Road trip

I know it's been a month since I last wrote, but life has been pretty hectic. We unfortunately lost another amazing family member, Pepère Plante and he will be greatly missed.

Last weekend I went on a girl's trip to Syracuse. My friend turned 40 and she wanted to do a girls weekend away, since our first plan didn't work out. We asked for tickets to be in the audience at the Rachael Ray show, but we haven't gotten them yet. The Friday they picked me up around noon and we made our way to Watertown where we had a late lunch at the Olive Garden, did a bit of shopping at Walmart, and then made our way to our hotel room in Syracuse. We did a lot of shopping and a lot of eating. For her birthday supper we went to a place called the Texas Roadhouse

I really like their set up, they have a window just like a butcher's where you can see the meat they have, and you can even pick the meat you want. They also have amazing homemade bread

Their butter is amazing, they add cinnamon to it, and not sure what else but it has a little sweetness to it and it's so good!! The food there was so good as well, here's my supper

I had a steak with mushrooms, some shrimp, buttered corn and a salad, and I of course had to have a glass a wine with my steak.

Here we are celebrating her birthday with her daughter and mother. We had a very good time! We of course had to stop in at the cheesecake factory as well

It was delicious!  We all couldn't finish our piece since they are filling and they give a big piece, so brought the rest home. We had a lot of laughs, bought a lot, and had a lot of amazing food. It was a great way to celebrate her birthday.

This long weekend has also been amazing, so nice having 4 days off for Easter. I really wouldn't mind if we had 4 days off every weekend  =)  We started our weekend with supper at our place to celebrate my nephew and niece's birthday, as well as Easter. Unfortunately my sister in law and my two nephews couldn't make it, but there was plenty of cake left over so they brought it home so they can have some to.

Emmanuel's birthday was long over do to celebrate since his birthday was on March 4th, and we celebrated my niece early since her birthday is tomorrow. We played cards, and had a lot of great laughs. For supper I cooked up a pulled pork and did a fajita bar where they can put whatever they wanted in their wrap. It was delicious! The rest of the weekend we have been relaxing. It's been almost none stop for a while so it's been really nice spending some time at home relaxing. Got back into reading, and caught up on some shows, and been doing a few things around the house.

I haven't done much baking, but I am still in the kitchen, and even outside on the BBQ now that the weather is getting warmer. Yesterday we enjoyed a nice steak and some potatoes on the BBQ. Tonight's supper I want to try a new stir fry recipe I found in the Shape magazine I got. It's with miso, and since I have some on hand I want to give it a try.

Hope everyone is having a Happy Easter!

Homemade Potato Tots

We got a lot of snow again, 52 cm in one day! So I got a good workout in that day, my hubby went out twice on his own, then I went once on my own, then we went out together. He was working from home which is why he tackled it on his own the first two times. Then yesterday we hit 6 and got some rain, then today back to more snow, but we aren't suppose to get as much.

I did decide to try to make homemade potato tots on Friday, and they turned out good

I got the recipe from Southern at heart on the Food network. It's a few steps but they are easy to make and so much healthier!

I'm still watching quite a few cooking shows, it's giving me ideas on what to make, but it's been a busy week so I haven't made to much. I do plan to make a vegetable, quinoa, lentil soup with some miso and turmeric for flavor.

Yesterday I went to see my hubby play hockey, then we met up with my dad, brother, nieces and nephews for supper at The big Rig, we all have never been there, and we got a really good seat right by the kitchen so we can see some of the action back there. I wanted a ruban, because I love watching the movie Chef and been wanting a ruban ever since, and the waitress came back and said they weren't able to make it, which got me really disappointed. I ended up getting the jambalaya instead, and it wasn't to bad. My hubby got the nachos and those were really good! Everyone else really liked what they got, then my brother and nephew went to see Kung Fu panda, and the rest of us went to see The 5th wave. It was really good, they followed the book pretty closely. Looking forward to reading the second book, then the third once it comes out in May. It was a great evening, and now today it's about house work and being in the kitchen, so far I've made a potato salad. I might just make some carrot muffins to.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Blender

I haven't posted in a while because I have been fighting off a few things, and I still have a bit of a head cold but it's almost gone. Thanks to getting bronchitis, and I do still have endometriosis, they are lowering my immune system so I seem to be catching every bug there is, and this year has been pretty bad.

Weeks back I ended up making fish cakes, I haven't made some in so long, so decided it was time to try some again, and they turned out really good!

The recipe ended up making 4 of them, and we had tartar sauce with them. They are really easy to make and I really should make them from time to time. I used my sprouted bread that I buy from the health food section of the grocery store, as my bread crumb, to keep them healthy.

I have been consuming quite a bit of soup, it's my comfort food when I'm not feeling well. A friend at work also told me about this slaw type salad with cabbage, kale, dried cherries and pumpkin seeds, so I have become rather obsessed with it, it's so good!

To help provide my body with more nutrients, I have done some juicing as well. I juiced carrots, kale, cucumber, and celery. I do still love my smoothies, and have been making some but with old faithful. My vitamix started to give me a hard time, and when I would turn it on it would start to smell like something was burning, so I called, and thankfully I was still under the warranty, so they emailed me a shipping label, got the base and container in a box well wrapped, as instructed, and put the shipping label on and off it went to them to get fixed. I got it back this week and was happy to see that they gave me a brand new container, lid and stick, so I have boxed up the old lid and stick in case I need it again at some point. The base, I think is the same, but the top for sure has a new rubber. I'm so very happy to have my Vitamix back. Don't get me wrong old faithful works well also, but not quite as well because when I put flax seeds in my smoothie, I often still have whole pieces.

Some may recognize the old blender, it was my parents, which they got when they got married, and it's true what they say that they really don't make them like they use to because it still works great. Now why don't I just use the old one instead of getting a Vitamix, well for one, Vitamix has a bigger container so I can make a lot at once when needed, it has more power then the old one, and I admit it, it does look prettier, but the old one really does take me back to when my dad would make us some root beer floats and some milkshakes. What I love about the Vitamix to is it can handle a lot of frozen fruit to make your own "ice cream", thanks to the stick they provide, you just remove the middle part of the lid, and put the stick in and help things along to blend. You can also make soup and leave the machine on long enough and it heats it up as well.

I do have to give a shout out to Vitamix, they were amazing. I mean to get it shipped and fixed free of charge and to give me a new container, lid and stick was even more amazing to see. It really didn't take long to ship and get it back. Although it did take a little longer thanks to a mix up. I got an email saying they were shipping it to me, and for some reason when it got to Ottawa they saw my address as being incorrect so they shipped it back. I called Vitamix and they did have my correct address, so they shipped it again, but express and I got it in no time.

Since I have been sick I haven't been doing quite as much, so this weekend since we have no plans, I have been keeping busy at home, which works out because it's a very cold weekend! My house is now all clean, and I have baked some banana bread. I might do more baking and cooking tomorrow but not sure what to make yet. As I sit here typing, I also have coconut oil and honey in my hair. It's been in for an hour so I will go take my shower soon to wash it out and then my hair will be so soft!

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Unfortunately my hubby has to work all weekend, but we usually don't do much for Valentine's day. All we ever do is a date night at home with a wonderful home cooked meal, some wine, and we usually watch a movie together. Although we don't need a day to show how much we love each other, we have date nights from time to time, either at home or we go out. We did also have our anniversary at the end of January, so we went to Moxie's for supper and then went home to watch a few movies.

Well now it's time for me to relax with a few movies since I have done a lot today. Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Coconut oil hair treatment

We decided to not have any plans this weekend, and since he was busy with his own thing, I decided to pamper myself a little. I saw on the Rachael Ray show how they did a homemade hair treatment, so I looked online to get more information, and then found out you can put melted coconut oil into your hair, put a shower cap on, or saran wrap, and sleep with it to really get it working into your hair and scalp, so that's what I did on Friday night. I did a double boiler (pot of boiling water with a large bowl sitting on top of the pot, add in 4 tbsp of coconut oil, less if your hair is short, and let it melt). Once melted, they say you can use a basting brush, but I just used my hands, I dunked my hand in there then rubbed my hands together and then put it in my hair and kept working it in. I massaged my scalp, and then since my hair is so long it was harder to the the cap on my head but finally managed. They showed to clip your hair but I didn't want a clip in my hair to sleep with. I put a towel on my pillow in case, and went to bed. The next day, my hair was nice and greasy looking and jumped into the shower and washed it out. I had to shampoo my hair twice to really get the oil out. I straightened my hair and this is the end result

Might not see much of a difference but my hair feels so soft!!  I would for sure do this again. They say you can also just have it in your hair for a half hour or longer as well, but the best results is having it in over night. I also read how you can add in some honey with the coconut oil, and on the show I watched, they did coconut oil, honey and an egg. Not sure if I'll try with the egg, but I think I will try coconut oil and honey for about an hour and wash out to see. My hair has been feeling pretty dry and frizzy, probably because I straighten it quite often in the winter, but with this treatment I think it will really help, and it's not expensive or hard to do. I also tend to use hair spray, and thanks to a friend of mine, I got a homemade recipe with water, sugar and vodka. I read online that you don't need the vodka, just 1 cup water and 4 tsp of sugar. Bring water to a boil, add in the sugar and stir to let it dissolve, then let it cool down and add to a spray bottle. I just made some, so it's cooling down now, and will give it a try, and with no vodka in there, it won't dry out my hair. This is so much healthier and cheaper then buying hair spray.

I also of course got into the kitchen, and made a beef stew for supper last night. What I love about stews is that you can add so many vegetables. Here's my combination

I have onion, celery, carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes and garlic. I coated my beef chunks with spelt flour, salt and pepper and some oregano and basil. I browned all the meat in batches, and then removed it from the pot, then created a rue of grape seed oil and some spelt flour with the spices, and then added in a good tbsp of tomato paste, and whisked that, then added in beef stock, then my vegetables and added the meat back in and let it cook for about 2.5 hours. I cooked it in my cast iron pot, and it turned out delicious!

I also did some baking

I made very healthy peanut butter cookies, then I also made some not so healthy chocolate chip cookies.

Today I plan to try out this oatmeal and blueberry bake for a nice healthy breakfast during the week, and I also want to try a fish cake found in the 100 days of real food cookbook. This morning I watched Jamie Oliver's show called Jamie's super food that plays today at noon on the food network. I didn't get the chance to watch last week's show so I watched it this morning and he made this amazing looking breakfast that I would love to try out. You can find the recipe here.

I love his twist on making french toast, instead of eggs and milk, he did eggs and banana, and the bread pocket of fruit, yum!  Well it's time for some lunch, I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Organization and in the kitchen

So on my last post I talked about how I would be organizing, well that got done. I made some room on my book case and put my new books that I got. Then I got busy with the two cabinets I have in my kitchen. I got a cookie jar set along with other dishes that goes with this set that my mom made and made room to display them nicely, along with placing my cookbooks upright instead of laying down so it's easier to take them out when needed and here's the end result.

I may have a lot of cookbooks, which a few of them are on my bookcase, but I love cookbooks to get ideas and to try new recipes. I've also been watching cooking shows, I'm really loving Saturday and Sunday mornings. I find for a while the food network was becoming more about competitions and games, not so much about cooking shows, which is what I really love to watch, and now they have a really great line up of shows on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Over the holidays they also had other amazing holiday shows and one of them that I watched was Jamie's Festive feast and he cooked up something that looked delicious, so I had to try it!

Doesn't look like his, but it was delicious!!  So much flavor!!  It's called Keralan Fish Curry. I didn't follow the recipe exactly though, I forgot to buy some red chilies so I used chili flakes, and I didn't have fresh coriander leaves, so I used dry, and I didn't add in fenugreek, I didn't have any on hand and same with curry leaves, so I used powder, but it still turned out really good! A perfect recipe for an endometriosis diet, and a must try!

Yesterday I stopped in at Chapters, I didn't buy anything but it was nice to check out books and just walk around for a while. I did find a cookbook to use up your spirilizer, I did scan it for my wish list using my app, but I didn't buy it just yet, I'll have a closer look at it to be sure before I do buy it. I then did groceries, and when I got home I made a quinoa, lentil and vegetable salad.

I cooked up 1/4 cup of quinoa with a nice big handful of red lentils in a pot with some vegetable stock, while that cooked I chopped up a lot of vegetables. I added in a diced zucchini and cucumber, thinly sliced red onion and red cabbage, then chopped up broccoli and yellow pepper. For my dressing, in a bowl I mashed up half an avocado, juice of 1/4 lemon, some red wine vinegar (2 tbsp), honey (1 tbsp) and some olive oil (4 tbsp), then some salt, pepper and some dill. Mixed everything together and put it in the fridge to let the flavors combine. So with left overs of the fish curry and the salad, I will have amazing lunches this week. For a snack, I decided to make the Chocolate Banana bread muffins again from Tone it up website.

I did end up with 12 muffins, not just 3 =)  I ate one, and the rest will be for snacks during the week. I also want to share what I made for breakfast yesterday morning. I unfortunately didn't take a picture of it, but it was easy and delicious. I toasted up some healthy bread, spread some avocado on each, then I made a sandwich by adding a cooked egg and slices of tomatoes, and of course adding a bit of salt and some pepper. A girl I work with got me hooked on toast with avocado, salt and pepper, it's so creamy and delicious!  It would also be good with just adding sliced tomatoes or cucumbers.
 
I've had a really great weekend, and for the rest of my day, I'll probably relax with my book, I still have a few cooking shows to watch, and a few magazines to read. Knowing me I can't sit still for to long, so I'll probably do a few things in between. I have a steak marinating right now for a our supper, I will enjoy some with a wonderful salad, and for my hubby I'll also add some roasted potatoes for him. I am of course not eating as much meat, but I will have some from time to time because I do enjoy it. I also do love potatoes, but I'm trying to keep things more light, so since I'm having steak, I'll just have a healthy salad with it. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

So much snow!!

We've been pretty lucky with mild weather and no snow, but starting at some point in the night, it started to snow and hasn't stopped!  I got my workout in this morning, took me about an hour to do our driveway.

I did start my morning with a stretch workout for 15 minutes, which got me ready for all that snow. It was a lot of work. I relaxed and had some lunch after, then got busy in the kitchen.

I haven't made much since before Christmas, since we went to Sudbury for a week, so we got back yesterday, wanting to get home before all the snow came down. Now we have this week at home to get things done and relax.

In order to avoid driving out in this weather, I also got a head start with doing groceries once we were back home from Sudbury. Glad I did because our street still hasn't been plowed. I got so many vegetables, some fruit, and a few other things we needed. I saw an episode of the Pioneer Woman on the food network, and she made this spaghetti and veggie salad, and it looked delicious! Therefore I got a pot of water boiling and cooked up this new pasta I wanted to try, it's a spelt flour spaghetti. Then got busy with a lot of chopping. I sliced up half a purple cabbage, halved and sliced two small cucumbers, seeded and sliced a red and yellow pepper, sliced up some kale, and thanks to a gift my dad got me I was able to julienne 2 carrots. He got me this set of carrot peelers, one is just a regular carrot peeler and the other was a bit bigger and it julienne's, works really well! Then I also sliced up a red onion and minced up some parley and added those to a very large bowl. I put the spelt spaghetti in the bowl as well and the dressing was: 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup of low sodium soy sauce, 1/3 cup of white wine vinegar, 2 tbsp of sesame oil, mined ginger and 2 cloves of garlic and 3 tbsp of honey. I added a bit of pepper as well and tossed everything together.

You can definitely use whatever vegetables you want. She added oyster sauce in hers, but I didn't have any on hand so I just put a bit more white wine vinegar instead. It's now in the fridge and will get eaten for supper. I will be cooking up some scallops that I bought yesterday. I plan to make an orange (zest and juice), soy sauce and some honey for the marinade.

Our week in Sudbury was great, got to see a lot of family. Which would have been nice to stay longer to see more family and friends, since we haven't seen them all, but it is kind of nice being home and not having to drive with all that snow. I did get more books for Christmas, as well as things for the kitchen, so I plan to unpack those and put them away. I'm out of room on my book case, but I have some shelves with pictures and my medals (running) and stuff so I think I will put those elsewhere so I have more room for books. I also got the cookie jar set that my mom made, so I want to make room for those, and they will be very handy to have. I know I won't have any trouble in filling those up.

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas!  Happy New Year!!

Christmas baking!

It's that time of year already!  I absolutely love Christmas! I love giving gifts and of course receiving gifts   =)  Thursday night my hubby went to a work Christmas party so I got busy at home. I did some cleaning and then decorated the house. My dad ended up giving me the Christmas tree that my mom made out of ceramic, I love this tree, it's so beautiful and brings back a lot of great memories. She did an amazing job, and it's a great way for me to have some sort of tree since I can't have a real or fake tree because knowing my kitty she would be right in it or tearing it down. It really didn't take her long  for her to start chewing away at the ribbon I had after a gift, so now those are put away so she can't get at them.

Last weekend my dad and I did our Christmas shopping but didn't get everyone, so got a few more people yesterday, now the only thing missing is the gifts I ordered online, which I hope to get very soon. So the next thing I really wanted to do was some Christmas baking. I didn't go to crazy, but I ended up making some Funfetti Cookies, which you can get the recipe here, and I also made an oh henry bar, it's my mom's recipe and she made it every year, which made me so happy!  My brother made it one year, so this year I decided to make it, and both recipes turned out perfect and so delicious!

These are not healthy, and there is way to much for just my hubby and I, so we will each bring some to work to share with everyone, and we have some here for us as well. Next weekend will be another busy weekend, we are celebrating with my dad, brother, sister in law, nieces and nephews at my dad's house. My dad will make a turkey with potatoes and vegetables, my brother will bring dessert, and I'll be bringing some deviled eggs, and vegetables and dip, and I plan to make a gravy as well. Then Saturday we are going to our friends' place and we are doing a pot luck style party, so I'll be bringing a potato salad, and I'll be going there earlier to help her set up, while my hubby plays hockey. Really looking forward to next weekend!



Not sure if I'll have time to put up another post until the New year since this time of year does become very busy, therefore in case I don't, I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Happy New year!