Lana B's Christmas Dinner

For those who don't know, Lana B is my mom. High marks for tastiness - good stuffing, yummy potatoes, some home-made rolls and my favorite - beet pickles made with beets from the garden.

The Keg

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Ian and I went out to the Keg in South Edmonton Common with some of his friends last night. We arrived post dinner so I had the tempura asparagus and snow peas and Ian had calmari. My stuff was pretty tasty, but Ian claimed the calmari was not really cooked. Mark didn't seem to mind and helped Ian finish it off.

Then a brownie sundae at the end...tasty but not much brownie at all.

Yeah, kinda neutral on the keg. Would probably be better if I were more into the meat.

Tony Roma's

My group had a Christmas Lunch on Wednesday at Tony Roma's. It started off poorly with a lost reservation for 25, but fortunately we got there somewhat early and they accomodated us. I had the honey bbq salmon with mashed potatoes and cole slaw. Fish was extremely overcooked, but aside from that, meal was ok. Not a great deal for about $16-$20 per entree.

The Best Kind of Food

I've almost fully recovered from the incidence of last weekend so I've been back to my usual habits for the most part. The week started off slow because sadly due to the weekend activity I decided to skip the union social on Tuesday. It was at Hart House instead of the Duke of York as it has been in past years and apparently the food was pretty good with some excellent lamb. Missing a free food event destroys a little part of me.

Fortunately I made up for it on Wednesday with free pizza and sushi care of marking. Unfortunately the sushi came from Sushi Time not Sushi on Bloor due to time constraints so we ended up paying more for less and worse sushi. Lesson learned ensure they order the sushi ahead of time. I called in the order and in retrospect I should have offered a little bit extra money to Sushi on Bloor for them to squeeze our order in. Maybe it wouldn't have worked but I should have tried. The pizza pizza was about the same as always. We got everyone's favorite meat lovers plus chicken. Of course it was the first to go.

Thursday was free food event #3. It was the grad school christmas party. I ordered twenty pizzas and that proved to be more than sufficent. I didn't ask anyone for the favorites and instead just mixed it up with a bunch of things. Meat lovers + chicken was of course a hit but so was char broiled burger pizza. I don't think anyone had that before and it was pretty good. Just like a burger. Leftovers provided for free food event #4 on Friday lunch. After 2 days of all you can eat pizza, I was up for something else but some people felt we shouldn't ignore the pizza. Friday I ate some of the potatoe chips too and those seem to have left me with a multi-day stomach ache. No more pizza or chips for a while.

Food related illness- Victim #2

Ian and I (well mostly Ian) switched to soy milk about 6 months ago. I haven't really drank milk for about 6? years or so.

Anyway, Ian was getting tired of soy and decided to switch back to cow milk. So I bought a jug last week at the grocery store. It made Ian a bit queasy, so he switched back to the soy right away. To use up the milk, I made a big thing of scalloped potatoes that I have been eating for the last couple days. Now I am sick with a stomach illness :( Perhaps the milk was bad??? Who knows???

Ian-Salmonella Survivor

Last night Ian cooked some chicken for dinner. He used the foolproof method - 5 minutes on defrost in micro-wave & 20 minutes @ 365 C in oven. He realized halfway into his chicken that it was rather raw in the middle. We know that our oven is messed up, but it now seems seriously un-reliable. Ian seemed ok, but then woke me up about 3 AM and was not doing well. About an hour later, we went to the hospital and left about 6 hours later. Ian is doing ok now, but seems like he'll need another couple of days of lounging around the house :(

Anywho, moral of this story is, if anyone wants to buy us a meat thermometer for christmas, we are in the market!

Christmas Party at Big Guy's House

Our global managing director of our group happens to work in the Mississauga office and invites the whole crowd over for a party.

This year they had the usual drinks along with some people walking around with appetizers. A surprisingly amount of veggie appetizer items, although Ian did triple up on shrimp when the guy came around! Also some lamb in pastry thingy, kind of odd but Ian seemed to like it.

Then to the "hot buffet" as people liked to call it. Some stuffed tomato and potato items with salad, carrots, salmon, stuffed beef and some chicken. I had the veggies and salmon. All pretty tasty. Ian seemed to like all the meaty stuff. Unfortunate, but the servers dished up all the stuff. Probably good in my case so I did not over-eat, but big-eating Ian did not end up getting enough to eat and didn't want to cause a spectacle by going for a second plate.

Dessert selection was some squares and cookies.

Big Fat Burritos

A few weeks back, I went to Big Fat Burritos in Kennsington Market. I've been suffering from burrito withdrawal for the last few months and I needed a fix. It was surprisingly good although it certainly doesn't compare to my Una Mas favorites or the standard hardy tacqueria style ones that I became used down in California. In my opinion it was way better than Burrito Boyz although I've heard people claim they're identical. Now this ranking may be skewed because burrito boyz charges for the guacamole while the BFB does not. In the crimes against Toronto cheap eaters, charging for guacamole is almost a capital crime (pun only partially intended).

A new twist on a old favorite

I hope that I've piqued everyone's interest with the captivating title. Ha ha, I don't really have anything that exciting!

Actually for those Atkin's type people out there who enjoy the classic apple/peach/raspberry/rhubarb crisp, try adding some raisin's the plain old boring apple. Direct quote from Ian, "What a fun twist on things." I can't lie to my faithful readers, I actually made that up, but later he did actually agree that the raisins were tasty.


Just a note that I thought of later - I'm talking about the Atkin's family, not the diet.

Ethiopian House

Today we braved the chiliness and went to Ethiopian House on Yonge by Bloor St. We ocassionally go for dinner, but always end up spending $40 or so. We ordered 1 veggie combo and 1 meaty combo and with tax, tip and an Ian ice cream on the way home were only at $20 for a similar amount of food as the dinner! Not bad value.

As usual, the food was pretty tasty and the bread was fun. Some lentils, veggie and beefy item for Ian. Who likes cutlery...not me!

Ohio Road Trip

I went to Cleveland/Mansfield with a co-worker for a visit to a steel plant. For lunch the one day we went for some tasty mexican. I had the veggie combo c, with a bean/cheese burrito, a quesidalla and this quacamole salady thing. All for the low, low price of $6.25. High marks for tastiness too.

The one night we were there, we ended up at a bar/restaurant and had pints that were only $2.50 each! It was crazy. They are like $8 at best in TO!

Yummy home cooked stuff

The plan was that Ian and I were going to make a nice meal as entertainment. Ian didn't end up doing much of the cooking and instead assembled furniture!


Our new footrest-ottoman type thingy for only $59 from Ikea. Sooo much better than a kitchen chair as a footrest. We were going to buy a $400 item from EQ3, glad we stopped by ikea first.




Our new lamp. The previous one sorta melted. Hard to explain, but it's true.







Anyway, all recipes came from the William's Sonoma Bride and Groom cookbook that Ian's cousins gave us for, you guessed it, the wedding last year! This book is pretty decent for "fancy" type meals and is definately a step up from everyone's favorite moosewood series.


To start I made some potato & leak soup. For the main course, I made some squash risotto, Ian made the salmon with lentils. No, I did not eat the salmon, just risotto and lentil for me. Then some moosewood fudge brownies and chapmans fro yo (as Ian calls it) to top it all off.

We drank a bottle of Rockway Glen Estates Riesling that someone left behind after my make your own sushi party. Check out the website, this winemaker looks disturbingly young, is he old enough to be of legal drinking age?

Friendly Greek

After years of harassing Ian to go to the Danforth Area for some greek food, he finally gave in and agreed to go. It may have been partly due to me offering to pick him up? Who knows. We went to the Friendly Greek as recommended by Ian's cheap eats book.


I had the veggie souvlaki with rice, potato and salad. About the only thing that was remotely tasty was the salad. The rest of it not so hot. Kind of a weird flavor all around.

Ian had a meaty souvlaki with rice and veggie. Same sorta thing.

Anywho, the moral of this story is, I should have just believed Ian when he said that greek food is really not all that tasty! Basically an inferior version of middle eastern food.

Bibimbop

I did some cooking tonight, crazy Jackie-style Korean. No political rant here, just some recipe hints. I started by asking myself "what would George do" and then since Jackie is an anti-fan, I then switched to my Moosewood cookbook for guidance.

Anywho, here's kinda what you do. Make some rice, throw the following on top: sauteed snow peas, leeks, and red pepper, rehydrated dried shitake mushrooms, cut up seaweed and some fried eggs. I accidentally scrambled the egg, but it still turned out ok. Some shrimp on top of Ian's. Then mix up some chilli paste and sesame oil and sprinkle on top. Add salt and that's it!

Mmmmm......

Squash - World's Best Food

Although a mere few days ago, I called the roti the world's best food, I would now like to add squash to the category. It's slightly on the labour intensive side, but if Ian can cook it, you can cook it since he is not the best of cooks.

Tonight I made some lentil, spinach, apple curry with rice and squash on the side. Squash steamed in some OJ, soy sauce, garlic and fresh ginger...mmmm.

Salad King

Janice has been to the Salad King a few times. Not me though, the name is scary - are they going to have real food if they are the king's of salad?

Well tonight I took a bold step forward and went to the Salad King with Janice. It was quite the trek up to a Yonge and Dundas but when we arrived we were able to get a table right away. That was good. Waiting for over ten minutes to be served though was bad

A word about the seating, instead of the crammed together tables that many of the cheap Thai/South East Asian genre are famous for, this place goes for school cafeteria style seating (or equivalently ski chalet style) with long benchs. On one side we had a pole separating us from a table for "two" which was nice. "Two" because halfway through they crammed a single in to join those two. Awkward with two a's.

Anyway on to the meal. I had a "special" of spicy combination which was chicken and seafood in a spicy sauce. It was fairly good. I ordered only one chili on a 20 chili scale luckily as it was really spicy. The scale lacks consistency as Janice's one chili dish of some peanuty tofu curry wasn't anywhere near as spicy. Now the special supposedly comes with a free drink. I look at the fine print and it says up to 1.10 value. Sounds good but then I flip the menu over and see that there is nothing available for 1.10. The cheapest item, a pop, is 1.20. I ask the waiter what's the deal - what drink can I get. He says I can get a pop so I get the champion of all pops, a coke. Tasty as I haven't had from a can in a while. Enjoyment ended come bill time when they had in fact charged me 1.20 for the pop. Not worth arguing so I let it be. In total with tax, tip, appetizer and a "free" pop it was 25 and change. Not too bad.

A website is apparently coming in December.

Roti-world's best food.

Last night I picked up Ian and we went to the Caribbean Roti Palace on Bloor/Bathurst. Roti is tasty due to:

1. Who doesn't like potatoes?
2. Chickpeas are the least offensive of the bean/lentil family
3. The "wrapping" or "skin" as the palace calls it is deelightful (as Ian would call it).
4. Curry is tasty
5. You can order whatever spice level you want
6. They have the yummy caribbean pinaeple beverage that is actually manufactured in Brampton
7. You can throw in your choice of squash, eggplant or spinach for an extra $0.50.
8. Ian can pick whatever meat he wants.

Lasagna Operation

I made some lasagna tonight for dinner. Meaty for Ian, veggie for me. Since Ian is so healthy, red lentils and spinach for everyone!

Here's the step by step photo spectucular!



Here's some veggies before baking.






Some spinach steaming







The cottage, parsley, basil and spinach mix pre-blending








Beef cooking






Lasagna noodles cooking







Cooked lentils. Mixed them into jar of ragu pasta sauce.








Lasagna pre-baking












Cutting the final product.

Boston Pizza

My car was in for servicing so Ian took the go train to mississauga so he could drive his car home. On the way back, we went to BP's. Ian as usual went for the meatiest item on the menu. The Meteor Pizza. About 4 meat items thrown on top and meat sauce as the pizza sauce. He seemed to enjoy. I had some penne with creamy tomatoe sauce. Also pretty good. A "Very Tasty" rating and no thumbs up in value. As Ian says, "how can you charge $15 for spaghetti and meatballs?"

Non-food related survey

Ian has too much computer stuff sitting around on his desk. One computer too many and lots of miscellaneous debris to be specific. I don't really understand the need for more than one computer at any one time.




So...here's the question...Who thinks Ian has too much stuff on his desk?

The long awaited quinoa posting

Faithful readers, here's the much sought after info on quinoa

1. It's a type of grain that you can use as a substitute for rice or pasta. Tastes kind of nutty.

2. According to Wikopedia the Inca's devloped it and Peru, Boliva and Ecuador are the world's top producers.

3. Quinoa is a high protein grain with all amino acids present. A good meat alternative!

4. You cook it like rice, but the important thing to remember is that it must be rinsed well to avoid the bitter outer coating.

So there ya go! All my pre-existing and new found knowledge on this super grain!

Quinoa and Prices

I saw someone came to this page while searching for "sobeys quinoa". Now we don't know anything about the quinoa from sobey's but what I do know is you should avoid sobey's. Unless they actually meant the pricechopper locations, sobey's really isn't that great due to high prices.

Canadian Grocery Rule #1: If you're getting bags for free you are probably paying too much. (Unless of course you're taking a lot of bags?)

Back to the quinoa, I don't think the President has Quinoa so I don't have any firm recommendations. Price should really be your guide, who can tell the difference between low and high end quinoa?

Janice has a lot to say about quinoa in general so faithful blog readers will have to stay tuned for an upcoming special report on Quinoa from janice.

Cookies and Montana's

I went to a distinguished lecture at school in the late afternoon yesterday. The main distinguishing feature of these lectures (or at least this one) are the cookies and milk. Despite our early dinner plans I went a little overboard and ended up having 8 or so cookies. The lesson I took from this lecture was that's too many cookies.

Anyway, after meeting up in Mississauga we decided to to go to Montana's for the annual pre-Ice Dog game dinner. Due to the cookie fiasco, I didn't feel up to a full thing of ribs so I went for the rib tips. They were pretty good. Rib tips really don't get enough credit. The meat to bone ( or equivalently the meat to work ratio) is quite favorable. Janice had the nacho's as usual and they were of usual tastiness. Again as a result of the cookie fiasco we didn't get the mud pie. Possibly a regret. Overall decent food but it didn't come cheap.

Another post about hummus expiry and random news messages

We went from #5 to off the list altogether, but now we are #1 on google! yeah! We rule!

KP, Ian says "why doesn't the kp blog?" It seems like it would be right up your alley....you could talk about good times at curling and I could comment about the curling related items! How fun would that be????

Ian cooks Jambalaya

Ian made veggie jambalaya and whole wheat bread last night for dinner. It was all very impressive and I only had to help him a couple of times.

Here's the shrimp defrosting!





Ian hard at work and/or posing for pictures that make it look like he is working hard.








The jambalaya part-way done. Mmmmm.....










Ian eating the final result...

Cafe 668

I will try and use small words for our "challenged" readers out there.

On the advice of Now newspaper's cheap eats special, we went to Cafe 668 located at 668 Dundas St. We had some pan fried veggie dumpling things to start, pretty tasty but kind of expensive for 8 skinny items with some so-so dipping sauce.

Then I had a tofu veggie stir fry in coconut sauce with rice on the side. Lots of tastiness. Ian had some pad thai which was so-so. Not as good as Spring Roll's but still pretty tasty.

So that's the story. Hopefully I have kept it nice and simple!

Simplicity

Some people thought that the last post was too complex so let me break it down into "baby" steps.

Lone Star Old Menu Items
Item A - 1/4 pound fajita's - select from vegetable, chicken or steak - Price X
Item B - 1/2 pound combo fajitas where you can select two of (vegetable, chicken or steak) - Price Y

Lone Star New Menu Items
Item C - 1/4 pound fajita's - select from chicken or steak or vegetable - Price X
Item D - 1/2 pound fajita's select either all chicken or steak or both - Price Y

Note the lack of the vegetable choice for the 1/2 pound "item D". Every time we go we ask for item d with chicken and vegetable. They initially say no go but then always report no problem after we explain it's been done before. What's the deal, is it some sort of grandfather clause?

The Lone Star

The name says it all. Not 5 stars, or 3 stars, just one lonely little star.

After hitting up the track for the Canadian International we decided to hit up the Lone Star for some fajitas since we haven't been in a while. Debate about where to go meant we didn't go to the one at the airport and instead went downtown. (This was probably for the best because the airport Lone Star specializes in fajita's and bad service). No menu change since our last visit so that of course means they no longer have the half pound fajita combo with 1/4 lb chicken and "1/4 lb" portobello mushrooms. Since they still do have a 1/2 pound item on the menu we ask for the chicken and veg. As usual they say that's not possible (despite the fact that 1/4 pounds of chicken, veg and steak are all identically priced) but when we say we've done it before, they change their tune to saying "oh yeah, that's not a problem".

The actual fajita's themselves were reasonably tasty but the big let down was they have a new salsa. We wolved it down in an effort to mask the sadness of the track losses (Who would have thought that Jambalya wouldn't have the speed down the stretch?) but the salsa can only do so much - especially this salsa. This new salsa is basically diced/crushed tomatos. Disappointing. They should bring back the old salsa.

Mystery egg item

In the last year of so I have been getting back into the eggs a bit. Yesterday for lunch I made a egg type item. Here's how to do it!

Saute butternut squash, onions and asparagus until squash is almost cooked. Mix up eggs, some milk (soy in our case), cheddar cheese and arugula. Pour over the saute veggies and let cook and brown on the one side. Now here is the difficult part, you must flip over to the other side. I used a plate type operation, but it was still kind of hard. The easier thing to do would be to broil the one side in the oven, but we only have pans on the non-stick variety which I don't really want to warp in the hot oven. You can't really win on this one, the non-stick pan will make your life ALOT easier, but then you can't put it into the oven. Ha ha.

Bad Sushi

Went for a b-day lunch in Mississauga to Crazy Sushi. Only barely adequate and expensive. We did get some free "pancake" items on the house to start, but since they were a bit greasy and sketchy I am just neutral on them. Not sure why the co-workers seems to like it so much? Maybe they don't have the cheapness affliction that Ian and I do.

Just go to New Gen.

Very very cold

Went kayaking with Milton to a spot on the grand river near Paris (Ontario!). Was so very very very very cold due to extreme icy water and extreme wind that I had to stop by Tim's and pick up some loot for the ride home. Small hot chocolate was so-so and frosted cinnamon roll very tasty. I seem to keep using the word very. Very sorry about that.

Rivoli

To overcome our sad lack of eating out and cheapness, Ian and I went out for a nice meal to Rivoli. The night started poorly with a rather chipped glass to drink my stella out of. Then came three veggie spring rolls with some tasty dipping sauce, not a great value for $6. Ian went all out and ordered ahi tuna with mashed sweet potatoe, squash and side veggie for $17 I think. Very very tasty and a surpising amount of tuna. We are both huge squash fans, so that was pretty tasty stuff! I ordered a thai vegan banana stir-fry. There was a bunch of slightly over-deep-fried tofu, lots of veggies, yummy sauce and only a bit of banana. Overall pretty tasty and not bad value for my $11.

I think we'll be back, but not too often due to price!

A sad state of affairs...

Cheapness and healthiness now rules out lifes...so lots of lame eating in :(

Carpaccio

Ian and I went to Niagara falls for a reunion type item for his mom's family. We had a set menu thing for $21. Included bread, bruchetta, choice or soup or salad and choice of stuffed pasta, lasagna, spaghetti/meatball or steak, then included some chocolate/vanilla ice cream and some coffee/tea.

Pretty good value overall and suprisingly good for Niagara falls...

East

Went to East for dinner since we haven't been to anything from the Spring Rolls family in almost a month. Of course the satay pad thai with seafood was the daily "pay the regular price" special. It was tasty as always. Janice broke with tradition and had pad thai - except of the curry variety. Both were reasonably tasty although I seem to have something stuck in my throat from the meal. No idea if I will ever recover from that.

For lunch, we went to Gateway of India. I found the naan better than usual and I think this was the first time I went since they started having ice cream so that was a nice little surprise. Overall though not that tasty with the butter and tandoori chickens similar and boring. For the mini-restaurant strip on baldwin though that may be as good as it gets.

Run for the Cure

Ian ditched me at the end for a time of 24:45, I came in at 25:45! Pretty decent considering neither of us is in great shape.

As per tradition, we went to Fressen and had some corn fritters and other assorted yummy stuff. A "very tasty" rating and one thumb up in value ($9 each).

Thanks to our sponsors.

Hummus Expiry Recommendations

In terms of hummus expiry we generally stick to two to three days for homemade hummus. For purchased hummus I go by the if it looks fine eat it rule. If it has a date then I generally do not betray that best before recommendation. In an upcoming post we'll try to talk about this more extensively

Refer to my earlier hummus expiry post for more information

Hummus Expiry etc.

Have you ever wondered if your hummus has expired? Apparently people who have visited our blog searched for just that. We're number eight when you google "hummus expiry". Unfortunately, the article google links to doesn't really discuss hummus expiry so you may just have to eat that expired hummus.

For future reference, I generally don't eat hummus after the expiry date. I have found with some of Trader Joe's (world's best almost-complete grocery store) hummus (or hummi) that they seem to separate after a few weeks. I don't think they've gone bad (well the expiry date says it's fine) but they definitely become less appetizing. I'm not faulting Joe because in general his hummus selection is second to none. The President could learn something from them since they seem to only have one hummus whereas Joe had at least 4 or 5 (standard, eggplant, jalapeno, and others that I don't recall).

Also in case you're wondering other searches that have led to our blog include:
- "nearest ikea to mississauga" (maybe because of their terrific $1 breakfast - recommended!)
- "pizza pizza jays strikeout" (maybe because of the free pizza you get with your ticket when the Jays get seven strike outs on Friday or Sunday home games)
- "shephards pie toronto" (maybe because of the President's variety of frozen shepherd's pies - all tasty)

Finally the nearest ikea to mississauga is probably the one in etobicoke at the 427 and the QEW. Breakfast is served until 11 I believe. After that you'll have to wait until 3 or so for the 99 cent pasta to kick in. I still hope to go sometime for the Wednesday multi-course meal. The evil Gardiner has blocked recent attempts but some week soon I hope to. I'm not sure if this is at all ikea's or just etobicoke so you'll have to check with the source.

Super tasty salad rolls

I made some cold salad rolls with rice paper, noodles, lettuce, carrots, mango, cilantro and some shrimp/leftover salmon for Ian. Some PC Memories of Thailand sauce.

Very tasty, albeight labour intensive.

Ian-freakishly healthy

Ian has taken his healthy eating to a new level. He has started adding brown lentils to our rice for extra fibre....

For those that knew Ian "back in the day" you will know this is quite the change from his old unhealthy ways.

Radichio and Belgian Endive

I've been buying new veggies that I have not tried before. I baked the aforementioned veggies with some salt/pepper and olive oil and drizzled on some balsamic vinegar.

These veggies were extremely, extremely BITTER! Not sure if I picked up defective veggies, or this is how they normally are??

Domino's

When Ian lived in Vancouver, we had a movie watching, dominos pizza party. I remembered it being pretty fun, so we had another one last night..5 years after the original....

Overall, not quite the same amount of fun-ness we remembered, but the pizza was still pretty tasty. Ian had pepperoni, I had pinaepple...total cost for 2 mediums was $15.78 so not a bad deal at all considering it will be enough for 6 meals or so.

Maybe the problem was the lack of pizza bread???

Watched Lara Croft Tomb Raider. I thought pretty good, Ian thought terrible and no plot at all.

Really bad meal at home

It was leftover night and we pretty much ate the world's worst meal...

Ian had leftover pasta/pesto, tortilla chips & salsa and crackers and cheese and some of my meal.

I had leftover chickpeas and 1/2 can of canned tomatoes that I froze earlier. So I threw in some veggies, some cumin/coriander and cooked for about 20 min. Turned out surprisingly very very bad.

Yep...leftover night = not good.

Freaky non-food Related Posting

After the picnic Ian and I went to his friends girlfriend's place for some poker party action. The girlfriend's roomate had this fake tatoo she got at some picnic that afternoon. I said, me too, I got this airbrush tatoo at a picnic. Turns out we were at the same one! Her sister works at my office! Pretty crazy for a city of 5 MM.

Picnicing Fun

Ian and I went to my company's annual family picnic way out in Milton. A few things were a bit fishy:

1. I don't think the picnic is an annual event

2. The "beach volleyball" courts were so overgrown with weeds and grass and the like that it really was not beach volleyball

3. The kids were hogging fun stuff like wall climbing, inflatable bouncy slide and air brush tatoos.

Anyhow, the food was alright. The typical assortment of burgers (veggie too) with salads, ice cream, popcorn etc. A so-so event overall.

Carribbean Roti Palace

I picked up Ian and we went for some curry action. Ian got boneless chicken roti which is always a tasty choice for about $6.00.

I strayed away from the roti and had the veggie rice plate. $6.75 for a huge plate of yellow/black bean rice, bowl of the roti filling - chickpea/potatoe action and another bowl, half eggplant, half squash. Eggplant not so hot, but the rest of it, high marks for tastiness.

To wash it all down we had our favorite "caribbean" pineapple beverage actually manufactured in brampton on.

For those charitable people

Go to this link and donate to Ian and I for Run for the Cure!

You can click on the link and donate to a participant. Search for Janice or Ian in Toronto on team Hurricane!

The more $ raised, the faster I will run...I promise.

https://www.cibcrunforthecure.com/html/login.asp?session=y&teamcandidateid=

Very yummy curry type stuff

Last night I made an Indian extravaganza with squash/chickpea curry, cauliflower and some yellow coconut shrimp curry with some rice on the side.

The real star of the show was the squash. Here's what you do to recreate the tastiness at your own home...

Heat oil, add mustard seeds, add asafetida seeds, small amt white sugar and onions once the mustard seems pop. Brown onion a bit. Add bunch of chickpeas and a few T of canned tomato. Cover, cook 10 minutes. Make paste of cilantro, ginger, garlic. Add with some turmeric and cubed squash (butternut holds together the best). Add some water, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

This is a recipe from "Meena Pathak's Flavours of India". Very good cookbook for Indian..mmm...

Had part of a bottle of Sunrise Conchya y Toro Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile that we picked up at the LCBO for about $8 with my last year curling winning gift card. Not so great, but I blame Ian for making us pick something that cheap.

Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair

I went last night, no time to go to speakers and stuff, but I walked around some of the displays. Fun food related and natural beauty product kind of stuff. Had dinner at the King's Cafe booth, a bunch of tofu/textured veggie protein items with spring roll, rice and dumplings for only $6! Others had similar type indian meals, all looked good. May go back tomorrow for lunch. Mmmmm.

Super Home Meal

Ian and I went to St. Lawrence Market and bought some tasty stuff to make a nice dinner...

I made some sauteed shrimp in garlic butter with fresh parsley and salt/pepper. Ian thought pretty tasty. Then a tomato/fresh basil/boccoccini salad with olive oil...mmmm.

Then some of Ian's home-made whole wheat french bread (well, a bit of help from the breadmaker!). For the grand finale, some fresh pasta from the market, with tomato, fresh basil, parsley, garlic, arugula sauce with some fresh parmesan...mmmm...

Drank a bottle of BC Mission Hill Cabernet Sauvignon that my curling team from last year gave Ian and I for our wedding.

Yeah, that's about it. Pretty tasty and lots of dishes created! Ha ha!

Spring Rolls

We hadn't been to spring rolls in ages so we hit the one on Front street yesterday. It was fairly good as usual. The curry pad thai with chicken was one of the daily specials so I of course couldn't resist. It was fairly good even though lately the satay pad thai has been my favorite from the pad thai family. Janice had one of the other daily specials - something with vegatables - I don't quite recall the details. She seemed sufficiently pleased.

New Gen

The return to Toronto wouldn't be complete without a trip to New Gen so we hit it up on Sunday. It was my first visit since they reopened after the infamous fire of 2005. The new decor is definitely a step up from the original with nice light wood paneling. That's all well and good but I go for the cheap lunch specials and those thankfully have been fully preserved. #1 with beef was good as always as were the parts of #G that I managed to take from Janice. She's a little too possessive of her yam maki for my liking though.

Crystal Banquet Hall

Last night we went to Pete's wedding at a banquet hall place in Brampton. It was some pretty good times and much better than I was expecting. A tomato past course, salad and about 1/2 cow per person for the main course (I had veggie stuff which was ok). Ice cream crepe for desert and another cake buffet later on during the night. Yeah, that's about it. Nothing too notable from the night.

Pistachios

If you haven't tried them, go out and immediately buy some! Very tasty!

Montana's

Went for some retirement lunch action and I had the fajita. Not very tasty overall and came on a rather large, very embarassing platter! Is ok for Ian/Janice nachos + mud pie, but that's about it.

Back in town

Actually found some nice places to eat in a cute town called Yarm, so somewhat take back my previous negative remarks about the UK food. It would be like talking about the food in Sudbury! Ha ha!

More observations about UK

1. People are obsessed with "chips" aka french fries. We went for some japanese today (was actually chinese, but who's keeping track) and the combo came with miso soup and a plate of fries. Odd. Same with italian meals, you get your pasta+ sauce and a side bowl of fries. Very gross.

2. We went to this sketchy pub last night and I could not understand anything the server was telling me, so ended up just pointing to a tap and trying a beer at random. I think it was actually apple cider mixed with beer. Rather gross. I wonder who the heck actually drinks that stuff??

Angry UK servers @ Jack Rigotonis

We went out for some trendy Italian tonight and this server dude was awful.

He make us order in order and chatized me for ordering drinks and the main course when he only wanted appetizers. So then I had to repeat everythign although I had already ordered it. It was pretty stupid. So basically he ended up talking to all of us 3 times to get all the info. Anywho, not the most efficient system, but the pasta was really tasty and Jeff and Jack thought they it was the best food since we've been here. Maybe indian tomorrow night?? Hard to say?

Excuse bad typing, out at pub for a few drinks :)

Fun facts about the UK

I'm in northeast england for a couple of weeks and here's some fun food related facts.

1. English people don't seem to like the fish and chips
2. Their french toast appears to be deep fried bread
3. Fries are chips
4. Chips are crispers
5. Tea comes as "spots"
6. Granery bread = whole wheat bread

New Gen

Went for the G yam maki set and it was super yummy! I made a bunch of avocado - yam maki sushi at my place a couple of weeks ago, but it just does not compare with new gen's tastiness.

In other news, the Annex really is a better place to live. Too bad the traffic down spadina was making me crazy :(

McDonalds

I played some softball after work today and it was about 45 C with the humidex, something like 35 without humidex. Anywho, I was playing first base which happened to be aligned right into the sun, plus I had to pitch so basically got no break.

I think I was starting to get heat stoke, I was super sweaty, lightheaded and starting to feel sick to my stomach despite drinking about 3 L of water. I didn't want to wait till I got home to eat, so I picked up a grilled cheese happy meal. Very tasty and good value for only $4. Here's a secret tip for all of you, ask for the cookies instead of the toy!

BBQ'ing Action

I went to Miriam's house for a potluck BBQ event last night. Was some all around good times, especially the marinated grilled veggies. Ian and I need a BBQ, so much tastier than oven type stuff! Too bad you can't even get a lawn chair onto our balcony :(

Italian Place in Hamilton

Today I went to our Hamilton office and went out for lunch with our entire steelmaking and casting crew. It sounds quite impressive, but really there are only three of us...

I forget the name, but it was an italian bistro kind of place on ottawa street near the industrial wasteland off the qew. I had some thin crust pizza with spinach, wild mushrooms and goat cheese. Very tasty!

Super - fun Jam Making Operation

Picked up some stawberries in chinatown and made a couple of batches of strawberry jam this weekend. Hopefully all goes well, I was too lazy to actually properly sterilize the jars and stuff, so ran them through the long dishwasher cycle and filled them with the jam when they were about halfway through the drying cycle. Am keeping the fingers crosses that I do not die from botulism! Ha ha!

The jam turned out a bit hard....not sure what the problem was??? Too much sugar, not enough fruit?? Hard to say...

Lana B, what's your advice???

The Pilot in Yorkville

I went to the ROM last night and then to the Pilot in Yorkville. The price at the ROM was right, free on Friday evenings! They seem to be undergoing some serious renovations and therefore the museum seemed a bit crappy and small, but I am thinking some of the wings were closed off.

Then it was off to Yorkville. The whole strip was rather busy, but we walked up to the roof of the Pilot and found a table. I shared a plate of nachos for about $11 and had two pints for $14, so a bit expensive, but pretty tasty overall. Yeah, that's about it. Sorry, not too exciting.

Overpriced Jays Food

They jays have been in town for the past week so I've gone to a couple of games. The food at the games is SOOO EXPENSIVE. Like $6.50 for a beer, $5 for popcorn, $3-4 for a pop! It's crazy!

What's even more crazy, is everyone seems to be snapping the stuff up. Last night, I sat behind this family of 6 who ordered two rounds of beers and hotdogs for everyone! That's like $100+ in snacks!

Anywho, I bring my own stuff, they don't seem to mind and don't even have the usual "No Outside Food" signs that most stadiums have.

Veggie Sushi Making

On Friday night I had some people over and we made some sushi. The squash tempura turned out very tasty and was really good with avocado....just like new gen. At the start of the night, I demoed how to make the sushi and my roll turned out a bit ripped up and mishapen! Then, the rest of the gang ended up making perfect looking rolls and seemed to know more about the whole process than I did! Stuff like what side down you were supposed to put the seaweed...that sort of thing. They were even making handrolls and the like. All very impressive.

Pizza Pizza = not so good

Not that this is news to anyone, but pizza pizza does not make a very good pizza. Aceeptable at best. I swung by on the way home from the doctor today and had a slice of cheese. It only slightly cheered my up after I found out my festering spider bite on my arm may have to be cut out/off if the anti-biotics do not cure me by Wednesday. I wish Ian were here, I think that's a visit I could use some moral support at! Ha ha!

On Fridays and Sundays if the Jays get 7 strikeouts and you happen to have a ticket, you can go and pick up a free slice the following Monday. Overall I would upgrade the pizza to "Tasty" but only because it is such a great value.

Una Mas - Una Más Vez

Sundays are nice at the Una Mas near work because it less crowded. Empty in fact so they bring the food out to you. Quite fancy. Like a "sit-down" restaurant but without the tipping that everyone dreads. Anyway I had the flautas puebla to try something different instead of burritos. They were alright. I think I prefer the burritos and of course the helping of tortilla chips that you get with the burritos. I did enjoy that the flautas came with rice. A knife and fork meal has it's place

Not much to report/Ian's fault

Not very much eating out lately for me, although Ian eats out a good once/day and yet does not post!

Am having some people over for a vegetarian sushi making event...will update tomorrow on how it goes!

Blue Mango

This is Janice, back in Toronto. Ian and I went out to Blue Mango in San Jose. Pretty tasty stuff with the two person combo....4 appetizer platter, pad thai, curry tofu and mango samosa ice cream with choice of tea, all for $30. Brown or white rice included. Now, if we could just find a place like this in Toronto....

Uno Mas

One again, this is Janice. I met Ian for lunch yesterday and we went to his favorite cal-mex place - Uno Mas. After being disapointed by the squash burrito, I went for roasted veggie. It was very tasty with some guac, beans, rice etc and was pretty light on the cheese. As usual, included a side of chips and acess to the all you can eat salsa bar...mmmmm. Ian went with the bbq chicken and it seemed to be pretty good.

Really more food that one normal person can eat for about $5. Next time, I'm going for the kid sized bean and cheese burrito or perhaps the kids quesidalla...

Boudin

This is Janice again. I was in SF today and planned on going to Alcatraz but it was all sold out to Sunday :(

To make up for it, I went for a tour of Boudin, some sort of famous bakery on Fisherman's wharf. The tour was a pretty crappy self guided type of thing, but there was lots of tasty samples awaiting me at the end of the tour! Better yet, the attendee was talking to some other people, so that meant lots and lots of good stuff! Fantastic deal for only $3. Highly recommended for lunch or a rather large snack!

Reno and Lake Tahoe

This is actually Janice, I can just never remember my password to log on.

Ian and I went on a gambling/hiking junket this past weekend to Reno and Lake Tahoe. The lake was pretty cool with some nice hiking and swimming type activities. Reno, as expected, was a bit on the trashy side of things and Ian thought it was a pretty inferior vegas. We experienced some pretty major losses and ended up about $2 down on the weekend.

For food, we hit up a cheap mexicain that Ian classified as "Mex Mex". Usually he goes to Uno Mas which is apparently "Cal Mex" and tends to focus on burrito. The other type is "Tex Mex" which is more about the fajita. So anywho, this "Mex Mex" place in Tahoe was pretty good and alot of food for about $4-5 per person.

The other places weren't very noteworthy, although we did go to the Circus Circus restaurant breakfast buffet. Alot of disgusting food for my $8. Good potatoes and that's about it. Lot's of deep fried and mystery items out there. Pretty good value though as I then skipped lunch and only ate a light dinner.

So that's the story. Off to San Fransisco tomorrow, so should have something exciting to write about! Yeah!

Lack of blog updates :(

Sorry gang, not too many updates with Ian outta town. I think Ian is the real one to blame here, he goes out for lunch everyday but yet nothing on the blog!

What does everyone think, should we get Jackie to join our blog and update on Korean food stuff???

Week Long Kayak Marathon

I just got back from 6 days of kayak action. The real star of my camping cooking was a home-made egg mcmuffin.

Toast up a mini whole wheat pita break pita or two, scramble an egg or two with salt and pepper, layer eggs between pita with a slice or two of black diamond cheddar cheese slices. Good for really any meal! Mmmm....no more eggs till next year.......

Royal Canadian Yacht Club

The regional and world directors and managers from my group were in town for a strategy meeting, so everyone was invited for a cruise around the Toronto Harbour and a BBQ at the Royal Canadian Yacht club. It was SUPER fancy and the food was pretty decent! Better yet, it was all free.....

Not that great for the veggie eaters, but I definately did not go home hungry. The meet eaters had lots of stuff: chicken, salmon, steaks etc...mmmmmm......

Olive Garden

Back when we lived in Edmonton, Ian and I were somewhat obsessed with this place and would go a few times a year. In Ontario, they used to have the Olive but they have pretty much packed it in here and the nearest one is in Buffalo.

So anyway, to make a long story short, Ian and I went a few weekends ago in California. It was a gross amount of not very good food. So yeah, I don't miss the Olive as much as I thought that I would. Maybe I could eat more food in my younger days and it was better value?

If you still happen to live in E-town, go for Chianti or Fiore...mmmmm....

Weekend Stuff

I went for some brunch to Scruffy Murphys in the Yonge and Eglinton area yesterday morning. Alright food for some good prices. The soccer fans were out and going hard with the liquor and pancakes at 11 AM!

Decided to go to new gen today for lunch and the yam maki was tasty. I seem to get the same waitress and I'm not sure she understands the difference between tea and water, but I will not hold that against new gen! Yummy food for $8 including tax and tip.

Burritos

One thing that Toronto lacks is an adequate supply of burritos. Sure there are places like burrito boyz but they're overpriced and they charge EXTRA for guacamole. To make things worse they don't really have many choices for burritos. Here in California though burrito supply is definitely not an issue.

I've been eating them 3-5 times a week while here. My favorite chain is una mas. They offer some very tasty offerings. Janice tried a squash one and wasn't super impressed but I've been impressed with all the meaty ones I've tried. From this trend, we can finally conclude that eating meat is by far the smartest course of action? As the months go buy I will review each of the burritos

As an added bonus, the una mas's seem to have free internet ( I think). The signal is weak in the parking lot when I tried but I assume it's fine in the store. Although I've never seen anyone there with a laptop and burrito?

Yummy Pasta

I am normally not a big Italian fan, but decided to cook up some past tonight.

Here's what I did:

Olive oil + garlic + onion + red pepper flakes -> low heat 10 min
Toss in a bunch of rehydrated sun dried tomatoes + some liquid
Saute for a minute or two

Take off heat and add in chopped parsley, pine nuts, salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Toss with pasta and that's it! Super easy, but really really good!

Really CHEAP wine

I was visiting Ian in San Jose and we went to his favorite whole food-like store, trader joes. The americains seem better and conveniently have lots of liquor available at almost any type of store, including TJ's.

I wanted to buy some $4 wine, but Ian convinced me to be super cheap. We went with a merlot called Charles Shaw aka "Two buck chuck". Charles know what's he's doing and has a whole family of wines. We may visit his winery next month since he seems like a master winemaker.

I was expecting the worst, but it was actually rather good!

I was thinking that Ian should take up drinking as a hobby at a rate of 1 bottle/night since that's cheaper than almost any sort of other entertainment!

Salad King

I went for dinner last night and had the golden tofu curry. Rice was included, all for the low - low price of $6.45 (no tax/tip). This place was PACKED and appeared to be mostly ryerson students on the way home or on the way to night class.

Ian and I generally forget about this place, we'll have to go more when he comes home!

A "very tasty" rating with 1.5 thumbs up in the value department.

Alice Fazooli's

I went in Mississauga for lunch on friday with some co-workers. I ordered some pasta with tomatoe sauce kind of thing. Was only so-so and a bit dry overall. Kind of a rip off for $12 or so.

Service not great, the waitresss asked if we wanted some bread and made it seem like she was doing us a major favor to bring it out for us. A bit bizarre.

Anywho, two thumbs down in the value department and a neutral tastiness rating.

Nature Valley salty and sweet bars

Last time at the grocery store I bought a bunch of nature valley granola bars. One type was salty and sweet soft peanut butter bars. THEY WERE SOOO TASTY!

My kayak bud Milton also thought they were tasty and even more exciting is that he works for a uniform delivery and cleaning company and they service the nature valley plant. He is going to try and hook us up with some cases of them...mmmmmm.

Jackie - they tasted just like those caramel marshmallow bars that you are a fan of!

MKC

I went to the Madawaska Kanu Centre for the long weekend. Food was super tasty and vegetarian stuff was no problem.

Breakfast is always the highlight with some sort of hot grainy thing like oatmeal or cream or wheat with all the fixins...nuts, dried fruit, sugar etc. Mmmmmm and warm on a cold winter...I mean spring morning.

At one point it snowed on the river, so I was happy for the tasty food throughout the day!

New Gen

Post fire-renovated new gen did not dissapoint. "G Yam Maki Set" was super-duper as per usual.

Mississauga Marathon

I had my 10 km run last night. I was training for a half marathon, but then an armpit injury followed by a kayak related leg injury has taken me down for the last 3-4 weeks and I've only been to run an average of about once/week. So I switched to the 10 km and ran it last night in 55 minutes. I was hoping for under an hour, so I was pretty pleased with the time.

The food and drink post run was only so-so with some bagels, fruit, water etc at the end. I was feeling a bit queasy after running that fast so couldn't really enjoy my free food to the full extent.

Off to NEW GEN for lunch today!!! Yeah!!! I looked on the web and it appears as though they still have my "G" Yam Maki lunch set....oh how I've missed you yam maki...mmmmm.

BP's

I play on the company softball team and after the game we went to BP's on Winston Churchill. The patio was nice, it was pasta Tuesday, my team won, my team members (hadn't met any of them) turned out to be very funny and cool and we had a 10% off VIP customer card. All in all a good night!

Sushi Queen

I went for some sushi with friends on Sunday night. I had the usual $7.75 bento and as usual it was pretty tasty and a good value.

Others had weird tofu salads and an octopus soup thing. They seemed to be ok.

More importantly, I drove by New Gen on Sunday morning, and they had a sign in the window saying opening soon!!! Yeah!!! Hopefully they still have my "G" yam maki set.

Red Thai

I was in Montreal this week and for dinner one night we went to Red Thai on St. Laurent.

The decor was cute with a very cool budha in the middle of the place and all the dishes came out on all sorts of cute dishes with lids and the like.

Overall, food was not all that great. I had veggies and tofu with peanut sauce. Tofu was good, assortment of veggies great, but the peanut sauce was oddly quite pasty.

The others had more meaty type things and didn't comment either way on the tastiness, so I'm assuming it wasn't that great. So that's the story!

Oh yeah, it cost us like $250 for 4, so kind of a rip-off too. Ian and I have gone to cheap thai in TO and had better food, for under $30 for 2.

East

Ian and I went out for a farewell dinner tonight (he's heading to San Jose tomorrow morning).

As usual, pretty tasty spring rolls, seafood pad thai and Satay veggie + tofu. Add in a pint of beer and not a bad deal for $34 including tax and tip.

Some place in Buckhorn

I went kakaying on Saturday to the Mississauga Creek in Buckhorn (sorta North of Peterbourough). For breakfast we stopped at this cafe type thing in Buckhorn that actually turned out to be pretty tasty. I don't remember the name, but it was sort of West of town on a hill kind of overlooking a lake. Cute red building.

Anywho, I had a "mini" breakfast with 1 egg, bacon (that I gave to Barb), 1 piece of toast the a large mound of the tastiest homefries I have ever had. Highly recommended for a meager $3.19!

The river didn't turn out to be so hot with lots of flatwater and logs seem to have made there way into a couple of the really good rapids thus causing some portage action :(

Middle Eastern at Place Ville Marie

I became hooked on this middle eastern place in the food court at place ville marie in Montreal. For only $6.30, I got my choice of 5 veggie items. Stuff like potatoes, rice, coucous, hummus, falafel, tabouli, cucumber salad + you got the pickled turnip + tomatoe. Also included a toaty pita. Usually the food at these fast food pick your own stuff is kinda sketchy, but this stuff was all really tasty.

All in all, a fantastic deal for too much food for one person to eat! The guy serving the food is the fastest guy I have ever seen on the tongs. Somewhat impressive.

I believe the place is called "Gourmet Med" or something slightly cheesy like that.

I'm going back to Montreal next week and I will definately be back!

Sept Isles Quebec and Labrador City

The past few days I have been stuck in these crappy towns visiting the plants of the Iron Ore Company of Canada (basically Rio Tinto). Plant visits went ok, but I believe you me, the restaurants and hotels were a bit iffy.

Sept Isles, not so bad, aside from me not really speaking french and not being able to properly read the menu. Thus, ending up with random items of things I did not expect. The place seems really into the seafood with crab caught fresh and shrimp in brown paper bags. The crab sandwiches looked DISGUSTING. Basically a 1.5" thick by about the size of your face around on bread. That's it. With a bit of mayo on the side. Anywho, I'm sure they actually tasted alright, it was just too much seafood all at once.

Then, it was off to Lab City where the sketchiness continued, Thompson style. Restaurants were awful, even though I could read the english menu, there weren't a heck of a lot of veggie items out there. The hotel was awful, the rental car made horrible power steering noises despite only having 3000 km on it.

I'm off to Montreal for a few nights next week, so I'm expecting to have a much better experience there!

Old Spaghetti

I was feeling like some garlic bread so we went to Old Spaghetti for dinner last night. It's pretty good value, I got the spaghetti with tomato cream tarragon mushroom pasta. Ian got the spaghetti with meat sauce.

Included was garlic bread, soup or salad and ice cream with coffee or tea, all for about $9-$11.

As usual, the bread was really good with really good garlic whipped butter. My minestrone was pretty decent, Ian's clam chowder was good.

The spumoni ice cream was also tasty. Basically, great value for decent italian.

The only problem here was the service. We went in and talked to the hostess and they said a 15-20 minute wait for a table and that we could go and order a drink/appetizer from the lounge and then they would paige us.

We didn't really want to, so we waited around in the lobby and we got in after 20 minutes. They were calling people about every 2 minutes.

But then, once we get in, there were ALOT of empty tables!!! Like 1/3 of a pretty large dining room. So not sure what's up with that????

I suspect a scheme to bolster the lounge drinks and revenue/person.

Anywho, I think it's pretty shady and was a bit upset by the whole thing.

Thymly Mannor in the Sault

I'm in Sault St Marie for the week and last night we went out for dinner to Thymly Mannor.
It's an old house renovated into a restaurant and they have some nice private rooms and that sort of thing.

I had the gnochi with tomato sauce and it was super tasty. We asked the waitress how to make gnochi and it turns out all there is to is potato, flour and egg rolled up into little balls and boiled.

The other two guys had fish and steak, both quite tasty.

My only beef with this place was the service. Extremely slow to even give up menu or take our order. Not sure what was up with that. Maybe busier than they had expected for a Tuesday night?

Washington DC

Trip was pretty good, a bit short on time so will keep it short.

Ian pretty much ran a tight ship and has us up at 6:30 AM and going strong till 6:30 PM seeing numerous attractions/day.

For dinner, we ate at Ethiopian once. They pretty much seem to be on every block, sorta like the TO sushi joints. Pretty similar price and taste to our usual TO ethiopian place.


Other than that, some OK Thai, pub food and Ian really liked the Peruvian he went to.

Ben and Jerry's was tasty as usual.

Yummy Squash

We had some leftover uncooked squash, so I threw it into a pot (1" cubes), added some OJ, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and garlic.

I put the lid on and steamed on medium for about 5 minutes and it turned out super-tasty! Ian thought they looked like tater tots...ha ha!

Black Bean Sweet Potato Burrito

Tonight I made some burrito from the "Low Fat Moosewood Cookbook". They turned out super tasty and the sweet potato made them creamy even without cheese.

Here's the main gist of it...

Boil sweet potato

Blend with black beans, lemon juice, cilantro (use food processor, potato masher etc)

Stir in fried garlic, onion, jalepeno with cumin and coriander.

Add salt to taste.

Bake in tortilla shells for about 20 minutes. Serve with some rice (healthy Ian likes brown) and some homemade guac and salsa.

Lack of Updates

To answer Jacko's question, the lack of updates have been due to lack of eating out.

Ian has taken up healthiness and combined with our usual cheapness = no updates :(

For example, Ian ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes today and then came home a drank a low sodium V8! I was out running 12 km, so basically we both needed a nap and were far too tired to consider even walking anywhere to go and procure food.

Perhaps I will turn the blog into a vegetarian cooking type thing???

Popcorn

At the risk of sounding like a junk food junkie, here's another yummy food post from this weekend.

Ian and I watched wedding crashers last night and decided to make some popcorn. We had no butter, so the usual air popped was out. I decided to make it in a pot on the stove. I had NO idea how to do it, but it actually turned out perfect and very tasty with no burning and like 5 unpopped pieces.

So here's how ya do it. Heat up some oil over high heat and add 1-3 T veggie oil in a somewhat medium-large pot. Add popcorn. About 1/2 cup? for a medium pot.

Then, add a lid, shake occassionally until you hear popping. Then you shake vigourously for about 30 seconds until it's all popped. Remove from heat add salt and serve.

Kawartha Dairy

I went kayaking with Milton and his crew to the Gull in Minden (2.5 hours North of TO). As per usual, we stopped at Kawartha for some ice cream on the way home.

I usually get something caramelly or the moose tracks. All choices are quite tasty.

The best thing about this place is the price, only $2.30 for a small, which is really like a double scoop at most ice cream shops. Ocassionally in the summer, I will go all out and order the small waffle for $2.80. This is a grotesque amount of very tasty ice cream!

Two thumbs up in value, with a "very tasty" rating.

Also recommended, go in the winter and avoid line-ups.

Ethiopian House

Ian and went for dinner tonight. Ethiopian House is just off Yonge, South of Bloor.

I had the veggie combo and Ian had the meaty combo. Pretty tasty, lots of injera (spongy type bread), lentils, spiced veggies, salad, 2 beef dishes and some sketchy cottage cheese.

We ended up spending $32.40 with both of us drinking water, so a bit more than we normally like to spend. I think the combos are much less at lunch, so that's our plan in the future.

A "very tasty" rating with a no thumbs up in the value department.

Popeye's

After some beer drinking with Ian's friends we headed out to a St. Patrick's Day Party and stopped by Popeye's on the way. I didn't eat any chicken, but the whole crew scarfed it down and seemed to like it. I had a pretty tasty, super salty biscuit. mmm. Also a couple forkfulls of creamy coleslaw.

When I asked Ian if this place is a step up from KFC he said "no". So there you go, stick with the Colonel.

Kuni Sushi

Never one to turn down food, I went for the all you can sushi along with a few others. We ordered lots of food, it was slow to come because I think we overwhelmed the sushi chefs. The overall quality was OK (i.e. slightly tasty) but with buffet I guess the real goal is quantity. I definitely left feeling full but unfortunately the 23 bucks (with tax and tip) left me feeling empty in many respects. I'll go back again but I'll definitely continue to complain how this is nowhere near as good in price or quality as the ubiquotous sushi places in vancouver particularly when you consider their late night buffets

East

I went to East with some friends tonight. Was only so-so. Strangely, the food came really quick, but was kind of cold.

The waiter was super rude too.

Perhaps I'll head back to the original Spring Rolls next time.

Licks

Ian and went to Lick's after our Sat night driving lesson. Ian is teaching me to drive his standard so I can have some deeeelightful air conditoning this summer instead of sweating it up in my sauna, I mean car. Anywho, I stalled a few times and Ian wanted to recharge the battery so we took a drive out by the Ikea. We stopped by Licks and had a pretty tasty hot fudge sundae.

One thing we've noticed with all these ice cream places is that their pricing is a bit off. One scoop is generally $3.50. We go for the super duper sundae which is generally $5 or so.

Problem #1: you could go to the grocery store and get a whole tub of similarish "fancy" ice cream for $5-6.

Problem #2: The sundae items probably add up to $10 if purchased alone, but the item is charged at 50% of the individual component value. For example, in NYC, Ian and I were into Ben and Jerry's. We got the cookie sundae consisiting of 2 generous scoops of ice cream, a couple cookies, sundae topping, whip cream and a cherry I think, all for about $5. The ice cream scoops alone would have been like $7-8. Cookies retailed for another $3 or so.

So, moral of this story is, round up a friend and go for the big kahuna! If you are lacking in ice cream eating friends or are adverse to sharing, hit the grocery store and get more value for your $$$.

PC Shephards Pie

Ian really seems to these President Choice frozen meals...in fact he is somewhat obsssessed.

They used to be a bit greasy, but now they have the "Blue Menu" variety with reduced fat, so it's somewhat less un-healthy. I don't want to say "healthy" because that would be stretching the truth. Anyway, looks like lots of good ground beefiness, some token veggies and some pretty tasty mashed potatoes. I usually try and de-potato the top layer of Ian's if he is not paying attention, but he is now catching on :(.

If I were a meativore like Ian is, I would likely think these meals were pretty good stuff.

Since I buy groceries, I give it 1 thumb up in the value department at regular price ($3.50) and two thumbs up when I find them on sale for $2-$2.50. Ian is not here, but I'm pretty sure he would give it a "very tasty" rating.

Sneaky Dees for Brunch

I went on Sat for some brunch to my favorite cheap mexicain place. I had the guacamole...something and it was a tortialla bowl filled with beans, topped with guac some veggies, sour cream and some lettuce stuff around the outside. Pretty good for my $7.45 and I definately could not finish it. Others has some huevos ranchero egg type dishes. All seemed to be pretty tasty.

A "tasty" rating and 2 thumbs up in the value department.

Sushi Queen, not Queen Sushi

For those that actually live in Toronto and care, Ian and I have been thinking that the Sushi Queen is actually Queen Sushi. Good to clear that up!

Sheraton in Birmingham

I spent most of this week in alabama in a course on electric furnace steelmaking. Yeah, I know, pretty exciting stuff! Lots of the meals were catered, all pretty decent and they actually made me special veggie stuff.

I had grits for the first time ever, kind of like mildly salty cream of wheat with a bit more texture. Pretty tasty stuff with some brown sugar. Now, must try and find them in TO. Perhaps will go to whole foods this weekend and use up the rest of my $15 gift certificate!

BP's

Ian picked me up from the airport last night and we went to Boston Pizza. Ian went with the usual lasagna but I tried the cactus nachos. Pretty tasty and some good greasy goodness. Lots of cheese, two kinds of dip, and a few veggies on top of some home made potatoe chip type things.

Ian complained a bit about the noodles in the lasagna, but didn't let that stop him from eating the whole large thing in about 5 minutes!

Service was ok, we had what appeared to be a new server so he wasn't too on top of things.

Anywho, BP's is generally good for a quick meal, drink or snack! I also own their income trust, so all the more incentive to go! Last night, Ian and I spent about $20 but I probably made like $0.00001 back :)

Lack of Updates

There definitely have been few updates recently. For that you can place the blame squarely on Janice. She's eating 3 meals out a day but yet she hasn't been posting anything. Sure these places are in Alabama but We Eat Toronto has never been a blog that restricts itself to tight geographic boundaries as past posts demonstrate.

With the blame game complete we can now talk about Toronto restaurants. Today was marking time so we of course went with Sushi on Bloor. We went with the ever popular Party for 7.5. There were 7 markers so this was sufficient food. Barely. Some of you may not see the Party for 7.5 on the menu because there isn't one. We had to make our own with 1.5 Parties for 5. It's terrific that they do half orders of the Party (once you've ordered one). As I said last time this place is terrific in terms of price and it makes marking enjoyable which says a lot.

Super cheap night

Ian and I went to a FREE taping of Royal Canadian Air Farce. Mildly entertaining, but kind of dragged on between set changes.

Afterward we went to Queen Sushi and then headed to the Crepe place to Queen for desert.

Pretty tasty, we got the three scoop ice-cream wrapped in a crepe. Very tasty coffee ice cream. Chocolate sauce on top.

Decent value for $6 especially considering it was plenty of crepiness for two people.

PC Memories of Singapore Sweet and Sour Sauce

If you are looking for a sweet and sour sauce, check out this stuff. It's not as sweet as the usual "western style" chinese stuff. Very tasty over veggies with rice or as a dipping sauce for springrolls and that sort of thing. Mmmm.

Sorry Jacko, another boring post involving eating at home. I do have a client coming into the office today for a meeting, so there may be some lunch involved depending on what time we finish! So there! That could be exciting eating out for you.

Ian and I are going to a taping of royal canadian air farce tonight, but we can't really make it on time to pick up tickets, so they may give them away to someone else. If they do, we'll go to queen sushi instead.....stay tuned for some excitement!

Sushi Salad

Tonight I made some salad with sushi type rice, carrots, green peppers, green onion, avocado, sesame seed, sushi seaweed and a dressing of rice wine vinegar, wasabi powder, salt, sugar and some lime juice.

Good stuff all around! For Ian I baked a piece of fish and threw it on top.

Thai Kitchen Pad Thai Sauce

With my curling winnings, I bought some "Thai Kitchen Pad Thai Sauce". I made a big batch last night and it turned out ok. The sauce wasn't that great and I actually prefer my homemade variety with ketchup, lime, soy, brown sugar, garlic and ginger.

Oakville Curling Club

Sorry for the lack of updates, Ian has been in California (AGAIN) and I've been in the Sault hanging out in steel plants. Quick note, lots of good italian restaurants in the Sault. Aurora was ok. Some place on Queen downtown was good, forgot the name. Thymly mannor also tasty but expensive.

Yesterday I made it home in time to go the second annual pat o'riley bonspiel at the oakville curling club. Food was alright, good snacks, breakfast, lunch (sandwiches, squash or b.b. soup) with dinner (rice, veggie, chicken, oreo cheesecake with two bottles of wine on table).

I went to the same spiel last year, and they classed it up a bit more and seemed to have overall better food. Maybe a different caterer or food comittee?

A "tasty" rating overall.

The value department requires some explanation. I paid $45 for the day, which is pretty typical for a spiel of this nature. My team came in 10th place out of 32 teams, so we went up the prize table relatively early. Sadly, the top 9 x 4 = 36 prizes were already gone, but I grabbed a whole foods market gift card. There was no value indicated on it, so this is probably why it was still available by the time I got up there. On the way home, I swung by the new whole foods in oakville and found that it was worth $50! So I spent the $45 on the spiel, $10 of raffle tickets, and $10 on drinks. Basically, I ended up spending net $20 for curling and three meals, so "two thumbs up" in the value department.

Quizno's

Ian convinced me to go because he had a coupon. Ian feels that every coupon we do not use is money lost, but I think quizno's have sucked him in because he is spending additional money that he would not otherwise and they are probably still making a profit off him, even at the coupon rate.

I, as usual, had the veggie. They are ok the first few times, but I am getting a bit weary of them lately. This time they forgot to put on the guacamole so that was a bit upsetting. Even with the small (and Ian taking a few big bites) I find it's more sub that I would like to eat at one time.

So that's the story. My official rating is "neutral tastiness" with only a 1 thumb up in value should you have a coupon. Hopefully Ian is not mad at me for speaking ill of the quizno.

BBQ

The last couple of days I was in the rather small town of Sorrel-Tracy about 1.5 hours North of Montreal. Ian wonders if the winter boots come from the area, but although it was snowing, I did not seen anyone in sorel's so I'm assuming no.

Both times I have been to this place, we go or order in from a place called "BBQ". The local crew seems quite obsessed with this place. The menu seemingly has nothing to do with bbq and in fact serves pizza, sandwiches and an odd assortment of fried rice type items as well as standard meaty quebec favorites. I wonder if the quebecoise have mistaken "BBQ" to mean something that it does not? Anyway, they make a pretty decent grilled cheese with salad.

Quizno's

Friday night and this evening I went to Quizno's. I have coupons expiring February 19 so expect a few more trips there in the coming days. Friday I had the usual Mesquite Chicken with Bacon and today I branched out and had the Chicken Carbonara. Both are of course very tasty subs. I'd have to say the Mesquite is better. I definitely love how they add Bacon to most subs as it vastly increases the tastiness.

Lately there have been a lot of ads about Quizno's lowering their prices. Maybe I missed something but when regular price is 6 bucks for a small sub can anyone call that low?

Unfortunately today the restaurant did two things to upset me
Strike #1: Credit card machine was down. At Quizno's prices can anyone afford to pay cash? Tip #1: Keep the machine running.
Strike #2: The store smelled of paint/paint thinner. Not really their fault but it definitely didn't make for a good eating expierience. Tip #2: Don't let the restaurant smell like that

Overall though I'd go there again, maybe tomorrow. It's good and without the coupons (2 bucks off) there is no chance I'll go back.

Salad King

I went here the other day for lunch and it was PACKED! It's right beside Ryerson and close to yonge street shopping. The look is chic cafeteria and the food is standard thai fare served quickly and cheaply. I had green curry tofu and veggie with tax and tip for about $8 which is a pretty decent deal.

I looked, and there only appeared to be one mango salad on the menu, hence the name was a bit odd. For anyone who has been to Flip Toss Thai on Harbord Street, the owners used to work at Salad King and took some of the recipes with them.

2 thumbs up in the cheapness department and a "very tasty" rating.

San

Ian and I were doing some shopping in Queen West so we decided to go to San, a small Korean/Japanese place.

We started with free Miso soup and the typical 4 small plates of side dishes. Ian had bul go gi and I had a veggie bento box. All the food was pretty good, but for $28 (tax + tip included) we left slightly hungry, especially Ian. Compared to New Gen or even Queen Sushi, not a lot of food for your $. Atmosphere was slightly better though with good music, candles on tables etc.

Final verdict, "Tasty" with a one thumb down in the value department.

Quinoa

I made a pilaf type thing last night with some brocolli, tofu, raisins and indian type spices. Pretty tasty overall.

I used quinoa, a south american grain (pronounced keen-wah). A bit odd that in our two months in south america, I NEVER saw or heard of it, but anyway, it's pretty tasty for the North Americain cook.

Kind of like rice, but nuttier and more flavorfull, just be sure to rinse well because it has a bitter layer you must wash off. I think quinoa has the highest protein level of all the grains, so there's another advantage for the herbivores out there!

Some place in Port Dover

I went to a steel plant in Nanticoke today and for lunch we went to Port Dover and had lunch overlooking lake erie. I forget the name...but since most of these blog readers will never ever go to Port Dover it's probably ok!

The menu had exactly 1 veggie item on the menu, so I had cheese tortellini with cream sauce, mushrooms and spinach. It was a kind of run down place with indoor-outdoor carpet kind of thing so I was actually surprised when it turned out to be pretty tasty.

I think the final bill came to $255 for 11 people, so not a spectacular deal, a "moderately tasty" rating.

Condo Party

The new "SuperCentre" at our condo is opening next week so they were having a party to celebrate. The place was packed, but the free liquor, sushi, noodles, pasta, hand dipped choc fruit, porketta, hummus +pita, focaccia etc was all pretty tasty!

Pretty good food and free! Yeah!!!

Was a bit upset, the party said 6:30-9:30, so I arrived at like 6:45. I tried to go upstairs to check out the gym and courts and stuff like that and they told me I couldn't go up till 8 after the band played a special set. It was just an annoying calypso band, so I have no idea what the special finale could have been? Anywho, kind of retarded, but I guess I'll be able to check it out when they open next week.

Bombay Bhel

I went with the work crew to Bombay Bhel (beside Mr. Greek) on Dunda/Winston Churhill in Missisauga.

I am generally pretty biased against restaurants in the burbs and find they are never as good or as cheap as their downtown couterparts....but....this place was actually alright.

It is Cindy's favorite and she comes about once/week for the chicken korma. I had the veggie thali with a super-duper monster piece of naan, rice, pickle thing, spinach-paneer curry, pea and potatoe curry and a lentil/bean curry. Came with savory yogurt thing and a rice pudding. Overall ALOT of food for my $9.99. All quite tasty. Others had the meat thali which was pretty similar to mine.

The only problem with this place was the pickle, it was revoltingly salty (and I even like salty things). Service was also a bit slow, the kitchen seemed to churn the stuff out, but with only one waitress for about 10-12 tables, it was some bad news.

Final verdict, "tasty" with 1.5 thumbs up in the value department.

Dooney's

I went for lunch today to Dooney's in the Annex. Ian and I probably walked past this place a hundred times when we lived in the area, but we never have gone in.

Today I had Huevos Dooney's with black beans, scrambled eggs, tomatoe salsa and toated bread. Not a bad deal for $8. The rest of the crowd had egg type dishes that looked good. The club sandwich seemed to a popular item too with chicken, guac, spicy mayo, bacon and tomatoe.

I also ordered some apple cinammon tea which was pretty good, but I was a bit shocked when I saw on the bill it was $2.75! What a rip!

Anyway, final verdict is decent food and not such a great value.

Westin on Queen's Quay

I went to the company christmas party tonight. The meal wasn't great, weird salad with what appeared to be peeled grapes. Some squash soup was ok, main veggie dish a crappy piece of ravioli type thing with veggie. Meat eaters got chicken and these were the quotes "is this ham?" "this tastes like dominion bbq chicken" "it was rubbery and tastes like microwave crap". Desert was ok, a sponge cake type item.

To make up for the poor food, there was sufficient amounts of free liquor after we scored the bottles of wine from the sparsley populated tables. Even better, a free taxi chit home! So quite the cheap night!!!

Our boring blog

Sorry to all our readers. We haven't been eating out that much lately in an effort to save more money.

But stay tuned for late tomorrow night, I am going to our company christmas party with a free and hopefully tasty meal!

Quizno's Sandwich...but made at home!

I made pizza the other day so we had leftover lunchmeat and cheese. I convinced Ian to make a toasty sub. Here's what you do...toast some pita (preferably pita break) or some good bread will do. Pile up the meat, or I guess in my case, the roasted veggies, grate on some cheese (in our case we had fresh parmesan), broil, put on some lettuce, tomatoes, onions etc, fold over or throw on another pita.

The final verdict, not that great, but definately 2 thumbs up in the cheapness department with perhaps an additional toe up due to using up leftovers!

Mmmmm toasty.

Sneaky Dee's

Ian and I used to go occasionally when we lived in the Annex. It's a cheap beer and Mexican type place on College and Bathurst. I have been craving it for months since we moved to the new place, but Ian generally nixes it for inferior food such as sushi or quiznos.

Today he couldn't argue with the pick-up from school and the 1/2 price fajitas on Tue night. I had veggie, Ian had chicken+shrimp. Came with beans, rice, tortillas, sour cream, guac, mole and tomaotes.

Overall a lot of tasty food, for the low low price of $20 for both of us. They also have cheap beer, 60 oz for $12 I think, which is not bad for Toronto. There are nacho specials with beer other nights of the week too.

A "very tasty" rating in the tastiness department (keeping in mind the cheap Mexican genre) with 2 thumbs up in the cheapness department.

Ian cooks dinner

Grapefruit Moon

I went for brunch with friends to Grapefruit Moon (Bathurst north of Bloor). The place was a bit small and we had to sit at the counter, but overall the place was quite cute and it was fun to watch the people assemble breakfasts.

There was a good selection of eggs, pancakes, breakfast burritos, quesidillas, egg sandwhiches. I had a quesidalla with avocado, black beans and roasted red peppers. Jacquie's avocado, tomatoe and cheese sandwhich looked really good and I would get that next time. All meals served with homefries.

My main beef with this place is price. $10 for a quesadilla and a smallish mound of home fries? Yes, it was tasty, but a one thumb up and one down in the value department (or neutral for the mathematically challenged).

Life Lessons Part 1: How to Grocery Shop

I swung by the grocery store on the way home from work and came up with a few hints to make life easier for everyone...

1. DO push your cart on the right hand side of the aisle. DO NOT go down the middle where you will block traffic both ways.

2. If you are too drunk to stand up, grocery shopping is not a very good idea. If you are too drunk to avoid bashing me with your cart, STAY HOME!

3. While waiting in line at the checkout, organize yourself and find your credit card or cash. DO NOT act surprised, that yes, you will have to pay for your items and then proceed to dig around in a monster handbag for a few loose bills while the rest of us wait for our stuff.

Anyway, now I feel better...and it's sort of food related...right?

Mr Sub

I don't post much because most days I revisit the same old restaurants. Today it was back to Mr Sub which I usual hit twice a week. It was of normally tastiness and most importantly I remembered to get my student discount. The discount is 10% so it's definitely solid and that 40 cents of savings warms me up on the long cold walk back to school.

For those of you that care (I'm sure all of you) I had a small roast beef. I got it with green peppers (See earlier discussion), pickles and meatball sauce. All of this goodness was toasted and then tucked into the coat for long walk back to school. It's not the best sub on their menu but it's one of the best for 3.99. Some day I may go back to the meatball so I can do their sub and soup combo for 3.99. I'll post it here first when I do

Janice vs Ian: Breadmaking Showdown

My parents have a breadmaker so I have many loaves of bread when I lived at home, but Ian thinks that I don't measure accurately and he would be a better breadmaker with our new machine. He made one loaf of pesto that turned out well so he was a bit cocky. I made a so-so loaf of honey wheat.

Ian then made a loaf of "chocolate chip" cookie bread and it turned out AWFUL. Didn't rise at all, was burnt and mishapen. I was going to take a picture, but Ian ate the evidence before I could photograph it for the blog.

Today I made the same recipe and it rose well, far above the breadpan and was not burnt at all.

Ian is now making excuses....but I think he knows that I am the better breadmaker!

Queen Sushi

Ian and I were craving sushi and thought we'd try Queen Sushi again. It felt like we were cheating on New Gen, but they are still are closed due to fire, so it's ok.

I had the veggie box with ALOT of stuff including avocado cucumber roll, tempura, salad, soup, tofu, rice, edamame for $7.25. Ian had the St Patrick with assorted fishiness for $9.25.

The total including tax and tip was $22.50 which was pretty cheap for the amount of food we got.
Our chief complaint last time was the slow service, but this time we had no problems.

A "Tasty" rating with 2 thumbs up for cheapness is the official verdict.

Dim Sum Restaurant with Unknown Name

Friday lunch was dim sum. The place does have a name but as per usual I don't know it. We used to go to Golden Mile but that place has been closed for quite some time so now we go to the restaurant above it. Maybe one day I'll look it up!

As with many dim sum places in Chinatown this place has two things going for it: tastiness and cheapness. In reverse order, it's $1.60 for most dishes. Fancy dishes that contain things like "vegetables" are significantly more expensive. Sadly we got two and they added 10 bucks to the bill with tip and tax. Their actual cost is and will likely continue to be a mystery. We had the usual fare and it is all of reasonable tastiness. We inadvertantly received deep-fried sardines but they didn't prove to be that bad. Not to everyone's liking and they would have undoutedly been better were they warm.

Quizno's

Yesterday's Quizno's was fairly good. Because of the coupons I was forced to order The Traditional. Not being a fan of lunch meats I"d never had it before. It turned out to be alright especially with the price. The deal was we had a coupon for a 2.99 Small Traditional. Savings of two dollars in my books = worth getting a sub I may not like. The overwhelmed Quiznite (a Quizno employee) thought my coupon was 2.99 off. When he told me the total was 2.14 I reluctantly told him, it's supposed to be 2.99 + tax. I argued a little but the guy was adamant and offered to show me the receipt. Trying to save him a dollar didn't seem worth arguing any further so I dropped it and enjoyed a very tasty 2 buck sub.

Janice and Ian: Queen and King of Cheap Eating

4 meals of eating out, $8.55 spent.

Ikea breakfast x 2 = $2.14

Quizno regular veggie -$2 with coupon $4.27 for Janice
Quizno small real traditional + coupon error by dim witted employee = $2.14. Ian tried to correct, but employee insisted he was right about the coupon and gave Ian a super-duper discout.

Jack Astors

After work yesterday I went with the work crowd to Jack Astors in Mississauga for my co-workers departure drinks. The boss bought spring rolls, calmari, chicken wings and brushetta and the first round. All was pretty good, but especially the brushetta. There was a deeeelightful garlic cream sauce in addition to the usual tomato.

There seeemed to be ALOT of families there so they must have some sort of good kids menu or something. Apparently in Montreal, you have to reserve 2 weeks ahead to get a table for 4 on the weekend...bizarre!

Wheat Sheaf

Ian and I went to Czehosk but it was super crowded and we couldn't even get a drink at the bar, so we went to the Wheat Sheaf on Bathurst and King. We were thinking of sneaky dees on college/bathurst but that was heading the wrong way for us in the rain.

The Wheat Sheaf looks good from the outside, but is a bit trashy on the inside (next time we may try the banknote like Ian wanted). I always like places that have moosewood on tap, so the wheat sheaf scored a few points with me right away. Ian had a rum and coke which was a bit odd for a hardcore beer drinking place. Crazy Ian obsessed with cola.

We ordered nachos which were pretty tasty and actually pretty cheap. I like that they threw in some guacamole for free.

The rest of the menu seemed to be good value, with a grilled cheese and fries for 4.25...although I do make a good grilled cheese...more on that some other day when we don't eat out.

Janice Makes Dinner!

Tonight I made an indian stew/curry from my most recent cookbook "Vegetarian Planet". It had the usual curry stuff plus red lentils, white beans, potatoe, carrots etc.

This cookbook is alright, but not really up to par with the most recent moosewood cookbooks.

SURVEY: Who's a better blogger?

Janice: posts ALOT, includes some pictures, moderate amount of detail, not that funny

Ian: very funny, rarely posts

Holiday Inn (AIST/CIM Dinner)

I went to an association for iron and steel technology/canadian institute of mining joint dinner at the holiday inn on the qew and geulph line. Speaker was some vp guy from Honda who read through a hard sales pitch.

Dinner was tasty, meativores had a turkey dinner and I got turkey dinner fixin's but pasta with yummy tomato sauce instead of turkey and dressing. Desert was tira misu, first course salad. Overall pretty yummy and I was somewhat impressed that they had a special veggie meal for me. Two free drinks were thrown into the mix this time around also. At the last AIST dinner at the Atrium conference centre, veggie meal was gross and no free drinks for the same $40.

Basically, the CIM seems to be much better than the AIST at the dinner meeting thing...

College Grill

The weather wasn't that great today so I didn't feel like walking to Mr Sub. After checking the line at the caf in a nearby building I opted for College Grill (near College and Beverley). I've been there before but this is the first time I got the chicken leg plate (6.89 with tax) which includes a leg, rice, 2 tiny potato things and a nasty salad. Overall the place isn't that great but it's convenient. Not really recommended unless you're stuck in the area.

Croutons

I made the leftover bread into croutons. Here's how you do it...

Cut up dry bread into crouton shape cubes, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, dried herbs (basil, oregano, parsley). Cook at 350 F for about 10 minutes depending on how crispy you like. Much tastier and cheaper than purchasing at the grocery store.

Pesto Bread

No eating out today, but Ian did make some pesto bread in our new breadmaker. It turned out quite well, but made a grotesque amount of bread, even with the "medium" loaf. Will have to make the small next time. Don't worry work crew, will make later this week to bring in for sampling!

Here is Ian for the first time ever appearing on the internet!

Quiznos on Wellington

To counteact our lack of eating our during the week, Ian and I went to Quizno's for lunch today. We used a coupon for buy one get one sub free with drink and chip purchase. The bottom line was $9.06 for the two of us. I had a veggie which included guac, mushrooms and assorted other tasty stuff. Ian had mesquite chicken which he seemed to like.

The real problem with this place is price, the tastiness is way, way, way, way, way better than subway, mr sub etc. The real deal thing seems ok, but it's generally more than you'd like to pay for a sandwich.

We also noticed, three small subs for $9 after 3 on Monday I think...Ian and I will be back for some of that action!

Final verdict, Very Tasty with a 1 thumb up for value (only if you have a coupon or some sort of deal).