I've got green balls

Now you're reading this!!

So last year I wrote about making poblano matzoh balls but there were no pictures. Well I had to recover from my matzoh ball disaster of last week as well as wanting to try making the green balls again. Am happy to report that after a good weekend of cooking, I feeling like I'm moving away from the sense of disaster that had been haunting me in the kitchen recently. Anywho, I also have to get out the good camera, the phone camera is not really optimal - but it is easy.

So to make the green balls, first thing is to char the skin of the poblano, which is easily done over the burner of the gas stove.
Using this method, it didn't get quite as soft as when you char the skin under the broiler. So in order to soften it up so it's easy to mush, I just put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Then mushed it up, added to a regular mix of matzoh balls at the point just before you make the balls and put them on to boil.


I will say that I made perhaps one of the best batches ever of chicken soup and these green-tinted matzoh balls make a nice change. I will probably be making them every year and maybe next year even try some red ones made with another type of chile.

The highs and lows of cooking for Pesach

It seems there's been a lot of highs and lows for me lately in the kitchen and Pesach was not to be passed over, so to speak, on this front.

My mom asked me to make a cake or some manner of sweetness for Monday's seder. I was happy to oblige and my search for an interesting and different option began. You'd be surprised by how few options there are out there on the internet and baking is just not something that I'm comfortable making up. Anyway, I ended up using a Nigella Lawson recipe from her book Feast for damp apple and almond cake. It worked out quite well (no pics, however) but would have probably been better if I'd had the right cake pan. But not bad for a first try.

This year, I also wanted to do something different than going out and buying dem coconut macaroons, jellied fruit slices, or Manischewitz kosher for Pesach chocolates. J bought a Bonnie Stern cookbook that had a few gems in it. Although her recipe did lead me astray on the issue of whether or not to stir the caramel as it cooked (you stir constantly btw), I did get a particularly tasty treat to share with friends and family.
Basically whip up some caramel - that's 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of brown sugar - then spread it over a few matzahs. Let it get all nice and bubbly, get it out the oven and sprinkle a bag of chocolate chips (kosher for passover, of course), wait five minutes and give it a nice schmear to cover it all up. Let it cool, which usually takes a few hours, then break it up into small pieces. Let the oohs and ahhs ensue as everyone enjoys the matzah crunch.


Oh yeah, so that was the high. The lowest of the low: matzah balls like golf balls. They were not a delight. I shall try to remedy that before the week is over. Following the instructions properly will likely help.

The highs and lows now that we're cooking with gas

Having lived in the new house for a couple of months, we are still getting used to cooking with gas. For the most part, I love it. For instance, I've always wanted to make my own baba ghanouj but I like it really smokey and have had neither a bbq nor a gas stove . . . but that has now all changed. So the other day, I picked up some beautiful aubergines, eggplants, berenjena - whatever you may call them - and set to.

The most important part of the whole operation, according to Nigel Slater and I'm middle eastern cooks the world over, is charring the skins of the fruit so you get that awesome smokey taste. So basically I took the two eggplants that I had and put them right on the burner of the gas stove and charred the heck out of them until the skin was burnt and the flesh was all soft. And oh how fabulous the kitchen smelled.

Next step - put the piping hot fruits into a colander resting on a bowl. Once they've cooled a bit, peel the charred skin off and discard. During the process, your eggplants will be leeching some water, but you want to get rid of most of it because it's kind of bitter and who needs that! So you can either just sort of mush the flesh with a fork until you've got rid of most of the liquid or sort of chop it up a bit and then mush it. Either way, get as much liquid out as you can and discard it.

You now have a nice load of mushy eggplant. Add to this:

• 3-4 tbsp tahina
• 2 garlic cloves chopped as fine as you can
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• juice of one small or 1/2 of one large lemon
• salt and pepper

Most of the recipes I read for this say you don't need to use a blender but depending on the quality of your eggplant, you may want to. I think mine may have either been a bit old or had some bruising because I got a couple of nasty hard bits that couldn't be mushed with just a fork. And getting little hard bits in your creamy dip is not pleasant, so if you need to, waz it up with the blender if you want to. Finish it off with a sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley.

I served it with some chicken grilled on the bbq after a bit of a greek marinade (lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and oregano) as well as a green salad and rice.

So you'll see in the photo above some fluffy white rice and that brings me to one of the lows of cooking with gas. Now, you see, I have been cooking rice perfectly for many, many years. I took the knowledge passed down to me from my mother and others and then made it work for me (1 cup basmati rice, 2 cups water, pinch of salt and a drop of oil/2 tsps of tomato paste if you want. Bring water to boil. Add rice and bring back to boil. Turn down to low, cover, and cook for 17 minutes). My rice came out perfect every time. Every time. My rice mojo, however, is now lost. I've made mushy rice, I've made some absolutely charred rice, and I've made some passable but mediocre rice. I have not made perfect rice with this gas stove. So there is much to learn. For now, I'm tending more toward the potato!

I'm a Geek.

Yep.  Royal Wedding tea and my Wills and Kate mug.  Very much a moment of excitement at our local tea shop to find the mugs.  I wanted the tea cup set but at just around $80, I could not justify it.  The morning of the wedding you will find G and I, Royal Wedding brew in hand with a full English breakfast.  Because that's how we roll in this town, baby.  :)

The Burgers Priest.

I've been seeing the naturopath and am supposed to be following a "clean" diet.  But I have been really really really wanting to try the Burgers Priest, and so, tonight was the night.

And the photo was taken with the iPhone.  Sorry.

I got the doublemeat based on the recs from Chowhound but it was wayyyy to much for me.  So off came the second patty and down went the burger and fries.  Really good!  Kind of a cross between the Shake Shack and In-n-Out, so not a bad thing to be a combo of!  Enjoyed it but it was wicked heavy.

Tomorrow - back on track!!!

Barley Risotto.

One of my favourite blogs, Girl Interrupted Eating, has such a way with food and words.  And she just seems so totally British.  She seems to make the things that I see the contestants on MasterChef make, just because she's creative and in love with local ingredients.  I just love her blog and for the first time ever have made one of her recipes.

Should have known it would be delicious... how could it not be?  Barley, stock, chicken, carrots, all cooked together in the over?  Bring it...

I made a few tweaks on her recipe... but here's the overall picture of the meal...

Pearl Barley Oven Risotto with Chicken 


You need:


2 carrots chopped
3 shallots diced
1 clove of garlic (I used the press bc while it's wasteful, my hands don't stink)
2.5 cups of chicken broth
2 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, cut into cubes
200g of barley
14 ounces of tinned chopped tomatoes
Goat Cheese, soft, to taste


Cook the chicken cubes to just starting to brown.  Remove from pan and soften the shallot, carrot and garlic in the pan adding salt and pepper and a little bit of oil.  Add water as necessary to keep from burning or over browning.  Once softened, mix in the broth, barley, and tomatoes.  Add the chicken back to the pan and give it a stir.  Bring to a simmer, cover and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.  When ready, put a little bit of the soft goat cheese on each plate to mix in and make unctuous.  


So it was delicious and just a happy tasty bowl of goodness.  I highly recommend it.  I am not sure if barley is given the a-okay on my clean plan, but it's an ancient grain so I am saying oh yeah.

Hope you like it.

Clean Eating Once Again!

Phew!  It's been a whirlwind, hasn't it?

In an effort to keep myself on the right track, and to figure out why all of the energy in my body has been completely drained, I have been seeing a naturopath.  She is convinced that I have some food intolerances (and I agree) and she thinks that my whole system is out of balance with too much inflammation (which I also know is true)... but instead of me just knowing it, she's got me on a whole whack of supplements and a "clean" diet to sort myself out.  It's just day two and other than an overwhelming feeling of tiredness and crazy high fibre bloating, it's going okay.

But I did labour a bit with what to make food-wise.  No wheat, no sugar, no dairy, no eggs, no red meat, no pork... ancient grains, brown rice, chicken and turkey, veggies but no corn or mushrooms, no fresh berries, no caffeine... on and on.  I had a moment of thinking I was just going to end up spending this two weeks doing nothing but eating chicken and brown rice, and then I thought, 'isn't one of us supposed to be a foodie here?' and I got off my arse and made some menus.

First up was a delicious turkey meatball with kamut penne.  Sadly, the penne was toooo fibre-y for G's colitis (our two needs with regards to dietary fibre do not meet anywhere near the middle), but otherwise... it was great!

So here I am in the new kitchen getting the fixin's ready.  Turkey, onion, red pepper, spelt breadcrumbs, garlic....

It was pretty easy.  I took two roasted red peppers, onion and garlic and whazzed them up in the little cuisinart.  I mixed that with the turkey, some no salt or sugar added tomato paste, spelt breadcrumbs, and a bunch of chopped parsley.  Oh yeah, and tons of herbs including copious amounts of crushed red pepper!

I baked them in the oven (400 degrees) for about 25 minutes with the last two or three minutes under the broiler...

Ooh arty ball shot.

Once cooked, I mixed them into the marinara sauce (store bought with some sauteed onion and extra spices mixed in)...

Yummmy!

And then I served it up with the kamut pasta, sprinkled with parsley, and tried to pretend I didn't miss the cheese...

Now doesn't that look delicious?

It was really very good and hit the pasta spot for me.  Like I said, it was not so excellent for G, but I guess easily digestible is in the eye of the beholder (or the colon, or something).  Anyway, whatever the reason, it made me forget that I was all clean eating.  Instead, I just enjoyed dinner.  And a spoonful of some essential fatty acid liquid and a digestive enzyme.  All in preparation for my Calm Magnesium supplement that I take at night.  With a castor oil pack.  Really?  It's all a bit crazy.

But we'll see.  Day two and I am still super tired with a tinge of a headache.  Maybe day three will be the charm!  :)

Pimento Cheese Heaven.

Food memories are a weird thing.

My Mom had this postcard when I was kid hanging on her mirror that said, "The things that have lived longest in my memory never really happened."  I always liked the sound of that, but as I get older, I start to see the truism.

This pimento cheese renaissance is just like that.  Other than the stuff you buy in the jar and spread on celery during the holidays, I don't remember ever eating pimento cheese.  But I feel an affinity towards it that makes no sense, and if asked, I'd probably make up some story about eating it since birth or something because I FEEL like that's true even if it's not.  The things that live longest, and all that.

So it was when the new Bon Appetit arrived at my new front door!  The cover recipe drew me in.. "Hands down, the tastiest version we've ever made" -- how can I say no?  We immediately drew up the grocery list and set about figuring out when to make it.

Today was the day (and I still haven't read the magazine, just that recipe!).

The verdict?  Very different from my stand-by but really delicious.  G loved it.  The pimento cheese was really nice and gave it a spicy sweet cheesy loveliness.  I added quite a bit more ancho chile then they called for, and didn't add the extra parm in the cheese sauce AND I had to use jarred roasted red peppers because it's all we could find... but all in all it was pretty delicious.

Hang on, I am going to run the recipe through the WW recipe builder... let's laugh together at the damage of this all cheese meal...

Okay... it seems to be about 13.  Not too bad, but not great, either.  BUT it was delicious and I highly recommend it.  Page 79 of the new issue... Mine was far redder than theirs, but it was really lovely.  Go make it and send me an email and let me know how it goes!

...and the dream is realized.

One thing that G and I might not say enough is that we have the most rocking families in the entire world.  G's dad surprised us with a gift of a new bbq this past weekend.  Despite being dead tired and completely starved, we new that the moment we got home, that bbq was being assembled and put to use.  Racing to beat the snow was also fun!

Alas, we didn't beat the snow but we did have our dream realized of owning a home with a backyard so we could bbq whenever we wanted.  It seems like a silly thing, maybe, but for us it was a big deal.  And last night, thanks to G's dad and my family's present of a gift card to Home Depot, we made the dream happen...

First... the Q.

G is q'ing it up!!!!

So of course, the first meal on the new q had to be steak.  Simply cooked with all the fixins...

Yum!  That is my half piece of steak (the whole piece wouldn't fit on the very full plate!!!)... baked potato... sauteed spinach...sauteed mushrooms and onions... and peas!  It was without question the most excellent steak I have ever had in my entire life!  We can't wait to cook for all of you!!!

Getting set-up!

Hello friends.  We've been in the new house for two weeks today (!) and are finally getting settled.  The bruises, the soreness, and the allergies from all the dust are finally subsiding and we are getting back into the flow of it.

The first week we were here, we had a major urge to make dinner.  We've had this steady stream of eating out because of all the chaos, and the first meal in the new house was not anything fancy... but it was a big ol' bowl of spag bol.

And there she is.  Our first home cooked meal in our new house, eaten surrounded by boxes on a gentle slope of our 100 year old dining room.  It was excellent and felt good to finally be cooking again, even if it was something really simple.  Of course, one of the first things unpacked were our deluxe Peugeot salt and paper grinders.  A girl has to have priorities.

The plan from here on (and thank you Ontario for the most excellent made up holiday of Family Day for giving us a much needed catch up day) is to get my arse back into running, to start tracking those Weight Watchers points that have been hiding the last few weeks, and to cook at home all week this week.  Plus, watch out for blog posts on our first bbq meal and a new mac-n-cheese!

It's nice to be home.

British Invasion.

I've said it before and I'll likely say it again, I LOVE British food magazines.

With the strong Canadian dollar and the weak pound, I am able to subscribe to my beloveds (Olive, BBC GoodFood and Weight Watchers UK) and I love getting them in the mail every month!  (I'm pretty easy to please.)

Last week, the new Olive and BBC GoodFood came and hurray!  Lots to make!

First up was a Beef and Mushroom pie with Blue Cheese.  It was great BUT as usual, my crust fell apart and sank into my little pie.  AND my beef and mushroom filling didn't thicken up properly.  I combined the recipe in Olive with the recipe that came with one of the two magazines, a collaboration with Weight Watchers.  Maybe I should have cooked it longer?  I made the filling in the pressure cooker...

What? You want to know what it looks like?  Well hold it right there...

A little liquid with your crust?

 The secret to this pie was the blue cheese.  You roll it into the puff pastry crust!  Oh those Olive people are geniuses!  CLEVER by half!

So, despite my tears of frustration when the crust COMPLETELY sank into my pie, I managed to get through it.

I got through it so well in fact that I had to make Gregg's Perfect Pud from BBCGoodFood.  My favourite dessert, Sticky Toffee Pudding.

Now just wait a second.  I don't have a pudding steamer thingie.  But I do have a muffin tin and a bigger roasting tray.  So I made the cakes in muffin tins and it worked BEAUTIFULLY!  What didn't work so well was my toffee sauce.  I cooked it for TWICE as long as the recipe said and it still didn't get very brown.  Having never made it before, I kept thinking the magic would happen eventually, but it didn't.  I soldiered through and ate that sugary buttery bunch of heaven!

Sticky Toffee LOOOOOOVES Me.

So yea, it looks like a cupcake but it's OH SO VERY MUCH MORE!  :)  (The point count for the amount I ate of dessert last night?  21 points JUST for pudding.  TWENTY-ONE POINTS!  That's a treat that won't be repeated very often, just two more times each for G and I until all those little STP muffins are eaten!)

Pick up the February issues.  Lots of good stuff inside and I for one am going to keep cooking from them.

On an unrelated note, we close on our new house in a matter of weeks.  It's very scary and getting harder to cook as the kitchen and related items are slowly being packed away waiting to be moved to their new home.  Stressful, yes, but very very very exciting!!!!

(Oh, and I am watching this crazy BBC show (did I mention my love of the Brits?) called "How Not To Live Your Life".  It's MENTAL.  Any other suggestions?)

Chicken Paprikash

Wowie. It's been a non-stop cook-at-home-a-thon lately.

And I have to tell you, this time of year, when it's dark at noon (or so it seems), the photos are total crap.  Please spare a little patience when you see the photos...

Last week, we had a giant chicken breast to cook.  What to do what to do?  I tend to like saucy noodle- things, and I had recently read a recipe for chicken paprikash on weightwatchers.ca that sounded good.  I had also read a recipe in the little insert in Olive magazine for beef paprikash that sounded even better, so I took matters into my own hands and combined them up and made...

Chicken Paprikash on Noodles

Chicken cut into little pieces, mixed with mushrooms, onions, red pepper and LOTS and LOTS of smoked paprika.  Really nice served over some no yolk really white looking egg noodles and sour cream.  It was small in points but delicious in flavour.

I used my new technique of frying in a little cooking spray and then, when that dries out, just adding little bits of water to keep it going.  It really works!!!  So see, you learned something from me today.

And here's another free nugget of wisdom... don't put reddish food on an orange plate in a darkish room and take a photo.  Flash, no flash, it's all crap.  But the food?  The FOOD is delish!!!

Just ducky

It's not your average work day dinner that I whipped up tonight but since I didn't have the enthusiasm for it last night, I had to do tonight. Sometimes I enjoy the frenetic-everything-has-to-be-cooked-at-the-same-time madness and tonight was one of those nights. I've been having a hankering for duck for quite a few weeks and finally last week picked up a nice magret duck breast at the St. Lawrence Market. Popped it in the freezer and then took it out on Sunday with a plan to make a nice meal for both of us. That planned got a bit scuppered by events of the day, and as mentioned, my enthusiasm for the cooking had waned.

So it had to be eaten tonight, so I got to it. Pan fried duck breast in a red wine and mushroom reduction (based somewhat on this recipe). I get a kick out of making the diamond shapes in the fat of the duck breast and searing it. And then continuing the low-fat meal prep, I used the duck fat to pan fry some gnocchi, which was what J had a hankering for. They come out spectacularly. Even using the packaged ones, they were crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy inside. Nice!!! Along with that, we roasted some broccoli.


There were pots and pans and all manner of things flying about the kitchen. What fun! And a friggin' gourmet feast for a Monday night people!

Faux Mexicana.

G is the Mexican food cook in our house.  I am the Mexican food eater.

But the other night, while packing up for the evening, a colleague mentioned a pretty easy chicken dinner recipe that I thought, this sounds perfect!  Basically, you take your boneless skinless chicken breasts and put them in a baking tray, cover with salsa, top with bread crumbs and grated cheese.  Bake and eat.

Well-ell, that sounded doable!  We had a jar of G's salsa opened that needed to be used (and was one of her less spectacular offerings), chicken breasts thawed out and ready to be cooked, and some lovely queso fresco that would make an excellent topping. Dinner was born!

While the chicken baked, I whipped up some tomatillo rice with shredded spinach mixed in, some corn sauteed with red pepper and onion, and super light salad of iceberg lettuce, onion, and avocado in a lime vinaigrette.   What a massively filling dinner for pretty low WW points+!

Granola!

J here.

As I have mentioned at least a million times, I follow Weight Watchers.  As you may know, if you care about such things, the while Weight Watchers plan changed at the end of last year and it's been a bit strange for me.  I never seemed to have a difficult time following the plan, but lately, I have been.  I think part of it is just that it's different and I still have to get my brains around the fact that spending more points on breakfast, or something similar, is not such a big deal because I have more points to start with.  But it's also because things around here have been quite stressful getting ready for the move.  It's tiring and frustrating and the condo seems to be in a constant mess!  It is not conducive to getting anything accomplished in the kitchen, but it IS conducive to going up the street and chowing down at Ginger.  *Sigh*  It's never easy, is it?  But that's what life is.  Having hard parts and smooth parts and making sure it balances out in the end of it to the best that it can and you can.

Anyway, in the spirit of that, I decided to make granola.  I am on a big greek yogurt kick, and the yogurt with a bit o' granola makes for a filling breakfast.  However, granola that you buy in the store is REALLY caloric.  So for my first attempt, I used a recipe found on Everbody Likes Sandwiches, which can be found here.  It was super easy and super deluxe!  See for yourself...

Yum!!!  It's clumpy, but wayyyyy too sweet so next time, less sugar.  Also, G talked me into getting these golden raisins that taste really ass-y to me, so no more of those.  But otherwise, it's fantastic.  We turned it into 20 servings at about 2 points a serving.

We took photos of the cooking process, but they are really yellow.  I am SO hopeful that the new house will have better lighting in the kitchen so the photos of the process will be better.  But whatever, it is what it is.  I am a professional lawyer, not a professional cook or photographer so I suppose it's all okay.

Anyway, I do recommend this recipe highly!  It's really nice to have something that's made from your own kitchen with ingredients you trust.  Good luck and drop me a line if you try it.

Gourmet in Aurora

It's not often that I post anything about anything that happens in Aurora. I basically work there and the food aspect of it is not particularly remarkable - in large part because I take my lunch to work most of the time. Anyway, today I had a lunch meeting and we went to the Edward Street Bistro. I didn't realize it was actually a restaurant. I'd been into the gourmet food store and knew it had a sandwich and coffee bar so was surprised that lunch ended up being more than soup and salad at a counter.

I started off with the soup of the day, an excellent seafood chowder. Iam often wary of chowders that often tend to be a little gelatinous for my taste. This was had a light broth with loads of chopped up vegetables and chunks of fish in the bottom. And it was a decent sized cup - not too much but more than enough to enjoy.

I will say that generally I would not order a hamburger at a business lunch but how could I pass up a $19 bison-kobe beef burger? I couldn't and I didn't. It came dressed with Jensen aged white cheddar, red wine onion, topped with a giant crispy onion ring and seved with a generous helping of frites. Really one of the most delicious burgers that I've ever eaten. Good stuff. If you're in the area, give it a try. It's not cheap but is probably the best food in town.

Now this is how you use up turkey leftovers

We had a lot of turkey over the various holidays in Q4 of 2010 (see how all-business I've become). Each time there was a bit left over that I ensured did not go to waste. Almost all the extra meat was shredded, bagged, labelled, and put in the freezer. Carcasses, vegetables and other goodies were turned into stock that was also saved in one or two cup servings in ziploc bags and also put in the freezer. The stock has many, many, many uses!

So it had been some time since I'd rustled up some Mexican food and over the weekend, I had a hankering. Also wanting to use up some of what we had in the freezer before our move, I thought I would do something with both the shredded turkey and some stock. I really enjoy the chicken tacos with chicken tinga so thought I'd adjust a recipe from my Mexican Home Cooking course and use turkey to make some tinga. It used some of the chipotle en conserva that I made last summer, and I added some tomatoes, herbs and other jazz and voila!

So, of course, this also meant a quick trip to the market to get a few goodies like my new favourite fresh tortillas, some queso fresco, etc. etc. Put that all together and you have a totally delicious turkey taco (with a not so excellent picture to illustrate the point).

While at cooking school, we also had this fantastic soup of poblano peppers (crema de chile poblano), which I really wanted to make. It was a cold day and soup was going to warm the soul. So put that together as well - really easy and relatively fast except for the charring and cleaning of the peppers - and I used my homemade turkey stock as the base. The soup was so smooth, creamy, a slight hint of spice and just generally absolutely delicious.


Not only was the food great but we also got to use this spectacular tortilla warmer that J's family gave me. Put eight tortillas in it in the microwave for a minute and you've got steaming hot flatbreads that stay hot! Yeah.

And the other most awesome thing for those on the Weight Watchers: low points, ahoy. Four tacos, with a bit of queso fresco, some salad, a bit of crema, and a plate of soup is only about 12 points. That's a big feed for not too many of the Points Plus!

Breakfast of Champions!

Yesterday had a nice twist to it.  We were out looking at housewares and we stopped at the best British Food Store in the whole province.  It's located at the Eglinton Square shopping centre, and totally rocks.  But honestly, they outdid themselves last night.  They had one of my most favourite foodstuffs in stock...

Yeah!!!  Yeah!!! Yeah!!!

We were so excited, but it was a bit late so we stocked up on provisions there including some really delicious Scottish bread and some Dubliner's cheese in order to make ourselves some extremely rocking breakfast sandwiches.

Despite our plans to get out early and go to the markets this morning, the snow had a different idea.  So leisurely breakfast was on order!

Lovely toasted bread with a perfectly fried egg, cheese, and a big ol' dollop of Baxter's tomato chutney.  And if it's up to scratch for the Queen...

... it's good enough for me.

And oh yeah, that rockin' Okie Grown mug in the background?  It's mine.  A super good Christmas present from my brother and I love using it for tea.

Good morning!!!

Livin' Large.

I love cookbooks and food magazines.

I have dozens of them.  I subscribe to a number of food magazines and I buy cookbooks when they catch my fancy.

The trouble is, I don't always have time to cook from them because there's always a steady stream of magazines and books coming in!  New Year's Resolution?  To cook from every cookbook I have, and to make at least one thing each month from each food magazine I subscribe to.  Yikes.  It sounds daunting already and none of my food subscriptions have even come in yet!

On the cookbook front, I am stoked, though!  While I was home in the great state of Oklahoma, I bought myself a new cookbook...

I read it the second I got back home and promptly ordered her second cookbook.  Lots of what she makes is familiar to me, and lots is what I imagine my life would have been like living with a more steady church goin' family in the 1950's instead of the rock awesome family that I actually lived with.  Regardless though, it's absolutely fabulous!  Cream of something in lots of the recipes and things that sound amazingly comforting.  So yeah for having this resolution BEFORE I bought this cookbook, because I am going to be kicking it southern style.  (While lightening what I can for the Weight Watchers part of me, of course!)

We are also in the process of preparing to move and it's been quite daunting.  Trying to find a mover that is reasonably priced (I mean, sheesh, we're moving across town not across the country!), reliable, and that will help us do this thing stress-free!  I'll keep you updated!

In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying the New Year as much as I am.  Happy Days!

Happy New Year!!!!

Whew!  What a whirlwind this year has been!!!

I managed to keep my weight steady and maintain my Weight Watchers weight loss, I ran in two 10Ks, 2 5Ks, AND a half-marathon!  I went to Mexico City and tasted some delicious Mexican food.  I bought a house. I had a good work/life balance and some solid work achievements.  Went to TIFF and saw Keanu Reeves up close and personal.  Sang-along at Nuit Blanche. Went on a cruise of the Western Caribbean and spent a week on a beach in the Dominican.  Went to Tulsa for Xmas. What I didn't do was cook a lot of anything interesting or even, for the most part, eat out anywhere interesting.  And when I did, I didn't take photos.

If I had to do it over, I would have liked to have blogged more, taken a few more photos, and kept up with it all a bit better.  But I would be lying if I said that this year didn't have some really amazing moments.

I am amazed constantly at how much weight I have lost (just about 30 pounds, with a goal this year to lose about 8 more), how different I look, how different I feel, and that I can safely say for the first time ever that I am a runner.  I feel pretty good being me these days, and really, it's hard to write about that stuff without sounding overly smug, so I think I shied away from posting because of it.

But no longer....

So first up...

Christmas home with the fam.  YIPPIE!  Good year!

We went to El Guapo for Mexican food.  Delicious and really nice.  I absolutely loved it.  It was sensational and a really fun restaurant in downtown.  Would go back in a second.  No photos of my delicious combo plate, but get there and enjoy yourself.

For Christmas dinner, we broke with tradition COMPLETELY and had G's mom's brisket for dinner with oven roasted potatoes (as seen on Nigella), broccoli cheese that I made from scratch, green beans, dinner rolls, and roasted carrots.  Really really good.

As you can see, this was a nice looking plate of food and a really really rewarding Christmas dinner.  It was the first time in my 38 years that we had a different dinner, and nobody died.  I completely enjoyed every morsel of it.    

Also, in Tulsa, I really really like Smashburger.  I know it's a chain and all that jazz, but it's so freaking delicious.  Super good hamburgers.  

Then home to find myself back on the Weight Watchers with the brand spankin' new plan.  Have you checked this out?  It's insane. I am still finding my way around it, and keep telling myself that WW works and I will sort it out and be fine.  :)  It's all good. 

But it's HAPPY NEW YEAR'S world-round right now, and we had a GREAT New Year's Eve!  G very generously took me and her brother and his wife to a lavish dinner at Origin.  

No pics of the food, but we managed to take one of us...

Hey!  It was dark in there!!!  I am the bugs bunny toothed one to the side.  

I also took one of the amazing light fixture in the Warhol Room...

The food was amazing and we had the absolute nicest waitress in the world.  Lots of food was had including their delicious devilled eggs, bangkok beef salad, duck wrap (DRROOOOOLLLLL), black cod (sigh), manchego rice/chorizo/poached egg (deliciousness personified), and chocolate cake.  Throw in a bottle of prosecco, a jameison and ginger ale, and it was one amazingly memorable meal.  It was a good good-bye to 2010.

This year, I have a few goals lined up for myself and am going to use this blog to share the journey.  Food, running, working out with the Wii, and making delicious, healthy food to help G and I on our journey.  Plus, we move into the new house in just over a month!  Stay tuned and thanks for reading. 

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!