Archive | February, 2016

Tomorrow Is The Day!

11 Feb

omg tomorrow is the big day! The big big day! The day my eyeballs get zapped by a laser!

I have to be there for 9:15am and will apparently be there for 4 to 5 hours. Eesh. It was suggested I bring earbuds so I can zone out during the waiting times and to also bring snacks…snacks! When was the last time you were told to bring snacks when going in for a medical procedure? lol

I don’t know much about how the actual day will go, I’ve been given snippets of info but who knows how accurate it is or what might be different on the day. I kinda wish I knew more about what was happening tomorrow, not about the procedure I mean, I have done copious amounts of research, I know a lot about that, I mean about what will happen minute by minute…or at least hour to hour. With some things I like knowing the steps or stages I will be going through.

Having said that, I have no way of knowing so I’m just going to have to let that go and be ok with going in not knowing. Not like I’m not going to go just because I don’t know lol 😛

I’ll be offline for a while, at least 3 days from what others have said since I’ll be super light sensitive and not able to look at my computer screen. My poor laptop, I shall miss it! Or maybe I won’t because I’ll be feeling so miserable I won’t care…that’s a depressing thought, eesh. I think I’d rather lean towards missing the laptop cause it means I won’t be so out of things.

Goooooodbye every one! I’ll be back here when I can handle looking at a computer screen again and I promise to tell you all about what happened!

shades

So cool I’ll hafta wear shades!

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Chocolate Cake In A Mug

7 Feb

I was having a chocolate cake craving and reverted back to primate level thinking…I neeeeed chocolate. Find chocolate. Kill for chocolate. Chocolate is vital for survival.

Stuff like that… 😉

My only options were:

(1) go to the store and buy a cake, which I am too lazy to do

(2) make a cake, which I have the ingredients for but am so not gonna do just to satisfy a craving

(3) google and hope for a better answer

Damn internet, it makes things too easy sometimes!

So I googled chocolate cake in a mug. I don’t know why I did it, over the years I have tried a couple different chocolate cake in mug recipes and they always suck. This time though my googling brought me to this…

The Moistest Chocolate Mug Cake

The blog post swore this chocolate cake in a mug recipe would be moist, and delicious, and better than any of the others I may have tried.

It is simple enough of a recipe so I figured why not give it a go. If it sucks it isn’t too many ingredients wasted and I will have learned my lesson – no more cake in mug recipes!

Well, happy news, the author was correct and it is a deeeeeelicious cake in a mug! As in, so good it easily competes with a full sized home made chocolate cake or a cake bought from the store. I don’t know why this particular combination of ingredients somehow combined to create cake magic but they did and I am oh so grateful for it…while also being aware this is a very dangerous thing I have come across.

With great power comes great responsibility and now that I know I can have an easy serving of chocolate cake whenever I want, well damn, I’m gonna have to use willpower to over ride the cravings and be a good little healthy-lifestyle type of person. Ugh. Not looking forward to that but since it is a problem for another day lets forget about it for now! 😉

I was going to post the recipe here but I think it would be better if you follow the above link and check out the blog I found the recipe from, the Chef deserves the visits to her blog after all.

I did however nab a picture from her post so you can see what it looks like, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words! Just remember, it is her picture, and her cake, all I did was copy exactly what she said to do and made chocolate cake magic, Mmm!

chocolate-mug-cake-tablefortwoblog-4

 

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Cooking With A Chef

6 Feb

On Wednesday a friend of mine and I got together for lunch. She did me an awesome favour a couple weeks ago and I wanted to treat her for lunch as a thank you. She suggested we get together and cook something instead and since it was her thank you I said yup.

We went back and forth for a while on what to make and eventually settled on my brother’s Black Bean Stew recipe which omg, amazing! My brother cooks as a hobby but he puts a lot of time and attention in to it, and it helps he is brilliant at everything he attempts, so when he comes up with something it is always good. 🙂

Christmas of 2007 he brought over a pot of this black bean stew for Christmas Eve dinner and I loved it so much he gave me the recipe. Well ok, I badgered him for it, but let’s not get all picky about things k?

I’ve made it a couple times and it always turns out great.

I bought enough ingredients to double the recipe so we’d each have some for lunch and then left overs for freezing…or in her case left overs to feed her family.

She is a Chef, and an awesome one at that, so while I wasn’t nervous about cooking with her, I was certain she’d be amused and or irritated with how I am in a kitchen. She is one of those amazingly efficient human beings that always make me look like a clumsy incompetent person but oh well, shrug. She actually took over the chopping of the onions because (1) I am a slow chopper and (2) they were making my eyes water so much I couldn’t see through the tears lol

We followed the recipe to the letter but then added some additional seasoning at the end because it was a bit bland, I think I didn’t put in enough tobasco sauce…maybe? I dunno. It is the first time it has come out bland but her additional seasonings made it all better. She gave me some random cooking tips while we went along but for the most part let me run the show. We worked well as a team. 🙂

While we were cooking she said nobody every cooks for her or really invites her over for a meal because she is a Chef and people get intimidated by that. I find that sad. Food is such an integral part of society and social gatherings and nobody ever invites her over for a home cooked meal or brings her something home made to eat? What’s wrong with people!

Having said that, I’ve never brought her anything home made either. Partly because I don’t really cook and also because I figure anything I can make she can make so much better why insult her palate with my paltry offerings?

I’m gonna change that right now!

We had so much fun cooking and hanging out, more fun than I think we would have had if we went out. And she doesn’t care that I’m not a professional cook, she was legit grateful for someone else working in the kitchen…even if she did have to take over the chopping of the onions lol

Next time we are going to make lasagna! Mmm!

The above shows the black bean stew before I covered it with toppings, and then my bowl with all the toppings. As you can see I like sour cream and cheese and avocado lol Usually I eat this with sour cream and maybe the cheese, depending what I have. She happened to have avocado as well and as it was near death we decided to each take half so as not to waste it. Cause a wasted avocado is a sad sad thing.

 

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Subway’s Prime Rib Swiss Melt

5 Feb

On Tuesday I treated myself to Subway. It was actually more of a compromise to myself. I would have given almost anything for something at McDonald’s lol since I couldn’t pinpoint my McD’s craving down to one specific food item I wouldn’t let myself go there but I knew nothing at home would satisfy me so I stopped at Subway. I really like Subway and I am horrendously boring and order almost the exact same thing every time I go. The 6″ turkey on 9-grain whole wheat with more veggies than can comfortably fit on the bun then I top with the light mayo and either mustard or honey mustard, depending on my mood.

The most exciting option there? No. But I like how it tastes and it is a respectable amount of calories so no guilt. 🙂

For some reason, that Tuesday, I decided to try something different. The new sandwich there is the Prime Rib Swiss Melt and the advertising picture looks like this…

subway prime rib swiss melt

Pretty decent huh?

I thought why not, it looks yum and it is good to switch things up a bit.

In a nut shell, my review of the sandwich can be described in three words…

Don’t. Do. It.

Ugh. Seriously, just…don’t. It isn’t worth the money or the trauma you will be putting your taste buds through.

Here is what mine looked like…

2016-02-02 14.54.12

Ok granted, not the best picture but I really wanted you to be able to see the meat.

I thought, because the advertising picture showed it with a gravy/sauce on it that for some reason the meat would be sitting in an industrial version of a crockpot or slow cooker, ya know, the meat would be sitting in its sauce just waiting to be put on the bread.

Nope.

Not even close.

The lady took a little cardboard container filled with grey meat from the display case (grey meat people!) and plopped that on my sandwich. Right there I should have called it off and gone back to the turkey but nope, I stayed with the prime rib option because…well…because it would have been rude to change at that point, I was committed. sigh.

I got it toasted with the swiss cheese and put some random veggies on it. I was trying to copy the picture but it only showed lettuce and tomato and what kind of heathen only puts two veggies on a sandwich when there are so many more to choose from? I also chose cucumber and banana peppers…I wanted more but was worried I’d somehow mess with the balance of the sandwich since I have nooooo idea what goes with prime rib.

There was no sauce. I didn’t realize it until I got home with the sub but yeah…no sauce. There is sauce in the picture! But none on my sub. I don’t know if I was supposed to specify that I wanted the prime rib sauce or what. I guess since I still had the idea that it was supposed to be simmering in its sauce that it would be saucy when put on the sandwich and when it was grabbed, cold and grey, from the display case, I didn’t clue in I was gonna have to figure out the sauce situation on my own.

You’d think the lady would have offered sauce, or at least condiments, but she didn’t. So while I accept the lack of sauce as my own fault I think she should shoulder a teeny bit of the blame since theoretically she knows better than I what should be on that sandwich.

Sadly, I regret my sandwich choice from that Tuesday. I don’t have a lot of money so when I spend even a small amount of it I want it to be worth it and that sandwich sooooo wasn’t worth my $7. 😦

Ah well, even though I didn’t like it I still stand by the idea of trying things outside your comfort zone. After all, if I hadn’t tried it I wouldn’t know if I liked it or not and I could be missing out on something awesome. It didn’t work out this time but that’s ok, it will other times. 🙂

 

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Baking Soda Miracles

4 Feb

My mom is coming to visit for a couple of weeks to help me when I am recovering from surgery. I’m looking forward to seeing her but the flip side of the looking-forward emotion is the oh-my-god-this-will-be-the-first-time-a-family-member-sees-where-I-live-I-must-make-my-place-perfect emotion.

Now in reality, perfect is not going to happen, I am in a 750 sq ft basement suite with a low ceiling, no natural light, a shower that won’t stop dripping and no storage or counter space which means no matter how much stuff I get rid of, or how many times I clean, my place always looks cluttered. sigh.

Doesn’t mean I’m not starting to obsess about weird things though!

Like tea stains. I use the same three large mugs in rotation for drinking tea. I drink tea like it is going to run out and I have to get as much of it in to my system as possible before there are no more tea leaves. Seriously, tea addict over here. Which I am fine with because tea is a lovely drink but it does have a tendency to stain mugs even when you clean the mugs daily.

Sooooooo…for some reason this became a thing I was obsessing over. Like my mother was going to be horrified because my tea mugs had tea stains or something… Who do you think I got my tea addiction from? Not like she hasn’t seen a stained mug before! But yeah, couldn’t stop thinking about how no way can I let my mother see my stained tea mugs so I YouTubed and learned that I could bleach them (which didn’t really sit all that well with me) or I could clean them with Baking Soda.

baking soda

Baking Soda?

Apparently I am the only one who didn’t know this trick!

I have Baking Soda on hand for baking and that is it, that is all I have ever used it for but according to the internet, and my mother when I discussed it with her, if you put some Baking Soda in a mug, add boiling water, let it sit until the water is cool and then clean the mug normally boom! Magic happens and the tea stains go away.

Seriously magical.

2016-02-02 16.43.14

Here is the inside of my mug with the Baking Soda on the bottom, you can see the icky stains. Nobody really said how much Baking Soda to put so I guesstimated…

Here you can see me adding the boiling water, look at the bubbles! Science people, it’s an awesome thing! I put the water as high as I could to reach as much of the stains as possible. The chopstick, in case you were wondering, was for stirring it all around so the Baking Soda would dissolve, I thought it would be less disruptive than a spoon… While I was stirring I could actually scrape off the tea stains with the chopstick if I tried which I maaaaay have done for a little bit because it is sort of like picking at peeling paint, oddly satisfying…

So yeah, I let it sit for a while, until the cup felt cool to the touch, rinsed it out, put some dish detergent inside and gave it a good clean (fyi, the Baking Soda makes it kinda slippery so be careful) and boom! It now looks like this…

2016-02-02 21.31.32

Look at that! It looks brand new! A thing of beauty! 🙂

I decided to try the same thing with my travel mug, it is stainless steel and according to the internet gods if I put the Baking Soda and boiling water in the mug, pop the lid on and let it sit for 24 hours the inside of my travel mug will be pristine. How could I not try? I use the mug minimum 4 days a week and even though I clean it all the time I’ve been using it for years and it definitely looks it!

I got a tad overzealous with the stirring though which is when I learned that Baking Soda and boiling water and my stirring with a chopstick can lead to an eruption that has water and Baking Soda bubbles exploding all over my stove top…oops! Why my stove top? Because I don’t have a counter so I do everything on my stove top between the burners.

So yeah, little bit of friendly advice, stir sloooooowly, and gently, super gently, and if you see bubbles stop! Take a bit of a pause and then resume, super duper slowly. Trust me, you’ll be grateful you took the time cause oh wow, sooooo much water spilled over it ended up overflowing over the lip of the stove top on to my kitchen floor…well, mostly onto my feet but then from the feet to the floor.

Now that I have mastered removing tea stains I am on to obsessing about the next thing…oh boy!

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I Adulted

3 Feb

I was so proud on Saturday night. I worked until 9pm and before I left work I took a look at the menu for the next day. On Sunday I would be working the day shift, so eating lunch at work, and lunch on Sundays tends to be more brunch like – so pancakes or waffles or some such thing. Which is tasty but is soooooo not healthy and definitely not something to indulge in every-freakin-Sunday.

Lo and behold Sunday’s lunch was eggs benedict with Canadian back bacon and some veggies grilled and covered in cheese, sigh.

So here is where the adulting came in…

I got home from work around 9:45pm and promptly started cooking. The cat thought I was nuts lol

I popped a honey garlic glazed chicken breast in the oven and while that did its thing the rice cooked in the rice cooker, the sweet potato got sliced and popped in the microwave so I could steam it and while waiting for things to cook I chopped up a bunch of veggies because when I am not super lazy I like to ingredient prep.

In the end I ended up with a freakishly healthy lunch for Sunday!

It got packed in to one of my Disney’s Frozen tupperware, cause hey, I can’t be tooooo grown-up lol and I took some salsa with me to put on top of the rice. When I was putting my lunch on a plate at work and heating it up the chef said I should take some of the veggies they had made cause they were super delish and who am I to turn up more veggies? So here is what I ended up eating…

lunch

Before you think I am a weirdo for having my chicken cut up I did that to make sure it was heated all the way through. 😛

Now don’t fret that I am acting all grown-up all the time, I assure you, I am not. I think I manage it about once a month if lucky? lol

To prove that, my dinner on Monday was this…

2016-02-01 16.59.11

Yup, that’s right, it was marble cake. Sadly, it was not good…and yet…I ate it…*rolls eyes* I didn’t even get the expected sugar rush that would have gotten me through the next couple hours, nope, I ate it and promptly had a nap…cementing my place as the world’s oldest toddler teehee

 

 

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