Star Wars Day

Happy Star Wars day to everyone!

May the 4th be with you.

 I hope you are all looking forward to tomorrow as well. For the Revenge of the 5th!

Har har har, I shall end my nerdiness there. Sorry about the lack of posts lately, I will get on them as soon as I find some time (hopefully this weekend)! =D

Potluck

My apologies, I know I haven't posted in a while. My life picked up like a whirlwind and kind of overtook, well, for lack of better word, my life.

To pick up where I left off last, I had a potluck at my place at the end of March.

I invited a lot of people, but even with a handful of polite declines, I still had more people coming than usual. I didn't even have enough chairs for everyone!

Everyone had arrived by around 630 and there was a lot of (delicious!) food at the table! =D

Not enough chairs to go around, whoops! =(

It was also Denise's birthday the weekend before, so I made her a banana cake with cream cheese icing in celebration.

Mmm delicious cake... *droooooools*

I didn't get a good photo of all the food, as I slowly became busier as more people trickled in.

We enjoyed a LOT of yummy foods made by everyone, had birthday cake, played catch phrase and things in a box.

There was a lot of food going around afterward still. Drunken gummy bears, homemade Bailey's, caramel fondue and so much more. There was a lot leftover, but thank goodness people took things home (like all the chicken wings left!)

All this writing is making me hungry... time to grab my bedtime snack! =D

Alberta Elections 2012

Thank goodness!

Although I am not largely a proponent of the PC Party, I have to say, anything is better than a WR win.

I'd say a 62 to 17 seat defeat is quite the feat indeed.

 

I also screen-capped my parents' riding of Edmonton-Mill Woods. PC as usual, but I think more people were pulling for a Liberal win this time around. My mom also knows her. But I don't think that's any reason to vote for someone..

Avocados!

I've been having a big hankering for avocados lately, so I went to the store and picked up a bunch a few weeks ago. After that, I realized that although I love avocados, I don't actually know how to use them in a large variety of ways.

So I tried a couple things out.

Turns out, avocado is more versatile than I realized. It's great in so many things!


Firstly, I tried it in a simple salad. I had lettuce that had been sitting in the fridge for longer than it should, I clearly needed to use it. Rummaging around my fridge, I found a container of feta that wasn't open yet (yum!). And there always seems to be cucumber and tomato lying around somewhere.

Cut it all up and throw it together, into what turned out to be a delicious (and heart healthy) salad!


Next up was grilled cheese, with a twist. I added sliced of avocado and tomato to the mix and grilled it up on the stove. The avocado got all warm and gooey, and the cheese melted into the tomato. Mmmmm heavenly...

I actually picked up a fresh bunch again just yesterday as well. Good thing I'm expanding my avocado repertoire! =)

Salmon and potatoes

I love salmon. And I love potatoes.

Yum yum.

I was craving some crosstrax a few weeks ago (and still are, coincidentally), but didn't want to head to the Keg on campus to get my fill of such greasiness.

Instead, I decided to make wedge potato fries for myself in the oven with my trusty herb: rosemary.

I also had some portioned filets of salmon in the fridge, so I went ahead and made them with lemon wedges and some cracked pepper.

To round off the meal, I added some nice fresh green beans from the store for a deliciously colourful meal! =D

Toronto

I love going to Toronto. Everytime I go, it's like I discover something new. The city is so big, and there's so much to do, it's literally like I'm a tourist each time. It's also great that my cousins take me to slightly different places each time, so I get to explore even more.

I was in Toronto 2 weekends ago, and since the Sunday was so gorgeous out, we decided to park the car in Yorkville and walk everywhere else.

We managed to walk alongside the St. Patrick's Day parade route, and had to cross their path a couple times to get to stores we wanted to peruse.

It was so beautiful out, we walked from Yorkville, zig zagging our way to Eaton Centre. Then back around to Spadina up Chinatown, before making out way back to College to go to Fran's!




Needless to reiterate: our meals were delicious! =D

Monkey Toasts

A couple weeks ago, I went in to Toronto for the weekend to hang out with my cousins, Winnie and Sharon. Winnie's birthday was a couple days before, so we decided to head out for dinner and a comedy club of her choice.

We ended up at Banjara Indian Cuisine, which, by the way, was absolutely DELICIOUS. It's even better than Diwa Classic here in Guelph, and I really like that place...

Anyways, the place was packed, fueling my comment that it was a great place to eat.

After dinner, we walked around the Queen St W area because it was a beautiful cool night. When it was about good timing, we headed to Comedy Bar with our tickets to Monkey Toasts!

I like live comedy, but haven't been out to see a lot of it because not many of my friends are interested in it. Glad my cousins are up for anything! It was a great show, with three guests (John Catucci, Mike Layton and Marnie McBean).

It was pretty cool, because Marnie is an Olympic medallist for Canadian rowing and she shared her experiences on that. Mike Layton is the Trinity-Spadina city councillor, and John Catucci is on the Food Network!!

I definitely hit up John Catucci afterware for a photo and the chance to ask him about being on the Food Network, how he got to where he is now, etc. Although he didn't have the authority to get me a show on the network, he was interesting to talk to and an overall awesome funny guy.

Me with John Catucci!

Pesto salmon

I'm not sure if I've posted something like this before, but it is still delicious.

There was some good lookin' salmon at the store, so I picked up some of it.

I also love pesto, and always have that lying around, so I thought I'd put the 2 together and make some epic delicious-ness.

My creation?


A plate of awesome. That's what.

I'm a strong proponent of crispy skin and flaky flesh., so the consistency of the fish was a little on the mushy side for me. Overall though, it tasted pretty good.

It was a simple foil packet of salmon with the pesto rubbed on top. I left it to bake in the oven for 20 minutes and it turned out great!

Blueberries

I love blueberries.

We still have some blueberries in the freezer that are from the summer at the cottage. So, I decided to make some blueberry baked goodies, and I settled on scones.

I had never made scones before, typically because I don't like the hard dry texture. I got this recipe somewhere online (honestly, I forget where) and it turned out a lot runnier than I anticipated. They were so soft and light, they turned into pillowy cookies instead.


Not that I was going to complain about that, since scones are too dry for my liking.

Delicious!

Convocation v2.0!

Hurray for working so hard over the last 2 years for another degree!


I officially haven't been a student for over 3 months now, and although I miss being in the loop about all the grad student events, I'm really liking not getting paid shit and saving tuition fees.

Duane (one of my committee members) and I

Ice skating

For the Family Day long weekend, all of us who were in town decided to gather round and spend some nice quality time together in the afternoon. We hit up Cornerstone for a late brunch before renting skates and heading to the skating rink in front of City Hall.

A few of us hadn't skated before, so there was a lot of pulling others around, and catching falls.


Laura was doing great though! Look at her awesome figure skating pose =)

We all had a blast skating around the little rink. It was busy there, but it was nice because it was a relatively warm day for a skate.


After tiring ourselves out skating, we went to Quebec St Mall to get some hot chocolate and relax our legs before going home!

Waiting

"What are you doing with your life?" she says.

"Waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

Then, she looks at the night above her. "When the emptiness stops haunting my mind; haunting my soul. That one moment when all darkness brightens; when the fucked up shit floating in my mind fades away."

Tofu stirfry

I really like the new plates I got back in January, and have been thinking of how I can start to utilize them in my photos.


Not a particularly interesting dinner, but I love the ease of stirfries and how delicious they are when I add my signature sauce to it.

Valentine's Day

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. A.k.a., another multi-batch of sugar cookies to decorate.


Hope everyone had a great V-Day this year!

A little late on the wishes I know, but at least I'm catching up with my blogging.

William Fitzsimmons

Don't be alarmed by the massive facial hair. He's safe.

LOL.

Last month, Jer and I ventured into Toronto one fine Friday evening to go see William Fitzsimmons in concert. We left a bit earlier, so we could go somewhere for a bite to eat. Along the way there, he decided on going to an oyster bar. I recall seeing that Oyster Boy was only a few blocks from The Great Hall, so we found a parking spot at the nearby Green P and walked over.

It was a nice evening and at one point, we were walking behind the great man himself! That was exciting for me, especially since I didn't notice. Jer had to point out to me that the "disgusting smokers" we were walking behind, was William and some other people I could only assume to be in his band (turns out it was his band manager and the opening act).


The oysters were delicious of course (St. Simon variety from New Brunswick).

Oh, yes. The concert was absolutely fantastic too.

We got back to Guelph really really late/early. Aka, sleep timeee =D

BlackBerry Playbook

YAY PLAYBOOK!


Now I officially have something *GOOD* I can use as my eReader!

It's so fantastic, and now that the OS 2.0 has been released, some of the kinks have been ironed out as well!

woot woot!

Spicy shrimp with avocado mayonnaise

I love sandwiches. Having said that, the choice to not eat meat makes it a little more difficult to have sandwiches... =(

I found this delicious recipe on gojee and wanted to try it asap!


The avocado mayonnaise was something to die for, it was sooo good. However, I didn't find the spicy shrimp quite spicy enough, so that was a bit disheartening. I was looking for something with a lot more heat and kick to it to really get me going. I'll just have to double the amount of spice next time =)

Cranberry brownies

The same day I made the nutmeg date cake, I decided to use the last of the cocoa and make brownies too. Somewhere along the way, I accumulated a large bag of cranberries, so threw them into the mix too.


I baked them until they dried out so I got a nice crusty top. Yum!

Nutmeg date cake

I love nutmeg, but I don't love dates. So why do I have all these dried dates in my house?!?

From my new (but really old) vegetarian cookbook, I decided to make a nutmeg date cake. It was too sweet for me taste, but good thing I didn't make it for myself anyways!

More knitting

While awaiting my friend who's teaching me to finish knitting my gloves, I started a simple one-hour project to knit a cozy for my GPS.

A simple two-by-two rib stitch as a flat panel, I sewed the sides together with a sewing knit needle and added the button and yarn closure to keep it from slipping out.


Cute!