The Soy Milk Showdown

Usually Ian and I buy the President choice regular soy, but if they are out, then the vanilla is ok too.

Basically this stuff is reasonably priced at $3.70 or so for the 2 L jug, is low calorie and low fat, has 6 g protein, lots of calcium, b vitamins, vitamin d and all sorts of other yummy things.

They don't seem to be organic, but really, who cares??

Ian enjoys regular, but I enjoy the sweets, so vanilla is more my thing.


Last weekend, Rennie and Liz (and their No Frill's Grocery Store) were out of PC soy milk due to a sale, so we strayed away and picked up some other types.

Nature Silk in a red box was $3.99. They don't have a website, but here's a home picture of the stuff! Pretty much the same as PC for nutritional stuff, 7 g protein, lots of vitamin b, d, calcium etc etc.

Seems to be organic, but not worth the price premium in my opinion! This stuff is moderately tasty, not as good as PC.



Then to make sure we fully sample everything, Ian also grabbed a carton of So Nice regular for $3.49. It too is organic and is very low calorie, has the same 6 grams protein as PC, and pretty moderate amounts of all sorts of other good stuff in there. Lots of pasty chalkiness all around though in the taste department!

Fun NY Times Article

Check out this article regarding nutrition. It's about 12 pages or so of reading, so in the interests of getting to bed in time, I skipped to the last page, so that I could give our faithful blog readers the low down.

Basically the author is suggesting that if you want to live longer and healthier, you should:

• Eat more like a vegetarian or an omnivore
• Cook stuff and plant a garden
• Pick a culture (any culture) and eat like them. Theory is that it worked for them and kept them going for centuries, so probably pretty healthy.
  
• Eat normal food, not processed junk with ingredients that you don't recognize
  
• Eat less - calorie restricted diets seem like a sure-fire way to avoid cancer and live longer

NY TIMES LINK

In case you need some incentive to actually do some reading....

Ian says, "this article was very informative". I actually made that up, his actual quote was, "I have nothing to say aside from that guy is a nut."

The 2007 Fire Incident

A couple of days ago, Ian was searing some tuna with a bit too much oil and our grease splatter screen caught on fire. I put it out with a lifter, but still it was pretty frightening.

Here's Ian with his tuna. Just kidding, this is some random guy that came up on google images when I searched "tuna searing".






Here's a recreation of me putting out the super fire!







To prevent further mishaps, I purchased this fire extinguisher at the Canadian Tire today. Hopefully we will not have to use it.



Here's a handy link on how to put out a kitchen fire.

New Gen

Ian felt it was too cold to walk home and somehow convinced me to pick him up. We hit up New Gen for some bento box action. I feel extremely sad and guilty about saying this, but it wasn't quite up to par. It could be the second ever New Gen let-down (the first being when they put un-ripe avocado into my yam maki lunch special a few years back).


The miso soup had never been that great at new gen, but it seems to have taken a turn for the worse. My cucumber rolls and Ian's assorted salmon sushi were very tasty. Tempura was good (Ian says that his shrimp tempura was "tasty"), but lacked the usual variety, veggie stir fry was alright, my veggie spring roll was a bit pasty, fried tofu better than normal. Ian's dumplings were good, but his teriyaki salmon alternated between dry and mushy. Odd. Rice for both of us was not so hot.

Price was right, $25 for two including tax, tap and free green tea ice cream on the house.

Anoush

Went to Anoush today for lunch. Not really blog worthy since it's just a cross the street (where the dearly missed Youth Garden was) and I only go because of laziness. OK is about the best that can be said for it. What did make it blog worthy today was the one worker all of sudden decides to start yelling at everyone. The guy normally is quiet and reserved but today it seemed like something snapped. The other worker didn't know what was going on and was asking the guy if he is OK while mumbling under her breath that it doesn't seem like he is. Nothing like some lunch time drama to spice things up. I just wish some guy snapping would somehow translate into cheaper or free food.

Port Severn Adventure

Ian's aunt and uncle (Anne and Howard) gave us a gift certificate for the Inns of Ontario for our wedding last year....so this weekend we went to the Inn at Christie's Mill.

On Friday night we stopped in Barrie on the way and went to Jack Astors.


They have a rather cute donkey as a mascot and Ian liked the "chain restaurant ambience". I had a noodly veggie soup thingy which was ok, but not quite what I expected. Note to self: should read the menu more closely. Ian had the ribs with fries and coleslaw. Lots of tastiness all around - especially the fries. Ian had the fresh baked apple pie which was super tasty too! They must be using lard or something..mmmm...



Then we made it to the Inn, checked into a pretty nice room with an electric fireplace, hit up the hot-tub (kind of outside in a small wooden hut thing) and had a bottle of "Two buck chuck" merlot that I brought back from an Ian visit this summer.


On Saturday morning, we had a buffet breakfast at the Inn - pretty tasty stuff.

Here's me relaxing, post massage at the spa.




The view from our window.








Then some delightful snow-shoeing at the Wye Marsh Nature Place. Pretty fun stuff, although am filled with regret. For a mere $12, they had a pretty awesome moose touque with antlers and stuff. I let Ian convince me that I shouldn't buy it :(


Ian wasn't so hot at the snow-shoeing - kept blaming his equipment...seems sketchy to me.






Then it was off for some more relaxing, paper reading and sauna (hot like death is how I like to describe it...of course Ian loved it).

We had a nice dinner at the hotel, included as part of our package. So we went all out and I had the Thai veggie spring rolls to start (pretty tasty, very vegetably), then a piece of halibut with baby lobster tails, veggie in a buttery sauce. Followed up with some almond cookie thing and ice cream.

Ian had the salmon cakes to start, beef tenderloin with mushrooms and veggie and cheesecake for desert. Had a bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio to go along with my fishy stuff.

Then some more relaxing, bed-time, a buffet breakfast this morning, and a short walk around Vaughan Mills shopping center on the way home!

Other notes for tourists - it would be good to go in the summer and enjoy the free canoes and paddle boats. Also, the St. Marie Among the Hurons center would be open, along with the Huronia Museum! How fun is that???

Thanks Anne and Howard!

World's Healthiest and Tastiest Red Lentil Soup

This soup basically is the King of Healthy and Tasty! Give it a try! For those (AK) that have recently obtained a 40 lb bag of industrial carrots, this is also a helpful recipe.



Moosewood seemed to suggest a few more steps, but I just threw everything into the big pot and boiled for about 20 minutes.





- 1 1/2 cup red lentils
- 6 cup water
- 1 extremely large carrot - grated (or a few smaller ones, your choice)
- 1 onion
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- fresh garlic and ginger
- cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, bay leaf
- juice of 1 lemon at the end of cooking

Middle Eastern Feast

Last night I made my typical middle eastern fare. On the menu was:

• Home-made hummus
  
• Tabouli with lots of tomatoes and cucumber in there for tastiness
• Chicken chunks with lemon herb pc memories of Greece sauce for Ian (very deelightful for quick and tasty baked chicken)
  
• Roasted veggies (asian eggplant, squash, potatoes, onion, zucchini, peppers)
• Rice with lentils.
  

Of course, Ian was hungry about 1 hour later and polished off a row of PC choc chunk cookies with a couple of glasses of soy milk.

As for wine, we consulted our new "Billy's Best Bottles" book that Ian's parents got us. Since the middle eastern people don't seem to drink that much or produce wine, we had to come up with something sorta on our own.

I decided to go with one of Billy's "Fresh White" picks, Concha Y Toro 2006 Sauvignon Blanc "Casillero del Diablo" from Chile ($10.95). As Billy promised, it did end up being light and refreshing. His food ideas for this type of wine were goat cheese, asparagus, sushi, oysters, chicken with herbs and most appetizers.










Check out the nice looking vineyard!











Then we watched the movie "Kiss the Girls", which has lots of potential for scariness, but turned out to be a pretty good thriller/mystery movie.

Hero defeats Shawarma Sanbad

We hit up two restaurants for lunch. Well each of us went to one place. Janice went to a place at 671 Queen St W with a sign above the door saying Shawarma Sanbad(sp?). I didn't see any of the red/yellow/green signs that restaurants are required to display indicating their inspection status so I wasn't about to eat there. Janice persisted and had a falafal which she reports was tasty but not as good as Sarah's Shawarma. While eating I observed that the place was quite sketchy, there didn't seem to be a sink in the kitchen area. Not good - basically like eating off of a plate of money that has been handled by hundreds of people. Upon further reflection it seems like a different restaurant was there in the past and a new place has squatted in on the place without regard for things like "health rules", etc. A check of the Toronto DineSafe site mentions a "Mr Jordan" restaurant at that location as of August 2006 - sadly only a yellow for them.

I on the other hand couldn't resist going to Hero burger which I haven't been to in over two years. This was my first time at the queen st location and it was as good as I remembered. I went for the 6 oz. The burger itself was quite good although my bun was slightly over cooked. Hopefully it will be less than two years before I go again.

One day when lotto 649 pays out for me I'll get mine with guacamole (55 cents extra) and I imagine it will be an extraordinary. My shorter term goal will be to get a six dollar burger with guacamole at Carl's Jr since I believe that is only 30 cents more (well plus the plane ticket to the nearest Carl's Jr)

Indian Palace

For Friday lunch the lunch crew and I ventured down to the queen st indian buffets. Babur, the king of the strip was out because, while it's very good, it's very expensive. Instead we tried for Trimurti but it was full. We finally ended up at the Indian Palace. Probably a good call because with their 8 meat choices and 6 veggie dishes there was pretty good selection. The chicken was in general boneless although definitely nowhere near the quality of boneless chicken Babur has. Butter chicken wasn't that great in my opinion and instead my favorite was this shrimp curry they had. For dessert, gulab jamon, a limited selection of fruits, a hearty rice pudding and vanilla or chocolate ice cream. I of course combined everything together to make a delicious concoction. The ice cream was a little too hard but everyone knows I'm not too picky so something like that wouldn't bother me excessively

Ian Cooks Quesidallas

As a New Years resolution thingy, Ian is now going to cook something once/week with minimal help from me!

I bought this massive block of cheddar for only $4 before christmas and even since have been thinking up ways to use it before it molds....hence the cheesy quesidallas.

Here Ian is giving the thumbs down to the pc tortillas since they have a miniscule amount of trans. The thumb down is because Ian is obsessed with living a trans fat free life!


Since our chicken is salmonella infested, Ian cooked up some shrimp to throw in his! Take a look at fancy splatter screen! How fun is that?







The veggies and cheese.









The assistant chef/photographer (me) helping out the chef while he is hard at work....












Ian quesidalla pre-closing. Note the tasty black beans!






The quesidalla that nearly ate Ian...fortunately he is still with us.



And finally, the complete meal (with rice and lentils of course)

Trimurti

On a mission to try new cheap restaurants, I flipped through our old "Cheap Eats" book and headed to Big Bowl on Queen Street. Too bad the new "Cheap Eats 2006" book that I bought Ian for Christmas hasn't arrived yet, or it would likely have told me that this place is now shut down.

As a substitute, I went to the busiest looking of the 5 or so Indian buffets on the strip - Trimurti. For $8.95 = $11 or so including tax and tip, I got a not so great Indian food. First the appetizers: the deep fried stuff was tasteless and unfresh (pakora and samosa). The papandum didn't have the deelightful seeds baked in there. Salads were appalling and old looking. Veggie curry stuff (potatoe/spinach, chickpea, yellow lentil, peas/paneer) were equally tasteless and veggies were horribly overcooked. Meat stuff didn't look great either.

Rice pudding was edible, but again not much flavor. To spice it up, I threw in a few gulab jaman, they actually had a yummy flavor, but were icy cold so they lost a few points.

Next time, for $1 more, I will go to Aroma on King Street!

Tropika

Ian and I went with his parents to Tropika in Edmonton. We've been a couple of times before and always had tasty food.

I started with a Tiger Beer. Pretty tasty.

Then Ian and the parents had some satay - beef and chicken - they thought pretty good and not dry at all like typical meat on a stick.

Ian is obsessed with the sticky rice and pork in the leaf thing. Good, but didn't have as much flavor as Ian remembered from last time.

Then to the main course. I had a $14 veggie combo meal with two humongous spring rolls, some cold veggie pickle/salad thing, coconut rice and a veggie curry. High marks for tastiness and quantity!

The meat eaters in the crowd had a shrimp and veggie coconut milk curry, a multi-type noodle thing and some home style chicken. They all seemed to like.

Banff Ski Vacation

Ian and I went skiing for a couple of days at sunshine and lake louise...stayed at the Banff YWCA. Not the nicest of places, but the price (even jacked up holiday pricing) was pretty good.

For food, here's what we did:

1. On way down, stopped off at Pete's Drive In on 16th ave in Calgary for fries, burgers and shakes. Only one of each item between the two of us = lots of tasty food, although not as cheap as you might expect.

2. First night in Banff, went to the usual, Magpie and Stump. Tasty tex mex food at about $12-15 per entree. Didn't really measure up after all the cheap mexican during Ian's californian adventure this past summer.

3. Earl's on the next night. Tried to get into old spaghetti, but was super busy. Ian had spicy seafood penne which was alright. I had kung pao noodles. Ian believes that I have spelled kung pao wrong, but I will not let it stop the blogging! Pretty tasty but ended up spending $42 including a lava lamp margarita. Ian thinks he may have overtipped though? Hard to say???

4. Next night went to Old Spaghetti Factory. Really not all that tasty, but horrendous amounts of food and drink for a mere $40 or so including 1/2 L of wine, bread, salad, pasta (including Ian's meatballs), ice cream, tea and cola for Ian. Wine was Sawmill Creek Merlot. Oddly kind of bitter. I guess to be expected at $8 for the half litre???

5. New Years Eve- tried to go back to the Magpie, but closed at 5, so could get ready for New Years Eve Party. Ian and I questioned wisdom of this, at $75 for the party and only one sitting for the night = much, much less profit compared to turing tables over an estimated 5 or 6 times on a regular night?? The place is always packed from about 4:30 pm to 1-2 am. Did not make a lot of sense. Anyway, went to Tommy's pub for fish and chips and veggie burger with guacamole. Tasty all around. Spent about $24 including a beer for me. Seemed to be where the locals hang out.

6. Way home- stopped at Tim's in Red Deer for my bagel with cream cheese and Ian had the new bacon and egg sandwich. Somewhat tasty and only $4.44!

7. The real star of the show was Ian's lunch and breakfast. He is back on the disgusting superstore greasy muffins now that he is back in E-town, so he ate one of those for breakfast. Usually, on the ski hill, Ian would eat a burger and pop. New cheap Ian bought a bunch of vector bars and then ate a few of those for lunch along with some fun cheeses. Nuts and granola bars for me!