Dinner and a Guest

Can you believe twice in three nights.  On Sunday we whipped some currish chili.  Or some chili-ish curry.  Then our friend came over and had dinner with us.  She was a little under the weather from her previous nights festivities.  Then the wife managed to wrestle the fact that is was her birthday.  So we went and got a cake.

I had way too much cake but man was it good.  Very very happy happy.

 Then this evening we had a fabulous meal of cheesy fried potatoes and rice covered with fried veggies and ground beef.  

I promised we could go and look at the river which is rising fast after dinner.  So when I get out there what should the children have found.  

This little guy.

Looking for a positive ID on what kind of creature the river has driven from its home.  Thin not super long tail.  Slightly rounded snout. Not interested in a carrot.  Non webbed feet.  Found near river.

Feels like the First time.

Well that was quite the break in Blogging.  Still getting used to the new upload tool.  However, I am enjoying the photo collage to start the post.  Today was Mother's Day and we did up a nice breakfast for mom after she came back from her run.  She also had the luxury of sleeping in today. 

In other news it is eleven days and counting here before we pack up and leave the Cottage.  Didn't get any real packing or organizing done this weekend but hey, we still have one weekend left so it will just be busy.  The youngest is recovering for what we suspect was a bout of Roseola.  His fussiness is moving on and he is back to walking around and picking stuff up.  One of his favourite game is to turn off the TV while his brother and sister are watching a video.  It has officially begun.  If my siblings and I are any indication it will never stop.  Hope you and yours are all well.

Oh yeah, Dinner.  We had mashed potatoes with cheese and white fish mixed in.  It would have been fish cakes if we had started earlier or been more motivated.  We also had broccoli and asparagus pan fried with garlic.  A green salad and rice rounded out the meal.  The little guy at a tonne of it and came back for more.  A sign of a truly great meal.

Have a good week.

Pork Stir fry.

So that is what the young'ns had to say about the pork stirfry this evening. I hurried home from the arena to get cooking and by the time the herd had made it back, dinner was practically on the table. The wife had cubed, salted and peppered the pork before marinating it in a little cooking sake. I wok-ed it up an then poured the ginger, garlic, honey, vinegar and soy sauce mixture over it. Then the veggies were fried, (onions and carrots first, after they lost their edge I added the green pepper, celery and green onions). The cooked meat and sauce were poured back in the wok and that was cooked with lid on for five more minutes. A little bit of corn starch to thicken up the sauce and it was ready to serve. We had grapefruit for dessert. We purchased a 40 lb box on the weekend (neighbours fund raiser, good fruit) so we are making liberal use of it.

That is all.

Say Good bye.

To all the wall paper on the main floor of our house. With the help of a handy dandy rental steamer it is all officially gone. And getting ready for sale season has begun.

Well this is what the before pictures look like. Yes the wall paper is all stripped out. Now it is time to fill holes and cracks, sand and smooth and get ready for the primer. Up first is the bathroom. We are definitely getting rid of the peach. I am thinking something lighter. Like a really light yellow/white. With white trim around the mirror and window.
The kitchen entry will be tied in with the rest of the house in a light brown or tan. The advice I have received it to stay away from anything with a red tint in it as that always ends up with a pinkish hue. Nice in a cheek, not so good in a living/dining.What you do not see in this next picture is the paper wall boarder that ran around the room transitioning the light green into the dark green. This room will most likely also get the tan/brown treatment. The look we are going for is uniform, clean, and light enough to paint over easily. Have had two realtors through and they were both very friendly. They had very different perspectives through which they saw the house. Differing takes on what should and shouldn't be done to the place. It has been really informative to have the two of them come through. Really hope the third guy gets back to me so that I can put these first two visits into perspective.

For dinner I whipped up a whole mess of pork stir fry. First mistake was listening to the Mrs and chopping up all the pork. Could have really used about half that much and would have been just as good, if not better. Second mistake was using the big fry pan and not the wok. Not as easy to mix and stir. Couldn't do as much with the veggies. Mistakes aside it was a nice dinner. I put a little sweet chili sauce on top of mine but everyone else enjoyed it as was. I had seasoned with salt, garlic powder, basil, vinegar and soy sauce. I also hit it with a little okonomiyaki sauce right before taking it out of the pan.
There was a little debate about the seaweed flakes on the salad this evening. The wife was trying to spice things up but the rest of us just wanted tomatoes and cucumbers with balsamic vinegar. Back to the grind stone tomorrow. Only seven teaching days left in this semester. Yee haw.

Steak Stir Crazy

Well we managed to pull out an old stand by that hasn't been around for a while. The stir fry. I feel like I make a really good stir fry and I whip them up quick and hot. This evening it was a teriyaki steak number. I cooked the meat in a fry pan first and then did the veggies in the wok separately. Right at the end I throw in the meat and mix it all up and then serve. The Mrs. had some noodles that she had leftover and that is what the stir fry was served on. We then watched Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium. It was good. The kids will probably watch it three times tomorrow. Life is good.

Back to Back to basics

Yes, this is a second meal in two nights. Similar in colour pallette but quite different in taste. This evening we were regaled with haru-maki, stir fried cabbage and rice. I used a little bit of sweet chilli sauce on the haru-maki and it was perfect. Feeling a little beat tonight and the rest of the family is too. Except for the middle boy who had a three hour nap this afternoon and is now running around the house like a mad man. The daughter had a tough time getting through her home reading after a long day at school and a skating practice. However, with some food in her she is slowly coming back to life. Just in time for bed, one might notice.

I had an interesting chat with my mom last night. I was talking about my kid getting a lead role in the school's christmas pageant and how that feels like it kind of flies right in the face of my whole socialist tendancy. It was a pretty good conversation and really forced me to look deeper into my own beliefs. Is there room for excellence and striving to reach the top in a system which is trying to create greater equality for all? I think possibly my competitive tendancies been beaten down by the system I work in where everyone has to be special and no one should be the best. Just to clarify, I am not throwing over all of my values here but I am definitely having a bit of a rethink. If I find any answers you may hear about it.

Ferocious Corn

She really looks like she is attacking that corn there doesn't she. I told her she looked like she was almost crying in the picture but she was having a great time while taking it. Along with corn we also had a tofu peanut sauce stir fry. Hey its Tofuesday. I used a whole packet of bean sprouts in the stir fry. I didn't want to but the wife cajoled me into it. I was using like two thirds and she gave me the stern look with a sharp verbal jab and I poured the rest in. Something about them not keeping well.

They sure did make for some good eatin though. You will notice that my dinner was served in the temporary holding bowl for sauced up tofu. I took it out of the wok while frying the vegetables and then returned it when the veggies were ready. Messy bowl. Yummy food. I think you know which matters to me.

We have a little g-ma action here for the next twenty four to thirty two hours. Need to change batteries in camera.

We killed it.

So, in spite of the gruesomeness of this evenings pictures I can honestly tell you that there were no animals harmed to make this evenings meal. I decided to make raspberry infused tofu steaks for dinner. The sauce was a blend of raspberrys, vinegar, cooking sake, olive oil, ginger powder, salt, soy sauce and sugar. I pressed the tofu and then covered it as the picture below demonstrates.
My raspberry mixture was quite thick and the tofu didn't take it up as well as it normally does. However, after microwaving the leftover marinade for a minute and a half the raspberry flavour came blasting out. Honestly, you could have poured it over some vanilla ice cream.

We also stirfried up some vegetables with some minced fresh ginger and garlic, some salt and pepper and a little vinegar. Crisp, fresh and delish. To start dinner off we had some chips and dips. The dips being kids salsa and dilly yogurt ranch dip. I am totally stuffed. Lets hope for an early night.

Tofu-esday comes early.

Really we did have a plan. The plan included meals that ran from Monday to Thursday. Then we realised that it was our daughter's true birthday on Tuesday. Which meant we couldn't have a tofu-esday as usual. Under intense interogation she cracked and let slip that she wanted gyoza. It was tough getting it out of her but if the Bush administration can use water boarding, we ... well you know what I mean.

So that is tomorrow all sewn up but left us a little short for this evening. When we suddenly realised we could use tomorrows original plan for tonight. Thus the tofu monday.

As I sat reading my current novel the mrs boiled some water. As I walked around with book in one arm and fussy baby in the other the Mrs. diced vegetables and boiled up a pot of rice noodles. As I sat reading with a contented baby in my arms the Mrs. sat patiently waiting for my portion of the meal to get made. I eventually got the hint and put the book down. Within half an hour I had whipped up the tofu stir fry pictured above and we were all eating. All of us but the daughter who had fallen asleep watching a movie and waiting for dinner. She ate later.

Now everyone is asleep and I need to make some birthday coupons for buying a fish and all the accompanying accesories to lay out or possibly hang from the ceiling for tomorrows wake up. We were going to do the surprise you have a fish thing but couldn't find a time to buy it or decide were we would have kept it until nine o'clock this evening. So now I will help my son get to sleep as a thunder storm rolls in and hopefully reawaken to get the coupons all made.

It ain't so bad. I had a nap this afternoon. Or was that before lunch.

Tofuesday. Again

Shout out to my sisters with a self portrait of the wife, the youngest and I. Well low and behold it is Tuesday and we are eating Tofu again. A lovely peanut marinade infused the fried tofu steaks with a lovely flavour. Then the left over marinade had a little more soy sauce and vinegar added to it and after microwaving became the sauce. This is definitely something to love about vegetarian. The marinade becomes the sauce. I am pretty sure I have learned over the years that beef, chicken, pork and fish marinades are supposed to be tossed out. Not so with the tofu steaks.

The daughter was on wok duty tonight and stir fried us up some lovely veggies. I think the second shot shows them off in a more realistic light but the daughter likes the first shot done with the flash. In other news, I was requested for a picture of the daily schedule that has been posted on the wall of our dining room. Here it is with two dripping kids standing beside it. That is because I am blogging and not getting involved in their bath time. So they are not being overly involved with the bath.
Well duty calls. Happy Early birthday Canada. You rock.

Veggie Sea Cakes.

F
A few days back the Mrs. mentioned to me that we should take a trip, back in time. So off we went and checked out June 08, just to see what we were eating then. It was kind of neat to reminisce and see what we were up to last year. It also gave us some ideas for things we hadn't eaten in a while. One notable was fish cakes. So that is what we had.

Now tonight the wife put a notable spin on fish cakes. She made them with tofu. And egg. For those who like to partake of the middle kingdoms food I would equate it too a foo yung type dish. There was salmon in it as well so it did technically qualify as a fish cake. Neither of the kids were all that chuffed over it but I think the nice rice noodles had something to do with that. They both packed away a couple of helpings a piece. The salad portion of this evenings meal was some stir fried veggies. Bok choy was the big hero, coming through with a strong clear taste that was balanced by his other garden buddies.

After dinner we made cup cakes, (pup cakes according to the son) for the daughter's bday tomorrow. Apparently when you are a summer birthday they choose some other day within the school year and that becomes your special day. So tomorrow she goes to school with 22 cupcakes. We only made 24 and the daughter and son both had to have one before brushing their teeth tonight. You do the math. I'm going to drown my sorrows in a beer.

I had a good title.

But I totally can't remember it now.

Well anyways, we had dinner. The daughter had her favourite salad this evening. It is a really spicy vinegar and ginger bean sprout salad. There may also be some raw grated garlic in the dressing as well. The pork stir fry with vegetables was light and summery. Honestly it was a great meal to have on a summer evening. After dinner we got into the salsa pretty heavy. Oh, that was it, I was going to call this post, "the last of the red hot salsas." I thought it was pretty good.

Anyways,we are down to two and half jars of grown up salsa. Perfect timing once again as we are coming in to fresh salsa season. Which reminds me I have to, have to plant some cilantro. I think planting cilantro and basil right now will have it coming up at just the right time. Okay, I gotta get on that tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow, next day at latest.

Who you calling Shrimp?

Well that would be the tiny critters that were succulently sauteed for this evenings meal. The Mrs. decided to put a scald on some shrimp and garlic. Nice work. This was then mixed in with a big pot of cooked pasta and some other seasonings. In another pan an assortment of vegetables was stir fried with some ginger. Result. Kids no like spicy vegetables. Kids want many plates of pasta dish. Dad's fibre intake increases greatly.
This fibre factor also came into play when the wife took a run at this recipe here. Now she did make some wifely adjustments. Half of the butter was turned into apple sauce. The sugar amount was cut in half and the peanut butter amount was doubled. I think my wife's new nickname should be half sugar. I mean any recipe she finds she just decides to use half the sugar. I am not judging. It is a good thing I am not a big sweet tooth guy. However, the daughter was not impressed. As usual I am shovelling them back.
It has been quite a nice long weekend. Manged to make it to 29 celsius here today. That is 84 for those south of the border. A very summer like day. My gardening guru hit me with some hot pepper and eggplant seedlings. The lovely lady across the way has beefed up my supply of tomato seedlings. The small plants in the dark green pots are mine. Its a learning process. Here is the garlic that was planted in the fall or the fallgarlic for short. This is the transplanted lettuce volunteers with some seeds that were started two weeks ago. Gotta get into a regular watering pattern. Everything seems to be coming but unfortunately that includes my grand selection of weeds. In some ways they are like bad credit card debt. The problem is so monumental now that I only pick a few from a select section once in a while. For example I weeded the tiny bed out front and have done nothing with the greater garden. It is probably like a two or three day job and there is so much more weedy goodness waiting to bubble up that even if I weed the whole show it will be looking green again very soon. Not the right green however. I have so much shame I haven't even taken a picture. But seeing as I am sharing I will brb after rounding up the incriminating evidence.I am cringing in my seat right now. I didn't have the courage to photograph the dandelions. I mean I mowed two day ago and they are brazenly flaunting the fact that I won't mow again until next weekend. On a positive note they attract lots of bees to our apple and cherry trees and will be useful again once the raspberries start to blossom. In then end I think I will be able to overcome the garden lethargy and it will be a great summer.

Tofuesday.

I definitely get the feeling I should copyright that one. I think its a winner. Anyways we had our tofu steak this evening. Unfortunately we didn't have either fresh or powdered ginger. It was still good but was definitely missing that little something. The veggie stir fry over rice was nicely complimented by the tofu sauce. We didn't have any dessert tonight and that was a bit of a bone of contention. However, we can last till Thursday night.

Back on Track.

Well we all got back into our routine today. As you can see from these openers the son was back to snapping random shots from the camera left on the desk.Darn it, even Unicorns are even getting some work done on my computer while I'm out.
The son didn't do to badly with this shot of the wife and baby still in their pajamas. I am going to assume this was before lunch. But you never know.

The wife even got in on the action picture taking action.
But seriously, they don't spend all day in their pajamas taking random pictures of each other. The get busy making great dinners for the rest of us. For example, this really nice turkey and pasta casserole with stir fried veggies was served this evening. It was very nice and in a break from tradition I didn't not add any additional flavouring. No hot sauce (we are out) no soy sauce (didn't seem like a good fit) no salt or pepper ( I had sat down and didn't want to get back up) no nothing. And it was great. Once again we dined on leftover christmas turkey. It really was a large bird. We are really trying to work our way through the frozen supplies that are in the deep freezer and we are making good progress. By the end of this week we should be out of just about everything. Sort of a mixed feeling there.

Noodles and Junk

Well we stuck to this weeks menu plan and had vegetable stir fry tonight. The wife made it with soba noodles. It was a little noodle heavy but tasty. I added some tandori paste on mine. This evenings dinner was complemented with slurpees, salt and pepper potato chips and cheese cake. Good eating. After dinner we didn't get to go swimming because the Thursday night free swim is done for a while. However, we did play pokemon for about an hour. Currently the Mrs and I are having a bit of a tussle over whether we should buy a Wii or not. I am in favour and she is against. I say it will be good family entertainment and active at the same time. Also when people come over we can use it as an entertainment piece that people can get involved in. Also it is a pretty good deal. The wife points out that it may end up trapping us in our house. It will detract from our other pursuits and it will increase her stress level from having to tell the kids they can't play when it is not the scheduled "play time." So what do you think? Too Wii or not to Wii. We are deadlocked here.

I missed it.

Dang, I missed my blog anniversary. I think it is okay though. We had to drive to see the midwife today, everything is going great. Then we stopped for a visit at the friends where we stayed after the baby was born. Very nice. After a lightning fast dinner the wife had a baby shower and I didn't manage to escape after walking over the carrot cake she made. Then when we got home we had bath time, brush teeth, book time and bed time. Once that was done it was 11:00 at night. So the Mrs. and I sat down and watched The Wrestler. I enjoyed it. The wife wasn't so impressed. And now it is the 26th and I missed my Blog-versary.

Can you believe it has been 300 posts in the last year? I can't believe its been a year. I can't believe I have kept at it. I look and see that pizza is not the most made meal at our house but it is way up there. Yup lots of meals have been eaten but the blog has definitely shifted away from a strictly dinner blog and has become a nice record of our family's goings on.

I look forward to the next year and the oncoming fame and fortune. And remember. You were here at the beginning. Take care and talk to you tomorrow, although technically that is today now.

ps. We had pork stir fry for dinner. Nicely marinated because the wife was smarted enough to thaw it in the freezer over night.

Its ocean faring.

Well here is our little jelly fish ready for her first ice show dress rehearsal. No she is not a mermaid like all her classmates who have been in skating for more than 3 months. Yes she is disappointed about this. However, she is a wicked awesome jelly fish. Video will be shot on Friday. I am working on finding the best vantage point.
As for dinner I started pressing the tofu just after lunch. With most of the moisture gone I then set it in the peanut style sauce to soak up the goodness. Sauce: Peanut butter, vinegar, cooking wine, fresh grated ginger, salt, pepper, soy sauce and honey. Post rehearsal, which by the way took forever, we zipped home chopped up some veggies and got our stir fry on. I was very happy with the result and as usual the kids chowed down on the tofu.

Here are some pictures of the newest. One is a comparison shot of finger sizes, mine and his. The other is a comparison of head sizes/cuteness. I think I hold my own thank you.

Don't tell the kids.

There were bananas in the"almost curry stir fry" this evening. The wife was a little apprehensive about serving up this evenings dinner. She felt like she had been caught between two meals. A nice chicken curry on the one hand and a chicken stir fry on the other. Did I mention there were bananas in it. Well in the end it was delicious and without the information they didn't need the kids gobbled it up. Coleslaw came along for the ride and had just the right amount of creaminess for me. You may noticed I topped mine with some pickled peppers. Just a little more heat for the dad.

The kids asked me to take this one after snapping the one of dinner. I had to remind the son to smile.

On a different note, we are having a bit of a rough patch with the daughter and her school lunches. The thing is the wife tries to pack just the right amount of lunch. Not too much but a little bit of everything. Then the lunch comes home less than half eaten and the daughter is whining for a snack. How hard to we want to play hardball? Are feeling is that she is too interested in going to play and because she is kind of a slow eater she can't get through her lunch in time and just puts it back. What to do what to do? We have already talked to her teachers once about this and I don't want to be a pest. Maybe we should start serving her her lunch for dinner if she doesn't finish it. Or we could hang her upside down by her ankles and force feed her. Or maybe we should just not take it too seriously and let her eat when she's hungry. I wonder what the super nanny would do?

Party's over.

Well it had to happen. Winter vacation has ended. We have put the house back to rights, more or less, after finishing up with the doctor this morning. Nice way to start the new year. Unfortunately, after returning the machine and having my last lunchtime nap for a while I had to spend some quality time at work getting ready for tomorrow. I was worried that everyone would be all broken up about me not being around. Not the case as it turns out.

To start with the rest of the gang decided to make some bread. Not just any bread but chocolate filled bread. There was some opinion that is was slightly overcooked but the pride on the kids faces at having made their own bread was unmistakable. I was ever so gently persuaded to have a third piece with my dinner. Now I know how all of those people that I brow beat into reading this blog feel. Come on, have another post, its really good.

Now they didn't only bake bread while I was away. They also spent some serious time outside playing. A lady who was passing on the side walk stopped to talk with the fam and informed them of how she used to play in the snow. Apparently, her mom would whip up some water with food colouring and she would make designs in the snow. So quicker than you can say Dave's your uncle they were outside making snow art. By the time I got home it was too dark to see, or it had all melted away but they said they had a good time. They also re-planted the now defunct christmas tree in the front yard. I kind of like it.As for dinner there was tonkatsu, stir fried veggies, rice and the aforementioned chocolate bread. I enjoyed the lot. No leftovers for tomorrows lunch but hey that is what dinner is for. And really, the kids put away most of the tonkatsu.In an interesting turn of events, I did not have a beer with dinner. Drying out is going to be tough after the holidays. I have pretty much had a beer or two every day in the afternoon for the last two weeks. Honestly though, I am pretty sure the new chocolate addiction will be even harder to break. The next big event in our lives is Baby due day. Less than two months and the excitement is building. Lots to do, lots to do.