Thursday Things

1)  Did you know that egg whites take longer to cook than the yolks?  It's true!  When we have scrambled eggs, I always separate the eggs first, and then cook the whites for a bit before adding the yolks.

Check this page for my perfect scrambled egg method.

2)  I have a fool-proof method for separating eggs that my parents taught me as a kid.  I plan on doing a vlog (video blog) post about this in the future.  I never knew that people had trouble separating eggs until I witnessed some very bizarre methods on a cooking show one time.

3)  Homemade fresh rolls before the Screaming Daisies show last night.



4)   The snow is melting!!!!!



We are excited that we can see this:



After the extremely cold winter we just had, BBQing and sitting on the deck sounds utterly glorious. 

5)  Sometimes we eat Costco pizza.  Tonight was one of those times.

What are your Thursday things? 

Keep Your Brain Young

As a psychology major, I've always been very interested in the brain, and brain research.  I am also passionate about health.  Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to review Keep Your Brain Young, when the lovely people at Robert Rose offered to give me a review copy.

Although the book was provided to me at no cost, a blog review was not required, and all opinions are my own. 

This book is broken into five parts:

1 - Understanding Brain Diseases
2 - Smart Nutrients
3 - Standard Care for Dementia
4 - The 12-Step Healthy Brain Diet Program
5 - Menu Plans and Recipes for a Healthy Brain

I loved the section on Smart Nutrients, as it was very straight forward, providing food sources for each nutrient, recipes that correspond, and signs/symptoms of too much or too little of the nutrient.  My other favourite section was section five - no surprise there I'm sure!

We made two of the recipes from this section, including the red lentil curry with coconut and cilantro, and the cucumber raita. 

These were both super easy to make, and full of healthy, fresh ingredients rich in brain-nutrients.

We served the lentil curry over basmati rice, and then topped it with the raita.  It was refreshing, and tasted very light.  We plan on making both of these recipes again.

What are you reading these days?

Fabulous Weekend

What a great weekend!!  On Friday evening we cooked up a calzone perogy to share before heading out to see Kenny vs Spenny. 

After the show we went to Original Joe's for a little snack:

After a lovely breakfast on Saturday morning, we lounged around for the afternoon, and then booked a Vegas vacation!!  Why not!?

In the evening we met up with friends Kim & Chris for a really nice dinner at Crave.  We got the beef tartare to start:

Then I had the chicken dish (which was incredible), and Christopher had risotto with seared tuna:

After a wonderful dinner and visit, with a lot of laughs, we headed to Bushwakker to celebrate a birthday with some other pals. 

We did some running around today (a BIG Costco trip was in order), and now we're chilling out, listening to vinyls in the basement. 

Life is good.

How was your weekend?

Beef Burritos

These burritos were so simple, and so good. 

We browned some ground beef with onions and red pepper:

Then spread re-fried beans, sour cream, and salsa on tortillas, topping that with the meat, some cheese, black olives, cilantro and avocado.

Then we threw some pickled jalapenos on for good measure:

Dear burritos, why you gotta be so good?

When is the last time you had a burrito? 

Why aren't you eating a burrito right now?

Five on Friday

1)  When we cook fish, it's usually salmon.  Recently, however, we cooked up some halibut, which we served with spiced quinoa and a salad:

2)  The first time I ever had shepherd's pie was in my 20s, and it was from Costco.  My family just never made this when I was growing up (Christopher's did though).  We decided to make a homemade version the other day, and it turned out great.

It's definitely better homemade!

3)  Tonight we're headed out to see Kenny vs Spenny.  They are on tour, but we're not exactly sure what to expect at a live show with them.  It should be a fun time! 

4)  We went to Tony Roma's for dinner on Monday.  Now I remember why we rarely eat at chain restaurants.  We were not impressed.

At least the soup we shared to start was pretty good:

5)  We don't usually go out to eat too much, unless we're out of town, but tomorrow we're headed out again - this time to a nicer restaurant.  It should be a pretty great weekend!

What are you up to tonight?  Tomorrow night?

Our Grocery Trips

At the start of each week we plan our meals for the week, and make a grocery list with the usuals and the items we need for the meals planned:

We usually grocery shop together, doing one bigger trip a week, and then occasionally stopping individually if we only need a few items.

We always buy plenty of produce:

A few kinds of cheese (usually one shredded, a block, and blue ... for the man of the house):

We make sure we always have breakfast staples on hand:

We grab any random items that we're out of (we love pickles):

And any special ingredients we need for meals we're cooking:

Sometimes, if we're feeling sassy, we buy a little snacky item, or something new to try.

Everything gets crossed off of the list, and whatever we didn't get or couldn't find goes onto a new list on the fridge ... for next time.

Who does the grocery shopping in your home?  

How often do you go?  What are your typical purchases?

Cheese

What's that?  A cheese I've never had before??? 

Guess I have no choice - I'm going to have to buy it.

That's how my brain works in the grocery store. 

Oka is boring.  Very boring.  The smell is strong, but the taste is similar to the most mild mozzarella available.  The texture is like a slightly creamier mozzarella.  I don't think we'll buy this again.

This green thunder cheese is full of flavour and really good.  

It is quite crumbly, green in colour, and packs a lot of punch with the old cheddar taste combined with a lot of herbs.  We like it. 

What is your favourite cheese?