Tag Archives: food

Don’t Skimp On Your Mac & Cheese

12 Jan

A couple of weeks before Christmas I was in a dollar store and on a whim bought macaroni and cheese. Now, normally I am brand loyal when it comes to certain foods and one of those foods is mac & cheese. Strange thing to be loyal to? Perhaps. But hey, why stray from buying Kraft Dinner when you know it tastes so good? But there I was, at the dollar store, hungry, faced with mac & cheese that was going to cost practically nothing and so I decided why not? How bad can it be?

This is what I bought…

Dollar Store Mac & Cheese

Dollar Store Mac & Cheese

I didn’t eat it that night, just stuffed it in the back of a cupboard and forgot about it. Well, tonight I came across it and decided, meh, why not?

Lemme tell ya, there is a reason this mac & cheese is so cheap, it isn’t good. *rolls eyes* lol

KD has that bright, artificial orange colour when all mixed together, this was more a pale yellow which made me suspicious about the flavour of the final product.

Not quite the bright orange I was expecting.

Not quite the bright orange I was expecting.

My suspicions proved to be on the mark when I finally took a bite and realized I was going to be eating mac & cheese that has no cheese flavour and really just tasted like pasta, which is fairly boring. If I had some cheese I suppose I could have melted it and mixed it in but sadly I do not so I was stuck eating it as-is. Blah. πŸ˜›

So heed my warning, don’t be tempted by the cheap dollar store mac & cheese, it isn’t worth the saved money lol spend that whole extra fifty cents and get the brand that has actual flavour to it. Or I suppose you could be healthy and just not buy it at all…yeeeeah, that’s probably the better idea, ya know, if you wanna get picky about these things lol πŸ˜‰

Stouffer’s Saute Sensations

9 Jan

Last week I came across a sale item at Safeway that I decided to try, it is the Stouffer’s Saute Sensations. I chose the Grilled Chicken Teriyaki and oh man was it tasty!

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It was on sale for about $6 and each package gives you two servings, even I can do the math that tells me my meal cost $3 – pretty decent!

The package contains brown rice and a medley of tender vegetables…that is a direct quote from the bag lol

Per serving (so half the bag) is 260 calories, 5g fat, 42g carbs, 3g fibre and 16g protein. So yeah, high in carbs but ok everywhere else, in my opinion anyways. πŸ™‚

It tasted really good and one serving is plenty, I wasn’t left feeling hungry or deprived and it kept me filled up for hours, always nice when that happens. After I cooked it all I split it in half in the pan, put half on my plate and let the other half cool before putting it in a container to take to work the next day for my dinner. It heated up nicely in the microwave, the chicken didn’t dry out and the veggies weren’t overly droopy. Oh and the veggies kept their bright colour, which never happens when I make a stir-fry type dish from scratch…what’s with that?

It looked so good it impressed the people at work and one of the guys now thinks I am a good cook lol Since technically nobody asked me if I cooked it I wasn’t lying when I let it be implied I did in fact cook my meal and didn’t just pour it from a bag and heat it up lol

When I ate it at home I added half a diced avocado to the top, not because I thought the dish wouldn’t taste good on it’s own but because my avocado was at the stage of “eat me now or by tomorrow I will be brown and useless”, I don’t care to be threatened by avocados but whatcha gonna do? They always win!

a yummy and healthy dinner

a yummy and healthy dinner

I tried to push the avocado to the side so you could see the food from the bag unimpeded.

All in all I was really impressed with the meal. I don’t know what it’s regular price is so I can’t say if I would buy it all the time, but on sale it was definitely worth it! Something to keep an eye out for. πŸ™‚

My Christmas Season Jaunt

4 Jan

Every year I go home for Christmas. Depending on which way you lean home is either where the majority of your stuff is or it is where your family is…this means I have two homes. πŸ™‚

It was only a short trip because of not being able to get a lot of time off work, including my travel days I was gone five days, really though, more like 4 and a bit because I flew out after work in the evening and didn’t get to my parents until sometime after 11pm, that doesn’t count as a day, right?

While back home I celebrated my birthday on Dec 23rd, yay for birthdays! I went to the mall (one of my happy places) with my bestie NH. We did some shopping, mostly wandering, I highly enjoyed the teeny tiny 5% tax they have lol Then we got lunch where I decided to eat whatever I want cause it’s my birthday! Calories don’t count on your birthday, it’s practically a law! lol

I had a so-so burger, the fries were freakin delish tho! lol

Mmm fries!

Mmm fries!

I also decided a birthday dessert was in order πŸ˜›

Ecstasy!

Ecstasy!

It was described as a small chocolate cake with ice cream. Imagine my happy surprise when it turned out to be a lava cake! Holy crap was it good, a little bit of food heaven on a plate, Mmm! πŸ˜€

After hanging with NH I went back to my parents where I had some down time, attempted to digest my late lunch in time to make room for dinner, and then happily hung out with the family. Which, fyi, consists of my parents, my brother and sister, my sister’s kids and their dad. It was a loud (cause of the kids) jumbled (cause of the amount of people) evening and I loved it. πŸ™‚

Now, pictures were taken of me blowing out my birthday candles but I don’t have them yet so instead I will show you what the cake looked like the next day when I was having a piece for, hmm, breakfast? Mid morning snack? Lunch? One of those three! lol

Queen Victoria Sponge Cake

Queen Victoria Sponge Cake

I requested a Queen Victoria Sponge cake for my birthday cake. The layers go: sponge cake, jam, whipped cream, sponge cake, and is topped with a sprinkle of icing sugar. It is quite lovely. πŸ™‚ Mine had raspberry jam because that is my favourite type.

After the time out from Christmas stuff to celebrate my birthday we all get back in to Christmas mode. Christmas day was quieter than normal because my sister and nephews and their dad all spent Christmas day with his family. We have been spoiled and get them most years so it’s only fair they spent this one with his side.

With it being just my parents, my brother and I it was quite a different experience lol Everything was so calm and orderly, I kinda liked it, not that I don’t love when all the others are also with us though!

The rest of my time there was spent visiting with a friend and her family and chilling with my parents. πŸ™‚

It’s always sad when it comes time to leave even though I really enjoy where I live. It seems especially hard to say bye when the trip is so short, but is any trip ever long enough?

While I was there I ate horribly! I ate larger portions than normal, and wasn’t as picky about what foods I ate (proven by those food pics I posted lol) πŸ˜› I opted to not feel bad about my eating habits while there because most of what I was eating were foods that I wouldn’t have access to once back home. My mom made oatmeal squares which are by far one of my fave foods, and oh man did I eat a lot of those! lol I also ate all that food on my birthday, then Christmas day was another foodie day, plus the next day when I had prime rib and all sorts of side dishes at my friends place, plus wine, a very yummy wine that I hope to find here…basically it was 4 and a bit days of food lol

When I got home I immediately went back to my normal eating habits and actually had a couple days where I felt super full and gross and bloated, I think I was still digesting all the food from when I was away, or at least that is what it felt like, ugh. It was so unpleasant. I was really upset because I figured I’d put on a lot of weight and felt so heavy and was really mad at myself but after a couple days of eating light and exercising I woke up and felt fine. No more feeling fat (well, fatter than I normally feel lol), no more feeling bloated or gross or anything…I was so relieved!

To make things even better today was my weigh-in day and not only had I not gone up, I went down! Not by a lot, only 0.4 lbs, so barely anything at all, but I don’t care lol Over my birthday and Christmas and New Years, plus a friend’s get together that I went to last night I was certain I’d gone up so learning today that I hadn’t made this girl a happy camper! πŸ™‚

German Christmas Market

5 Dec

For the fourth year in a row I went to the German Christmas Market that is held in the downtown core. It runs for a month or so and can be a lot of fun. It is based on the large Christmas Markets that happen in Europe and is German themed. I’ve never been to one of the Christmas Markets in Europe so I couldn’t say for certain how this one compares, I’m pretty sure this one is way smaller but the gist of it is the same…I think?

There is a carousal for all ages that my friend and I meant to go on but forgot, we kind of purposefully forgot as it was pouring rain and we didn’t like the idea of sitting on a wet horse lol There is also a massive Christmas tree that every single person there tries to get a picture in front of, for real, every single person lol, we had to wait for people to clear out so we could get a picture without strangers in it lol

Me

Me

My friend

My friend

Close up!

Close up!

One of the main things about the market is the food, I’d say half or maybe a bit more than half of the booths are food. Most of them are German foods but there is one booth that is all maple flavoured foods, we are in Canada after all! lol πŸ˜‰

For dinner we each got a, hmm, a glorified hot dog I guess, mine was all beef, I think KL got the one that had beef and pork in it but I could be wrong about that. They are topped with sauerkraut and fried onions and if you want there is also ketchup and mustard.

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With your entrance ticket you get a free mug of either apple cider or mulled wine. I know from previous years I don’t like the mulled wine so apple cider it was! Lucky for me I like apple cider lol You get to keep the mug, which means I now have 4 of these mugs lol they are small so normally not a useful size, after all, if you are having a hot drink you want a normal sized mug right? I find them the perfect size if I am having juice though. πŸ™‚

We also got dessert, I got a hot apple strudel and KL got waffle on a stick, which now that I think of it is probably not a German thing since it is at every fair type thing I’ve been to for years now and one of the few booths not manned by an actual German person lol

Hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce on top

Hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce on top

Of the two desserts KL’s was the better option, her waffles on a stick were covered in a strawberry sauce and whipped Β cream and I thought it was way better than my strudel…kind of because the strudel was a bit bland and had raisins in it, ugh, raisins, blech.

There was also live entertainment, it ranged from good, to meh, to funny.

When we got there a group was performing whose name I didn’t catch, they performed a variety of songs, all Christmas themed. The lead singer had the cutest little hat on which you can’t see all that well in the picture because she kept standing directly under a light which made my camera unhappy lol

Can you see her hat? It's adorable!

Can you see her hat? It’s adorable!

There was also entertainment provided by some extremely well dressed drag queens who are way better at walking in heels than I ever will be, not even joking about that! There was a Simone Says game, and at least three separate musical performances, lemme see, there was a Celine Dion, a Taylor Swift and hmm, I’m not sure who the other person was supposed to be but she was entertaining! Basically it was a bunch of people having a great time. πŸ™‚ The Taylor Swift impersonator was wearing such a skimpy outfit I felt bad for her lol even with all her dancing she must have been freezing!

The weather was cold, not super cold but cold, shrug, it is December after all. It was raining the entire time so thank goodness for waterproof jackets and boots! lol I bent my head forward at one point to look down and had a whole bunch of water pour off the top of my head where apparently my hood had been collecting it *rolls eyes* The rain is totally manageable if you are dressed for it, which luckily both KL and I were. I’ve gone other years where I wasn’t dressed for the weather and while I had fun I was also freezing which drastically lowered my enjoyment level, this year I was prepared! πŸ™‚

This market has quickly become part of my Christmas season tradition, I really look forward to it and hope to continue going in the years to come. πŸ™‚

A Friendly Meal

5 Dec

One of my friends from work is an amazing cook, which is not surprising since she is one of the chefs lol I often ask her cooking advice and I know I provide her with a lot of amusement because of how dumb I am when it comes to food and cooking and well, anything kitchen related lol

The other day I was stopping by her place after aquafit class to pick up an empty tin can (it’s for a craft project but I don’t buy food in cans so I didn’t have one) and when I got there she invited me in to hang out. I think she worries I don’t eat enough, or eat enough “real” food (she seems to think a spoonful of peanut butter doesn’t count as a meal, weirdo! πŸ˜‰ lol ) because she kept offering me food. In the end I got fed dinner, which was nice cause I wouldn’t have eaten anything once I got home due to lack of food and money to buy food lol, she heated up some minestrone soup and made me some toast, isn’t she so nice? πŸ™‚

Then, on my way out she gives me a huge container with food in it, she made me dinner to take home so I’d have food over the next couple days! Crazy levels of nice or what?!

The food this morning before I warmed it up.

The food this morning before I warmed it up.

Doesn’t it look delish? It’s chicken with some sort of parmesan topping, steamed broccoli and rice with carrots and peas mixed in. I think there is something else mixed in to the rice but I’m not sure what…whatever it is, it’s tasty!

I was so worried about warming it up, do I microwave it or put it in the oven or go stove top? Too many options, ack! I felt sure whichever way I chose would be the wrong way and I’d somehow screw up the food lol

Eventually I decided to warm it up in a pan, seemed safest, and I remember my mom warming up leftovers in a pan on the stove and if that’s what she does than it must be right, right? Right!

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I put the chicken in first and then sliced it up to ensure it was warm all the way through, when it was close to being done I added in the rice and the broccoli since even I know those wouldn’t take as long as the chicken lol The parmesan topping ended up breaking in to smaller pieces so some of it got a tad burned but for the most part it was ok.

Heated up and on a plate, Mmm!

Heated up and on a plate, Mmm!

So there we have it, the final product! It was super tasty and I sent her a text thanking her for about the billionth time for the food lol I can’t wait to eat it again tomorrow! πŸ™‚

A Work Party

4 Dec

Last Friday was my work’s Christmas party. I have been with this company, at this location, since it opened but this is my first year attending the party. Why? Because the people at head office always choose to have the party on a Friday night and I work that shift. No matter what they do there will always be staff that can’t make the party, that is what happens when you have a company that is open 24/7 but it surprises me there isn’t more effort put in to making sure it’s not always the same people who don’t get to go to the party. This year I got to go only because the casual girl who we call on when we need a shift covered had her birthday plans change, she took pity on me and offered to work my shift because she knew I wanted to go to the party…she knew because I had already asked her to work for me but initially she said no because she thought she was going to be out of town for her bday (which was the day after the party).

So yeah, this year I got to party, yay! I didn’t know what to expect, the previous years my friends at work always downplayed how the party turned out so I wouldn’t feel so bad for missing it lol

This year it was held at the Pan Pacific Hotel which is a fancy hotel in the downtown core. The space was really nice, huuuge windows overlooking the water, a decent sized dance floor and a nice large space for all the tables and the food.

There was a photo booth with lots of funny hats and glasses an stuff to wear, they’ve had this each year, lemme tell ya, that photo booth was never empty lol I’m not exactly sure why it is such a popular thing, I mean yeah, it was fun, but the amount of times I was dragged in there when once or twice would’ve been fine…having said that I have four of the picture strips and they make me giggle everytime I look at them. πŸ˜›

goofy people! lol

goofy people! lol

The food was super yum, it was a massive buffet with a carving station at one end where an oh so lovely turkey was sliced up for our eating pleasure. πŸ™‚ Β I attempted to make healthy choices while choosing my food and I think I did fairly well. Some food choices (like the cheesy potatoes) were obviously not healthy but I don’t feel bad about those choices because the rest of the plate was covered in veggies, and salads, and protein…so a little bit of cheesy potato won’t kill me lol There was a separate loooong table covered in all the deserts, oh so many deserts! πŸ™‚

Here is how the food portion of my night went:

Get a plate of food from the buffet.

Eat about half my dinner when I get dragged to the photo booth for a picture.

Return to my table after an absence of less than 5 minutes to find my dinner is gone. Servers cleared away my plate. Sadness.

I decided that meant I should start on dessert so I go to the dessert buffet. I got a small slice of a fruity thing (I’m not really sure what it was…) and was reaching for something made of chocolate when someone got all “omg you have to come dance to this song!” so I take one bite of the dessert, put it at my spot on my table and make my way to the dance floor.

After one dance I return to my table to find my dessert gone, servers had cleared away my plate.

Arg!

One of my friends encouraged me to go get another dessert but I didn’t want to be that person who went to the dessert buffet twice. She went for me and got me an amazing slice of chocolate cake that was super rich and covered in fruit, there was kiwi, and strawberries and mandarin oranges on top. I got about two bites in to it when someone was all “you hafta come to the photo booth!”.

You would have thought by now I’d learned my lesson but nope lol

Off to the photo booth I went, took goofy pictures, returned to my table only to find an empty spot where my plate used to be, sigh.

By this time I decided to quit the food, it was obviously the Universes way of telling me to stop eating lol I went back to the dance floor and stayed for who knows how long, remembered that I still had half a glass of wine and decided to go finish it before that also got nabbed by the servers but alas, I was too late, the servers had taken my wine.

Of all the thefts I was most distraught about the wine lol A person’s alcohol should never be taken, that is just…inhumane! πŸ˜‰

Despite the over eager servers and the constant theft of my food, it was a great night. The group of people I work with are a fun group and we danced most of the night, luckily the DJ was good! lol

It started snowing around 9pm, it was so pretty, made the drive home a bit treacherous but meh, that’s winter for ya!

The pictures below are from a couple days after the party when I was walking to work in the morning, see how pretty? πŸ™‚

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Oh I forgot! I got tons of compliments on my hairdo, I did this updo that was a combination of a couple different things I saw in various YouTube tutorials and surprisingly it turned out well. I wish I had thought to get a picture of it…I started a braid on the left side of my head that wrapped around the back of my head to end in a side pony on the right side of my head. Then the hair in the pony tail was twisted, tied in a knot and pinned in place so it looked like a loose bun. I topped it off with a clip that had a flower on it with a faux diamond centre, it was put just above the bun. You’d think the clip was there for decorative purposes but it was actually to make sure the hair stayed in place lol I was paranoid the entire night about the bobby pins falling out and the bun coming undone but it held up the whole night, dancing an all! πŸ™‚

A Bonus To Being An Adult

20 Nov

We’ve all seen memes like this:

Colouring Fort

There are definitely days where I feel like that meme is sooooo true lol

However, there are some bonus points that come with being a grown independent adult and one of them is this:

When I buy a bag of mixed frozen veggies and there is one veggie in the mix that I don’t like, when I cook those veggies to go with my dinner, I can refuse to eat the veggies I don’t like and I don’t get in trouble for it! Ha! πŸ˜›

2014-11-19 19.17.15Take that all you six year olds! You may get to play way more than I do and have way less stress but I don’t get stuck sitting at the dining table for hours because I refused to eat a gross veg, nor was I denied desert! Boom! Score one point to adulthood! πŸ˜€ lol

 

Nutella & Go

8 Nov

Sometimes it’s the little things that make ya smile. πŸ™‚

I was grocery shopping after work this evening and came across these little gems…

Mmm!

Mmm!

Yes I bought four, try not to judge me too loudly k? πŸ˜›

I loooooove Nutella but I never buy it because hello? Having an entire jar of the stuff in my kitchen cupboard is one thing and one thing only…dangerous! But these, these are the perfect size! Just the right amount of Nutella to placate a chocolate craving but not so much you feel overly sugared. πŸ™‚

My excuse er, reason, for buying four of these little gems is because they were on sale. They are new, and new stuff always goes on sale, yay! I figured I might as well buy multiples of them now before they are priced at whatever their real price will be and I feel they cost too much lol It’ll be the whole Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwich fiasco all over again! Man, those suckers were on sale for the longest time then boom! put up to their full price and they instantly became something I wouldn’t buy cause of being too costly.

Yes, I know I am cheap, try not to judge me too loudly for that either, k? πŸ˜‰

Spider Protein

21 Oct

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.

spider

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. πŸ˜› …shudder and wonder if the meme that says we eat spiders in our sleep is right? πŸ˜‰

 

Best Foodie Website Ever!

4 Oct

Today was a Subway kind of day. Actually, I didn’t want food, all I wanted was the fountain diet coke but I figured that the pop alone didn’t qualify as lunch sooooo I got a sub also.

Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it...

Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it…all I have is a picture of the logo lol

I went with my standard option, a 6 inch turkey sub on 9-grain wheat bread, with white cheese, toasted, loaded with veggies and topped with mustard and light mayo. It may seem boring but I really like it – and not in a it’s-a-healthy-choice-so-I’ll-eat-it kind of like it but I legit like it. πŸ™‚ I Β love that you can have avocado, I thought it was supposed to be a limited time offer but it’s been around for ages and doesn’t seem to be getting phased out, maybe it’s so popular they realized they should keep it? shrug. I dunno, I’m just happy it’s a choice.

My sub is more veggie than meat lol I get spinach, avocado, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, black olives and banana peppers. Mmm! Don’t you love how many different colours veggies come in? My sub always look so purdy πŸ˜‰ lol

I still remember by heart how many Weight Watcher’s points my sub is but now I’m counting calories and those I do not have memorized. I checked out the Subway website this evening to find the calories and discovered they updated it quite a bit since I last took a look and holy cow, amazing website!!

You pull up a chart that has all their items listed, just like every other nutritional information chart you find on restaurant’s websites but! this one is different! You click on the item you ate and it takes you to a new page where it explains the nutritional information you are seeing is if your sub was on white or wheat bread and had no condiments. But c’mon, who doesn’t put some sort of condiment on there, right? So then you click on a button that says “Calculate Yours” and boom! you get this amazing page that has all the options listed, you can say exactly which vegetables you had, which cheese, which condiments and as you pick and choose what you had on your sub the nutritional information that is showing on the side of the page updates itself.

Seriously, best. nutritional. website. EVER!

Turns out my sub with all it’s modifications is 440 calories – good to know! )

As I was googling for a picture of the Subway logo I came across a Subway scandal! *shocked face* Turns out people have been measuring their subs and they are shorter than they are supposed to be, the footlong is coming in at 11″ which makes me wish I’d measured mine before eating it lol Next time! πŸ˜›

If you want to check out the Subway nutritional information page clickΒ here.