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Debbie Ridpath Ohi reads, writes and illustrates for young people.

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Entries in Food (16)

Monday
Jun202005

door-shopping, healthy snacks

Strange Starbucks ad


re: photo on the right. On the way to the house this past weekend, we saw this Starbucks sign. Is it just me, or is a "REMEMBER SUMMER" ad in June a bit odd?

Just over one month until we actually move into our New House. One of the rooms we're renovating is the master bedroom, which currently is open to the rest of the house. We're putting in a wall and a door for privacy and soundproofing, mainly at my insistence; I tend to wake up earlier than Jeff in the mornings, and want to be able to actually use the rest of the house without worrying about waking him up.

So on the weekend we went door-shopping (our friend Ray helped). Decisions to be made: number of doors (we went with double), type of wood, stain (decision to be made later), style of door, type of glass panels, number of glass panels, type of handle bla bla bla augh.

Both of us have been feeling pretty overwhelmed by the number of decisions to be made during this whole process. Started out with the Big Decision, of course (which house), but now the zillions of little decisions are gradually being whittled down.

I *SO* cannot wait until all the decisions have been made, at least enough that we can finally move in.

IMG_5872


I'm very much into leftovers these days; Jeff's had to work late quite a bit these days so I'm on my own for meals. I tend to cook something big at the beginning of the week and live on the leftovers the rest of the week. Last week, I made a roast chicken and a big batch of Turkish kisir (bulghur salad).

My favourite drink recently is iced tea. I like herbal teas in general and have been experimenting with brewing tea then chilling it, sometimes combining different types. So far my favourites are licorice-mint, green iced tea and ginger-peach iced tea. I don't add sugar, just drink it straight, and I try to limit how much caffeinated iced tea I make.

My favourite snack these days is slices of cucumber, each with a dab of white miso. Yum. I'm a heavy snacker, by the way, grazing throughout the day, keeping meals small. The challenge is to keep snacks healthy and interesting (yes, baby carrots are healthy but if I eat too many of them, I want to chew my own head off), especially since I work at home.

So here's a survey:

What are your favourite healthy snacks?
I'll compile a list of results and post it in an upcoming Blatherings.

Some reader feedback from recent Blatherings:

Sherman:

"Pollination gets a bit complicated, Debbie. Some plants are self-pollinating, so you don't really need insects to do the fun stuff. For those who need pollinators, until recently you could generally count on bees, wasps, and other pollinators to do the job, though you could help by hand-pollinating. (In our yard, very few of the pollinators are hive bees. Most appear to be wasps and non-hive bees.)

Recently, though, there's been a vicious mite population that's been destroying hundreds of commercial hives in North America and will probably make a bunch of produce much more expensive in the next year or two. That's rather scary because, yes, flowers that are not in self-propagating plants will not germinate unless pollinated."

Margaret:

"If a particular flower doesn't get pollinated, it just dries up and falls off and doesn't make seeds. Which may be why lots of plants make clusters of flowers. If every flower in the cluster got pollinated, the clump of fruit would break off the branch-end. So there's slack in the system to allow for the bees missing some flowers."

Scott S.:

"Wow, great pictures of the barbeque. I sure wish I was Debbie Ohi's friend so I could hang out with such cool people. :-)"

Funny guy, that Scott Snyder.

;-)

By the way, congrats to Scott & Amanda on their recent babynews!

June 2005 comments:
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Wednesday
May252005

sushi, two more days

Two more days until we get our house. We've arranged to get the keys from the current owner around noon on Friday.

Decided to make sushi last night for dinner: norimaki this time (rolled sushi), with a filling of smoked salmon, cooked egg, cucumber. Side dishes: sunomono cucumber salad, miso soup. Yum. I wanted to add avocado to the norimake filling, but none of the avocados in the market were ripe enough. Next time I'll have to plan ahead and buy one to ripen at home.

Making sushi used to be a major chore I'd only do every couple of years, but I've found that using less time-consuming fillings makes it a more convenient meal. I like varying the ingredients each time to experiment with colours, textures, and flavours. Another added convenience is that many of the ingredients (including the nori sheets and bamboo rolling mats) can be found in big supermarkets like Dominion (!).

48 hours.

050525twodays



May 2005 comments:
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Thursday
Apr282005

2002 La Crema Pinot Noir



Missed another Irish music session at the Tranzac last night because of a niece's birthday party, but it was good to see Jeff's family again. My sister-in-law Larkin is very pregnant but looked fantastic; she's due in about a week! Larkin's husband is a professional chef, and he asked my niece what she wanted for her birthday dinner. Her answer: hamburgers and French fries.

Have to say they were the best burgers and fries I've ever had. Rick made everything from scratch, including cutting the potatoes by hand and frying them twice to make them extra crispy. Not terribly lowfat, I'm sure, but they were SO GOOD. The hamburgers were made from sirloin tips that Rick ground himself. Dessert: ice cream birthday cake and Rick's famous homemade almond tiles.

Yum.



We also had some red wine I really liked; I took a photo of the label so I'd remember what it was: 2002 La Crema Pinot Noir.

Walter and I are going to see the Lord of the Rings One-Man Show tonight! I'm very much looking forward to seeing this.

Looks like ice-out won't be happening until tomorrow or possibly the weekend.

JEFF AND I GET TO SEE OUR NEW HOUSE TODAY! We need to do some measurements in the master bathroom, but the owner also e-mailed me specifically to ask if I'd like to take a peek at the garden, which will be getting its spring cleaning earlier today. This will be the FIRST TIME that Jeff and I have seen the place without snow. Very hyped.

THIRTY DAYS until we get possession of the house.

Jeff was talking to our contractor yesterday and at the end of the conversation, Sean said, "Oh by the way, I saw you in the Toronto Star on the weekend."

:-D

Rick's almond tiles.


Remember I mentioned yesterday that I had a new baby Tamagotchi whom I christened Splat? Um, well...I forgot to put little Splat on pause yesterday when I left for the birthday festivities. When I got home, the screen was filled with waste, his "Happy" and "Hungry" charts both read zero (i.e. he was starving to death in misery), and a black skull hung over his head.

Still alive, though...I think TWO black skulls have to appear before he kicks the bucket. I hope to be able to save the little guy when he wakes up; I couldn't help him at all last night because he had already fallen asleep.

Geez, I haven't felt this guilty since I accidentally set fire to a mother cooking in her kitchen during my first game of The Sims.


April 2005 comments:
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Wednesday
Apr272005

homemade sushi and pregnant tamagotchis



I was out shopping for dinner ingredients late yesterday afternoon when I was overcome by a craving for sushi. Mabuta, a high school student from Japan living with my Dad, once put together a "make your own" sushi spread for my family a while back, so I decided to do the same thing for Jeff and me.

I picked up some sheets of dried seaweed (nori), wasabi paste, smoked salmon, cucucumber, artificial crab, avocado, pickled ginger. Used my rice cooker (gift from my parents many years ago) to make some Japanese rice, then used this recipe to make sushi rice. I didn't have any rice vinegar so used white vinegar instead; I figured my Mom had always used plain vinegar, so it would probably turn out all right.

And it did! I could have added other ingredients (egg, eel, etc.) but I figured we had enough to make an interesting sushi hand roll. For those that have never had these, the basic idea is to lay out a sheet of nori, put on some sushi rice, then add whatever fillings you'd like, roll it all up inside the nori. Then I dip the roll in a mixture of shoyu (soy sauce) and wasabi.

Yummmmmmm.

Me and my Tamagotchi


For those who have been dying to know, the tamagotchi given to me by my nieces did indeed survive. Sam was a tad spoiled with ice cream, but this time I was careful not to overdo it. When he got to a certain age, Sam was able to start giving and receiving presents with other tamagotchis as well as play games with them.

Sam was not a good gift giver in the beginning, I'm embarrassed to say. While Annie's and Sara's tamagotchis graciously gave Sam gifts of balloons, flowers and cake, Sam was not as generous.

"So what did he give you?" I remember asking excitedly the first time he gave their tamagotchis anything.

After a pause, Sara looked up. "Um...a piece of poo."

I was mortified, but Sara reassured me that sometimes the tamagotchis gave bad presents as well as good. I gave Annie's tamagotchi a monster as a present; it made her tamagotchi cry. One of the most interesting gifts was a wig, given to me by Sara's tamagotchi. A WIG?!? Go figure. Anyway, Sam quite liked it and enjoyed wearing it for fun, preening and walking back and forth; I thought he looked quite dashing, and it matched his tiny moustache.

One day an odd spiderish creature appeared on my screen and talked to Sam. My nieces had already prepped me...this was the Matchmaker. A few minutes later, a female Tamagotchi (I assumed female because she had big lips) appeared, and I was prompted to either choose or reject her love for Sam.

I accepted, of course, and after a heart blossomed between Sam and his new love, the screen suddenly went dark. Then miniature fireworks sprayed across the artificial night, and a moment later...

TA-DAAA!!! Sam had a brand-new baby boy by his side! His partner and the matchmaker had fled; their work was apparently done.

I had no idea it was so easy. ;-)

But from niece prep, I knew that poor Sam's days were now numbered a la Logan's Run. I comforted myself with the knowledge that Sam would at least have a few joyous days with his offspring: eating together, playing together, offloading bodily waste together.

This morning I turned on the lights in their tamagotchi world...and Sam was gone! Only the wee one was left, crying piteously. I fed him and named him Splat.

Fare thee well, my dear Sam. We had good times together. May you wear your wig in peace.

---

I've added a Flickr "random photo badge" to the navigation menu on the left. In theory, you should see three different photos each time you load the page.
31 more days until we get the house.
One (1) more day until Walter and I go see the Lord of the Rings One-Man Show!


April 2005 comments:
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Friday
Apr082005

birthdays and bulgur!



Happy birthday to my pal Rand. For those who haven't seen it, here's a song that Urban Tapestry presented to Rand as a birthday gift a few years ago. I had really wanted to do this song at FKO, but sadly my tendinitis hasn't recovered enough for me to play the guitar part. Yay for Library Boys! (I'm sure Erin would agree ;-) )

According to LJ posts, it's also Chris O'Shea's and Simon Fairbourn's birthday today...happy birthday, all!

My FKO bug still hanging on, and now Jeff is sick, too. :-( It's one of those annoying bugs that doesn't knock you out enough to justify staying in bed all day, but still manages to inspire just enough misery to keep you from being able to focus on day-to-day tasks. Blecho.

BUT no bug is keeping me from being hugely excited about the fact that only 46 days remain until we get possession of OUR NEW HOUSE. I'm SO hyped. Whenever I even think about our new house, I feel stupid-happy. Can't wait. I know it will be at least a month of renovations before we can actually move in, but at least it will be OURS. I can walk in the front door ANY TIME I WANT. OUR front door.

(pause for hyperventilation to subside)

Anyway.

Despite cold-ickiness (washed my hands frequently), I cooked dinner for Jeff and his dad last night, two recipes from the Sofra cookbook, which focuses on Turkish and middle-Eastern cooking. I was especially happy with how the kisir turned out, a salad consisting of bulgur, chopped walnuts, hazelnuts, spring onions, green and red pepper, fresh parsley, mint & dill, dried crush chillies, paprika, cumin, white pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and tomato juice. Yummm. Lots of leftovers for lunches and snacks, too!

And now I'm hungry again. I'm so lame.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

<Woodcut mouse
Experiment with Corel Painter 8 woodcut effect.



April 2005 comments:
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