Eggs, eggs, and more eggs

After finding this I've gotten inspired to make some pasta carbonara and stracciatella for dinner tonight. After that I'm gonna make this, this, this (different version here), this, this, this and finally my mom's curried eggs, for which I will get the recipe soon.

Licorice and Sambuca

I was bored this evening so I decided to take some cute pictures of my cats. Nothing special lately, went to the doctor this morning, blood tests came back ok, if slightly higher-than-normal cholesterol, unsurprisingly lol. The renovations on the bathroom have stalled for the moment. Mat is coming over tomorrow evening, he's gonna stay Friday during the day and reinstall XP on my computer cause 7 has too many bugs still. Nothing planned so far this weekend, nothing much will be I expect cause I'll have only $15 left over after I pay my bus pass and rent. I think I'll go check out the online theoretical exam for my license.

Another weekend with the girls and renovations

My sister and her friend came to spend the weekend at my place again:



At around noon on Saturday we went for a walk down to the river while my laundry dried because it was so nice and sunny out. It was 28 degrees celcius on Saturday! Today too but it's gonna go back down to 16 tomorrow. Here's my sister and her friend:



My sister and I:



After that we went to Dad's Bagels and got lots of yummy indian food. Here's a picture of the back with the old brick oven:



Then we went to my friend Stephan's place to use the pool and sauna on the roof of his building, here's my sister and her friend in the pool:



Me on the roof:



Saturday evening I made a few frantic phone calls to the janitor to report that water had started running from my bathroom ceiling again:



On Sunday after I got back from church I had lunch and we left at around 2pm to slowly make our way to the bus stop. We stopped at the Eurodel on the way there to get some cold cuts for my mom. After I dropped them off at the bus stop, I went to Mat's place and arrived there at around 6:15pm, and we left at around 7:30 to go to my place. I took this picture while in the metro on the way to his place:



And this morning they came to start renovating my entire bathroom, finally! They started with the ceiling, they still have to figure out where the leak is coming from before they can put the new ceiling up:

Toast with poached egg, bacon, and brussel sprouts

I got the recipe for the sprouts here. They were ok, could definitely have been more tender though. I don't know if it's just cause they were done in the oven, or if I would have had to adjust the temperature or something, but they were a bit crunchy for my taste. And of course still tasting of brussel sprouts, although I'm sure they were better like this than just boiled. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had plain boiled brussel sprouts. Lucky me! Lol :P The toast on the other hand, was amaaaaaaaazing:





Here I am before dinner with Licorice:



Here's Sambuca looking all fluffy and blurry and eager for tidbits near my feet:



Here's a church in St-Norbert, Mat took this picture last Sat. when he was waiting to go pick up his daughter:



This evening after work I stopped at Mickey Dee's to satisfy a craving I'd had for a while now, and spent the rest of the evening at Mat's fiddling with my computer. He installed Windows 7 on it for me, yay! It's all shiny and pretty, although not as much as if my computer had better specs, it can't fully support Aero. And it's much faster and bug/problem free! I'm gonna have to install Paint Shop Pro again to see if the bugs with that are fixed now too. For now I'm using Phoenix (Aviary), which I've finally figured out how to use (although I still don't know how to close/delete a file after I've exported it to my computer! I just import another one on top, don't know if it's supposed to be that way or not... anyways, it works.)

I'm not going to work today because I've been up all night with a painful infection and I'm going to the doctor's first thing this morning to get antibiotics!! I just hope they actually work this time! Pray for me. If they don't work well then garlic and milk it is! Who says home remedies are old wives tales? :P I just hope I'll be in good enough shape to have my sister and her friend over for the weekend like we planned. I wanted to bring them to a restaurant and rent a movie and go to the TamTam on Sunday after church. Oh well, we'll see. If not it can always happen next weekend. I think I might actually attempt to lie down within the next half hour or so. Glory be to God! It's been a long night, the sun will be up soon. I'm glad I got my pictures up finally though. Ok I'm off.

Herring, Head Cheese and European Bacon

I finally got around to putting up the pics of the food I talked about here.

This is the delicious salted herring in oil that I bought at the Eurodel on Newman near my place:



I had it on toast with mayo, so yummy! At church they usually serve it on rye bread with mayo, some sliced egg and thinly sliced red onions:



Here are the head cheeses, which were very yummy. It was my first time trying it, there were two kinds at the store, both unlabelled, so I got one of each. One was darker and had a more meaty taste, and the lighter one tasted wonderfully of garlic and white pepper:









Here's the bacon they had there as well, it was unsmoked, but deliiiiicious!

Susan Boyled Potatoes

Lol I'm gonna make these soon!:D
Last night I stopped at Dagwoods, and then at one of my favourite grocery stores, Eurodel on Newman in Lasalle. They have all sorts of yummy meats, I bought a container of salted herring in oil, some cured unsmoked bacon, and 2 kinds of head cheese. I don't know whether it was beef or pork tongue in the head cheese, but they were both delicious. As was the Dagwoods and herring and bacon. The bacon came unsliced, I was worried that my inability to slice grocery-store thickness slices would affect the goodness of the bacon once cooked, but boy was I wrong! This bacon was amazing even with my crappy slicing! I put it on low heat to render the fat, and once it browned up a bit I put it on minimum to continue to render as much fat as possible without burning it. I was expecting it to be dry and chewy, but no, it was amazingly crisp and tender and just a bit chewy in a really good way. I now know what they mean when they say good bacon is like candy, the texture really did remind me of some kinds of candy I've eaten. It was really salty, but that was easily remedied by putting it on a slice of toast. I can't wait to make some for Mat tonight :D Mmmm... I'm already imagining a hot toast with a few slices of this bacon, some tomato, and a poached egg with a sprinkling of fat-free powdered chicken broth and white pepper on top...
I took pictures yesterday, but after I made dinner I got to cleaning up my mess of an apartment and ended up not having time to post them. Tonight they go up, along with pictures of tonights dinner :D
Today for breakfast I had a toasted head cheese sandwich, and for lunch some leftover Dagwoods.

Argh I can't wait for 5:58 to come! Mat's picking me up. Ooh and I have to stop at Maxi for some brussel sprouts to make this!

Vote for Bacon!!!

Make bacon #1!!!!!!!

Christ is Risen!!

Indeed he is risen!! I spent a tiring but beautiful weekend at my parents for Pascha, took a few pictures which are on my dad's camera. I'll ask my sister to send them to me soon. I got a lift there with Mat on Sat. morning since he was going to be in the area to visit his daughter. 3 hours of Liturgy Sat. morning, 4 hours of sleep Sat. afternoon, then another 3 hours of vigil Sat. evening, finished by a meal of cold cuts and other yummy stuff at 11:15pm. Went to bed at around 12:30am, was awake at 8am yesterday. The vespers was only at 2pm, so I had a nice lazy morning with a fried egg and some hot toasted buttered rye bread. I went to the parish hall at 1pm to start preparing, and my parents and sister showed up for the vespers at 2pm. The meal afterwards lasted till about 5:30, after which I got a lift back to Montreal with 2 of the priests and another member of the parish. Spent the evening at home with Mat.

More pics of Rambo&Co.

I can't get enough of this little doggie, he's so sweet! I went to my parents place again this weekend, and will be going back next weekend too for Pascha. My own camera is at Mat's dad's place till next weekend so I'm using my dad's for now. :D I had yesterday off since it was Good Friday, so I went over to Mat's place on Thursday night, I ate dinner, after we flopped on the couch for a while, me with a glass of white wine & 7-up. Then yesterday he had to work in the morning, so I stayed there and went on the internet a bit, made breakfast, gave Toby a bath and spent an hour or so drying him with a hair dryer lol. After that I got dressed, sewed up the edge on Mat's blanket and threw it in the laundry. He got back at around noon, then we made lunch and left for my place at around 2pm. At my place I started a load of laundry, and we napped for the rest of the afternoon till 6pm when he drove me to the bus terminus for me to catch the bus to Rawdon at 7:30. We arrived at 6:45 so we stopped at the mall to have dinner. Last night when I arrived in Rawdon my dad came to pick me up and we stopped at the grocery store on the way back, then got home and munched on various stuff, talked a bit, and went to bed at around 11pm. Today I watched the food channel, walked the dog, ate, watched more food channel, and went on the internet. I'm gonna give him a bath later maybe. Tomorrow Liturgy, then taking the early bus back to Montreal at 3:40pm, and will probably see Mat tomorrow night :)

On the dining room floor at my parents place:







I took him for a walk today, and managed to make him sit and stay (after several tries) long enough to take a nice picture of him outside:







My sister and Rambo:





A nice pic my sister took of herself the other day that I happened to find on the camera:



The shrimp salad I made last weekend at my parents, very yummy:

Thoughts on The Shack

In reading The Shack, on pg. 144 they talk about living in the present, not the past or the future. I feel like often I do that, in forgetting the past and refusing to worry about the future, but people around me won't let me, in particular with my personal life. But what do I know. Maybe I'm just disillusioned. Is it a good thing or not to be the type of person to say "everything's gonna be all right" when they might be going horribly wrong? And what is the definition of wrong? How DO you balance living in the present with a world that requires otherwise?

And HOW, someone tell me HOW, to tell the difference between rational fears and imagined fears!!

I think I'm calling Fr. Pau tonight.

Focaccia, dog, and birthday flowers

I went to my parents place up north for the weekend cause it's my mom's birthday today. I made the Paupered Chef's Focaccia earlier, was very easy and yummy, although next time I'll put the olives, garlic and herbs in the dough as well as on top. It was perfectly soft and chewy on the inside, and crusty and flavorful on the outside. I made mine with rosemary and thyme cause I didn't have any parsley:









Here's the hyacinth that a friend brought for my mom's birthday, they smelled amaaaazing:



Here's Rambo. I took some pictures without a flash, but they turned out blurry cause of the lack of light, so I'll take some more outside tomorrow. I took a nice long walk with him at dusk this evening:



Here's me and Rambo:



And my sister and Rambo:

Fried noodles, onion & mushroom, and zucchini

Fried Dinner:



Fried leftover instant curry-flavor noodles:



Red onion, crimini & portobello mushroom, fried with some olive oil, freshly pressed garlic, and teriyaki sauce (amaaaazing!)



Fried zucchini on low heat in olive oil with a bit of salt (also amaaaazing):



And for dessert fresh blackberries in sugar:



Here's the view of the city on the way to work in the morning:



And some pretty palm leaves that Mat bought me :D