Tag Archives: food

Snack ‘n Go

30 Jan

I discovered in Safeway the other week these great little hummus snacks. Well, they are great if you like hummus…and crackers…and snacks…

Who doesn’t like snacks?!

There are two flavours, original and roasted garlic. I bought both and love both equally. I enjoy hummus, not as much as some people, but it is a yummy food choice that I have pretty much no guilt about so yay for that! Normally I buy a larger container of hummus and some carrots and go that boring old route but I seem to never finish the hummus, or the carrots, and it is such a waste. But these! These are perfect for me! I love things that are portioned out already, they make it so much easier for lazy people like me to pick the healthy option vs grabbing some cookies or just not eating lol

The crackers are crazy delish. To the point I purposefully finish the hummus quickly so I can eat one or two of the crackers by themselves. Yeah…I’m that person *rolls eyes* What can I say, carbs make life worth living. 😉

Sadly, as with any small convenient food option, they aren’t cheap. I only bought them because they were on sale for um, two for $4 or $5 I think it was…which doesn’t sound like a lot initially but when you realize they are only small snack items and regularly they are three something each well, is it really worth it? I dunno…You’d get more snack time out of the bag of carrots and larger container of hummus but these I did not waste, ate every bite of the 6 I ended up buying before the sale was over. So maybe, when you look at it like that, they are worth the money? I’ll leave that decision up to you and your wallet, but if your taste buds get to weigh in on the decision to buy them be prepared for the taste buds to say “yes! buy! buy! buy!” cause seriously, so tasty! 🙂

 

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Toby’s North Shore

12 Nov

Ok, first off I have to apologize at my lack of photograph, I am a bad foodie, sigh, and forgot to take a picture of my dinner. And fyi, I so should have because daaaamn that dinner was good! lol 😛

This past Monday a friend and I met up for dinner and we went to Toby’s, here is the restaurant’s website link:

http://tobysnorthshore.ca/

Now, if I had been a good little dieter I would have ordered a salad but I was cold, and hungry, and tired, and all of those things conspired to make it easier for me to justify splurging on my calories and ordering something based on my taste bud’s preference vs my desire to get a smaller ass preference.

Enter the Pulled Pork Sandwich, or as they call it the Pulled Pork Crunch.

This would be where a picture of it would go if I had one, *big epic sigh*

It is a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and onion rings on a hoagie.

So good. So so so good. As in amazingly good! As in go order this sandwich! Mmm! 😀

The side options are fries, salad or colcannon which if I remember correctly is mashed potato with kale in it. I figured I was already goin to town with the calories in the sandwich no point in pretending to be healthy by getting a side salad lol so I got the fries.

The fries are also delish! They are the type that have a batter of some sort on them that makes them super crunchy, man I love those. 🙂

The sandwich, the epic amazing sandwich, oh where to begin! It is huge, so I cut it in half and even eating just half leaves you full. There is a lot of pulled pork on the sandwich, as there should be, with a good ratio of meat to sauce. So, not too drippy but not dry either. Some sauce ended up on my plate but not enough I felt I was losing all the good stuff lol There is also coleslaw on the sandwich, it seemed to be more for texture as I didn’t really taste it. Again, the ratio of coleslaw to everything else was spot on. Then there were, I want to say three large onion rings but it might have been four, and those are what took the sandwich up a notch.

Who doesn’t like onion rings? Only crazy people! So adding them to an already delicious sandwich is brilliant!…in my oh so humble opinion that is lol 😉

After eating half the sandwich and a little under half the fries I stopped eating, engaging in the trick everyone trying to lose weight knows about where you eat slow (which I sorta didn’t do) and take time after finishing so your brain can realize your stomach is actually full. I really wanted to keep eating but instead engaged in conversation and what do you know, it worked! I was perfectly fine with getting the server to pack up the leftovers to go because half a huge sandwich and a little under half an order of fries really does fill a stomach.

However, some guilt kicked in on the drive home and I started thinking about how I probably really screwed up my calories for the Monday and taking the left overs home would mean I would eat them on Tuesday thereby screwing up my calories for two days in a row which, hmm, yeah, not cool. So I engaged in a little bit of good karma and gave my left overs to a homeless lady I saw on the way home. Don’t go freaking out to me about germs an stuff, I cut the sandwich so the half I gave her I hadn’t even touched let alone bit in to and the fries were unmolested also since I only touched the fries I ate.

Then, me being me I emailed the contact info from the website requesting the nutritional information buuuut I didn’t really think I’d get an answer. Or if they did answer it would be to tell me they don’t know, which sucks.

Happy surprise I got an answer the next day and he had the nutritional information! According to Chef Chris (he is the one who answered my email) the sandwich was 400 calories and the fries were 225 calories.

Not bad at all!

I was expecting the meal to be well over 1000 calories, and I’m not really sure how it wasn’t, but I also don’t care, I am just happy it was not nearly as high as I imagined lol

Plus, it gets even better when you remember I only ate half!

I sorta wished I hadn’t given my left overs away but I’m sure the lady I gave them to needed the food more than I do so I guess I’m actually still glad I gave them away. 🙂

tobys

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Nutella Brownies

7 Nov

If you don’t like Nutella (1) are you sick? and (2) this post probably won’t interest you all that much lol

I saw a recipe for Nutella Brownies and reeeeally wanted to try them. Luckily this was prior to Halloween and I had a Halloween party to go to which gave me the perfect excuse to do some baking! 🙂

The original recipe called for:

1 1/4 Cups Nutella

2 Eggs

1/2 Cup Flour

Combine all three in to a bowl, mix, pour the batter in to a pan and bake it in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Here is the video…

When I made the first batch I followed the recipe exactly but once it was all mixed together I didn’t like the consistency of the batter. I chose to trust in the recipe and poured it in to the pan anyways and yeah, no, that didn’t work. Even though I used a square brownie pan there was barely enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, not cool! So I measured out the remaining Nutella, added an egg to it and mixed in flour until I felt the batter looked right, then I added it to the pre-existing batter that was in the pan. I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees but since I had almost doubled the batter size it needed more time so I put it back in but kept a close eye on it, if I remember correctly it took about 25 minutes total.

The result looked like this…

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Granted, not the most photogenic brownies in existence but damn tasty! This batch was my “tester” batch, I took them to work because my work friends are basically my guinea pigs for my baking lol They don’t reeeeally seem to mind all that much lol 😛

The brownie is rich, gooey and basically delicious. 😀

I made a fresh batch the following day for the party, that time I used an entire jar of Nutella, three eggs and I put flour in until I liked the consistency of the batter. Which horrifies me a little bit because I always get on my mother’s case about using measurements when cooking / baking because I’ll ask her for a recipe and she’ll tell me “put such-n-such in until it looks right” and omg I don’t know how it will look when it looks right! Course, she got it worse, her mom-in-law was telling her a recipe for baking bread and not even kidding, part of her instructions went along the line of “when I use the red bowl I put flour in up to here…” ok sure, I am paraphrasing and may have the bowl colour wrong but you get the idea. Craziness. The world is full of craziness!

So yeah, the point to that tangent is I can’t give you an exact measurement for the flour, I think I used 1/2 Cup to 3/4 Cup of flour but I really don’t know. I just put some in a one Cup measure and poured it in the bowl, mixed, added a little more, mixed, added a little more, mixed, until I thought it looked right, shrug. Just think about what brownie batter should look like and add flour until you get to that.

The baking temp and time stayed the same, 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Stick a tester in the middle at the 25 minute mark and if it comes out mostly clean than you are good to go! …I say mostly clean because mine had a teeny bit of brownie stick to the tester but since the brownies were going to cool in the pan I knew the batter would keep baking for a bit even after being removed from the oven so I was ok with it being a little extra gooey in the middle when I took it out of the oven because by the time they had cooled enough to be cut they would have finished baking.

Oh the wonders of the kitchen! 😉

One thing that I didn’t like was that both batches had slightly over cooked edges. When I cut them for packaging I cut off the outside edges so nobody would get a non-gooey piece. Not wanting to offend the baking gods by wasting brownie I broke up the left over pieces, put them in a bowl, warmed them up, topped with vanilla ice cream and had the most decadent dinner. Oh my god so good! Oh so bad for me but oh so good for my taste buds and really, isn’t life about balance?

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Some Healthy Food…For A Change!

6 Nov

It seems that lately, when I write about food I am writing about baking I have done. Delicious but completely unhealthy baking. I don’t believe in baking “healthy”, ya know, where you swap out sugar for splenda or use apple sauce instead of, well, whatever it is people take out when they swap in apple sauce. Nuh-uh. If you’re gonna eat a cupcake, or cookie, or piece of cake or whatever than just go for it and eat the real thing! Just maybe not all day every day… 😛

Don’t fret, the post I am writing after this one is about some Nutella Brownies I made recently but for this post it is all about healthier options that I have made lately, and surprisingly, each one is tasty!

My first happy find was at Whole Foods, which makes me a bit ashamed because I am anti-Whole Foods buuuuut I was in the attached coffee shop with a friend last week, it was pouring rain, I was cold, wet, and super hungry and instead of splurging on a piece of pie or cookie I bought this…

Oatmeal!

Oatmeal!

Ok sure, it would make a better picture if the oatmeal was still in the jar but I had already eaten it lol It is a fake mason jar, it had oatmeal, coconut, pecans and some brown sugar all layered in a pretty way on top of each other. I think it is actually meant to be purchased and taken with you as-is but I had them add boiling water to it and ate it while sitting in the coffee shop with my friend. It was a bit bland, I had to add more brown sugar to it, but otherwise it was good. What I like most about it is the jar, which seems odd but hear me out! Race days always start super early, too early to be eating breakfast at home so usually I end up buying a brekkie sandwich on the way to the race grid and eating it while driving which lets be honest, may be tasty but isn’t a healthy way to be starting the day. Plus eating that fast leaves me feeling icky lol So I brought the jar home, washed it, and will tuck it away until I have a morning where I have to leave early and don’t have time to eat before I leave. I will fill it the night before with oats and whatever toppings I want, add boiling water in the morning, stir, pop the lid on, and bring it with me. By the time I get to wherever I’m going I’ll have a perfect jar of oatmeal! 🙂

My second healthy food is super simple, and I suppose a bit boring but I like it! I’ve been wanting a rice bowl lately, which is unfortunate because I don’t really eat rice anymore. I love rice but I lump it in the same category as potatoes and other “filler” items which means to me they are unnecessary and to be avoided. sigh. Just because something tastes good doesn’t mean it is worth the calories! I was at a Sushi restaurant that I frequent quite often (I looooove sushi!) and I, on a whim, bought a take-out serving of brown rice. Mmm, brown rice! White is tastier but if I’m gonna splurge on rice I figure make it the healthier option…which I just realized is in complete opposition to my feelings in regards to baked goods, weird…

To go with the brown rice I bought some “pulled chicken” which isn’t really a thing. Safeway sells rotisserie chickens and every now and then they strip the meat off of one and sell the meat in a container, it is already in bite sized pieces, the skin has been removed and oh man is it tasty! I really like those chickens but it is way too much meat for me so when I see the containers with the smaller amounts in them I pluck them up from the deli section super fast.

I also bought a sweet potato, cucumber and yellow pepper. I put half a cup of brown rice in a bowl with 38 grams of the chicken and popped it in the microwave for a minute. When it was hot I mixed in 1/2 tablespoon of bbq sauce then topped the rice and chicken with some cubed sweet potato, pepper and cucumber.

Brown rice, chicken, sweet potato, cucumber, yellow pepper and bbq sauce.

Brown rice, chicken, sweet potato, cucumber, yellow pepper and bbq sauce.

Ok so not the most appetizing looking dish but it did taste good, satisfied my yen for the rice bowl and wasn’t too bad calorie wise.

I copied the instructions from a video I found on YouTube for cooking the sweet potato and it worked great! Here is the video…

The third food is sort of a two parter. I was watching a different YouTube video and this girl made a banana smoothie. All she put in the blender were two sliced and frozen bananas and two “splashes” of milk. I hate when people don’t use measurements, sigh. The result was a frothy, creamy, tasty looking smoothie that she swore tasted good. I decided to give it a try but just did one banana and half a cup of milk. I didn’t want to commit to a larger smoothie drink in case I didn’t like it. Well, turns out I liked it, it was good. The size I made was perfect if you want to use the smoothie as a treat or dessert instead of a meal.

Now, on a whim I bought some Special K Protein Shakes (chocolate flavour). Don’t judge! I was in line at the grocery store, the line was massive and wasn’t moving and I was standing right beside a display for these things and they were on sale. Total impulse buy! I put them in the fridge and had yet to work up the courage to try one, I was kinda worried they would taste super gross and I’d be stuck with them anyways lol

2015-11-07 00.04.51

I decided to use the chocolate protein shake instead of milk and a sliced, frozen banana to make a shake this evening and figured the addition of frozen raspberries could only make it better, right? Right! The result turned out like this…

Chocolate protein shake, frozen banana and frozen raspberries. Mmm!

Chocolate protein shake, frozen banana and frozen raspberries. Mmm!

It is delish! I used about 3/4 cup of frozen raspberries, one small banana (sliced and frozen) and one container of the Special K Protein shake which is about 1 cup. One thing I didn’t anticipate is that the chocolate shake is thicker than milk so the resulting drink was super thick. I could have thinned it out by adding some milk I suppose but I opted to try it as-is. I ended up eating it with a spoon lol Next time I just might put it in a bowl, it was like ice cream after you stirred it all around in the bowl with a spoon and it is smooth and creamy. Definite dessert material! The shakes also come in vanilla and strawberry and there is no end to frozen fruit to try, I’m looking forward to experimenting and trying all sorts of new flavour combos. 🙂

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UK Treats

8 Oct

I was downtown Wednesday for a hair appointment, which I would post a picture of since I am enjoying the cut but it was pouring rain and even with my umbrella the hair do didn’t last until I got home, sigh. Trust me to pick the one day all week with rain to take transit! lol

Anyways! When I was downtown I passed this little Scottish/English Shop that is never open when I am in the area and lo and behold it was open! I didn’t really have any reason to go in, but I thought why not, it’ll be full of things I enjoy even if they are all overpriced and completely unnecessary.

Soooo yeah, overpriced? Yup! Did I end up buying? That’d be another yup! lol 😛

2015-10-07 18.37.34

In my defence I did not buy the Snowballs, the shop clerk gave them to me as a present for buying the other items. Which I would say was very nice of him but I figure he probably had too many in stock and was trying to get rid of them, why else would he give away free stuff? I maaaaay have eaten one, strictly out of curiosity of course and it was good, I enjoyed it, depending on the cost I would maybe buy them next time which now that I think of it may be why he gave them to me for free this time, to get me hooked! He is a Snowball pusher! *shock*

I have resisted the Yorkie chocolate bar but am super excited for when I do eat it lol I’m saving it as a treat, not sure what I will have to do to earn it but I’ll come up with something, I’m good at finding reasons to eat chocolate lol

I tried the Dandelion & Burdock drink this evening, I thought I liked it but I was wrong. Let’s just leave it at that shall we? Okay fine, I can’t leave it at that, it was soooooo sweet!

As for the candies they are a variety of flavours, I should have taken a picture of the display so I wouldn’t forget the flavours cause oops, I can’t remember them all lol The yellow and pink ones are rhubarb and lemon…that’s all I can remember and since I’m not going to power eat through the candies so I can tell you what all the flavours are we shall all have to remain in suspense. Cause ya know, I’m sure all of you reading this are just dyyyyying to know the flavours of the candies lol 😉

I went in hoping to find certain treats but sadly they didn’t have them, which reeeeeally, is probably for the best since none of the stuff I was hoping they’d have are healthy, or low calorie, or would remotely fit in to my eating plan but hey, a girl can dream, *big epic sigh*

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Let’s Celebrate!

8 Oct

I got some super exciting, happy dance worthy, wOOt! wOOt! news this evening and I just haaaad to celebrate! But what to do? It is a Thursday evening, no way was I going to be able to drag a friend out to do something, and really, I didn’t want to get out of my sweat pants lol Instead I baked! This would make three weeks in a row…oh the calories I am creating in my kitchen! lol 😛

None of the baking is for me, I ate one cookie to test them, one! I gotta say, it was tasty, Mmm!

I made Soft Pumpkin Cookies, they are supposed to have a glaze on them but I opted out of that because well, they are good without the glaze and why add calories when they aren’t needed?

2015-10-08 23.05.18

The recipe lied to me though, it said the batch of cookies would be 35, it made 21. Quite the difference! I made them the size the recipe said to so I’m not sure how the writer of the recipe got 35 cookies when I only got 21, shrug. It is a little annoying because I am taking them to work tomorrow and there won’t be enough for everybody which is unfortunate. It’ll have to be a first come first served type of thing I guess.

Oh, I also made another batch of Chocolate Chip Banana Bread but I’m not putting a picture of that up since it is the same as the batch I made last week so nothing new there. Well, I left the walnuts out this time because the group this batch is for has people in it with nut allergies and I don’t really want to be responsible for killing someone with my baking, talk about earning a lot of bad karma! 😉 teehee

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More Baking!

2 Oct

Someone who wanted to try a brownie last week but couldn’t (because they all got eaten lol) was joking with me about what I was going to bring to work this week. For some reason I said Banana Bread. Throughout the rest of my work week they periodically reminded me that I said I was bringing Banana Bread and I feel that if I don’t take it to work tomorrow I may be letting that person down.

Never let down a senior citizen, you don’t know how much more time you will have with them and you might not have a chance to make it up to them! And frankly, that goes with anybody, not just seniors, cause who knows what horrible thing might happen tomorrow?

Well this started heading towards a dark place rather quickly lol

Back to Banana Bread!

It is a standby for me, I can practically make it in my sleep, the only thing that ever stops me from making it is having some dead bananas in the freezer. Lucky for me I had enough dead bananas, and then some!, so banana bread became a thing in my kitchen today.

Mmm!

One batch makes two loaves and as always I added walnuts to one loaf. Personally I love walnuts in my banana bread but not everybody does so I leave one loaf without, cause ya know, I am accommodating like that lol 😉

My Banana Bread also has chocolate chips in it, always, no matter what! That is one thing I will not alter because frankly, chocolate makes everything better! 😛

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The loaf on the left is Banana Chocolate Chip Bread, the one on the right is Banana Chocolate Chip Bread with Walnuts. 🙂

The Classis - Banana Chocolate Chip

The Classic – Banana Chocolate Chip

Banana Chocolate Chip with Walnuts Bread

Banana Chocolate Chip with Walnuts Bread

So yeah, my apartment smelled delicious today lol I ate one slice for quality control purposes and I must say, it turned out quite well. I know people shouldn’t say things like that about their own baking but it did turn out well so what else am I supposed to say? Not like I am going to lie and say it ended up tasting gross lol

I gave a couple of slices to a friend this evening and the rest is packed away in tupperware containers waiting for me to take to work tomorrow.

My co-workers are gonna hate me lol two weeks in a row bringing in goodies, I’ll be the one blamed if they gain weight! lol

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Baking! Baking! Baking!

30 Sep

The only problem with being someone who likes to bake and doesn’t get to do it often is that when an occasion comes up that gives you an excuse to bake you maaaay go a tad overboard and want to bake every single recent baking recipe you have been hoarding.

In the span of three days I baked:

  • one batch of chocolate fudge cheesecake brownies…think chocolate brownies with a top layer of cheesecake, Mmm!
  • a three layer cake with the middle hollowed out and filled with M&M’s
  • a pull apart cake using cream cheese and chocolate

My entire apartment smelled delicious for daaaaaays! 🙂

Why was I all of a sudden baking?

My dragon boat team was having our season wrap party, it was a pot-luck and the only food group I can consistently make is dessert so I said I would take a dessert. Thing is, how do you pick just one recipe? And why should you pick just one? I mean, there are a lot of people on the team, you can’t share one cake with over 20 people and it wouldn’t be fair to not take enough for everybody so the only logical decision is to make two different desserts. However, I had three recipes I really wanted to try…

It seemed like some sort of overkill to take three desserts but lucky for me a friend was coming over Thursday so I made the cheesecake brownies Thursday, we each ate one, then I took the rest of them to work the next day. Then the other two desserts were made over the span of Friday and Saturday and well, sadly, I now have no reason to bake anything so my apartment no longer smells yummy. sigh.

Although I’m thinking of making banana bread tomorrow and that smells good! 🙂

chocolate fudge cheesecake brownies

chocolate fudge cheesecake brownies

Pull Apart Cake - each dough ball is filled with cream cheese and chocolate chips then coated in sugar and cinnamon. Then the dough balls are topped with walnuts and a brown sugar glaze.

Pull Apart Cake – each dough ball is filled with cream cheese and chocolate chips then coated in sugar and cinnamon. Then the dough balls are topped with walnuts and a brown sugar glaze.

Three layer cake decorated with M&M's and Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers

Three layer cake decorated with M&M’s and Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers

The inside of the three layer cake, it is filled with M&M's.

The inside of the three layer cake, it is filled with M&M’s.

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Vacation Talk!

9 Sep

I went on vacation for two weeks and recently got back. I had intended to blog while on vacation but yeah, that soooo didn’t end up happening lol It was a simple trip back to Alberta to visit my family and friends, you know, the ones I left behind when moving to BC. 😉

Instead of making multiple posts about the trip I’ll see if I can condense everything in to one post…or maybe two…

The cat came with me so instead of flying we had ourselves a 13 hour road trip through the lovely Canadian mountains then through the lovely Canadian prairies. Striker, the cat, spent the first 45 minutes of the drive loudly expressing his displeasure over his forced confinement in his carrier as well as being manhandled out to the suv. I took a book on cd (from the library) to listen to and he was so loud I had to turn the cd off because I couldn’t hear the narrator! He eventually stopped meowing at me and decided a better use of his time was to pout…for approx 12 hours…

This is what a pouting cat looks like.

This is what a pouting cat looks like.

When he wasn’t sitting on the floor under my legs he was sitting in his carrier with his face squashed against the mesh side ignoring me. Blatantly ignoring me.

I have two nephews and I like to take each one of them to hang out one-on-one.

My first day there I took the older nephew (he’s 14) horseback riding. He agreed to go but he wasn’t really feeling the whole riding horse thing, he’s such a trooper! 🙂

Giddy up!

Giddy up!

After the trail ride we went to a movie (Fantastic 4) and dinner (food court). I tried to get him to go to a real restaurant but there is a pasta place in the mall he loves and I’d rather he eat something he really wanted than drag him somewhere he doesn’t like.

I went to a place called Freshii and had an amazing rice bowl called Pangoa…

Pangoa from Freshii

Pangoa from Freshii

Imagine my surprise and horror when I got home and found the nutritional information online for this dish, it has 900 freakin calories!!! There is brown rice, grilled chicken, beans, various veggies and some bbq sauce but as you can see not a lot of any one ingredient so where all those calories came from I do not know. I do know that I won’t be ordering that ever again, even though it was tasty.

The next day I went for brunch with my mom, we went to Tutti Frutti and I had a lovely vegetarian omelette and one slice of Maple Crisp crunchy french toast. Yes you read that right, crunchy french toast! Mmm!

Crunchy French Toast

Crunchy French Toast

The omelette was a tad odd, IMO, because it was open not folded or rolled but it was tasty and really that is all that matters lol

Veggie omelette with potatoes on the side.

Veggie omelette with potatoes on the side.

My mom got the Casa Blanca which is French toast topped with fresh fruit & coated with delicious English cream only she got the cream on the side so she could decide how much of it she ate. Smart lady! 🙂

French toast with lots of fruit!

French toast with lots of fruit!

Later that day I guest paddled with a dragon boat team called The Raunchy Rodents. They practice on the river and have a freakishly short training season because winter is a long and cold season there, can’t really practice on the river when it is frozen! lol I had a great time, they are a fun bunch! 🙂 They had about half of their team at that practice due to a variety of circumstances which kinda made me feel better about taking a spot on the boat, I would have hated to be an extra body if all their team showed for practice.

The Raunchy Rodents - well, about half of them lol

The Raunchy Rodents – well, about half of them lol

A view from the middle of the river

A view from the middle of the river

Some of us went out after practice for a drink and a nibble, we went to a local pub called Duggan’s Boundary Irish Pub and had a fun time. 🙂 The brunch I had earlier with my mom powered me for the whole day, though I did cave and get some Potato Pancakes cause uh hello, how could I not? lol

Potato Pancakes with sour cream

Potato Pancakes with sour cream

The next day was a big day, I took my younger nephew (he is 7 and will proudly tell anyone who asks! lol) to Drumheller to go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. It is basically the mecca for anyone in to dinosaurs and this little guy is most definitely in his dinosaur phase! It’s a three hour drive there and we spent the entire time talking about dinosaurs and life and music and playing pretend, it was a highly entertaining drive lol

Little hand, big footprint.

Little hand, big footprint.

I was abandoned 20 minutes in to our arriving at the museum so he could participate in a Dino Dig, basically he got to go be a paleontologist for 90 minutes while I wandered around doing nothing of much interest because adults aren’t allowed on the expedition…well, minus the adults running the expedition that is lol He loved it! They went on a 2.5 km hike through the badlands, used real paleontology tools to excavate part of a fossil then learned how to cover it properly and transport it back to the museum. After the day was over he told me everyone should move to Drumheller because why would anyone want to live anywhere else? Oh, and we are all supposed to work at the museum…oh boy…lol

If you were thinking he fell asleep on the way home after a long and busy day you my friend are oh-so-wrong. We played pretend and chatted the entire three hour drive home, although I would have been ok with a bit of quiet time because I was tired lol

Let’s see, the next day I got to spend with my friend Nicole, we had plans but they fell through so I ended up going with her while she bought kitty supplies and then adopted two adorable kittens. Yay for kittens! She was going to get just one but the brother and sister were in a cage together and how can anyone be heartless enough to separate siblings?

Meet Solar and Lou.

Meet Solar and Lou.

If I remember correctly the girl is on the left, she is Solar, the boy is on the right and is named Lou. I don’t have a great picture of the two of them because they are super fast and oddly enough don’t much care for staying still…go figure lol We had so much fun playing games with them we basically spent hours playing games and just watching them be silly lol

Sunday (the day after the Day of Kittens!) there was a family brunch where I ate pretty much everything lol I don’t have any group pictures from that day, I do have a bunch of individual pictures but that’s too many to be putting on here. Later that day I went to hang with a friend, Jasmine, and her family which consists of a husband, three kids and a dog. Her brother came over as did her parents, all of which I have known for a loooong time. Her youngest is my Goddaughter and all three kids think of me as an Aunt. They are great, the whole lot of em. 🙂 That evening involved a decent amount of alcohol, lots of reminiscing and my camera being dropped in to a glass of water by the middle child.

sigh.

Yup, there went my camera. 😦 We fished it out immediately and put it in to a bag of rice to dry it out but the camera didn’t recover fully. It could take a picture but the flash was dead and the picture quality was not good after it went swimming. Sadness.

I spent Monday working in my parent’s basement sorting out all the stuff I have stored there lol My parents got the basement renovated and my mom wanted me to go through all my stuff and sort it in to things I am bringing back with me, things I am keeping stored in my parent’s basement and things I am getting rid of. I got rid of quite a bit, brought back a chunk and left the rest in rubbermaid containers on shelves out of my parents way. Aren’t I such a good daughter? 😉

Tuesday was a day of awesome, well, sort of. I went to Calgary to ride the Olympic bobsled track and ride the zip line they have. Calgary hosted the 1988 Olympics and now the Olympic Park is a tourist place as well as where current and future Olympians train, for only $99/month I too could have a gym membership there lol

Decked out and ready to bobsled!

Decked out and ready to bobsled!

Ready to zip lining!

Ready for zip lining!

I have gone zip lining many times but this type of harness was new to me. When I was hooked to the line it is like sitting in the most comfortable hammock ever lol It is supposed to be the fastest/longest zip line in North America (if I remember correctly) and there was a parachute I had to deploy to get me slowed down in time for the stop but it wasn’t so fast or long that it was scary, sigh. I think I am done zip lining since it no longer brings out any nervousness or fear. The bobsledding was interesting, there are 14 turns in that track and it was fun but not “oh my god I’m so scared and nervous and can’t wait for the adrenaline rush” type of fun, which was what I was hoping for, shrug.

On the way home from Calgary I stopped at Peters’ Drive In and ordered heaven, seriously, their food is sooooo good! If I lived in Calgary I’d be a thousand pounds because I would always be at Pete’s lol

The most amazing of all amazing burgers and mouth watering onion rings.

The most amazing of all amazing burgers and mouth watering onion rings.

The thing about Peter’s is that they have the best milkshakes you will ever find! You choose your flavour and can combine up to three flavours to make your own custom milkshake.

All the flavours available.

All the flavours available.

The rest of the trip was filled with dinner with friends, hanging with other friends, hanging with my parents, helping out with stuff around my parent’s place, basically just enjoying being there. Oh, and shopping! There was some super impressive shopping! I got boots, and flats, and a blazer (so grown up of me don’t ya think?), Christmas presents for various people, random things that I wanted to buy there because there is only 5% tax vs the ridiculously high tax where I live, stupid tax *grumble*

I had a great, fun filled, always doing something, type of trip and I’m really glad I went. 🙂

The drive back went much better, the cat decided I wasn’t subjecting him to some random form of torture and he spent most of the drive sitting on various objects so he had a better view out of the window. The only time he got vocal was when I had to swerve to avoid a deer and the cat did not appreciate that, I’m pretty sure he would have hated the experience of hitting the deer more though so I wasn’t too worried about his bruised feelings lol. 😛

This is what I woke up to my first morning at my parent's place.

This is what I woke up to my first morning at my parent’s place.

That adorable picture is the site I woke up to my first morning of vacation, there was a head board on the bed I slept in and the cat figured out he can watch me from above…scareeeeeeee! lol 😉

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Three Yoghurts and a Soup…and Pie

13 Aug

Sorta fell off the wagon with my writing on here, sorry!

So since my last post I have eaten three more of the American yoghurts and one soup.

I’ll just write about these in the order I ate them, ok? 🙂

Harvest Peach

Harvest Peach

The first of the three is Harvest Peach, it is one of the Weight Watchers yoghurts so it was 2 points and does not contain aspartame…not that I actually care about that, I mean c’mon, I drink so much diet coke half my blood is probably aspartame lol 😉

Anyways…it was good, not oh-my-god-amazing or anything but good. It tasted like peaches, which is the point of the flavour so points to them for that lol

I think the reason I am not raving about it is because it was my night time snack waaaay back on Monday after I had some totally delicious banana cream pie for dinner.

Yes you read that right lol I’m trying to feel guilty or ashamed by the fact that I had pie for dinner but I don’t, shrug. A friend at work made me a personal sized banana cream pie when she found out it is my favourite type of pie, how awesome is that!

Home made banana cream pie

Home made banana cream pie

I don’t know if you can tell the size of the pie from that picture, the blue dish it is resting on is a dinner plate, the medium sized one that comes in a set, so it wasn’t a full size pie at all. It was pretty much perfect for one person. 🙂

I’m pretty sure anything I ate after the pie would have gotten a review of “ok” cause how do you beat banana cream pie? The answer is you don’t! lol

The next yoghurt was…

Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie! Because apparently I was on a pie kick lol Actually I pick them randomly from the fridge so I never know what flavour I am getting next.

Not gonna lie, I had high hopes for this one since Boston Cream Pie is my favourite doughnut. I’ve never actually had a slice of Boston Cream Pie so the only thing I had to compare the yoghurt to was the doughnut and well, no, just no. The yoghurt tasted so fake, it wasn’t at all like the doughnut, just spoonful after spoonful of artificial taste. It is like when you buy a cheap advent calendar at Christmas and the chocolate is the super cheap gross kind and it doesn’t even taste like chocolate even an itty bitty bit, it just tastes like chemicals. This yoghurt was like that. Yuch.

I guess the only way it can redeem itself an itsy bitsy bit is that it is one of the Weight Watcher yoghurts so it is only 2 points.

Things got better though, don’t despair!

Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable Soup

Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable Soup

I had a soup, Mmm! I love soup!

This is a Progresso Light Zesty Southwestern Style Vegetable soup and so far it has been the best of all of them. It lived up to the “zesty” without being overwhelmingly spicy and the vegetables were cut in to these nice big chunks. It was pretty much awesome and if this soup was sold where I live I would buy it frequently. It is Weight Watcher endorsed and is 2 points a serving, there are 2 servings in a can.

Close Up!

Close Up!

Look at those vegetable! There are kidney beans in there too. 🙂

Then I had the happiness of having a yoghurt that was delish and not overshadowed by a home made pie lol

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie yoghurt, whoever made this was a smart smart person lol I’ve never had Key Lime Pie so I have no idea if this lives up to the actual thing but I really enjoyed it. I find the Yoplait yoghurts taste best when they are citrus flavours. This is a Weight Watchers yoghurt so it is 2 points and definitely worth it! I was sad when I was done this one because it is the only one of its kind in my fridge, sigh. Why oh why didn’t I buy two of them? sigh. Guess I know for next time! 😛

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