Venetian Tapas - Cicchetti!

Soundtrack - Colin Hay "Waiting For My Real Life to Begin"

One of my deepest pleasures in life is watching my friends live out their dreams. A deeper pleasure still is when they succeed at it! My friend Matt Basile aka Fidel Gastro (check out the amazing photography on the site by Matt's uber-talented girlfriend Kyla!) quit his day job a couple of years ago to pursue his dream of bringing his stellar pressed Cuban sandwiches to us lucky folks in Toronto.

 

 

 

He started his food revoluçion under the name Fidel Gastro, which is about the time I first met him at a pop-up Superbowl event he was doing. Somehow, we got to talking, became Facebook friends which developed into an actual friendship.

The next step in his food revoluçion evolution was to get a food truck which he dubbed "Pricilla"; his own nod to Elvis Presley. In April, he opened his very own restaurant called "Lisa Marie" (638 Queen Street West). It specializes in Venetian tapas, little share plates called cicchetti. Earlier in the day, I had lunch with a friend of mine who is a model of Italian descent and has spent quite a bit of time in Italy for work and to see her family. I told her I was having cicchetti for dinner. She said very quietly and reverently "Cicchetti...cicchetti are the best".

Back to last night. On top of the new restaurant, the food truck, and the pop-up events, Matt has a TV show on the Travel and Escape network called Rebel Without a Kitchen which documents his experiences running Fidel Gastro's. I'm calling it, Matt's officially got his own burgeoning empire now and I'm so proud!

 

Me outside the gorgeous storefront. By: Jodi Goldfinger

Last night, my friend Jodi and I headed to Lisa Marie for dinner. I started out with a delicious shiraz by Dog Ridge as we began to agonize over what to order. It all looked fantastic!

 

I was trying not to be an obnoxious food blogger, so I refrained from using my flash last night. Excuse the dark pictures!

 

We started with a deep fried pizza with duck, hoisin, and an asparagus slaw:

Next, a deeply delicious dish called "Alabama Tailgaters", which was bacon-wrapped beef carpacchio with a little kimchi, some amazing pickled vegetables and a creamy dab of sauce:

There was a dish called "Deli-Style Surf and Turf" which had some pastrami, sardine, and sour cream on a latke:

How does a nice Italian boy have a restaurant that serves such a nice latke? My Granny would be proud.

We also ate brontosaurus-sized turkey wings; one buffalo-style with blue cheese:

and one with a sticky hoisin glaze:

Crispy, crunchy, yummy. And I don't even like "buffalo-style" foods but I loved this.

Lastly, we ate the most divine "Mozzarella and Marrow Sangweech" which was stuffed between focaccia and fried.

Could we eat more? Yes we could! Dessert anyone?

Matt made us these delicious little bone marrow zeppole called "Lisa's Marrow" (Italian donut holes covered in sugar) with a lovely cherry jam. The were surprisingly light and refreshing; I could have easily eaten a dozen all on my own!

 

They come in an order of 6, but were so excited to eat them that by the time I remembered to take a picture, we had already powered through one each!

We also tried the "Elvis" (patented off of Elvis' beloved fried peanut butter and banana sandwich) on the recommendation of our helpful server. Bananas, peanut butter, and candied bacon with whipped cream and custard in a pretty little jar. It was absolutely revelatory. Both Jodi and I flipped out over this dessert and I made sure it was the last taste I had of the evening!

We both agreed that we needed to come back to Lisa Marie to try the rest of the menu and to have both desserts again. How could it get better? Oh, it does! Matt also runs a shop in the back where you can get beautiful meat, his signature sandwiches, various pickled vegetables, and a few different sauces - including his Sgt. Slather and Sloppy Jose extremo sandwich sauces!

How does one not drool over this bounty?

 

The man himself and me, looking high on gustatory pleasure from our meal - by Jodi Goldfinger

So the moral of the story is that you should get down to Lisa Marie ASAP before the place gets so busy that you can't get a seat! It's the best thing watching your friends live out their dreams. Congrats Matt, the place is amazing and I can't wait to come back!

An evening in Liguria

Soundtrack - Eros Ramazzotti "LA COSA MAS BELLA"

Not many of us can afford trips to Italy very often; I've never been, though it's certainly a dream of mine. So when my friend Jamie from choir told me about chef Massimo Bruno's Italian supper club, I jumped at the chance to go!

The man himself, Massimo Bruno

We ended up being a party of nine people in the end; seven of us from choir or related through choir, plus Fong and Karon who ended up sitting with us and making friends. Much delicious wine was shared! I myself brought Reif Estates Sauvignon Blanc and a bottle of ice wine as an after dinner treat to share. Delicious.

Above the choir ladies! L - R: Kat, Hilary, me, Dianna

I had never specifically heard of the region of Liguria before this dinner party, though I had heard of its' capital Genoa. It is the area of northwestern Italy near Nice and the Cote d'Azur, on the border with France. It's a mountainous region that also has beautiful beaches by the sea. It's an area that tended to go back and forth between French purview, Saracen (Arab/Middle Eastern) and "Italian" (Italy did not become a unified country until the 1870's so Liguria was at times under Milanese rule, Sardinian rule, etc.), so you can imagine that its' cuisine would have benefited from those cultures as well as its' marine bounty.

Massimo told us that the region is particularly known for it's olive oil, basil, and pesto sauce. And of course the seafood.

Here is the gorgeous printed menu we received:

The menu was as follows:

Antipasti

Focaccia al Formaggio (cheese Ligurian Focaccia)

Zucchine ripiene (stuffed zucchini with Italian Tuna)

Calamari in Zimino (Calamari with Spinach)

Melanzane sott'olio (olive oil and vinegar cured eggplant)

 

 

This is the focaccia and the cured eggplants, which I found particularly refreshing.

 

The stuffed zucchini with tuna and the calamari with Swiss chard were particularly revelatory for me. I could have just eaten those the whole night. Little did I know what else was in store for me!

 

 

 

First Course

 

Trofie al Pesto di Pistacchi (Artisanal Fusilli with Pistacchio pesto)

Tagliatelle alle noci (homemade Fettuccine with walnuts sauce)

 

 

Oh...the pastas. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of that incredible creamy fettuccine, but I got the pesto!

 

 

Pistachio Pesto on fusilli

 

 

Second Course

 

Pollo olive e pinoli (chicken with olives and pine nuts)

Burrida (fish stew)

 

So, so good! Our bellies already groaning, out came chicken with olives and pine nuts and a tomato-based fish stew called burrida which had shrimp, monkfish and scallop (sadly, no picture):

 

 

 

We could really taste the Mediterranean in these two dishes. I never think to put olives with my chicken, but it makes sense. They use olives with main dishes in the Middle East all the time!

 

Last Course

 

Funghetti ai Pinoli (mushroom with pine nuts)

Insalata (Italian salad)

 

You know it's funny, a simple thing like cooked mushrooms paired with pine nuts were such a treat for me. The earthiness of the mushrooms with the nuts just...fit. And then we had the salad which was simple romaine and radicchio with a citrusy vinaigrette which cleansed the palate so well. I don't even like radicchio, and I loved this! Kudos to Massimo's right-hand woman Giovanna for this one. Amazing.

 

And so we came to dessert.

 

Dessert

 

Semifreddo al Cioccolato (Chocolate Semifreddo)

 

 

The rich and creamy cold chocolate semifreddo (semi frozen) with raspberry sauce was like a cold chocolate pate, crossed with an ice cream. There were some very strong reactions to this dessert:

 

 

 

Jamie makes his chocolate semifreddo orgasm face

Simply delicious. A divine meal!

Food is such an amazing way to travel without spending thousands of dollars and taking months off from jobs that most of us can't afford to lose in this go-go-go life. In my opinion, Italians have it right in this respect. Earn money for the basics and enjoy living an actual life with good food, good wine, and good friends. Visiting Liguria in this way was such an unexpected pleasure for me; I can't wait for Massimo's next dinner in May. Sicily!

A few footnotes:

Check out Massimo's website as not only does he run supper clubs, he also organises culinary trips to Italy!

Special thanks to Jamie G. and Hilary M. for letting me use some of their photos of the evening. I specifically did not take my own photos as I wanted to simply experience the evening, but was then so inspired that I had to write about it!

Boredom Kills

Soundtrack: Britney Spears' "Stronger"

This post is going to be a bit of a departure from previous posts; fair warning. I've been thinking a lot about boredom lately. Sometimes you get in a rut and nothing is flowing, you're not feeling engaged in day-to-day life. In those moments, what do you do? How do you get your sunny attitude and enthusiasm for life back without doing something foolhardy? In the past, I've shopped, eaten way too much, watched too much TV, disappeared into romance novels, and gone out too much with friends. At a certain point, exhaustion ensues - both physical and spiritual.

I've been exhausted, bored and angry for the last couple of years but I didn't realise it for a long time (or at least I didn't realise how bad it had gotten). It took the betrayal by a friend and an ex, plus my grandmother's death to finally wake me up to my malaise. I joined an amazing choir, made new friends and started figuring out exactly what I wanted and who I wanted to be. I joined a women's group and have recently become part of a protest choir, of all things! We get together to sing protest songs and hang out, with the possibility of maybe performing in the future.

As much as all that bad stuff hurt - I'm still dealing with the fallout and trying not to beat myself up for having the bad judgement of including those people in my life in the first place, plus missing my Granny like crazy - I can't regret that any of it happened. I wouldn't have choir, I wouldn't have the life or the self-knowledge I have right now, and I would not be as close as I am to fulfilling my career dreams.

Me being fierce and take-charge

Sometimes it takes a jolt and a punch in the gut to wake you up and make you realise what you really want in life. I'm still figuring it out slowly but surely. Hopefully there's no internal bleeding.

Mason Jar Smoothies, my new favourite thing!

Soundtrack - Princess Chelsea "The Cigarette Duet"

Sometimes our inspiration is invigorated in odd ways. My dear friend Dani has a Facebook group called Frugtastic where she shares tips on how to economise or create things in unique ways that don't require spending a lot. She posted a wonderful article from a website called "Apartment Therapy" about how to make a mason jar into a blender (in lieu of buying one of those little blenders one sees in 3am infomercials that can cost an arm and a leg). Well, I've been trying really hard to be better about my food. I used to do smoothies for breakfast last summer (and went on a bit of a frozen fruit buying blitz) but I was finding the clean up was a deterrent first thing in the morning. I even tried making them the night before, but with my crazy schedule (and no dishwasher) the darn blender would sit in the sink for days before I finally had time to clean it, which was not at all hygienic.

With this brilliant method (apparently, mason jars used to come with blenders, so this is not a new idea), you make the smoothie in the container you will end up storing it in, and transport for a breakfast on the go is a snap! Of course, you know I just had to try it.

 



 

So, as you can see from the pictures above, take the original lid off the mason jar, screw on the blender attachment once you have your ingredients in the jar, screw it into the base and blend as normal. I had a teeny tiny bit of leaking, but I think I didn't have the blender attachment on tight enough.

Today's smoothie was particularly delicious, and easy peesy! I've put the leftovers in the fridge in the mason jar with the lid screwed on, and there was no messy clean up because there was only the blade attachment to clean!

Today's smoothie ingredients:

1 cup lactose-free 2% milk
100 grams of coconut Greek yogurt (one individual yogurt container because that is what I had on hand)
1 cup of mixed tropical frozen fruit (strawberry, peach, mango)
1 tbsp pistachio butter (like a cross between peanut butter and Nutella. Crazy good)

Blend until smooth, add more milk if it's too thick. I find it easiest to pulse the mixture first for a few seconds and then go full-tilt blend after it's broken up a bit.

Not only is this new method going to make it easy for me to use up all the frozen fruit I have in my freezer, but now I'm totally inspired to eat healthier; these smoothies are definitely going to be an integral part of my summer!

Passover Follies!

Soundstrack: Maroon 5 "She Will Be Loved"

A belated Chag Sameach to my Jew Crew!

So a bit of a rundown for those of you who aren't familiar with the Jewish holiday of Passover. We celebrate Passover to commemorate the story of the Israelites (we weren't Jews at that point yet) being freed from slavery under the Egyptians over 3,000 years ago. G-d is supposed to have brought down 10 plagues on the Egyptians to help convince the Pharoah to let them go. The final plague was the killing of the first-born son; which the Israelites avoided by painting lamb's blood on the doorposts of their houses so G-d knew which houses to "pass over", hence the name. That was the final straw for Pharoah and he told us all to get the heck outta Dodge ASAP. In preparing food for the road, there was no time to let the bread rise, so in celebration of that Jews around the world who follow the tradition don't consume anything that rises during the 8 day festival. This includes bread, legumes, barley, even peanuts are off the table. Of course, this means that we're cooking at home all week and most alcohol is off the table.

Anyway, on to my day yesterday. You know when you're keeping Pesach (Passover), but sometimes a bit of chametz (non-Passover food) sneaks in there? Yeah, that was me yesterday. And by a bit, I mean a lot. And by chametz, I mean beer. The picture below is not from last night, but for the effect, you know.

I started out the day by going to the One of a Kind Show at the Direct Energy Centre with my parents. Oh boy, oh boy you guys, we had such an amazing time! We actually did it in two blocks. We arrived in the morning, went for some lunch at The Rhino (where they had Granville Island's excellent Lion's Winter Ale which I first tried while out at Canadian Music Week with some of my colleagues and was completely impressed), then came back to keep browsing.

 

Among my booty picked up at the show: The most beautiful tin of foie gras from Les Canardises, Henderson Farms' delicious fig-rhubarb marmalade, pistachio butter (like peanut butter, but with pistachios) from Hawberry Farms on Manitoulin Island, some amazing magnets (I have a thing for fridge magnets...), some awesome organic granola as well as this incredible salve that seems to cure all from Matter: Outdoors. Plus, my father bought me a fancy hat. The picture is a bit blurred, but voila!

After the show, I met up with my dear friend Reethi for a drink at Bar Volo. We ended up making some new friends, Isabelle and Hacene. We had a gay old time! In the end, the Gladstone's karaoke night sucked us in. Hacene had been talking about wanting to sing Maroon 5 for at least an hour before, and my musical selection today is a tibute to our new friends!

So, seeing as I completely broke my Passover dietary restrictions yesterday, I thought I would share the recipe that usually gets me through the 8 days. So here you have my reipe for Matzo Bagels, which is essentially the recipe from Second Helpings Please!, but with a few tweaks.

Matzo Bagels

1/2 cup oil (something neutral)
2 cups water
2 cups matzo meal
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3 or 4 basil leaves, chopped fine (ish)
5 eggs

Preheat your oven to 400C. Boil the oil and water together, then add all the other ingredients except the eggs. I find this works better if I mix all the dry ingredients (and herbs) together before adding them to the liquid. Remove from the heat and allow to cool (covered) so the eggs don't scramble when you add them; about 15 - 20 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time and stir them in so your mixture gets fluffier.

Put about a tablespoon or two of oil in a little bowl - which you will regularly us to grease your hands to avoid sticking while shaping the bagels - and start forming your dough into flattened circles and put on a greased/lined cookie sheet. I like to actually make them bagel-sized so I can have sandwiches during the week.

Then use a greased chopstick or greased back of a wooden spoon to make holes in your bagels. The holes allow your dough to cook evenly. My mother tried my recipe this year without the holes and found that her buns were overcooked on the outside, but still raw on the inside.

Bake them in your oven for 50 - 60 minutes until brown. I find I usually get about 6 matzo bagels when I make them the size I like.

I very carefully cut them open length-wise with a serated knife when I use them and then put all manner of things on them such as butter, cream cheese, tomatoes, leftover brisket, spinach etc. Also, you can change up the herbs as you like; I've also had great success with fresh chives chopped fine.

Sri Lankan Adventures in Scarberia and a Chinese Yarn

Soundtrack "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You" - George Benson

So I decided on a whim to head east instead of west after work today. My friend Reethi told me about this amazing Sri Lankan take out place on Ellesmere (at McCowan in Scarborough) called CanBe Foods. She has had food from them in the past at backyard summer get-togethers and I simply fell in love with their rolls. I've been there myself once before a few months ago and simply powered through their chicken, fish, and vegetable rolls as I was walking away to the bus stop; vowing I would be back as soon as I could, despite the unearthly long commute back home (over an hour of buses).

Well, today turned out to be that day! Somehow I wasn't excited about the quick recipe I was planning to post here tonight and wasn't ready to post about my Niagara trip last weekend (I promise, it's coming!) so I guess the little lizard on my shoulder (Let's call her Gertrude. She wears pearls and carries a black patent handbag) was whispering in my ear "Don't go home. Have an adventure and procrastinate". I try not to listen to Gertrude as she's usually telling me how horrible I am, but I decided I really did need an adventure.

So off I went on the 95 York Mills bus with the George Benson song you see above running through my head. Truly CanBe, nothing's gonna change my love for you. Sadly, I didn't bring my camera but work with me here. A long steam table with dozens of dishes, samosas, rolls, roti, rice etc. They also have a wall with a freezer on it (as well as a straight up fridge) where you can buy some of their frozen dishes, including desserts to take home. This place is dead cheap folks. Everything I bought ended up being less than $12, total.

The rolls themselves are kind of like egg rolls but with a mealier outside. I bought chicken, fish, and mutton.

I love dipping them in CanBe's tamarind sauce. It's like tamarind chutney, but way more liquidy.

I decided to try their Chili Chicken today and bought two pieces of roti bread - one regular and one stuffed with egg.

 

The one at the very bottom of the picture above is the egg roti.

 

Close up of the amazing, delicious, delectable Chili Chicken curry. It was spicy, tart, sweet, delicious.



Biggest revelation of the night (and I'm going to amble off course here). After the hour and a quarter it took me to get home, I unpacked everything on my counter to take a look. Of course three rolls had already been demolished on my walk from CanBe to the bus stop (This is becoming a CanBe tradition for me...), so I put the other rolls and the tamarind sauce to the side to plate up my new treasures.

The egg roti bread in particular was calling my name so I broke that bad boy open to see the filling and here is what I found (hope you can see it properly, I'm not nearly as adept at photography as Karina, who did the photos for my hot pot entry):

Beautiful, delectable scrambled egg folks. I tried one bite and fell in love. It tasted just like the jian bing (煎餅) crepes I used to get for breakfast when I was teaching pre-schoolers in Suzhou, China. Basically, jian bing is Chinese streetfood. Vendors are on the street from the early hours of the morning until maybe 10am if you're lucky.

My local guy had a portable stove with a flame and a flat top. I would wander over to the little shopping street where the street food vendors used to gather in the mornings. The man poured the crepe batter on the flat top and swirled the batter to cover the surface with an implement that looked like a miniature version of a squeegee one might use to clean one's car windows. He would then crack an egg on top and scramble it around. He would flip it over very carefully and then paint the cooked side he had just turned up with hoisin, sprinkle with cilantro, green onion, and chili paste. He would then fold the whole thing up and put it in a thin plastic bag. You can see the whole procedure here.

Jian bing have always been one of the things I missed most about China, but have not been able to find in Canada. Man I loved those things. I'd eat them any chance I got. I remember one fateful train trip with my roommate Rosalind that we took to buy fabric and run errands in Shanghai. We were in such a rush to catch our train that I didn't have time to eat breakfast. I saw a jian bing vendor outside the station who was making hers with you tiao 油条, strips of deep fried dough that the Chinese love to eat for breakfast dipped in soy milk. I've never liked you tiao personally (too oily) and never ate them but I was so hungry, I just grabbed one from her - not noticing that she hadn't cooked the jian bing fresh as I was used to with my local guy. I could taste that there was something off about it and thankfully only ate half.

I was so, so sick on the train to Shanghai. I don't know if any of you have ever been sick in a toilet on a train in China or a country like it, but it was not fun or easy; especially given how hot it was. I was trying so hard not to fall into the squat face-first! We still tried to go to the fabric market (the old one, not the new fangled air-conditioned one now in place). Poor Rosalind. She was so worried about me. I kept running to the toilet to cast up my accounts. To add insult to injury, it was a pay toilet!!

Still feeling lousy and roasting in the heat, I knew I was not going to be ok to help Rosalind run her errands but they had to get done as we had come all the way to Shanghai. We were walking along the Bund (Shanghai's old European business centre, seen below)

and I begged Rosalind to leave me there on a side street in the shade to rest while she ran her errands. She reluctantly did and I leaned against a building to rest. Not long after she left me, a Chinese family happened upon me and pantomimed what I thought was asking if I would hold their baby. My Mandarin was not very good at the time, so I had no idea what they were talking about but smiled and nodded like a good, obliging Canadian girl should in these situations. They thrust their baby in my arms and started gathering around me, taking pictures with the poor, sick waiguren (foreigner). When Rosalind returned after they had left, we had a good laugh over this and - feeling much better and still loving jian bing - we wandered home to Suzhou.

So long story short, I've put the egg roti in the fridge to save for tomorrow's breakfast. Happy adventuring folks!

Michelle xoxo

Hot Pot Over Here, Hot Pot Over There!

Soundtrack: John Coltrane "Blue Train"

Sunday night, I got together with some dear friends and made my very first Chinese-style hot pot! Hot pot is like Japanese shabu-shabu whereby pre-prepped ingredients are dipped in soup and cooked. You can have different dips for when your items come out of the pot such as sesame oil, finely chopped garlic, chili oil...the list goes on. Each person has their own little bowl where they can make a dip to their taste. I've eaten hot pot in the past when I lived in China (including a memorable meal in Chongqing with two Korean girls I met at my hostel), but never made it myself. My friend Sylvia from choir and her husband hosted me and Chris - another choir friend - at their place. They have done hot pot a few times for company and wanted to try it again.(Her table only fit 6 so we're sorry we couldn't invite more!)

Chris, Sylvia, and I met up earlier in the day to go shopping at T&T Supermarket for all of our ingredients. We went a little bit mad and bought way more than we needed! I include for your perusal our final booty:

- baby bok choy
- king oyster mushrooms
- assorted fish balls
- beef balls
- soy bean sprouts
- watercress
- assorted dumplings
- white radish
- sliced beef rib-eye
- sliced fatty pork
- spring onion
- cinnamon head mushrooms
- chayote
- winter melon
- bean curd cubes
- dried cloud ear mushrooms
- lamb shoulder slices
- pork loin slices
- enoki mushrooms
- fresh ginger root
- lotus root
- Napa cabbage
- shiitake mushrooms
- snow pea greens
- beef tendons (I recommend getting the pre-cooked ones as ours never quite softened)
- calamari
- whole shrimp (which somehow disappeared once we got back to the house, never to be seen again)
- glass noodles (which never got used in the end, we were too full!)
- a cold cucumber and chili salad
- egg custard tarts

Plus, Sylvia had some homemade spring rolls a friend gave her. I also brought some beer from my trip to Niagara the day before (post in the pipeline) from a new brewery called Silversmith Brewing that was just perfect! It was their Bavarian Breakfast Wheat beer. Mmmmm... Then, we proceeded to prep it all.

Sylvia's husband graciously spun tunes and her daughter Karina took the amazing pictures you will see all throughout this post (Thanks hun!). As you can see above, the hot pot itself was essentially a wok on a single gas burner with a few slotted spoons on the side for fishing things out.

A few days earlier, I had sent Sylvia a recipe for the broth. Several members of our party can't have too much in the way of spicy food, so the recipe I sent her is not.

Hot Pot Broth

2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
3 quarts chicken stock (2 quarts initially and then one to keep topping up throughout the meal)
salt to taste

Right before serving, add

1 halved ripe tomato
the whites of two scallions chopped into 2 or 3 sections

Bring the broth to a boil, turn down the heat to a good simmer and start adding ingredients at your leisure. I've found it's best to add in the things that take longest to cook first, plus we added in bits of the slivered ginger to add flavour to the broth.

You can make up your own ingredient list based on what you like, but the above was just what we had. I'd say that between 5 of us, we only ate 1/3 of what we bought in the end. Fun night!!

Finding time for what is important in life - Friends!

Soundtrack: Blue Rodeo's cover of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody"


So I had yet another amazing meal at The Whippoorwill with my friend Christophe (one of these days I'll actually take pictures...). Amazing soul music all night, great service, drinks and food; as usual. I hadn't seen Christophe in months so our catch up dinner ended up lasting 3 hours!

I have to say that I've had to find ways not only to save money and calories, but also to ensure that I'm saving time so I can be with good friends like Christophe. One of the ways I deal with this is to make all my lunches for work ahead of time (usually on Saturday or Sunday) so I can just pull a Tupperware out of my fridge in the morning as I'm getting ready all week long.

One of the meals I made last week was a pork chop with simple, plain roasted veggies, which I present to you now.

Make-Ahead Pork Chops and Roasted Vegetables

Chop up any mixed veggies you like so they are all the same size and cook evenly so that you end up with 3 - 4 cups of veg. I love to do root vegetables like regular or sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, or parsnips. Plus sometimes I'll toss in chunks of red pepper, onion or entire peeled garlic cloves.

Vegetables:

Preheat oven to 400F. Toss vegetables in the oil and salt; put them on a sheet pan so they're in one even layer. Cook 45 - 60 minutes until they're fully cooked and browning nicely. Make sure to stir them two or three times during the cooking to brown evenly and so you can tell when they're done.

Pork Chops:

4 x 4 - 5oz pork chops (mine were fairly thin)
2 tbsp Original Diana sauce (or your favourite BBQ sauce)
salt
1 tbsp oil

Heat oil in pan on high heat. Coat chops with sauce and salt lightly. Sear pork chops in the very hot pan, 3 - 5 minutes each side. My chops were thin enough that I only needed a few minutes and didn't have to turn down the heat. If your chops are thicker, sear on both sides until they get a nice crust on them and then turn the heat down to medium until they aren't raw on the inside.

Voila! Lunch for the whole week for me!

Getting Back On Track and Staying Mindful of My Physical Well-Being

Soundtrack: Arcade Fire - Suburban War

So I've been trying to be more mindful in my eating of  late (says she who is currently munching on Party Mix). I've been a chubbier girl most of my life; certainly from adolescence onwards, though by no means am I the "f" word but I do tend to be over a healthy BMI for my height. I've struggled with depression over the years and one of my coping mechanisms has always been food. Plus, eating is a huge source of pleasure in life for anyone. I take great pride in cooking an amazing meal for people and I love trying new restaurants. Food is a way for me to travel without springing for a plane ticket.

I've had some medical issues over the last decade or so and wasn't able to be as active as I might like, which also made it really easy to sit at home watching DVD's and stress-eating. I used to demolish a pint of a certain brand of ice cream from Vermont in one or two sittings on a regular basis.

I had to have surgery in December 2008 and again in April 2009. This forced me to weight myself as the anaesthetist requires that info. I was forced to confront the fact that I was inching my way closer and closer to 200 lbs, which was a shock (I'm only 5'3. Well, 5'2.5 but it's easier to say 5'3).

Starting in early 2009 (as soon as my doctor cleared it) I began to make a conscious effort to walk more, plus I began taking salsa dancing lessons. I was living in Vancouver at the time and it was very easy to be active year-round. In May 2009, I had lost 15 lbs on my own when I realised I needed help to move beyond that. I joined an internationally recognised diet company and started attending weekly meetings. By June 2010, I had lost 60 lbs in total and felt great.

Unfortunately, the last two years or so have been really rough for me personally and I've been slowly creeping back up. Lately it's been creeping up at an alarming rate. I think you can all understand why I've needed to be more mindful recently - or at least try. I can't afford to go back to weekly meetings, but I do know the strategies and how the program works. I'm attempting to go it alone in my own way bit by bit but without the rigidity I had when I first started the program. I just don't have the will or discipline to limit myself like that. This blog is part of my strategy. It's forced me to actually prepare my own food instead of eating out - saving me calories and money.

So in the interests of being very virtuous (as well as trying to get in more veggies) I bring you:

Spinach Salad with Strawberries and Walnuts

2 cups raw baby spinach
4 strawberries, washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
5 walnut halves, chopped

Toast walnuts in a dry pan at med-high heat until they smell toasty and get a little brown, making sure not to burn them. Remove from pan and put to the side to cool a bit so they don't wilt your spinach.

In a bowl, rip up the spinach and put the chopped strawberries on top. Sprinkle with walnuts and top with about a tablespoon or two of your favourite balsamic vinaigrette.

Serves 1 person as a side or add some chicken to make it a meal.

I didn't make my own dressing this time, but I often do (I'm assuming I'll likely post an actual recipe at some point in the future, but today is not that day). If you are, I suggest making the dressing in your serving bowl before adding any other ingredients. That way, you can save on washing one more dish. I usually do a 3:1 oil to balsamic vinegar ratio and add some sort of mustard and a little salt. Make sure you use good-quality oil or you might as well just use store-bought. I'm serious about this. I've found amazing bottles of salad dressing-quality (ie. Not to be cooked with, only to be used raw) extra-virgin olive oil at my local gourmet market for $10, so it is possible to find good-quality oil at a discount if you're on a budget. Most gourmet markets have oil and balsamic vinegar samplings on weekends so you can try before you buy.

Anyway, enjoy my efforts to be virtuous (but not too virtuous!) and eat well.