Pasta salad for picky kids

Oh my god my kids are so picky. they say they don't like beans, eggs, or cheese -- and they are vegetarian!! I made this salad today and only one kid cried so that is a success I guess.

Pasta Salad for picky vegetarian kids

-- 1/2 block tofu

-- 1.5 cups pasta

-- 3 small cucumbers, diced

-- 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

-- 1 tomato, diced

-- 1 small can sliced black olives, drained

-- 1 inch chunk feta cheese

-- 1/2 lemon

-- oil

1. Boil the pasta in salted water. While the pasta is boiling cut the tofu into squares and fry it lightly in oil. 

2. When the pasta is soft drain and rinse in cold water. Mix with fried tofu, vegetables, and crumble the cheese on top. Drizzle with oil and add the juice of the half lemon. Mix and add salt and pepper to taste. 

3. Give to kids and hope they don't cry

party food

We always go overboard on the food whenever we have people over for a party, so here is a list of what we SHOULD make/get for next time:

FOR "AFTER DINNER" PARTY OF 20-25 people:

-- 3 bottles red wine
-- 1 bottle white wine
-- 12-18 beers
-- 1/2 batch mai tais
-- 1 batch veggie chili
-- 3 nice cheeses, 1 or 1.5 inch wedge of each one
-- the hummus hardly got eaten at all, don't need need to make that next time
-- 30 samosas
-- 2 loaves baguette, OR 1 loaf and raincoast crisps
-- assorted candies and chocolates, good to have but not necessary

Just making notes for next time. We had a jack o lantern out, the neighborhood kids stole it :(

Mona

meme

It's time for the blogger ABC game... 

A. Age: 33
B. Bed size: Queen
C. Chore you hate: Cleaning the bathroom. I have successfully avoided doing this for most of my adult life, sometimes responsibly, sometimes not. 
D. Dogs: eh. 
E. Essential start to your day:  breakfast, including coffee.
F. Favorite color: red
G. Gold or silver: both
H. Height: 5’10"
I. Instruments you play: I own a guitar but haven't played in over a year. I used to play piano and trumpet.
J. Job title: Writer/Story Editor, but I do lots of things
K. Kids: maybe
L. Live: Canada
M. Mom’s name: Jacinthe
N. Nicknames: Mona, Mo, pork
O. Overnight hospital stays: no
P. Pet peeve: Many, but today it's Facebook friends who block me from seeing their wall. Like, isn't that the point?
Q. Quote from a movie: I don't watch movies enough to quote them. How about a quote from a tv show? I guess the only one that comes to mind is "Don't tell me what I can't do" from Lost.
R. Right or left handed: Right.
S. Siblings: Older. My twin sister Becky is technically older but I consider us tied for oldest.
T. Time you wake up: lately around 7:00 AM but I am still jet lagged a bit, usually later.
U. Underwear: yes
V. Vegetables you dislike: OKRA! Also overcooked asparagus.
W. What makes you run late: Losing track of time, which I do very often. I'll look up and it will be 15 minutes later than I had realized. Teh internets are out to get me.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Not many. They regularly X-ray my teeth at the dentist which I think is a bit of a scam. I think they did an X-ray on my lungs to check for tuberculosis?
Y. Yummy food you make: LOTS! My latest favorites have been lasagne, roasted squash, and a delicious yogurt tahini sauce that is good on anything.
Z. zoo- favorite animal: elephant

Why did I not think of this before: Easy way to peel butternut squash

Okay so I wanted to eat Ina Garten's Butternut Squash Salad but I was not looking forward to the somewhat arduous task of peeling the squash. So I made Mahesh do it.

Just kidding! I turned to my good friend Google for advice. I found a blog suggesting to poke the squash with a fork a few times and then microwave it for 3 minutes to soften the skin before peeling.

I tried it and it worked like a charm! The squash was peeled and cubed before the oven was preheated. Great tip!

"Healthy Choice" at Tim Hortons?

In the last few months, M and I have been trying to eat healthier. We have also been travelling a bit, and I have found that healthy eating on the go is nearly impossible.

Recently, we found ourselves hungry for a snack, standing at a Tim Hortons trying to figure out what to order.


The display case was full of doughnuts and muffins. M automatically assumed a muffin would be healthier than a doughnut. Having worked at McDonalds at the past and well aware of how unhealthy the muffins there are, we checked out the nutrition information to find out:

As it turns out, doughnuts range from 210 - 360 calories and have 8-23 g of fat, while muffins have 290 - 430 calories and 2.5 (for the low fat options) to 19 g of fat!

That means even the low-fat muffins have just as many or MORE calories than the average doughnut (and they taste horrible). A regular-fat muffin will probably have more fat and calories than the doughnut that is probably what drew us to the display case in the first place.

The bad news? Basically, in terms of baked goods, in my opinion there is no healthy option for a nice snack at Tim Hortons.

The good news? If you are dead set on ordering something and having a sweet snack, skip the muffin and go ahead and order a decadent doughnut, you will probably be making the healthier choice anyway.

food for celebration of life reception thoughts

A friend of ours, Susie, passed away about 3 weeks ago. I volunteered to help the family out however I could, and thankfully Tom (Susie's husband) allowed me to organize the food for Susie's Celebration of Life reception. I say thankfully because I am grateful I had the chance to do something for a family I am so fond of during such a sad time. The loss they are going through is tremendous and if it make their lives a little easier for me to help arrange the food, I am so happy to do it. It makes me feel less helpless and I hope the food comforted many who were all feeling Susie's loss.

We were expecting rougly 100 - 150 people, I think a good 150 attended the recepetion. We had prepared:

-- 500 baked goods, including roughly 200 cupcakes, from McCormick family recipes
-- 15 pounds of assorted good cheese
-- 30 bottles wine
-- 8 cans pink lemonade
-- 8 pounds assorted cold salamis and pepperonis
-- 1 veggie tray from costco
-- 1 fruit tray from costco
-- assorted jams, nuts, etc

I had thought that the baked goods and the meat would be hugely excessive but I was wrong, every single cookie went, and most of the cupcakes too. Next time I would do even more cookies/bars and less cupcakes as they are a bit too large for an event like this. I had also thought the meat would be excessive, turns out it was almost all eaten. Susie's son Tim came up to me during the reception and said "thanks for the meat" which made me smile.

What did turn out to be hugely excessive was the cheese and the wine. we only needed half the amount of each. Unfortunately these were also the most expensive items. I had thought people would drink on average one glass of wine each, but many people didn't drink any wine at all. Even I preferred the lemonade to wine. We ran out of lemonade early on and I should have gotten double the lemonade. All the fancy jams I purchased were definitely not needed at all, next time I would leave them out for sure.

One thing I did do right was listen to Sandra, one of Susie's best friends. She told me to order the meat, and she set the number of baked goods correctly. Plus she did so much more, thanks Sandra for being my partner in crime, I couldn't have done it without you.

Carbo overload

I haven't been cooking much lately, and have relied on other people's food, mostly in-laws and restaurants, and I have found the food I have been eating extremely heavy on the carbs (and drinking beer doesn't help any, either):

A few meals I have eaten lately:

-- Indian rice with potato curry on top (a bit of mint in the curry): 90% starch
-- Burrito with rice and meat filling: 80% starch
-- Naan wrap with potato and meat filling: 80% starch

In my own cooking and preferred eating, I usually try to eat not more than 50% of any meal as carbs (usually measured very unscientifically by volume), this can be difficult with vegetarian cooking but I try to eat salads before a carb-heavy main dish and load dishes like mac and cheese with lots of vegetables, and eat fruit for dessert. I will have to double up on my veg routine when I get back to cooking in a few weeks.

The problem with diets

A friend of mine in Vermont recently won a free 6-week bootcamp, and I have been following her amazing progress (http://lisasmooserjourney.blogspot.com/)and cheering her on. In the process I have discovered her trainer Ben (http://theformerfatkid.com/) who is also inspirational, being formerly a "fat kid" who changed his life to become a fitness trainer.

While I think the intense daily workouts and strict diet plan is good for reducing and making a big change in my friend's life, I worry what will happen after these six weeks are over, because I believe that to sustain the weight loss over the long term, the changes have to be long-term as well. And I don't think this current boot camp plan is sustainable over the long term. Working out an hour a day with a trainer, who has the money for that? And carefully pre-planning every single meal? This is the problem with many diets, they are just not sustainable. While this is good for my friend right now as she wants to get down to a more healthy weight, she will need a new plan for the long-term to sustain her new lower weight.

To sustain weight over the long term, we must make small changes that we can truly keep on doing forever. These things will be different for each person, maybe someone could commit to only eat one plate of food every meal, not going for seconds. Someone else might decide they want to eat at least 50 percent of every plate full of vegetables. I personally commit to run one biggish race every year, and then train for that race, and that gets me more active than I otherwise would have been. Someone else might challenge themselves to buy one new vegetable each week, look it up on the internet to find a recipe, and cook it up to try and increase their vegetable intake. These small but sustainable changes will make a big difference in the long run, and they will make the difference between sustaining a weight loss or just going back to your old way of life, which would also give you your old body back.

Small but sustainable wins the game!