Archive | Home Life RSS feed for this section

Remember

11 Nov

Some poems, for Remembrance Day. Freedom is not free, the cost is high, please take a moment to honour those that fought, and still fight, to keep us free and safe.

remembrance-day-2

In Gratitude of Silence

By: Debbie Holick

Silent now the soldiers sleep, their tales long laid to rest.
I knew them not yet still I weep and place a poppy o’er my breast.

They were husbands, brothers, fathers, sons; so valiantly they fought.
On shores stained red,on hands and knees; it was our freedom that they sought.

Courageously they stood their ground but freedom carries a cost.
Thousands of men were wounded and countless lives were lost.

So in gratitude of silence and all those who have served,
sleep now, you have earned it. Your peace is well deserved.

remembrance-day

 

The Eyes

The eyes are all the same today,
Actually it’s the stare within.
The stare tells their sad, glorious tale,
Of just where they’ve all been.

It’s not a physical, worldly place,
That marks these men as brothers.
‘Tis a place in each and every mind,
That links them with each other.

Dark nights, cold days or searing heat,
Thick jungle or windswept beach-
Geography doesn’t bind these men:
‘Tis what they did beseech:

“Dear God; I’m scared and tired and sick.”
“Dear God; I’m hot…I am cold…”
“Dear God; I don’t want to kill no more,
Nor be here ‘til I am old.”

“Dear God; I’m so tired of losing,
And I’m tired of burying friends.”
“Dear God; Please bring these hellish war
To a quick and merciful end.”

It’s in their eyes, the cost of war;
Their eyes, their aged eyes,
They speak of fear and pain and death.
They speak of sad good-byes.

One minute friends are by their side,
The next they’re gone for good.
But you fight on. You must:
Consumed by guilt-the could, the should.

“It could be me, now lying dead,
Not him. This isn’t fair.
I should be with him, he’s my friend,
He’ll think I didn’t care.”

Those eyes. They saw men at their worst,
And at their best, as well.
Those eyes saw men risk life and limb,
In places worse then hell.

Those crinkled faces, years ago,
Were boyish, young and strong.
Now on this day, though resolute,
The boyish look, long gone.

November 11th, Remembrance Day:
Look at their eyes and see;
The boys that were-the men they are.
They fought so we’d be free.

But that’s the one thing they all lost,
War took their freedom away.
Though they came home, a part of them
Caught in the war, did stay.

One day a year they come as one.
Soldiers standing side-by-side.
To remember a past they can’t forget.
To remember those who died.

Do not begrudge two minutes,
For they’ve given all their lives.
And those who died? They’re legacy?
Their daughters, sons and wives.

They’re bent with age and hard memories,
You think-old folks in disguise.
Not disguise-Soldiers-one and all.
Look close: It’s in their eyes.

© Margot Leolyn Hedden November 11th 2011

Tags: , , , , , ,

Late Night Baking

11 Nov

Most people, when they notice it is 12:30am think, “hmm, maybe I should go to bed” I noticed it was 12:30am and thought “hmm, maybe I’ll try out that new recipe I’ve been staring at”.

Which is why, at 1:15am I was comfortably seated in the living room with a cup of tea and two muffins fresh from the oven. Mmm! 😀

Now, before anyone thinks I am claiming this recipe as my own, this is NOT my recipe! It is from the website http://www.drizzlemeskinny.com so go there to see it in full. 🙂

The recipe I tried out is Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana Oatmeal Muffins. Quite the mouthful to say! lol

These are a Weight Watcher friendly recipe, each muffin is 3SP. For those not on Weight Watchers, each muffin has a breakdown of:

Calories 103, Fat 3.9g, Sat Fat 1.2g, Carbs 14g, Fiber 1.8g, Sugar 3.4g, and Protein 3.8g

It is important to note that nutritional information doesn’t include the bananas – don’t ask why, its a Weight Watchers thing lol 😛

The muffins have egg, egg whites, brown sugar, plain greek yoghurt, mashed banana, light peanut butter, vanilla, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and mini chocolate chips.

I made some minor changes, of course! lol I used PB2 instead of real peanut butter. I also took regular chocolate chips and chopped them down instead of buying mini chocolate chips, that is mostly because I am cheap and didn’t want to buy mini chocolate chips when I had perfectly good regular sized ones in my pantry lol. I used a mixture of dark chocolate and milk chocolate chips because in my opinion the mixture of the two tastes better than using just one.

Oh, one other thing I did differently, but by accident, I kinda, sorta, forgot to put the vanilla in. Oops!

I don’t usually make mistakes when baking so I’m kinda shocked I forgot the vanilla…guess that is what happens when I bake at 12:30 in the morning…though I’ve done that plenty of times so I guess it isn’t really an excuse…*rolls eyes*

The strongest flavour is the chocolate, so if you like chocolate you’ll probably like these. The texture is more moist than what I am used to with muffins, not in a bad way, just something to get used to. I think if I make them again I would keep them in the oven an extra minute or two, or put in a bit more oatmeal or use slightly smaller bananas, to make them a little less moist. It is all about tweaking, so it is an easy fix, just fiddle till the batter seems right. 🙂

Enjoy!

2016-11-11-01-04-48

yes those are halloween muffin papers, don’t judge! and of course the pic isn’t in focus, sigh.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Spider Slaughter

29 Oct

I had (hopefully it is in the past tense!) a spider infestation. And by that I don’t mean more were coming in lately because the weather is changing and I had to squish a couple more than I am comfy with. I mean I was getting bit by them, finding swarms of them hidden under things (the cats bed if you want specifics), having them drop down from the ceiling, waking to find them eye balling me from the top of the wall above my bed, coming home to massive webs in my bathroom that are covered with a freakish amount of baby spiders, sharing my showers with them, finding them crawling on my bed…basically they were everywhere and I was losing the battle!

One of me. Endless amounts of them. You do the math for who is going to win…

there_was_a_spider_540

I read everything I could online about what to do. Common results were that spiders hate citrus and to use lemon scented cleaners etc so that is what I did. I took everything out of my bedroom (minus the heavy furniture I couldn’t move) and scrubbed every surface down with a liberal amount of hot water and Mr. Clean lemon cleaner. It seemed to help a bit, but it isn’t like it is a permanent solution.

I waited to go to my landlord because while I knew I was seeing, and killing, a lot of spiders, I had never caught one in the act of biting me, the bites were mysteriously appearing, or when I got bit my arm (or leg, or torso etc) was leaning against something, or covered by something, basically not visible, so I’d feel the pain of the bite, yank the assaulted body part away, but not see what did it.

Talk about annoying.

Well,  that all changed when I was vacuuming, I lifted the cat’s bed up to move it and decided for some random reason to lift it high so I could look underneath. The bottom of the bed was a dark brown and I’m looking at it, thinking I’m being a nutter when I see a dark brown spider moving along the bottom of the bed. I’m holding paper towel so I squish it, then I see another, so I squish it, then I see a third and I start to worry so I flip the entire bed upside down and boom! Swarm of dark brown spiders! Everywhere! They are everywhere and moving fast! I moved to the kitchen, I was worried if some of them leaped to the carpet I wouldn’t be able to see them to kill them and the kitchen floor is pale laminate. I’m not able to kill them fast enough and the creepiest of all creepy things happened, one got on my arm! Made a beeline for I dunno, higher up my arm? All I know was I was trying to get the entire bed in to a garbage bag so I can tie it off and get it outside and one of the little bastards got on my arm so I do the totally grown-up thing of freaking out and I start swatting at my own arm like that is going to magically make things better…all while trying desperately to not shake any of the other spiders off the bed on to the floor. I did manage to kill the spider that was on my arm but not before I felt a sharp pain and a new bite mark appeared on my body. sigh.

In case you are wondering, spider bites hurt, for days. Highly unpleasant.

That was my breaking point. Up until then I had been trying to deal with the situation myself but nope, no more. The next night when my landlord was home I went and knocked on his and his wife’s door and explained the situation, explained I was up to over a dozen bites, that I now knew for sure they were spider bites, I had done everything I could think of to do and now they needed to fix this situation.

He swore he’d call for pest control the very next day, and I did get a text from him saying he called a couple places but all were booked up for the next two weeks, so he brought me some cans of raid and this weird contraption that I was supposed to use to try to trap a spider so the pest control (when they finally got here) could see what kind of spider was inhabiting my place.

Couple problems with that…one, I can’t use Raid, I have a cat who I am not actively trying to poison so yeah…can’t spray that stuff in here. Two, no way in hell am I taking a chance at catching a spider, missing, and having it run off. I see a spider and I immediately kill it, there is no pausing for an attempted capture. Three, I have so many different types of spiders in here, I’d have to capture one of each for this idea of showing the spider to the pest control people plan to be any good and there is no way I am going to attempt to make a collection of the different types of spiders. Nuh-uh.

I made nooooo attempt to capture any of them. I just killed them.

I went to DC, came home, hadn’t heard from my landlord about the spider situation for a while, managed to take a picture of one chilling on my ceiling when I woke up one day so I could text it to him and that is when I find out he was sort of hoping the Raid had magically solved everything and he wouldn’t have to call for pest control because it is pricey.

Well duh, of course the Raid hadn’t done anything! Even if I had been using it daily it doesn’t go and find the spider eggs and nests and whatever the hell else they have, the spider has to walk through it or be sprayed directly by it to die. The house in infested! Someone has to kill them at their source!

So he finally calls for pest control, and pest control calls me to arrange a day to come, which I thought was really nice, letting me pick the day, most landlords would arrange it to their schedule and screw it if the tenant is working or not.

I had to pack away a whole lot of stuff, move all furniture 12″ from the walls, and arrange for my houseplant, the cat, and myself to be gone for the day. I chose for the spraying to be done on one of my days off, dragged a friend to help move the furniture and pack stuff the night before, and spent one of my precious days off at work in the staff room with the cat because where the hell else am I going to take a cat for the day? Not like it is a dog and we can just go on an epic hike…

2016-10-26-12-16-23

Cat Logic: If he can’t see anything then the scary visit to my work isn’t reeeeally happening, right? He spent most of the day hiding underneath that cushion or my hoodie.

Happy note: everyone at work loved the little furball, which isn’t surprising considering how awesome he is. 🙂

2016-10-27-23-30-00

See how cute he is when he isn’t feeling terrorized?

As soon as we were home that evening, same friend in tow to help me put the furniture back, I opened all windows to air the place out (as per instructions) and what do I find but a spider, alive and well, on my bedroom window frame.

Crap.

I texted my landlady to let her know, and remind her the company has a 100 day guarantee, and her response was to keep an eye on things and see if I see any more in coming days. sigh.

My friend and I got the heavy furniture put back, and some stuff put away, but not really unpacked, just moved around to make my space more livable, I drove her home, then came home and washed all my bedding (cause hello, poison sprayed everywhere, I wanted clean bedding!) and all my clothes that were out, towels…you get the idea.

I have confusing information from the pest control people, I am not supposed to come in to contact with any of the sprayed areas but am also not allowed to clean or use any cleaning products because that will lessen the effectiveness of the poison they sprayed everywhere. Soooooo…what the hell? I want to clean things before I use them, pots and pans, counter tops, sinks, things like that, and I really want to clean the floors (they are due for a washing) but I’m not supposed to because it’ll remove the poison, but I’m also not supposed to come in to contact with the poison that has been sprayed everywhere…I’m still not sure the best way to deal with this.

For the most part I’ve been trying to not use things, to avoid accidental ingestion or coming in to contact with, the poison, which has been interesting in regards to cooking. However, I counted all bets as being off in the kitchen area when I found a spider, walking along like it didn’t have a care in the world, in the sink. I killed it, obviously, then had to bleach the sink because ew! spider guts in the sink! From there I bleached both sinks, and scrubbed down the counters, the dish drainer, the toaster, the kettle, ya know, the important things. So now I let myself use the sink, the toaster, the dish drainer, the kettle, and I only feel marginally hesitant to put things on the counter…well ok, more than marginally, once something touches the counter it must be scrubbed before it can be used with anything else, or put away, or left out…you get the idea I’m sure lol

All in all, since the spray was well, sprayed, I have killed 3 spiders in my place. Not lending me to feel total confidence in the effectiveness of the pest control people’s process. Because of this I have refrained from any further unpacking because I fear there will have to be another spray session and frankly, I don’t want to unpack things juuuust to pack them back up again, I’m lazy and now that my friend knows how much work is involved I’m not confident I could convince her to help again… 😉

Tags: , , , , , ,

Giant Chocolate Fudge Ice Cream Bar

20 Oct

Oh boy, happy find! When I was in the states yesterday I was looking for an ice cream I was told was a “must buy!” – it is called Arctic Zero and is apparently amazeballs. I didn’t find it but while perusing the ice cream aisle I came across this…

*happy dance*

How can a girl go wrong with a chocolate fudge ice cream bar?

Well lemme tell ya, a girl can’t! 😀

It comes in this giant size and a snack size. The giant size is 4 SP and the snack size is 2 SP. I thought briefly for like, 10 seconds, about which size to get but really, was there ever a doubt I was going to get the giant size? In case you don’t realize, there was never a doubt… 😉

When I opened the box and grabbed one last night I realized it isn’t some crazy giant size, it is only giant in the world of Weight Watchers lol It is a normal sized ice cream bar but is somehow only 4 SP, how that is possible I do not know, nor do I care. All that I care is that it tastes yummy and is a size that doesn’t leave me feeling deprived.

It has a whipped texture and isn’t as dense as other ice cream bars which means it also melts faster so there is definitely no chance to eat it super slow and linger over it but if that is the sacrifice I have to make I will gladly make it.

2016-10-19-19-11-01

All in all I count this as a win – doubly so since it was on sale! 🙂 I haven’t seen these in Canada, the States and England always seem to have waaaay more WW food options than us so these will definitely be a rare and happy treat.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Progresso Soup

19 Oct

I was in the states today for like, a minute, well ok, about 20 minutes, and while there I bought some soup and some yoghurt – both specific types I can’t get here, in the land of maple leafs and hockey.

I’ve written about the yoghurts before, I buy them it seems almost every time I go to the states but today I bought a new soup. Theoretically you can’t go wrong with soup but alas, today proved that line of thinking wrong.

I bought one of the Progresso Light soups, specifically the Beef Pot Roast flavour. If you follow Weight Watchers one serving is 2 SP and the can holds two servings. I ate the entire can for dinner, hey! don’t judge, that’s mean! 😛  If you are not on Weight Watchers well, the nutritional info is below, take from it what you like…

I had high hopes for this soup, you’d think I’d learn to stop doing that! *rolls eyes*

The broth was good but weak, it is hard to describe, think of hot chocolate that isn’t quite chocolately enough, it has potential to be good and you can get hints of a good flavour when you taste it but it isn’t quite there yet, it needs to be stronger. The broth is like that, decent but weak, needs to be stronger.

The meat, oh geez, the meat is where this soup fails, and truthfully, where Progresso soups always seem to fail. The beef cubes were dry, and chewy, and had no flavour, and I wouldn’t feed them to a dog let alone another human being. I, however, obviously have lower standards for myself, or I was too lazy to scoop the beef chunks out of my bowl, so I ended up eating them. 😛

The veggies though were good, actual chunks of vegetables, good texture, good taste. In all the Progresso soups I have had the vegetables are always good. The meat is always terrible. Which is why I tend to lean towards buying only their vegetarian soups but today I thought I’d give them another chance.

Lesson learned. Don’t give Progresso another chance lol Buy what they are good at, their vegetable soups, avoid the meat, it is always dry and chewy and just not worth it.

2016-10-19-18-14-36

Bubble bubble toil and trouble…

The broth has a nice colour, and look at those vegetables! Mmm veggies! 🙂

Overall I wouldn’t rate this soup high, and wouldn’t buy it again, the veggies don’t make it worth eating the beef and the lightly flavoured broth. The extremely low amount of WW points makes eating those beef cubes worth it though, especially since my meeting is tomorrow. 😉

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Try It Tuesday: Simple Fun

13 Sep

Remember when you were a kid and it didn’t take something super high tech, or complicated, to make you smile? Somewhere along the way we lose that, the ability to find joy in something little. I find that sad, when I think about it that is, which isn’t all that often lol 😛

Well today I was kind of rocking the whole “grown-up” thing. I had a work training session that I wasn’t late for, I ran errands (and actually got them all done! that never happens!), decided that instead of buying take-out I would make a meal at home (saving money and eating healthier), then cleaned the apartment…and when I say “cleaned” I don’t mean I just hid things in drawers,  I actually organized drawers, put things away nicely, dusted (who am I??), reeeeeal cleaning.

Seriously grown-up stuff happening over here!

After finishing as much cleaning as I was going to get done I made a cup of tea and did something that sure, is a kid thing, but made me smile, and isn’t that what is important here? Smiling? Not caring how it came about? Just nod your head ok? 😉

I found one of those add water and the item will grow things, who knows where I got it from *shrug* and I decided to add water and while I am not exactly watching it grow it is within range of my eyes and I maaaay be glancing over every now and then, while I sit here drinking tea and blogging (like a grown-up), mildly impatient to see the fish grow to 400% their original size (not quite a grown-up activity…).

2016-09-14-00-48-54

2016-09-14-00-50-08

As you can see, it is a little aquarium with two fish and three coloured balls. I added warm water like the package said and am hoping by tomorrow morning those little fish will be much bigger, maybe 400% bigger…after all, the package wouldn’t be lying about the amount of growth possible, riiiiiight? 😉 lol

I know “growing” fake fish in an aquarium isn’t going to make everybody smile but maybe think back to what simple things made you happy as a kid and see if you can’t find time one day to find some happiness in one of them again. It can’t hurt and hey, it might even help you destress after a day of being a grown-up. 😀

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Weight Watchers Thursdays an Stuff

8 Sep

So today was interesting but boring all at once…at least for me, shrug.

I had my WW meeting, which is at 12:30pm. The reason I am telling you the time of the meeting is because I sleep in Thursday mornings and get up when I will have juuuust enough time to make myself look partially presentable (this means hair styled but no make-up) and get to the meeting. I do this because (1) I’m lazy and don’t want to get up any earlier than absolutely necessary and (2) if I don’t get up until right when I need to then I don’t have time to eat (or get hungry) prior to the meeting and I am weighing in on an empty stomach.

Hey, don’t judge! We all have our quirks! 😛

So yeah, slept in, went to my meeting, found out I am the exact same weight as last week, realized I am not upset about it and continued on with my day.

In case you are wondering why I am not upset, when normally I would be, it is because…

  1. I had three days where I wasn’t feeling well, one of those days I under ate my points, all three of those days I was as lazy as humanly possibly while still going to work.
  2. Today is the beginning of shark week so kinda bloated over here (sorry for the tmi)
  3. I had a huge (for me) loss last week and after a huge loss it is normal for the following week to either not lose or lose a small amount.

So there ya have it, all reasons I knew would affect my weigh-in, and they did. At least I am assuming they did since all but that one day that I under ate I followed the plan and ate my points (ate my points using healthy food I might add, yay me! lol) so theoretically I should have lost at least a little bit, except for those reasons not to…I’m gonna stop rambling, I am making this sound more complicated than it is lol 😛

After the meeting I rushed home, normally I would have eaten something but nope, today I rushed home to put on makeup and make sure my hair was still ok then I skeedaddled off to get passport photos taken. Always a lovely way to ensure you feel bad about how you look, take a close up picture of you where you can’t smile or have any facial expression *rolls eyes* Some weirdo walked by right when my picture was going to be taken and made a “make sure you don’t smile” comment like he was making some great joke. Then he said he would tickle me just to make me laugh to mess up the picture…uh…okaaaaaay…*cringe* Some people shouldn’t be allowed outside without supervision.

The lady working at the store was a chatty-cathy and kept stopping work to talk to me about her hair and how she styles it, wth? All the while I am practically willing her hands to finish trimming the picture and stamp the back and ring the charges through because the passport office is downtown and isn’t open forever ya know and I was hoping to grab something to eat on my way there and every time this lady stops working to talk is less time I have to maybe get lunch aaaaaaand she kept talking, so I ended up going right to the passport office sans any food.

Hell, at that point I would have been happy with a bottle of water, a mint, something! Anything to trick my stomach lol

When I got to the passport office I was so happy, there was no line, all the cues were open, this was gonna be a breeze!

Ha! How silly and naive I can be at times, sigh.

passport

I stood there, at the front of a non-existent line, just little ‘ol me, 4 people behind the desk at their stations who are theoretically there to serve people standing in the line and they just keep talking amongst themselves. It was kinda awkward. I was debating between just picking one and forcing them to help me by going up to them or continuing to stand there like the last teen at a school dance left on the sidelines, trying to look like they don’t care but in reality desperately wanting someone to call them over. Finally one of them motioned me forward and life seemed good again.

Can’t say that she was all that friendly but she did her job and really, if she wants to be grumpy while working that is her deal, shrug. She did some stuff with the paperwork then gave me a number and told me to go wait over in the waiting area for my number to be called. I looked over at the waiting area and couldn’t decide if I should be distraught or tentatively optimistic…there didn’t seem to be thaaaat many people there but the ones that were there looked like they had been there a while…oh boy…

While waiting for my number to be called I got to eyewitness a lady decide her perfectly content baby was hungry and thrust him under her shirt to nurse. The child obviously had other ideas about this decision of hers and started screaming something fierce, even when being pushed against her breast, under a shirt, the screaming was still loud. Of course no one can say anything cause duh, so not socially acceptable to comment on how a woman is breastfeeding her child but to my untrained eye it seemed like she might have waited till, I dunno, the kid was making some sort of movement indicating hunger…but what do I know? Oddly enough the kids grandma apologized to everyone in the vicinity for the screaming baby, kinda confusing. Babies cry, no need to apologize for that. shrug.

Eventually, right when I thought I was going to have to risk losing my spot in line and duck outside in the hopes of spotting somewhere that sold food my number got called. Yay! I got a slightly nicer lady this time, she finished processing the paperwork, got my signature on some stuff, took $120 of my hard earned money (why oh why does a passport cost so much?) and informed me if I have the passport mailed to me there are no additional charges, if I want to pick it up I have to pay an additional $25 which makes no sense to me. Maybe they charge you to pick it up because they are trying to discourage people coming in and crowding the place?

money

I opted to have it mailed to me, got my receipt and was out of there!

Now that I was free you’d think I’d beeline somewhere for food but I’d just spent $120 on a passport, the last thing I wanted was to spend more money so I just went back to the car and started driving home. You wouldn’t believe how many times I contemplated calling in a sushi order for pick-up or debated hitting up a Subway on the way home but in the end I waited and cooked at home. Not only did I cook but I made a decently healthy meal, WW approved. I had my first meal of the day around 5pm and it tasted soooooo good! I then had a second meal around 9:30pm…eating so close together, and two meals I classified as dinner reminded me of Hobbits with their second breakfasts lol

So there ya have it, not exactly a riveting day but some random things in there to keep it kinda interesting…sorta…ok, maybe not, but oh well, shrug. Not every day can have something awesome happen in it 😛

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

An Old Find

31 Aug

I was walking to the store earlier today and passed by this little corner store near my place. They have these shelves set up outside that usually have flowers for sale on them but today there was an odd assortment of items for sale. Almost like a person working there didn’t feel like having a full on garage sale so instead put the items out at work hoping someone would see and want to buy.

There was an old bread box, and when I say old I mean ooooold! Old like it is that avocado green colour that appliances used to be made in back in the day, that was what, the 60s? 70? Somewhere back then.

I don’t know what drew me to the bread box but I opened the door and was looking at it when the guy working at the store popped out to talk to me. I asked how much it was, thinking it would be pricey and would put me off buying it and he said for me he’d charge $8. Before I really thought it through I agreed to the price and boom! Retro bread box is officially mine!  🙂

I picked it up on my way back from running my errands, didn’t really feel like carrying it to all the shops and back. I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t believe me when I said I would come back for it, especially based on his facial expression when I walked in to the store with the bread box in my arms ready to pay. 😛

He pointed out to me that on the back it said “Made in Canada”, something I hadn’t noticed, I don’t know that it really matters where it was made, but upon further thought I don’t know that any other kitchen item I own is made in Canada so that makes this piece even more unique.

2016-08-31 18.27.42

I absolutely love this find! I never used to be in to antique / retro items but over the past couple years I find myself leaning towards that style of furniture more often.

The tricky part is where to put it…I have a super tiny kitchen with almost no counter space so it can’t go there. There are these three built in shelves in my kitchen but the bread box is too big for those. I’m contemplating moving the stuff from the top of my fridge and putting it there, or maybe on the microwave cart…I dunno. I might scrap putting it in the kitchen altogether and instead put it on my dresser and use it to hold something completely not food or kitchen related. I mean, there’s no rule saying I have to use it to hold bread, shrug. Whatever I use it for, I am excited to have it, so happy I decided to walk to do my errands today! 🙂

Tags: , , , , ,

Clementine by Sarah Jaffe

27 Aug

I am obsessed with this song lately, I listen to it pretty much every day. In fact, I am listening to it riiiiight now! lol 😛

I know it isn’t a new song or anything but I recently discovered it and thought I would share.

Enjoy! 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Try It Tuesday: Butternut Squash & Quinoa Pilaf

23 Aug

Oh Jamie Oliver,  how you tempt me!

It seems every time I go grocery shopping and am in the frozen aisle I see a Jamie Oliver product I want to try, dangerous not only to my eating plan but also to my budget lol Lucky for me I seem to spot his items when they are on sale, or maybe they are always on sale…nah, that can’t be it!

Once again I bought the item thinking it was a meal on its own and it turned out it is actually meant to be a side dish. I figured I’d try eating is as such which meant I had to cook an entire meal -the horrors!

Here is what I started with…

Sorry it isn’t in focus, I would have sworn it was when I took the picture and the box is in the recycling now so too late to try again, oops.

Like the box says, this is a butternut squash & quinoa pilaf with mixed rice, pumpkin seeds and cranberries. The box makes a point of saying how it is made with whole grains and contains no preservatives or artificial flavours, so ya know, if that matters to you, there ya go. 😉

When frozen it looks like this…

2016-08-17 20.17.42

Pretty decent huh? I chose to microwave it because (1) the box says I can do that and it’ll be fine and (2) my oven was busy cooking other things and coordinating multiple food items in the oven is not a strong skill of mine…something always ends up either burned or not fully cooked, ugh.

So yeah, this sucker got microwaved and turned out great! I paired it with some chicken from M&M Meat Shops and McCain’s Super Fries. Random? Yes. Tasty? Also yes. 🙂

2016-08-17 20.20.15

A portion is 1/3 of the package, or 125 grams. I weighed my portion out then portioned out the remainder of the package so it would be ready for when I wanted the leftovers and there is actually more in the package than three full servings. Not a big deal, just a large spoonful over but if you are really strict about portions you’ll end up having a bit left over. I may have eaten the random spoonful and pretended it didn’t count but ya know, that is me, you do you! If you follow Weight Watchers the Smart Points are 6 per serving.

It isn’t some flavour packed dish, not that I was expecting that, I mean c’mon, it is butternut squash, quinoa and rice…none of those are particularly flavourful items. Having said that, it tasted good. It isn’t covered in some sauce or trying to pretend it is anything other than what it is, which is a nice change for packaged, microwavable food lol. I did put a spoonful of salsa on the left over serving I had the next day at lunch and it took it from good to yum, but you have to keep in mind I love salsa so I’m biased. 😛

I’d put this on my buy again list, as long as it is on sale! 😉

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →