night, I went to my neighbours for dinner… and the appetizer, was a portabello mushroom pizza. It was a giant mushroom cap filled with cheese, spices and tomato. I HATE mushrooms… so I had to politely say how much I hated fungus. They made me try it… and I still couldn’t eat it… so my neighbour polished it off for me. They did think of me when having me over and served a wonderful chicken dish instead of having the fish they had wanted to have. It was a yummy supper overall but I had never really been a position where I really didn’t like the whole thing that was served to me. I felt pretty bad.
On a more positive potluck note, Andrea brought in a meatloaf. The thing that made it so special was that it had a layer of ham and cheese in the middle!! Yummm!
Yummy. I had ribs the first time ever a couple years ago at Shoeless Joe’s. Tonight we went to Montana’s for all-you-can-eat ribs, well, I had the ribs - Jenn had her usual. A rack and a half of juicy, slimy, fatty, tasty ribs - honey mustard for the first rack, and apple butter for the second half (I prefer the latter). And I had a side of broccoli to make it all healthy. Ahh, gorging is fun when centered amongst relative starvation.
I harvested our pumpkin today - now I’ve got a huge container full of pureed pumpkin. So I made a pumpkin pie, but not just any pumpkin pie - walnut caramel pumpkin pie. It was supposed to be pecan, but walnuts do just fine. It probably needed more flour, but otherwise tasted hmmm. That’s to top off my massive steak roast for supper. Tomorrow I may make pumpkin soup. Jenn is so lucky to have me.
In cutting up the pumpkin, I hacked up my fingers pretty bad - not on the sharp side of the blade of the knife, but somehow, on the dull side. I get these paper cut looking things that I can’t even feel when it happens. It doesn’t hurt, but it looks nasty, and then it starts bleeding. I just about make Jenn sick. Then she gets me bandaids, nurses me back to health, and praises my cooking - I’m so lucky to have her.