I cooked all week-end.

It's been months since I cooked anything.  I hate cooking and when I'm feeling down the last thing I want to do is cook. However I haven't been eating very well since I'm not cooking, so I bit the bullet so to speak and cooked all week-end.

I made an Irish stew with beef for Terry and Zoey.  They both loved it. Zoey liked it so much, she even drank all the remaining sauce that she didn't get with her crusty bread.

For myself I made chickpea and tomato curry, a coconut vegetable curry and ratatouille. I also made edamame bean noodles to go with the vegetable curry and the ratatouille.  I made a tabouleh for lunch all week and I also made a spinach lasagne. [not pictured]

Chick pea and tomato curry

Irish stew made with Beef

Coconut vegetable curry

Ratatouille

Quinoa Tabouleh

THey had a sale!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, Got my fix of my favourite cruciferous vegetable. The cauliflower was only $2 at IGA last week. I made grilled cauliflower for dinner last night.

Grilled cauliflower

Del Frisco's

 I tried out the Italian restaurant Del Frisco's situated on the north-east side of Sources and the 40, next to one of my favourite restaurants, Marathons!

I had noticed that there was two items in their menu I could safely have. Their Fresh steamed Mussels [My favourite, Moules-frites] or the eggplant parmigiana. I had the eggplant parmigiana. It was absolutely delicious. They even served it to me with gluten free penne, for a mere $3 more!  I was ecstatic. I mean it's rare enough to be able to get gluten free food, but to have such a good dish. I stuffed myself so much. My companion had the lasagna and he seemed to find it delicious. The food was not only good but it was easy to digest.

I will definitely be going back to Del Frisco's for dinner one night. Was well worth the trip.

Healthy lunch

Today I had no lunch so I went to the IGA at  marche de l'ouest to pick up a salad and two fruits

It cost me almost $10. I can get a totally unhealthy lunch at McDonald's for $5. Crazy isn't it??????

Oh Honey

Since March, I've been having a teaspoon of honey a day. At first it was apple blossom honey. Now it's a spring flower honey.

Until a few days ago I showed no signs of having seasonal allergies. Today though not only do I have the raw throat, the stuffy nose but I have lots of tightness in my chest. Will be taking some buckleys.

Will have to keep looking into the honey and figure out what honey to eat when and avoid allergies in the future as well. I usually have the teaspoon of honey just before a big  breakfast, so the sugar wakes me up  but other foods prevents any crash.

To my daughter who feels clumsy

It runs in the family. I'm absent-minded and clumsy. And very randomly too. Last night I put my dinner in the microwave for 2 minutes. When I took it out I managed to drop it on the kitchen floor. At least it was not as epic as the curried eggplant of a few years back.

So I had to make myself some form of dinner and there was a giant cauliflower I'd picked up that was screaming to be eaten, so I made grilled cauliflower for dinner. I thankfully did not drop this, or burn myself taking the dish in and out of the oven.

Oven grilled cauliflower

Visitor from Lebanon

Looking forward to the visit of the woman who was my 2nd mother-in-law. She will be visiting from October 3rd to October 17th. I have invited her over for dinner on Sunday the 5th, since the week-end after that is a canoe camping week-end, probably the last of this year. 

I was looking forward to introducing her to my closest friends and family and well this will be limited. Neither daughter will be in Montreal that day. Nor will one of my friends, she's going to be on a cruise. There's still a few friends that I will be asking, hopefully they will be available.  If no one is, just means more left-overs for those present :) Yes I will be cooking for 20 people even if there will be no more then 8. One of the dishes I plan on making is Shepherds pie with moose meat.

As it turns out at work they want overtime from me this week and next week. This works. I can then get a day off to take my visitor friend shopping on a week day. Maybe take her to Carrefour Laval. The biggest Mall in Quebec, as well take her around various neighborhoods of Montreal including the houses where I grew up.

Sure smells good

My own version of chop suey, stir fried bean sprouts with brown rice noodles

Gluten free Banana bread

This weekend I made a quinoa tabbouleh, a coconut eggplant vegetable curry, some Ethiopian stew, a bean sprout stir fry and some banana bread.

Arabian Spinach

I'm not a huge spinach fan but I like it stir fried.  This is an easy to prepare recipe that is highly satisfying.

1 package of fresh spinach
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 red onion
1 tbsp of coconut oil
1 tsp of cumin
1 19 ounce can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans
a handful of grated Kashkaval cheese

Heat up the coconut oil in a wok, add the onion, then the crushed garlic, and finally the cumin.   Stir, then add the spinach and stir fry it until it is greatly reduced. Once spinach cooked add the chickpeas, keep stirring to warm up chickpeas. Once everything is hot, cover with the grated cheese and put lid on wok, let sit 5 minutes, to give time for cheese to melt.

Serve.

Got my winter tires on

It helped they had been in the truck for the past week so I could put truck in garage. I went during "lunch" time yesterday. Don't know if I'll be going back to the Monsieur Lub to get my tires changed again.

First off when I arrived the guy said he could take me right after the guy he was going to finish, in about 10 minutes and it would take 45 minutes.   It took over 2 hours. They tried to say it's because it takes SO MUCH LONGER to balance 18" wheels. BULL. I've been out of there in about 1 hour with this truck and those tires.

There was at least 2 guys working on my vehicle, but they were going obviously as slow as they could. So when it was finally finished, I get the usual, "We noticed XYZ" about your vehicle, to which I answered "I'm getting maintenance done at my dealer next week". Get into the car, and found the cabin filter in the passenger seat and the glove compartment opened.  To which I was told "See the filter is dirty". Yeah it has a few leaves, I'm not worried about that. In fact now that I know I can access that filter via the glove compartment, I can take it out again, shake it free of stuff, and put it back in. They didn't even bother shaking it. No, they would have charged me an arm and leg to change it and taken another half hour.

I dunno that I'll be going back to this Mr Lub. I've been going to get tires changed there for years, but the level of their incompetence this time and the time it took, is not making me feel that comfortable.

When I got home I rolled all 4 tires to my back shed and put them in. So my car has it's winter tires on 2 weeks before the deadline. Usually I set off to get them put on after the deadline!

I also washed dishes for hours last night.  I really miss my dishwasher.  Need to get that fixed already.  Still have more dishes to wash tonight, but it should be the end of it.

More Mezze dishes

Chile Shrimp
Recipe here

Chickpea salad
Recipe here

Rosemary chicken
recipe here

Grilled cauliflower
Recipe here

Shanglish
Recipe here

garlic sauce
Recipe here

hummus balila
Recipe here

sesame sauce on the right, hummus on the left
Sesame sauce recipe

Tomato tabouleh, made with white and black quinoa, so gluten free
Recipe here

Fruit and nut tabouleh, made with white and red quinoa, so gluten free
Recipe found here

Beet salad
Recipe here

mixed vegetable salad
Recipe here

batata harra
recipe here

Lebanese Mezze for his Birthday.

I decided to cook a Lebanese Mezze for my ex hubby's birthday. Every year I used to try to find a Lebanese restaurant so he could have the taste of home, and often that would fail miserably. This year I decided to try to do it at home. I made 12 dishes and 2 sauces.

Does it look yummy?  Yep made this much food in 2 days.  Will be posting close up photos of each dish with name later. Right now I just want to sleep :)

Airplane food

When I was travelling to the Middle East, I discovered that not all airlines serve you uneatable food like Air Canada.  I remember the first time I travelled with Emirates airline. I was so surprised and impressed with their vegetarian meal. It was surprisingly delicious, and not sugar laden.

Apparently I'm not the only one who notices that most North American carriers feed you sheer garbage. This article tells of the best airplane food, and no carrier in North America made the list. But delicious Emirates Airline makes the cut.  See article.