Girl's Lake Weekend

A few weeks ago my mom and I had our 2nd Annual Girl's Weekend. We spent 3 wonderful days at our Lake House and despite the not-so-ideal weather we had a great time.

The forecast said that it would rain all weekend so our first stop before leaving the city was to get posh rubber boots so we could trudge through the mud in style.

When we got to the lake we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and discovered a hot dog BBQ outside the grocery store. Mom had planned a beautiful supper, but neither of us could resist the smell of BBQ.  So instead of a classy supper we had this:

Hot dogs fully loaded. Our chardonnay classed it up.

I invited a few girlfriends over for supper the next night so mom and I began preparing the food. I decided to take rhubarb from the garden and make rhubarb apple crisp for dessert.

To start, cover the bottom of a glass bake pan with diced rhubarb and apple slices.



Pour 1/4 Cup orange juice over the rhubarb and apples.

Gather the following ingredients:  1/2cup quick cooking rolled oats, 1/3cup Splenda sweeter, 1/4cup whole wheat flour, 2tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp orange rind, 1/8tsp salt.



Combine em' all together.

With a fork, stir in 2Tbsp margarine and 1Tbsp vegetable oil until well blended.

Spoon this mixture over the rhubarb/apple mixture.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until apples are tender.

Serve with ice cream or plain ol cream.

Delicious.

When the girls came over we had a feast of BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, fresh bread and veggies galore.

We also had gluten-free chocolate chip cookes

And fruit parfaits.

Oh yeah, and a few Skinny Girl Margaritas.

We had a great time catching up, visiting, and eating.

The rest of mom and my Girl's Weekend consisted of reading, shopping, eating, and chick flicks.

Supper the following night was equally as delicious as the previous night.

For an appetizer we had crab-stuffed mushroom caps and some vino.

Then we had crab-stuffed shrimp and coleslaw combined with some left overs from the night before.

And of course some rhubarb apple crisp.

After supper we curled up with some tea and enjoyed watching the sun go down.

All in all we had a fabulous Girl's Weekend, with only one male crashing in on our girl time.

I hope you all have a great weekend!



ADELLE

Resolution Check-In

It's already JUNE....2011 is half over which means it is time to do a New Year's Resolution check-in.

At the start of January, I made 11 goals for 2011. I feel that if I write goals down and put them on my blog I am slightly more likely to accomplish some of these goals. Either that or I will look like a total failure to my 3 friends who read this.

Oh well....here it goes.

11 Goals for 2011

1. Run another half marathon and set a PR sub 2:22:13. I have officially registered for the Queen City Marathon in September. Until then, I will be doing the Moose Jawg at the end of the month if I ever get my butt out training!!!

2. Take a cooking class. Look here, here and here. 

3. Floss (I am terrible with this!). I hate flossing and I hate this goal. It is NOT going well. I have a dentist appointment in August so I really need to work on making flossing a part of my daily routine.

4. Go on at least 1 trip. Nope, though the BF just got back from going to game 5 of the Stanley Cup Series in Vancouver. GO CANUCKS!!!

5. Complete between 4-6 classes towards Masters degree. I have class Monday/Wednesday, then I will be done my 4th Masters class!!!

6. Expand interest in photography! I still enjoy taking pics but I haven't found a lot of time to make this into a  regular hobby.

7. Keep in touch with friends who live outside of Moose Jaw....and here in MJ for that matter! I am thinking my out of town friends may have some things to say about this....though I did get to Rosthern twice since January!!

8. Continue reading for enjoyment. Finished my 12th book today. Here is my fav so far, and this has made reading much more accessible.

9. Try meditation to quiet my mind which never shuts off. Ultimate fail.

10. Go skydiving. Not yet but I want to oh so badly!

11. Continue blogging a few times per week. And my last blog post date is....May 14th. Ok, I'll work on this.


I can't decide if doing a resolution check in was a terrible and depressing idea or not. Clearly I have some work to do, but truly my classes have been taking everything out of me.

Cheers to the next productive and exciting 6 months of 2011!!

How are your resolutions going?



ADELLE

The Juicy Lucy

I am so happy to be able to sit down and blog again. It has been a looong time since I last blogged and I have lot of good things to share.

Today I would like to introduce to you the Juicy Lucy.

The BF and I love a show on the Travel Channel called Man vs Food.

On this show, the host goes around America trying to find delicious (though always terribly unhealthy) recipes. Often, these recipes are larger than life in both size and flavour, and the host will challenge himself to eat gargantuan amounts of food from the restaurants he visits on his travels.

The Juicy Lucy was featured in an episode and the BF and I knew that we would be experimenting with the recipe very soon. There is a big controversy over which of two local restaurants founded the famous burger, and the host of Man vs Food was on a mission to discover which was best. In the end he felt both were good and that everyone needed to try a Juicy Lucy.

The Juicy Lucy.

Photo Source
Juicy Lucy Definition (courtesy Wikipedia)

A Jucy Lucy (sic) or Juicy Lucy is a cheeseburger having the cheese inside the meat patty rather than on top. A piece of cheese is surrounded by raw meat and cooked until it melts, resulting in a molten core of cheese within the patty. This scalding hot cheese tends to gush out at the first bite, so servers frequently warn patrons to let the burger cool for a few minutes before consumption.

Now that Barbecue Season is in full swing, it is the perfect excuse to try our own versions of the Juicy Lucy.

To start, simply combine ground beef, an egg, and a handful of crackers and form half of the mixture into a hamburger patty.

I used ground turkey meat, and the BF used regular ground beef.

Next, add your favourite kind of cheese on top of the hamburger. I used Feta cheese and the BF used a Kraft cheese slice, and Marble cheese.

We decided to take a walk on the wild side and sauteed onions and jalapenos to add to the inside of our burger pattys.

Take the other half of the hamburger mixture you should have left, and form it into a hamburger patty, then put that patty over your existing patty and cheese.

It should look something like this:

Pinch the edges together to avoid the cheese melting everywhere. That being said, cheese is bound to ooze out during the BBQ-ing process.

When my burger was formed, it was almost the size of my entire hand.

Evidently I overestimated the amount of meat I needed.

Throw some BBQ sauce on if you so desire.

Throw the burgers on the BBQ and pray it does not start hailing like it did the night we made these.

By the time I put my delicious hamburger onto a bun, my burger was literally twice the size of the BFs.

The center was ooey gooey deliciousness. The BFs was equally as good. The BFs friend was over for this process and enjoyed a Juicy Lucy, swearing that he will be making these instead of a regular burger for the duration of barbecue season. For me, it was extremely filling, but a treat none-the-less.

You owe it to yourself, to your taste buds, and to BBQ season to make yourself a Juicy Lucy this spring!


Happy BBQ-ing!


ADELLE

Cookie Time

Over the weekend, I was given a recipe by a friend of mine for Rochelle's Craving Killing Cookies.

For this recipe you will need:

1 large egg

1.5c. natural peanut butter (or regular is fine)

1.5 scoops vanilla, chocolate, or unflavoured whey protein powder.

0.5 c. sucanat (or another natural sweetner)

0.5c. almond meal (this is just almonds blended into crumbs in a blender)

1 tsp. baking soda

0.5 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350

In a large bowl, lightly beat egg.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

This is the protein powder that I use. I got it at the Bulk Barn and I like it because it is organic, lactose free, and very low in sugar.

This natural sweetner (below) was gifted to me from a friend of mine. I used it instead of sucanat and I think it worked well.

Once you mix all the ingredients together, form little balls with a spoon or your hands and place on lightly greased or lined baking sheet.

I ended up splitting the dough in half and adding these babies to half of the dough.

The chocolate-y cookies turned out great.

I'm not sure if these cookies really kill my cravings for junk food....the cookies with the dark chocolate chips are better for me than the other kind. Possibly because the other batch is burned.



I blame my extra-hot oven. And my tiny little attention span.

Does anyone else get distracted easily in the kitchen or is that just me?

The Vegan Diaries - Pt.3

The Final Chapter

I have been in hiding.

Literally, I have been hiding away in my office for the past month working on the 2 Masters classes I took this semester. The past month has been exhausting in every sense of the word, and the idea of spring was getting me through until Mother nature decided to be a self-righteous b&%*ch.

Once again, my lawn furniture took the brunt of it.

What can you do. When life give you lemons....you grab your camera and take pictures of them.

Ok enough photo album time.

So my Vegan experiment is obviously long over, but I thought I would finish off the chapter.

The final few days were easier than the first few. Once I got used to planning meals ahead of time (an unusual concept for me) it was fairly easy to stick with a vegan diet.

I ate a lot of tortilla pizzas, and found vegan tortillas at the local health food store.

I also ate a lot of home made vegan guacamole.

Then I paired the pizza and guacamole together as a meal. And I was very happy.

The tortillas also worked great for veggie hummus wraps.

My local health food store had lots of little goodies that made my week easier.

Here is a little gem I found.

I made a vegan pasta with Marinara sauce, veggies, basil and walnuts and it was delicious.

For lunches I became addicted to Vegan Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.

For these you will need:

Vegan bread (I used Ezekiel)
Vegan cheese (I used Veggie Cheese from SafeWay)
Half an avocado
Two slices of tomato
Small handfull spinach
Vegan butter (I used Earth Balance)

Butter your bread and place one piece of bread on a heated skillet. Cover your bread with the vegan cheese of your choice.

Place your veggies on the cheese while it melts, then spread the avocado on your other slice of bread and put it all together, still on the skillet. Grill to perfection.

I am seriously battling a serious addiction to these. The crappy picture does not do it justice.

This little concoction is also delicious on a bagel.

To curb my ice cream cravings, I ate a lot of  Organic Coconut Bliss Bars.

I found them at my local health food store. They come in two flavours (Coconut and Dark Chocolate), and as soon I bit into one my second vegan addiction was born.

There are worse things to be addicted to than vegan grilled cheese sandwiches and coconut bliss bars. Right? No? Moving on....


So my adventure in veganism was overall a success. With only a few cheats (one at the beginning, and then I ended my veganism half a day early to go out for supper) I stayed almost 100% on the diet.

One week after I finished, I decided to try 10 days of complete veganism. I ate a 100% vegan diet for all 10 days and I felt amazing. In all seriousness....I have never felt better. As a person with stomach issues, I had zero issues for the entire 10 days. I felt so healthy, I never felt deprived, and my body truly thanked me.

Although I have had my fair share of non-vegan foods since then, I discovered some great dishes that I have thrown into my breakfast/lunch/supper/dessert rotations.

Let me know if you have ever tried a vegan diet! Any good recipes to share?


ADELLE