What did you do with the extra hour?

We've fallen back an hour and gained more time in the day. Most people were probably productive and did school work. I, for one, worked enough hours the past two days to make my head spin so insteaddddd, made a simple dinner that had many many mannnyyy components:

TACO SALAD!

Consists simple of: romain lettuce, tomato spiced rice, ground beef, crushed can tomatoes (didn't have salsa), guacamole, sour cream, some cheddar cheese and Tostitos chips!

Long time no post!

Didn't get to cook much since the last week of October was reading week. Went home to Ottawa, so got Mom to cook for me instead...it was glorious....

I did however pack little (well...big..) breakfast for Mark and myself for the train ride home.



While in Toronto I picked up some inari skins in Korea town. So first thing possible, I made us a big sushi lunch, first day back from reading week! Below from left to right, are:

• Mini spam nigiri
• Avocado rolls
• California rolls (minus cucumbers)
• Inari sushi filled with carrots and mushrooms mixed with rice
  

Its always hard to make small amounts of sushi. It is so unreasonable to cut only 1/4 of an avocado and see what to use the other chunk for...or make only 3 inari sushi when a pack of 8 has been opened. So overall, made 4 trays of food, feeding a total of 5!


Wednesday's food...made a trip to Whole Foods and bought this lovely chicken thigh. Decided to do a simple salt and pepper and fried it up. Served with steams Green Leaf lettuce, one portion of rice stuffed in an inari skin (had to use up the rest since I ran out of carrot/mushroom rice yesterday...oops!). Served with a quarter of a jelly and butter sandwich for dessert!

Thursday I was going to serve the last 8 inari skins half filled with rice and other half is tuna and diced apple salad. However, a friend invited us over and we all shared a lovely picnic style lunch!
(Never realised Chai tea was so awesome...)

Something quick and simple today. Sorta. A basic pasta salad with veggies, mini pork patties, and steamed lettuce!

Lower that fat!

I keep telling myself to lower the fat in the lunches. So today's was relatively simple. But my god the more I read the more I worry about packing the calories into these boxes. According to Just Bento, if you have a box tight (like your really should) then the ml=cal in an almost 1:1 ratio.

Scary thought. Luckily with mine if i must pack a fattier lunch I can use half the set to make 500 cal, or maybe one of my smaller boxes. But with Zuza's, its a sandwich container. Probably closer to 800 cals if packed tight! Websites often recommend fillers like tomatoes, or carrots, etc. But you can only eat so much of em.

Today's lunch I tried to pack it light, with variety and still fills the box. Can't have the food shifting around inside eh?


Zuza's lunch consisted of white rice, unsalted tamagoyaki (which came out beautifully this time!), fried sweet potato (the only food with oil), white rice and grapes for dessert.

Sadly she found the white rice kind of plain. For me out of habit I like to eat it with the sides, but I guess its different for her? I don't want to salt it, nor fry it. hmmm maybe some sesame will be nice.

My lunch was relatively the same. Can you tell I was concerned about calories based on the ratio of food in the two boxes? No sweet potato for me since I know it is Zuza's fave. Instead, I had some jarred Chinese spicy radish preserves. Quite yummy! This box was still too much to eat for lunch. Time to rethink how to pack these things, I think...

Lunch!

Trying to get back in the mode of making a decent lunches attempting to make it healthy+yummy.

Zuza's Lunch box

Steph's Lunch Box

Today was simply a medley of veggies, grapes, sweet potato and ginger scallion noodles.

Zuza's sweet potatoes are seasoned with a more western taste, with italian seasoning, chives, parsley, salt and garlic.

Mine were leftovers cooked with ginger.

The noodles are really easy to make, and Mom used to make it as a side to eat with our congee.
Egg noodles are fried with slices of ginger and green scallions. Then you add some oyster sauce in for that lovely msg XD

Time to plan tomorrow's lunch..

Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had an awesome thanksgiving! I sure did. The studious would've used this weekend to their advantage, catch up in school or hop ahead. The smart relaxed and had food binges. Lucky for Oakville, the weather was awesome too! I know I should feel guilty about not thinking about my school work but I don't. It was an awesome weekend!

Cooked like a maniac. To think our mothers did this for the last 22 years of our lives! What I really wanted to do this year, being the last year in college, was to tackle a whole turkey. Last year, I just bought one of those butterball boneless meat. Lucky for me this year, there was a turkey out there around the same price as those lumps of meat...


So being a noob at it all, I forgot the defrost the turkey! NO WAY! I've heard the stories, etc etc. But the lumps could be done from frozen so it completely slipped my mind. Luckily this was still the morning so it spent the better part of the afternoon defrosting...

That's my seasoned turkey...Pre-Oven... at 4:45 pm. Yes, you can do the math...we had a nice late dinner... Rubbed the turkey in a little veggie oil, and sprinkles some paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and parsley inside and outside. Didn't bother to stuff it since it increases cooking time...And to be honest, I just do Stove Top. Covered the bird in Aluminum foil, and in it went at 375.

Turkey around 6:00, uncovered. Lookin good, but the bottom was definitely not getting enough heat...
This was uncovered around 10:00. I could've taken it out 9:40 but just in case, I wasn't giving my guests stomach pain. I tried to cook the bird uncovered as of 6 but it started to burn so the foil went back on top until 8:30. Not too crispy and super yummy. Did I mention I rubbed butter on it at some point? Next year I'll try what Zuza suggested: drape a couple slices of bacon on top!

And so this was out dinner. Only 4 main dishes but it was enough...(i hope?) We started eating at 10:40 and finished out first plate by 10:50....I'll take it as it was yummy!

Stove Top stuffing with some turkey drippings. Added half an onion to the box. mmm...

Carved Turkey. I admit I'm not sure how to carve. This being done on Saturday, most of the Food Network Thanksgiving specials didn't start until Sunday. So this is my attempted to carve a Turkey. Not bad, eh? For an amateur...

Veggies was saute broccoli, mushrooms and onions with a little oil and Maggie sauce.

Family recipe potato salad! My brother loves this so I just had to make it for him. Consists of 4 large potatoes, 7 eggs, mayonnaise and a can of (drained) fruit cocktail. The fruit usually turns people off, but I love it. yum yum yum...

Product Advertising! Enjoyed all this with a glass of Inniskillin Late Autumn Riesling!

Yummy Plate. And we end off with Apple pie for dinner!


BUT WAIT! Cooking isn't over yet! Brother and boyfriend stayed the night so I made an awesome lunch before they went to catch their trains.

Friend egg noodles with green scallions and ginger, mixed with oyster sauce.

Homemade sushi. Seriously. California rolls and some egg avocado rolls.

Not a bad Thanksgiving, eh? With all the leftovers, Zuza got to have it in her bento today!

Lordy it has been a week...

No I didn't forget to upload the pass little while. Last wednesday and Thurs I didn't end up making lunches due to one being a friend's bday so I made a special breakfast and the second was because I got super sick again.

Anyways, started up again this week.

Today's lunch was a simple stir fry noodle with Edemame and Dumplings!

Zuza's Lunch (Her own box was dirty so I lent one of mine)

Steph's Lunch (Zuza's edamame is in here too so they didn't get all saucy)

How to make em Noodles!

Noodles were really easy to make. I had cabbage, carrots and onions in the fridge so that was my base. Saute Onions, then add in other two. If you have any marinated meat (which i didn't ...) you can add it in here. Salt, Garlic, Soya, Sugar. Add water and simmer. Chicken Broth works too but I didn't have any...

Add in cooked noodles to absorb all the liquid. Sesame Oil and some Oyster Sauce (or Unagi sauce if you got any...and guess what?! I DID!)

That's my simple noodle recipe. Kinda reminds me of the one they used to make at Tiki Ming...