Depending on which internet meme you believe we all either eat 7 spiders a year while sleeping, or we don’t. I prefer to think that we don’t cause the idea of eating anything while I am asleep is disturbing, ick! lol
Last week I was cooking dinner and I decided to boil some pasta. I keep the pan and pot I use most often on top of the stove instead of putting them away in the cupboard, cause you know, I’m lazy like that – don’t worry, when I have guests coming over I put them away *rolls eyes*.
Anyways, I grabbed the pot off the burner it lives on and measured some dry pasta in to it, then I realized I was an idiot and needed to take the pasta out of the pot so I could put the water in and bring it to a boil before adding the pasta so I started taking the pasta out. When I lifted a couple of the noodle pieces out there was a fluff dangling off of one of the pieces. I was all, “huh, guess there was a piece of fluff or something in the pot” I brought the pasta closer to my face so I could see the fluff better while separating it from the pasta and it turned out it wasn’t a fluff it was spider webbing and dangling at the end of that suuuuuuper fine piece of webbing was the world’s smaaaaaallest spider. It was a little dot of a spider, practically not there.
Obviously it died a quick death.
The disturbing reality is, if I hadn’t put the pasta in the pot and then realized I had to take it out I would have added water to the pot, brought it to a boil, added pasta, cooked the pasta, drained the pasta then eaten the pasta. The spider would have been present for each of those steps and unless it went through the strainer when I drained the pasta, it would have ended up in my tummy. Ugh.
Granted, I would most likely have not even noticed it, it was such a teeeeeeny tiny spider, but knowing I might have eaten it makes me shudder. 😛 …shudder and wonder if the meme that says we eat spiders in our sleep is right? 😉
You might not think that ‘stupid’ can have a smell, let me assure you, it can.
I was cooking dinner this evening and two things happened. The first is this semi-yummy meal…
Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.
It is Catelli Healthy Harvest pasta, no name mixed veggies, 9 frozen pre-cooked shrimp all mixed up with Classico Alfredo & Sun dried Tomato pasta sauce. I rate it a semi-yummy because I prefer a higher sauce-to-pasta ratio so to me it was a bit bland. I cooked 85 grams (1 cup) of pasta because the box said that is a serving, ummm, yeah, way too much! Next time I will half the amount I cook and that should be plenty, bonus is that I can keep the same amount of sauce (1/4 cup) and that should be a much better sauce-to-pasta ratio for me. 🙂
But really, the meal is not the most important thing that occurred during the cooking of dinner. This also happened…
How lovely, melted plastic!
Something you should know about my kitchen, I have almost no counter space. I don’t mean I have a normal sized counter and it is covered with stuff, I mean to the left of the sink I have a space wide enough to have two cups side-by-side (so, tiny space!) and to the right of the sink I have just enough space to hold a dish drainer…is that what it’s called? I mean the thing you put your just washed dishes in to so they can air dry. And that is it. That is all my counter space.
This means a lot of food prep happens on top of the stove because there is nowhere else to do it.
Soooo, this evening I have water in a pot coming to a boil on one front element, on a back element I have a pan heating up to eventually cook the shrimp in and on the other front element I have my kitchen scale, which I am using to measure out my veggies. The veggies are kept frozen so I kept having to pause in the pouring of them in to the bowl that is on top of the scale so I can hit the bag against the edge of the sink in an effort to break them apart.
Then…the smell starts. It doesn’t smell good. I couldn’t figure out what it was, none of my food should smell like that, but I don’t have any candles burning, nor is anything else in the apartment creating a smell, so what the heck is it?
Even though I don’t like the smell I can’t figure out what it is so I keep doing what I am doing, figuring whatever is causing the smell will stop eventually, or make itself known.
I take a look at the pan on the back burner and realize it isn’t warming up, which makes me take a look at the stove knobs which made me realize holy shit I’d turned on the front element and was cooking my kitchen scale! Ack!
I immediately pulled the scale off the burner and strings of melted plastic spread from the bottom of the scale to the element, like melted cheese on a pizza, but smellier.
Sigh.
I put the scale upside down on the edge of the sink, I couldn’t think of any better place it should be put to cool down lol and stared at it in horror. Horror! This oh-so-awesome scale was a gift from my brother yeeeeears ago! I’ve been using this scale at least 7 years…holy crap I feel old now…but that’s besides the point! This scale is awesome, and I cooked it! Who does that?!?! 😦
Not gonna lie, I started to get upset not only because I was stupid and cooked the scale but because now I was going to have to try to find money to buy a new scale asap so I can keep on with weighing out my food, sigh. Then I remembered I have a back-up scale, yay! Couple years or so ago my mom got given a scale from a friend and she passed it on to me, it is a Weight Watchers scale that can calculate the points of a food while it is on the scale, cool huh? I didn’t use it because I wasn’t following Weight Watchers at the time and if I did need to weigh something, well, I already had a scale, shrug. Me being me though I kept the WW scale, in the box, in perfect condition, in a rubbermaid container where it would be safe.
Point to me for keeping the scale! 🙂
I pulled the WW scale out of storage after I finished dinner and was so close to being relieved when I realized it didn’t have a battery and it takes a 9V battery, not exactly something I just randomly have lying around. I know, I’m so weird right? 😉 lol
But fear not! When I went to put my dishes in the sink I tested the scale. It had cooled off so I flipped it over and tried turning it on and holy crap it works! Wowza! 😀 I cooked the scale so much I can see clear through to it’s innards but that sucker still works! Talk about quality made! lol
Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the melted plastic that has become one with the burner off the burner…and ideas?
I don’t invite people in to my place often, the main reasons are:
(1) my cat doesn’t like people
(2) I only own one living room chair so that means only one person will get to sit comfortably
(3) I don’t own a table so there is nowhere to sit and eat
(4) my place is super small, having two people in it makes it feel crowded
(5) I am a sucky host
Despite all these reasons I decided to invite a friend of mine over for dinner, a dinner that I would be making! I was happy with making the offer, even happier when she said yes but as the day of the dinner got closer I started to get a bit stressed. I was trying out two different recipes and I was freaking out about messing up and giving both of us food poisoning, or about the food tasting horrible and having to order emergency take out or about any other possible ways to screw it up that I hadn’t thought of yet lol.
I chose two random recipes from online, spoke to a chef friend of mine for some tips and explanations of things in the recipes that confused me, bought ingredients I would never normally buy and next thing I knew I was prepping food, in my kitchen, while listening to music, and kinda enjoying myself. Go figure.
I felt so domestic! 😛
The appetizer was Crusty Parmesan Herb Zucchini Bites. I rate them a 5 out of 5 for ease of making but I didn’t like them, my friend did though so I think it was just that I’m not a huge fan of rosemary but that’s in the recipe, a little less rosemary and I might like them better. Also, I kept them in the oven a bit too long so the cheese was browner than I cared for. shrug. Personal preferences, whatcha gonna do? 😛
washed, ends chopped off, halved, coated in oil
drizzled balsamic vinegar
mixture of parmesan cheese, rosemary and thyme
cheese and herbs sprinkled on top
I put the zucchini in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes, the last 5 minutes the broiler was on which was theoretically going to make the cheese a nice golden brown buuuuuut it turned out like this…
not quite how the picture with the recipe looked, sigh.
Like I said, I didn’t much care for them but if I try them again with different herbs I might. I normally love zucchini so despite this recipe not working out all that well I might try it again with different toppings, see how my tastebuds like it then. 🙂
The main course was a One Pan Pasta dish that I kept seeing floating around facebook. You put all the ingredients in the pot at the same time, add water, get it to a rolling boil, boil with occasional stirring for the length of time it takes to cook the pasta and boom! Pasta dish! It is really pretty looking at the beginning, at least I think so…what do you think?
See? Pretty!
There is whole wheat spaghetti pasta, washed and halved baby tomatoes, one thinly sliced red onion, salt, garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil. Not shown is the 4 1/2 cups of water you add. Once it is all cooked according to the recipe there will be a small amount of water at the bottom of the pot which you shouldn’t worry about because it will thicken up in to a sauce. Um…hmm…small amount of water?? I don’t think so! More like whole whack load of water! I was worried I’d somehow screwed up since there was way more water than there was supposed to be but I used tongs to serve it and it was ok, actually better than ok, it was really good. I especially liked the addition of the red pepper flakes, they made quite the difference – in a good way! I also give this dish a 5 out of 5 for ease of making, there is a bit of prep work needed which to me seemed like a lot of work but that is probably because I never cook, I think compared to most recipes the level of prep work needed wasn’t that big of a deal.
The recipe said it would make 4 servings but it made way more than that…course most people eat larger portions that I do so that probably has something to do with it lol It would be a good dish to make then portion out in to servings and freeze for future meals, well, I think it would be, do baby tomatoes freeze ok? *confused face*
The final result was this…
not as pretty looking lol topped with parmesan cheese, Mmm!
Since I don’t own a table I put two tv tables against each other, kinda ghetto but hey, it worked lol The final look was…
my “table”
My friend brought some fancy bread and she put together some balsamic vinegar and oil for dipping. The little mugs were filled with strawberry daiquiri , I don’t own glasses meant for alcoholic drinks either…I feel like I should start making a list of things I don’t have but apparently should lol.
All in all it was a good meal, with great company and I’m glad the evening happened. 🙂 Turns out my stress was about nothing cause even with the cheese getting too brown on the zucchini everything worked out alright…maybe I should invite people over more often…maybe lol 😛
My last three days have been busy, or at least they felt that way but when I look back on them I can’t figure out why they felt so busy…weird… 😛
Well ok, Tuesday wasn’t busy lol I slept in, chilled with the cat then went to dragon boat practice. After practice I made dinner, cooked a new fish dish which turned out well, when I say “well” I mean I didn’t give myself food poisoning lol It tasted fine, nothing great so I won’t be buying it again, shrug. It was healthy though, which was what I was aiming for so yay for getting that right! Although, someone out there will probably read what it was and say I am wrong *rolls eyes* Leave me with my delusions! lol
It was a coconut crusted piece of tilapia, there was seasoning in there too, not like it was just coconut but since it came pre-crusted/seasoned I couldn’t say for sure what those seasonings were…
tilapia coated with seasoning and coconut, yams and grilled peppers
I paired it with some red and yellow grilled peppers and some sliced yam, those were cooked in a pan on top of the stove with no butter/spray/oil used, I just put a small bit of water in the pan so the food didn’t stick. I was paranoid about cooking the fish, the instructions said cook for ten minutes per inch and a half of thickness, what?? That’s not cool, I want specific directions for my piece of fish, I want to be told exactly how many minutes for my fish, not have to figure it out myself cause dude, I’ll figure it out wrong! Least, that was the panicked thoughts going through my head lol Turns out it was cooked perfectly, go fig! 🙂
Wednesday I spent the afternoon with my lil sis at the mall. Normally I try to get us doing something active for at least part of our time together but her birthday was this week so I let her decide every thing we did Wednesday which meant we spent the entire time in the mall. Ah well, it’s her day! 🙂 We had fun, which was a given really lol I bought a new phone case for myself which I am in love with right now, every time I pick up my phone I laugh, teehee, and yes I know, I am easily amused. It is a someecards cover and looks like this…
cause I know you care what my phone case looks like lol
We had a pit stop at Tim Horton’s cause well, why wouldn’t we?? There is a new maple glazed doughnut out and all I can say to Timmy’s about that is bravo *slow clap* ya done goooooood! My other comment to them is where are all the winning cups?? It’s Roll Up The Rim game time and none of my cups have won so far! *pout*
medium steeped tea and a doughnut, classic!
In the evening I hung out with KL, we got dinner (Indian food, Mmm!), then saw the movie 12 Years A Slave and holy crap was it amazing! Brutal. But amazing. So no exercise for me at all on Wednesday, and lots of food, which is sorta reversed to how it is supposed to be but alas, Wednesday was two days ago so there’s nuthin I can do about it now! lol 😛
Sidenote:
Every time this commercial comes on tv I stop and watch. I love it, well, right up until it gets to the part about advertising for Centrum Science Multi-Vitamins cause I’m not on that whole vitamin bandwagon but I find the commercial inspiring (to a point). All those people, of various ages and backgrounds taking part in a wide variety of physical activities, leading healthy lifestyles, I dunno, something about it makes me want to do more. Try a new sport, or go back to one I used to do and stopped *cough*boxing*cough*
Thursday!
I had a relaxing morning, went to an audition early afternoon, then dragon boat practice at night then out for dinner later that night. Thursday was a good day. 🙂
The audition went great, I got amazing feedback from the casting director so wOOt! wOOt! I can’t tell anything about the project or specifics about the auditions cause I signed a non-disclosure agreement but if it turns in to anything rest assured I’ll be linking it to my blog so you can all pretend to watch it lol 😉
At practice we got informed that us girls have to train twice as hard as the guys and that we (this time I mean everyone, not just the girls) are supposed to be eating healthy (duh!) and we aren’t supposed to drink alcohol…um, what? Not like I drink a lot or anything but…none? At all? Hmm…this woman really doesn’t know us lol
Her strictness with things did help curb my appetite today though, which I suppose is good, any little bit helps right? I had dinner at work but only cause it was a fish steak with veggies, there were other things with it (mashed potatoes, spring rolls, apple pie etc) but I didn’t eat those. Didn’t even snag a cookie for dessert!
Oh and lastly! A friend of mine who is a trainer informed me that a respectable time to complete my BMO Run is 45 minutes…I’m going to die…my training is pretty much non-existent, which is not good, I’ve gotta start kicking my own ass in to gear when it comes to running, ugh. Whyyyyyy did I sign up for this? Stupid-wanting-a-new-challenge-feeling *rolls eyes* 😛
I never used to bother with flyers, if I lived somewhere where I got them I’d just toss em in the recycle box cause what’s the point? Going through a bunch of flyers from a bunch of different stores, trying to figure out what you are going to buy and which store you are going to buy it at…like I’m going to go to multiple stores to buy all the items I need? Nope, not likely. I’m all about convenience, if I’m in Safeway and they are selling avocados and I want avocados, I’m gonna buy them at Safeway instead of going to a different store that is selling them for a dollar cheaper. Cause no way I want to use my time store hopping.
where I find my flyers at
Welllllll, let’s just say that has changed. I don’t always check flyers before I go shopping but lately I have been and not only that I’ve been making lists of what I am buying, at which store, and how much it says it will be in the flyer (I tend to look for the sale price on the shelf, makes the specific item I am looking for easier to find).
I shock myself every time I do it lol 😛
This evening after work I went grocery shopping and I gotta say, I get a little kick knowing that I saved money on this item or that item cause I bought it cheaper at the second store I went to rather than buying it at the first store. Weird huh? Luckily, I work right across the street from a Safeway and I pass by a Superstore on my way home so it makes it easy to go to the two stores. If only I passed a Wal-Mart Supercentre on my way home, I’d be covered for everything! lol
On weeks I shop with knowledge of what’s in the flyers I have to write a list, I always feel grown up when I am shopping with a grocery list, and yet, I don’t cook meals like a grown up, or at least I don’t think I do…
My mom can open a cupboard, glance at whatever is inside and boom! create a healthy meal. Just like that. No planning, no digging up a recipe, no googling for how to cook something, she just knows how. And has the creativity to see what various ingredients can become without freaking out and calling someone for help. I don’t know how she does it. I know every food item that is in my kitchen because I buy a lot of the same things and if I buy something not on my normal list it is because I have a recipe I am going to try or because someone has convinced me I really can cook item X. Only very recently have I tried buying items I didn’t already have a plan for and what do you know, I either ask my friend whose a chef, call my mom in a mild panic or google.
I didn’t start checking flyers because of an article I read but after I read it it made sense. This article was about how the poor and the rich shop differently. They didn’t mean which store the two demographics frequented or brands of items they purchased. What they meant were the shopping habits.
People love a good deal no matter how much money they have. Everyone feels better about buying an item they need when it is on sale cause saving any amount of money is always nice. Unfortunately, not every item is on sale every time a person goes shopping and we’ve all been in the situation where something goes on sale that we bought a week or so prior so we don’t need it now but by the time we run out and need to purchase it again it may no longer be on sale. Sucks right?
Well according to this article, if let’s say the jumbo size package of toilet paper is on sale but the smaller size isn’t, someone with money who is shopping will be all “oh hey, the jumbo pack is on sale, I’ll buy it now even though I don’t need it cause it’s a good deal and I’ll need it eventually” a person with less disposable income will think something like this “sure the jumbo pack is on sale and will last longer but I’m tight on money so I’m buying the smaller package cause it is cheaper”.
Unfortunately, the smaller package will run out sooner, which means it will have to be replaced sooner and in the long run will end up costing the consumer more. It would have been the more financially sound move to buy the larger package that is on sale buuuuut if you only have $40 to do your shopping you don’t want to spend $10 on toilet paper when you still need to buy enough food to feed you and your family for the next week or two. Is this making sense?
That article got me thinking. There are a lot of times when I buy the smaller sized item for multiple reasons, (1) there is only me and buying jumbo or large sized packages of things often doesn’t make sense (2) I live in a super small apartment and don’t have a storage space so if I stock up on something I literally have nowhere to put it and (3) I often find myself trying to stretch my money to be able to afford rent, bills and food so while the larger package might be a better deal I just can’t afford the deal.
Flyers help me find the deals and capitalize on them. Go flyers! lol. I check out the flyers online after I have a rough idea of what I need to buy. I make a list for the first store of not only items I know I need/want but items I am close to running out of that have gone on sale or items that intrigue me and are cheap enough I might be able to afford trying them. Then I do the same for the second store. Then I cross check them and see if there are any items that are on sale at both stores and which has the better deal. This helps me plan my shopping in terms of what I get where, it also helps me see where I am saving money, helps me stock up on non-perishable items and helps me be a smarter shopper in the long run. I knew I was starting to get low on toilet paper so I kept an eye out and what do you know, both stores had the same type on sale this week. If it is on sale this week it won’t be on sale next week and if I wait until next week then I’ll have to buy it no matter what, whether it’s on sale or not. So sure, I used money from this pay cheque to buy something I don’t technically need right now, I got it for cheaper than if I had waited till I needed it sooooo in the end I saved money.
Does any of this make any sense? Or are you all just going “omg it took you this long to figure this out? the rest of the world has known this for freakin ever!”
This isn’t a completely new mindset for me, but it’s the first time I have had it so solidly figured out in my head and actually plan my shopping based on it. Make fun of me if you will, I am enjoying my little bit of new knowledge, it’s making me feel a tad more grown up…now if only I could figure out how to cook like my mom! 😉
I was talking stir fry with a friend of mine on Sunday while I was at work and sauces came up. She vocalized the crazy assumption she had made about my weekly stir fry dinners by saying something about my home made sauces. I looked at her like she was nuts and said “What? Made the sauce? Do you not realize who you’re talking too? I’m the girl who only figured out a month ago how to cook raw chicken. And who did a happy dance at figuring out how to hard boil an egg…remember??” To which she started laughing, made a “oh yeah!” face and then wondered where I get my sauces from. I told her all my sauces come from the same place, the Asian Food Aisle at the grocery store. She started laughing again. Apparently that is funny? *confused face*
Then she walks in to the fridge (I should point out she is a chef, we were in a professional kitchen so the fridge is massive, seriously, it could fit a bed), comes out with a container and says she is giving me some of what is inside. Turns out one of the other chefs had made a ginger and orange sauce that she figured would be good with stir fry.
Sauce…not from a jar…ok, I’m game! 🙂
It was quite tasty, though a tad strong, I blame that on my using too much of it lol.
So my stir fry last Sunday (I’m writing this on Tuesday, I’m such a slacker! 😛 ) was shrimp with a mixture of traditional stir fry veggies and mediterranean veggies with the ginger & orange sauce on top of brown rice. Mmm!
Using the home made sauce made me think I should look in to learning how to make my own sauces. I’ve been reading up on it a bit and apparently a good stir fry sauce is all about the spices used, that and an apparent magic touch lol I can’t afford to go buying a whole bunch of new ingredients right now but it’s something I’ll keep in mind for a future hobby…making sauces…can’t be any weirder of a hobby than whatever other people do, maybe lol 😉
There are a lot more words I don’t like but those ones in particular, being used in a convo with me, in regards to my hip, well lets just say those words are my current most hated words.
I had my doc appointment today to learn the results of my CT scan, the results aren’t exactly awesome. I’m not dying, so that’s good but I have to go for more blood work, rushed blood work, and I have a rushed referral to a specialist whose title I can’t recall right now and if my hip gets red, warm to the touch, more painful (or a bunch of other things) I am to immediately go to the ER and tell them I have fluid in my hip and two calcifications or bone chips (or something that reads like those) in the joint and well, presumably they will know what to do. Eesh. This is all becoming a tad overwhelming.
I appear to be a bit of an anomaly, apparently the fluid in my hip usually indicates an infection but I don’t have a fever nor have I had a fever recently so it seems unlikely I have an infection…I’m confusing the doc lol
It was explained to me that I have two, let’s call them calcifications, in my hip joint, they aren’t sure if I was born with them or if my hip underwent a trauma that caused them, but either way, I have them and they are causing the pain and that is causing the fluid in the joint and the infection that isn’t an infection. Oh, and I have a cyst but that appears to be unrelated, it just happened to show up on the CT scan. Lovely.
I’m wondering if I forgot anything but I don’t think I did…as if all that isn’t enough? *rolls eyes*
I’ve calmed down since I’ve been home, I’m not freaking out nearly as much as I was before. I’m in a tests-are-being-done, specialists-are-being-called, steps-are-being-taken so why worry frame of mind. It’ll get sorted and no point in freaking out about it. Right? Right!
So after the appointment I went grocery shopping, dropped a tonne of money (ugh, poor bank balance) but I stocked up on frozen foods that were on sale aaaaaaand I bought the ingredients for the Weight Watcher’s veggie soup (the recipe is above under the Recipes Page) and that is what I did when I got home. I made a huuuuge batch of veggie soup, most of which I will freeze in individually portioned out sizes but some I will keep in the fridge to eat this week. Not to be tooting my own horn but I make a pretty good veggie soup so I’m looking forward to eating it. 🙂 😛
how veggies become soup!
The finished product – veggie soup!
Tonight however I googled how to bake a potato in the oven (turns out it is really easy but takes a while), when it was cooked I split it open, put some marble cheese on it, waited for it to melt then topped the whole thing with maple flavoured baked beans, Mmm! It’s a comfort food dish I don’t eat often but I guess I’m a bit more thrown by what the doc said then I want to fully acknowledge and I ended up with comfort food for dinner. *rolls eyes* Oh well, not like it’s gonna kill me! 😛
Once again I didn’t make my Sunday stir fry on Sunday, but hey, I’m only one day late…again…oops! 😛
Sunday normally has me working the morning shift, 7am – 3pm but I swapped yesterday and worked 1pm – 9pm so that the girl who normally works the evening shift could be home in time for the superbowl. I prefer evenings so the swap worked well for me. 🙂 I had vaguely intended to make the stir fry for lunch on Sunday, or at least make it then take it to work to have for dinner while on my shift but this is me and that didn’t happen – too much pre-planning! lol
So instead I made my weekly stir fry Monday after work. 🙂
It is only week 3 and I was at a bit of a loss for what I wanted to put in it…a tad concerning since I am hoping to make a different stir fry every week but oh well, I’m sure I’ll keep managing to come up with variations for a little while longer *crosses fingers*
I opted for an all veg stir fry, protein schmotein right? 😉 I had the veggies in the pan and the water coming to a boil for the vermicelli noodles when I had inspiration, turkey bacon! Yup that’s right, I cooked two slices of turkey bacon, then cut it in to bite sized pieces and put that on top of the stir fry once it was in the bowl and ya know what? It was really good!
Turkey Bacon and Veg stir fry on vermicelli noodles
The noodles turned out better this time, yay! I let them stay in the boiling water longer and that seemed to help. Also, when I added them to the pan I pushed all the veggies to the side and didn’t try to mix the two, seemed to work. I used the sweet and sour sauce again, it is one of my faves, also, I’m not going to buy a new sauce every week or I’ll end up with a fridge full of condiments which is kinda crazy…well, crazy if it is all the same type of condiment lol I tried not to use too much sauce and ended up not using enough, sigh. I put some in with the veggies when I was cooking them and then poured some on the noodles when I put them in the pan but I didn’t taste it all that much. I’ll have to use more next time…or use a protein that actually absorbs the sauce flavour *rolls eyes*
All in all I am happy with the results, it was a little plain tasting but that is easily fixable by using the right amount of sauce lol I was pleasantly surprised by how well the bacon topped the vegg and noodles, I guess that saying about bacon making everything better might be right, as long as it is turkey bacon! 😛
I (quite unintentionally!) have not written in a couple days and it is driving me nuts! lol Not like some huge life altering thing happened in the last couple days just that I feel weird for having not written…go fig! 😛
So here’s a random mish-mash of thoughts that went through my head lately…
My mail for the day, wtf??
The above shows everything I got in the mail on Monday. W.T.F?!?! All ads for fast food, two are for pizza places, one for Quizno’s (and before you try to say Quizno’s sells subs and is healthy go look at the nutritional information, you might as well be eating at McDonald’s!). Why-oh-why don’t I ever see flyers with coupons in my mailbox for places that sell legit healthy food? Hmm? The ad industry is obviously trying to keep us all fat, *rolls eyes* lol I would go out of my way to use a coupon at a Pita Pit but I’ve never seen a flyer/coupon for them ever...
Which leads me to…Why are all the drive-thru food places only places that sell bad-for-me-food? When I was having all that hip pain I ended up going through a fast food drive thru because I (1) had limited food at home, what I had required being able to stand long enough to prep and cook it and I couldn’t do that (2) had been in the hospital for over five plus hours, was on my home and was really hungry and (3) wasn’t able to bare the pain of getting out of my suv, hobbling around a grocery store and then maneuvering back in to my suv to drive home. The only option for food that I had was various fast food joints that had drive-thru. Subway drive-thru? Nope. (and yes I know they count as fast food but at least you have healthy options there) Pita Pit drive-thru? Nope. Hell, a Booster Juice drive-thru? Definitely nope. Is it because if you are eating somewhere healthy you are supposed to be energetic enough to get out of your car to get your food? That seems discriminatory against people with mobility issues…just sayin…:P
Early Valentine’s Day Gift
A friend of mine gave me the above slow cooker as an early Valentine’s gift and I am super stoked to use it! I got it Sunday and have yet to take it out of the box cause well, to be honest I haven’t been cooking much on these days off and it seems slow cookers take a bit of fore-thought. Not like pulling out a frying pan, tossing some stuff in it and boom! food! Nooooo, the slow cooker needs me to know in advance what I want to put in it and then use it. I don’t know that I am capable of that! lol 😉 I really wanted to use it before I go to work Friday afternoon cause I’ll be seeing the friend that gave it to me and I wanted a story of the epic meal I made in it but uh, I don’t think that’s really gonna happen…shoot…I should really go google slow cooker recipes, there might still be time?
My agent sent out some sides (that means copy of a script), I am to work on a couple scenes for a specific character, really nail it, then go film it at the office (he has studio space), it is to send to casting agents so they can see what I can do using a more recent script. I’m really psyched about it cause (1) it gives me something to work on not just that I came up with but that has a purpose and (2) shows my agent is planning/plotting/thinking which I loooooove!
My little sister and I met with the trainer again yesterday, makes for two Wednesdays in a row. 🙂 We had physical assessment tests done, he is going to email us our results but I haven’t gotten an email yet. I don’t know that I want to know the results lol I mean, I know how many push-ups I was able to do, and how long I lasted in the cardio-endurance test, I know I scored perfect on balance (which if you know me is funny cause I am always off balance lol) and I know how I did on some of the other things but I don’t think I want to know my body fat %, or my weight, or just how low I scored on my core strength (suuuuper low I am sure!). I just want all that to stay unknown to me and then when I get retested in a couple months or so I want to be told I improved…but specific numbers? That knowledge will just be depressing I think…We had homework for the past week, the food journal, I handed it in but don’t know what he has made of it yet, eek! This week my homework is to keep track of what physical fitness stuff I do and tell him next Wednesday, I feel he’ll be disappointed if I say I did nothing so I’m gonna hafta make sure I get off my ass and do something…
Speaking of getting off ones ass, I had wanted to go running today and had the perfect route! I had to go to work this afternoon for a meeting and thought I’d park at a grocery store then run to work, attend the meeting, and run back to my suv, perfect right?! 🙂 It would have been about 8km total (that’s 5 miles I believe) but it was crap ass weather, pouring rain, and while I was ok with attending the meeting being sweaty I wasn’t ok with attending it looking like a drowned rat. 😦 So that didn’t happen. I am just not a do-stuff-in-the-rain kind of person…unless it is dragon boating but hey, that’s a water sport, I’m gonna get wet anyways lol
I managed to steam a spaghetti squash tonight for the first time ever! Soooo happy it worked! I had to call my mom for some help and she very nicely ensured I didn’t screw it up lol I paired the squash with some feta cheese and a red pepper antipasto, it was ok. I also had a cheese and broccoli stuffed chicken breast which was super yum. 🙂 I took a picture but it doesn’t look good at all so I’ll leave you to your imagination on this one lol. 😛
Alrighty, so it’s not that I didn’t want to make a stir fry last night for dinner, I like the idea of Stir Fry Sunday buuuuuut after work I had a long phone convo, when that was over I wasn’t hungry so thought I’d wait twenty minutes or so before making dinner and I uh, hmm, kinda…well…I fell asleep…oops? 😛 By the time I woke up from my unplanned nap I was in no mood to cook, or eat. I eventually had toast and some warm almond milk with nutmeg and even that seemed like a lot!
Soooooo, I made stir fry tonight, yay! A delayed-by-one-day Stir Fry Sunday! 🙂
This weeks stir fry had the same frozen stir fry veggies as last week (why wouldn’t they? the package is already open and I gotta use em up lol), extra water chestnuts cause I have a weakness for them, mushrooms, fresh red and yellow peppers thinly sliced, beefless tips, shrimp, peanuts and a sweet and sour sauce. This was all served on top of vermicelli noodles. Mmm! Well, I think it was Mmm! lol You may not, shrug, but that’s cool, we all have different tastes after all.
I was a little let down by the vermicelli noodles, the package said put in boiling water for a couple minutes then add to the stir fy pan so that is what I did. The noodles tasted good but were so entangled with each other when I put them in the pan they didn’t really mix well with the rest of the ingredients, nor did they move around the pan easily. I’ll keep using them, mostly because I love that particular type of noodle, but next time I might not put them in the pan after boiling them, I might put them directly on the plate then top them with the vegg mix. I’ll keep trying new things till I figure it out. 🙂
I was happy with the veggies, how could I not be? lol There was a nice combo and I love veggies so it was a win-win.
I am oh-so proud of the shrimp! As in ridiculously proud! I was back to worrying I’d screw it up, give myself food poisoning or maybe over cooking them to the point of them not being edible buuuuut I did neither! How awesome is that?? I put the amount I wanted in to a ziploc bag and had them sit under running cold water for 7 minutes (as the package instructed), then tossed them in to the pan when the veggies were at an almost done stage and go fig, it worked…weird…but sweeeeeet!
The beefless tips, you’re probably thinking that is a typo lol but nope, it is not! They are made by a company called Gardein (www.gardein.com). The product looks like cubes of beef that you sautee, they have a texture of tender beef and almost taste like beef, kinda…I tried them on a whim years ago (I wanted beef but was scared to cook it and poison myself lol) so I tried these, figured I couldn’t mess up a fake meat product and so far I haven’t. Each time I cook them they turn out perfect even though each time I cook them for a different amount of time and have cooked them in varying ways. Versatile, I like that in a fake meat lol. I randomly tossed some in to the pan (as a back up in case I messed up the shrimp) but ended up with the bonus of having two protein sources in my stir fry cause both the shrimp and fake beef were great.
Stir Fry Numero 2
On a whim, and after I snapped the above pic, I decided to put half an avocado on top. Why did I do this? Cause I had half an avocado in my fridge and didn’t think it would last another day lol. I figured it’d either taste good or I wouldn’t like the combo of flavours so I’d eat the avocado pieces first and as alone as I could get them on the fork and it wouldn’t contaminate the rest of the stir fry. Turns out I liked the flavour combo, avocado makes everything better! 🙂
I’d like to think that even with the one day delay my second Stir Fry Sunday was a success…it must be, I ate until I was stuffed lol 😛
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 