Two books I really want to buy

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto"

I had heard of the first before but didn't know it was written by Michael Pollan, the same guy that wrote this amazing article, which is basically a short version of the book.

P.S.

I HATE my computer at work. It's really old, and I'm constantly fighting to do ANYTHING on the internet with it, EXCEPT for job-related stuff, that works fine of course so I can't complain to the IT dept. I've tried editing this post 3 times now!!!

Wow.

I just have to re-post this article (now that I've finally finished reading it, it's hard to read quickly between calls at work lol) because I love it.

I haven't written that much about how Orthodoxy affects my diet, most of the time I blog about what I eat, and how to make it, and that's about it. But this article confirms something I discovered when I became Orthodox, that fasting has forced me to eat better, when I don't eat meat or dairy, going vegan basically, I'm eating lots more fruits and vegetables. Even though my tastebuds might complain, I'm sure my body doesn't.

You know...

I've never heard meat being described as a side dish instead of a main. A darn good idea I think.

Cats and a kid

Licorice:



Me and Sambuca





Mat and his daughter with her birthday present:

Cheese and bacon casserole, and amazing brownies

So I made the "cheese strata" (I don't like that name so I re-named it) and it turned out amazing:







And here's some more brownies I made last week with some extra chocolate sauce on top. I invented the sauce by mixing half-and-half melted butter and chocolate chips, it was so yummy!:

Cheese Strata

Trying this tonight, with bacon of course.

Hey, maybe I should blog about my weekend, I haven't written anything in a few days.

So on Friday Mat called me and said that finally he had to come back to Montreal to pick up his brother on the south shore so he'd come pick me up at the same time and what did I want packed in my bag for the weekend. So he picked me up and we drove to his dad's place and... I don't remember what we did Friday night lol. Oh yeah, I remember sitting on the front porch watching Max and Mat spread dirt over the sand on the front yard to grow a lawn on later. I did laundry and got the new bedroom in the basement ready, vacuumed up what I could of the plaster dust and moved away some tools and paint buckets and inflated the mattress and made the bed.

Saturday morning we were up at 7am (ugh!) and we got up and I made crepes for breakfast and then me and Mat sat watching tv through the hammering and sawing coming from downstairs, and then left to go do some errands. When we got back we had a nap (so nice!), then Mat left to go pick up his daughter at around noon, and I cleaned up the house and me and his dad had some pizza while he was gone. After he got back we sat outside most of the afternoon watching his daughter run around on her scooter and having a few beers and the guys worked on the back yard.

















I did some more laundry and started the dishwasher too. At around 7pm I started fixing up the bbq/grill/campfire-oven-thingy and getting some coals nice and hot for dinner. So I made some chicken breasts and some tournedos, and Michel (Mat's dad) went to get some fries at the Belle Pro.





The chicken breasts (which I don't like to begin with) turned out dry and charred, despite my layering tons of bbq sauce on them, mainly because Mat kept putting new wood under them saying they needed direct flames to cook (the carefuly piled glowing coals weren't enough???), and the fact that I had a few beers and insisted on putting them UNDER the tin foil pie plate, instead of on top lol. Oh well they ate the chicken anyways and the tournedos were amazing med-rare with some spicy mesquite. I didn't have any toothpicks to hold the strips of fat on so I just spiced them up too and cooked them up on the side and ate them all to myself lol. Hey, I asked the others if they wanted them and they declined. Their loss. So all that took till about 10pm or so, and then I gave Mat's daughter her bath in Michel's giant claw-foot bath, and then she went downstairs to watch pinocchio with Mat and then I took one myself. It was so nice, I nearly fell asleep in the bath lol. I dragged myself out of the bath finally and put on my jammies and cleaned up the kitchen and then went to get some blankets and went to bed.

Then on Sunday we were up at 7:15 again (urgh) and drove Mat's daughter to her swimming class, then back to Montreal



through pelting rain to drop me off at church. I was 10 minutes late but so was the Liturgy so it was ok :P Then after church I went home and had a nap while Mat and Max played Master of Orion, then at around 4pm I went to the Shish Poulet with Scott. I found a piece of cardboard in my sandwich and got a free one, yay! :P And while the guy was wrapping up the second sandwich he told me "this time you'll find a 42" plasma screen tv, ok?" :P So I had a free sandwich for lunch today :D After that we went to the grocery store and picked up lots of Pepsi since it was on sale and Mat drinks nothing but that. When we got home Mat managed to accidentally throw an entire case of pepsi cans OVER HIS SHOULDER which resulted in a spectacular landing on it's end spraying pepsi like crazy all over the inside of the plastic wrapper lol. Mat swore, and we debated whether or not to leave it right there in the parking lot, it seemed like they were all busted open, every last one of them was crushed and bulging at the top, and covered in pepsi. Finally we brought it with us, and I washed them off and turned them upside down one by one to see how many were actually open, and it turns out there were only 4.





After that I don't remember what we did the rest of the evening, oh yeah, putting away clothes unpacking and tidying/cleaning.

angels' neighborhood II by =vaggelisf on deviantART

Generic asian veggie fry from scratch #3

I made this for dinner tonight:



half a large onion, sliced
2-3 cups frozen veggies (I used broccoli and cauliflower)
2 small cloves garlic, finely minced
1 cup water
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp white pepper

Put the oil in the pan with the onions on medium heat and fry, stirring occasionally till they start to soften. Add the frozen veggies, stir them in, put the lid on, and fry for another 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. While the veggies are frying mix everything else together and add to the veggies once the 5 minutes is up. Fry another 2-3 minutes, enough to thicken the sauce. This recipe might need adjusting, all my measurements are approximate. It turned out really yummy.

Here's a chicken sandwich I made the other day with some pork sung, it was ok but next time I'm gonna try mixing the chicken with the pork sung, mayo, and spicy mesquite and then putting it in the sandwich with lettuce.



Lol I made Cheesy Poofs and then some Double Cheese Dip to dip them in lolll:





Took these today on lunch hour beside my job:









Another kind of sweet pork bun I bought in Chinatown, this one the outside tastes buttery with the pork on the inside. I'd have a hard time deciding between this and that one:



Here's what I had for dinner the other day. I reminded myself that I like my rice plain, and that I like brown rice for it's chewyness. I hadn't had brown rice in a while, I remember my mom used to make rice pudding with half-and-half brown and white rice when I was a kid, and I used to love getting the chewy brown grains. I discovered that pork sung is an acceptable replacement for bacon bits in salad, especially with Wafu sauce. How can it not be? It's cotton candy made from pork! And some of my all-time favourite sausage, President's Choice Cheddar Smokies, it's bacon and cheddar in sausage form! The juice from the pan I bake them in (I only bake them, frying wastes the juice when it burns in the bottom of the pan, same thing with boiling, it's lost in the water) is kept and separated, the fat to cook with later and the broth itself is savored as pure essence of bacon and cheddar:



And here's some pretty pink clouds seen from my balcony yesterday:

Trotter Terrine

I can't wait to make this! I'm even wondering if I can bring the ingredients and make it at my father-in-law's place this weekend... no actually I'll most likely be at my parents place Sunday afternoon so I'll make it there instead. Actually no... in re-reading the recipe it seems impossible to do at my parents place in only one afternoon since it's a multi-stage recipe with overnight chilling and whatnot. So I'll have to wait till next week then, or the week after cause I won't be able to make it to Chinatown this weekend for the trotters if I go north. I don't know how late the stores are open in Chinatown during the week... I'd be tempted to go and check tonight... wait no I'm out of cash till Friday. Sigh. Next week it is then, hoping the stores will be open late. The weekend of the first I'm taking my extra vacation day off to go to my parents place for 3 days since it's the feast day of St-Seraphim (my mom's parish, where I was baptized and go to church when I visit my parents). Maybe I should wait and make it at my parents place then? My mother might refuse to let me use her kitchen again though, I'd have to get permission in advance (she gets stressed out easily). Either way I can't wait to make it, it sounds AMAZING!!!

Food trip to chinatown

Yesterday me and Mat went to have dinner at his mom's place, afterwards Dew met up with us there and we went to the percussion festival:







After that we watched the fireworks competition and then came back home. Luckily my church is a 10 minute walk away from Chinatown so I decided to go over there this afternoon to buy a bunch of Chinese goodies. Of course I HAD to get some sweet pork buns:



And other Chinese pastries, I got two more with pork, and some with custard filling:



Some beef-flavored sweet fried bean curd:



And some meat, both of which tasted pretty much the same:



They're prepared by steaming for 15 minutes:



And some drinks:



So far I've only tried this one, the grass jelly is yummy!:





And some dried pork sung, the stuff they put on the pork buns, it's sooo addictive!





Man I'm so stuffed! I don't think I'll have dinner till at least 9pm lol. I can't wait to try putting the dried pork on toast with mayo! And maybe some lettuce and tomato and salami too :D

Cheddar Smoky Dip Mod

Just made this, half and half cheddar smoky dip and grated sharp cheddar, with a good sprinkling of Spicy Mesquite, heated and stirred, it was delicious:

Playing for Change

My mom sent me this by email early this morning. For some reason I can't embed it, oh well. Please watch it, it's really amazing.

So the cat is gone finally, I called the animal patrol at 7:54 this morning and they just came to pick him up. Sambuca will be happy, once she stops hissing at Licorice lol.

Stray black cat # 4

The new guy:



Scott came back from the corner store and said that there was a black cat hanging around the front of our building, so I grabbed a handful of cat food and went to investigate and ended up bringing it in.

This is the 4th stray black cat I've picked up lol (#1 and #2 are Sambuca and Licorice, my permanent feline residents, #3 was this one, which I ultimately gave to the spca considering his health problems and my lack of funds to take care of them). We've confirmed he's a male, he's quite young, friendly, doesn't have a name yet, is skinny, dusty, seemingly in good health, and knows how to use a litter box. I'm currently debating whether or not to keep him or give him to the spca. He is currently in quarantine in the bathroom, and doesn't seem happy about it. I wish I could give in to his meowling and let him out but I don't want my cats to get fleas or diseases. I might bring him to the vet tomorrow to get him checked out if I think I'm keeping him.

Sambuca, as usual, was NOT happy about yet another intruder into her territory:









I just find her expression really comical :P