Yummy Food Recap - Vol. VII

I'm back this week with another eclectic weekly summary of my eating habits.  This week is ever so slightly better than the last.


Results from last week's poll are also in.  Despite loving tomatoes on my hamburger, I totally forgot to list them as a burger topper.  As of tonight, and as of 5 votes, the top burger contenders are:

         3 votes for Ketchup
         2 votes for Cheese, Lettuce and Mustard
         1 vote for Tomato, Relish, and Onions

The champion of this poll was clearly Ketchup.

Ketchup is such an awesome condiment.  Sometimes I wonder if it really is *just* a condiment.  It has so many applications.  On typical burgers and hotdogs.  Some people enjoy it on mac and cheese.  I have to say one of my favorite uses of ketchup (or controversially: catsup) is to have it over a bowl of country-style hashbrowns.  I just love how the heat from the browns warms up the ketchup, making it ever so sweet and yummy <3


Moving on!  Here is this weeks "Executive Summary":

Tuesday - Chipotle Shrimp over Coconut Rice
Wednesday - Sweet Potato Hash
Thursday - Dr. Pepper Pork Tenderloin
Friday - Blackbean Eggrolls and Mahogany Chicken Waves
Saturday - Sheppard's Pie
Sunday - Meatballs and Eggnoodles
Monday - Souvlaki Skewers


Josh decided that he would like to have Chipotle this week and I really wanted to have shrimp, and both of us really wanted to try coconut rice so that's what inspired Tuesday's meal.  I bought some coconut milk at Belbin's grocery and it was my first time really working with it.  To top off the dish, we toasted some shredded coconut and it gave the meal a nice sweet crunch:

Wednesday we wanted a mostly vegetable meal, so we chopped up some red onions, red peppers and sweet potato, added some corn and blackbeans and made a hash of sorts out of it all.  It's one of our favorite things to eat.  To add a bit of a kick, we fried off a hot Italian sausage and that gave it a really nice taste.

Unfortunately, there was nothing spectacular looking about the interesting sounding Dr. Pepper Pork Tenderloin.  It was actually a bit of a letdown.  My favorite part was the mashed potato.  This is Josh's plate:

 

We had some fun on Friday night with our leftover blackbeans and eggroll wrappers, along with some mushrooms and onions making what we thought was a Chili-inspired eggroll.  Sad part is that we forgot to use the sour cream we had in the fridge.  Oh well.  With that we also made some Mahogany Chicken Waves.  They are dry-rubbed with cocoa powder, brown sugar, chili powder, smoked paprika and some S&P, skewered and then baked or grilled.  They are really nice and smoky, and look so pretty when you bite into them because the meat is so white and the outside is so dark...

Saturday we were both victims from drinking an ungodly amount of booze the night before.  We had a lot of fun (it was our first night downtown by ourselves) but we definitely paid the price the next day... especially me.  Ahem.... long story short we were in no mood to cook and wanted something heavy to settle our bellies, so we bought some pre-made Sheppard's pie.  It was very yummy, and it was not frozen either which was a treat.

Sunday we made some really nice hamburger-helper-esque noodle dish.  Sheila's home made meatballs + Mushrooms + Alfredo sauce + egg noodles = very easy, yummy meal.  We also had a tasty, toasted cheese bun on the side.

I was really excited for today's supper:  Souvlaki Skewers!  We had made this once before and I loved it.  It makes for good leftovers too.  I am still trying to decide if they were worth the raw onion scent that is stuck in my apartment now from leaving them to marinate in my fridge overnight.

So that's it for this week's blog.  I hope you enjoyed it!  

My favorite thing this week was probably the Sweet Potato Hash.  Shout-outs go to Carrot sticks, Spicy Nacho Doritos, Spinach Dip and Diet Pepsi (not all at the same time!) haha!

Yummy Food Recap - Vol. VI

It's that time again!  And guess what?  I'm also late again  ( :  But that's alright, I'll just save the extra meals for next week's entry.


Even though I kept the polls open for another week (and then some!) there is still a tie between KFC's Boxmaster and Double Down - Let's just agree that they are equally gross in an amazing way.


Getting back on track, here is this week's "Executive Summary":

Tuesday - Mushroom Egg Rolls and Spicy Thai Noodles
Wednesday - Hot Dog Tacos
Thursday - Shell Pasta n' Cheese Sauce
Friday - Hamburgers
Saturday - Home Made Pizza
Sunday - Ribs
Monday - Pork Stirfry


Tuesday was probably the funnest thing we made this week.  It was our first time working with egg rolls from scratch.  We used Mini Bella mushrooms and red onion in the egg rolls themselves, with red curry paste we bought at an Asian grocery store downtown.  The noodles were also from the same little shop.  It was super spicy, but delicious!   (side note: they look burned but they are not)   ; )

Sticking with the theme of gross food, we decided to make a recipe that we found in the latest issue of the Food Network Magazine:  Hot Dog Tacos.  Sounds gross but is actually pretty light. 

We wanted some cheesy pasta on Thursday, but didn't have any of the typical macaroni noodles.  Because we were both not in the mood to leave the house we improvised and used shell pasta, some broccoli for the hell of it, and (you guessed it) leftover "spicy" hotdogs made by Josh.  Cayenne makes them spicy!  Actually tasted quite good.

I know the both of us love our hamburgers, but this is starting to get ridiculous.  With the exception of the first blog and the week of Gander food, EVERY WEEK we have had hamburgers.  They're just so good though!

Saturday was fairly typical, Pizza, but it was the first time we'd both actually made a dough from scratch.  We wanted to use whole wheat flour and the results were quite tasty!

Earlier that week while we were buying groceries we noticed that ribs were on sale for a really good price.  We picked up some pork side ribs (until then, we had only ever had the back ribs on a pig).  One thing I really wanted to make sure about was that we cooked them until they were tender.  The other times we'd cooked them they turned out sortof tough.  This time we cooked them for 3 hours, undisturbed and covered in tinfoil in the oven at 200 degrees, then for another 15 on broil, uncovered and slathered in Bull's Eye Blazin' Chipotle BBQ sauce Mmmmm!  So tender and so tasty, all for $8!  On the side I made some of my "round fries" which are thinly sliced, pan fried bits of potato.

Monday of this week was a terrible day.  I couldn't get to sleep the night before, so I was VERY tired, and just a whole bunch of little things added up to make it a bit annoying.  So when we had to cook supper I wanted something quick and carby.... Stirfry!  We used some of the leftover noodles from the egg roll meal that I had portioned out and frozen instead of rice and it was delicious.

That's it for this week.  I am definitely not consistent with the dates I post, but I am definitely consistent with the terribleness of the food I've been eating.  Next week's food log has already started and it is already a lot better than last week.  Here's the kicker though:  there are a lot of social events planned for me in the next 2 weeks so things aren't looking good for nutritious food haha!

So *please* people, suggest some good, healthy recipes for me!

So long!

Yummy Food Recap - Vol. V

It's time for me to pull my pants back up again and start doing my posts on Mondays, like they ought to be done.  I can't believe I'm up to Vol. V already!  Because it has only been 4 days since my last post, I have a special feature section at the end and will probably deviate from the topic of food a bit to fill the post in a bit.

Here is my "Executive Summary" of this week's tasty eats:

Friday - Spicy Sausage Penne Pasta
Saturday - Chipotle Steakhouse Burger, Jungle Jim's
Sunday - BBQ'd hots & hams (yes, burger two days in a row)
Monday - Steak, Corn and ... Brussel Sprouts?

Because I was lazy in getting the last blog post out, I am only working with four days of meals, starting with Friday, June 9th.  Friday was an intense day, firstly because of the wicked heatwave, and secondly because it started my weekend-long adventure of eating not-so-healthy food.  The power decided to shut off in most of the east end of downtown, which is where the office I work at is located.  So at 11:00am we all decided it was time for some eats on the Sundance Deck.  When I got back to the office I was 1/2 of a giant platter of Nachos heavier and had a throbbing sunburn across my back.  Very yummy though! 

Supper time was nice because I got to relax while Josh took care of making sausage penne pasta <3 God love him.  He stood over a stove with boiling water and fried a sausage in Humidex 30 Degree heat while I sat on my butt on the couch.  He played his fourth show with The Coffee Dates (found on Facebook here and YouTube here) and did a great job!  He also has a fun blog that he does daily called Ten Second Sounds where he writes "Bite-sized portions of music, delivered daily" - Go Josh!

I'm lovin it.  Saturday morning we were both very hungover and tired from being out late after the show.  We also woke up to a 30 Degree bedroom and neither of us were in the mood to cook.  What do you do when you're hungover and tired/lazy?  Get McD's breakfast sandwiches, that's what!  Later that day I went to see my good friend's wedding dress and look at potential bridesmaid dresses which was a blast.  I wound up going out with her, her mom and her sister to Jungle Jim's for supper.  I knew the day was bust already from the McD's so I went with what looked best to me at the moment - the Chipotle Steakhouse Burger.  Josh had it a few months ago and ever since I had been jealous, but no more!  It was actually fantastic.  Thank's Jungle Jim's!

Sunday we had BBQ'd hots and hams, nothin' special really, but they sure were delicious!

Today we weren't really sure what to have with the steaks that we had bought for supper. We knew we had corn on the cob, that was given to us by Sheila when we were in Gander, but we wanted another veggie.  There was a bag of frozen brussel sprouts and they did the trick fried with some butter and lil pork bits.  YUM!  Definitely the most yummy meal of the 4 day post.

The results from the latest poll "What is the Grossest?" didn't surprise me the KFC items (Boxmaster and Double Down) swept the board each with a 40% vote, Louis Gee's Devil Slab earned a fair 20% vote.

So here's my special feature section - Gross KFC Foods!  Nothing tastes more satisfying and leaves your stomach more raped than KFC. 

I remember Josh first told me about the Double Down I thought that he must have heard a rumor, because it was actually on April Fools day.  He said there was a news article that said KFC was coming out with a new sandwich called the Double Down.  It's a piece of fried chicken fillet, topped with cheese, bacon and sauce, topped with ANOTHER piece of fried chicken!  I actually didn't believe him, or the online rumors until I started seeing commercials on television. Wow. It's Real! 

I first discovered the Boxmaster a week ago when the mailman delivered the newest batch of KFC coupons to my house.  I didn't even really notice it until Josh made a horrific noise when he saw the advertisement for it.  A Boxmaster is a chicken patty, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese slice and HASHBROWN all tucked nicely into a tortilla that's toasted with pepper mayo.  Including the hashbrown is just confusing.  It's not even a regular ingredient in their menu, they don't serve breakfast.  This is what one blogger (mentioned in the next paragraph) had to say about this ridiculous creation:

"The product was served in an innovative paper wrapper with a cardboard belt with simple fastening device...Once removed from the packet, the product itself was very dense thus giving it a very weighty feel. The Bacon in fact looked absent upon a cursory visual inspection but was in fact within."

I died laughing when I read that.  If you want more fun reads about this, here is the blog I just quoted "Kentucky Fried Bloggin" - an amazing and funny blog about KFC foods.


That's it really it for this week.  It was short, but I hope also sweet (technically I suppose it was more salty).

I'm going to leave up the poll, now that you have an explanation of the two KFC beasts, so that we can try to break the tie.

Shout-outs go to Cadbury Family Sized bar sale at Shoppers (4 for $5), Moo Moos Waffle cones and Moo Moo's Chocolate Sour Cherry ice cream.

Yummy Food Recap - Vol. IV

It's time for my weekly re-hash of all the food I've eaten in the past 7 days.  Today you get a treat!  I am late again posting this blog so I will include the 3 extra days of food that it took before I had time to write this.

I think that this week was a bit more diverse than the last two weeks, or at least I felt like it. 

Before I start, the results from this weeks poll were pretty lame, only 4 votes and it was a 50-50 split between eating BBQ 1-2 times and 3-4 times per week.  I guess I need to work on more interesting polls!

Executive Summary of this past week's menu:

Tuesday (June 29th) - Steak and Fries
Wednesday - Pizza
Thursday - Grilled Chicken Burgers
Friday - Pan Fried Cod & Veggies
Saturday - Steak Kebabs
Sunday - Pasta
Monday - Beef Wellington

And here are the extras because I was late writing this entry:

Tuesday (July 6th) - Mushroom Goulash & Perogies
Wednesday - Salmon Cakes & Salad
Thursday - Sweet Chili Chicken Stirfry

Let's dive in!..

We really enjoyed the steak and fries on Tuesday.  I make the fries in a pan, the way mom does it for my father with his steaks.  Take a looksie below:

We took a bit of vacation time last week and we had 3 days off starting on Wednesday.  We had lunch at the Village Mall: I enjoyed a cup of New York Fries while Josh chowed down on a Big Mary.  We even brought a surprise sub to my mom for her lunch :)  She doesn't eat out much so having Subway was a big treat for her.  For supper we didn't want to have a lot of dishes to clean up because we were leaving for Gander the next morning.  Pizza is great for dishes because you really only need your hands once it is cooked and the only thing that gets messy is the pan, which wasn't messy at all - sweet!

On our way to Gander we decided that we were going to start our holiday by eating chocolate bars, chips and candy on the drive.  What makes this blog entry special is that it has a lot of Gander meals that Josh's mom and dad were awesome enough to cook for us :)  Supper was grilled chicken breasts that were marinated in Caesar salad dressing and then brushed with BBQ sauce, served as a chicken burger.  Sheila also made some really yummy pasta salad and another green salad (broccoli, mayo-ish dressing, bacon bits, lettuce and cauliflower).  For our after-supper coffee we also had an amazing rhubarb-strawberry cake thing that Sheila made from the few stalks that grow on the side of her house.  It went awesome with the coffee and was a great way to relax after driving all day. 

On our first full day in Gander we had a really nice breakfast (the standard fare of eggs, toast, bacon & hashbrowns).  For lunch I had some leftover chicken in a sandwich and Josh had a seafood salad sandwich.  We all wanted something a bit lighter for supper so Sheila made some pan fried cod with veg and potato.  The idea of having a "light" supper kind of died off quickly though when Josh and I decided we wanted to get Louis Gee's for a "second supper".  A Devil's Slab each later and we were dying to fall asleep!

We traveled the loop on Saturday with Boyce and Sheila, and ate at a place called Barbour's.  I should give them a break, but I was really grossed out when I ordered my burger:  they microwaved the (obviously) frozen bun to the point that it was hard as a rock on one side.  The burger I ordered was good besides that.  When we got home the Abbott's made some bacon-wrapped striploin and veggie kebabs with brown rice.  Every night we were in Gander the weather was amazing and warm and many drinks and hot-dogs were consumed during our visit:

That was our last supper in Gander: THANKS SHEILA AND BOYCE!!!!  Also thank you to both the Abbott's and the Mouland's for re-stocking our wine collection while we were back :D

On the drive home we decided to eat at the Clarenville Inn at Bacalao. I had a Chicken Caesar salad and Josh had the Bacalao of du Jour: some kind of Mexican salt cod dish.  Josh then had to twist my arm into getting desert: mocha espresso rum coconut souffle:

That night we had a creamy pasta thing with chicken, carrots, portobello mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and alfredo sauce on linguine:

Monday we were understandably exhausted from the long weekend in Gander and all of the driving, and we made a poor decision to make something complex for supper: Beef Wellington.  It would have been fine if the following had been done:

• If we had thawed the puff pastry according to directions
• If we had used the proper cut of beef
• If we had actually used prosciutto, or had been able to find it at Dominion or a suitable substitution
• If we had let the meat rest before Wellington-izing it

As you can guess, it wasn't great, so there will be no picture posted :)

Monday we tried a Rachael Ray recipe called Mushroom Goulash and Perogies.  Click here for a link to the recipe.  It was amazing!  My first time having perogies...

The salad and salmon cakes yesterday were alright, but not great.

Today's stir-fry was very tasty and I was happy to bring Thai Chili sauce back into my life:

That's it for this week!  Sorry if it was more picture heavy than words, and more late than early :)

My favorite meal was a tie between the Coffee & Rhubarb Cake and the Mushroom Goulash with Perogies.

Shout outs this week go to sour cream and onion chips, diet dr. pepper, Koala Kupz sour candy cup, and Dean & Carol Ann Mouland's wine.