More delicious food!

Since I had yesterday off, I took advantage of that time. I cleaned up the house, decorated for Christmas, and also made a banana bread with walnuts. It's been a little while since I made one and we both really love it! I also made guacamole, another favorite thing of ours to snack on.

Since it was black Friday as well I went to see if what I wanted was on sale, and unfortunately I was not successful in finding it on sale. I did find one a while back at a decent price and decided to go for it and bought it. As per the email I got, it's already shipped and should be delivered on Monday and I'm quite excited!

It's a medal hanger that goes on the wall. The top part is to put my bibs or photo's and then under that all my medals. I have them spread out on my bookcase and TV cabinet but it would be nice to display them well with this hanger. I did keep my bibs, not really sure why but glad I did cause I'll get to show them off as well.

Today I also got busy in the kitchen and I made these BBQ spiced nuts. The spices are from Epicure, they are new to the catalogue and there was 3 different kinds. I got one of each to try them out. Knowing my hubby would prefer the spiciness first, I decided to try them out. They turned out really good!

They will make a very good snack! To the right is some veggie muffin quiches. I sauteed some onion, mushrooms and spinach in a pan. I added some garlic, and for spices I added some smoked paprika, pizza seasoning from Epicure, turmeric and a tiny touch of salt and some pepper. I needed an egg white for the nuts so I put the egg yolk for the quiches. I added another 4 whole eggs, mixed in the cooled veggies and added two tbsp of nutritional yeast for more healthy goodness and it adds a cheesy flavor as well. I put them in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. I haven't tried them yet but I'm sure they are delicious! They will be great for my lunch along with some vegetables and some banana bread as a dessert.

At the start of the week, our group at work went out for lunch at the Heart and Crown. They took off my favorite thing from their menu, the smoked salmon sandwich, so I had to find something else. When I saw the cod cakes I had to try them out, and glad I did cause it was delicious!!

So the two cod cakes were over some dill mashed potatoes, I had this sauce to go with the cakes which was very tasty, and some asparagus. It was a delicious lunch and glad it wasn't to much food.

Last weekend I made these

Carrot cake cookies from Joyous Health. I have made these before and they are so yummy! I don't add the raisins though cause hubby hates raisins, so I always add walnuts instead. These are nice and healthy, and so good! You can find the recipe here on her website. Hope you decide to try them cause they are very good!

Lentil Salad

I had a very busy weekend, but it was so much fun! I went with my dad and brother to Chatham to celebrate my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary. It was a great turn out and wonderful to spend that time with family. I don't remember when was the last time we all got together and danced the night away, so it was a really great night! Since I have today off, I thought I would get a few things ready for the week and it started with a lentil salad.

In a pan I put 1 cup of lentils, and 1/4 cup of barley with 1.5 cups of vegetable broth and cooked it until tender. In a food processor I added half a red onion, 1 carrot, 1 clove of garlic and a bunch of cauliflower, I basically did a nice layer on top around the food processor.  I pulsed until it was small like rice and then I added it to the lentils/barley with a tsp of herb and garlic spice (Epicure). Once completely cooled I added a splash of basil olive oil (or put olive oil and fresh or dry basil), 2 splashes of apple cider vinegar, and 2 tbsp of honey mustard. I added a small dash of salt, some pepper and a half tsp of turmeric and mixed it all. I always eye ball, don't really measure, I taste and add more of whatever I feel is needed. I also took the time to put a bento box together for my lunch tomorrow

So I have my lentil salad, regular salad, a few slices of cucumber and some kimchi. I'm still trying to avoid meat as much as possible (except seafood) to avoid pain from endometriosis, and I'm also working on eating more vegetables since they are very healthy for us. This will be a delicious lunch and I can't wait to eat it!

Note that if you don't have Epicure spices, you can easily just add ground or minced garlic, some herbs of your choice, or omit it and just do a simple dressing that you really enjoy. 

I also did some baking today, and decided to have the Orange blueberry muffin tops from the Pioneer Woman. You can find the recipe here. I did make some minor changes to the recipe. I didn't have an orange to zest so I added some almond extract (about a tsp), and the only "milk" I have is almond milk so I used that instead of the buttermilk. Everything else was the same but instead of the juice of the orange, since I didn't have one, I added a bit of orange juice. They turned out great and will make a really great snack during the week. Her recipe says it makes 12 but I ended up with 18 of them. They are pretty big to so not sure why I had more but they are great and can't wait to eat them!

One thing I would like to do is try to come up with more interesting bento box lunches, keeping it healthy of course. I don't have to many ideas right now but I'm sure I will end up finding some.