sarah's blog

Oh sunshine. I never appreciated you until you went away for what seemed like a million years. I know I’m not alone in this and dozens of studies have been done to prove this point but when I wake up on a sunny day after a week of drizzling, cloudy blah-ness I feel like it is the first time I have truly woken up in days. My whole body feels more energized, optimistic. I feel like cleaning things and moving furniture and taking the kids outside doesn’t seem like such a chore.

Today is a sunny day and despite everything else in my life being just the same as it was before the clouds parted, everything feels different. I can’t wait for Spring. Oh and Summer. I think we may finally manage to truly stay in Lower Mainland for the whole season and that thrills me to bits. Having almost-two-year olds in Vancouver in the Summer fills my head with ideas for memory-making family fun.

Maybe our kids will get to touch grass for the first time in like 6 months.

But that’s still months away, today I’ll just enjoy today. Sure, the kid who was falling asleep in her highchair is now wailing in her bed rather than taking that much needed nap, and it’s almost noon and I’m fully debating microwaving the coffee I haven’t finished (I feel the Gastown shame upon me) but somehow even all that seems less of a big deal.

Maybe it’s all the vitamin D I’m absorbing.

I started another edition of Eating Down The Fridge last Friday so I’m wrapping it up today. Boy that went fast.

All in all, not a bad round of clearing out and trying some new “creative” ways to use up ingredients. I definitely still have a few things hanging around but without buying ingredients I just wasn’t able to find a way to make them work.

So what did I clear out in the last few days?

On Thursday we did the usual breakfast and leftovers for lunch.

For supper I made a slow-cooker meatloaf which used up the ground beef we had. The recipe is in the Company’s Coming cookbook of slow-cooker recipes so I won’t write it out here but you can ask me for it if you don’t have access to the book.

Then yesterday I had cream of wheat for breakfast which I had to buy because I finally used up those Hearty Medley things. Within the rules. For lunch J took the last of the soup from our friends and I ate a strange combination of the rest of the leftover Spicy Chicken Bake, the last of the yogurt, the last of a box of healthy-ish cookies I bought because I tried them on a plane once. (You can find the full selection here, I bought the blueberry brown sugar with flax. Yum.)

For supper we totally scored: a homemade lasagna from our dear friend, Lynsey, who dropped by to hang out with me in the morning. It was all pre-cooked and ready to go so all it needed was a bit of time in the oven to reach its full melty potential. It. Was. Delicious.

Today we only had coffee for breakfast (it’s Roll Up The Rim time so it was a Timmy’s run) because we were meeting up with friends for dim sum (yes, again). An old friend and former roommate, Laurie, was in town. Sidenote: Kirin at City Square Mall has a great mango pudding.

For supper we got to enjoy more of the lasagna from Lynsey -and there’s still more for tomorrow! Then I did a bit of searching online and found a recipe for a peanut butter pie that would use a couple ingredients I have been really trying to get rid of. I’m not going to put the recipe on here for a few reasons, namely:

a) all the ingredients come from a box and that is too 1980s for even me to be proud of
b) the instructions were basically non-existent and there were a few things that would have been good to know like the fact that the peanut butter and icing sugar would be very tough to mix well, and
c) because it’s pretty ugly and had better taste good or else it has nothing going for it.

The important thing is it sounds like it will be decent and it used a box of vanilla pudding, most of my peanut butter, half my icing sugar (which I can never find uses for and hangs around for ages), the graham cracker crumbs and the milk. Not half bad.

So I’m recipe-less today but here’s the list of what I used up in the last few days of this Eat Down…

Ground beef
Box of blueberry brown sugar with flax cookies
Box of vanilla pudding
Bag of graham cracker crumbs
Litre of milk
Container of yogurt

This wasn’t my best Eat Down – I barely touched the list of example items I gave in my first post – but it was probably the one where I purchased the least new food during the week. Having said that, we ate out more than usual and our meals contained less fruits and vegetables than I’m comfortable with so next time I’ll stock up on those before we begin.

That’s it for this time, I’ll let you know how the pie turns out.

Let me think back now, need to catch up on the next couple days of eating down the fridge. Because we didn’t have a lot of meat in the house when we started we have very quickly hit a roadblock of not having much to work with. I predict I’ll be at the store by tomorrow getting something to help us make it through the week. I think I could be a vegetarian but because I haven’t been I don’t know how to feel full without some meat in my diet.

Saturday’s meals were a bit altered because I had an all-day training for volunteering at the Paralympics. I’m going to post separately about the day but it definitely saved some money on meals for me.

Let’s get to the facts: (more…)

Lest you begin to suspect that I don’t follow through on things (no comment, Mom, Dad or husband) I will update you on my very real progress regarding my New Year’s Resolutions, in original order. (more…)

I have to post about yesterday and today because I didn’t get a chance last night. John is on his way home with mango milk tea with pearls so I have to make this quick.

Breakfast yesterday: Coffee. I know I’m bad.

Lunch yesterday: John packed me a sandwich made with the deli meat I bought on Sunday and the homemade buns that are still going strong. I also got a granola bar, apple, grapes and leftover pasta salad.

Supper yesterday: John barbecued cheeseburgers (getting a little sick of those and wishing I had stocked up on something other than ground beef before this experiment) and we ate frozen peas with garlic and butter. Ice cream for dessert.

Today I cheated a bit and bought my lunch at Wendy’s even though I had one packed. Maybe it was that it contained the same things I have been eating for days or maybe I just gave in to peer pressure but either way it was fun to go out with my friends from work. It has been a stressful few days at work and it just felt good to get out of the office.

Breakfast: Coffee. I know I know.

Lunch: Wendy’s but if I had eaten what I brought it was peas and pasta salad. I did eat the brownie and grapes though.

Supper: I got home very late after a police incident at Metrotown Station stopped the train 3 stations away and turned my hour and a half commute into 3 hours. So by the time I got home at 7:30 I just ate peas with butter and garlic and a glass of white wine (the last bottle from the batch John made in the Spring) Oh and of course, the bubble tea that’s on its way home with John!

I guess I know what I’m having for lunch tomorrow – the lunch I didn’t eat today! But I will try to make enough time in the morning for breakfast, I didn’t realize how bad that sounds until I had to type it out each time I just had coffee. Not a good habit, kids.

No new recipes to share but I will say I am getting bored with what I’ve made so far and probably need to get back in the kitchen and figure out some more pantry creations.

I first spotted the mini Starbucks card in the mall while waiting in line for Tim Horton’s with my parents. Waiting in line for Tim Horton’s, you say, I thought this was going to be about your love for Starbucks? That it is, but that particular trip to the mall was about my parents’ love for Tim Horton’s. Luckily this difference in affiliation doesn’t affect our relationship so I crossed the food court to get an iced white mocha while they waited for their double doubles.

There it was, a little sign advertising the newest little addition to the Starbucks family, the Mini Card. A bit bigger than one of those grocery store points cards, it goes on your key chain so, in the event of an emergency, you’ll always be prepared for your morning coffee.

One small problem: they were out of cards! And so was the next location, and the next. But finally, on my way to the skytrain today a very helpful barista searched and discovered a mini card that must have been saved just for me. Now my keychain might contain a car key to a manual car I don’t know how to drive yet and a points card to a store I never shop at but at least I always have $10 worth of white chocolate mochas there, too.

I think I will name my mini card.

I am a bit delayed in posting this but I am happy to announce I got my first Starbucks red cup of the season the other day. It is officially that time of the year.

I was a bit disappointed in the gingerbread latte I sacrificed my recent coffee-free efforts for (I recommend requesting they hold the sugared ginger chunks that come on top) but I did round 2 today and this has to be one of the best eggnog lattes I’ve had. Excluding the ones I made in my SBUX days of course.

I am also very excited about the wreath I made after being inspired by the yarnball wreaths and decorations they used this year. I didn’t have quite the same variety of different sizes for the Christmas balls but it was even more gratifying that I didn’t buy anything new to make it! Of course I know this is because I have some packrat genes (sorry Mom and Dad) and saved enough yarn that wasn’t long enough to crochet anything to make a whole Christmas wreath.

I have taken pictures of it so tonight I’ll get them off the camera and share my newest craft. I’m also quite proud of John and I as we have all of our Christmas cards for our ministry supporters written and ready to go and even some Christmas shopping done. I made a point to pick things up on sale throughout the year so if I can resist the temptation to buy more for people (gifts are one of my love languages) I think this could be a really relaxed holiday.

So any bets on how long I can last before purchasing and/or begging John to buy me a Christmas mug from Starbucks…