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?