Roommate Reunion

On Saturday, my roommate from university came up to visit!  It was so great to see her because it had been over two months since our last visit.  We relaxed and caught up, and of course, had a fabulous meal!  I can’t take credit for this one because it was another meal that my Mom made for us.

We had stuffed tomatoes, stuffed zucchini, and stuffed potatoes on the BBQ.

Plus some carrots cooked in brown sugar and ginger.  And I have to note, that the majority of the veggies were from my grandmother’s garden!

 

For dessert, we had cooked peaches in some kind of sugar, I can’t remember exactly! :P  Plus some chocolate chip, oatmeal, raisin cookies and brownies.  I had one of each!

A wonderful meal for our reunion.  We all loved it!

 

Aaron

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What a Week…

After a looong few days of moving, I am finally back to having internet access.  I’m not in my new place yet, so I am currently staying with my parents for a week or so.  But, all my stuff is in my new place waiting to be unpacked!  Can’t wait to get down there and get started.

I’ve been feeling soo sick the past couple days so I kept putting off putting up a post.  This is my meal from a couple nights ago that just didn’t get up on time!

We had a fab homemade dinner by none other than my Mom!

Barbequed Portobello mushrooms, garlic bread on a baguette, steamed veggies done in a pouch on the barbeque, red potatoes with an onion sauce, and a small piece of chicken.  Mmm…

Fresh flowers from the garden as a centrepiece… how pretty!

Heading out for dinner tonight with some friends.  Not sure where we are headed yet!  Details tomorrow 🙂

 

Aaron

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Stuff

It really amazes me how much “stuff” I have. 

As I’m packing up my apartment, I can’t believe how much keeps piling and piling up!  I’ve been trying to rid myself of the things I don’t really need and the clothes I no longer wear.  I’m trying to make the load as light as possible, but it seems that I have barely made a dent in it!

I am completely worn out! 😛

Since I have barely anything left in my cupboards I have just been grazing all day.  One little snack that I would like to share are these new found crackers:  Lesley Stowe’s Raincoast Crisps!

I guess crackers isn’t the right word, they almost are like Melba toast, except they have nuts and dried fruit all thrown into the mix.  Most ingredients are organic, too!

I’m glad I decided to indulge because these babies are gooood. 

The only down fall is they are pricey!  They will be a rare treat unfortunately.

Alright, back to packing!  Boo…

 

Aaron

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Garden Fresh

What beats fresh veggies straight from the garden?  It doesn’t get better than that in my books!  Last weekend, I visited my grandmother… and her garden. 

She has a huge garden in her backyard where you can find almost anything you can think of!  She has herbs, onions, carrots, green beans, yellow beans, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, green peppers, peas, beets, rhubarb, and probably more that I can’t think of!  While I was there, I brought home some goodies from the garden. 😀

 

I even got to bring home some flowers too! 😀

My favourite veggie from the garden are tomatoes!  I’m usually not a fan of store-bought tomatoes because they have no taste.  But, fresh from the garden they are mouth-watering!  I used them to make a classic toasted tomato sandwich with mayo and salt & pep.  Simple and satisfying.  Really lets you enjoy the taste of the tomatoes!  Doesn’t get better than that!

 

I cannot wait for the day that I have my own garden!  I’m highly debating starting one at my new place next summer 😛

For dinner, I used up the last of my green beans from the garden and also had some beets that are from the garden as well.  To go along with it I made some salmon with PC’s Sweet with Heat mustard and balsamic vinegar as a marinade.  Great combo!

Now that my belly is filled with garden freshness, I am off to get some major packing done for the big move next week!

 

Aaron

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80th Birthday Party

While I was away, we had a birthday party for my grandmother’s 80th birthday.  We had the party in her backyard and it was a hit!  We had a pink and green theme and lots of flowers.  I didn’t quite catch it in the pictures, but we had helium balloons tied to watering cans sitting on each end of the table.  You can see a bit of the string in the pictures.

 

We had the munchies out early in the day, and then dinner was served around 5PM.  We had an array of salads that guests brought and then we had buns, cold meats, veggies and dip, etc.  Just easy food because it was SO HOT on that day!  The punch emptied every 20 min!

For dessert, we had a cute birthday cake made to go along with the theme.

We had fruit to go with the cake, and my Dad made a lovely watermelon bowl for it to go in.  We were all surprised by his Martha Stewart skills!

My Mom made cupcakes for the kids who attended.  It’s hard to see in the picture (my apologies), but the lollipops are flowers with a little candy leaf!  Too cute!

It was so hot that day that the lollipops started to topple over because the icing was melting!

By the end of the day, the party went extremely well and my grandmother had a great time.  It was so great that we had such a good turnout (about 60 guests)!

The timing couldn’t have been better either, an hour after the last guest left it started to STORM!  We just had enough time to clean up and get all the decorations away!

 

Aaron

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For Old Times’ Sake

Tonight was a sad night because I had to say goodbye to my friend Jamie!  She is leaving for Cuba tomorrow (jealous!) and by the time she gets back I will have moved!  We decided to grab some Marble Slab and watch So You Think You Can Dance Canada for old times’ sake!  This used to be a weekly ritual when we lived together in undergrad.

Jamie ordered the double dark chocolate ice cream with strawberries, and I ordered the double dark chocolate ice cream with cookie dough and decided to try a Butterfinger cone!  We both loved our creations!

I only finished about half of mine while we were walking back to Jamie`s house.  I ended up having ice cream all down my hand and on my leg!  It melted like crazy and I had to throw it away :(  It was good while it lasted!

Off to bed for me now.  G`night!

Aaron

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Return of the Blogger

I’M BACK!  Wow, that feels great to say!  I am happy to report that I currently have a complete thesis and am free once again!  I must apologise for taking such an extensive hiatus from the blog.  All I have to say is that desperate times call for desperate measures. :(  A huge thank you to Beth for keeping the blog alive while I was gone!

Now that I have returned, I am anxious to get blogging and update you all!  To start off, I must say that my exercising and eating habits really took a plunge lately.  The past 3-4 weeks have been tough, but the last week in particular was especially bad.  I only ran once and that was my only workout that week!  I tried to lift weights that day as well, but seeing as I hadn’t lifted a dumbbell in 3 weeks, I had lost more muscle mass than I had anticipated!  Needless to say, I am feeling like I have taken some serious steps backwards as a result of letting the academic portion of my life outweigh the fitness portion.  I have lost the balance!  Now that I have more free time, my goal for the next week is to regain that balance once again.

What better way to kick-off the week than a bowl of oatmeal?  And some chai tea to go along.

 

In the mix:

• 1/3 cup oats, water, almond milk
• 1 frozen banana (I tossed them in the freezer because they were close to going bad!  Worked well 🙂 )
• 1 tbsp flaxseed
• splash of vanilla
• 1 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/4 blueberries
• 1 tbsp dried cranberries
• 1 tbsp peanuts
• 1 tbsp peanut butter

A great morning!  As for the rest of the week, my meal plan is going to be quite interesting.  I am moving next week, so I am trying not to buy any more food.  Leftovers and random cupboards contents are what’s for dinner! :P  Wish me luck!

Happy Monday!

Aaron

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Remember Me?

Hello!  It’s me, the long lost blogger! :P  I haven’t posted since Sunday!  I’m so terrible – I know!  I’m actually going to be on a bit of a hiatus for a while longer, unfortunately.  I’m sorry to leave you, but Beth will be holding down the fort no problem!  So, why have I been slacking?  One word: thesis.

I am currently finishing the writing process of my Master’s thesis and it is eating up every moment of free-time that I have.  As you can imagine, the stress levels are quite high right now!  I feel like I am back in university preparing for final exams… not fun!  Anyways, eating good, well-balanced meals are not my priority right now, nor do I have time to photograph and blog.  It saddens me!

Not only am I completing my thesis, but I am also preparing for a move at the end of August that is going to land right in the midst of everything.  I have a lot of odds and ends that need to be taken care of before I leave this city.  I’ve been here six years now!

Needless to say, I am crazy busy!  I promise to return as soon as I can.  Until then, I will leave you with what I ate for dinner last night.  Just a demonstration of how little I am cooking these days…

 

 

That’s right.  Chilli from a can!  (Amy’s Organic Chilli with sour cream and a sprinkle of cheese).

Does this remind anyone else of a typical college dinner?  That’s sure what it felt like!

See you soon!

 

Aaron

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Sunny Sunday

Finally some nice weather!  The long weekend has turned out to be probably the nicest weekend so far this summer.  Late is better than never, I guess!

I made an awesome salad for lunch.

It was soo good, but I couldn’t finish it!  I didn’t have much of an appetite for some reason!  I made this for lunch on Friday, but ended up going out for lunch.  Anyways, I can’t remember everything that I put in it… sorry for the lack of a recap! 😛

By the time dinner rolled around, my appetite was back and in full force!  My sister and I went out for an amazing meal.  We went to a local restaurant that cooks with all local ingredients.

I started with the Caesar salad (boring, I know – but classic!).

My sister started with a roasted tomato soup.  I tried a bit and it was so good, you could really taste the smokey-ness from the roasting.

As a main, I had the grilled chicken with cranberry salsa and fingerling potatoes.

My sister had a chicken pasta – I cannot remember the name of the pasta…. started with a t?

 

They were both delicious and left us very satisfied!

On the walk home we grabbed a decaf coffee from the coffee shop near my house.  A perfect evening for the August long!

Aaron

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Long Weekend!

I love that its another long weekend already!  The summer is just flying by!  It’s the annual Rib fest weekend so I am definitely going to check it out at some point.  I missed it last year, so I am excited to see what it’s like.

To kick off the long weekend I had a veggie burger and corn-on-the-cob for dinner!  How can you go wrong?

The corn wasn’t as good as I was hoping for, but still good nonetheless.

I snacked on a LUNA bar after dinner, I had the S’mores one – it was good!

Enjoy the weekend!

 

Aaron

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